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Family Values                        Acts 1: 6-11                   May 4, 2008

The two-word phrase "family values" is one that is often loaded with emotion and deeply felt meaning. It can be, and often is, properly described as a "buzz word" or code word.

For more than a decade, social and religious conservatives have used the term to promote a set of (quote) "traditional" (unquote) mores that line up with their view of the world; and lately social and religious liberals, albeit somewhat late to the party, are also using that powerful punchline to encourage an entirely different set of mores.

Interestingly, the popular debate over what "family values" really are, exactly, was started by former Vice President Dan Quayle, in his famous - some might argue infamous - Murphy Brown speech. As you may recall, in this speech, delivered right after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Quayle cited the fictional title character in the television program - unmarried, raising a child - as an example of how popular culture contributes to what he called a "poverty of values" in American society.

The debate over family values can get intense - even ugly - and the last thing I want to do this morning, as we gather to celebrate Christian Family Sunday, is to drag us into such an argument.

Rather, I would like to suggest two things for your consideration:

• First, I suggest that whatever your political or social persuasion may be, all of us can agree, I think, that the primary family value - the one that surpasses all the others, is love.
• And second, I suggest that the lovefeast you and I are about to enjoy together is an emblem of this most important of family values at its best.

The origin of the lovefeast is a story familiar to many of you, I know, but like any good story, it is worthy of repeating. It can be traced back to the first gatherings of Christians, shortly after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The first century members of "The Way," as the Christian church was then known, regularly ate together, signifying their union and equality. These meals of the early church family were not just fellowship, they were worship. Most often, they were associated with the celebration of the Lord's Supper, which typically followed them. The shared meals were called agape meals, from the Greek word for the highest type of spiritual love.

Gradually, over time, the agape - this meal shared before the Lord's Supper - stopped being a part of regular worship, and toward the end of the fourth century the Church gave it up. Communion remained at the center of worship - as it still is for much of the Christian church - but the agape meal was dropped.

Fourteen centuries later, in Herrnhut Germany, in 1727, the Moravian Church resuscitated the lovefeast. After a celebration of Holy Communion on August 13 of that year - on the day we look to as the "Moravian Pentecost," the day on which the Holy Spirit moved among the small band of refugees gathered there to escape the persecution that followed them, many of the participants continued to talk over the great spiritual blessing which they had experienced. They simply didn't want to go home.

So Count Zinzendorf, sensing the situation, sent them food from his manor house, and they ate and drank together, continuing in prayer, conversation, and the singing of hymns. This event reminded Zinzendorf of the agape meals of the early church, and before long lovefeasts became a custom in Moravian life. They were introduced wherever new settlements were founded and so came to America.

The point of the lovefeast, though, is not the elements of the feast. The meal can include almost anything, so long as it is simple to serve and simple to eat. In some Moravian churches the food is always a sweet roll, in others - like ours this morning - it might be a cookie or a sweet pretzel. In some the drink is always coffee and in others it may be juice or lemonade or - in West Indian congregations - perhaps even ginger beer.

The point of the lovefeast is the experience of God's love through the sharing of agape - sharing our spiritual love for one another.

Now, clearly, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of ways to share this sort of love for one another. We can greet one another with a handshake, a hug, even a kiss. We can listen to one another or just sit beside one another in a difficult moment. We can bring home a bunch of flowers or do a household chore without being asked.

But no other expression of agape surpasses the meal shared together. It is a perfect way to experience what it means to be living in the Kingdom of God. It is the family value of love, raised to its highest power.

As a member of my family or as a member of this Christian family we call First Moravian Church, there is one "family value" that I hope is clearly expressed between us. It is the value articulated so beautifully in the words of the anthem our choirs sang together a little earlier: "Because of you, I know what love is meant to be," they sang. "Because of you, I know that God loves me."

Fellow parents, there is no greater gift we can give to our children. Fellow members of this congregation, there is no greater gift we can give one another.

It is why we are gathered here this morning, and it is why we are going to share lovefeast with one another. It is so we can say, to one another, "because of you, I know that God loves me."

                                                                             AMEN

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