Credible Boldness

 Acts 4:1-31

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To bring you up to speed, as you remember from last week Peter and John healed a man born lame as they were entering the Temple through a gate called Beautiful.  We read today that the man was over forty years old.  He had probably begged since early childhood.  Newly healed, the man began jumping about and praising God and running through the Temple Courtyard.  A crowd gathered and they were amazed at what happened because they recognized the man.  Peter then proclaimed that God had healed this man by faith in the name of Jesus, whom they, the crowd, had rejected and had had a part in crucifying but God had raised.  He invited the people of the crowd to repent and turn to faith in Jesus so that times of refreshing may come upon them along with the forgiveness of sins as they await Jesus’ return.  He finished the sermon by saying that in Jesus God was fulfilling all that he had promised to his people through the prophets.  

The response to this sermon was spectacular.  Just counting the men, 5,000 believed.  But on the other hand, there were those pesky religious authority types who found it annoying…annoying – the priests, the chief of the Temple police, and those filthy rich Sadducees who didn’t believe in resurrection so they were “sad, you see”.  They were so annoyed that they arrested Peter and John and probably the healed man too and put them in jail for one very uncomfortable night so that the next day there could be an inquiry before the proper authorities to see if any charges should be laid.

Well, let’s just note who those proper authorities were.  There were of course the rulers, elders, and scribes.  The Greek word for elder is presbyteros so there were some Presbyterians among them.  Most notable were the High Priest (we’ll say emeritus) Annas who was high priest when Jesus was born and for most of Jesus’ life, and also his son-in-law Caiaphas who was the then current High Priest and (dramatic pause) he was the chief orchestrator of Jesus’ crucifixion.  There was also the rest of the High Priestly family (you know, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka and Jared).  There was so much money to be made in the big business of the Temple we should suspect/expect a bit of despotism.  That means giving power and an avenue to great wealth to your family members instead of to actually qualified people. There were also a couple other men, John and Alexander, who have been lost to history, probably noted advisors (like Rudy and Kellyanne).  

I don’t think I can emphasize enough that these are the people who orchestrated Jesus’ crucifixion by Pilate.  This is the band of corrupt political thugs who killed Jesus that no one seems to be holding to account.  And now, Peter and John, two of the most prominent leaders among the Jesus movement, stand in the midst of them to be questioned as to whether they had committed some crime for healing that man.  The natural assumption here is that these above-the-law so-called authorities are just going to do to Peter and John what they did to Jesus.  I mean, isn’t that the way this world works?

The inquiry began with the rump authorities asking a question that if Peter and John answer it truthfully, they would incriminate themselves as being in cahoots with Jesus whom these above-the-law so-called authorities had crucified for blasphemy against God and for treason against Rome.  You see, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God as did the emperor (to Jews that was blasphemy) and Messiah or Christ which meant he was Lord and Saviour of the world just as the Roman emperor assumed himself to be Lord and Saviour of the world.  Peter and John had no option to plead the 5^th, as is said in the States.  The question was “By what power or by what name did you do this?”  These above-the-law so-called authorities already knew how Peter and John would answer that – Jesus of Nazareth.  It’s a trumped-up inquiry.  Remember that’s exactly what Peter had boldly proclaimed in the Temple courtyard the day before.  (Acting by the power of or by the name of another is similar to what a power of attorney does today.  If I appoint someone to act as my power of attorney, I give that person full authority to act on my behalf should I be unable to do so myself.)  Well, if Peter and John answer “Jesus”, they’ve incriminated themselves as acting on behalf of a convicted blasphemer and treasoner.

Well, Peter, or should I say God the Holy Spirit, suddenly took charge of the inquiry and turned the tables on those above-the-law so-called religious authorities so as to strip them of any power or authority they may have had as representatives of the God of Israel.  And now, finally, the conspirators who orchestrated the murder of Jesus are now on trial before God.  God himself is holding them accountable.

Peter stood before them full of the Holy Spirit speaking boldly for God.  That the Holy Spirit located himself in Peter is huge.  It means that the presence of God no longer resided in the Holy of Holies of the Temple anymore.  The presence of God now resides on earth among the followers of Jesus.  That Peter was then empowered by the Spirit of God to speak for God entailed that the priests and scribes and especially the High Priest no longer had the authority to speak for God or to make judgements in matters pertaining to God and the people.  It’s the followers of Jesus who now speak for God.  In this moment that whole religious big business thing going on in Jerusalem at the Temple was revealed to be disenfranchised because God wasn’t there anymore.  The presence of God now present among the followers of Jesus.

Well, Peter begins their defense by pointing out that this inquiry has come about because of a good deed he and John had done in healing a man born lame at the Temple in the name of Jesus.  Once again, our translators fail us.  It isn’t just a “good deed” that Peter and John have done as if they were Boy Scouts who had helped an elderly woman cross a road safely.  It is a “God-deed” that they have done, something only God could do.  God, through the faithfulness of Peter and John to Jesus, had saved this man born lame who had been a beggar for most of his over forty years of life.  That was longer than the Israelites wandered in the desert.  His exodus was over and now he is settling in the Promised.  So, it is for the people of God.  40 years was also longer than that High Priest emeritus Annas had been serving in the Jerusalem Temple, a period of time in which Annas and his family had done nothing to help the man.  They just spent their days getting rich off the spiritual dilemma of God’s people who were just trying to be faithful in seeking God’s presence and blessing.  But now, it was the Jesus people who had gotten a hold of the man and helped him.  In the name of Jesus in the full sight of a full Temple they restored him to perfect health.  He’s no longer a shamed beggar.  He’s healed, restored…saved.  Everything the Temple and the priesthood were there for, God had shifted over to occur among the followers of Jesus.

Peter then, or should I say God the Holy Spirit, then holds these cronies accountable for what they did to Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.  Peter says let it be known to you and to all Israel that we did this “God-deed” in the name of Jesus the Messiah from Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.  He’s the cornerstone you so called master-builders discarded, but God has made him the cornerstone of a new Temple.  Jesus’ name is the only power under heaven among people by which anyone can be saved (such as what has been demonstrated in the healing of the man born lame.)  He’s not saying “Jesus is your get out of Hell free card.”  Peter is saying that Jesus is the way through which God will lead and transform his creation to healing and restoration from sin, evil, disease, and death and if you want to be a part of what God is doing get on board with Jesus. God will forgive.

Well, I guess we call that “Speaking truth to power” and it totally disarmed the authorities…and they knew it.  The above-the-law so-called authorities saw that Peter and John were uneducated, ordinary who were speaking with boldness, which means they were speaking as free men with the authority and wisdom of a prophet of God.  They saw the man standing next to Peter and John whom God restored to full health by faithfulness to Jesus.  They saw that the people of God were praising God and were fully on the board with the Apostles.  Their response?  “Don’t speak in this name anymore or else.”  That’s the best they could come up with.  They suddenly found themselves lame and cut off from the things of God.  They had been exposed as political bozos and religious charlatans, these High Priests and their family members who should have above all people been able to recognize who Jesus was and what God was doing in, through, and as him if they were true to their calling.  God demoted them to being a crony family, rooted out of the people of God, trying to cling to a power that will wane.  And it did.  In 70 A.D. God let the Romans destroy Jerusalem and the Temple.  While the followers of Jesus spread throughout the world in the power and presence of God the Holy Spirit doing “God-deeds” in the Name of Jesus.

Peter’s response to these deflated gaslighters says it all.  “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you or to listen to God, you must judge.  But we cannot keep from talking about what we have seen and heard.”  They judged.  They did not punish Peter and John for fear of the people of God.  It was obvious they no longer could claim to have authority from God.  Fearmongering and thuggery would become the means that they would work against God and the healing/salvation God was doing all over the world through the followers of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

That day ended with a prayer.  Peter and John went back and told the rest of the friends what had happened and they prayed for boldness to continue to speak the word of Jesus and that God would back it up with works of healing and signs and wonder and God answered in the affirmative with an earthquake.  They prayed for boldness, the boldness to proclaim Jesus and the healing/salvation he brings in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  Well, we, the followers of Jesus, aren’t all that bold anymore.  We lost our boldness due to foolishly enjoying a position of privilege in Western culture.  A position we have now lost.  Christianity got too cozy with the power of empire to the extent that we began to act like those above-the-law so-called religious authorities who abused their God entrusted authority to the extent of orchestrating and carrying out persecution against the Jewish side of the family of God.  All the while, poor people lay begging outside our Crystal Cathedrals.   

To speak boldly is to speak truth, to speak as faithful witnesses to what God is doing in the world in the power of the Holy Spirit to demonstrate that Jesus whom he raised from the dead is Lord and Saviour of this world.  How do we do that now in the wake of centuries in which the Church has used its voice to abuse?  How do we speak boldly with credibility?  Here’s a suggestion.  Let’s get to know Jesus and go looking for him among those whom he favours, and then begin speaking with our actions.

To get to know Jesus…some of us here in the Coop have taken on the task of mulling the Sermon on the Mount by meditating on a verse of it daily.  We are boldly trying to catch a glimpse of the heart and mind of Jesus so that we will be better able to sense who he is.  Prayer time, Bible time is crucial.

Where to find Jesus...this week we’ve been looking at the Beatitudes which is the preamble to the Sermon on the Mount and with the Beatitudes Jesus gives us a signal of where to look to find him.  We will find him among those who are poor in spirit, who are mourning, who are gentle and hungering and thirsting to know and please God, who are merciful, who are pure in heart with the singular motive to love, who strive to make peace, and who are persecuted for following Jesus and the love he embodies.  Among everyday people with everyday pain trying to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with their God is where we will find Jesus.

How to speak boldly with credibility…there’s a woman in my neighbourhood.  She doesn’t go to church.  I’ve not yet been given the opportunity to hear her faith story.  No judgements on my part there.  All her life she kept foster children.  She presently has a couple of people living with her who can’t afford their own place.  She keeps a constant eye on the elderly in the neighbourhood.  She always has something good to say.  She has befriended several of the children in the neighbourhood and taught them to garden.  She got the older women (the single/widowed) of the neighbourhood to start getting together for wine and laughter.  She has networked caring into our neighbourhood.  She’s very good at helping people feel not so alone.  Though she doesn’t go to church, she’s more like Jesus than this minister is.  She’s bold, bold about compassion, about being a caring neighbour.  Let us pray for that kind of boldness before we start spouting our mouths off again.  Amen.

Times of Refreshing

 Acts 3:11-26

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If someone says the word “refreshing” to you, what comes to mind.  For me, it’s the Nestea Plunge?  Y’all remember those commercials from way back when in the 70’s and 80’s?   One of them went: A man is driving across a parched desert in his Jeep Cherokee.  The sun is relentless.  The soil is cracking.  He’s spent.  Someone miraculously hands him a tall glass of Nestea and suddenly he’s falling backwards into a swimming pool of cool, crystal clear water.  In slow motion he goes under and resurfaces smiling, revived, refreshed.  Then someone says, “Take the Nestea Plunge.”

I was a kid in the late 70’s and there was hardly a swimming pool that I went to that I did not Take the Nestea Plunge into.  Just stand on the edge of the pool and fall backwards into the cool, refreshing water.  There was something so “mature teen-ager” about doing that over and over again and if you let your butt hit first you didn’t end up with whiplash.

The Nestea Plunge commercials are iconic for defining the word refreshing…at least for me.  If you mention the word refreshing to me it really is the first mental image I and many people get.  Nestle really nailed it with that ad campaign.  

Well, when we say something is refreshing, we mean that something is pleasantly different than what we are used to, something that restores our strength and vitality.  It animates us anew.  There are times when we need to be refreshed.  Of course, when we’ve been working or playing outside in the heat a dip in the cement pond or a cool glass of sweetened ice tea is refreshing (not unsweetened).  But there are also times when our lives in general just need refreshing.  We’re stuck in a rut and we need something different like a vacation, or a walk in the woods, a new career, a change in geography, a change in diet or lifestyle, or (and since I’m a minister, I can bring it up) we need to develop a devotional life.  We need to be refreshed, renewed restored with respect to God, get the slate wiped clean and start anew.

  Here in our Acts reading in this sermon Peter gives, he speaks of times of refreshing and it is interesting what he means.  It’s not simply a refreshing of me from my individual malaise.  It’s the refreshing of a whole people and the means to it doesn’t seem to be so pleasant as freefalling backwards into a pool of cool water on a sweltering day.  The plunge the people have to take involves “repentance” and “turning to God”.

First, let’s set the context.  Peter is speaking to the “Jerusalem crowd”.  This particular crowd may or may not have included a good many of those who were shouting “Crucify him” when the religious authorities brought Jesus to trial before Pilate several months prior during the Passover Festival.  This crowd, regardless of whether they were there then or not, stands as representative of the whole of God’s people who did not recognize who Jesus was and what God was doing in, through, and as him and in turn acted horribly in ignorance of that.  How this crowd responds to Peter’s sermon will somehow have an effect on all Israel.

This crowd had gathered in amazement around Peter and John and a man Peter had just healed at one of the Temple gates called the Beautiful Gate, a man who had been born lame.  The man had made quite a commotion when Peter healed him.  He went leaping through the Temple praising God loudly.  The crowd there at the Temple recognized him as the lame man who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate begging and now he was as Peter said, restored to perfect health.

They are now in the temple courtyard.  The man is clinging to Peter and John as the crowd, amazed, runs to gather around them.  Peter is quick to ask why they are so amazed as if it was by his and John’s own power or spirituality or something that the man was healed.  He is quick to say that God did it in the name of Jesus.  God acted in faithfulness to Jesus, the one whom they had handed over to Pilate, the one whom they rejected (disowned), the one they had Pilate crucify even though Pilate could not find any reason to convict.  They even had Pilate release Barabbas, the murderous insurrectionist, instead of Jesus when Pilate gave them a Passover gift of releasing a prisoner. 

The main point of Peter’s sermon is clearly that God is on the Jesus side of things and that is the side these people need to be on.  It’s on the Jesus side of things that they will find the presence of the Lord who will give them “times of refreshing” until Jesus, their Messiah, comes with the complete overhaul of everything.  This “perfect” healing of this man born lame is one such example of a time of refreshing now and the way things will be when Jesus returns.   

You folks know I’m a Greek nerd, and you haven’t run me out of town yet so I figure it’s okay if I go nerdy on you again.  I wish we could sit down together and look at how Luke has put this sermon of Peter’s together in the Greek because he’s a really good writer and there are subtle things here that just don’t translate from the Greek over into English very well or the translators just got lazy and decided to let the people who write commentaries play with the nuances.  So, let’s have a little Greek nerd fun and dig into the nuances of what Peter meant in speaking of “times of refreshing” coming from the presence of the Lord. 

The word for “times” here is one I’ve mentioned before.  It’s not the tic-toc passage of time.  The word chronos (chronology) serves that purpose.  The word is kairos and it means a decisive moment in time or a period of time that’s characterized by certain problems or challenges that humanity needs to work through.  I’ll give you an example.

Modernity is a “kairos time” that we are nearing the end of by spiraling into an arrogant narcissism that’s turned us away from God as the ultimate source of Truth to “me, myself, and I” being the only truth I will trust.  One of the prominent early philosophers of Modernity was René Descartes, a brilliant French mathematician in the early 1600’s.  He gave Modernity it’s poster slogan.  One afternoon in a bit of a drunken stupor he was pondering the question of “how do we know we really exist” when it suddenly occurred to him: “I think, therefore, I am.”  His realization was that the simple fact that we think is the evidence that we exist.  

The unfortunate side effect of this realization was that it turned Western culture towards individualism in a not so helpful way – the thinking human individual winds up becoming the center of its own little world such that “me” and what “I” think, feel, and do is more important than anything else.  “Me” has taken precedence over “We”.  Now, here at the end of Modernity we thinking individuals have lost our ability to think critically in the midst of internet information overload and we rest our laurels on Truth being what feels true to me.  Unfortunately, insularism, bigotry, and hate are what feels true for so many.  And so, we believe lies and liars quite readily while a pandemic eats away at us and we are on the verge of a global climate crisis and doing little about it because it feels better to live in naiveté and trust the guidance of billionaires and multi-national corporations who profit on our ignorance and the politicians they fund rather than simply trusting the science.  Sorry, that was just trying to offer a current example in an overly simplistic way and it turned into a rant.  Back to Acts.

A Kairos time is a time for decisive action and here in our Acts passage Peter preaches that God is presenting humanity with a kairos time centered on Jesus.  How we humans respond to Jesus is what will determine how humanity’s future goes.  We can become his disciples and discover his presence with us, the presence of the Lord, and there will be refreshing that happens, saving moments, forgiving moments, healing moments, reconciliation moments.  Or, we can continue to spiral into the consequences that are coming with Modernity coming to an end.  

I think of how things are today, all the worry and fear we have with respect to the pandemic, and I think that being refreshed by the presence of the Lord is exactly what everybody needs.  In the midst of the ambiguities and anxiety that the reality of climate change is hanging over our heads, it sure would be nice to be feeling refreshed in the presence of the Lord.  In this world divided by wealth, and race, and gender, and the lack of common sense, it sure would be nice to feel the unity of peace found in the Spirit of God resting upon his people as we find our rest in God.  Times of refreshing certainly would be nice.

Well, if we are to take Peter’s sermon seriously, following Jesus in single hearted devotion is the Nestea plunge we must take to find this refreshing.  Peter gives us the route to this kairos of refreshing.  The single big word is faith.  Yet, faith isn’t just believing things about Jesus nor is it just simply trusting.  In the Greek language (and Hebrew) faith and faithfulness (acting according to faith) are the same word.  To believe is to do.  According to Peter here, faith in God is following Jesus.  

In our Presbyterian corner of the world, we tend to talk more about God than we do about following Jesus.  We talk a lot about the belief that there is a God in a world that doesn’t so readily buy that anymore because you literally can’t buy faith.  We practice our belief be participating in a congregation mostly around Sunday morning stuff, by trying to become better people, by trying to have a prayer life.  But Peter is saying here that Jesus needs to be central; devotion to him, following him, living according to his teachings needs to be the heart of whatever it is we call faith in God.  

In Modernity, in the world out there faith in God is whatever each individual believes it to be and in the end, if a person says they have faith it’s mostly an emotional crutch for the tough times that doesn’t really affect how “I” live “my” daily.  But what Peter is saying here is that faith in God equals following Jesus as his disciples.  Faithfulness is discipleship.  Discipleship is a group of people struggling together to live according to the Jesus Way and that changes everything about how we live our daily lives.

Peter paves the road to discipleship with two stones: Repentance and Turning to God.  Let’s briefly look at those. You may have noticed that at several times throughout the year I will rant on about what repentance is.  The rant will reflect how we have inherited a very Medieval misunderstanding of repentance.  This austere, finger-pointing judgmental thing of “repent you sinners” where we’ve been led to believe that repentance is beating ourselves up for our naughty wickedness and that we haven’t really repented unless we feel full of guilt and shame and the fear that God is going to send us to Hell, and that to live in repentance is to live with the constant awareness that we are never good enough for God to accept us.  If that’s what repentance is, then no wander nobody does it.

Repentance needn’t be such a scary thing.  It’s actually a healing thing.  The word in Greek literally means to become with-minded with God.  To think on the things of God rather than the things of Man which results in doing the things of God rather than the things of Man.  Looking back into Peter’s sermon and one of the nuances there, it’s interesting that the word we translate as “rejected” here in our reading (the crowd rejected Jesus in the presence of Pilate) simply means to not agree with a person to the end that we disown them.  To reject someone is to be “minded” against them so that your disagreement with them becomes a disowning of them.  Repentance is the opposite of that.  It is to agree with someone so strongly that you walk in unity with them.  Repentance is learning the mind of Jesus and expressing it through the unity of walking with him in the manner in which he walks.  That turning from walking “my way” to “walking with Jesus in the Jesus way” is the turning part of “Repent and turn so that times of refreshing may come from the Presence of the Lord.”  It’s turning around to walk with Jesus not just turning to God.  The people in the crowd were already turned to God otherwise they wouldn’t have been in the temple. 

Changing what goes on in our minds is a big part of what repentance is.  We have to be mindful of what is going on in our minds to follow Jesus.  This means that we have to attend to our spiritual life.  Oddly, the Bible doesn’t tell us much on how to foster the inner or spiritual life other than to meditate on Scripture and to pray without ceasing and walk humbly with God in in the ways of justice and mercy.  A couple of decades ago there was a big push on “Spirituality” and there was lots of stuff we could buy pertaining to spiritual disciplines.  You could even get “Chicken Soup for Your Soul” at the check-out stand of every grocery store.  Well, you don’t see a lot of devotional materials like that anymore.  Because so much of it become about more about me and how spiritual I feel that it was about learning the mind of Jesus and following him.  It was about feeling better about ourselves the way we more so than thinking the things of God rather than the things of man so that we become more like Jesus.

Here’s something to try.  At least I’m going to try it…again.  Many years ago, I set out to memorize the Sermon on the Mount.  I took it one verse at a time, one verse a day.  I memorized that verse and as often as I could think about it throughout the day, I repeated it over and over to myself.  Particularly when I went for my daily jog.  I was making my mind think the things that Jesus said instead of letting it just run willy-nilly down the trail of sick worry.  The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount runs from Matthew 5:3-7:27 and that’s roughly 106 verses so it will take 106 days to do this starting with “Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Memorize that verse and just start saying it over and over to yourself throughout the day.  When I did this a few years back I caught a glimpse of just how non-judgemental Jesus is and it changed me to be more welcoming to people whom I otherwise would have treated as outcast by God.  I became more understanding and welcoming to people whom I thought God rejected.  I’m going to do this Sermon on the Mount thing again.  Will you join me?  Amen.

 

 

Imagining Some Things

 Acts 4:32-35

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I‘m sure you are all familiar with John Lennon, the former Beatle, and with his now iconic song “Imagine”.  He released it back in 1971 as the title track of his second solo album called “Imagine”.  The phenomenon of this song is huge.  Let’s not underestimate what a deep chord it hits with people.  In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked it no.3 in its list “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.  Ever since 2005 it’s the song that’s played on New Year’s Eve when the ball drops at Times Square.  “Imagine” is the universal, global go-to song for whenever the sentiments arise that we need to make this world a better place.  Whenever there is a great tragedy involving the death of many people, “Imagine” gets more airplay than any other song.  It seems that whenever the feathers have hit the fan, “Imagine” seems to hit the spot.  

What’s so special about it?  Well, Lennon invites us to imagine all the people living for today to make the world better rather than just shuffling on our way hoping for some sort of better afterlife; to imagine all the people living life in peace rather than killing each other over nations, politics, and religions; and to imagine all the people sharing all the world so that rather than greed counter-balanced by hunger, there is human unity and economic fairness; and, in the end an invitation for all these imaginative people to join together to live as one.  It’s basically a call to imagine people united in peace and sharing what they have and maybe to join together to make it a reality.

Oddly, the song was very divisive.  Just listen to the lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try
No hell below us

Above us only sky
Imagine all the people

Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too
Imagine all the people

Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

 

If John Lennon were trying to put out a call to a better world, he certainly made no friends among those who want to be rich and those who seek power in politics and religion.  This song got him into some very hot water particularly with the Christian crowd.  It really does sound like he was going after the Christian faith or at least the institution of the Church, but not Jesus.  I think he, like the Doobie Brothers, would have thought that “Jesus is just alright”.  The Christian response to “Imagine” was pretty brutal especially from the religious right.  I remember back in the ‘80’s hearing on Christian radio more than once how this song was a demon-inspired call to Communism, Anarchy, and Atheism.  There was no embrace by the religious right at all.  

But to be fair, Lennon did say where the inspiration for the song came from – a Christian prayer book given to him by Dick Gregory who was a comedian, singer, and activist and an African-American man of faith.  Lennon also said that what he meant by “no religion” was not atheism, but rather this thing of people saying my religion is bigger than your religion and then fighting over it.  I don’t think he was trying to rule out God and spirituality, but just the institution of religion.  I think he was just trying to say, “Look up to the sky above with a slate cleared of the institutions of religion, politics, and economic domination that have led humanity so wrong and appreciate the possibilities for a world of peace…and of course God, unhindered by the chains of religious institutions, would be a part of that.  It would be presumptuous to say Lennon was an atheist.  He was an Anglican, actually.

Well, I don’t want to make too much of John Lennon; that would be making him bigger than Jesus for the purposes of this sermon.  I would just like to step out on a limb and say this world of peace and unity that Lennon calls on people to imagine actually came about in the first couple of decades of the church in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection.  Let’s take a jump into our reading from Acts and note what arose in those small Christian communities of faith.  

That world of peace and unity that Lennon could only imagine was really present among those Holy Spirit-filled followers of Jesus, the Son of God, who was crucified dead by religious and political authorities for inviting people to come live according to the Reign of God rather than the ways of religions and empire.  Jesus was crucified dead, but God raised him.  In the power of the Holy Spirit God raised him and he was seen by the Apostles and well over 500 people.  Then, in due course God poured the Holy Spirit by whom he raised Jesus from the dead upon Jesus’ disciples and enabled them to live as Luke, the writer of Acts, says, as a people of one heart and soul who shared all things in common.

People ask how this little group of Jewish Jesus followers grew and spread so quickly and expansively throughout the Roman Empire and beyond to be multi-national, multi-ethnic, interracial, and egalitarian with respect to gender and social status.   Most Christian historians and Bible scholars say it was due to three critical factors; their proclamation of the historical fact that God raised Jesus from the dead, the experienced presence of the Holy Spirit among them, and the historical reality of the quality of community that they shared.   

Scholars will also say that the Holy Spirit-filled community that arose in the wake of Jesus’ very real, bodily resurrection was exactly what people back then imagined to be the perfect form of human community.  Thus, the community the early church shared was a type of community that those who longed for the purest expression of human community were drawn to.  The Romans had Pax Romana with roads and mail and stuff but it came at the cost of oppression by the Roman military.  The early church had fulfilling human community.

In the same way that the ideals that John Lennon wrote about in “Imagine” hits a chord with the vision of ideal human community for people today so did the early church with people back then.  Several of the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato for one, when they reflected on what ideal human community would be like said that people would be “of one heart and soul” and they would “share all things in common”.  The people of Early Christianity were of “one heart and soul” due to the Holy Spirit in their midst making Jesus real to them and creating a devotion to him that overflowed into an unconditional love for others.  This love led them to share all things to the extent that there was no needy person among them.  They eliminated poverty in their midst.

They eliminated poverty in their midst!

How did they do that?  Well, their wealthy adherents discerned that their allegiance to Jesus meant more than the power and status that their wealth provided them in the Roman Empire.  They truly believed God had raised Jesus from the dead and that he would return and a new world was on the verge.  The evidence they based this on was the felt presence of the Holy Spirit among them when they gathered for worship and fellowship and the Holy Spirit’s going before them in mission doing things only God can do.  Imagine that!  Well, that being the case, they sold those extra fields and houses and possessions that they didn’t need and laid it at the disciples’ feet for distribution to the needy.  Imagine that!  And it wasn’t just the wealthy.  Aside from these very generous acts, sharing possessions was simply the way of life for early Christians rather than being obsessed with calling everything “mine” the way we do.  Imagine that!

Luke gives two distinguishing markers of early Christian fellowship.  The first was that the Apostles gave their testimony that they themselves were eyewitnesses to Jesus being raised from the dead.  The Holy Spirit backed it up with what Luke calls “great power”.  The Greek word for power he uses here isn’t the one used for power in the sense of authority.  The Apostles were not lording power over the early Christian communities by saying things like, “We saw Jesus raised” or “we were his closest friends so you have to do what we say.”  The word here is dynamis from which we get words like dynamic and dynamite.  The power by which God raised Jesus from the dead undergirded their testimony and made it effectual in those who heard it.  People were healed and changed.  Divisions and grudges were set aside.  All those things that would keep people from being of one heart and soul were mended.

Luke also says “great grace” was upon them.  When we use the word “grace” around the church we often misuse it or misinterpret it to mean God showing grace by not giving me the punishment that I deserve.  That’s not what grace means.  Think of it this way.  We got some fans of the British Queen among us.  If we were to say that Queen Elizabeth II showed me grace, it would be that she welcomed me into her presence, showed me her favour, and promised to act for my benefit; so it is with God’s grace.  Grace with respect to God is that he brings us into his presence, declares his favour for us, and promises to act for our benefit which he, of course, does.  Think of a gracious host.  A gracious host spares no effort in making you feel like you’re the most important person at the banquet.  God, by the gift of his presence among us, the Holy Spirit, makes us each feel as if we are most special to him, like family to him and with each other.  God considers us his beloved children for no reason other than he loves us.  That’s grace.

This “great grace” was then embodied in the early church by the fact that there was no needy person among them.  As I said they eliminated poverty in their midst.  How did they do that?  Those who had shared what they had with those who had not.  Imagine that!  Imagine if we thought about the grace of God less in terms of God loves me even though I’m sinner and the proof of that is Jesus died for me and more in terms of God loves me and the proof of that is I give everything to everybody just as Jesus gave his life for me.  Imagine that!  They relinquished their attachment to possessions.  Imagine that!

People will say that this ideal image of the early church that Luke presents us with here was simply contrived, that Luke took the example set by a few individuals and made it seem as if everybody was doing likewise.  To be honest, Luke was writing in hindsight and as they say “Everything looks better in hindsight”.  He wrote his Gospel 20-25 years after the events he portrays of the life in the first decade of the church there in Jerusalem.  But most scholars will say that one of the reasons the church spread so explosively was that they really did redistribute their wealth and share their possessions in the way that Luke says they did.  Early Christians were so convinced that they were living in the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God that they lived accordingly.  Imagine that! 

Jesus taught things like: “Lend expecting nothing in return.” (Lk. 6:35) Sell your possessions and give alms”…(“and you will have treasure in heaven”)…”For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Lk.12:33-34; 18:22)  “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” (Lk. 14:33)  These first Christians really took Jesus’ teachings on wealth and possessions seriously.  Imagine that!  Wealth and possessions are odd animals to have on the farm.  They’re like cats.  We think we own them, but in reality they own us.  If we died alone in our houses with our dog around, the dog would loyally sit by our side or go find help whereas our beloved little tabby would soon start to nibble on us.  (Just trying to lighten the moment).

The first Christians took Jesus’ teachings on redistribution of wealth and sharing possessions so seriously as to actually do it because they were convinced God had raised him from the dead and, resultantly, the Kingdom of God was indeed at hand.  Imagine what the world today would be like if we the followers of Jesus shared their conviction!  Imagine that!…or maybe we should do more than just imagine.  Amen.

 

Why the Fear?

 Mark 16:1-8

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Mark’s account of Easter morning is the one that gets my attention the most.  Most scholars will say that the original ending of his Gospel is 16:8 with the cliffhanger of these three women being too afraid to tell anybody that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  The oldest copies of Mark’s Gospel that we have end at verse 8 which means the rest of the chapter was added a few decades later apparently after Matthew and Luke put out their Gospels because he seems to be reflecting their endings.  

Anyway, Mark ends with this cliff hanger, with these women being too afraid to tell anyone of Jesus’ resurrection.  Why were they so afraid?  Isn’t this joyful news?  The cliff hanger gets even more intense if you read verse 8 in the original Greek with the first century world in mind because some of the words there are describing a particular kind of religious experience.  Our translation says the women fled because “terror and amazement had seized them”.  The word for terror in the Greek context means trembling fear.  They are trembling, shaking.  The word for amazement is ekstasis from which we get our words ecstasy and ecstatic which we associate with being very happy with pleasure.  But in Mark’s world, ekstasis is like being in a prophetic trance.  So, they are trembling and trance-like.

It sounds to me like Mark is very well describing what we see today as the physical manifestations that come over people in old school Pentecostal-type revivals or in Shamanistic rituals from traditional cultures that we see in History Channel documentaries.  This sort of thing strikes us as weird and scary, but in Mark’s day these manifestations were common.  Prophets and oracles in the Pagan religions in that day would be struck in this way when they delivered their messages from the gods.  So, the way Mark is setting things up here it seems like these women have been geared up by some supernatural spirit kind of power to speak a message from the gods and yet they say nothing…to anyone…for they are afraid.

Afraid.  This is not the first time in Mark’s Gospel that we hear of people being afraid.  Let’s jog our memories with a run through Mark.  The first time we hear of people being afraid is when we find Jesus and his disciples out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus was asleep on a pillow in the back of the back.  A windstorm came up and waves started to swamp the boat and it appeared they were going to sink and drown.  The Disciples woke Jesus up and accused him of not caring.  Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace.  Be still.”  A peaceful calm came over the water, not a ripple.  The Disciples suddenly became afraid and asked, “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him”.  Well, he’s the Son of God.  Please note there is no mention in Mark’s account of the calming that they were afraid that they were about to drown to death.  They became afraid because Jesus did a God thing, something only God could do.

Jogging on, Jesus and the disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee to an area that is very Roman and they came across a demoniac who was possessed by a legion of demons.  Yes, that sounds like a legion of Roman soldiers, the most powerful beast for war making known in the ancient world.  Well, Jesus cast that legion of demons out of the man into a heard of pigs that stampeded into the sea and drowned and the price of pork that year skyrocketed.  The herdsmen ran and told the townspeople and a crowd came and saw that this formerly psychotic and violent man was now sitting calmly, dressed, and in his right mind.  They became afraid.  Jesus did a God thing and they became afraid.

Next, Jesus and his motley crew crossed back over to a more Jewish area of Galilee.  A synagogue leader named Jairus came to Jesus and begged him to come heal his twelve-year-old daughter who was near death.  They set out for his house and as they walked through the town square a woman who had suffered a menstrual hemorrhage for twelve years snuck up behind him and touched his robe and suddenly, she was healed both of the hemorrhage and of the associated stigma.  When she realized she was healed she, like the women at the tomb, began to tremble and she became afraid.  They then arrived at the house of Jairus only to find that the girl had died.  But that didn’t stop Jesus.  He told Jairus not to be afraid, but to believe and took the parents and a couple of the Disciples and went to her room and raised her from the dead.  Oddly, the people didn’t become afraid, but rather were affected with a great ekstasis.  Jesus doing God things and people becoming afraid appear to be a pattern.  But here, Jesus’ command “Do not fear; only believe,” kept them from becoming afraid.  Interesting.

Crossing the 4km-mark here, we rather unremarkably find that King Herod was afraid of John the Baptist because he was an honest, for real prophet who spoke for God.  Then, one night Jesus walked on water from shore to his disciples who were in a boat.  When they saw him, they became terrified (a different word) because they thought he was a ghost.  Yet, Jesus told them, “Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid.”  That sentence “It is I” in Hebrew shortens out to one word, Yahweh, the name for himself that God gave to Moses.  God/Jesus got in the boat with them again the sea went calm, without a ripple.  Jesus would rather they not be afraid of this God thing he did.  His word kept them from becoming afraid.  Apparently, only God can calm the fear he causes.

Jogging on (we’re up to 6k now), Jesus and the disciples followed by a great crowd were walking towards Jerusalem, to the fateful event of Jesus death.  Jesus is walking ahead of them. For some inexplicable reason the disciples were in a state of amazement and the crowd was afraid.  Watching Jesus from behind apparently has this effect.  Then, in the midst of this inexplicable state of amazement and mass afraid-ness, Jesus for the second time took the Twelve aside and told them that in Jerusalem he was going to suffer, die, and on the third day be raised.  

Then. they arrived in Jerusalem amidst the spectacle of political protest we call the Triumphal Entry.  Next day, Jesus cleansed the Temple of the “big business” going on there and iconicly he quoted from Isaiah saying, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for the nations.”  The implications of Jesus calling the Temple “My house” were huge.  The chief priests and teachers of the law then began to look for a way to kill him because they were afraid of him because the crowds were amazed at him.  

The next two times “afraid” shows up along the route, it is again the religious authorities who are afraid.  But they are not afraid of God.  They are afraid of the crowds who are amazed at the God things that have been happening around Jesus and secondarily, John the Baptist.

Well, back to the women at the tomb.  We’ve run 9k to get here.  We’ll have 10k in by the time we’re done.  I bet you never thought you’d run 10k on Easter morning.  Virtual running in a Pandemic they call it.  (Actually, the word for afraid turns up ten times in Mark’s Gospel; hence, the 10k analogy.)

If we have learned anything from our fearful jog through Mark, it is that when God acts, a real fear kind of thing comes upon people.  Yet, I think we are more like the religious authority types and what they are afraid of when God acts.  When we, like the religious authorities, discover that we don’t have control of God-things, but rather God has control over God-things, we get afraid.  When God does the miracle healing kind of stuff shaking us lose from our inclination to hang on to hopeless, we get afraid.  When we discover that all things, even the wind, the sea, and the demons which all symbolically serve as the agents of Chaos, that all things truly are in the hands of the God who made them, we get afraid.  When we discover that God has power even over death such that the futility of death is not the last word in God’s good creation, we get afraid.  When we discover that there really is reason to have faith and to hope, we get afraid.  When we get a hint that God is more powerful than our innate inclination to resign ourselves to despair because of the futility of sin and death that has invaded God’s good creation, when we get a hint that God is real and we can actually have hope in God to act to save, it scares the Hell out of us (if I might pun it that way).  

Let’s consider these three women momentarily.  Mark mentions them by name.  They are three followers of Jesus who in faith and devotion fearlessly did not desert him like those Twelve men did, the Disciples, who fled for fear of losing their lives due to their association with Jesus.  They were even there at his crucifixion to be with him from a distance as he died on the cross.  They were Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome.  At the end of chapter 15 Mark says that they were among a number of women who followed Jesus and provided for him while he was in Galilee.  Every church has women like these who are present at everything and humbly helping with everything.  They were faithfully devoted to him.  

Yet, even though they knew Jesus had said that in Jerusalem he would suffer and die and on the third day be raised, they apparently weren’t going to the tomb that morning looking for a resurrected Jesus.  They were simply looking to anoint his body as was the proper custom.  They did not believe that God had power over death.  They had resigned themselves to believe, accept, and serve despair and hopelessness rather than to “Fear not, only believe” as Jesus had told Jairus just before he raised his daughter from death.  They could not imagine resurrection.  Resuscitation is one thing yet resurrection is another.

Other than every hope they had being shattered by Jesus’ death, the biggest problem these women believed they would face that morning was rolling away that stone.  It took more than one big, burly man to lever one of those from its locked-in position.  It didn’t matter.  They were truly devoted to Jesus.  They were determined to care for his body no matter what and they would solve that impossible problem when they got there.  

Just so you know, that stone covering the entrance to the tomb is symbolic of just how impossible and devastating of a problem death is.  They could not roll it away themselves.  So also, we cannot simply roll away or overcome death and the suffering and the grief and futility and the unfairness of death on our own.  Only God can.  Don’t rule him out as they apparently had even after having seen Jesus do all those God things.

Well, they got to the tomb and they found their impossible problem already solved.  Somebody had rolled it away.  They entered the tomb and there was that inexplicable young man again and now dressed in a white robe.  We met him once before when Jesus was arrested.  He was dressed in only a linen robe then and as he was fleeing the scene that evening someone grabbed him and only got the robe so that he wound up fleeing the scene naked.  The women become alarmed.  Their intuition was telling them something is a-foul.  The hair on the back of their necks had raised so to speak.  He told them to not be alarmed and that Jesus had been raised just as he said he would be and that they needed to go back and tell the others to go to Galilee and Jesus would meet them there.

And so here we are at the end of our 10k jog along the route of being afraid in Mark’s Gospel.  These three women flee the tomb.  They are trembling and in a state of ecstasis.  They say nothing to anyone because they are afraid.  What are they afraid of?  They are afraid that God really had raised Jesus from the dead.  God really had saved the day.  God really has power of death.  How unimaginably big is our God?  

These three women – Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – are the first people to be able to proclaim this new reality to everyone, but this heavy stone of fear has made them unimaginably mute.  They now know everything about Jesus is truth; indeed, Jesus is the Truth.  There is nothing to fear.  As Paul says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:37-39).  There is nothing to be afraid of.

How are you this Easter morning?  Preoccupied with all the impossibilities? Struck mute with the fear and wonder and the unimaginable bigness of God?  A lot of scholars and preachers reflect negatively on these women for their fear and their muteness.  But it seems to me that this being afraid comes with the territory when God is active in our lives.   It’s okay to be struck dumb and afraid at the awesomeness of God.  I would be more concerned if they handled Easter the way we do, mute with nonchalance and if there is any fear, it’s of the crowds; of the rejection we might receive for believing Jesus, the Truth, believing resurrection rather than death, for hoping rather than resigning ourselves to despair.  How are you this Easter morning?  Amen.