After several weeks of reading about what happened after Peter and John healed a lame beggar in no particular order, the lectionary committee now has us jumping forward four chapters to what may be a bit of a familiar story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Though I will say, while I’ve heard this story several times before, preparing for this sermon was the first time I really dug into it, and it’s a super interesting tale. But before we get into the story itself, let’s first introduce the characters.
You may recognize Philip as one of the disciples, but, confusingly enough, that was a different Philip. Philip, like John and Mary, was an unfortunately common name, so it can be hard to figure out whose who. I’d honestly never realized this was not the apostle Philip until this week. This Philip is deacon Philip. See, what happened was, after the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, the followers of Jesus who were becoming the church kept growing and growing. You might remember a few weeks ago from chapter four, when Peter and John were in prison for healing the beggar, “but many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand.” The church kept growing like that, and it didn’t take long until there was too much going on for the twelve to manage. So in chapter six, the apostles told the community to choose “seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom,” and the community chose—and I am going to screw some of these names up, so bear with me—Stephen, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolaus, and Philip. These men were chosen to care for the community in Jerusalem, but of course the Holy Spirit had other plans. And it isn’t two chapters later that we see Philip being called by the Spirit to leave Jerusalem and travel south to Gaza along a wilderness road.
Now fun fact, which will become relevant in a minute, the road from Jerusalem to Gaza was not actually a wilderness road. We know that Luke, the writer of Acts, was not from Judea, but from Turkey, so this could just be another example of him not knowing the geography, but I think the detail about the wilderness road was more theological than geographical. Because as Philip traveled along this road; he came across an Ethiopian eunuch who was returning home after having been in to Jerusalem to worship. Now the eunuch is a complicated character. On one hand, he was a court official of the queen of Ethiopia, in charge of her entire treasury. But since he was returning from worshipping in Jerusalem, he was probably also a Jewish convert. And while as a court official in Ethiopia, he may have been powerful, in the religious community in Jerusalem as an Ethiopian foreigner and a eunuch, he would have been an outsider, forbidden from full participation in the worship life of the Temple. So instead of entering into the religious community, the eunuch returned home alone, along a wilderness road of uncertainty, exclusion, and isolation. He may not have been in the wilderness geographically, but he certainly was theologically, as the faith he thought he found seemed to have no place for him.
It’s easy for us as enlightened outsiders to judge the temple faith community for not letting the eunuch in. I mean come on, this guy was like the ideal member. Smart, well-educated, well-connected, he was in charge of the treasury of an entire kingdom! He studied scripture on his own, and he was humble about it. Sign this guy up and give him some pledge cards! But before we look to harshly at the Temple elite, we first need to think about all the ways our own faith community has drawn arbitrary lines around who can be in and who can be out of the community of believers. Luther wrote a lot of things I wish he hadn’t about Jews and Muslims. We’ve been ordaining women in the ELCA for less than fifty years, and we were way ahead of the curve. The organization that leads prayer meetings for the US Congress still forbids women leaders, because per their theology, women are not allowed to lead men. The ELCA has been ordaining members of the LGBTQ community for almost ten years, but LGBTQ candidates still face a lot of obstacles in actually finding a place to serve in the church. Two thousand years later, a dark-skinned, sexually-ambiguous person will often still find himself on the outside looking in in many religious communities.
But Philip, called by the Holy Spirit to drop the work the apostles had assigned him to and head out into the mission field, ran right up to the eunuch’s chariot, heard him reading Isaiah, and queried, “do you understand what you are reading?” This may seem at first like a conceited question, this high ranking court official was likely way better educated than Philip, who was not hired by the Jesus movement to think. But the question was not about literary understanding; it was about theological. Philip essentially asked the eunuch, do you want to be a disciple? And the eunuch’s understanding of the true question and his desire for discipleship was demonstrated in his response, “how can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.”
This is the incredible upside-down nature of the kingdom of God. This outsider, this foreign eunuch whom in the eyes of so many was outside of what was considered acceptable for entrance into the religious structure, was being welcomed into this new community of believers that Jesus had created and commissioned the apostles to grow through his death, resurrection, and ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. In his ministry, Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts, he again and again crossed borders both real and imagined to show that the kingdom of God is for everyone. In this story, we see Philip living out this promise. The established leadership may have said this guy was out, but Philip knew threw his encounter with the risen Christ through the teachings of the apostles that in God’s community everyone was welcome, included, and invited.
But not only is the upside-down nature present in the eunuch’s inclusion, it is also present in Philip as the messenger. Because yes, the eunuch was a foreigner and an outsider, but he was also a powerful court official. You’d think the Holy Spirit should have sent a more powerful delegate of the community than the apostles’ hired hand. Certainly for a man as powerful as the head of the Ethiopian treasury, Peter, or at least John or James, ought to have been sent.
But the Spirit didn’t choose Peter, John, or James, the Spirit sent Philip. And Philip was clearly up for the task because it was not long into their conversation that the eunuch spotted some water along the road and proclaimed, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Theologically, per the Lutheran confessions, the answer to this question is nothing. Water and word is all it takes to baptize and Philip had access to both. But I am newly enough ordained to tell you the multitude of answers I could have come up with to that question. Did Philip have the authority from the apostles to baptize? Did he know the proper liturgy for such a service? Would Peter get mad at him and take away his deaconship for such presumptuous behavior? Luckily for the eunuch and for the church, Philip was not as in his head as I can be, or at least the writer of Acts doesn’t show it, and they went down to the water and Philip baptized him. “When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.” And so the good news spread through Philip from Azotus to Caearea, and through the eunuch from Gaza and into Ethiopia, and on and on and on, not just in Jerusalem, but throughout Judea, Samaria and Galilee, and to the whole world.
What I take from this story is that all around us there are people like the eunuch. People in wilderness places; people whom for whatever reason feel cut off from the community, isolated and excluded and alone. People who desperately want to be a part of something they maybe cannot even name yet, because no one has taught them. And the Holy Spirit has called us to run out to those people. I know it’s true, because the Holy Spirit has dropped us here. And no offense you all, but the Post Addition neighborhood of Battle Creek, Michigan is not exactly the hotbed of economic and cultural power. DC, or Lansing, or even downtown this is not. And you may wonder if we have the skills do to this? After all, we don’t have the money and the resources of some of the downtown or Lakeview churches, we don’t have the education of the Bishop or Pastor Sprang, are we really equipped to do this?
We may not have the resources or the knowledge, but like Philip we are the ones the Holy Spirit has planted in this place. And like Philip, we have all the resources we need. Here is water. Here is bread and wine. Here is the word, and the gathered community of God. What is to prevent us from doing this work? Nothing. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Monday, April 30, 2018
Conversation Points for Acts 8:26-40
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This is the second of two stories of Philip’s ministry to the Samaritans that make up chapter 8. The first story is about Simon, a Samaritan magician who made a name for himself by doing magic and calling himself “great.” Simon tried to pay the apostles to give him the power to give the Holy Spirit. Like Simon the Samaritan, the Ethiopian eunuch was an outsider to Israeli society, excluded from full participation. However, he is the contrast to Simon, a foreigner who earnestly seeks to understand the scripture.
• This story highlights Luke’s preferential option for the poor and powerless. The eunuch was not an outsider for his social standing; he was, after all, a court official. Nor was his spiritual outsider status of his own doing, he was described as earnestly seeking God through scripture. Rather the existing understanding of membership requirements of the community—his castration and nationality—that kept him out. Philip’s baptism of the eunuch into the community is about demonstrating the expanding nature of membership in the family of God after Christ’s death and resurrection.
• This passage—like Acts 4:32-35 a few weeks ago—follows a chiastic structure. As before, the key to the passage lies in the center, when the Ethiopian eunuch asked the right question, “About whom does the prophet say this?”
A (v. 26-27a): Philip “got up and went” from Samaria south to Gaza
B (v. 27b-28): the Ethiopian eunuch worships and reads Scripture (Isaiah 56)
C (v. 29-30a): Philip “runs” according to the Spirit’s command
D (v. 30b-31): the eunuch queries Philip
E (v. 32-33): Scripture quoted (Isaiah 53:7-8)
F (v. 34): “About whom is the prophet talking?”
E’ (v. 35): Scripture interpreted by Philip
D’ (v. 36-38): the eunuch queries Philip
C’ (v. 39a): Philip snatched away by the Spirit
B’ (v. 39b): the eunuch rejoices
A’ (v. 40): Philip passes through “all the towns” from Gaza north to Samaria
• The opening two verses introduce the characters of the ensuing conversion experience. The angel sending Philip and the eunuch’s chariot cause the scene to echo details of Elijah’s story (1 Kings 17-2 Kings 3). There are also echoes of Jesus’ early mission in Nazareth (Luke 4:26-27) and his appearance to his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). Philip is portrayed as the next iteration of Jesus’ work, leading the church’s mission “from place to place” (8:4) beyond Jerusalem.
• V. 26 calls the road between Jerusalem and Gaza “a wilderness road.” This is not geographically true. Some scholars suggest the point of this is to place the incident in the sort of wilderness settings where conversion stories tend to be set. • The eunuch has a very advanced religious resume. He seems to have been a convert to Judaism who had recently made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, an event which has triggered his anxiety about his place in the Jewish community.
• That the man is reading Isaiah is interesting because the man’s biography echoes Isaiah 56:3-8, in which God promises to “gather the outcasts of Israel” (56:8), including those “eunuchs and foreigners” (56:3-4) who “keep the Sabbath and do not profane it” (56:6) and come to “my holy mountain, my house of prayer” (56:7). The Ethiopian eunuch returning from worship in Jerusalem fits all these descriptors.
• While Philip’s abrupt question if the eunuch understood what he was reading (v.30) sounds at first condescending, it gets to the deeper idea of scripture being not simply literary but theological. The eunuch’s reply, “How can I unless someone guides me” (v. 31) shows the eunuch also understood the text to be theological, and was seeking spiritual guidance. His invitation to Philip to “sit beside him” in the role of teacher also highlights this.
• The quoted scripture is from Isaiah 53:7-8, which Luke quotes directly from the Septuagint, which is the first century Greek translation of the Old Testament. The first important connection to this particular text is the choice of part of the prophecy which talks of the suffering Servant’s “humiliation.” Wall asserts that if the Servant’s “humiliation” means social ostracism, than the eunuch relates to the Servant by also being an outcast. There are also several key places where the Septuagint differs from the original Hebrew (which is why if you go to Isaiah 53:7-8, the quote doesn’t match). In the last section “for his life is taken away from the earth, the Hebrew verb in Isaiah is gzr which translates “cut off from the earth” (he dies). But the Septuagint translated gzr as airo which translates as “lifted up” as in exalted, which allows Luke to interpret the Servant’s humiliation as his exaltation.
Works Sourced:
Kirk, J. R. Daniel. “Commentary on Acts 8:26-40.” Working Preacher.. Accessed: 23 April 2018.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This is the second of two stories of Philip’s ministry to the Samaritans that make up chapter 8. The first story is about Simon, a Samaritan magician who made a name for himself by doing magic and calling himself “great.” Simon tried to pay the apostles to give him the power to give the Holy Spirit. Like Simon the Samaritan, the Ethiopian eunuch was an outsider to Israeli society, excluded from full participation. However, he is the contrast to Simon, a foreigner who earnestly seeks to understand the scripture.
• This story highlights Luke’s preferential option for the poor and powerless. The eunuch was not an outsider for his social standing; he was, after all, a court official. Nor was his spiritual outsider status of his own doing, he was described as earnestly seeking God through scripture. Rather the existing understanding of membership requirements of the community—his castration and nationality—that kept him out. Philip’s baptism of the eunuch into the community is about demonstrating the expanding nature of membership in the family of God after Christ’s death and resurrection.
• This passage—like Acts 4:32-35 a few weeks ago—follows a chiastic structure. As before, the key to the passage lies in the center, when the Ethiopian eunuch asked the right question, “About whom does the prophet say this?”
A (v. 26-27a): Philip “got up and went” from Samaria south to Gaza
B (v. 27b-28): the Ethiopian eunuch worships and reads Scripture (Isaiah 56)
C (v. 29-30a): Philip “runs” according to the Spirit’s command
D (v. 30b-31): the eunuch queries Philip
E (v. 32-33): Scripture quoted (Isaiah 53:7-8)
F (v. 34): “About whom is the prophet talking?”
E’ (v. 35): Scripture interpreted by Philip
D’ (v. 36-38): the eunuch queries Philip
C’ (v. 39a): Philip snatched away by the Spirit
B’ (v. 39b): the eunuch rejoices
A’ (v. 40): Philip passes through “all the towns” from Gaza north to Samaria
• The opening two verses introduce the characters of the ensuing conversion experience. The angel sending Philip and the eunuch’s chariot cause the scene to echo details of Elijah’s story (1 Kings 17-2 Kings 3). There are also echoes of Jesus’ early mission in Nazareth (Luke 4:26-27) and his appearance to his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). Philip is portrayed as the next iteration of Jesus’ work, leading the church’s mission “from place to place” (8:4) beyond Jerusalem.
• V. 26 calls the road between Jerusalem and Gaza “a wilderness road.” This is not geographically true. Some scholars suggest the point of this is to place the incident in the sort of wilderness settings where conversion stories tend to be set. • The eunuch has a very advanced religious resume. He seems to have been a convert to Judaism who had recently made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, an event which has triggered his anxiety about his place in the Jewish community.
• That the man is reading Isaiah is interesting because the man’s biography echoes Isaiah 56:3-8, in which God promises to “gather the outcasts of Israel” (56:8), including those “eunuchs and foreigners” (56:3-4) who “keep the Sabbath and do not profane it” (56:6) and come to “my holy mountain, my house of prayer” (56:7). The Ethiopian eunuch returning from worship in Jerusalem fits all these descriptors.
• While Philip’s abrupt question if the eunuch understood what he was reading (v.30) sounds at first condescending, it gets to the deeper idea of scripture being not simply literary but theological. The eunuch’s reply, “How can I unless someone guides me” (v. 31) shows the eunuch also understood the text to be theological, and was seeking spiritual guidance. His invitation to Philip to “sit beside him” in the role of teacher also highlights this.
• The quoted scripture is from Isaiah 53:7-8, which Luke quotes directly from the Septuagint, which is the first century Greek translation of the Old Testament. The first important connection to this particular text is the choice of part of the prophecy which talks of the suffering Servant’s “humiliation.” Wall asserts that if the Servant’s “humiliation” means social ostracism, than the eunuch relates to the Servant by also being an outcast. There are also several key places where the Septuagint differs from the original Hebrew (which is why if you go to Isaiah 53:7-8, the quote doesn’t match). In the last section “for his life is taken away from the earth, the Hebrew verb in Isaiah is gzr which translates “cut off from the earth” (he dies). But the Septuagint translated gzr as airo which translates as “lifted up” as in exalted, which allows Luke to interpret the Servant’s humiliation as his exaltation.
Works Sourced:
Kirk, J. R. Daniel. “Commentary on Acts 8:26-40.” Working Preacher.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Conversation Points for Acts 4:5-12
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• All of the Easter season Acts readings so far have come from the same incident. The event started at the beginning of Chapter 3, when Peter healed the man born lame at the Temple gate. Peter then delivered the sermon we heard a part of last Sunday, 3:12-19, when Peter declared us to be witnesses to the power of healing in Christ’s name. After Peter finished preaching, some of the religious authorities came and arrested him and John for proclaiming the resurrection of the dead (4:1-2). Peter and John were held in custody overnight, while many who heard believed, and the number of Jesus followers grew to 5,000 (4:4).
• The list of people who assembled for the trial of Peter and John make up a group that Acts will later identify as “the Sanhedrin. Members of this group include people of high family pedigree (priests in the first century were part of the Levite clan), social prominence (elders), and education (scribes). The issues this group addressed were often tasked off to the members who had the most knowledge of the subject, for example ethical issues generally were handled by the Pharisees.
• This assembled group is not so much important for whom they specifically were but for who they represent, the powers that tried—and failed—to put Jesus to death.
• The key question the council addressed to Peter and John was “By what power or by what name did you do this?” The trick in this question is the word “this.” “This” could either refer to Peter’s healing of the man born lame or Peter’s teaching the people.
• Peter was “filled with the Holy Spirit” to give his response, showing again that the work is done by God, and Peter is merely the vessel.
• The speech that follows is a compressed version of the one he gave on Pentecost and at Solomon’s Portico earlier in this incident.
• Peter defines “this” as the “good deed” (euergesia) of “healing” (sozo) the man. The word “good deed” applies to the sort of action any law-abiding, civil-minded Jew might perform to someone in need. “Healing” has a deeper meaning. Sozo has the double meaning of to heal and to save, and is used interchangeably throughout Acts for both of these meanings. This echoes the salvation theme in the Joel prophesy that Peter spoke of in 2:21.
• As Peter did in 3:13 (“…Jesus, whom you handed over…”), again in 4:10 (“…Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified…”) Peter makes clear that the authorities are not in line with God’s purpose.
• Peter spoke because he was filled with the Holy Spirit, even though he was “uneducated and ordinary.” While education is helpful, it is not a requirement of being able to share the good news of God in Christ.
• “The name of Jesus” is not a passcode for salvation, it is the power of ongoing healing.
Works Sourced:
Kirk, J. R. Daniel. “Commentary on Acts 4:5-12.” Working Preacher.. Accessed: 16 April 2018.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• All of the Easter season Acts readings so far have come from the same incident. The event started at the beginning of Chapter 3, when Peter healed the man born lame at the Temple gate. Peter then delivered the sermon we heard a part of last Sunday, 3:12-19, when Peter declared us to be witnesses to the power of healing in Christ’s name. After Peter finished preaching, some of the religious authorities came and arrested him and John for proclaiming the resurrection of the dead (4:1-2). Peter and John were held in custody overnight, while many who heard believed, and the number of Jesus followers grew to 5,000 (4:4).
• The list of people who assembled for the trial of Peter and John make up a group that Acts will later identify as “the Sanhedrin. Members of this group include people of high family pedigree (priests in the first century were part of the Levite clan), social prominence (elders), and education (scribes). The issues this group addressed were often tasked off to the members who had the most knowledge of the subject, for example ethical issues generally were handled by the Pharisees.
• This assembled group is not so much important for whom they specifically were but for who they represent, the powers that tried—and failed—to put Jesus to death.
• The key question the council addressed to Peter and John was “By what power or by what name did you do this?” The trick in this question is the word “this.” “This” could either refer to Peter’s healing of the man born lame or Peter’s teaching the people.
• Peter was “filled with the Holy Spirit” to give his response, showing again that the work is done by God, and Peter is merely the vessel.
• The speech that follows is a compressed version of the one he gave on Pentecost and at Solomon’s Portico earlier in this incident.
• Peter defines “this” as the “good deed” (euergesia) of “healing” (sozo) the man. The word “good deed” applies to the sort of action any law-abiding, civil-minded Jew might perform to someone in need. “Healing” has a deeper meaning. Sozo has the double meaning of to heal and to save, and is used interchangeably throughout Acts for both of these meanings. This echoes the salvation theme in the Joel prophesy that Peter spoke of in 2:21.
• As Peter did in 3:13 (“…Jesus, whom you handed over…”), again in 4:10 (“…Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified…”) Peter makes clear that the authorities are not in line with God’s purpose.
• Peter spoke because he was filled with the Holy Spirit, even though he was “uneducated and ordinary.” While education is helpful, it is not a requirement of being able to share the good news of God in Christ.
• “The name of Jesus” is not a passcode for salvation, it is the power of ongoing healing.
Works Sourced:
Kirk, J. R. Daniel. “Commentary on Acts 4:5-12.” Working Preacher.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Monday, April 16, 2018
We are Witnesses to These Things: A Sermon on Luke 24:36b-48 and Acts 3:12-19
“You are witnesses of these things.” Notice the phrasing. Jesus did not say “you will be witnesses” or “you can be witnesses” or even “be witnesses.” This isn’t a request, an invitation, or even a command; it’s a statement. You are witnesses. You are.
This is a statement because being a witness is not a choice. Bearing witness, actually telling someone what you have seen, acting on what you’ve witnessed, that is a choice, but being a witness is not. It’s in the very definition of the word, to witness something is to see it, not to believe it, not to understand it, or even to talk about it, it’s simply to see it. When the disciples saw Jesus in their presence, they became witnesses. And when we gather here, around the font and the table, and experience Jesus in the gathered community, we too become witnesses.
We are witnesses to these things. That’s the good news, we are witnesses. Already, now, we are witnesses. There’s nothing we have to do to earn witness status, it is a result of being in the presence of what God has done in our midst. We are witnesses. The challenge then, and the invitation, is given the inevitable fact of our witnesses status, what do we do, who shall we be, how shall we live, as witnesses? For that, we turn to Acts.
The Acts reading this morning comes from a sermon by Peter. But before we get to the sermon itself, let’s set the stage a little bit. Acts chapter three began with Peter and John going to the temple to pray. At the gate of the temple, they met a man who was lame from birth. Everyday his friends would bring this man to the temple gate, where he would lay and beg for alms from those coming to worship. As Peter and John approached this man, Peter looked at him and said to him, “Look at us.” And the man did, clearly expecting he was going to get something from them. Peter then said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And immediately, the man was healed and he got up and began to leap and praise God, and everyone was amazed.
When I read the account of this miracle, the first thing that caught my attention was Peter’s words, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you.” Peter probably wasn’t lying; he very likely didn’t have any silver or gold. First off, being an apostle, especially in the days and weeks immediately after Jesus’ ascension was not exactly lucrative work. But also just a few verses earlier we heard about how the community of believers pooled all their resources together, and Peter wasn’t the keeper of the purse.
But I think it’s important that Peter made this statement because it shows us that Peter wasn’t hearing the man’s request for money and choosing to give him healing instead. Now, one can argue, and probably correctly, that what Peter gave was of more value than silver or gold, but the question addressed here is not which is more valuable, gold and silver or prayer. Peter wasn’t making a judgment call on what he thought this man really needed. Peter was literally giving the man the only thing he had, healing in the name of Jesus Christ. Last week we talked about how the work of the Christian community can be summed up simply as “see a need, meet it,” and that is what Peter did here. He saw a need, a beggar who needed money, and he didn’t have money, so he met that need with a thing he did have, healing in the name of Jesus.
And the crowd, understandably, was amazed. After all, this person whom they’d known for so long as the man who lay helpless at the gate to the temple was not just standing, but leaping for joy! To which Peter was like, friends, what’s the big deal? “Why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power and piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus… To this we are witnesses.” Did you catch that, it’s the witnesses thing from Luke again. “To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong.”
I think the point Peter was making here was this miracle wasn’t his doing. He wasn’t some superstar apostle filled with this special power from on high that allowed him to do these amazing things. He was a witness, a witness just like you and me. The only thing Peter did to make this healing take place was be in a location where someone was in need of healing. The healing came through the authority of Jesus, but because Peter was the one standing in front of the guy who needed to be healed, Peter got to be the vessel through which Jesus performed a miracle.
Peter showed up at the right place at the right time, and that literally was how he got cast in his role in the thing. We know from the text itself that Peter wasn’t prepared to help the beggar. The guy asked for money and Peter was all, “nope, sorry, I don’t have any of that, but I can give you this other thing.” And yeah, like we said, the other thing turned out to be better, but that doesn’t change the fact that Peter didn’t give him money because Peter didn’t have any.
The central question in Acts is what does it mean to be an Easter church, how are we to be now that we are witnesses to the resurrection? And this story in Acts shows us that the most important thing we can do is show up and do something. Had I been in Peter’s shoes, I can think of a million and one ways I could have overthought this problem. A million questions I might have asked myself, directions I may have gone in, possibilities I would have weighed and rejected. The result of all this thought would more than likely have paralyzed me to inaction, ending in me hurrying past the man silently hoping he didn’t catch my eye and I wouldn’t have to face the fact that I didn’t know what to do, so I chose instead not to try. But Peter was like, well, let’s try this, and boom, there you go. Just like last week, I think the message for us in this reading is to not over think the work of the church because being God’s people in the world is almost comically easy. Show up, do something, and then see what the Author of life does with that thing.
I don’t know about you, but in an increasingly complex world, this feels like incredible good news. Because maybe it’s my curious nature or my status as a skeptical millennial, but it seems like the more I learn about any issue, the less clear I become on what a solution might be. I want to do the right thing to bring about justice and peace and life into the world, but like we’ve talked about so often, doing what is right in the real world is never as clear cut as the parables would make them seem. How generous is generous enough? What group is the best use of my time? Does the result outweigh the cost? Can I be sure that I know all the information, that I am making the right action, that I am helping the right cause? Pilate scoffed at Jesus, “What is truth?” and the more I know, the less I am sure what truth really is. When I look at all these questions and possibilities, needs and divided attentions and very real issues, it is so easy to become paralyzed into inaction. But the example Peter sets here is to not get bogged down by not having the right answer, and instead trying an answer. Unlike Peter, I don’t have the power to command the lame to walk, but I do have other gifts. So just as Peter was not paralyzed by his lack of financial resources, I too can not let myself be paralyzed by my lack of miracle performing skills and I at least try something. And who knows what Jesus might do with that effort.
In Easter we celebrate that the risen Christ has come back from the dead, has defeated death, and has brought us and all of creation into new life in him. To this we are witnesses. Not by any doing of our own, but simply by being in the presence of this promise. We are witnesses. It is time to stop waiting until we feel like we have everything we need, because that fact alone is enough. We are witnesses, everything else is from Jesus. Amen.
This is a statement because being a witness is not a choice. Bearing witness, actually telling someone what you have seen, acting on what you’ve witnessed, that is a choice, but being a witness is not. It’s in the very definition of the word, to witness something is to see it, not to believe it, not to understand it, or even to talk about it, it’s simply to see it. When the disciples saw Jesus in their presence, they became witnesses. And when we gather here, around the font and the table, and experience Jesus in the gathered community, we too become witnesses.
We are witnesses to these things. That’s the good news, we are witnesses. Already, now, we are witnesses. There’s nothing we have to do to earn witness status, it is a result of being in the presence of what God has done in our midst. We are witnesses. The challenge then, and the invitation, is given the inevitable fact of our witnesses status, what do we do, who shall we be, how shall we live, as witnesses? For that, we turn to Acts.
The Acts reading this morning comes from a sermon by Peter. But before we get to the sermon itself, let’s set the stage a little bit. Acts chapter three began with Peter and John going to the temple to pray. At the gate of the temple, they met a man who was lame from birth. Everyday his friends would bring this man to the temple gate, where he would lay and beg for alms from those coming to worship. As Peter and John approached this man, Peter looked at him and said to him, “Look at us.” And the man did, clearly expecting he was going to get something from them. Peter then said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And immediately, the man was healed and he got up and began to leap and praise God, and everyone was amazed.
When I read the account of this miracle, the first thing that caught my attention was Peter’s words, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you.” Peter probably wasn’t lying; he very likely didn’t have any silver or gold. First off, being an apostle, especially in the days and weeks immediately after Jesus’ ascension was not exactly lucrative work. But also just a few verses earlier we heard about how the community of believers pooled all their resources together, and Peter wasn’t the keeper of the purse.
But I think it’s important that Peter made this statement because it shows us that Peter wasn’t hearing the man’s request for money and choosing to give him healing instead. Now, one can argue, and probably correctly, that what Peter gave was of more value than silver or gold, but the question addressed here is not which is more valuable, gold and silver or prayer. Peter wasn’t making a judgment call on what he thought this man really needed. Peter was literally giving the man the only thing he had, healing in the name of Jesus Christ. Last week we talked about how the work of the Christian community can be summed up simply as “see a need, meet it,” and that is what Peter did here. He saw a need, a beggar who needed money, and he didn’t have money, so he met that need with a thing he did have, healing in the name of Jesus.
And the crowd, understandably, was amazed. After all, this person whom they’d known for so long as the man who lay helpless at the gate to the temple was not just standing, but leaping for joy! To which Peter was like, friends, what’s the big deal? “Why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power and piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus… To this we are witnesses.” Did you catch that, it’s the witnesses thing from Luke again. “To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong.”
I think the point Peter was making here was this miracle wasn’t his doing. He wasn’t some superstar apostle filled with this special power from on high that allowed him to do these amazing things. He was a witness, a witness just like you and me. The only thing Peter did to make this healing take place was be in a location where someone was in need of healing. The healing came through the authority of Jesus, but because Peter was the one standing in front of the guy who needed to be healed, Peter got to be the vessel through which Jesus performed a miracle.
Peter showed up at the right place at the right time, and that literally was how he got cast in his role in the thing. We know from the text itself that Peter wasn’t prepared to help the beggar. The guy asked for money and Peter was all, “nope, sorry, I don’t have any of that, but I can give you this other thing.” And yeah, like we said, the other thing turned out to be better, but that doesn’t change the fact that Peter didn’t give him money because Peter didn’t have any.
The central question in Acts is what does it mean to be an Easter church, how are we to be now that we are witnesses to the resurrection? And this story in Acts shows us that the most important thing we can do is show up and do something. Had I been in Peter’s shoes, I can think of a million and one ways I could have overthought this problem. A million questions I might have asked myself, directions I may have gone in, possibilities I would have weighed and rejected. The result of all this thought would more than likely have paralyzed me to inaction, ending in me hurrying past the man silently hoping he didn’t catch my eye and I wouldn’t have to face the fact that I didn’t know what to do, so I chose instead not to try. But Peter was like, well, let’s try this, and boom, there you go. Just like last week, I think the message for us in this reading is to not over think the work of the church because being God’s people in the world is almost comically easy. Show up, do something, and then see what the Author of life does with that thing.
I don’t know about you, but in an increasingly complex world, this feels like incredible good news. Because maybe it’s my curious nature or my status as a skeptical millennial, but it seems like the more I learn about any issue, the less clear I become on what a solution might be. I want to do the right thing to bring about justice and peace and life into the world, but like we’ve talked about so often, doing what is right in the real world is never as clear cut as the parables would make them seem. How generous is generous enough? What group is the best use of my time? Does the result outweigh the cost? Can I be sure that I know all the information, that I am making the right action, that I am helping the right cause? Pilate scoffed at Jesus, “What is truth?” and the more I know, the less I am sure what truth really is. When I look at all these questions and possibilities, needs and divided attentions and very real issues, it is so easy to become paralyzed into inaction. But the example Peter sets here is to not get bogged down by not having the right answer, and instead trying an answer. Unlike Peter, I don’t have the power to command the lame to walk, but I do have other gifts. So just as Peter was not paralyzed by his lack of financial resources, I too can not let myself be paralyzed by my lack of miracle performing skills and I at least try something. And who knows what Jesus might do with that effort.
In Easter we celebrate that the risen Christ has come back from the dead, has defeated death, and has brought us and all of creation into new life in him. To this we are witnesses. Not by any doing of our own, but simply by being in the presence of this promise. We are witnesses. It is time to stop waiting until we feel like we have everything we need, because that fact alone is enough. We are witnesses, everything else is from Jesus. Amen.
Conversation Points for Acts 3:12-19
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The event that preceded this speech by Peter was the healing of a beggar who was lame in front of the gate of the temple. The beggar asked Peter for alms, and Peter responded “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give to you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And the man got up and began praising God.
• This is the second missionary speech from Peter in Acts, the first being his response to the crowd after the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, when everyone in the crowd heard the disciples speak in their own native tongue. The parallel is made clear by Peter using the same opening address; “Men of Israel” (cf. 2:22). In both speeches, the question to the crowd is the same, how will they respond to this encounter with God?
• The speeches in Acts all sound fairly similar, touching on similar themes and following similar structures. Dr. Carey asserts that the speeches are less for historical record, but for clarifying theological significance. The speeches frequently show up after an event to explain the theological significance of the moment. The speech here responds to the crowd’s amazement at the healing they’ve just witnesses.
• The speeches in Acts ground themselves in the history of the people of Israel, the testimony of Moses and the promise made to Abraham. Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of that history.
• In this speech, Peter referred to Jesus as “the Author of life.” This is a bigger claim than the more traditional “Holy and Righteous One” to indicate not just his messianic identity, but that he has the power to heal.
Works Sourced:
Carey, Greg. “Commentary on Acts 3:12-19.” Working Preacher.. Accessed: 9 April 2018.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• The event that preceded this speech by Peter was the healing of a beggar who was lame in front of the gate of the temple. The beggar asked Peter for alms, and Peter responded “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give to you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And the man got up and began praising God.
• This is the second missionary speech from Peter in Acts, the first being his response to the crowd after the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, when everyone in the crowd heard the disciples speak in their own native tongue. The parallel is made clear by Peter using the same opening address; “Men of Israel” (cf. 2:22). In both speeches, the question to the crowd is the same, how will they respond to this encounter with God?
• The speeches in Acts all sound fairly similar, touching on similar themes and following similar structures. Dr. Carey asserts that the speeches are less for historical record, but for clarifying theological significance. The speeches frequently show up after an event to explain the theological significance of the moment. The speech here responds to the crowd’s amazement at the healing they’ve just witnesses.
• The speeches in Acts ground themselves in the history of the people of Israel, the testimony of Moses and the promise made to Abraham. Jesus is presented as the fulfillment of that history.
• In this speech, Peter referred to Jesus as “the Author of life.” This is a bigger claim than the more traditional “Holy and Righteous One” to indicate not just his messianic identity, but that he has the power to heal.
Works Sourced:
Carey, Greg. “Commentary on Acts 3:12-19.” Working Preacher.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Monday, April 9, 2018
This is Way Easier than We Think it is: A Sermon on Acts 4:32-35
I may have told you this story before, but indulge me because it’s one of my favorites so I’m going to tell it again. When I was a kid, probably eight or nine, my grandmother got a really bad case of shingles. Now shingles is miserable and awful no matter the circumstances, but for my family this was particularly difficult because my grandfather was disabled and my grandmother was his primary caretaker. But while she had shingles, their roles had to switch, and much of the caretaking responsibilities fell on him. The biggest help in that time came from their church family, who were able to swoop in and support both of them. This was wonderful, but did result in this one very funny incident.
Mom and I were home one afternoon when the phone rang. It was my grandfather, could we come over right away, there was a crisis and he didn’t know what to do. When we got there my grandfather was peering out the open front door, waiting for us to arrive. He rushed us into the kitchen and presented the problem that needed solving, and my mother bit her lip to keep from laughing. The “great crisis” causing us to rush across town was this: stacks of tin-foil covered containers adorned every conceivable surface of their kitchen. There had been a mix-up in the congregational concerns food calendar, and somehow a week’s worth of meals got dropped off at once. My grandfather, always very frugal, looked at my mother with real fear in his eyes and said, “What am I going to do? Your mother and I will never eat all these casseroles.”
Throughout the Easter season, the first readings are all from the book of Acts, which is a history of the early church as it spread out from Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension. So I thought it might be fun to focus my sermons on these Acts readings instead of my usual practice of focusing on the Gospel. Just a little variety, you know, to keep things interesting.
So, having made that decision, I read the Acts reading for this morning, and I chuckled a bit, because this is a text that always seems to bring about the question when I read or preach on it, as to whether or not I am a communist. A question to which, depending on my level of snarkiness and/or annoyance at the person asking, I am liable to quip back that the fifties called, and they’d like their Red Scare back. By now I’m sure you all know my politics well enough to know that I probably do have a bit of a socialist leaning. But I think trying to read twenty-first century political thought into the book of Acts is to miss the point of the reading entirely.
One of the commentaries I read made the point, and I think it’s true, that when we read this text, we tend to get totally caught up in the possessions part. Why, we ask, is Jesus so keen in taking all our stuff?! So we do a whole lot of weird mental gymnastics to try and make sense of this passage and to justify our response to it. It was a different time back then, and people had to rely more on community. Or I earned this stuff, and certainly Jesus wants me to be generous, but it would be irresponsible to give away everything I own. Or, again, the communism argument, we know it didn’t work in Russia so that can’t be what Jesus meant. To which I say, you’re right, it’s not. The apostles were not secretly reading Marx and trying to overthrow the government any more than they were all free market capitalists. Friends, this was first century Palestine. You could literally buy something with a goat; there is no part of any modern economic theory that makes any sense with goat currency. Quite frankly, I think the fact that when we read this text our minds immediately go to possessions says way more about our obsession with stuff than it says about the text.
So what is this text about? Well, fun fact, the rhetorical structure of this passage is what is known as a chiasmus. Derived from the Greek letter “chi” which looks like and X and also happens to be the first letter in Christ—coincidence, maybe?—a chiasmus indicates that the most important part of the passage is at the center. “X marks the spot,” if you will. The center of this passage is the end of verse thirty-three and the beginning of verse thirty-four, “great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them.”
“Great grace was upon all of them.” Which sounds pretty great, but what does it mean to have “great grace”? Well, first off, notice that it was “upon” them. That word “upon” makes me think of it resting on them. There’s an airiness to it, like a blanket or a dusting. This etherealness reminds me that great grace isn’t the goal, because grace isn’t something we can strive for. Grace is a gift; it is given to us by God. The apostles don’t have great grace because they gave up of all their possessions; they were moved to a communal way of being because of the central experience of the great grace of God through Christ.
Rather than try to figure out exactly what this passage is instructing us to do in order to receive the great grace that was upon the apostles, let us start with the central premise that because of Christ’s death and resurrection, great grace rests on us, and then reflect on how we might live out that reality. Because, spoiler alert, I think that central truth is more powerful than any effort we might try, and more truthful than any system we might come up with. I also think that if we focus on living out of the great grace of God, we will find that living in the way the apostles described is way easier than we thought, because we are not forced to try to fit first century economic practices into our twenty-first century lives. Because, let’s face it, Meijers is not going to take your goat as payment, even though the Old Testament might say it is a perfectly acceptable trade.
So what might it look like to live out of the great grace of God upon us? The second half of the chiasmus said “there was not a needy person among them” and I opened with the casserole story because I think that’s an amazing example of that. My family had a need, and the need was not just met, but exceeded, by a rush of casseroles. One could argue that in fact the outpouring of the community then created a second need, the need for more freezer space, but let’s not get too bogged down in the details. If “great grace was upon them [and] there was not a needy person among them,” then it seems like the only thing we really need to do is find needs and meet them, and the rest will work itself out. I really believe that the work of Christian community is that simple. See needs, meet them, and everything else will fall into place.
And I know I’ve told this story before, but we have just about the best model in what this looks like right here in our building with the members of the Woman’s Co-op. Unlike so many social service providers, there isn’t a lot of thought put into how resources can best be distributed or what is the most effective distribution method, or what is the optimal ratio of administrative to programmatic costs. The model is literally, “your kid needs clothes, mine outgrew them, here you go. I need a ride to work, you drive past my house on the way to your job, you can pick me up.” Living from this core of meeting simple needs changes everything. You remember the mountain of canned goods in the hallway last week; I finally learned the story on that. That was a Co-op member who wanted to thank us for providing the space for her to get back on her feet. And she knew that the food pantry was important to us because every time she came into the office, there were always a few things sitting in the wagon. So when her tax return came in this year, she used a chunk of it to support a ministry she knew we cared about.
Dear friends in Christ, great grace is upon us. That’s what we celebrated last week on Easter, it is what we celebrate today and every Sunday when we come to the font and gather around the table. Great grace rests upon us as a gift from God. So let’s not get too caught up in making sure we live it out in exactly the right way. Being part of this community of believers is really, amazingly simple. Just go be the people of God in the world, in whatever way works in the place where you find yourself. The rest, I promise you, will fall into place. Amen.
Mom and I were home one afternoon when the phone rang. It was my grandfather, could we come over right away, there was a crisis and he didn’t know what to do. When we got there my grandfather was peering out the open front door, waiting for us to arrive. He rushed us into the kitchen and presented the problem that needed solving, and my mother bit her lip to keep from laughing. The “great crisis” causing us to rush across town was this: stacks of tin-foil covered containers adorned every conceivable surface of their kitchen. There had been a mix-up in the congregational concerns food calendar, and somehow a week’s worth of meals got dropped off at once. My grandfather, always very frugal, looked at my mother with real fear in his eyes and said, “What am I going to do? Your mother and I will never eat all these casseroles.”
Throughout the Easter season, the first readings are all from the book of Acts, which is a history of the early church as it spread out from Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension. So I thought it might be fun to focus my sermons on these Acts readings instead of my usual practice of focusing on the Gospel. Just a little variety, you know, to keep things interesting.
So, having made that decision, I read the Acts reading for this morning, and I chuckled a bit, because this is a text that always seems to bring about the question when I read or preach on it, as to whether or not I am a communist. A question to which, depending on my level of snarkiness and/or annoyance at the person asking, I am liable to quip back that the fifties called, and they’d like their Red Scare back. By now I’m sure you all know my politics well enough to know that I probably do have a bit of a socialist leaning. But I think trying to read twenty-first century political thought into the book of Acts is to miss the point of the reading entirely.
One of the commentaries I read made the point, and I think it’s true, that when we read this text, we tend to get totally caught up in the possessions part. Why, we ask, is Jesus so keen in taking all our stuff?! So we do a whole lot of weird mental gymnastics to try and make sense of this passage and to justify our response to it. It was a different time back then, and people had to rely more on community. Or I earned this stuff, and certainly Jesus wants me to be generous, but it would be irresponsible to give away everything I own. Or, again, the communism argument, we know it didn’t work in Russia so that can’t be what Jesus meant. To which I say, you’re right, it’s not. The apostles were not secretly reading Marx and trying to overthrow the government any more than they were all free market capitalists. Friends, this was first century Palestine. You could literally buy something with a goat; there is no part of any modern economic theory that makes any sense with goat currency. Quite frankly, I think the fact that when we read this text our minds immediately go to possessions says way more about our obsession with stuff than it says about the text.
So what is this text about? Well, fun fact, the rhetorical structure of this passage is what is known as a chiasmus. Derived from the Greek letter “chi” which looks like and X and also happens to be the first letter in Christ—coincidence, maybe?—a chiasmus indicates that the most important part of the passage is at the center. “X marks the spot,” if you will. The center of this passage is the end of verse thirty-three and the beginning of verse thirty-four, “great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them.”
“Great grace was upon all of them.” Which sounds pretty great, but what does it mean to have “great grace”? Well, first off, notice that it was “upon” them. That word “upon” makes me think of it resting on them. There’s an airiness to it, like a blanket or a dusting. This etherealness reminds me that great grace isn’t the goal, because grace isn’t something we can strive for. Grace is a gift; it is given to us by God. The apostles don’t have great grace because they gave up of all their possessions; they were moved to a communal way of being because of the central experience of the great grace of God through Christ.
Rather than try to figure out exactly what this passage is instructing us to do in order to receive the great grace that was upon the apostles, let us start with the central premise that because of Christ’s death and resurrection, great grace rests on us, and then reflect on how we might live out that reality. Because, spoiler alert, I think that central truth is more powerful than any effort we might try, and more truthful than any system we might come up with. I also think that if we focus on living out of the great grace of God, we will find that living in the way the apostles described is way easier than we thought, because we are not forced to try to fit first century economic practices into our twenty-first century lives. Because, let’s face it, Meijers is not going to take your goat as payment, even though the Old Testament might say it is a perfectly acceptable trade.
So what might it look like to live out of the great grace of God upon us? The second half of the chiasmus said “there was not a needy person among them” and I opened with the casserole story because I think that’s an amazing example of that. My family had a need, and the need was not just met, but exceeded, by a rush of casseroles. One could argue that in fact the outpouring of the community then created a second need, the need for more freezer space, but let’s not get too bogged down in the details. If “great grace was upon them [and] there was not a needy person among them,” then it seems like the only thing we really need to do is find needs and meet them, and the rest will work itself out. I really believe that the work of Christian community is that simple. See needs, meet them, and everything else will fall into place.
And I know I’ve told this story before, but we have just about the best model in what this looks like right here in our building with the members of the Woman’s Co-op. Unlike so many social service providers, there isn’t a lot of thought put into how resources can best be distributed or what is the most effective distribution method, or what is the optimal ratio of administrative to programmatic costs. The model is literally, “your kid needs clothes, mine outgrew them, here you go. I need a ride to work, you drive past my house on the way to your job, you can pick me up.” Living from this core of meeting simple needs changes everything. You remember the mountain of canned goods in the hallway last week; I finally learned the story on that. That was a Co-op member who wanted to thank us for providing the space for her to get back on her feet. And she knew that the food pantry was important to us because every time she came into the office, there were always a few things sitting in the wagon. So when her tax return came in this year, she used a chunk of it to support a ministry she knew we cared about.
Dear friends in Christ, great grace is upon us. That’s what we celebrated last week on Easter, it is what we celebrate today and every Sunday when we come to the font and gather around the table. Great grace rests upon us as a gift from God. So let’s not get too caught up in making sure we live it out in exactly the right way. Being part of this community of believers is really, amazingly simple. Just go be the people of God in the world, in whatever way works in the place where you find yourself. The rest, I promise you, will fall into place. Amen.
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Conversation Points for Acts 4:32-35
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• At the point of this passage, the apostles have drawn the attention of the religious authorities in Jerusalem, resulting in the arrest of Peter and John and a hearing before the Sanhedrin court. Yet even as the church faces challenges, 4:31 assures the reader of the eventual results: “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.” This section is one of Luke’s pauses in the story to share the inner-workings of the church. This passage is similar to 2:42-47.
• In this section, Luke uses a well-known rhetorical device called a chiasmus. From the Greek letter χ, it indicates that the focus of the reader’s attention should be at the center of the text. “X marks the spot,” if you will. The pattern of this is ABCB’A’. A/A’ is the sharing of goods among the community.” A: v. 32 “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” A’: v. 35b “it was distributed to each as any had need.” B/B’ is the role of the apostles. B: v. 33a “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” B’: v. 34b-35a “for as many owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet.” C, the point of most importance, is that this practice connects the community with the grace of God and alleviates poverty. V. 33b-34a “great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them.”
Works Sourced:
Cary, Greg. “Commentary on Acts 4:32-35.” Working Preacher.. Accessed: 2 April 2018.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• At the point of this passage, the apostles have drawn the attention of the religious authorities in Jerusalem, resulting in the arrest of Peter and John and a hearing before the Sanhedrin court. Yet even as the church faces challenges, 4:31 assures the reader of the eventual results: “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.” This section is one of Luke’s pauses in the story to share the inner-workings of the church. This passage is similar to 2:42-47.
• In this section, Luke uses a well-known rhetorical device called a chiasmus. From the Greek letter χ, it indicates that the focus of the reader’s attention should be at the center of the text. “X marks the spot,” if you will. The pattern of this is ABCB’A’. A/A’ is the sharing of goods among the community.” A: v. 32 “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” A’: v. 35b “it was distributed to each as any had need.” B/B’ is the role of the apostles. B: v. 33a “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” B’: v. 34b-35a “for as many owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet.” C, the point of most importance, is that this practice connects the community with the grace of God and alleviates poverty. V. 33b-34a “great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them.”
Works Sourced:
Cary, Greg. “Commentary on Acts 4:32-35.” Working Preacher.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
Monday, April 2, 2018
Change the Ending: A Sermon on Mark 16:1-8
I have to say, this was an amazing year for sacred and secular holidays overlapping. First we started Lent with the overlap of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day, which gave all sorts of great reflections on the nature of God’s love. And now, today, on Easter Sunday, it is April Fools Day. Which I just think is amazing because my relationship with God has always felt very playful, and I like the idea of the resurrection being Jesus popping back on the scene like, “surprise! Bet you thought I was dead!”
Adding to the humor of this coming together of Easter and April Fools Day is the fact that the assigned reading for this morning is the resurrection account from the Gospel of Mark. And the Gospel of Mark is by far the weirdest of all the resurrection accounts. I’d guess if I asked most of you to describe the scene on Easter morning, you’d talk about the women coming to the tomb, the stone being rolled away, and the angel telling the women that Jesus has risen. Then some of you might remember Jesus appearing to the women as they went to tell the disciples, or to Mary alone in the garden, or to the disciples on the road, or any number of the other post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. And while all of those are part of the Easter readings from other years or from later in this season, none of them are from Mark. As we just heard, the Gospel of Mark ends very abruptly, “and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Wait, what? “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” This was not the ending we had been built up to expect. Especially not from such a convicted narrator as Mark, who started with the bold proclamation “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and then led us on this break-necked rush through the ministry of Jesus, punctuated by the refrains of immediately, so fast that by the time we got to the end of the first chapter, Jesus had already been baptized, tempted, called disciples, exorcised a demon, and healed not only Simon’s mother-in-law, but the whole town of Capernaum. How could something that started out with such promise end in this quiet fearful whimper?
It’s a weird ending. In fact, it’s such a weird ending that if you open your Bible at home; you may see a couple of additional verses set apart in brackets, titled “The Shorter Ending of Mark” and “The Longer Ending of Mark.” There will probably also be a note accompanying the brackets explaining that these additional verses are not in the oldest versions of Mark. Scholars almost universally agree that these endings were not original, but were added later by some scribe trying to smooth over the abruptness of this ending. Like us, some second century scribe came to the end of Mark’s Gospel and thought, wait a second, there is no way this ends like this. So he pulled on his knowledge of Luke and Acts to construct an ending that made more sense, one in which Jesus actually appears, and the disciples went out and spread the message of Jesus. That these additions were not written by the same person that wrote the rest of the Gospel is pretty obvious if you read them. Only an over-eager budding theologian would come up with a line like “afterward Jesus himself sent out through them… the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” Mark is known for its simple and direct prose, whoever tried to end the Gospel like that was clearly trying too hard.
Our second century compatriot might have been trying too hard, but I think he fell into the exact trap the original writer of Mark had set for him and us. Because throughout the Gospel of Mark, we the reader have been set up to expect something amazing. At his baptism, a voice from heaven proclaimed, this is my Son. Three times, Jesus told the disciples he would die and rise again. Moses and Elijah showed up on the mountain, and he argued with the Sadducees about resurrection, like we the reader knew something big was happening. So this whimper of an ending, with the women who came to the tomb slinking away in terror and amazement, telling nothing to no one, it just doesn’t feel like the ending we expect or deserve.
We also know it’s wrong. Because obviously, we’re here. We know that the disciples must have told someone Jesus rose from the dead, because someone told us. We know from Matthew, Luke, and John that Jesus appeared to the disciples, we know from Acts that the Spirit came at Pentecost and the message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee and into the whole world. We know that Mark’s ending is wrong. And so, like our second century scribe, we find ourselves confused, and maybe a little incensed, by this ending. Come on Mark, this isn’t how it ends!
And that, I think, was exactly Mark’s point. To get us to do exactly what this second century scribe did, and change the ending. We know it’s wrong. We know resurrection follows death, light follows dark, hope follows despair. Jesus taught us that, he set us up to believe it. He planted it within us as he traveled on the road, as he healed those in need, as he taught about his death and the life to come. We know the truth, Mark got it wrong, the disciples and the women could not have left in fear and told no one.
I think the intention of the writer of Mark’s Gospel was to get us so incensed by the abruptness of this ending that we, like the second century scribe, would find ourselves challenged to go out and change the ending. To not be like the disciples, not be like the women, to not slink away in fear and amazement, telling nothing to anyone, but instead to go out and tell the world, this is not how the story ends! The story doesn’t end in fear, it doesn’t end in terror, it ends in hope and life and joy. This wrong ending dares us to proclaim a different one, the one that we know to be true, the one where Jesus defeated death and sent the Spirit on the disciples to bring this message to the world.
After all, isn’t changing the ending exactly what resurrection is all about. Jesus had been telling his disciples throughout his ministry, I’m going to die and then three days later, I will rise again. And the disciples were like, nope, that’s not how the story of death ends. Death ends with death. Except in this case it doesn’t, because Jesus changed the ending. Changed the ending so that life always follows death, hope always follows despair, light always follows darkness. It is, as Paul called it, “the foolishness of the cross,” that the ending we expect is never the ending that we get when Jesus is around.
So if Jesus changed the ending, so that resurrection always follows death, and Mark is daring us to change the ending of his Gospel, to proclaim this new ending that Jesus has written, what other endings might Jesus be inviting us to rewrite? Maybe the ending where you don’t have anything to offer, that keeps you from showing up in the world? Or the ending of that relationship you thought couldn’t be mended. Maybe the ending where violence is an inevitable part of our world and there’s nothing we can do about it? Or that systemic poverty is just that, a system that cannot be changed? All of these are endings we have been conditioned to believe are inevitable, but what Jesus’ resurrection shows us, and the ending of Mark’s Gospel challenges us, is that endings are never as they seem. And if we don’t like the ending, if the ending doesn’t end in life, and hope, and resurrection, then Jesus has probably already changed it. All we need to do is heed Mark’s challenge and proclaim what we already know to be true. This is not really the end; it is only the beginning. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Adding to the humor of this coming together of Easter and April Fools Day is the fact that the assigned reading for this morning is the resurrection account from the Gospel of Mark. And the Gospel of Mark is by far the weirdest of all the resurrection accounts. I’d guess if I asked most of you to describe the scene on Easter morning, you’d talk about the women coming to the tomb, the stone being rolled away, and the angel telling the women that Jesus has risen. Then some of you might remember Jesus appearing to the women as they went to tell the disciples, or to Mary alone in the garden, or to the disciples on the road, or any number of the other post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. And while all of those are part of the Easter readings from other years or from later in this season, none of them are from Mark. As we just heard, the Gospel of Mark ends very abruptly, “and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”
Wait, what? “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” This was not the ending we had been built up to expect. Especially not from such a convicted narrator as Mark, who started with the bold proclamation “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and then led us on this break-necked rush through the ministry of Jesus, punctuated by the refrains of immediately, so fast that by the time we got to the end of the first chapter, Jesus had already been baptized, tempted, called disciples, exorcised a demon, and healed not only Simon’s mother-in-law, but the whole town of Capernaum. How could something that started out with such promise end in this quiet fearful whimper?
It’s a weird ending. In fact, it’s such a weird ending that if you open your Bible at home; you may see a couple of additional verses set apart in brackets, titled “The Shorter Ending of Mark” and “The Longer Ending of Mark.” There will probably also be a note accompanying the brackets explaining that these additional verses are not in the oldest versions of Mark. Scholars almost universally agree that these endings were not original, but were added later by some scribe trying to smooth over the abruptness of this ending. Like us, some second century scribe came to the end of Mark’s Gospel and thought, wait a second, there is no way this ends like this. So he pulled on his knowledge of Luke and Acts to construct an ending that made more sense, one in which Jesus actually appears, and the disciples went out and spread the message of Jesus. That these additions were not written by the same person that wrote the rest of the Gospel is pretty obvious if you read them. Only an over-eager budding theologian would come up with a line like “afterward Jesus himself sent out through them… the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.” Mark is known for its simple and direct prose, whoever tried to end the Gospel like that was clearly trying too hard.
Our second century compatriot might have been trying too hard, but I think he fell into the exact trap the original writer of Mark had set for him and us. Because throughout the Gospel of Mark, we the reader have been set up to expect something amazing. At his baptism, a voice from heaven proclaimed, this is my Son. Three times, Jesus told the disciples he would die and rise again. Moses and Elijah showed up on the mountain, and he argued with the Sadducees about resurrection, like we the reader knew something big was happening. So this whimper of an ending, with the women who came to the tomb slinking away in terror and amazement, telling nothing to no one, it just doesn’t feel like the ending we expect or deserve.
We also know it’s wrong. Because obviously, we’re here. We know that the disciples must have told someone Jesus rose from the dead, because someone told us. We know from Matthew, Luke, and John that Jesus appeared to the disciples, we know from Acts that the Spirit came at Pentecost and the message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee and into the whole world. We know that Mark’s ending is wrong. And so, like our second century scribe, we find ourselves confused, and maybe a little incensed, by this ending. Come on Mark, this isn’t how it ends!
And that, I think, was exactly Mark’s point. To get us to do exactly what this second century scribe did, and change the ending. We know it’s wrong. We know resurrection follows death, light follows dark, hope follows despair. Jesus taught us that, he set us up to believe it. He planted it within us as he traveled on the road, as he healed those in need, as he taught about his death and the life to come. We know the truth, Mark got it wrong, the disciples and the women could not have left in fear and told no one.
I think the intention of the writer of Mark’s Gospel was to get us so incensed by the abruptness of this ending that we, like the second century scribe, would find ourselves challenged to go out and change the ending. To not be like the disciples, not be like the women, to not slink away in fear and amazement, telling nothing to anyone, but instead to go out and tell the world, this is not how the story ends! The story doesn’t end in fear, it doesn’t end in terror, it ends in hope and life and joy. This wrong ending dares us to proclaim a different one, the one that we know to be true, the one where Jesus defeated death and sent the Spirit on the disciples to bring this message to the world.
After all, isn’t changing the ending exactly what resurrection is all about. Jesus had been telling his disciples throughout his ministry, I’m going to die and then three days later, I will rise again. And the disciples were like, nope, that’s not how the story of death ends. Death ends with death. Except in this case it doesn’t, because Jesus changed the ending. Changed the ending so that life always follows death, hope always follows despair, light always follows darkness. It is, as Paul called it, “the foolishness of the cross,” that the ending we expect is never the ending that we get when Jesus is around.
So if Jesus changed the ending, so that resurrection always follows death, and Mark is daring us to change the ending of his Gospel, to proclaim this new ending that Jesus has written, what other endings might Jesus be inviting us to rewrite? Maybe the ending where you don’t have anything to offer, that keeps you from showing up in the world? Or the ending of that relationship you thought couldn’t be mended. Maybe the ending where violence is an inevitable part of our world and there’s nothing we can do about it? Or that systemic poverty is just that, a system that cannot be changed? All of these are endings we have been conditioned to believe are inevitable, but what Jesus’ resurrection shows us, and the ending of Mark’s Gospel challenges us, is that endings are never as they seem. And if we don’t like the ending, if the ending doesn’t end in life, and hope, and resurrection, then Jesus has probably already changed it. All we need to do is heed Mark’s challenge and proclaim what we already know to be true. This is not really the end; it is only the beginning. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)