April 11, 2010

 

Scripture:         Acts 5:27-32

 

Sermon:           “Speak Up”

 

            Turning our hearts and minds now to the word of God, let us read together the scripture lesson for the day.  Turn with me to the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5 where we will read together verses 27 through 32.  You can find that easily on page 164 of the New Testament in the pew Bible.

            The Acts of the Apostles—this is the record, this book of the bible that is, this is the record of what happened with the followers of Jesus after his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.  What did his disciples do then?  Well, the same guy that wrote the Gospel of Luke compiled this history of events of the years after Jesus.  We call it the Acts of the Apostles.  Apostles are “ambassadors”.  So, we get the idea that the followers of Jesus became ambassadors for the message of Jesus’ gospel.  They spread the news of all that had taken place.  And this book explains how folks like Peter and Paul roamed about planting churches, or communities of faith that remembered Jesus in worship and taught people how to become his followers.

            Now, we are going to read from pretty early on in the story.  We’re in chapter 5 this morning.  And what has happened so far is that Jesus’ followers ran into a great deal of resistance.  They kept getting into trouble with the religious authorities in Jerusalem for telling people about Jesus rising from the grave.  One day Peter and John got arrested and hauled in before a council of priests and scribes.  The council said to them, “Do not speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.”  And they let the two men go free.

            Again, some of the apostles were arrested after healing some folks who were sick.  The story goes that an angel of the Lord appeared and freed them from prison under the dark of night.  So, they headed back out to the courtyard of the temple and starting teaching people about Jesus.  Stubborn men they were.

            So, for a third time they were arrested and brought before the council.  Our scripture lesson this morning is an account of what then took place.  Just try to imagine the boldness of Peter and the others as they spoke back to these people who could have had them killed.  You ever known somebody that can just throw all caution to the wind and speak whatever is on his or her mind?  It’s not always my gift, I’ll admit.  So, I marvel at these stories.  This is the word of the Lord…

 

            When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council.  The high priest questioned them, saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”  But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.  The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

 

            We cannot help but speak up.  We cannot help but speak out.

            My wife listens to the music of these two women who actually grew up in my neck of the woods down in Georgia.  She listens to them almost daily.  I kind of like them, too.  But, Julie is obsessed.  The Indigo Girls.  You might be familiar with them.  Maybe not.  But, there is this line in one of their songs that kind of describes how I encounter this story from the Bible.  “There must be a thousand things you would die for.  I can hardly think of two.”

            It’s like there are just some folks who are passionate and compelled by the things they believe that they’d speak out or do something in the face of whatever consequences might result.  Like Peter here in Acts, you know.  He’s not afraid.  He’s passionate.  He’s compelled to speak about what he’s witnessed in Jesus.  And if it means the end of his life, so be it.

            I did not live through the biggest struggle in our nation for Civil Rights.  I never witnessed those things first hand.  I just grew up in their shadow and in their memory.  But, I see pictures of people marching in Alabama as police opened up fire hoses on them.  That’s what I’m talking about.

            I read this story about Peter and the others and that’s what I see.  There must be a thousand things you would die for, Peter.  I can hardly think of two.  So, I marvel at it.  And I wonder if there is ever anything that I’d risk everything for because I believe it so strongly.  Do you know what I mean?

            For Peter it was Jesus.  Goodness.  Just think about it.  Peter’s the guy that was so scared the night Jesus was arrested that he lied to folks on three different occasions that night saying, “I never knew the man!  I’m not one of his followers!  Leave me alone!”  And now here he is without a trace of concern for his own welfare.

            And we don’t live in a place where telling folks the gospel of Jesus Christ carries much of a threat to us.  I know we pass around emails about how we’re losing our religious freedoms and such.  But, I’ve been to places where it is downright against the law to speak about Jesus in such a way as to try to convince another person that he’s the Son of God, the Savior.  We don’t live in a place like that.  I don’t really buy into the hype that we are in danger of ever becoming a place like that, either.

            No, I’ve been to the West Bank of Palestine where you are quite allowed to be a Christian all you want.  There are churches there that date back to the times when this book of the Bible was written.  Bethlehem.  That’s Palestine.  Jerusalem.  Ramallah.  But, you are not allowed by law to make more Christians out of the other people who live there, who, as you know, are predominantly Muslim.

            And don’t get me wrong.  I have known many good people that are Muslims.  And my own life is all that much richer because they are who they are and they’ve shared with me what they had.  That’s not my point so much.  What I’m saying is that we do not live in a place like that.

            And just across the barrier in the State of Israel it’s kind of the same thing.  You can be a Christian all you want.  But, it is against the law to try to convert folks.  And I understand that in a way.  You’ve got a population of Jewish people who are trying their best to preserve their identity in the wake of the Holocaust.  I’m just suggesting that we don’t really know what being a Christian in a hostile environment is all about.

            That’s what Peter and the apostles were living through.  It could have cost them their lives to keep teaching about Jesus.  For many of them, it eventually did.

            There must be a thousand things you would die for, Peter.  I can hardly think of two.  That’s what I mean.  Consequently, it’s difficult for me to imagine what I would dare to speak up about regardless of the personal consequences.

            We had to have some work done at the house a few weeks ago.  The dryer went belly up.  So, I waited around the house all morning for the maintenance guy to come over.  And he gets there, goes down to the basement with me, and starts taking apart the broken dryer.  I offered him a drink of water, trying to be nice.  Talked about the weather.  You know how it is.  Complete stranger.  Awkward conversation.  Just killing time.

            He said, “What do think about this health care bill?”

            Now, I’ll be honest.  I cannot for the life of me understand the ins and outs of everything that has been passed regarding health care.  I do know that I’m frustrated with the situation as it is.  And I know plenty of folks that have lost just about everything with medical bills and dropped insurance coverage.  I mean, it’s broken.  But, I don’t know how it all works.  And I sure don’t believe I have any answers.  I’m not all up in arms about it if that’s what you need to know.  And that’s pretty much what I told the guy.  He’s a complete stranger.

            But, then he launches into this diatribe about socialism and how terrible it all is and there is this website that explains it all that me and my wife ought to take a look at, you know.  There’s always a website.

            I really just wanted to be able to dry my clothes again!

            The thing is, this was a man that was passionate about something he believed in.  I don’t share his alarm over the state of things.  I just spent a week in Mexico with people who live on top of an old garbage dump.  My perspective is a little bit altered.  But, he was moved to tell anybody and everybody what he believed so that he might have some kind of effect the next time people went to place a vote.

            What would I risk my life for?  What would I risk people thinking about me for?  Let’s be honest.  That’s about the only thing that’s usually at stake for most of us—what people think about us.

            Now, there is something.  And you’ve endure my sermons long enough, most of you, for this to sound somewhat familiar.  But, I’m pretty passionate about it.  It compels me to speak.  And I’ve come to the point where it doesn’t concern me that folks would not only disagree with me but say some rather unsavory things about me if they heard me speak in such a way.

            Are you ready?

            I believe very strongly that there are some very dangerous and very incorrect teachings among us who call ourselves by the name of Jesus Christ.  Now, I’m usually one who doesn’t split hairs over such matters of doctrine.  Usually I’m much more concerned with how what you believe influences the life that you lead.  But, that’s kind of the point, here, too.  It alarms me some of the things that pass for biblical understandings.  So, I’ll speak up about it here.  I’ll look to Peter and the apostles for inspiration.

            Chief among them is this pervasive idea that you and I, all of us, any human being, is a completely corrupted and utterly rotten thing.  This is the starting point for understanding ourselves according to this teaching among us.  It starts out like this:  everything about is essentially evil.  You are totally depraved, you sinner.  Totally depraved.  Not just partially, you see.  It’s total.  The total depravity of man—and women if you wish to be inclusive.

            Oh, folks will go on about how Paul said in Romans 3:23 “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  And we are to understand from this single verse that there isn’t a shred of good to be found in any of us.  Is that what Paul was saying?  Is it?  Is it true that because we are sinners that there is nothing sacred about us at all?  Nothing worth loving in each other?

            You see, I think we are living in an atmosphere, a culture, that is consumed with telling people how short of perfection they are.  My God, we worship the image of models wearing size zero clothes to the point where some of our daughters hate their own bodies and starve themselves because of it.  Not to mention the rampant use of narcotics, the seeking out of unhealthy pleasures to make the pain we’ve endured go away for just a little while.  We have learned to measure our own value by how much we can accumulate, how big our houses are, how nice our automobiles are.  Some of us struggle our whole lives to understand why we were never good enough for the affection of the people who gave us birth.  We are bombarded with messages about how this product will give us that longed for happiness, or this new drug that is on the market.  You are never good enough the way you are.

            And I hear the church just piling onto this mess with this madness of making sure that they know just how evil they really are in order that they might turn to Jesus in an attempt to avoid eternal punishment that is so rightly deserved.  I mean, the church is just emphasizing the same disrespect for the human creation that we are already suffering from.

            Yes, Paul did say we all sin and fall short of the glory of God.  Maybe what he was trying to say is, “Yes, you’re a sinner.  Get over it.  You’re forgiven by God’s grace in Jesus Christ.”

            I might go over a few minutes, but this is really important to me.  The Bible begins with this incredible claim.  Right there in the first chapter of the first book, Genesis.  What does it say?  “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  In God’s image!  Do you hear that?  Is it possible that Paul is trying to get us to see that our true nature is actually a very beautiful thing?  It is a sacred thing?  It looks something like the God who created us?  I don’t hear anything like that from the church when it says, “man is totally depraved and rightly deserving of punishment.”

            “All of have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Maybe Paul is telling us to get over it because none of have lived so perfect as to sit in judgment of the other.  Perhaps.

            And this way of teaching even goes so far as to say that it is our essential nature to be so corrupt!  Your born that way.  Corrupt.  Totally depraved.  From birth.  It’s who you are.  Just preying upon the guilt we carry around with us, I think.

            But, then there is this story about Jesus picking up a little child to show as an example to all of his followers.  An example.  He said, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  I hear Jesus saying something about how children have not yet lost track of that sacred image within them.  And the church is busy telling folks that they’re born corrupt.

            No, what I want you to leave here today with is a simple idea.  And not everyone is telling you this.  But, I believe that it is what God is trying to get us to see throughout the Bible, and through this gift of Jesus Christ, who died while we were still sinners.  It takes a God that sees something worth redeeming within us to do such a thing, by the way.  A God that can still see what we cannot.  You are amazing.  You may not know it.  You may have done some awful things in your life.  You may not feel so good about what you see in the mirror.  But, you are amazing.  And God loves you with passion.  You are amazing.  You are beautiful.  That’s who you are and what you are.  That’s what God set about creating in you.  Quit trying to be pleasing to God.  You already are.  And if you get that into your heart, maybe you will finally be able to start living that abundant life because you know that you’re just way too good for anything else.

 

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)