Getting Back In the Saddle

Acts 2:42-47

This should be an easy one for me to meditate on – so harmonious with my own thinking, so bold in its vision, so clear in its conviction, so powerful in its example. Perhaps I’m out of practice, but although many sermons come to mind, new insight is not burning within me. Perhaps I should take the scripture’s advice: devote myself to the apostles’ teaching, break bread with others, pray often, share my material wealth with the poor.

I am struck by the words devoted to the apostles’ teaching, and the difference between my job and my discipleship comes into focus. As a minister, my job is the devotion of the saints to the gospel of Jesus Christ. But my discipleship, my personal devotion, does not come with the title or in the 60-hour work week. Over the past two months or so – my first on the job, filled with new responsibilities and stress – I have focused on the job, and even lost site of the big picture there. I have been sucked into the details, the administrativa, the responsibility, the pressure. I need to remember to let myself breathe, and breathe intentionally with the Spirit sometimes, in order to be a good minister and a good disciple.

I am grateful for the patience of those around me: my wife, my co-workers and neighbor on whom I depend so, the congregants and church members who want to meet and welcome me. Surely, I am not done with the transition process – to European thinker, to Dutch resident, to regional president of the church, to supervisor, and so on. But I am hearing the need within me for more devotion. Prayer, breaking bread, sharing possessions (and time?), and returning to the scriptures as a tool for devotion. (I get too academic about scripture, sometimes.)

All the spiritual gifts and community proceeds from devotion to the apostles’ teaching. That’s where it all starts. At least for me. At least for this morning. I’m sure I’ll have more to learn tomorrow.

Prisoners & Release

Acts 16:16-34

In 1913, 74 members of the International Workers of the World labor union (the "Wobblies") were arrested and put into the Snohomish County Jail near Everett, Washington. It was the newest jail, highest security technology - all steel. By common consent, all the Wobblies organized to start singing at a certain time that morning. They started singing, and jumping up and down, and soon enough hit the resonating frequency of the steel walls and broke the wall. They broke the jail by singing.

Now, it wasn't an earthquake, and they didn't have the opportunity to escape afterwards, but it does go to show the tremendous potential of being in prison for a just cause.

Paul and Silas were imprisoned and tortured because they set a girl free from economic exploitation. Her bosses were mad that they lost their source of revenue (they showed no concern for the girl, just their money), and took Paul and Silas to the authorities. The authorities, all too often ruled by the economic interests of the wealthy, agreed that Paul and Silas had to be kept under lock and key. Not only that, but stripped and beaten, then "severely flogged," and then taken to the inner-most cell of the jail, the most secure place, and even then put in stocks to hold them. (Sounds a little like Abu Ghraib.)

That night an earthquake destroys the jail (and their stocks?). The jailer comes rushing back, knowing that if these prisoners escaped it would be his life. He finds Paul and Silas waiting patiently for his return. The jailer asks: What must I do to be saved? His question is really a double entendre. What he means is what does he need to do to keep Paul and Silas from escaping, he is at their mercy. But what we know (because we're reading this story through the eyes of the Holy Spirit) is that what he needs is the gospel.

This is also a clear example of civil disobedience. Paul and Silas are arrested for an act of justice that violated the laws (and economic interests) of the rich and powerful. They do not take back the act, and do not attempt to evade the consequences of their actions. In fact, their submission to the laws (however unjust) is a double indictment of the injustice. Even when offered an opportunity to escape, they remain, forcing the authorities to confront the question of injustice in their midst.

But what is most striking is that the roles are reversed. (This is so Lucan.) Paul and Silas are tortured and imprisoned, but in the end they are the free ones, and it is the jailer who is tortured and imprisoned by his job and obligation and loyalty to the System, and it is he who requires liberation from his bondage. The jailer is converted by the experience of trying to hold Paul and Silas.

Individuals enmeshed in the System are converted not by people being nice and polite, but by people honestly and sincerely challenging the injustices supported by the actions of those enmeshed in the System. Paul and Silas' act showed the jailer who was really the victim of the State: not Paul and Silas the prisoners, but the jailer who is forced to torture and imprison men whose only crime is standing up against oppression.

The jailbreak, therefore, isn't for Paul and Silas, but for the jailer. When he asks: "What must I do to be saved?" he is recognizing that he is really not free, not safe, not saved.

What a tremendous testimony. Even those who are carrying out the orders of the System, who are doing terrible and unjust deeds, even those who think they are doing the right thing by supporting the State and its violence and oppression, can be converted by the civil disobedience and dedication of the faithful. A-men!

putting the meta in metamorphosis

Acts 9:1-6

Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of Jesus, heads to Damascus to flush some more messianic-Jews out. I love that the text describes Saul "breathing" these things - such a dramatic word, but also a very good image. Part of becoming a disciple is to breathe in the story, to make it what informs you and fills you, what comes in and goes out, the most common and most intimate things about you. And whatever you breathe in is who you are - disciples of Jesus breathe Jesus, Saul breathes threats and hatred. The text seems to tell us that persecution had become itself a god and identity for Saul; it was what he breathed.

Also jumping out of this text for me is that Saul is on his way, he's on the road. How often the Spirit confronts us in the midst of our doing something very important, very intent, when we think we're very busy and perhaps even doing the right thing! On the road to Damascus. On the road to Emmaus. On the road to (or away from) Nineveh.

It seems that when we're in the midst of something we think is desperately important, God blinds us with insight. God knocks us down and speaks to us. We're stunned and confused and a little affronted, and we need to be led by the hand a few steps because we're unsure of our legs.

We can say our God is a God of Love, but I think just as much God is Change, Transformation, Newness, Difference. And sometimes change doesn't come easy or painless.

Saul gets knocked on his butt with the realization that what he is doing is profoundly wrong, and has to spend some time in the dark before he is ready to see the world through new eyes. There is some truth to this period of waiting, too, the in-between time after you realize what you were but not what you will yet become. It isn't a "twilight" period, or even darkness, it is just "not-seeing." A chrysalis.

"This Man's Blood"

Acts 5:27-32

Jesus' disciples cannot stop talking about Jesus - and talk about Jesus is teaching about Jesus (which is why, incidentally, neo-orthodox theologians get so upset by historians and people like The Jesus Seminar who want to talk "about" Jesus... their "talk" becomes teaching about Jesus). As soon as the apostles get out of jail (either by escaping or by being set free), they return to talking all over Jerusalem about Jesus. And at this point, it is likely that whatever they say, even if it is the most orthodox Jewish claim, will be spoken and heard through the filter of making some statement about Jesus.

Is Luke being deliberately ironic when he has the high priest say to the disciples that they "are determined to bring this man's blood on us"? What the high priest means, of course, is the guilt of a condemned and executed criminal, perpetuating whatever crime of treason or disorder of which Jesus was convicted. But in another way, what the disciples are doing is precisely that: to bring Jesus' blood on all of them - spread recognition of Jesus' act(s) of sacrifice and opening the way to redemption. The high priest was exactly right about what the apostles were wanting to do, but misunderstanding it himself. (The continuation of the motif of misunderstanding is another link to Luke's Gospel - but here the high priest is in the position of the disciples in the Gospel: having heard the teachings but misunderstanding what they mean or imply, and being instead filled with confusion and fear of reprisal from earthly powers.)

The apostles do want to bring Jesus' blood on the people - but not as condemnation but as redemption, not as imprisonment but as liberation, not as a death-sentence but as new life.

Peter answers, however, the question of the high priest: "We must obey God rather than any human authority." What a perfect summary of principled disobedience. It is a more-articulate echo of an earlier similar confrontation a few verses previous (4:19). This is why Martin Luther penned his 95 theses; why Martin Luther King, Jr., led the bus boycott and spoke against the Vietnam War; why Gerrard Winstanley, Conrad Noel, Cesar Chavez, John L. Lewis, Rev. Lewis Bradford, and Hugh Thompson Jr., disobeyed and acted righteously: Holy (Dis)Obedience. Obedience to God supplants obedience to any human authority - something American Christians would do well to remember when the nation calls for war and vengeance. This new loyalty (and its political dimensions) is referenced again when Peter describes Jesus as "Savior": the Greek word "soter" was used to describe the Roman Emperor and the Roman gods. By using this politically-charged word Peter was making a statement about political loyalties and calling the religious leaders of Jerusalem on their collusion with an oppressive occupying power (instead of, presumably, principled disobedience of some kind).

Peter continues this inversion of expectations by actually highlighting Jesus' criminal conviction and violent end. Luke has Peter reference Jesus being hung on a tree. Is Luke taking some dramatic poetic license here in describing the cross as a tree? (It seems most contemporary Christians sing with this kind of language this way, as if Peter was euphemistically describing the wooden cross as a tree.) In Deuteronomy (21:22-23) hanging the body of an executed criminal on a tree was an act emphasizing his accursedness. It was a such a potent symbol of accursedness that it was not allowed to remain overnight, lest it defile the whole of the country. Luke is taking poetic license here, but not in describing the cross as a tree. Luke is using hyperbole in describing the general sense of accursedness attributed to Jesus. He wasn't just condemned, tortured and executed as a criminal by the Romans, the general impression is that Jesus was condemned and cursed by God! How much more powerful is the reversal of fortunes if this man so profoundly cursed is not only redeemed but exalted to the right hand of God, and declared Soter?!

Peter here is one-upping the high priest in describing the misfortune of Jesus, as if to say that no matter how bad you think Jesus was, we can go even further. Even more to say: no matter how much we describe his accursedness in this world, so much more profound is the work God has done (is doing) in/through Jesus and his redemption. Luke has Peter almost grandstanding in court (reflecting a fine twist of language that is characteristic of skilled Greek rhetoric), which makes it more understandable why the council before which Peter is speaking becomes enraged at his statements.

Finally, something that impresses me is that in this confrontation the apostles make no reference to Jesus' resurrection as part of the kerygma or message. They speak of exaltation, but not resurrection. Why is that? Was it just an oversight on the part of the author, or something more deliberate? Was the bodily resurrection (a notion popular at that time, so there was no reason to exclude it from the testimony of the apostles) not important to the message the disciples were spreading?

Something for me to chew on... and take comfort in. The fundamental of the kerygma is transformation, repentance, metanoia.

At least, in front of that council.

Confirmation of the Holy Spirit

Acts 8:14-17

That the lectionary selection stops at verse seventeen kills me. Verses eighteen to twenty-four talk about the role of money and wealth in gaining the the powers of the Holy Spirit, specifically the assumption of the rich that they can buy such blessing without any true conversion. But perhaps my blood boils too easily, too quickly, at such verses, and the limits of this week's lectionary can focus me and minister to my resistant heart.

Two things jump out at me. First, that the Samaritans were converted before Peter and John got there - indicating that some first-contact missionary was sent or had arrived among them, and that Peter and John arrived to confirm the conversion and status of the new adherents to their Jewish Jesus-movement. Second, that this must be the origin of the Christian rite of Confirmation. First comes Baptism, and then comes Confirmation of the Holy Spirit.

That these early Christians (although they weren't called that yet at the point when this story takes place) still needed education and to be brought further along in their faith, even after baptism, is a good sign to us who would claim the fullness of the gospel descending all at once. Humans are stubborn creatures, and our wills and understandings and beliefs may change quickly sometimes, but even then there are hold-outs, carry-overs, the residue of our former minds and hearts. It is easy to change the clothes we wear, but more difficult to change what those clothes are put over. Peter and John arrive to help in that process.

Also, the prayer the apostles give involves laying on of hands. Growing the Holy Spirit in someone requires physical contact. We are intellectual beings, and emotional beings, but we are also embodied beings. The prayer Peter and John give reflects all these realities. And it reminds us that we must reach out physically, as well as metaphorically, to those whom we would help gain the Spirit.