Scripture reading: Acts
4:1-20
One of my
grandmas (my Baci or Babci) was Polish and when I was a kid she taught me some
Polish words. My favorite was “idź spać”.
“Idź spać”
literally means “go to sleep”, but you can use it as one way of saying “shut up”.
I loved that saying that!
When I
was little, I would use that on people who had no idea what it meant. And I
wouldn’t tell them what it meant. I was smart enough to know better. Or you
could say I was just being silly.
The high
priests of the Temple in Jerusalem must have thought that one of their most
important jobs was to say “shut up”. I think they really loved that job. I
think they were used to having people shut up very fast when they said it.
Peter had
been on trial, once before, about Jesus. It wasn’t a formal trial. That first
trail happened on the night when Jesus was arrested, when bystanders accused Peter
of being a disciple of Jesus. Peter crumbled in fear and denied even knowing
who Jesus was.
On this
day in court, Peter was brilliant. Actually the Holy Spirit was brilliant. Peter
said: “Are you putting me on trial for an act of kindness?” “Rulers and elders
of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness
shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all
the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you
crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you
healed.” (Acts 4:9-10)
Sometimes
Christians seem very weird in the wrong way, and for all the wrong reasons. The
New Testament teaches us to be weird in the right way, for all the right
reasons.
Or maybe
it shouldn’t be weirdness. It’s about being controversial. Followers of Jesus
are called to the controversial life. Jesus motivates us to live, and speak,
and respond in extraordinary ways; in unexpected, surprising ways. We are
called to imitate the pattern of Jesus.
We do it
for him. We do it in Jesus’ name. Paul wrote: “Whatever you do in word or deed,
do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him.” (Colossians 3:17)
In this
story about a healing, and the joy, and the fear, and the anger which that
healing produced, we can see this element of surprise over and over again. When
Peter and John made contact with the lame man, healing came as a complete surprise.
The lame man never asked for healing.
There’s a
little humor in it too. Peter almost joked when he said, “I’m sorry that I don’t
have the money you need. All I can do for you is to heal you in the name of
Jesus.” That’s an Evans paraphrase.
In the
trial before the Jewish high court, Peter started out pretending to
misunderstand the purpose of the trial. “Are we on trial for kindness here? Are
you the kindness police?” Peter made light of something the court took very
seriously.
The
members of the court weren’t used to being treated like that. Even more
surprising, the members of the court were very skillful in the art of creating
fear and intimidation, and the disciples only demonstrated courage and
conviction. It took the members of the court completely by surprise.
The court
did nothing to Peter and John to hurt them, but the warning and the threat were
real. The life of the disciples was set to change. Controversy for the sake of
Jesus would be costly. Peter, and John, and the rest of the followers of Jesus
would live into a life under threat.
How did
they all respond? They prayed. What did they pray for? Did they pray for deliverance,
and safety, and God’s all-powerful protection? No! Did they pray for wisdom,
and prudence, and discernment?
No! The discernment
they already had led them all to pray for boldness. That was the big surprise.
The high court hadn’t sent them home for that. The Holy Spirit did the
surprising thing and filled them all with boldness.
Peter and
John had been courageous and positive. In their message to the crowd, they had made
a point of comforting their hearers by recognizing that they had not realized
what they had done when they shouted for the crucifixion of Jesus, and that the
leaders hadn’t known what they were doing either. During the trial, Peter only
talked to the high court the way he did in an honest effort to talk sense to
them, and to tell them the truth that they clearly didn’t understand even yet.
Boldness can be as simple as that.
In our
controversial life we are only giving the world around us, and the people we
see every day, a gift that we understand, knowing that they simply don’t
understand yet.
In our
controversial life we are called to do and to say surprising, unexpected things.
In our controversial life we are called to humbly and good humoredly give to
others something much better than what we are given. This is because of what
Jesus has given us. It’s because of what Jesus is more than ready to them. We
only give to the world around us the work and the words of Jesus.
The controversial life can be dangerous. In
the end Peter died because he lived and spoke for Jesus. Of all the apostles,
only John died a natural death. The others were all killed because they lived
and spoke for Jesus, and because they did this with boldness.
Boldness
for Jesus can be dangerous. People are dying for Jesus right now. We shouldn’t
think that this danger is beyond the realm of possibility for each one of us.
We never know what way the world will turn.
On a
lesser note, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find yourself being told to
shut up about Jesus. Someone you know very well, and have always gotten along with
just fine, may basically say to you something like this: “We don’t care what
you do as long as you shut up about it. Shut up about Jesus.”
Remember
that you can be bold with humor, and grace, and with good sense.
Some
Christians seem to think that Jesus does some sleight of hand with us. They think that, if you make a formal,
heart-felt surrender of your right to a thing, that Jesus will turn around and
give you that thing. I keep thinking that if I surrender what I consider to be
my right to be married, that God will give me a wife. I’ve been making that
mistake for years now.
If you
surrender to God your sense of having a right to live a quiet,
non-controversial life in which you are not called upon to have your faith
judged and to have your faith mocked, that doesn’t mean that God will be OK
with your retreat from the controversial life.
Of course
you can play possum. You can play it safe, if you really want to do that. The
price of playing it safe will be a life where God leaves you alone a great deal
of the time. That can be a happy life, and a lot of people choose to live a
life where God leaves them mostly alone.
Our
calling is to rescue those people from that kind of happiness. You’ve got to
choose your happiness carefully (or perhaps boldly).
When
Peter and John were called back into court and told to shut up, this was their
answer: “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you
rather than God. We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
(Acts 4:19-20)
One thing
cannot be a surprise; and that is knowing whom to obey.
There is
this other thing too. “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and
heard.” If we are to be followers of Jesus there must be something that we know
of him.
Boldness
is not a part of my nature. I had to start doing surprising things that no one
expected me to do when I had a deep conviction in my heart that I could not stand
the thought of being a person who said no to Jesus. I had to do something that
I didn’t believe I had to do (and I still don’t believe I had to do it).
The Lord
presented me with some minor thing that I had to do. I had to fight myself to
do it. I had to be controversial with myself; that I would not say no in a
little thing to Jesus, who died for me on the cross.
I have to
be vague about this because, otherwise, I promise you, someone will make this
little thing into a big thing that everyone has to do.
When I
refused to be a person who said no to God, I began to change in many ways and
to understand the Bible in ways I had never understood it before. I became
happy in a way that I had not been, ever before.
There was
no supernatural vision or hearing. There wasn’t even a sense of “my heart
strangely warmed.” (Although I have had such spiritually warming experiences
before and since.)
I had to
perform the surprising gesture of disobeying myself and crossing a line that I
had drawn in the sand. I was pushing a boundary. I was making myself into a
controversy with myself.
When I
did this, something in me cracked and opened. I simply became abler than ever before to see
and to hear that Jesus is real, and that Jesus is Lord.
Before
they were arrested, Peter and John spoke to the crowd about the times of
refreshing that will come from the Lord. (Acts 3:19) This points to the new
creation, the new heaven and earth that will come when Jesus comes again.
The times
of refreshing, though, are beginning right now. They have been beginning for
the last two thousand years. The times of refreshing come when Jesus crosses a
line that you have drawn in the sand, when he comes to any person and cracks
that shell that they have made to protect themselves from knowing who Jesus is.
The times
of refreshing come with the forgiveness of that past life and the change that every
person needs so much, so deep down inside them. That is the work of the death
of Jesus for us on the cross, and his own rising to a new life to give us the
gift of dying to ourselves and rising to a new life.
There is
some way that Jesus will make you able to see and hear that he is real, and
that he is Lord, that you have never understood before. Jesus died and rose to
make this possible, and to make you his own person.
Then you will
join the controversial life, and you won’t be able to help speaking and living
what you have seen and heard of Jesus.
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