Blog Archives

WE CANNOT KEEP FROM SPEAKING

9/25/2022

Acts 4:1-20 (edited)

While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day.

The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem and called the prisoners forth, and asked “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Let it be known to all of you that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified and raised from the dead.”

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and had nothing to say in opposition. So they spoke among themselves and said, “What will we do with them? A sign has been done through them; we can’t deny it.” But to keep it from spreading let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. But Peter and John answered them, saying, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for yourselves, for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Last week we discussed the first part of this story in which Peter and John healed a lame man through the power of Jesus’ name. This was done quite publicly and drew a large crowd—many of whom, drawn by the Holy Spirit, heard Peter’s words and became Jesus followers.

If there was anything the temple authorities both hated and feared, it was rumors flying around about people healing in unauthorized names—and here were Peter and John, standing right out in the open and proclaiming Jesus of Nazareth—crucified and risen--as the one who heals. And the people just kept on coming to hear more.

The Sadducees were especially irate because by speaking of Jesus as alive they were proclaiming there is life after death—which the Sadducees adamantly did not teach. So they gathered up some priests and the captain of the temple guard and arrested Peter and John, on the spot, and threw them in a cell.

The next morning the High Priest and the Elders met together and ordered Peter and John to be brought before them, and when they arrived they asked them, “By what power or by what name did you perform this act of supposed healing?”

By this time the once lame man had come to stand with Peter and John, and Peter stepped forward and answered the priests, “Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.” Going on to quote Psalm 118, v 22, Peter continued, “This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’”

When the priests heard Peter and John speaking they recognized they were uneducated and ordinary men, and so they, the priests, should be able to use their authority to shut them up—and yet they were frustrated because half of Jerusalem had seen the lame beggar healed and subsequently dancing in the streets. If they tried to say that never happened, they ran the risk of losing even more authority with the people—because the people knew that it did happen.

The priests were in a bind. Two common fishermen and a beggar--by their words and actions-- were challenging the authority of the temple leaders—or at least their right to be the sole interpreters of the Law. And they had no valid argument that would stand up against what the crowds around them had seen for themselves. So they had to let them go.

However, they still had to do something to shut these men up and keep this story from spreading any further than it already had, so they let them go, but warned them they were to never speak of this Jesus again. The disciples answered them saying, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard,” and after threatening them some more, they finally released them, finding no way to hold or further punish them, because of the people, for all of them praised God for what had happened.

And the disciples returned to the streets and went right on preaching the name of Jesus — and the people kept on coming to hear them and to see whatever wonders they might do -- and the Holy Spirit continued to work in them – and their numbers increased daily.

We, too, are called to speak our truths, every bit as much today as these first Christians were in their day. In a casual conversation, in an argument, in social settings this is not usually too hard to do, but what if we were threatened with imprisonment for speaking against the prevailing “authoritative” version? What if we speak out in the face of threats of harm?

People do speak their truth, and some have paid high prices. We’ll be hearing about some of these people in the next few weeks. We would most likely like to think we too, would speak out, but would we...?

0 Comments

SILVER OR GOLD I DO NOT HAVE

9/18/2022

0 Comments

Acts 3:1-10

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter 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 he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and astonishment at what had happened to him.

We are here today to begin our somewhat speedy journey through the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Before we begin, I need to correct something I said last week, which was that we only have five or six free weeks before Advent begins for a new year—it’s actually about ten weeks—I counted wrong. This will give us a little more time, but it’s still going to be a rush to squeeze in twenty-eight chapters! We’ll be skipping some things, and I’ll be condensing others.

There’s a lot to cover. Acts is, overall, the story of the expansion of the Jesus movement out into the Gentile world and, eventually, all the way to Rome. Jesus himself announces this coming expansion in his last farewell speech before his ascension: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

You’ll remember that last week I said that Acts was written at least 70 years after the death of Jesus—maybe more—so while reading these stories we have to keep in mind that while they tell a true story, they do not necessarily give us verifiable facts. Acts is almost certainly an idealized story of how Christianity came to be. That doesn’t mean it is a lie, just a bit exaggerated. The truth is here—the details may be blown out of proportion.

Today we’re starting in chapter Three. This story comes shortly after the events of what we now call “Pentecost”—the day the Holy Spirit swept through a mixed crowd of people in Jerusalem and gave the Jesus people their first converts—thousands of them, if we are to take the texts at their word.

I attempted to find an estimate of the population of Jerusalem at this point but the results I found were so diverse that I gave up. Jerusalem was a good-sized city for its time. It was the site of both royal and religious leadership for the Jews, but even more importantly, it was the convergence point for several major trading routes that crossed the there—up from Egypt, down from what we now call Europe, and from the East—both far and near. Large masses of converts were possible—maybe not thousands at a time, but many, so there were some pretty large groups of converted Jesus followers playing a role in the stories to follow.

It's easy to get distracted by such trivia as "are the big numbers real?" I'm only pointing this out to you because we should not let such questions distract us from the truth of the story--which is that God was working all kinds of miracles in this place at this time. We believe it or we don't.

Sometime shortly after the Pentecost miracle Peter and John had this exchange with the blind beggar, which was our opening reading. Having “neither silver nor gold” Peter has given the beggar the one thing he has to give—the name of Jesus and the faith to know that name heals. And the lame man is, of course, healed.

This was one of the first public healings performed in the name of Jesus and it caused a major eruption among the local authorities. People flocked to hear and see more from Peter and John—and from the once-blind beggar—whom everyone local had known and recognized for years. The one who was now standing and walking—and jumping around, shouting praise to God.

And so, of course, a crowd began to gather, all wanting to know how such a thing could happen. Seeing this, Peter began to speak--and here I need to add an aside note. In this Book of Acts we meet a Peter we haven't seen before. A Peter who has found his voice...one who has been touched by the Holy Spirit...who has seen and spoken with his Risen Lord...the one chosen by Jesus. This is not the stumbling buffoon of the gospels--the one who got it wrong so often. Peter has a vision; he has a story to tell and he's not afraid to speak out, and so he speaks to the gathering crowd, saying basically, “Why are you staring at us with such wonder? Do you not know who did this? Do you not remember Jesus of Nazareth whom you crucified here a few weeks ago? The one you refused to listen to?

He told them the things Jesus had done and that they could believe because he—Peter--and the other disciples had seen with their own eyes and he reminded them that they were the descendants of those long ago Jews who had killed the prophets, and now they, in turn, had “killed the very author of life, whom God has raised from the dead”. They had been absolutely wrong...but God knew it was not their fault for they had been misled and it was done in ignorance. Still, they must repent—ask for forgiveness—and believe in the Jesus who cured this lame man...and so much more.

And the Holy Spirit blew through them and they did repent and they did believe...and they now became part of the ever growing body of those who believed and followed and helped to change the world.

This story is too long for one week, so next week we’ll hear the rest of this story as Peter and John are hauled in to be questioned by the Sadducees and other temple authorities who thought they were finished with this Jesus guy.

They’ll soon find out that this is only the beginning.

0 Comments

A Continuation or a New Beginning?

9/11/2022

0 Comments

Acts 2:38-42

Peter said, “Change your life. Turn to God and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins are forgiven. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is targeted to you and your children, but also to all who are far away—whomever, in fact, our God invites.” He went on in this vein for a long time, urging them over and over, “Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture!”

That day about three thousand took him at his word, and were baptized. They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

Last week in ‘in-person’ church we talked about where we wanted to go now that we had finished our “special” series. The decision was to return to the lectionary and go from there – and that was my plan...until I realized that we really only have five or six weeks [!] before Advent begins and a new cycle starts.

At the same time, I’ve been thinking that we almost never really read into the Book of Acts because almost every year we begin a “Summer Special Series” immediately after Pentecost.

So – this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to read in Acts. There are 28 chapters and we have six weeks—maybe—so this will have to be a somewhat abbreviated journey—but my intention is to help us understand just how much this is a story about people doing things that had not been done in this time and this place before—some actually extraordinary things.

First, we’re going to do a quick survey of the chronology of Acts and just where it fits in with the other books of the New Testament, and after we’ve done that we’ll read as many of the stories as we can fit into our time.

I’ve talked before about the fact that this book—although it wasn’t written down until much later--relates a time in which there where not yet any written stories about Jesus or the things he had taught and done—no letters, no gospel accounts (at least as far as we know.) Not a single piece of the writings we have today that make up the New Testament existed at the time the Book of Acts tells about.

Yet, this first batch of faithful Jesus followers set out to tell the world about Jesus. How did they do it, and even more importantly, why did they do it?

The earliest written document in the New Testament is St. Paul’s 1st Letter to the Thessalonians, written twenty years, give or take a couple, after the death of Jesus. That’s the first piece of written history of Jesus’s life and teachings that we have (although there is some disagreement on this.) At any rate, that is twenty years of Christian communities being formed and spreading outward across Europe—with no written canon to hold them together.

We tend to lean heavily on the four gospels for most of our information about the who and why of Jesus, and yet, the first of the gospels to be written is Mark’s, which was written around 70 AD, approximately 40 years after Jesus’ life. The second was Matthew, written in the 80’s or early 90’s. The third to be written was John’s, written around 90 AD, followed by Luke, possibly written as late as the first decade of the second century. And, since Luke’s Gospel account and Acts were both written by the same author–actually written as one long piece and then divided into two separate scrolls—that means that Acts was written possibly 70 years after the life of Jesus. Seventy years after the birth of the new Christian faith.

Here’s a little side tidbit you might find interesting: All these items would have been written in the form of scrolls, and scrolls had a maximum length or weight because if a scroll got too long or too heavy it would have been hard to handle and easily damaged or torn, so Luke’s long opus was divided into two scrolls—Luke’s Gospel and Acts.

The Gospel of Luke ends with the Ascension of Jesus ,and Acts opens with a slightly longer version of the Ascension. Then there is a bit of in-house business concerning the choosing of Matthias to take the place of Judas in the Twelve, and then the day of Pentecost, described in chapter 2.

Chapters 3-8 give us individual stories describing some of what happens in the earliest years, but by chapter 9 Acts becomes largely a recital of Paul’s activities, ending in chapter 28 just prior to Paul’s death in Rome.

It’s a lot of anecdotes—but we have to remember, it was all written long after the fact and most likely heavily sanitized by the time it reached us.

New Testament scholar and historian John Dominic Crossan once wrote, “how does it happen that the early years of Christianity are so shrouded in silence?” He points out that we have next to nothing in contemporary writing from those first 20 or 30 years, but by the 50’s we have an absolute deluge of writings. Why?

I’m hoping we can pin down at least some small answers to this question over the next few weeks.

0 Comments

YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

9/4/2022

0 Comments

Hebrews 13:1-4

Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it’s needed. Why, some have even extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you. Honor marriage, and guard the sacred intimacy between wife and husband.

Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. God assures us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,” Therefore be fearless, no matter what. Who or what can get to you? .....For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.

We have now finished our series on Imagining a World with More..., and before that we did several weeks exploring the concept of Covenant in the life of the church, so now we’re going to drop back into the lectionary, most likely for the remainder of Cycle C, which will run until the Sunday before Advent begins for the new cycle.

So, today is the 13th Sunday after Pentecost but I am using the New Testament reading from last week (because I find it much more interesting.)

Hebrews is an interesting book, rich in imagery and teaching. We don’t know who wrote it. No author’s name is attached to it—not like the letters that claim to have been written by Paul but clearly were not. If there ever was an author’s name attached, that name has been lost to history. Over the centuries some have ascribed it to Paul, but as Marc Borg put it, “There’s no good reason to think Paul wrote it, and many reasons to think he did not.”

We don’t even know to whom it was written. Paul’s letters (with the exception of Philemon) are all written to specific communities —the church in Corinth, the church in Thessalonika, etc. This letter isn’t even written like a letter—there’s no salutation—no greetings to specific persons.

Even the title, Hebrews, is confusing because it is clearly written to a Christian audience—most likely 2nd generation Christians who were familiar with the Jewish scriptures.

It's an interesting little puzzle—a letter that doesn’t always seem like a letter, written by an unknown writer to an unknown group of people living who knows where. The Letter to the Hebrews is almost as interesting for what we don’t know about it as for it’s contents.

Even the date is unknown, with scholars split almost 50/50 on whether it was written before or after 70 CE. This is an important date because the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in that year by the Romans—a big event which can often help with dating based on if it is mentioned or not. There’s no mention of it here so half believe it was written before, and the other half believe it was written after and therefore didn’t need to be mentioned because everyone already knew about it—so, not very helpful at all.

As I said, an interesting puzzle. But what is truly important about Hebrews is not it’s mysteries but the claims this unknown writer makes about Jesus—and what they show us about what second generation Christians believed about Jesus.

This whole document—only thirteen chapters long—is basically a lesson in the faith history of the Hebrew people—and of Jesus’ place in that history. It is also, again quoting Marc Borg, a “thoroughly subversive” history, because at every step Jesus is clearly ranked above all other figures in that history, and in the end, Jesus replaces even the need for the Temple.

In the opening words of this “letter” we are told:

Recently God spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says.

A few verses later we are told:

You are God, and on the throne for good; your rule makes everything right (this is God speaking to Jesus).

The writer goes on for several chapters making it clear that Jesus is not just a wonderful teacher, not just the Master the disciple followed here on earth, but he is the Son of God—and more than that he is God—from the beginning and forever.

Continuing, our writer relates an encapsulated history of the Hebrew people, emphasizing the great heroes such as Abraham, Joshua, and Moses, and how for all their greatness they were only leading up to the greatest, Jesus, who was and is the great high priest.

There follow many comparisons to past high priests but Jesus is the greatest of them all—this one who “holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.” The blessings of past high priests were never permanent, they had to be given over and over because they didn’t last, but the forgiveness given by Jesus lasts for eternity. We can have faith in this because Jesus holds that forgiveness for us—forever. There is no longer a need to rely on Temple sacrifice because Jesus has made himself the ultimate sacrifice—now and forever.

And because we are the inheritors of all that Jesus brought to our world, we can live with faith and hope—even in those times where faith and hope do not seem obvious to us. And because Jesus came and lived among us and died for us and blessed us with the new covenant we are called to serve in a manner well-pleasing to God--on good terms with each other and held together by love, as our opening scripture tells us.

And we are called to do it fearlessly, for who or what can harm us? For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.

0 Comments

WE CANNOT KEEP FROM SPEAKING

SILVER OR GOLD I DO NOT HAVE

A Continuation or a New Beginning?

YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

Rev. Cherie Marckx

Archives