Acts 5:27-32 Commentary

Note:Reviewing old sermon notes, I realized I last preached this text for my congregation in Washington DC in 2019.  Thereis a lot of contextualization having to do with Christians working as civil servants for the United States federal government.  I am going to leave that in place since, six years later, it sadly seems all the more apropos.

Commentary:

This week, the accumulating weight of the world landed heavy for me. I bear witness to the fact that this country — this city in particular — is tired. Many of us have found the end of our playbooks. Many of you have also wondered how to stay present and upright in the swift currents of this particular moment.  How do we care about vocation, about the common good, about justice, about the possibility of good governance and not come away from the workday bruised and battered?  What, in this text is good news for us?

The witness of Peter and the others before the Sanhedrin comes as part of a larger narrative of persecution, including prison and the faithfulness of God, including a jailbreak.  As they leave their confinement, here’s what I might wish the angel of the Lord to say to the apostles: “Wow, guys! You’ve really been through a lot. I’m so impressed! But, you know what? You’ve done enough.  It’s probably someone else’s turn now.  No one’s going to know you are missing until the morning, why don’t you make a fast break out of Jerusalem?  Line up some self-care on the banks of the Dead Sea, splurge for an exfoliating sea salt scrub. Just leave the problem of persecution to someone else for a change.”

But that is not what the angel tells the apostles to do. Instead, the angel says, “Go, stand in the temple courts and tell the people the full message of this new life.”  In other words, “Dust yourselves off and get back in the game.”

So the apostles show up in the Temple at sunrise and begin to teach the people.  Once the religious leaders sort themselves out and pull themselves together, Peter and his colleagues are hauled in front of the magistrates and told, “you were warned. You were given an explanation. Nevertheless, you persisted.” You “are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”

These leaders are not guilty, as subsequent anti-Semitic interpretations of Scripture have suggested, because they are Jewish but because they are human. A quick defensiveness, the deeply human desire to hold guilt and culpability at a distance.  But, of course, the reality is that the apostles’ message — while it begins in guilt — only starts there because you can’t get to the forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration and resurrection without some consideration of your need for these things. And this is the grace the apostles are trying to get to with the religious leaders.  “God exalted Jesus to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel (read: all of us).”

Now, again, the way I’d like this to go: The teachers, priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, elders and guards all look at each other and say, “This is exactly the message we need.  It is true.  Now, how can we follow your Jesus?  Tell us everything — wait, is someone writing this down?”

Because, if their opponents, antagonists and rivals would respond that way, then the suffering, exhaustion and exertion of the apostles would be “worth it”, right?  They could walk away with a good return on investment, the clear evidence of God’s favor on their efforts, basically, what we’re all hoping for in our life and work and ministry.

But, of course, that isn’t what happens.  Instead, the leaders get mad and look to put the apostles to death. Gamaliel steps in with a seemingly gracious gesture, though tinged with passive-aggression. “Rabble-rousers like these are a dime a dozen.  Their leaders claim to be someone, then they die and the whole thing falls apart.  These folks — their message and their Jesus — aren’t even worth your effort.  The whole thing will fall apart eventually and you don’t want blood on your hands.”

The apostles’ are flogged and again told not to speak in the name of Jesus.  And their response is, again, not how I would have written it.  But it is so much better. “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”

Illustration:

Willie Jennings writes of the apostles in this story: “They are free but they are not safe. They are never safe. Safety is not the inheritance of Jesus’ disciples.”

While “Safety is not the inheritance of Jesus’ disciples” screeches like nails on a chalkboard to my North American experience, assumption and expectation, I’ll bet you anything that our siblings around the world are nodding along to see that their suffering participates in a long legacy of what it has always meant to follow Jesus.  Even today, where “Safety is not the inheritance of Jesus’ disciples”, the name of Jesus is be praised in house churches in the Middle East and labor camps in China, in refugee settlements around the world.

Even now, as “Safety is (STILL) not the inheritance of Jesus’ disciples”, the church around the world may yet persuade the church in North America by their example that there IS gracious meaning and joyful purpose beyond our assumption that it is possible to follow Jesus politely and in safety. We have to grapple with just how foreign suffering for the sake of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection really are. I mean suffering from disease or grief or natural disaster or just from the consequences of our own dumb choices. We’ve all been there.

But have I ever been counted worthy of suffering for the Name?  And do I regularly rejoice in even the small sacrifices I am called to make? What does it mean to stay in the game or to get back into the game or just to get in there for the first time, to never stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. What does that mean? What will that look like when I exit these doors and enter back into the world — my life, this city — such as it is on Monday morning?