By Rev. Dr. Charles J.
Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist
Partnership
Trinity Sunday and Memorial
Day, May 31th, 2015
But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than any human authority. (Act 5:29 NRS)
But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than any human authority. (Act 5:29 NRS)
When all other British-born Methodist preachers left during
the American Revolution, only Francis Asbury stayed behind and continued to
plant churches, traveling some 6,000 miles each year by horse. He is said to have influenced the planting of
some of the very first Methodist congregations in northern Iredell County, such
as Mt Bethel (1797) Moss Chapel (1799) and Snow Creek (1801).
One day someone asked Rev. Asbury why he was always
preaching on the passage "Surely ye must be born again." Bishop Asbury is said to have had a simple
answer, "Because surely ye must
be." (From a sermon by Alex Stevenson, “Why You Must Give Your
Life to Christ”, at www.goodprecher.com).
Perhaps that was the sentiment of the majority of Methodists,
the Baptists and Presbyterians around
here at the end of the 18th century, but that’s surely not the most common
sentiment now. Today faith is mostly personal
or private matter, only widely accepted as an opinion, an option, or a
recreational pastime. Some of us may
have memories of a time when we ‘had’ to go to church was part of everyone's expectation.
WHO’S IN CHARGE?
“Why do I have to
become a Christian?” “Why should I join or participate in a Church?”
or Why should I take Jesus seriously
when he said, “I am the way, the truth,
and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me?” Haven’t we learned that the world is a bigger,
a lot more complex and complicated than when Peter first said, “Repent
and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus” (Acts 2.38)? How could anyone today dare suggest, as the church
once preached, that ‘there is no other name
given under heaven that has been given among mortals, by which we must
be saved’ (Acts 4:12)? Aren’t there
all kinds of other ways to be saved?
This kind of exclusive, demanding, or decisive biblical ‘musts’ makes what happens in this text especially
interesting. When Peter and the other
apostles went around preaching, healing, and witnessing to the name of Jesus
Christ, they came in direct conflict with the prevailing authorities. Those authorities felt seriously threatened by this outright,
non-negotiable, unqualified claim “that
there is salvation in no one else… (Acts 4.12). Even though the message came from the ‘uneducated and ordinary’, the
authorities still ‘ordered them’ not
to speak of him any more. But even after they had been ‘put in prison’ (5:18) they would not
stop and were being reprimanded again: “We
gave you strict orders not to teach in his name, yet you have filled Jerusalem
with your teaching….” (5:28). Why
are these apostles so obstinately and persistently hard headed? Why were they so insistent? Who do they think they are? It is Peter who gives us the answer as he
goes from saying ‘we can’t keep from speaking….” (Acts
4: 20) to saying more forcefully, “We must obey God rather than
any human authority (Act
5:29 NRS).
Did you catch that word again? Must?
Was it really all that serious? Can
the church require that anyone ‘must’
believe such a dogmatic, inflexible, uncompromising concept of salvation or
obedience to God? How dare the church
demand anything from me, from you, or from anyone other than what I want to do
or have?
Peter’s unyielding
words goes straight to the heart of an issue that is still current for us. ‘Who’s
really in charge of my life or in charge of this world?’ Should a certain
religious perspective be our ultimate concern? Is a certain political perspective really what is decisive for our future? Is a certain scientific proof determinative for everything else we should believe,
think, say or do, or is the truth always relative to whatever I decide is true
for me? In a world where truth seems
more uncertain than anything is for certain, how can the church preach, teach
any kind of truth that would demand to be taken so seriously?
Besides, who
cares? It’s a free country, isn’t
it? I can decide what I want and who I
want to be, can’t I? Isn’t that where
most people are in their thinking? Aren’t
we smarter than to let our lives be controlled by any ‘must’ at all, let alone the commands of a demanding, difficult God
who is proclaimed as ‘Lord of heaven and earth (Acts 17.24)? If God’s really that big, then why doesn’t he
come down and say so himself? Why does he
keep making demands on little people like us when we can’t see that he is who he
says he is?
On a particular
Sunday, the church sets apart for preaching about Christ the King, the former Dean of Duke Chapel, Will Willimon, tells how he once asked the
congregation present whether or not Americans actually need a king to be in
charge over their lives? “Do you need a king? Of course,” he continued, “since we are Americans, democratically
disposed, we are averse to monarchy.”
Right?
But he went
on to say he wasn’t “talking about some
polo-playing playboy who dabbles in architecture.” He was
talking about a real king. He said
he also wasn’t talking about “a pleasant
woman clutching a purse, wearing a small hat and sensible shoes.” He was “talking
about a lord who would set things right, somebody’s who’s really in charge.” In his sermon he went on to talk about the
lordship and kingship of Jesus Christ who is the only rightful ruler of all
life and the universe. Can’t imagine to
many people at Duke taking such a sermon seriously as they do basketball, can
you?
After that
service, as people exited, some mumbled ‘nice sermon’, but one lady clutching a
purse, wearing a small hat and sensible shoes stopped. “Did it not occur to you
that you might have British subjects in the congregation today? “Our queen is ten times the Christian of your
silly actor president,” she
shouted.
“I wouldn’t put that to a vote here, he responded
in jest.” She didn’t
get the joke. “You’re not funny, and I
intend to report you to your superiors.”
Willimon answered that since he
was a preacher from South Carolina, he had no idea who his superiors were.” “Stuff
like that is why we broke away from those people” someone commented.” The strange thing, Willimon added, is that this
lady really did understand his point, maybe better than anyone. The question we all must answer is: “Who is on
the throne? Who rules? Who’s in charge of our lives? (From W. Willimon’s sermon, “Who’s
In Charge Here” in The Collected Sermon of William H. Willimon, WJK Press, 2010, pp. 159-160).
WHO’S REALLY NOT
IN CHARGE?
What ‘s most
remarkable about the story of the church in Acts is not just that it settles ‘who’s
in charge’ or what we ‘must’ believe,
but Luke also takes great pains to show us how these people who thought they
were in charge, really weren’t.
Isn’t it
amazing how threatened these very powerful Jewish leaders were by these ‘uneducated and ordinary’ (4.13) men who
were preaching about a rejected, betrayed, denied and crucified man, whom they
now claimed has been raised from (4.10)?
Do you see just how ridiculous a claim like that would be, if it wasn’t
true? Who would believe this? Why were these controlling, dominating,
leaders worried? Why didn’t they just
laugh their way back to their seats of power and relax?
Well for one
thing, Luke shows us that they were worried because ‘a lame man from birth’ was now walking around praising God ‘in the name of Jesus’ (3: 6-10). They were all worked up and worried about a
movement, no one really knew yet what to name.
Even the angel who commanded them to preach ‘the whole message about this life’ (Acts 5.20) didn’t know. But it
kept growing (5.14) beyond anyone’s control as a ‘message’ and a ‘movement’
that seemed to have a life of its own.
Also, the
people who were in charge were worried because Peter and the apostles grew even
bolder in their sermons and speeches (4.29, 31). ‘A
great number of people’ were gathering even from the towns around Jerusalem
(5:16) as rumors about all kinds of ‘signs
and wonders’ were circulating among the people (5: 12, 16). Most of all, they were worried because when
they had to call the ‘whole body of
elders of Israel’ together to bring charges against these they had already locked
up, when the guards went to retrieve them, they found the prison doors still closed
and locked, but the prisoners were all gone.
Guess where they found them next?
‘Standing in the temple’ teaching the people (5:19-25), preaching
the same message that had put them in prison in the first place. It is a
bit humorous to revisit how ‘out of control’ the situation was for the temple police (5. 22,26). They must have looked something like the ‘Keystone
cops’, for even when they brought Peter to stand before them, reminding him of
‘strict orders not to teach’ (5:28),
he started preaching straight in their faces!
Do you see
just how unnerving the whole situation was for the power people? The people who think they are in control have
their hands tied behind their backs, so to speak, and the people who were put in
chains and cells, keep going free. And
when the lest they could do was ‘order
them not to speak in the name of Jesus (40) ever again, it was like laying
a match to gasoline, for now, ‘every
day in the temple they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah’
(5.42).
Yet there is
something else, even more startling and perhaps alarming for us. Before you take your hat off to these apostles,
thinking they were about to take world by storm or single-handedly change of
the course of Israel’s history, think again!
The Spirit that was leading them was leading many of them straight into
the crosshairs of even greater challenges, more persecution, and even greater problems that
were attached to all these new possibilities.
Whatever this story is, it is certainly
not some fly by night, winner take all, happy ending fairy tale story. Jesus had promised that the Spirit would
fill them and send them out, but he also promised it would be something they
would have no complete control over. He
not only ordered them to ‘wait on the
Spirit’ (Acts 1.4) to empower them to “be
witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts
1.8), but he also told them that ‘it was not for (them) to know the times or periods when or how the
Father would restore Israel (1.6) and he also implied that they will
sometimes get more than they bargain for, as this word ‘witness’ also means ‘martyr’!
‘They will bring you before the
synagogues and the rulers and the authorities. Do not
be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy
Spirit will teach you in that very our what you are to say (Luke 12:11-12)
. Jesus not only promised the Spirit
would give them the words ‘to say’ but he also promised that if they were true
to Jesus, they would, in some shape or form, lose their life, if they truly wanted to find it (Mark 8.35).
However we
interpret what really happened in the early church, we must not get the picture
that the lives of these ‘spirit-filled’, dynamic and adventurous apostles were some
like some fictitious Hollywood lives thrown on the screen of our religious
memory filled with glamour and material success. This ‘must’
they were obeying and the ‘must’
they were following would eventually bring them as much fear, trembling and
suffering, as it would also bring adventure, purpose and meaning into their
lives. Could it be that the ‘great fear that seized the whole church’ (5.5) came not just because of
what happened to Ananias and Sappharia, but because of what would happen to many
of them as they obeyed the ‘must’ of
this demanding Holy Spirit?
Truly, the
things that were happening to them, or even happening through them, were dangerous
and endangering powers that were beyond their control. Even
though, as this text says, these apostles were released after they were ‘flogged’ (40), one commentator was
right to remark that: “39 lashes has
killed many a prisoner.” Furthermore, the ‘rejoicing’ (41) they did was not because they
had received a free ticket to glory, but it was because of the pain they were
ready and willing to endure to tell the truth they could not avoid (From “Acts”: Interpretation, a
Bible commentary for Teaching and Preaching,
William H. Willimon, 2010, p. 58,
location 1211, Kindle Edition).
It’s
intriguing that this God who sprang prison bars open will just as easily close some
of those doors, allowing the spirit-filled Stephen to be killed by stoning (Acts
7), or to permit the head of the
Jerusalem church, James, to be killed by the sword (Acts 12) or even to let
Paul, his most daring missionary to be beaten, stoned, shipwrecked and
imprisoned many times (2 Cor. 11.25) and finally to be beheaded in Rome, although
he had prayed and planned to go on to Spain (Rom 16.24). Perhaps even Peter himself was wondering how
his own situation would soon change, since Jesus had promised him ‘you will stretch out your hands, and
someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish
to go." After getting Peter
all worked up about his own mortality, then
Jesus challenged "Follow me." (John 21:18-19).
Is this ‘must’ of full, unwavering,
life-demanding obedience any way to call a disciple or build a church? Wouldn’t people stay away from it? Perhaps, this is the only way call a true disciple
of Jesus. You can manipulate a person to
join a church or you can try to get people to sign up for heaven with all kinds
of tricks, but there is only one way to call a person to follow Jesus
Christ. It requires that they hear, heed
some fully engaging ‘musts’ in their lives. “You must be born again (John 3:7)! We
must obey God rather than mortals (Acts 5.29)! Even when someone has sinned against you 7
times or 7 times 70, and then repents, “You must forgive“ (Lk 17.4). “Each
of us must please our neighbor (Rom 15.2).
When God calls a (disciple), God calls them to come and die! The one who said this was hung for following
his ‘must’ (Bonhoeffer). We would all
wish to ignore ‘musts’ like that.
It would be nice
to think we could have the Christian life another way, without all the daily musts we have to do to remain faithful
each day, without giving anything up.
We’d like to think that the power, the miracles, the healing, the
growth, and all the other wonderful things that happened in that early church
could fit into our shrinking church budgets or be stuff into our own church
tool boxes, so we can decide whether to adopt or how to adapt them for own plans. But that’s
not what happened then, nor is it what really happens now.
If we learn
anything in the Bible about the God of the Bible, it is that we, you, nor I,
nor any Christian, Church or person, can ever put God in any kind of box. That’s why the Jews never wrote down his
‘name’, nor let anyone go near him, if they could help it. You can’t put the true God is a Jewish box, a
Roman Catholic box, a Baptist or Methodist box, nor any other box, be it contemporary, traditional, for that matter. If you think you have this God pegged or
cornered, he is the God who keeps breaking loose, springing out, stirring
things up, and then releasing new ‘fiery
tongues’ to burn up whatever words and ways we have devised to try to control
or bottle him up.
Besides,
haven’t you noticed that what happened in the early movement of Spirit in the
church, for the most part, seldom happens today? If something like that does happen, as it has
from time to time, no one has ever been successfully able to control or
manipulate the miracles of the true God.
No one can control where or whether the ‘signs and wonders’ will happen, nor have they been fully prepared
for when they won’t. There is no safe place to hide or reside away
from this God, except for placing ourselves under the shelter under his mighty wings. Have you ever tried feeling safe and secure
under the wings of a high flying bird?
Recently I
read how a Texas pastor, a Baptist preacher, entered the pulpit and
told his congregation that, if they really wanted to be Christian, they needed
not to have any of symbol of allegiance in their sanctuary other than the
cross. He then recommended that the
children stop pledging allegiance to the American flag at VBS, since this our
land is not really a Christian country, and then he, as their spiritual leader,
saying he was inspired by the Holy Spirit, advised they should take the flag
out of the church once and for all and not lift up anything alongside of this truly
invisible, truly demanding God. Do you
know how well that went over? Today he’s
a Mennonite pastor in Virginia.
Or maybe
you’ve heard about the other Mennonite pastor in Virginia, Kenneth Miller, who
was recently convicted for and jailed for aiding an international Kidnapping
scheme. A woman from Vermont came to his
church in Virginia seeking a new way of life in Christ, renouncing her former
life, and wanting to take her daughter away from the court order to share
custody with her former Lesbian partner.
The pastor helped her arrange to move to Canada, and then to Nicaragua,
stating that God’s law trumps Federal law, adding that the government has no
business redefining marriage (http://news.yahoo.com/va-pastor-gods-law-reigns-same-sex-dispute-074138627.html).
I told obeying
the ‘must’ of a demanding and decisive God could get you in trouble. However you come to understand what you must
or mustn’t do, the only guarantee I can give you in your obedience to him is
that you will never control your own destiny ever again. Just
like in Luke’s picture of the early church, when the Spirit is obeyed, the
powerful nor the faithful were in control, nor were they assured of what would
happen next.
THE GOD WHO RULES
So, how can I
dare preach that we ‘must obey God’ when
there are no guarantees or when the question of control will demand that you
release your own control of what happens next?
What might encourage any of us who are still holding on, or holding out,
to obey God or even to rejoice, if we too might have to ‘suffer dishonor for the sake of the name?’
(5.41).
Strangely
enough it was a wise and respected Pharisee of the Jewish council named
Gamaliel, who Luke offers as encouragement for obedience and trust. Gamaliel was a Jewish rabbi, and not even a
member of this new movement, but he was a very smart man—a man who understood very
well just what the stakes are, and just how dangerous it would be to go against
the God who will always be bigger than your plans or my plans, our desires, our
wants, wishes, or to any predictable human hope.
Knowing from
Isaiah that God’s ways are not human ways, or that God can be just as
indiscernible as he is demanding, Gamaliel reminds these leaders who might just
make their next wrong move, just how dangerous it could be. ‘Fellow Israelites’ ‘consider
carefully’ what you propose to do…” (5.35). Could he be talking to me or you? If all this “activity” (NIV) or ‘undertaking’
(NRSV) or ‘work’ (KJV) is only of human energy, it will eventually
fail. But, then he cautions, “but if this does come from God, you
will not stop it (NIV) and if you go up against it, and
it is from God, you will find yourself “fighting
against God….” (5: 38-39). This line
of reasoning is what persuaded them
to stop, to think, and to wait.
But what line
of reasoning was this? What got their attention
about ‘going up against God’ that doesn’t get people’s attention today? What moved them to realize with Paul, that God
would be true and liars could be made out of each and every one of us? (Rom
3.4)? Isn’t this eternal, unresolvable, irrevocable possibility
of error where the ‘must’ of the
church always comes from? Isn’t this why
I must be born again, and again, and
again? Isn’t this why I must obey God rather than mere mortals? Isn’t this why I must forgive 7 times 70, even when I don’t want to or don’t know
how? Isn’t this why I must live to please my neighbor, and not just please myself. I must,
and the church must, and we all must, because we could end up on the
wrong side of a gulf that is fixed and cannot be reversed.
Isn’t this
the day for you to realize that the ‘right side’ is the place where you must let God decide? With the rest of the church, and with
Gamaliel too, we must decide to stand
together and find God’s side? Is there
any other logical option? “Let this be our logic, wrote John
Calvin, “that which is of God must needs
stand, though all the world say nay!” (From Calvin, John (2012-08-26). The
Complete Biblical Commentary Collection of John Calvin (Kindle Locations
420887-420888). . Kindle Edition).
Have you
decided what you must do
with or for God today? Remember
Gamiliel’s logic: You are not as much in
charge of what happens next, as you think you are? Amen.
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