Service outside the box (sermon from Sun, Feb 3, 2019)

Reading:  Acts 3:1-12

 

The Book of Acts tells the story of the Christian community that comes into being following the death and resurrection of Jesus.  In the New Testament it appears as a separate book, but originally it was written as the second part of the Gospel of Luke.  The first part of the Gospel is how the kingdom of God on Earth comes to light in the life and death of Jesus, and the second part is how it continues to come to light in the life and mission of Jesus’ followers.  The continuation of the Jesus-story in the life of Jesus’ followers is obvious in the story we read this morning, from Acts 3.

  

No surprise that it’s Peter who reaches out to the man born lame, and helps him be healed of his lifelong disability.  Who helps him stand on his own two feet for the first time in his life and be able to move from a place outside the gate, to join everyone else inside the Temple.

Here at Fifty we understand that kind of practical, hands-on, I’ll-do-what-I-can-for-you kind of spirituality.  Service to the Community has been named as one of our Core Values, and the only surprise some may feel is that it shows up as number three of the four, rather than at the top of the list.  Willingness to reach out and help others, is simply part of what we do here.

One of the first things I first learned about this congregation was its sponsorship – all by itself, of Vietnamese refugees a generation ago, and how this remains an important point of identity in this congregation’s story.  It made the decision a few years ago to help sponsor a Syrian family a no-brainer; it’s just the kind of thing this congregation does, and we’d be denying ourselves, we’d feel bad and guilty, we’d begin to question or existence and our calling as a church if we didn’t do things like this.

And this spirit gets expressed in all kind of ways.  I think of all the things at Christmas – the Wesley dinner, collecting for the Christmas and Holiday Store as well as a generous hamper for a family in need in our community, on top of all the other ways so many of our families reach out on their own to help make Christmas for others. Then there's City Kidz with our 10th or 11th Miracle Sunday coming up in a month or so.  And the Food Bank.  And missions like Inasmuch House and the Good Shepherd and all the other organizations that the Women of Fifty support every year -- and why it's good they maintain their own treasury so they can make those contributions.  The Sunday school years ago began sponsoring Banyala in Burkina Fasso through the Christrian Children's Fund, and we will be raising funds for this again this year with the annual Chili Cook-Off on March 3.  Alongside this, there's the civic leadership that members of this church are known for, the mission trips that more of our members are taking, and I haven't yet known this congregation to grumble about a special collection in response to some disaster or tragedy, or someone we know about in special need.

In the story of Peter and John in the Book of Acts going up to the Temple at the hour of prayer, we really are much more like Peter than John.  John is the more mystical and philosophical one.  He looks at things that Jesus says and does, and likes to spend some time thinking about their deeper, symbolic meaning.  The Gospel written in his name is the most metaphoric of the four, and the most focused on big, universal meanings.  At the Last Supper it is John who sits down beside Jesus, at one point is pictured leaning on his breast, almost listening to his heartbeat, seeking some kind of inner, spiritual unity with his master.

While Peter is the one getting his hands and feet washed.  Peter all along is a person of spontaneous speech and impetuous action.  His mantra is “Don’t just stand there, do something,” and the worst thing he can imagine doing is nothing.  He’s hands-on and practical, wants to make a difference right away, and is the first to jump in – even over his head, while the others stay back in the boat trying to figure out what their master calling them out, and what to do about it.

I think we’d like Peter here.  I hope he would feel at home and that he was among like-minded friends here, because service to the community is a holy strength, one of the ways God’s love and good news come alive in the world.  It’s a gift, and people who research things like this say it’s one of four spiritual paths a church can be on and be known for, and that this particular aspects of holy Spirit – what some call a Social Action Spirituality, can make a church really strong and vital for a long, long time.

So in the story, what does Peter, our brother, show us about Christ-like service of others?

For one thing, do you notice how he goes beyond just doing good in the expected way?  There’s a lame man at the gate of the Temple.  People bring him there every day, and other people give him alms.  Out of the goodness of their hearts, people help him – some by carrying him, others by reaching out to him with charitable support.  It’s how a lot of good gets done in the world for a lot of people and by a lot of people.

Peter, though, doesn’t do just the usual thing.  He thinks outside the box – in part because he’s a spontaneous, impetuous actor; in part because he has no money and has to think of another way of helping this man; and also because his ideas of what God wants to do for people has been affected by Jesus, his teacher.  So instead of just giving the man some money, he reaches out like Jesus did, to raise him up and help him be healed, and to have a new and different life because of it.

And the healing Peter helps happen unfolds in exactly the same way, by the same steps, as the healings Jesus helps happen.  With this action of Peter – so early and immediately after the death and the resurrection of Jesus, it becomes crystal clear that what Jesus did and brought to light in the world was just a beginning, and now it’s being carried on in and by his followers.

And as with Jesus’ healings, the healing that Peter helps happen is more than just a physical healing.  It’s a sign and an affirmation of so much more – of a healing of the lame man’s soul, of the freeing of his spirit, of a change in his life from being stuck outside and on the fringe of the community to being able to walk in and be part of its life for the first time in his life.  He’s a new person inside and out because of the way Peter approaches him, and what Peter offers him.

Peter starts by seeing the man.  And not seeing in just a haphazard, glancing kind of way.  The story says Peter “looked intently at him, as did John” and that he says to the man, “Look at us.”  In other words there is – just as there always is with Jesus and the people he meets and helps save from whatever enslaves them, there is a personal connection made.  There is a face-to-face encounter, real connection and communication, a getting-beneath-quick-surface-and-stereotyped-knowledge to a real awareness of the other as a person, as a fellow human being, as a brother or sister traveler on the way.

The man is lame from birth but in their meeting, to Peter and to the man himself he is not anymore just a two-dimensional lame man.  He is a man – a real and full human being with a whole life story of potential and limitations, of dreams and disappointments, of personal sorrows and unique struggles, of deep imprisonments and exclusions, and of equally deep and mostly hidden longings for inclusion, healing and wholeness.

Peter – being Peter, is not scared of this.  Faced with an abyss of need and of longing that he sees in the man’s eyes, he is not afraid of what he doesn’t have to offer.  “Silver and gold have I none,” he says.  Often we grow anxious when we don’t have what we think we need to offer someone – not enough money, not enough time, not enough resources, not a fancy or well-equipped enough building, not enough …whatever.

“But what I have, I offer you.”  And with that he reaches out … with what?  With friendship?  With love?  With warmth and a human conversation about things that matter?  With time to connect on more than just a charitable donation kind of level?

Peter really is poor, and in himself powerlessness to do anything about the situation.  And I wonder if sometimes we let our anxiety about what we don’t have and what we can’t do, get in the way of what we are called to do, and what a difference what we are able to offer really does make, how what we have to offer may be exactly the unexpected kind of thing – the out-of-the-box kind of connection that really makes the kind of difference that people around us are waiting for?

Peter somehow comes to see the other person, himself, and the situation they are in together, the way that Jesus did – and does.  He comes to look at this encounter through the eyes of Jesus, through the filter of what he has learned about the kingdom of God on earth because of Jesus.  He lets the story unfold and be acted out as part of the greater story of the spirit of Jesus and of the kingdom of God on earth, coming to life now in the events of his life.

And I wonder if this is where the companionship of John comes in, if maybe this is something John helps Peter to be growing into.  Peter by himself is the one who jumps in over his head and then starts to flail and flounder because once out of the boat he can’t stay connected with Jesus as much as he needs to, and on as deep a level as is needed for him to really follow.

Maybe John, the mystical one who thinks about the deeper meaning of things, who spends time so close with Jesus that he comes to think and feel and be moved like Jesus is, is starting to change Peter just a bit.  Is beginning to add a little mystical depth to Peter’s activism.  Is helping Peter be open to the deeper meaning of things.  Is moving him beyond merely do-good activism, and into the realm of the kingdom of God alive in us and through us.

Because the impetuous, do-good activism that Peter brings to us can get exhausting after a while, and make us feel like we’re floundering, are in over our head, and may drown in the great sea of all we are trying to do.

But with what John brings to the table – a closeness with Jesus and with his spirit, what we are given is an awareness of the power and the purpose of God working in us and through us that cannot but make us want to reach out and make healing and wholeness possible for others as well, because of what God is doing– not just we are doing, in the world.

I read something just yesterday from someone called Hafiz in a little work called “The Gift”:

It used to be [he says]
that when I would wake in the morning
I could with confidence say, “What am ‘I’ going to do?”
That was before the seed cracked open.
Now Hafiz is certain:
There are two of us housed in this body
Doing the shopping together in the market and
Tickling each other while fixing the evening’s food.
Now when I awake all the internal instruments
Play the same music:
“God, what love-mischief can
we do for the world today?”

That is a Social Action Spirituality, and the expression of a Core Value of service to the community that probably never grows old, or tired or fades away.