Dave Faulkner. Musings of an evangelical Methodist minister.
Well, this is quite a run on the blog of a few weeks without new content, and I’m sorry about that. This last week, I have been off sick with COVID, so I wasn’t up to taking a service.
Instead, I prepared hymns and prayers, sent the Bible reading, and provided this video from three years ago for the congregation:
I hope to be back in the saddle next week.
Introduction
We are going to look at three stories that fall early in the Holy Week narrative in Luke’s Gospel, all of them in chapter 20, where Jesus is questioned by the authorities. Sometimes we read these stories in isolation, but it’s important to see that they occur in Holy Week, because they are all part of the authorities ramping up the pressure on Jesus. They are all part of the campaign that leads to the Cross.
And within that context of the opposition during Holy Week, there is one theme we must bear in mind, and that is the Temple. All of the questioning finds its source in those who run the Temple. You will remember that when Jesus is put on trial, he is accused of saying, ‘Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.’
Well, later in Holy Week Jesus did indeed prophesy the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. It was not an act he was going to accomplish, though: his prophecies relate to the destruction that the Roman legions would execute in AD 70, when they put down the Jewish revolt.
And we also remember that when Jesus said, ‘Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days,’ he was referring to his own body. For in New Testament terms, Jesus himself is the true temple. The temple was reckoned by Jews to be the place where heaven and earth met. Jesus, being fully divine and fully human, encapsulated that in his own being. In Jesus, heaven and earth met. Hence, he was the true temple. Moreover, his death would replace the Jerusalem temple’s sacrificial system. Again, he was the true temple. He was coming to replace the existing one.
Jesus, then, is a threat to all who constitute the Jerusalem temple authorities. They may not know all that I have just described, but they know enough to realise that this popular preacher is a hazard to all their vested interests. He must be stopped.
But this isn’t just a private spat between Jesus and the authorities. It is set in the context of Jesus teaching the people. They are listening to him when the temple authorities turn up and interrupt. In between the three episodes we are going to look at, Jesus addresses the people with his counter-arguments, including a parable that shows up the authorities for just who they are before God. The people represent Israel. Will they follow the Messiah? Or will the temple leaders undermine their faith in Jesus?
So with all that background laid out, let’s look at the first of these three stories where the temple leaders put Jesus under question.
The challenge
How ironic it is that the authorities turn up just as Jesus is teaching and ‘proclaiming the good news’. Is it that Jesus is good news and they are bad news? Why would they want to put a stop to someone who proclaims good news? What does this say about them? The contrast is set up at the outset.
But even the ‘good news’ would have been threatening to them. Remember that ‘good news’ was something proclaimed in the Roman Empire by a ‘herald’ (the Greek word for which became a New Testament word for a preacher or evangelist) who travelled to different towns telling the population there of some wonderful event. ‘There is a new emperor on the throne in Rome!’ ‘Rome’s army has won a great victory!’
When Jesus proclaims the good news it’s all that and more. There is indeed a new king on the throne – not in Rome but in heaven, ruling the universe. After his death and resurrection, the early church will proclaim that as good news, too, because God will have won a great victory, not by killing but by suffering.
If Jesus is proclaiming good news of a new king, then no wonder the New Testament tells us elsewhere that he was announcing the good news of the kingdom of God. This would have been a challenge for the temple leaders who, although they were not appointed by Rome, certainly had their security in office guaranteed by Rome, just so long as they played along. If there is a different king on the throne, then that Roman backing is undermined. Is it any wonder they don’t like the good news of Jesus?
And so they come along and they try to undermine Jesus on the basis of the location, namely the temple. It’s their territory. This is where they have authority. To ask Jesus, ‘By what authority’ he does these things and who gave him such authority, they are saying, look, this is our patch, we are the ones in charge here. You are the outsider. You haven’t been properly authorised and appointed. So what gives you any right to say or do any of that stuff, especially here?
I guess it might work if you were dealing with a mere mortal. But Jesus knows where his authority comes from, and so do readers of Luke’s Gospel. Luke has told us that Jesus was conceived under the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit has descended on him like a dove at his baptism, and the voice of his Father from heaven has affirmed him as his beloved Son. Jesus has laid out his manifesto under the anointing of the Spirit in the synagogue at Nazareth. And then a ministry has followed where all of this has been demonstrated. By what authority? Do the temple leaders really want to know the answer to that question?
By what authority? It’s still a dangerous question today. We hope and pray that those in leadership in the church today are those who have the authority of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives and that also this is what the church has discerned in the selection and appointment process. Is it always true, though? Sometimes we come up with our own criteria that may sound good and faithful, but then in practice we may not sense the work of the Spirit. We who lead sometimes end up going through the motions rather than relying on divine authority. It’s not really enough for us to fall back on saying, well I was appointed or ordained by the church if we are not attentive to the Holy Spirit.
But Jesus has no such worries. His knowledge of where his authority comes from and who he is in relationship to the Father gives him a security that leads to the boldness of his ministry. He is the Beloved Son, always full of the Spirit. That’s potent.
So is this how Jesus will respond, by setting out his credentials? Not a bit of it.
The response
It’s very rare that Jesus responds to a question, even a friendly one, with an answer. Often, he replies – as here – with another question. While there is truth in the old slogan ‘Jesus is the answer’ it’s every bit as true that ‘Jesus is the question.’ At least, here and in other places Jesus is the questioner.
Even though later in Holy Week at his trials he will often be silent, here Jesus goes on the offensive with his question. He is still in the business of exposing unrepentant sin, and that is what he does by throwing a question about authority back at his opponents.
And moreover – remember that the ordinary people are present in the scene – Jesus picks on an issue of authority that will chime with them, not with the temple leaders.
That issue is John the Baptist. When Jesus asks, ‘John’s baptism – was it from heaven, or of human origin?’ it’s about more than just John’s baptism. Those two words are like an abbreviation for the whole of John’s ministry. This is a question about the entire authority behind John’s ministry: was it from God, or was it merely human?
That makes it a huge question. John was a barometer for how people responded to the divine purposes of redemption. Not only that, but he was widely regarded as a prophet. And further, he was depicted as the one who would come before the Messiah, according to Malachi’s image of a returned Elijah heralding God’s anointed. Where you stood on the authority of John really mattered.
And in particular, the link between John and Jesus meant that if you endorsed John’s divine authority, you endorsed that of Jesus, too. But if you denied John’s spiritual legitimacy, you not only denied Jesus, you also lost the people who was listening to Jesus, who certainly thought John was a prophet.
Checkmate? Very possibly. That’s certainly how the religious leaders react. They don’t know what to say. They realise that any answer they give to Jesus’ conundrum puts them in a bad situation. At this stage, Jesus is too popular with the ordinary people and so they can’t alienate the crowds by denying the legitimacy of John’s ministry. But if they take the other option, then the logical conclusion is that they should end up following Jesus, and that is out of the question. He is the thorn in their side that they want rid of.
Jesus wins this round. What was he trying to achieve? Is this an exercise in saving his own skin that succeeds here but will fail later in the week? Regular observers might suppose so. But the readers of the Gospel know, and the disciples should know, that he had prophesied his betrayal, suffering, and death. He is heading towards that destiny, even if the utter horror of it has not hit him yet in the way it will in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Yet if he knows that the Cross is his destiny, why even bother to debate and outwit the temple hierarchy? Surely it is because wickedness must be exposed by the truth, whatever the cost. Think of how Jeremiah was called to a ministry where it was his calling repeatedly to remind Israel of God’s truth, even though in the short term they were not going to obey. It was still important for there to be a faithful witness to the truth in the face of evil. The people of Jeremiah’s day were without excuse. Those who exercised power during Jesus’ ministry would now also have no excuse before God for their words, attitudes, and actions.
Does this make us think of situations today where Christians need to witness faithfully to God’s truth in opposition to great evil, and to do so at the risk of paying a great cost? Might that even happen in the USA under Donald Trump’s presidency?
What about the leaders? They are embarrassed before the people. Their stature and authority before the ordinary Jews has been fundamentally undermined by Jesus. He had made a laughingstock of them. It is almost like the way a satirist uses ridicule to expose the wickedness of a politician and to imply that things should be better than they are.
Are they going to take this defeat lying down? No. With their hearts hardened by their own choice to the searing moral critique given by Jesus, they are going to defend their position and their interests against all opposition, not least this upstart from up north in Nazareth.
We haven’t heard the last of them. They will be back.
Questions for reflection
In what ways today is the Good News of Jesus a threat to the powerful?
Is there any way in which the Good News has been a threat to you? How have you responded?
What makes you recognise the authority of Jesus?
How do you react when the teaching of Jesus shows you to be in the wrong?
What would be a Christian way of handling power today?
No video this week: on Friday afternoon, while working on this sermon, a workman’s van crashed into our kitchen wall, causing structural damage to our manse.
No-one was hurt. But it does mean I’ve got behind. Anyway, here’s the text of this week’s sermon.
How did you hear about the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963? I am too young to remember how we heard the news in the UK, but I imagine people heard on the next available TV news bulletin.
But I do know how I heard about the death of Princess Diana in August 1997. I came downstairs that Sunday morning, and as was my habit I turned on the BBC breakfast news. There was the rolling coverage provided by 24-hour news services.
And I remember how I heard about the death of the Queen in 2023. Debbie and I were sitting in a branch of Pizza Express, waiting for a meal before going to a concert. A news alert flashed up on my phone.
How did people hear major news in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago? A messenger would come to their town or village and make a public announcement, probably in somewhere like the marketplace. I guess they were a little bit like town criers. They would tell the people that there was a new Emperor on the throne in Rome, or that Rome’s legions had won a great victory against an enemy.
And do you know what they called their proclamations? You do. ‘Good News.’
So when the New Testament speaks about Good News it takes over this model and gives it a refit according to the life and ministry of Jesus. It would be something like this:
‘Good News! There is a new king on the throne of the universe. His name is Jesus. He has conquered sin and death not with violence but by his own suffering love and death. And God has vindicated him by raising him from the dead.’
Jesus speaks of ‘Good News’ in Luke 4, and – to state the obvious – he is by definition doing so before his death and resurrection. But he is telling his hearers about the nature of the kingdom he is inaugurating, including what it is like to live under his reign and by implication what it requires of its citizens.
Therefore, what we are considering today is both the offer Jesus makes to us by his grace and the call he makes on us in response.
Firstly, good news to the poor:
I find that Christians go into battle with each other on this one. What is good news to the poor? Is it that we evangelise them? Or is it that we campaign politically for them?
I think the answer is ‘yes.’ In other words, I don’t see this as an either/or choice.
But we need to understand who people in Jesus’ world would have understood as ‘the poor.’ Certainly, it included the economically poor, but it also it also included those who had no status or honour in society. So we’re not only talking about the destitute, we’re talking about women, children, lepers, Gentiles, prostitutes, and so on.
And by making a list like that, you will I am sure be saying to yourself, that sounds pretty much like the main constituency Jesus served. He brought the Good News that there was a new king on the throne of the universe to these people, and they welcomed it. This king was for them. They could be citizens of his kingdom. God’s love was offered freely to them in word and deed by Jesus, and they too could enter the kingdom by repentance and faith, just like anyone else.
The early church clearly followed up on this. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he observes that not many of them were of high rank. And after the apostolic age, we find former slaves becoming bishops in the church.
For John Wesley, it all kicked off on 1st April 1739, when, at the urging of George Whitefield, he preached for the first time in the open air to the miners of Kingswood, between Bath and Bristol. The Good News was for them, he realised. And he would later become concerned about their social needs as well.
If we are to take the mission of God seriously today, we must put this front and centre, because Jesus did. Yet in this country, church historians say that the Christian church has not seriously taken the Gospel to the poor since the Industrial Revolution. John Wesley was probably the last person to do this on a significant scale.
I am not saying that we are doing nothing in this respect. I am sure some of the people who come to ‘Connect’ fall into the categories I am talking about. As we give a welcome and acceptance to them, we need to find the right ways and times to share the Good News with them.
And I am aware that this town is very much divided into two halves. But at the same time, it is a town with Marks and Spencer’s at one end and Waitrose at the other. This is the only church I have served where the hand gel provided to the minister before handling bread and wine at communion comes from M and S!
So allow me to flag this up, because in this area it would be easy for us to lose sight of this important strand of Jesus’ teaching. There are few things more dangerous for Christians than getting comfortable.
Secondly, freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind:
What did Jesus mean by quoting this from Isaiah? Clearly, ‘freedom for the prisoners’ didn’t mean he went around the jails of Palestine opening prison doors and letting the convicts out. It has more to do with him pronouncing freedom from the guilt of sin in the offer of forgiveness, freedom from the power of sin in his casting out of demons, and freedom from being sinned against by standing for justice and also enabling people to forgive wrongdoers.
Recovery of sight for the blind is a little more straightforward, given the healing miracles Jesus performed.
But a lot of that might sound a little distant to us. The church limits the number of people who exercise a deliverance ministry because it needs all sorts of safeguards and protections built in. Most of us don’t have a healing ministry, either. I only know for sure of two occasions in my life when I have prayed for someone to be healed and they were. Not that I want to discourage anyone from praying for healing, though: I’m just saying that only a few Christians have an ongoing ministry of healing.
So what can we take from this? Plenty, actually. We may not all be evangelists, but we are all witnesses who are called to share our faith in word and in deed with people beyond the Christian community. That’s why we’re beginning the Personal Evangelism course tomorrow morning. This is a chance for us to find ways of being able to speak about our faith gently to others. How else are people going to find faith and the Good News of God’s forgiveness in Christ? I encourage you to sign up!
It’s also about our example. When we are wronged, the world will look at how we respond. When terrible things happen, our culture is full of language about certain actions and crimes being ‘unforgivable.’ And while I obviously wish no harm on anyone, our neighbours will be watching us when we suffer wrongly. If they see forgiveness in us, or at the very least a working towards forgiveness, you can be sure it will make an impression.
Further, we can be involved socially in campaigns for those who have suffered wrongs. Yes, this includes our fellow Christians who are persecuted around the world, but we should not limit ourselves to our spiritual kith and kin. Anyone who is an unjust victim, even if it is someone we don’t agree with, is someone for whom Jesus wants freedom. In fact, standing up for those we disagree with can itself be a powerful witness.
As for the recovery of sight for the blind, apart from the question of physical healing there is the matter of those who are spiritually blind. Jesus spoke truth to the wilfully blind, such as many of the religious leaders of his day. He also spoke truth to reveal God’s love to those he was calling out of darkness.
Therefore, we can do two things. We can pray that blind hearts and minds be opened to the truth of God’s Good News. And we can also be the ones who share that truth, backed by prayer.
Thirdly and finally, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour:
All the talk of releasing and setting free is brought together in the talk of ‘the year of the Lord’s favour.’ And that language is the language of the Old Testament Jubilee. The Jubilee Year, which in the Law of Mosese was to occur once every fifty years. And in that year debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, and land was returned to its original owners. Whether Israel ever truly observed it is debatable, but here Jesus says it’s coming in with his kingdom and so it’s a sign not only of how to live now but also of the age to come. It is a manifesto for how the community of God’s kingdom will be and how his people are to live now.
The forgiveness of debts was financial. What a test of discipleship to hone in on how attached we are to our money. Will we always stand on our rights, demanding what is ours, or will we forgive a debt?
I saw that demonstrated by my father when I was still living at home in my early twenties. I had a friend who was an only child and an orphan. His father had been killed in a car crash when he was eight, and then when he was fifteen, just before our mock O-Levels, his mother died of cancer. Then in his early twenties he had a broken engagement. With few relatives, he came to live with us for a couple of weeks while he tried to get himself together again.
But in that time he just expected my mother to do his laundry and cook for him, and he never offered any money towards his keep. After he left to go back to his home, we had a family conference over dinner. What were we going to do about his debt to us?
And my father simply said, ‘We’re going to put it down to God’s account.’
And we know Jesus builds that into the Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us. Yes, of course it’s a vivid metaphor for the forgiveness of sins and our forgiveness of those who sin against us, but we should never let that fact obscure the challenge of the literal words.
There is much more I could say about the Jubilee. I could talk about our attachment to the land, which may have implications for our national and international politics. I could mention the ongoing problem of slavery that still exists in our world, and which you might encounter in the staff at the local car wash or nail bar.
But I don’t have time to go into that. I’ll just say that the way we are willing to forgive and release people, money, land, and possessions will be a powerful witness in our world that frequently talks of things being ‘unforgivable’.
The Jubilee was part of God’s covenant with Israel. He had delivered them from Egypt, and this was part of their response of grateful obedience to him. In the renewal of our covenant with God, we are called to a similar response, as we also are in bringing good news to the poor along with freedom and sight to people.
In our commitment this morning, may these be formed as our continuing participation in God’s mission. For then we will be proclaimers of Good News today.
Hearing a reading about the apostles might provoke a reaction in us that says, ‘What’s this got to do with us? We’re not in the same league as the apostles. We’re just a motley crew of ordinary Christians.’
Except we need to remember just how motley the apostolic crew was, too. How did James and John earn that nickname ‘Sons of thunder’ from Jesus? I envisage them turning up for apostolic meetings, gunning the engines of their Harley Davidsons.
We have the whole spectrum of political views from that day, ranging from Matthew the tax collector who helped fund the occupying Roman empire, to Simon the Zealot who wanted to send the Romans packing by the use of force.
We have a range of professions, from the physical labour exercised by the fishermen to the office accountant. That latter one would be Judas Iscariot, by the way: the Gospels tell us he was in charge of the finances.
Maybe the Twelve aren’t so far removed from us after all: the quiet and the loud, the right wing and the left wing, the manual labourers and the white collar workers. That’s not so very different from our diversity as a congregation, is it?
Sure, we may not be called by Jesus to be apostles, and we shall not exercise our calling in exactly the same way. But there are enough similarities for us to draw on here as we live out our calling to spread the apostolic faith. I’m taking verses 14 and 15 as the focus for our thoughts:
14 He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons.
There are three elements I’m going to pick out from these verses.
Firstly, ‘that they might be with him’ (verse 14).
In the Christian church, and especially in the Protestant traditions, we are very much into the idea that Christian life and witness involves us being highly active. We fill our churches with programmes, and we expect our ministers to be busy. We have a culture that faith is about doing rather than being.
I believe this is one of the reasons our churches are so often tired, dry, and dying. We can no more make Christian witness an endless cycle of action than we can drive our cars without filling up their tanks (or recharging their batteries). Our version of mission has been to run on empty. Is it any wonder it fails?
Before Jesus sent the apostles out, ‘He appointed twelve that they might be with him’ (my emphasis). We have nothing to share with the world if we are not in a vital relationship with Jesus Christ. How can we commend him if we spend no time with him? How can we expect people to see Jesus in us if we keep our distance from him?
For sure that involves our Sunday practices of worship and Holy Communion. But it also includes mutual sharing in small groups. It includes a personal prayer life each day. We can’t just rely on Sundays. Those of you who are married, would your marriage last if you and your spouse only spoke with each other once a week?
There are plenty of aids to help us in Bible reading and prayer. Traditional daily Bible reading notes still exist. You can get various ones from Scripture Union, or the excellent American daily devotional The Upper Room. Every Day With Jesus, which has been so popular for many years in the UK, is now available as an app for your smartphone or tablet.
Or the 24/7 Prayer movement has produced an app called Lectio 365. It gives you two brief prayer exercises a day. There is a morning one with a Bible reflection tuned to matters of prayer and mission. And there is an evening one where we can reflect with God on how the day has gone.
In the Western church, there is really no excuse when we have so many riches to help us with our devotional lives. It doesn’t reflect well on us that our brothers and sisters in far poorer parts of the world just get on with things and often have more vibrant prayer lives than us. Is that one reason why they tend to have more of an impact with their faith than we do?
If we want our church to have life, we need to begin by going back to spending time with Jesus. There is no substitute.
Secondly, ‘that he might send them out to preach’ (verse 14).
OK, so here’s where we might not all do things like the Twelve did. Jesus doesn’t call every disciple to be a preacher. But he does call every Christian to take his message into the world. We know people don’t like being ‘preached at’ today, but we do have good news to share.
In the ancient world, a herald would come to a town or a village, much like a town crier. There were two messages that he would call ‘Good news.’ One would be that Rome had a new emperor on the throne. The other would be that Rome’s armies had won a great battle.
The New Testament writers took inspiration from this. For them, there was not a new emperor on the throne of Rome but a new king on the throne of the universe, for Jesus had ascended to the Father’s right hand. He was not a coercive king like the Roman emperor, but still one who called people to follow the ways of his kingdom.
Similarly, the New Testament heralds proclaimed that Jesus too had won a great victory in battle – not by bludgeoning the enemy to death but by going to death himself at the Cross.
So our message of good news for today is that Jesus has done all that is necessary against the powers of evil in his death on the Cross, and that he now reigns in heaven, calling everyone to submit to his rule.
Our message is that Jesus has overcome all those things in life that frighten us the most, even death itself, and that he how calls for our allegiance.
If we live according to this message then it will provoke questions. If we are not frightened by what life can do to us, and if we are committed to the ways of Jesus, you bet people will notice and want to know more.
Here are the words of one such person[1]:
If you want, I’ll talk to you about God and salvation. I’ll turn up the volume of heartbreak to the maximum, so to speak. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists, and I was once quite a militant atheist myself. But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation. It’s not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it’s easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” I’ve always thought that this particular commandment is more or less an instruction to activity. And so, while certainly not really enjoying the place where I am, I have no regrets about coming back, or about what I’m doing. It’s fine, because I did the right thing. On the contrary, I feel a real kind of satisfaction. Because at some difficult moment I did as required by the instructions, and did not betray the commandment.
I wonder if you know who said those words? They have been widely reported in the last week. Because they came in 2021 from Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who was recently murdered in prison.
So – firstly, be with Jesus. Secondly, preach the good news. Thirdly, ‘to have authority to drive out demons’ (verse 15).
Ooh. That’s a bit scary. And maybe we divide here between those who would run a mile from something like this and a few Christians on the other hand who would get unhealthily excited by it. We have also had the subject sensationalised and distorted by Hollywood and by the media generally.
Every now and again we hear of terrible misuses of this, where some church leader believes somebody to be possessed by demons, and physical force is used, leading to serious injury or even to death.
That’s why most churches restrict who can practise this. In Methodism, you now have to apply and be interviewed before you can be recognised as someone who practises in this area. You are not permitted just to go off and do exorcisms independently.
We may not have the particular authority to drive out demons. But all Christians have a mandate from Jesus to oppose evil. For evil is not just about what the devil does, according to the New Testament, it is also about the world and the flesh.
When the Bible talks about ‘The world’ in negative terms, it means the systems of this world in their opposition to God. So it’s when rulers, politics, or culture line up against God’s kingdom as inaugurated by Jesus. So it includes things such as when politicians don’t care about the poor. It’s about when our culture raises up created things as false idols – so think of the ways people are denigrated today for not being in sexual relationships and you will see one thing that our society treats as an idol. These things need to be opposed.
When the Bible talks about ‘The flesh’ as a bad thing it doesn’t simply mean the human body. It means our sinful human nature. It means that natural bias we seem to have towards doing what is wrong. And this too needs to be opposed.
And just talking about these things may make us realise that opposing evil is not just an external thing: it is also something we fight within ourselves. We have our idols. We have our own inner tendencies towards sin. And as I read this week, even when we take up an offering in an act of worship we engaging in an idol-busting exercise. For as someone said,
“It’s not a time when you’re trying to get money out of people’s pockets. It’s a time when you’re trying to get the idols out of their hearts.”
So in conclusion, the apostolic call to mission can be stated quite simply. It is fueled by spending time with Jesus. It is seen in living and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus’ reign. And it is characterised by opposing evil in all its forms, externally and internally.
It’s simple to state, but challenging to practise. So let us rely on the Holy Spirit to live out this call.
[1] Found on a friend’s Facebook feed. Source unknown.
Isn’t it strange that just as ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’ is on our screens yet again that John the Baptist comes into focus in the church year? The man whom Matthew tells us wore clothes made of camel’s hair and lived on a diet of locusts and honey[1] sounds perfect for the bush tucker trial.
And speaking personally, I’d rather engage with John the Baptist than Nigel Farage. Which is one major reason I’m not watching this year.
But we think of John at this time due to his connection with Jesus – not simply that they were related through their mothers[2] but that they were related in the purposes of God. We talk about John as the ‘Forerunner’ of Jesus. Their relationship is important for the Advent story.
But it’s not just interesting historical detail. John’s mission of preparing the way for Jesus is also a model for the ways in which God gives us our mission of pointing to Jesus.
I’m going to explore that in two phases today.
Firstly, John was sent.
We are used in the Methodist Church to the idea of ministers being sent. I was sent to this appointment by the authority of the Methodist Conference. The Salvation Army send their officers; the Roman Catholics send their priests. (Other denominations are different and speak less of the church sending and more of God calling.)
But being sent isn’t just a churchy thing. It happens in other areas of life, too. As I mentioned to some around Remembrance Sunday last month, I am the first man in my family for a couple of generations not to go into the Royal Air Force. My Dad only did National Service, but I often thought he might have fancied a longer time in it than that. My uncle served for many years, and so did my three male cousins.
The armed services’ concept of a ‘posting’ is very much a sending, and young families are often in an area only for a short time before the next posting happens, with adverse effects upon socialisation and education. One of my cousins was awarded the MBE for work he and his wife did on RAF bases with lonely families.
John the Baptist’s sending comes not from the church or the armed services, but from God:
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
And yes, John has a very special calling that we mark at this time of year. And yes, we are used to the idea that certain Christians have particular callings in which they are sent by God.
Sadly, what we forget in all that is that every Christian is called and sent by God in some respect. Being sent by God doesn’t automatically mean being sent to dark jungles to be attacked by ferocious creatures and wild savages. Sometimes, God has already sent us to the place where we are, and this is the place where we are called to be fruitful and faithful for him.
Perhaps we still have that mediaeval Roman Catholic view of being sent that regarded the only vocations worth mentioning as those where someone was called to the church – priests, monks, and nuns. At least the Reformers broadened out that sense of vocation so that Martin Luther, ever provocative in his writing, could say that were the job of village hangman to fall vacant, the devout Christian should apply.
I am not here to recruit any hangmen today! But I am here to invite us all to consider our sense of being sent. Has God sent us to the particular job where we work? The neighbourhood where we live? The social groups in which we mix?
And if we think that’s possible, how does that change our attitude to those workplaces, neighbourhoods, and social groups? Are we on a mission from God in those places? Have we been placed there to live out our faith and bless those we meet with the love of God in our attitudes and actions? Has God sent us there as a sign of his abiding truth to those who may or may not want to know about it?
And for others of us, have we become restless where we are? Is it because we have not embraced the sense that God has sent us here, or is God preparing us to take up another posting and be sent somewhere else? Is this an issue that some of us should be praying about?
Secondly, John was specifically sent as a witness.
One of the things I do when I go to preach at a new church is I always ask for an assurance from the person on the sound desk that they will turn my microphone off during the hymns. Much as I love music, I am not blessed in that area with any personal ability. I was once next to my aunt in a congregation and she said to me afterwards, “I’m glad my bad singing voice has passed down another generation in the family.”
So when my friends in the church youth group formed a band, I was the only one not to be part of it. They became quite popular in local church circles and sold out some concerts.
I talk in the first chapter of my book about some of the socially awkward ways in which I related to them. Yet one Saturday evening in December, and I think it proved to be their biggest concert ever, they involved me by asking me to be the compère.
It stayed with me, because the next morning the Advent theme was John the Baptist, and the preacher spoke about how John was the compère for Jesus. Given my rôle the previous night, that description stuck with me. Just as the compère’s job is not to point to themselves but to the act everyone has paid to see, so the rôle of John the Baptist is not to big himself up but to be ‘a witness to the light’:
7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
This rôle of a witness is seen in some of the other New Testament models for those who speak of Christ. We have the herald, who brought ‘good news’, rather like a town crier. ‘Good news’ was a technical term in the Roman Empire for the announcements heralds made that either the Roman army had won a great battle or that there was a new emperor on the throne. The first Christians translated this to their heralding of a different good news, the good news that God had won a great battle against evil at the Cross and that there was now a new king of the universe, Jesus the Lord.
And we have the ambassador that the Apostle Paul talks about. The purpose of an ambassador is to represent the king and the kingdom that sent them to an alien land. Paul and the first Christians saw themselves as representing Christ and the kingdom of God in an alien land.
All of these images – the witness, the herald, and the ambassador – have one thing in common. These spokespeople are not drawing attention to themselves but to Jesus Christ and the good news of God’s kingdom.
This was John’s purpose in a particularly special way when Jesus came into the world and thirty years later began his public ministry. It is also our calling.
For the New Testament also calls us witnesses. We may not all be evangelists, but we are all witnesses. Every Christian has the ability to witness to Jesus Christ by speaking about what he has done for them and what he has done for the world.
Think of a witness in a court of law. The witness speaks of what he or she has seen or heard, or about what he knows to be true. These are the things we do as witnesses for Christ, too. We speak about our experience of Jesus. We speak about what we know about him. Sure, we are not all what the courts call expert witnesses – perhaps those are the evangelists – but if we think about it, can we not all think of what Jesus has done for us, what he means to us, and what we know for sure about him?
Conclusion
Last week we saw that the Father’s relationship with Jesus said something about our relationship with Jesus, too. This week, John’s relationship with Jesus also has something to say about our relationship with Jesus.
Last week we saw that just as the Father’s relationship with Jesus was characterised by unity, love, and light, so too was Jesus’ mission to the world. This week with John we find that we are sent by God as heralds and ambassadors of King Jesus and his kingdom of unity, love, and light.
May the Holy Spirit show us the place where we are sent. And may we depend on that same Spirit to empower us as witnesses to Jesus and all that he has done.
[1] Matthew 3:4
[2] Luke 1:36
This week we have seen a short, wealthy man find his way into 10 Downing Street. How fitting that our Gospel reading today is one where a short, wealthy man wants to find his way into God’s kingdom.
Most of us have known the story of Zaccheus since childhood. We heard it at Sunday School. We sang songs based on it where Jesus invited himself for tea at Zaccheus’ house. All this despite there being no evidence whatsoever of tea-drinking anywhere in the Bible.
I want to ask a simple question of this story. It’s a question we could regularly deploy in our reflection on Bible passages. Here it is:
What is the Good News for Zaccheus?
I want to reflect on two areas where we see that Jesus is Good News for Zaccheus.
Firstly, I want to speak about Good News for the Rich.
Just to say those words will wind up some people. Good news for the rich? Really? It’s the poor who need good news.
And besides, Jesus said in Luke 4 he came to bring good news to the poor, not the rich. Not only that, Jesus told the rich in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-26) that the rich have already received their comfort.
Furthermore, this was prophesied while Jesus was still in the womb. At that point she sang the song we know so well as The Magnificat. It includes the line, ‘He has sent the rich away empty’ (Luke 1:53).
So how can there be good news for the rich? The good news is for the poor and there is only bad news for the rich.
The answer is this. You have to define what you mean by good news. The Good News which is the Gospel is not a good news that tells someone everything about the way they live is fine. In fact, it’s rather different.
‘Good news’ for a citizen of the Roman Empire meant hearing a herald come to their town or village with a proclamation either that there was a new Emperor on the throne or that Rome’s armies had won a great victory.
The Good News of the Gospel Christianises that. It is the proclamation that there is a new king on the throne of the universe, and that his name is Jesus. And furthermore, he has won the greatest of all battles by conquering sin, suffering, and death at the Cross.
That is Good News for everyone, including the rich. However, I will concede that it is challenging good News for the wealthy. If the rich are going to acknowledge that Jesus is on the throne of the universe then the good news for them will include some rethinking of financial habits.
And if you had gained your wealth by morally dubious means as Zaccheus had, then the Good News of Jesus’ reign was more challenging.
We know Zaccheus was corrupt, and there was little way out of being corrupt if you are a tax collector, due to the way the Romans managed the system. The tax collectors were given a target by Rome of how much tax they had to raise in their district. But the tax collectors had to gather their own income from the taxation, too, and so they charged residents over and above the amount Rome had set for them, otherwise they and their family would starve. So you can imagine that those tax collectors who wanted, shall we say, a somewhat comfortable life charged a higher taxation that those who were content with a more modest lifestyle.
But regardless of income, tax collectors would have been treated as ‘sinners’ because their very work meant they were collaborators with the occupying Roman armies. Indeed, that’s the scandal of what Jesus does for the crowd here:
‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.’ (Verse 7)
Somehow Jesus knew that just railing against Zaccheus for his sin wouldn’t melt his heart. The tax collector already knew he was a sinner, not only in the sight of the crowd, but of God. He knew what he was doing was wrong. It’s rather like going into a prison with the Christian message: you don’t need to tell the prisoners they are guilty, they are only too conscious of that fact. It is Jesus’ act of grace in seeking out hospitality from such an unpopular man that makes the difference.
Now Zaccheus can address his sin and show that his repentance is real by matching it with transformed actions. He offers half of his possessions and to repay what he has cheated fourfold – and fourfold was
the penalty for those who have stolen animals[1].
In addition, Zaccheus addresses Jesus as ‘Lord.’ He is a changed man.
This helps us with how we proclaim the good news to the wealthy today. How will they respond to the Good News that Jesus is on the throne and that he has conquered evil? Can we model to them the grace that leads to their conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit?
And it also challenges us, as it did Zaccheus. Do we own money or possessions that are not rightfully ours? What would Jesus, the king of the kingdom, say to us about those things?
Secondly, this story is about Good News for the Shamed.
Zaccheus has to climb a sycamore-fig tree in order to see Jesus (verse 4) and we assume the only reason he did that is the one Luke tells us about, namely that he was ‘short’ (verse 3).
All that is true, but here is something I discovered this week about sycamore-fig trees. The nature of their leaves is such that if a man climbed up into them, he would most likely be well-hidden. Jesus literally had ‘to seek and save the lost’ (verse 10).
Combine this with the way that Zaccheus runs ahead of the crowd on the route out of Jericho, anticipating Jesus’ route, where he is surely trying to put some distance between himself and the crowd who will hate him, then we can see an important truth. Zaccheus wanted to stay hidden.
And why was that? Surely it was an issue of shame – the shame he felt for his way of life.
But Jesus can see the man whose shame hides him and puts him at a distance from others. He sees through and brings the word of grace:
‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ (Verse 5)
Shame makes us run away from others. It makes us hide from them. Like Adam and Eve hiding in the Garden of Eden, shame even makes us want to hide from God. But for those who are shamed by their lives Jesus reaches out to restore them.
From my experience as a minister, there are stories I could tell you about the shameful things people have confessed to me. Often, they have been people who were among the most loved and respected church members in a congregation, but they held a dark secret.
Now of course I cannot share any specific stories with you, because they were shared with me in confidence. I’ll just say, think of the sins the church routinely says are very bad, and I’ve probably heard them confessed by Christians. But it has been my privilege to tell these people that there is indeed a God who forgives them, restores them, and welcomes them back to the heart of his family.
That is what Zaccheus found with Jesus, who calls him ‘a son of Abraham’ (verse 9) – a member of the family, the people of God, not an outcast.
So from this let me offer a couple of encouragements to you. One is to emphasise this word of hope to any of you who are carrying the burden of shame. If there is something from your past that means you are secretly weighed down by shame, I want to encourage you to talk to someone like a minister, so that you can hear the reassurance of God’s forgiving love in Jesus Christ for you. The only reason I say a minister is not because we have special powers but because in all but the most exceptional circumstances we are required to keep confidential what you share with us.
Shame, however, is not just for those who carry guilt. Some of us carry shame for things that have been done to us. This is particularly true of abused people, of whom there are many in our churches and society. Let someone like a pastor reassure you in confidence that Jesus wipes away the false shame of being sinned against.
My other encouragement is to say that this is good news for the world. People may not talk about sin as much as they did, but they certainly talk about shame. That Jesus offers a way home to God for those who experience shame would be good news for many in our world.
Sadly, sometimes these people think the church is the last body to help them because they expect to hear little more than condemnation from us. But what if in our friendships with people outside the church we can speak and demonstrate a message where Jesus says to people today, ‘I must stay at your house today’?
So this wonderful story gives us both a challenge and an encouragement. The Good News that Jesus is on the throne of the universe is a challenge for us to respond and put our lives in harmony with his kingdom ways.
And the Good News that this King Jesus wipes away all the effects of shame through his victory over all sin and suffering at the Cross means liberation for us and for all who will hear and embrace it.
All that remains is for us to put these things into practice, both in our own lives and in our witness to others.
[1] https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-calls-zacchaeus-in-luke-19/; also see Exodus 22:1 and 2 Samuel 12:6.
We had hardly passed the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic when Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine. For our world, it has been one storm, closely followed by another.
You could say that is what Jesus and his disciples face in this story. From the storm on the lake to the storm in an individual’s life, a storm so violent that he has effectively been put in an outdoor solitary confinement by his society.
Yet as Jesus stilled the storm on the lake he now stills the storm in this man’s life. Surely this story, then, is good news for a world facing its own storms.
We might think that a story of someone infested by many demons is far from our experience and beliefs today, but the themes of the story are in fact profoundly relevant to us.
Yes, it is remote in one sense, even for someone like me who does believe in the existence of the demonic, because even I don’t see demons under every bed. I can only think of one or two cases where I am certain I have encountered them. And in my opinion only a few Christians are called to confront them as Jesus does here.
But I still find relevant themes here for our life and mission today. Luke himself certainly didn’t see this as purely confined to the ministry of Jesus. You can see that in the use of one particular expression that occurs elsewhere in his writings. The man addresses Jesus as ‘Son of the Most High God’ (verse 28). Not only was this a title that the Archangel Gabriel used twice when telling Mary about the child she would conceive (Luke 1:32, 35) it is also a title that pops up in Luke’s other book, the Acts of the Apostles, when Paul is faced by a demonised girl (Acts 16:17). Now if that is the case, Luke must have assumed that this kind of ministry was not unique to Jesus, but it continues with his followers.
Firstly, the story reminds us we are in a spiritual battle.
Where did Jesus fight his initial great spiritual battle? In the wilderness, and the Holy Spirit led him there (Luke 4:1). Note the contrast with the afflicted man in this story:
Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places. (Verse 29b)
The man has not been led by the Spirit but driven by the demon – to where? Solitary places. The Greek word translated ‘solitary places’ is the same one used for the desert where Jesus faced his three temptations.
What are the differences? Jesus is led by the Spirit, the man is driven by the demon. Jesus resists temptation, but the man does not or cannot resist the forces of evil.
We know only too well our own battles with evil and temptation, especially when we are in solitary places, isolated from the support and encouragement of others. How ashamed we feel when we realise yet again that we have not conquered sin and temptation like Jesus did in his earthly life.
But the key to winning the battle is Jesus. When we have failed and need forgiveness again, we remember that he has won the battle against evil not just on his own but on our behalf. Ultimately, he conquered it at the Cross. When we have faith in him and are united with him, then we are clothed in his victory, not our failure. The Father looks at the repentant sinner, united with Christ, and sees the victory over sin of his Son. This is Good News!
And not only that, Jesus gives us hope for our future battles. For just as he was led by the Spirit, so since Pentecost he promises the Spirit to us, too. We can be led by the Spirit as well. When we are faced with temptation, then we can call on the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in resistance and holiness. That’s why Paul writes these encouraging words on temptation in 1 Corinthians 10:
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Secondly, this is a story about power.
I’m sure you will remember from other biblical stories that in ancient times there was something powerful about a person’s name. You will recall stories where people are given particular names with certain meanings, because these indicate the kind of person or life they are going to lead under God.
But the ancients also believed that if you knew someone’s name, you had power over them. So the demons try this on early in the story, even though there seems to be a note of fear in what they get the man to say:
‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!’ (Verse 28b)
They know who Jesus is. And they know what he can do to them.
Jesus, though, shows no fear. He asks the name and takes control.
Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’
‘Legion,’ he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss. (Verses 30-31)
Jesus has authority as Son of the Most High God, and he knows all about the demons controlling this man. Who is in charge here? Jesus.
Again, this is good news for us. Jesus knows the names of those who oppress us. He has power over the forces of darkness that make our lives miserable. He is coming for them.
Sometimes, that means quite a wait. We don’t know how long this man had been afflicted by demons. Sometimes it is quicker. In other cases they will be dealt with at the Last Judgement.
I believe that Jesus is coming for Vladimir Putin. There will be a dreadful price for him to pay if he does not repent. So too will there be for the monsters in power in Beijing, who persecute Christians, Uyghur Muslims, and others. I think this is part of what we call ‘Good news for the poor.’
One of my favourite Psalms for appreciating this is Psalm 73, where Asaph the Psalmist begins by talking about how the wicked have everything their own way and the righteous suffer (verses 1-16). But then he enters the sanctuary of God (verse 17), the place of worship, where God is acknowledged as King , and he sees things differently:
Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!
They are like a dream when one awakes;
when you arise, Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies. (Psalm 73:18-20)
God places the wicked on slippery ground. Don’t just look for instant obliteration: watch the unfolding of history, and pray. The power of God will prevail one day, and especially at the Last Judgement.
Thirdly and finally, this story is about restoration.
Contrast the man at the beginning of the story and at the end. At the beginning he has not worn clothes for a long time (verse 27) but after the demons are expelled he is ‘dressed’ (verse 35). I wonder where the clothes came from. Did Jesus send the disciples to get some?
At the beginning of the story he is shouting in a loud voice (verse 28) but afterwards he is ‘in his right mind’ (verse 35).
At the beginning of the story he has been living in tombs, not a house for a long time (verse 27) but at the end Jesus sends him back to his community, and he returns as a witness to Jesus (verses 38-39).
He is restored in so many ways. The physical and material restoration of clothing. The restoration of his mind. The restoration of relationships with his fellow villagers. And key to all this is that after Jesus’ powerful intervention the man is ‘sitting at Jesus’ feet’ (verse 35). This is the power of the Gospel.
And therefore this is what we are called to proclaim and to show. We proclaim restoration of relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We show it in material provision – and the clothes here inevitably made me think of the Knaphill clothes bank.
Yes, we who benefit from the victory of Jesus and his power in the battle against evil now need to share this with others. Like the man, we are to ‘Return home and tell how much God has done for [us]’ (verse 39). Alongside it, Jesus calls us to demonstrate all the ways in which his restoring love works: in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, offering healing love to the disturbed, and reconciliation of relationships.
The only question is, when are we going to start?
This week’s reflection seeks to get beyond the ‘Jacob got a dose of his own medicine’ and ‘romantic love story’ tropes to seeing Genesis 29:14b-28 in the perspective of God’s Big Story. When we do that, we find a lot of Gospel here.
Last August, just before we went on holiday in Cornwall, I noticed that an old friend of mine, Steve Wild, the Chair of the Cornwall Methodist District, would be taking a service in the Methodist church in Looe, the town where we would be staying while we were there. Steve is one of the warmest, most positive Christians I have ever had the pleasure to know. And what’s more, he often turns up at services with puppets – most notably Clarence the Frog. So I contacted him and asked whether Clarence would be accompanying him to the service in Looe.
We went as a whole family to the service, and met Steve outside the chapel, where he greeted us in his customary enthusiastic manner. Inside, he led half an hour of community hymn singing before the service proper began. He desperately wanted our two children to pick something, but the church was still on the 1936 Methodist Hymn Book, and our two even find 1983’s Hymns And Psalms far too ancient. He hadn’t brought along Clarence the Frog, but he had brought one of Clarence’s friends, and he let Bex and Mark play with the puppet during the service. Also, at one point, noticing how difficult the service was for them, he conducted a commando raid on the refreshments during the middle of a hymn and came back with a supply of Jaffa Cakes for them.
All in all, Steve is good news. He embodies the good news that he has preached throughout his life as an evangelist, a lecturer, a local minister, and television presenter. And I consider it good news of another kind to hear this week that he has been elected to be next year’s President of the Methodist Conference.
Good news is our theme this morning. Not the good news of Steve, but the Good News of Jesus (whom Steve proclaims). We come to this reading on the back of the fact that both Peter and Cornelius are facing the challenge to change. Cornelius is a good man, a devout religious man, even, but his vision of a man in dazzling clothes (verse 30ff) has shown him he needs more. Peter is being challenged to move outside his Jewish comfort zone, as well. And the reason for both these challenges to change is the Good News of Jesus. We’re going to spend some time this morning thinking about that Good News.
Firstly, who hears the Good News? Listen again to what Peter says when he introduces himself, having disabused Cornelius of the idea that he is anything more than mortal:
You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. (Verse 28)
Never mind the notions of who’s in and who’s out, ‘Unlawful’ is a rather strong translation of a word that here should probably be taken to mean ‘taboo’[1]. All his social conventions and cultural pressure pointed against him having anything to do with Cornelius. But Peter says: ‘God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.’
Now that is potent. Social taboos tell us who the goodies are and who the baddies are. They tell us who is clean, and who is dirty. They wield great power, and tend to come with considerable pressure. Yet Peter resists the taboos, because God has told him otherwise. No-one is subject to God’s taboos when it comes to the Gospel.
What might that mean for us? It’s easy to draw up lists and examples of the social taboos we endorse today. Gypsies and travellers are often not welcome in an area, because they are all deemed to make a mess, but are they taboo to God? Evidently not, given the spiritual revival that has happened among them in recent years, and we have some evidence of that not far from here in the existence of a travellers’ church.
Or what about this week when we have seen two high-profile people in our society sent to prison? As a nation we have been disgusted by the phone hacking scandal that has been exposed in recent years, and it is only right that Andy Coulson, the convicted News of the World editor, has been jailed for eighteen months this week. What terrible things he authorised for victims such as Milly Dowler’s family. But has God declared him beyond the bounds of the Gospel? Was the judge right to declare these crimes ‘unforgivable’? Not at all. In fact, he desperately needs the Good News, and this would be a good time to pray for our prison chaplains.
Similarly, Rolf Harris. Many have been shocked to see his arrest, conviction and imprisonment for various sexual assaults, some upon minors. People are now queuing up to tell him to rot in prison and die there, but again – is he beyond the possibilities of God’s grace? By no means. In his twilight years, could he become like the repentant thief on the cross next to Jesus? Absolutely.
Of course, we don’t minimise the serious and deep repentance that will be needed by anyone who responds to the Good News of Jesus, but neither do we as believers in that Gospel deny people the opportunity to hear it and meet Christ.
And not only that, some of our taboos are not even about people who have done wrong. There are still taboos against people for the colour of their skin. There are various ways in which we exclude people because they are ‘not one of us’. But if God does not treat them as ‘profane or unclean’, then what right do we have to exclude them from the offer of God’s love? How can we? The heart of the Good News is a message of mercy and grace for all – including us, because we need that as much as anybody.
Secondly, what is the Good News? Many years ago, I read a Christian magazine article where famous church leaders were asked to define the Gospel in fifty words or less. One or two of them said it wasn’t possible, and implicitly they were derided for complicating a simple message.
Well, the Good News is simple, but it is also huge. Whole books have been written about it, and we can only scratch the surface by looking at how Peter described it to Cornelius before the Holy Spirit interrupted his sermon.
Some Christians will read the account of Peter’s address and major on the ‘simple’ message beginning with peace through Jesus Christ (verse 36) and ending with the forgiveness of sins (verse 43). It’s what many of us are tuned in to hear – that Jesus died for our sins and through his sacrifice we can be forgiven.
Now in what I am about to say I do not want anyone to think that I deny that message. I don’t. I believe it, and it is central to my faith, too. But I want you to notice that it is only one thing among many that Peter says – and he doesn’t even get as far as linking forgiveness to the Cross! And the broad context is that Peter gives a brief account of the story of Jesus. Yes, the message starts with peace and ends with forgiveness, but that is all part of an invitation to enter into the story of Jesus.
The danger with only emphasising the message of forgiveness is that we gain the impression that Christianity is simply a ticket into heaven when we die. But the call is not only to be at peace with God and discover forgiveness through Jesus Christ, it is also to be part of the Jesus story. It is to live a Jesus life that is made possible by God’s peace and forgiveness. It is to know that the Resurrection doesn’t simply mean we have the hope of heaven, but that Jesus
is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. (Verse 42)
‘Judge’ may not sound like good news, but this is the Jesus who has already been described as ‘doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil’ (verse 38).
The message, then, is about receiving God’s forgiveness and peace, but going on from there as a disciple of Jesus, one who learns by seeking to copy his life. Yes, there is the hope of heaven, but before then there is the call as a disciple to build for the kingdom of God and make a difference in this world. This is what Peter calls Cornelius to embrace. This is what we are called to believe and live if we call ourselves Christians. And this is the message we are to take to the world.
Thirdly and finally, how is the Good News lived? It all happens when Peter’s sermon is interrupted. How on earth anyone can come up with the popular cliché that the Holy Spirit is a gentleman when that very Spirit decides that Peter has said enough and it’s time for action is beyond me. But he falls on the listeners ‘while Peter was still speaking’ (verse 44). The Gentiles get the same beginning – ‘speaking in tongues and extolling God’ (verse 46) – that the first disciples had had at Pentecost. The ‘taboo’ people – those thought ‘profane or unclean’ until God’s intervention are most definitely nothing of the sort.
I wonder whether we have ever seen God pour out his favour upon someone of whom we disapproved? Because that’s what Peter and his team witness here. And it is so decisive that Peter orders the immediate baptism of Cornelius and his household. There is all the evidence he needs to know that these are people who have converted to the Good News of Jesus.
And now, the two groups that were previously hostile to each other are united in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Here is a powerful sign of God’s ministry of reconciliation. The Gospel again is not simply about my personal forgiveness of sins. We are not only reconciled to God, we are reconciled to each other and called to live a life where we are at peace with God and one another.
Yes, living as a disciple starts right now as God unites us in Christ with people we wouldn’t otherwise choose to be our companions. The old adage that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family is just as true of our spiritual family. But if we are serious about seeing the healing of the nations as we work for the kingdom of God, then we need to start by being an example of a healing community right here.
What does that mean? Well, by the power of the Holy Spirit it means I am not going to ignore that person I don’t like. I am instead going to see whether reconciliation is achievable. It means I am not going to keep poisoning our community by indulging in cheap criticism of people, especially when I do it from a perspective that sounds like I think I am superior, I have got everything together, and I am the better disciple of Jesus. It means I am not going to start complaining at the drop of a hat. I do not come to church to be a consumer, and expect that the purpose of church is for everything to be according to my taste, and that I can therefore rattle off my moans when it isn’t exactly how I want it to be. No, I come to my church community to be part of God’s work of reconciliation and healing. I come on Sundays and other days to live out Jesus Christ’s vision of peace – peace with God, peace with one another, and peace for the world.
In short, as I embrace in Jesus’ name those who are socially under a taboo, and seek to lives as disciples of Jesus alongside them, I am committed to a life whose very actions speak the Good News that Christ brought.
Nothing less than that is Christian faith and Christian church.
[1] Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p353.
Big Circumstance 