November 1, 2009

Luke 12:8-12; Acts 5:17-33

We are continuing our sermon series from the book of Acts on the theme of – The church living under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Last Sunday we looked at Acts 4 and we saw how the Holy Spirit was cultivating a spirit of generosity in people’s lives. People were sharing so generously with one another that everyone had enough. Luke says – “there were no needy people among them.”

One of the signs of the Holy Spirit’s work in Acts is this spirit of generosity – a willingness among God’s people to share generously with one another.

This spirit of generosity and sharing was so contagious that Luke tells us “great numbers of people were choosing to follow Christ.”

In fact, so many people were coming to Christ that it made the authorities jealous and scared. Luke writes in verse 17 that the ruling authorities– “being filled with jealousy, arrested the apostles and put them in prison.”

Now, here is the humorous part of this passage. Being thrown into prison isn’t humorous but the rest of the story is. In the middle of the night an angel comes and frees the apostles from prison. The apostles, then, go right back to the temple and continue teaching the people about Jesus.

The next morning, when the police arrive to take the apostles to court, they can’t find them. The doors are locked and the prison guards are all in place – but no apostles can be found.

The people who are suppose to be in charge of security, who are suppose to know what is happening – have no idea what is going on.

These authorities are trying desperately to stop this fast growing movement of Jesus followers but everything they try is backfiring on them.

Finally, someone reports to the police that the apostles are back in the temple preaching about Jesus. So, the police hustle back and arrest them all over again, but Luke carefully notes that the police did not “use violence on the apostles” because they were afraid the people would riot and turn on them.

The authorities then say to the apostles in verse 28 – “we gave you strict orders not to teach in Jesus’ name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us. But Peter and the Apostles answered – we must obey God rather than any human authority.”

This story, I think, illustrates the tension we Christians often feel in being citizens of two entities – citizens of the country we live in and citizens of the Kingdom of God – a body that goes beyond national boundaries.

Because we are to always put our allegiance to God above our allegiance to country, as Christians we are going to live with some tension in relationship to the state and human authorities.

Jesus told his disciples this would happen to them. In Luke 12 Jesus says they would often find themselves standing before rulers and kings and governors because of his name.

But then Jesus tells them – “not to worry about what they should say in front of these political leaders because the Holy Spirit would give them wisdom.”

They were to use this opportunity in front of political leaders to testify about the good news of Jesus Christ.

In the book of Acts, then, Luke has the church constantly testifying before kings and religious authorities about their faith in Christ.

Everything the church did seemed to threaten the political establishment.

So, from the beginning of the church and for at least the first three centuries – the church was essentially a martyr church. Obeying God rather than human authorities often got Christians into trouble with the state.

The church never sought persecution, but its life and way of being in the world was always a constant threat to human authorities.

Rosemary Ruether, a Catholic scholar writes, “the believers church is a separated people, not because of any inner sectarianism, but because it must exist in tension and conflict with a world formed along alien and hostile principles of existence. A world which instinctively recognizes the community of believers as a threat to the status quo, and to the foundation of its authority and power.

The more clearly the believing community grasps its own principle of life – the more they will stand out against the system around them. The more they live by those principles, the more they run the risk of being a dissident and even outlaw community.”

Rosemary’s point here is that the church, when it is faithful to Jesus Christ, will offer an alternative community and way of life to it surrounding culture.

The NT often describes God’s faithful people as “strangers, pilgrims, and even aliens”.

• We are strangers in that we are never completely at home in this world. We live by different values and goals and so we seem strange to others.
• We are pilgrims here – for we are always on our way to a new city – the city of God.
• And we are aliens – for our citizenship is first of all in the kingdom of God -even while we live and work here.

When the Apostles said – “we must obey God rather than human authorities” they were declaring their primary allegiance to God and their identity as an alternative community built around Jesus’ life and teachings.

The Apostles never set out to make society Christian. They weren’t even trying to make society a better place to live, although that would certainly be a good thing.

They were primarily saying to the authorities – our allegiance is to Jesus Christ and God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven.

• No matter what you do to us – we are going to keep forgiving others – because Jesus forgave us.
• No matter what you do to us – we are going to keep sharing our resources with one another because it all belongs to God anyway.
• No matter what you do to us – we are going to love all people because God loves all people.
• No matter what you do to us – we will reject the use of violence because Jesus told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.
• No matter what you do to us – we are going to keep talking about Jesus with our neighbors because he is the hope of the world.

In obeying God rather than human authorities the church was simply carrying on Jesus’ ministry in the world. The church’s engagement with the world was made through its distinctive practices of service, mutual aid, and love for all – including our enemies.

The early church was not concerned about redeeming the state or taking control of government or insisting that the government lives up to NT standards.

I think one of our ongoing problems in the church today is that we are expecting way too much of government and way too little of the church.

Many Christians today think the church’s primary responsibility is to speak to government and to get them to carry out our righteous concerns.

The assumption is that the way to have influence in the world and to get things done – is to get more and more political power for the church.

This is why the Christian Right and the Christian Left work feverishly to get larger and larger numbers of Christians out to participate in the political process for their side.

The goal is to use political power to legislate your view of morality or to make society more Christian from your perspective.

I see at least two problems with this approach.

One is that Christians are to have a different view of power than Caesar. Caesar’s use of power is most often “power over” others. It often uses threats and violence to bring about change.

Kingdom people, on the other hand, are not to control the world by exercising power over others, but to transform the world by mirroring cross-like love – serving the world.

Too often we want government to use its “power over others” to bring about change rather than the church being willing to make sacrifices through loving service to bring about change.

The second problem I see is that too often the church wants government to legislate morality around peace and justice issues while the church itself does very little.

For example, we want government to work to end poverty in America but most churches don’t have any of their own budgets allocated to helping alleviate poverty.

Many Christians simply want government to legislate what we can’t or won’t do voluntarily in and through the church.

In the past, the church established schools, orphanages, shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens, and many other social ministries independent of government control.

The church still does many of these things but increasingly churches are looking to government to do these things.

It isn’t that the government shouldn’t do anything – it should, but the church needs to lead the way in demonstrating to the world what it looks like to fight poverty, injustice, racism, violence, and environmental abuse in a Christ-like way.

The church is to provide leadership to the world by our spiritual and moral example of how we live together and serve the world.

Pledging allegiance to Christ does not mean we know more than others – it just means we are willing to sacrifice more than others.

Certainly, the church will give its blessing to our nation’s leaders when they do the right things. And the church will try to be leaven in society so that we can be a better people and our world will be a better place to live in.

But our main purpose is not to prop up society or to use political power to legislate morality. Our main purpose is to obey God and to be an alternative community living by Jesus’ teachings and modeling a new kind of living.

Our goal is not to take over the levers of power and impose our way on people, but to serve others. Our role as a church is to be a “servant to the world”.

This doesn’t mean we are to withdraw from society. It doesn’t mean we can’t be assertive with our witness and work in the world.

In our scripture today the apostles refuse to be quiet when the authorities tell them to stop speaking. The apostles go right back to the temple and continue teaching.

When the church is threatened, it doesn’t alter its ministry or message so it will be more acceptable.

The apostles didn’t sit down with the authorities and work out a compromise about what they will do or say.

Instead, the apostles continued to be in the world in the same way Jesus was in the world – serving, healing, speaking the truth in love, confronting sin and evil, and calling people to repentance and new life.

The apostles also were not intimidated by the rulers. They even reminded the authorities that they were not God and they did not have the apostle’s ultimate allegiance.

There is a proper place to confront rulers and leaders and to call them to move toward justice, peace, and compassion for all people.

The bible is filled with stories about people of faith who resisted unjust laws and called rulers to act more justly.

Like the apostles resisted the rulers of their day – Shiphrah and Puah, Hebrew midwives, also refused Pharoah’s order to kill all the Hebrew baby boys.

Moses challenged Pharaoh to let the enslaved Hebrew people go.

And Daniel continued to pray to God even when King Darius ordered him to stop.

Governing authorities may not acknowledge Christ, but that does not mean they are exempt from God’s ways.

To honor and respect our nation’s leaders may include speaking a prophetic word and issuing a call for repentance. So there is a place for the church to speak directly to government.

At the same time, I still believe the most important question for the church to ask is – “how can we model God’s reign in our own community?”

As we answer that question first, then we will know better how to serve the broader community and how to participate in the political process in a more Christ-like way.

But no matter how much the church is a servant in the world. No matter how much good we do in the world – this way of living can be costly.

The apostles were doing many good things and yet the rulers and religious leaders were filled with jealousy. At one point Luke says the leaders became so enraged that they “wanted to kill the apostles right on the spot.”(v 33)

It was only Gamaliel’s wisdom that stopped them from killing the apostles. Gamaliel, an influential Jewish leader, argued that if this movement is of human origin – it will fail. And if it is of God – then there is no way it can be stopped anyway.

Upon Gamaliel’s advice the apostles were released – but not before they were beaten.

The Christian symbol of relating to the world will always be the cross. We may not be beaten or tortured like the apostles were, but the principalities and powers of this world do not give up easily.

We should not be surprised if the state uses violence or threats against Christians because it will always try to secure its power base and maintain control.

As Christians, suffering is not something we seek after. We aren’t to have a martyr complex. Persecution is not even proof that we are being faithful.

But we should not be surprised if we have to testify before rulers, kings, or governors because of Jesus and the many good deeds we do in his name.

We still live in a Good Friday kind of world, but I also know that Easter morning is coming. Our challenge as a church is to have faith that when it comes we will see how every Christ-like act of loving service has contributed to the triumph of good over evil.

We have to trust the self-sacrificial love of God over the power of Caesar’s sword to bring about lasting change.

The invitation for us this morning – is to just be the church. To keep serving, healing, speaking the truth in love, confronting sin and evil, and calling people to repentance and new life.

As a community of faith, let’s expect God to do great things through the church.

And when we are called to testify before rulers and governors let’s also expect the Holy Spirit to give us guidance on what to say and what to do.

May our life together model for the world the beautiful life of God’s kingdom and be an example of what peace and justice in the world can look like.

And may we always make sure our allegiance to God’s kingdom is our first priority in life.

Let us pray.