Seventh Sunday of Easter -- Humble Resistance

Passages: Acts 1:6-14, Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35, 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11, John 17:1-11.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. –1 Peter 5:6-10

Our lectionary continues with the theme of suffering as part of the Christian experience. But what I find most interesting about the 1 Peter lection is the author’s mixture of two Christian virtues – humility and resistance. Often sacrifice and humility is conflated with submission and docility. Critics of Christianity have frequently said that Christianity encourages obedience to oppressive structures. However, 1 Peter calls Christians to be vigilant (alert and self-controlled) in the face of evil and to resist, standing firm in faith. Humility does not equal apathy, docility or social obedience; rather it is acknowledging the sovereignty of God and your place in God’s kingdom. This place is one of unity with others, who share your common lot, suffering for following Christ’s love and finding comfort in God’s grace and promise of restoration.

In 1 Peter, the author refers to “your enemy the devil.” In Greek, the language of the letter, dia,boloj means “accuser” or “slanderer,” and is how Early Christian writers referred to the Devil. The Hebrew Scriptures, such as the Book of Job, refer to the Devil as “ha-satan” or the adversary or even obstacle. The Early Christian encounter with the Roman Empire, and their perception of the Empire as morally bankrupt, yet immensely powerful, intensified their conception of evil and Satan. The Christian “Devil” has much more agency and power in the world in the Christian worldview than in the traditional Jewish worldview, in part because of Rome’s influence during Christianity’s formative years. Importantly, this gives Christian texts a strong sense of institutional and structural evil. 1 Peter’s warning is a warning against complacency to the culture and society Christians inhabit, a landscape where evil prowls like a hungry lion.

So the humility that Peter speaks of at the beginning of the passage is not a humility that is submissive to the culture one is in. Casting aside anxiety is not succumbing to apathy. It is quite the opposite. When you humble yourself before God, and align yourself with the glory of Christ, you find yourself in conflict with the world. You find yourself vulnerable, potential prey to a hungry lion. Fortunately, as today’s Psalm reminds us, “the God of Israel give power to his people” (68.35) – God gives us the power for humble resistance.

April 27 -- Sixth Sunday in Easter

Passages: Acts 17:22-31, Psalm 66:8-20, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21.

Paul preaching in Athens

I will come to your temple with burnt offerings

and fulfill my vows to you-

vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke
when I was in trouble.

I will sacrifice fat animals to you
and an offering of rams;
I will offer bulls and goats.
Selah – Psalm 66.13-15

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. – Acts 17.24-25

In today’s Acts lection, although Paul is speaking to Athenian Greeks engaging in various forms of Hellenistic Greek religion, his words also speak to Jerusalem and Temple Mount. Most scholars date Acts several decades after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. But during Paul’s lifetime, the Temple still stood and was the focus of Jewish religious life. Ritual offerings, as described in Psalm 66, took place there daily. The innermost sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of the Holies, was regarded by many Jews as the physical dwelling place of the Lord. So when Paul says that God “does not live in temples (naoi/j) built by hands” he is rejecting the Temple’s central role in Early Christianity, which is beginning to distinguish itself from traditional Judaism. In addition to profound implications for the immediate historical context Paul was in, his words present a challenge to modern Christians. How often do churches get lost in the perpetuation of their own facility and institution at the expense of the Church’s wider mission? If God does not dwell in temples, then churches cannot be an end unto themselves, and must be part of a broader understanding of the Church as a body of believers.

Being relatively new to Boston, I was surprised to see so many small, struggling congregational churches so close to each other. In addition to being founded in a time of intense theological divisions, these churches were also created before modern transportation. Now they are historic churches with great sentimental value, but tiny congregations struggling to pay the bills. They have little social programming and the programming they do have is on a shoe-string budget. The ministers and the congregants of these churches may not vision their facilities as the focus of their faith, but the reality is that is where the majority of their time and money is spent.

I do not wish to diminish the importance of holy space and good church facilities. A sanctuary is something that serves the community very well. When I was doing youth ministry out of a narrow temporary trailer, if someone asked me what I needed most to improve the youth program, I’d tell them a big square room dedicated to solely to the youth. The church I used to serve is currently doing just that – they are constructing a building that contains classrooms, a youth center and a Chapel. But I had mixed feelings about the construction project: were we prioritizing our space and our individual church above our mission to the wider Church?

Paul conceived of the Church in highly theological, non-geographical terms. His epistles repeat the analogy of the Church as the body of Christ. To Paul, all believers (both Jews and Greeks, slaves and free) were united into one body and that was the location of the Church, not some centralized location like the Temple Mount or Vatican City. And the body of believers was something diverse, each person with her various skills, but harmonious. Today, parts of Christ’s body is sick with HIV/AIDS or other diseases that are running rampart, in part due to the extreme poverty faced by far too many around the world. Many brothers and sisters are starving, or struggling to put a roof over their head, when other Christians are unnecessarily upgrading their facilities or, worse yet, confined in their ministry by the burden of their own roof. Sanctuaries and churches have the ability to be civic centers that empower and enable the true Church to be more effective in manifesting God’s will and reign on Earth, and to work toward making the body healthy and full. Too often sanctuaries become the focus, not the people, and we need to be reminded – like the Athenians and Jews of Paul’s era – that God cannot be confined in sacred spaces. God is within us and around us.

Fifth Sunday of Easter: To Suffer like Stephen

Passages: Acts 7:55-60, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16, 1 Peter 2:2-10, John 14:1-14

In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.

Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me. –Psalm 31.1-2

"While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep. –Acts 7.59

The past two entries in this blog focused on Christian counter culture and the call to carry the cross. During the season of Easter, the lectionary reminds us that the Christian life is one at opposition with the world; a life full of trials and persecution. The promise of Easter is not a promise of an easy life – Christ did not suffer so that we would not. The promise of Easter is that God will be present in your suffering, and there will be a transcendent victory. In our Acts lection, Stephen is stoned to death before Saul for publicly testifying his faith. Like Jesus, Stephen was not delivered from his execution nor did he plead with God to alter his fate – he forgave his persecutors and committed his spirit unto Jesus (echoing Luke 23.46, where Jesus calls out on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”, which echoes today’s Psalm 31).

Today’s Psalm lection, Psalm 31 prays to the Lord “to come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge.” This provides an interesting contrast to the acts. Clearly, God did not come to the physical rescue of Stephen. If the Lord was Stephen’s rock of refuge, that refuge did not provide sanctuary from the rocks hurled at his body. The Psalm also asks the Lord to “let me never be put to shame.” Yet Stephen suffers the shame of being publicly executed for heresy.

Yet Stephen and other Early Christian leaders had a radical understanding of righteousness and God’s presence in their life. The Holy Spirit gave them the strength and virtue necessary to accomplish their mission in the world; but it did not keep them safe. Stephen’s death, like Jesus’, was admired as the most fitting end for a holy man (or woman). He faced his death as Jesus did, and Christians did not see death in martyrdom, but everlasting life. Last week I spoke of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent resistance that is based on a similar understanding of Christ’s example. King understood suffering’s role in the coming of the Kingdom of God, and recognized the transforming power of living Christ’s example of love in the face persecution. Stephen’s death also demonstrates the transformational power of braving persecution with love – it is in this passage that we are introduced to Saul – who “was there, giving approval to [Stephen’s] death” (Acts 8.1). Saul, of course, is the Apostle Paul and the most dramatic conversion story in the New Testament. Although Saul is not blinded on the road to Damascus until later, it is clear that Stephen, and other Christians Saul encountered in his persecution, were planting the seeds of righteousness in the perhaps the second most influential figure of the New Testament (after Jesus). If Jesus had come to Saul in a vision without the preceding example of Stephen, perhaps Saul never would have been transformed into Paul. The death of Stephen was something Paul surely carried with him throughout the entirety of his mission as Apostle to the Gentiles, and must have been an inspiration in his own beatings and imprisonments.

The message of inevitable suffering that will befall Christians and the power of facing that suffering with love and compassion for your tormentors is a prominent message of the Easter lectionary, but often missing from modern pulpits during the season. This Sunday I heard a great sermon from Rev. Molly Baskette on violence. It challenged the disconnect between condemning violence in the world, which is often muffled by distance from our comfortable lives in Massachusetts and our consumption of violence as entertainment. A thoughtful and intelligent preacher, Rev. Baskette, dealt with the theme in a nuanced and thorough way. However, having been reading Acts, I was waiting for her to connect the theme of violence in her sermon with the violence and brutality experienced by the first generation of our church. She spoke of how our rejection of violence as Christians – if we thoroughly answer that call in refusing to participate in the fantasy of violence everywhere in society – will alienate us from the world. But there was nothing about how it would provoke the violence of the world. The idea that many of would experience violence or brutality because of our commitment to Christ’s message of peace and justice seemed like a foreign possibility. Truthfully, times have changed so that, at least for American Christians, it is indeed a remote possibility that we will experience anything close to Stephen’s or Paul’s trials.

But all people face hard times, and times when their convictions are truly tested. And almost all people will be touched by violence at some point in their lives, and it’s important to have a solid conception of how that violence is to be met and understood. Like in the 31^st Psalm, I pray that the Lord be “a strong fortress to save me” but know that it is not necessarily physical salvation; so I commit into his hands my spirit, and hopefully I will have the strength to suffer like Stephen.

Fourth Sunday in Easter -- Taking up the Cross

Passages: Acts 2:42-47, Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10

“But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” 1 Peter 2.20-21

1 Peter reminds that doing the right thing is not always easy or safe. In fact, as Christians we are called to a life of suffering for our convictions. This message is easily lost in comfortable congregations; many Christians come to church to lay down their burdens and to ease the suffering of their lives. They are looking for stability and an anchor in life, not adversity or challenge. The rise of prosperity theology – charismatic preachers proclaiming that God rewards the faithful in this life with good health and financial well-being – demonstrates how many people are thirsty for a faith that will lift them up and ease their sorrow. But Christian prosperity comes in an unexpected and somewhat paradoxical way: We are called to suffer for our faith, but in that sacrifice find redemption and a "more excellent way."

Peter is careful to only commend suffering when it is on behalf of good. I also think Peter avoids glorifying suffering, although this less clear. Many have criticized Christianity for its self-sacrificial and need-denying obsession with suffering. Often in history, Christian monastics would subject themselves to physical pain and emotional tumult in an attempt to come closer to God in their profound suffering. Yet that suffering was brought deliberately upon themselves. Although they were searching for a deeper faith, they were not suffering on account of good deeds that they performed in the world. Often they were punishing themselves for their own sins, thus not enduring suffering for goodness, but for penance and purification. While a Christian theology that makes sense of suffering and persecution is indeed necessary and healthy, it is important to avoid masochism or glorifying suffering.

But it equally important not to have a theology that demonizes suffering. Not all suffering, at all times, is bad. Often secular morality focuses merely on alleviating suffering and raising comfort in the world -- which generally is a very good thing -- but finds itself conflicted when the seemingly "good" action requires great sacrifice and even more suffering than the alternatives. The example of the cross gives Christians courage in pursuing what is right even when the consequences seem grim and terrible. Few things frighten me more than the thought of torture. Yet my greatest moral teacher knew his fate and did not flee. He had the power to avoid crucifixion, but because of his mission suffered for the redemption and transformation of society.

In my last post, I explored how that although the church has prominently shaped mainstream culture, Christian ideals and values still remain counter cultural. For the first Christians, following Christ did mean persecution and violent suffering. It meant challenging the injustices and norms of society. Christ preached a message of justice for the poor and the corruption of wealth, a message of healing for the sick. Although in many modern societies religious tolerance is such that professing Christ won't induce a beating, I think that living Christ's example in the world will still lead to conflict with the status quo and bring the suffering and struggles that come with it.

Forty years ago Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered for his commitment to justice and his prophetic profession in Christ. Before his murder, King had been beaten and imprisoned. But, knowing the consequences for speaking the truth and challenging his culture, he stood in the pulpit and asked men and women of all ages to join with him. He reminded Christians that the crown of our glory is made of thorns, that we are called to carry the cross like Christ. And through the torment, the jabs and insults, we are to display love and forgiveness, and be committed to peace. King understood how this process transformed society. The courage and restraint of protesters attacked by dogs or assaulted with hoses opened people's eyes and changed their hearts. It gave many others the courage to stand up for goodness, even when it means sacrifice and loss.

Because suffering was a reality of Christ's ministry in the world, it will also be a reality of the mission of the global church, the body of believers. Christ does not rescue us from suffering on the cross as a substitute -- he serves as an example of a more excellent way that transcends death. But although God calls us to endure trials on His behalf, he is always present and gives us the strength to endure. The great preacher Phillips Brooks once challenged his congregation by saying: "Pray not for easy lives -- Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but powers equal to your tasks." I have faith that the strength, endurance and comfort of the Lord will guide believers through their most difficult trials and tasks. As the famous Psalm from today's lectionary praises, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."