Sermon 4/25/2021
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Sermon Easter 4B 2021
Theme: Witness and Wonder
Title: “Bearing Witness: Actions Speak Louder Than Words”
Scripture: 1 John 3:16-24, Acts 4:5-12
We are in the middle of a sermon series on Witness and Wonder. We are spending
these Easter season weeks meditating on the death and resurrection of Jesus and how
we are called to respond. As we talked about last week, it is something each of us must
wrestle with as we encounter Jesus for ourselves. But the good news is that we do have
the stories of those who knew Jesus and witnessed his life, death and risen body in the
flesh to help guide us and make sense of how to respond in our own lives.
In the days after Jesus was crucified and rose again from the dead, the disciples went
around and shared with people about the incredible things they had witnessed. How
this amazing teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, is none other than the promised Messiah and
how they have seen first hand his power to heal brokenness, break down the dividing
wall and even bring life out of death.
We read about these events in the book appropriately named “The Acts of the
Apostles”. We hear accounts of the wonders and signs they performed as well as the
words they spoke. In the first few chapters of this book we see the crowds respond and
their small band gathers more Jesus followers first 120 then 3,000 then 5,000. Kind of
amazing for a tiny group of some uneducated fisherman, family members and women.
In today’s passage from chapter 4 we learn that Peter and John, two of Jesus’ disciples,
were arrested the night before after healing a man who used to sit at the temple gate
every day begging for alms. When the astonished crowds saw the man get up and walk,
they crowded around Peter and John who began to explain that the man was healed in
the name and by the power of Jesus. The scriptures also point to another reason for
their arrest. The religious authorities were upset because they were proclaiming that in
Jesus there is resurrection of the dead, a heresy in the minds of the Sadducees.
the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much
annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus
there is the resurrection of the dead. - Acts 4:1-2
We pick up the story in the morning as Peter and John are brought before the council of
religious authorities. It was quite the assembly of powerful muckety mucks: Annas the
high priest and Caiaphas (these names should sound familiar as these were the ones
who arrested Jesus and handed him over to the Roman authorities to undergo death by
capital punishment). Also gathered to decide the fate of the prisoners were other
important rulers including members of the high-priestly family, elders and scribes.
As they are brought forward to be questioned, the authorities ask them:
"By what power or by what name did you do this?" - Acts 4:7
Peter is no dummy. Does he have a history of being kinda clueless and a coward -
yeah, pretty much. But not this time. He is standing as a prisoner before the very council
that condemned Jesus to death and crucified him. And he’s got their number. His very
response to their question - by what authority did you do this? - is evidence of this.
Listen to Peter’s response:
if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was
sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known . . . he is
standing before you healed in the name of Jesus.
He doesn’t shy away from answering their question - he openly claims that what they
did was in the name of Jesus, but he begins by reminding the authorities, and all those
who are listening, what actually took place. The people in power are going to be hard
pressed to find fault with a good deed of healing and Peter knows this. Their question
reveals more about them than it does about Peter. What they are most threatened by -
is the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. They had hoped that when he was put to
death, Jesus’ name would die out and he would be forgotten. Yet here are his followers,
bearing witness to the name of Jesus in works of healing. What the leaders really object
to is this threat to their own power and authority. They are concerned that the people will
start listening to and following this ragtag group rather than the religious officials. But
there isn’t much they can do about this - and they know it. If we keep reading in Acts
chapter 4 verse 13, where our passage left off, this becomes clear:
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were
uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as
companions of Jesus. When they saw the man who had been cured standing
beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.
Here is the man who had been healed standing right in front of them. What can they
possibly say to condemn Peter and John? Can they punish them for doing a good
deed? Of course not. But they still want to find some way to limit their influence so they
command them not to speak in the name of Jesus.
So they called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of
Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to
listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from
speaking about what we have seen and heard.” After threatening them again,
they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all of
them praised God for what had happened. - Act 4:18-21
I know it took some time to walk through this passage together, thank you for your
patience. I do think it is important to really understand the dynamics. We can learn a lot
from this encounter about how we are called to bear witness in our own day and age.
Most important takeaway - Actions speak louder than words!
It was the deeds of the apostles, in this case the healing of the beggar, that astonished
the crowds and made them curious to listen to the words of Peter and John.
1. The supreme value of witnessing through deeds is found in other passages of
scripture.
a. In Mark 9:38-40 we learn of a fascinating encounter the disciples had with
a stranger. “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in
your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do
not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name
can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not
against us is for us. - Mark 9:38-40
b. In our reading this morning from the first letter of John we hear the early
followers of Jesus encouraged to selfless acts and good deeds. We know
love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our
lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the
world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? -
1 John 3:16-17
I read an article a while back that opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about
sharing what we have to help others. It was about a man named Chuck Feeney. I had
never heard of him before I read this article about him in Forbes magazine, although I
was familiar with the names of the people quoted in the article who say they admire him
and seek to emulate him, names like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. Even though Feeney
is a billionaire like Buffet and Gates most people have never heard of him because for
the last 40 years he has worked very hard to give away his fortune in secret. He
pioneered the idea of “Giving While Living” of sharing generously what you have during
your lifetime. He established a foundation which donated more than $8 billion to
charities, universities and foundations around the world and when it succeeded in
finishing its work the foundation closed down. He made his fortune as cofounder of the
airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers selling luxury items, but he himself lived simply and
frugally. He and his wife calculated how much they would need for expenses until their
deaths, then gave everything else away.
Feeney gave big money to big problems— he poured money into efforts to bring peace
to Northern Ireland, to modernize Vietnam’s health care system, and turn New York’s
long-neglected Roosevelt Island into a technology hub.
His generosity and gutsy investments influenced Bill Gates and Warren Buffett when
they launched the Giving Pledge in 2010—an aggressive campaign to convince the
world’s wealthiest to give away at least half their fortunes before their deaths.
It may seem strange to highlight the giving of such an insanely rich individual to inspire
us to give of our world’s goods to those in need - except that I think his entire approach
to giving is the type of radical generosity that all of us could follow - regardless of
whether we earn $25,000/year or $100,000/year - which is calculating how much we
need to live simply and then giving all of the rest away.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/splunk/2021/04/01/five-forces-are-building-the-next-data-w
ave/?sh=74d2eaa84c68
Another example:
Tragic but loving story of how neighborly deeds of kindness can sometimes be a
powerful witness of the compassion of Christ. This true story comes from a book entitled
The Neighboring Church: Getting Better at what Jesus said Matters Most by Rick
Rusaw and Brian Mavis, (pp. 46-47). The story is about Tony, a member of Central
Christian Church in Arizona and his neighbor and is told by Tony’s pastor Scott Jones.
[excerpt]
It is up to each of us to bear witness in our own way through our everyday deeds.
Our daily deeds as ordinary [people] must produce a reality that will reinforce
humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human
soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all. - Nelson Mandela
How do we know when we are called to act? - We must listen closely to Christ’s call on
our hearts. We must each bear witness based on what we hear from God
And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts
before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts,
and he knows everything. - 1 John 3:19-20
If our deeds and words meet with opposition - as Peter and John experienced - let us
speak truthfully of what we have seen and heard and let others judge:
Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must
judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
At times people will accuse Christians of engaging in politics. “Politics has no place in
the church”, people will say. There is an important distinction I want to make about
acting as witnesses of Jesus Christ and how our actions call us to engage in the
brokenness of the world. As Disciples of Christ we claim to be “A movement for
wholeness in a fragmented world”.
Other people may have different theologies of witness, but this one I came across from
Henri Nouwen, has guided my own approach for many years.
All Christian action - whether it is visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the
naked, or working for a more just and peaceful society - is a manifestation of the
human solidarity revealed to us in the house of God. It is not an anxious human
effort to create a better world. It is a confident expression of the truth that in
Christ, death, evil, and destruction have been overcome. It is not a fearful
attempt to restore a broken order. It is a joyful assertion that in Christ all order
has already been restored. It is not a nervous effort to bring divided people
together, but a celebration of an already established unity. Thus action is not
activism. An activist wants to heal, restore, redeem and re-create, but those
acting within the house of God point through their action to the healing, restoring,
redeeming and re-creating presence of God. Lifesigns, Henri Nouwen, pp. 48-49
I look forward to working with you to bear witness to what we have seen and heard!