Easter 2C, 24 April 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 5:27-32. Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Revelation 1:4-8. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
John 20:19-31. Peace be to you.…I send you….Receive the spirit of holiness.

O God of inspiration, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Our lectionary in Eastertide turns away from readings from the First Testament and toward the Acts of the Apostles, volume two of the Gospel of Luke. This makes a lot of sense because Acts of the Apostles contains the stories of what Jesus’ followers did after Jesus’ execution, how they were inspired with a spirit of holiness to carry on lives dedicated to Jesus’ ministry marked by justice and right-relationship, by compassion, mercy, and peace. Although the book is more romance than history (in the way we think of history), the stories show that experiences of the resurrection in the early church are not as much about theological or philosophical ideas, but about the consequential actions of being in relationship with the Divine in public practice. Jesus and then the apostles were teaching about calling people to make choices that would shape the well-being of the larger community by their living in greater fidelity with God and one another in the midst of the oppression of an occupying army. 

My problem with the lectionary for Eastertide (You knew I’d have at least one, didn’t you?) is that this is also exactly the teaching purpose of much of the First Testament. When we leave it behind, we are at grave risk of cutting off our relationship with the gifts and graces of the Teaching (capital T), and we risk viewing Christianity as a break in tradition rather than an interpretation of tradition. The Acts of the Apostles was written with the Hebrew Scriptures in mind, probably even at hand. Indeed, our reading today from Acts alludes to Deuteronomy when Peter, addressing the high priest and the Council, calls them to account. So if I were the boss of the lectionary for Sundays during the Great Fifty Days of Easter, I’d have the first readings from Deuteronomy, the second from Acts, and the third from the Gospel of John. (I think snippets of the Book of Revelations could be saved for another time.) And another thing: I’d include the whole scene in Chapter 5 of Acts, which includes an analysis of a Pharisee on the Council named Rabbi Gamaliel and the joy of the apostles, who learned that they were considered worthy to endure pain in Jesus’ name. We cannot remember important things like Torah teachings and the unity that comes with suffering together for a greater good, if we never hear them in the first place.

I’m going to read to you what happens in Acts after Peter testified to God’s exaltation of Jesus to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to God’s people. The scene continues with the Council’s response: [1]

When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. Then he said to the council, “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared. After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!” They [that is, the members of the Council] were convinced by him, and when they had called in the apostles, they had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. As [Peter and the other apostles] left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

That’s the end of the scene; and we know that they chose not to follow the orders of the Council, so they were in and out of jail.

Rabbi Gamaliel is worth paying some attention to because he might be the character in this story most like Episcopalians. He read history with keen analysis, but he advised a moderate, wait-and-see approach to evaluating the teachings of Jesus and Jesus’ apostles, who were calling for radical repentance and forgiveness of sins. Gamaliel in Luke’s account, like many Episcopalians, kept a safe distance in response to the call to follow Jesus. Systematic-theology professor Willie Jennings writes in his commentary on this passage in Acts, that it is our “inability to see God’s own political action in the concrete actions of the common that enables us to watch casually the perpetration of violence without being moved to action.” [2]  Jennings points out that, whether with the news or television and movies, we learn to accommodate and tolerate violence, and the violence becomes entertainment rather than a prompt for non-violent mobilization. Gamaliel’s dilemma challenges us and confronts us with the question: “Will we see and respond to the Spirit of Love that urgently calls us to work together in the world for peace?” 

The spirit of holiness, the spirit of love, which Peter and the others received, whether in the upper room at the beginning of Jesus’ resurrection (which is how the Gospel of John tells it) or 50 days after his resurrection (which is how the Gospel of Luke tells it), took them from being afraid to be seen to being unable to keep quiet about the life and witness of Jesus. They were unwilling or unable to refrain from proclaiming that in Jesus there is resurrection of the dead, there is love stronger than death, even after they were arrested more than once. They were repeat offenders! Peter, who had denied even knowing Jesus three times in the courtyard of the high priest, became the boldest preacher of the group and took on the high-priestly family repeatedly and directly, according to the Acts of the Apostles. Love, as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says again and again, is not an emotion but a discipline. (You know, disciple and discipline are from the same word.) 

GodThe late historian Jaroslav Pelikan wrote this about God (I’m going to substitute the word Love for God, as I am wont do): [3]

To obey Love rather than human authority, and to protest that human laws of the state and nation cannot contravene the divine law of the sovereign Love, has been the unanimous teaching of both the Old and New Testament, as well as the subsequent history of the church since the earliest centuries. Moses before Pharaoh, Elijah before Ahab and Jezebel, John the Baptist before Herod, [Jesus before Pilate], Paul before the Sanhedrin…[all the way to] Martin Luther King before the power structure of White America –- all were expressing this obligation to appeal the abuse of political power by human authorities to the ultimate sovereignty of Love.

And as we know, they were free, but they were not safe. Safety is not a Gospel value. Witness to Love is the Gospel (and the Torah) value.

If the message of the first Sunday of Easter is that the grave cannot hold the Good News of God in Jesus, the message of the second Sunday of Easter is that locked doors, prison cells, and commands to keep silent cannot hold the spirit-filled followers of Jesus. The Good News cannot be killed and buried, it cannot be contained or restricted, locked in or locked up. Government authorities and religious authorities cannot repress (for long) the news of Love’s unconditional regard for all people, or the news that to be faithful to Love, we must respect the dignity of all people, or the news that the risen Lord is found in the very people who are on the receiving end of compassion.

Perhaps you remember what Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries rehabilitation for gang members in Los Angeles, wrote about how many well-meaning volunteers, long accustomed to providing service, ask him what they’re “supposed to do” at Homeboy.  He says that he always responds, “Wrong question. The right one is what will happen to you here?…Don’t set out to change the world. Set out to wonder how people are doing.” He teaches that “we are sent to the margins NOT to make a difference, but so that the folks on the margins will make us different.” [4] I’d say that’s my experience of what mission looks like when it’s going well at Emmanuel Church. The people who are living in various social and economic, spiritual, and religious margins make us different.

It is into this mission, this Christian identity, we are being called. Part of our story is that we are a community of people who have been offered the gift of a spirit of holiness, a Divine Inspiration, and that we want to receive it rather than reject it. Our community has been directed to tell the whole story (the whole story so far, that is) about following Jesus. The whole story includes so much joy, as well as the messes we and our forebears have made because of fear, resentment, ignorance, or indifference. We have been instructed to obey Love over any human authority whenever human authority and Love are in conflict.We support one another in figuring out how to do that when we fail to repent and ask Love for forgiveness. We pray that angels or messengers of the Divine will move through and ultimately open the rooms or prison that keep us from standing up for, telling about, and enacting the discipline of Love.

1.  Deuteronomy 21:22-23.
2. Willie James Jennings, Acts in Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), pp. 63-4.
3.  Jaroslav Pelikan, quoted by Dan Clendenin in “Remembering Rosa Parks”, Journey with Jesus, April 7, 2013:  journeywithjesus.net.
4. Gregory Boyle, SJ, Barking to the Choir (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), pp. 165, 175.