This week’s lectionary reflection skips over the gospel reading for the 4th Sunday of Easter and dives into Acts, and if all you do this week is listen to this gorgeous choral composition by Shawn Kirchner, you’ll have understood the power of the passage. Honestly, I could just share this link with you and be done for the day.
But, you know, I’ve also got some words.
It didn’t take too long after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension for the powers that be to get aggravated - AGAIN - at his followers. They’d crucified the leader of the movement, which, in military logic, should have put an end to the thorn in their sides that Jesus’ followers had become. But no: these little brats were still out there, preaching the same kind of chaotic message that he had, telling people that he’d been resurrected from the dead and sent them out to keep up the irritating witness.
In the beginning sentences of this chapter of Acts, we learn that “while Peter and John were speaking to the people, 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. So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.”
The religious leaders were MUCH ANNOYED with Peter and John because they just refused to shut up, even though they’d seen what happened to Jesus.
I don’t know about you, but I have both BEEN that “much annoyed” religious leader and INSPIRED the annoyance. When your job is to keep an institution running, maintain status quo and avoid death and decline, the people who keep interrupting that work of stasis with inconveniently timed observations of injustice or harm are annoying.
I never threw anybody in jail, but I definitely cut people off, ignored their requests, and stewed in days’ worth of frustration because these nagging people were making my job so much harder than it should be. I can identify pretty easily with the priests and Sadducees.
But I have also been in the role of Peter and John, whose preaching and rabble-rousing has annoyed the religious leaders. I’ve been cut off, ignored, and tagged as a trouble maker who is best written off.
So this message from Peter, who is dragged before the gathered authorities to explain himself and his irritating behavior, hits me on both sides of the coin. “By what power are you doing these things?!” the assembled rulers, elders and scribes ask. And Peter, FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT (which is Luke’s way of telling us that it wasn’t just Peter talking but Peter as a vehicle for a bigger, truer truth), says:
“Oh, are you talking about this sick man that was healed just now? Is THAT the crime you’ve arrested and imprisoned and interrogated us for? This HEALING act? Oh, well, if THAT’S what you’re talking about, then you should know that this man was healed by the power of Jesus Christ. You remember, right? The guy YOU CRUCIFIED and God raised right back up from the dead.”
“You know that song,” Peter continues. “It’s from your psalter. Page 118, if I remember right. You know how it goes: the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.”
I’ve been finding myself in front of a bunch of those gatherings of religious authorities lately. I’ve appealed the district decision to “suspend” my ordination to a denominational committee, and that meeting will happen this summer. I’m struggling to know how to approach yet ANOTHER meeting where I’m asked to explain “by what power” I’m doing these things, because I GET how annoying I must be to the people who have chosen roles that expect them to keep things going, uphold institutional power structures, maintain the status quo. I GET it, because I have been there. I can feel the annoyance that they are feeling.
And I have also, over the last however many years, been schooled in how power works and why the persistent, nagging, annoying witness toward real mercy and justice is necessary and vital. I have been learning how very much harm those institutional structures of power and authority have done and continue doing.
The status quo is not worth maintaining when it does so much violence and allows so much harm.
So: that’s a very rambling way of saying that I am encouraged and humbled and emboldened and chastised by Peter’s psalm-quoting in this scene. You think, he tells the people in power, that you are building something great. You think that you have it all figured out, that you know what and who are important, what and who belong. You think you are in charge, here, and you get to decide how the Spirit moves.
But you aren’t, and you have never been. The people you hurt, the ones you cast out, the precious, beloved children of God that you ignore and demean and torture and kill: they are the ones. Those are the places. That’s the kind of vibe the Holy Spirit loves, and it’s where She’s already birthing a whole new world.
And in that new world, y’all? Power works very, very differently. The stones that the builders reject become the cornerstone. There are not tribunals of religious leaders who get to decide whether or not anyone belongs. Nobody gets thrown into prison or condemned to hell for doing healing work.
May it be so.
It must be a Great Monday morning when we start with Dana and Shawn! I appreciate your perspective, Dana. It is so easy for us to get stuck in as one in power, or as the one challenging that power. I suspect that I have made decisions to maintain the status quo, even though I thought that I was trying to let the light in. We (as a church) can't trust the Holy Spirit to Move in Our Midst, even when we sing and pray those words earnestly. It's like we have our fingers crossed behind our backs.
There's been a movement over the last 2 years in the Church of the Brethren to send queries regarding the 1983 Human Sexuality paper to Annual Conference. The one my congregation sponsored to rescind the paper didn't make it out of Southern Ohio/Kentucky District Conference last year. The one IL/WIS sponsored for congregational freedom made it to AC and this week the Leadership Team returned it to the District. There's another taking a third approach coming from a congregation in Mid-Atlantic District this year. So much harm has been done, and we must have the freedom to love our brothers and sisters as Jesus commands us to do. And especially in this time of ministerial scarcity we are crazy to ignore the Holy Spirit's gifting of our LQBTQIA+ kin and the prophetic speech of people like you, Dana.