Called to Life
John 5:25-29 Acts 5:12-19
May 15, 2022
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Kathy Donley
Image: Cathedral of St. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome, Italy. Apse, mosaic. Fourth to thirteenth centuries. Baptism cross. Photo by Deb Nystrom, October 2018 creative commons license, https://www.flickr.com/photos/stella12/46020766322
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZqqpS2dJzs
I found a question in my notes that surprised me. I did some Bible study on our two scripture passages early this week. What I usually do is to read some commentaries, maybe some other people’s sermons, and take a few notes. Then I let my brain mull things over for several days and then come back to write the sermon. This week, when I came back to my notes, I found a question that I didn’t remember writing. I honestly don’t know if this was my question or a question posed by someone else. I usually do a better job with note-taking.
Anyway, the question I found in my notes is this: “When abundant life is found, is there always a super religious person who is upset about it?”
It seems to me that the answer is usually yes. Whenever life breaks forth, whenever someone finds liberation or grace or forgiveness or acceptance, it often seems that someone else protests. And often, the protestor is a highly religious person who claims that the new life violates some natural order, or God’s will.
When American women found new life in the right to vote, some religious people said that it would put the moral health of the nation in danger. At the time of desegregation, when African American people were legally free to move through spaces formerly restricted to whites only, religious people and churches actively opposed them. They wrote local laws calling for the arrest of any black person who attempted to attend a white church.
Over the last many decades, gay and lesbian and trans people have come out of the tomb of the closet and enjoyed more abundant living in many ways. And the church has often resisted that. You might know that this month, a new denomination was launched from within the United Methodist Church. After years of debate on same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly gay pastors, the conservative Global Methodist Church could wait no longer to separate from Methodist siblings who would honor and celebrate the fullness of gender and sexuality as God’s gifts in human life.
In John’s gospel, Jesus healed a man who had been ill for 38 years. He did it on the Sabbath, which was a no-no. And predictably, some super religious people got upset. When they confronted Jesus, he claimed that he had God’s blessing, that this was God’s life-giving power at work. So then they were upset that he claimed to speak for God.
Our reading includes Jesus’ response. He says, “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear . . . and those who hear will live.” He says that the time is coming when those who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.
What might those graves be? Graves like poverty and domestic violence, the need to always be right, addiction, undervaluing our own worth. What are the tombs from which Christ calls us to life? Tombs like white supremacy, transphobia, an abusive childhood, capitalism, misogyny, toxic theology, war.
Wilda Gladney writes “Between the resurrection of Jesus and the final resurrection, the Church is called to life, a life apart from all of the dead and death-dealing things that would prevent us from living fully in Christ.” [1]
Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.” We are called out of deadly and death-dealing tombs, called to life.
One of the links between Jesus’ earthly ministry and post-resurrection gatherings of the first Christians is the presence of healings. In Acts 5, we have one of Luke’s summary statements about the early church -- great numbers of believers are being added and great numbers of people are coming in from everywhere to be healed. The healing power is so profound that you might even be cured if you can just position yourself so that Peter’s shadow will fall on you.
Modern people tend to struggle with passages like this. It doesn’t fit our worldview for coping with disease or injury. It sounds like magic or superstition, not something real enough to effect lasting healing. If we think about it too long, we might doubt its truthfulness, but we don’t want to call into question the rest of the book of Acts, so we may gloss over this section. This text is not in the lectionary, by the way.
Justo Gonzalez is a Cuban-American theologian and church historian. He argues that if we cannot let ourselves be open to the miraculous, then that serves the interests of the maintaining the status quo. He says that there are those whose only hope is in a radical change from the way things are. If all that is to be will only be the result of what already is, there is no reason to hope for a new order; and without that hope, the struggle to break free of the tomb loses momentum.[2]
If government forces kill a journalist and then representatives of that same government attack the mourners at her funeral because they are disturbing the peace, the best hope for change must come from beyond the status quo.
If the police in this country kill black people for driving while black or walking while black or living while black and then, time and time again, the police investigate and exonerate themselves, hope for change must come from elsewhere.
The hope for change, the possibility of radical disruption, is found in resurrection and we see it through the lens of miraculous healing in Acts 5. Powerful change is happening in Jerusalem. The group of people gathering at the edge of the temple is larger every week. Within the Jesus movement, they are finding healing and wholeness. They are coming into a more abundant life. And everyone is amazed and impressed.
But not everyone is joining them. Acts 5:13 has this curious statement “none of the others dared to join them.” It doesn’t say who these others are and it doesn’t say why they are keeping their distance. Scholars offer two possibilities. One possibility is that the others refers to those who believe in Jesus, but are afraid to join the group publicly because of what happened earlier. What happened earlier was that Peter and John were arrested and held overnight and told to cease and desist. Of course they didn’t stop and they were arrested again just after this.
The other possibility is that the others are non-believers who admire those in the Jesus movement, but they feel the pressure of their social and religious traditions and aren’t courageous enough to break with them.
Whoever they are, their presence is felt enough that Luke mentions them. It is another small reminder that the generous, loving power of God is likely to be resisted by some who prefer the status quo and some who are entombed by it. Or to put it another way, whenever someone somewhere embraces the abundance of life that Jesus offers, there is likely to be a super religious person who is upset about it.
Those who gathered on Solomon’s Porch were proactive. They were engaged in healing and teaching, in sharing the good news of Jesus. They were actively joining the work of God as it swept through their world. And there were others who admired them, but kept their distance. They heard Jesus’ voice, but chose not to come out from the grave.
Stephanie Spellers is an Episcopal priest. Several years ago, she began to serve with others in her denomination in a focused way to lead people into more deeply following Jesus and living life in abundance. They developed some practices called the Way of Love and the Jesus-Shaped Life. They thought that the Spirit of God was at work and that there was going to be an important opening, a break in the status quo and they wanted to be ready. They thought it might take a couple of decades.
And then the pandemic came. Then came the murder of George Floyd and a new sense of racial reckoning. And Rev. Spellers said, “If our churches were ever going to follow Jesus in his way of self-giving love, if we had a chance of decentering off self and empire and recentering on God, if we hoped to turn and become even a little more the beloved community Jesus inaugurated – this might be our shot. . . . Many of us are praying that the church has indeed arrived at a point when—thanks to disruption and decline—Christians have less to lose or to prove and can choose to pour ourselves out in love for the world.”[3]
Church life all over the world has been disrupted. Churches are recognizing the numerical and spiritual decline which had been happening for years, but which become glaringly obvious as our buildings emptied out during the pandemic.
Is it possible that we could see that some forms of church were like graves? Is it possible that we can hear Jesus calling us to step out from those tombs to be vibrant, self-giving, world-changing people who embrace life in all its fullness?
I started with this question “When abundant life is found, is there always a super religious person who is upset about it?”
I’d like to ask a better question of myself. I’d like to ask if abundant life is to be found, in this moment, then what am I doing to embrace it? What are the true loves and concerns around which I organize my life? Am I actively joining the movement of the Spirit for healing and wholeness? Are you?
“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus said, “the hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear . . . and those who hear will live.”
Between the resurrection of Jesus and the final resurrection, between the past and the future, we are called to life. Thanks be to God.
[1] Wilda C Gafney, A Woman’s Lectionary for the Whole Church Year W, (NY: Church Publishing, 2021) p. 181
[2] Justo L. Gonazalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001) pp.84-85
[3] Stephanie Spellers. The Church Cracked Open: Disruption, Decline and New Hope for the Beloved Community, (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2021) p. 151, 149