Jesus is Back on the Job

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

April 15, 2007

Acts 5: 27-32

“We must obey God rather than any human authority.”

In our relativistic times, anyone saying something like this is asking for trouble! We have grown skeptical of people who seem so sure of God’s instructions. When someone talks about truth, we want to add, “As you see the truth.” We see many problems arise because true believers will not “listen to reason or see the effects of their actions.”

On the other hand, we see other kinds of problems arise because people of influence bow to pressures around them, instead of doing what they know in their hearts God requires of them..

So, we do not trust people who claim to be in an acoustically perfect spot to hear God; but we do admire people who will stand fast on their convictions about God’s will. (William Loder, Easter 2)

We are hard to please!

BOLD APOSTLES

From my earliest years of reading the Bible, I have been aware that the apostles in the book of Acts certainly were more sure of themselves than I have seemed to be----and much braver as well. Could these outspoken, courageous men and women be the same ones who, a short time ago, were hiding from the authorities? How did they get to be so bold?

William Willimon has written that the disciples did not become so brave by themselves. If they are bold and travel to strange places to speak to strange people; if they keep on speaking even when they are jailed for it, it is because they are being prodded by the Holy Spirit. Some suggest that this book of the Bible ought to be named the Acts of the Holy Spirit rather than the Acts of the Apostles. When we read these stories even now, “We come to view and review our world as infinitely more open and unfinished than we first imagined because the world is an arena where God is busy making good on his promises.” (Interpretation, 1988)

The apostles can’t help themselves: they must bear witness to what has happened and what it means for the world. The Holy Spirit has been poured into them and they continue to be led by Jesus.

Jesus, killed by the religious authorities and the Roman ruler, has been raised. This risen crucified one is back on the job. The risen Jesus has people to see and things to do. And the apostles are the ones called up to be his visible presence.

IN TROUBLE

They are in trouble, of course, for two reasons.

First, they are claiming that Jesus’ picture of the nature of God and the nature of discipleship have been affirmed in the resurrection. God welcomes sinners home, forgives them and frees them for lives of sacrificial, generous giving and bold witness for justice and peace. We are saved by grace through faith and not by our works. Religious authorities in Jerusalem could not comprehend this and found this message to be offensive to their sense of God’s justice and righteousness.

The second reason is because the apostles are bearing witness that the religious leaders are responsible for Jesus’ death on a cross. This is stirring up the people against them.

It is crucial that we see that the controversy was not between Christians and Jews, but between two Jewish groups: those who had followed Jesus and those who had not---mostly the Sadducees, a religious movement which rejected the whole idea of resurrection.

It is necessary for us to understand that many of the terrible atrocities perpetrated against Jewish people at large---- in the name of Christ--- have been based on accusatory texts like this one. Enough of this! Jesus did not come to stir up his followers to revenge and retribution against his own ethnic and religious kinsmen, or anyone else for that matter. Christ has broken down the dividing walls between us. That we have erected those walls again through the centuries leaves us much for which to seek forgiveness from our Jewish sisters and brothers.

Peter and the other apostles were proclaiming the good news of God’s love for the people of Israel, not their destruction. They were preaching and teaching, not just to irritate their opponents, but to continue the ministry of Jesus in the world. They were not rebelling against authority out of pique.

THE POSITIVE MESSAGE

What the apostles were affirming is that the risen Lord is again the “Leader” of the being-saved church and the Savior of the being-renewed world. Their agenda is the same agenda of Jesus.

Leslie Newbigin wrote: “What our Lord left behind him was not a book, not a creed, not a system of thought, not a rule of life, but a visible community. He committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was not that a community gathered round an idea….It was a community called together….by the Lord himself, and re-created in him, gradually sought---and is seeking---to make explicit who he is and what he has done….” (The Household of God, 1953)

Here was this core group, being added to by the day, trying---- in every place and in every way they knew how---- to extend the ministries of healing and reconciliation that Jesus had done.  If Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, has been now raised into the fullness of God, then Jesus is everywhere. To be at God’s “right hand” means that Jesus is doing God’s work wherever the Spirit moves. (The old dusty doctrine of the ascension was the early church’s way of assuring the church of the continuing presence of the remembered  Jesus.)

OUR CHALLENGE

For us, in such a different context and mindset, the stories of the apostles challenge us to decide if we have what it takes to teach and preach that Jesus is back on the job.

We are not the representatives of a deeper spiritual life per se; we are not the agents of a better moral order as such; we are ambassadors of Christ, God making his appeal through us.

Our work is the work of Jesus. It is about “a new beginning, a second chance to change directions and look to Jesus for leadership and find the forgiveness of sins.” (Loder) And this gospel is for everyone, even those who advocated for Jesus to be killed.

This treasure in earthen vessels is a message about a relationship to God which brings peace and a holy restlessness. The gospel in the hands of these first spirit-led men and women and now in our hands, is that people can be “converted and detoxified by the counter-cultural phenomenon called the Way.” It is a community in which “scoffers become believers, enemies become brothers, and Gentiles get adopted.” (Willimon)

The church which is always being enlightened and prodded and inspired by the Spirit “does not exist for itself but to bear bold testimony to what God has done and is doing in Jesus.” (C. Ward Gasque, Interpretation, April, 1988)

PROCLAIMING JESUS IN TODAY’S WORLD

We may get the mistaken idea that people already know about Jesus Christ. It is certainly true that many different images of Jesus are shuttled about in our popular culture. It is also true that some churches preach a Jesus who is hardly recognizable to us Methodists.

And yet so many people are not familiar with him at all.

How do we, now led by the risen Lord, join in his work in earnest? Is it possible for us to share through word and deed the one who has captured us and who is even now on the job, redeeming the world? Is it possible for us to be led by the risen Lord, listening to his voice as best we can and obey him rather than any human authorities? Can we bear witness to Jesus Christ in a culture which is increasingly skeptical and often outright hostile to people with a confident faith?

Can we find our voices again and bear witness to Jesus as Savior and Lord?

It seems to me that we represent Jesus best by the re-telling the stories about Jesus and those told about him in the gospels; that we can do this creatively in many different ways: through music and other forms of art, through the recovery of story-telling. The gospel message in the New Testament is full-orbed and people connect with it depending on their needs and interests. God can use us to be the conveyors of Jesus to a skeptical world. Whatever our Christology---whether it is high and philosophical or simple and matter of fact---the Jesus story touches people.

We best represent Jesus by being persons who are immersed in the love of God and neighbor;
and by being persons who are courageous in standing up for and with the wretched of the earth. We reveal the risen Lord through our deeds coupled with our actions. It is because of Jesus Christ that we work to relieve needless human suffering---and we should not be timid to say so.

Some may be offended or angered by our confident witness. But we can’t help this. Jesus is back on the job, and the Holy Spirit has gotten hold of us. We must obey God rather than try to fit into a broken world.