We are witnesses to these things

There’s an occupational hazard among clergy and other church geeks that I sometimes fall into. I pay altogether too much attention to calendars and the minutia of liturgy. The Christmas season lasts for twelve days. Lent lasts for forty days—plus Sundays. The Easter season lasts for fifty. Epiphany might be a season or a day—depending on whom you ask.

If you want to go even deeper into liturgical trivia, take a look sometime at page 880 of the Book of Common Prayer, which tells you how to figure out when Easter Day will be in any given year. There’s a lot of math, and it goes on for seven pages. I love liturgical trivia, but even I just Google the date of Easter.

Another bit of trivia deals with the readings we hear each Sunday. Our readings are set years ahead of time, and are mostly the same even from one liturgical church to another. Catholics and Lutherans and Episcopalians are all hearing about Doubting Thomas this morning.

For most of the year, we hear one lesson from the Old Testament, one from one of the New Testament letters, and one from a Gospel. But in the Easter season, that changes. In Easter, our first lesson comes from the Acts of the Apostles and the second from the Book of Revelation.

There’s been some talk recently about changing that practice. Some people argue that leaving out the Hebrew Bible during Eastertide plays into an all-too-common idea that the New Testament portrays a kinder, gentler God and somehow takes the place of the Old. That’s an idea that has been used in subtle and not-so-subtle ways over centuries to criticize Judaism and the Jewish people, and it’s never been part of mainstream Christian theology.

But the Church changes slowly. And this year, at least, we’re still reading from the Book of Acts. And so I’d like to talk a bit about what that book has to say. While it might be overstating things to say that we’re living through a new apostolic age, I do think that the experiences of the first generation of the Church have a lot to teach us today.

But first… There’s one more liturgical oddity you ought to be aware of. If you were to look only at the calendar, you’d probably decide that we’re reading these lessons six or seven weeks too soon. On June 8, we’ll celebrate Pentecost. We’ll hear about the coming of the Holy Spirit—an even that takes place in Chapter 2 of the Book of Acts. But today, on the Second Sunday of Easter, we’ve already jumped ahead to Chapter 5. And so, as you listen to the lessons from Acts in this Easter season, just remember that whatever the calendar might say, the Holy Spirit is already in the building.

The Book of Acts tells the story of the early Church. But even more, it tells the story of the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works in the world.

And all that liturgical trivia I talked about a moment ago? None of that existed yet. No church buildings. No complicated bureaucracies. No liturgical calendar. No Book of Common Prayer. The only Bible was the Hebrew Bible. What we call the New Testament hadn’t been written yet. Followers of Jesus weren’t called Christians. They were known as followers of the Way.

Today’s reading from Acts tells a story of the ministry of Peter and the other apostles in that time. You remember Peter, right? Always a little bit scattered, enthusiastic but anxious. Peter is the guy who denied Jesus three times on the night of his arrest because he was afraid of being recognized as one of his followers. But just a few months later, Peter has changed. Now he’s confident. Centered. Unafraid.

Peter and John were going to the temple to pray when a man who had been lame since birth asked them for money.

“Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ … Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.”

This attracted attention. Peter and John were arrested—and warned to stop all their talk about Jesus.

They didn’t obey. The apostles continued to teach, and the movement called the Way continued to grow.

Once again, the authorities arrested the apostles. But prison couldn’t hold them. The doors were miraculously opened and the apostles returned to the temple to teach.

And that’s where today’s reading begins. The authorities go to the temple and arrest the apostles yet again. “We told you to stop all this,” they say.

Peter and the others reply calmly, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”

“We are witnesses to these things”—to Jesus’s death and resurrection. “We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit.” We are witnesses, and we must speak of what we know. As I said before, the Book of Acts is in large part the story of the Holy Spirit. And here the Spirit shows up again.

Here’s one lesson I take from the Book of Acts that might apply to our own time. The apostles, the first followers of the Way… They didn’t seek earthly power. They didn’t recruit an army or conquer territory. They didn’t seek earthly power. But they also didn’t bow to earthly power. “We must obey God rather than any human authority,” they said.

Their path didn’t guarantee them safety. Immediately after the scene we heard about today, the apostles were flogged and warned yet again not to speak. But they no longer responded to suffering with fear. They responded with joy. They seemed to know that they were doing God’s work.

We live in a time when the Church has power and commands respect. Maybe not as much as it once did. But you only have to look at all the heads of state who attended the pope’s funeral yesterday to see that we’re not living in the same world as that of the first apostles.

But time and again the Church has found itself closer to Jesus, closer to the Holy Spirit, in the times when it’s been furthest from power as we usually understand power.

May we find in our own time the confidence that Peter and the others showed. May we, like the first apostles, be fearless witnesses to the work of God in the world.