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April 26, 2009, Easter 3

“A Study in Contrasts”

Acts 3:1-10; Luke 24:36-48

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon.

And a man lame from birth was being carried in.

People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.

When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms.  Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.”  And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.

But 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, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

            Thanks be to God.

 I don’t spend a ton of time on the internet.  We all have friends who do, who send you forward upon forward, links to their favorite political sites, videos of strange and crazy things.  I generally tend to disregard this kind of information.  But this week my opinion changed a bit.  I received a link to a video from a couple of different places, so I caved in and watched.  You might have seen it – if not I’ll include a link in my sermon on the website.  It is of an audition from the show, “Britain’s Got Talent.”  It is run by Simon Cowell, and is a forerunner of “American Idol.”  Usually these auditions are little more than opportunities for Simon to make fun of rather sad people with noticeably little talent.  The video I watched this week began in that same place.  We are introduced backstage to a woman named Susan Boyle.  She introduces herself to the camera, shares her age (almost 48) and the fact that she is currently unemployed.  It is not a good start.  At first she almost revels in making fun of herself, and her cat, Pebbles, with whom she lives.  She shares the fact that she has never had a boyfriend, never been kissed.  It is a perfect setup.

She struts out on stage, overweight, in a dress a tad too tight and hair frazzled in every direction.  In a world that values tanned youth and small shirts revealing washboard abs, she clearly does not fit the mold.  Everything was ready for her to fall on her face, for us to laugh.  Simon asks her name and her hometown and she stumbles, awkwardly.  The crowd begins to jeer.  She says clearly she wants to be a professional singer, but just hadn’t been given the chance.  The judges roll their eyes.  She announces the song, “I Dreamed a Dream,” from Les Miserables, and the background music begins.  For a moment, everything is quiet, the air filled with anticipation.  And she opens her mouth to sing, and it is absolutely beautiful.  She sings a really hard song with power, with grace.  Simon’s eyebrows go straight up, another judge’s jaw drops.  The crowd goes wild.  People leap to their feet and cheer, and poor, pitiful Susan is transformed.  She stands up straight, confident, reaching to the crowd as she sings.  It is almost like she is singing about her life: “I was young and unafraid, when dreams were made and youth wasted….and they tear your hopes apart.”  She pauses, looking the judges in the eye, not a thing awkward about her, and she prepares for the finale: “I had a dream my life would be, so different from this hell I’m living…life has killed the dream I dreamed.”  You feel it as if it were her song.  She blows a kiss and takes a deep bow to the sustained ovation.

But it’s the contrast that startles everyone.  The first judge says that without a doubt it was the biggest surprise in his time on the show.  “When you stood there with that cheeky grin, everyone was laughing at you.  No one is laughing now.  That was stunning, an incredible performance.”  The next judge is thrilled, she says, because she knew everyone was against her from the beginning.  She got three thumbs up, which is evidently enough to proceed to the next round of the competition.  But that didn’t really matter.  She had her chance.  She stood up, all funny-looking, and let her voice shine.  And for a moment, she was healed.[1]   

This is a story about the power of contrast.  Once the early church worked through the post-resurrection anxiety and got their feet underneath them, things had been going pretty well.  Jesus’ appearances to them confirmed the truth of His new life, His ascension left them emboldened to share His way with the world.  After His ascension in chapter one of Acts, the disciples gathered, and Peter preached a stirring sermon.  They replaced Judas with Matthias.  Chapter two begins with the day of Pentecost, of the Holy Spirit breaking into their presence, sending them out with the ability to speak to anyone, anywhere, regardless of language and background.  Peter preaches a remarkable sermon, so many that three thousand people were baptized.  The church is growing, people are happy, giving is healthy.  The end of the second chapter of Acts, which we read last week, is one big love-fest.  “Awe came upon everyone,” Luke writes, “because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”[2]  They share everything, take care of everyone, do what needs to be done.  Filled with the Spirit, they worship with passion, teaching and eating and praying together.  Luke paints quite a picture.

One thing we are sure to note at the beginning of today’s text is that contrast.  Luke sets this idyllic image of the church at the end of chapter two right up against an encounter Peter and John have on the street.  It’s easy to live one way at church, but once you leave here things get complicated.  They leave the community, on their way to pray, and run into a group of men carrying a man who has been lame from birth.  As Will Willimon writes, “The path toward significant prayer is a way that goes straight through, not around, human misery.”[3]  They would bring this man, Luke tells us, every single day, and lay him in front of the entrance to the temple so he could beg for money.  And its not any entrance, but an entrance called the Beautiful Gate.  This gate was made of polished Corinthian bronze and ornamented with silver and gold, probably on the east side of the temple.[4]  Can you see that image, which Luke sets up so nicely – a man lame from birth, dirty, shriveled, leaning up against the Beautiful Gate?

The man sees Peter and John and did what he always did – he hit them up for money.  But something changes within Peter.  He realizes, I think, that because of the resurrection everything is different.  He realizes that because of the resurrection the sick need not remain sick, the lonely need not remain lonely, the dead need not remain dead forever.  He realizes the rules are different, and that Jesus Christ invites us all to share in this post-Easter kind of life, where we jump on board with Christ’s healing work among us, giving of our money, getting our hands dirty, taking real risks to empower for those whom the world tends to leave behind.  Peter claims this power and, gazing intently into his eyes, says, “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 does.  He is given the strength to stand.  He isn’t content there, Luke says, for he is jumping up and goes straight into the temple leaping and praising God.  When was the last time you ever leapt up, so full of praise it took hold of you, transformed you?  That, I would suggest, is the power of God we have access to through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Yet, too often, we continue to live back in those pre-resurrection days, when fear reigned, when pain consumed, when death was the end.  Yet the good news we proclaim this day and all days is that we need not remain there, lame from birth, paralyzed, but are empowered, even today, to stand up, claim God’s promises, and go out, leaping back into the world, to share that story and help participate in the healing of others.  What good is it if it stops with us?

Nobody expected Mary Peabody to be there.  Massachusetts gentry, she was the daughter-in-law of the man who founded the Groton School, the wife of the Episcopal bishop, and the mother of the Governor of the state.[5]  But things had been getting bad in St. Augustine.  Civil Rights leaders in the African-American community were beginning to try and claim their rights, and their white counterparts weren’t pleased.  Vice-President Johnson had spoken at a dinner the year before to an integrated ballroom, hoping to begin to break the ice.  City leaders had agreed to a biracial commission to hear the black community’s grievances, but when they showed them there was nothing but a tape recorder and a note.  There would be no meeting, but they were welcome to leave their complaints there.[6]

Tensions calmed for a bit with leaders distracted by Birmingham, by Kennedy’s assassination, by the slow progress of the Civil Rights Act in Congress.  Local leaders had appealed to national leaders black and white, to Dr. King, to northern church leaders thought to be sympathetic.  When three prominent northern bishops declined to get involved, Peabody decided it was time for someone to do something.  She hurried down to a storefront church in Boston to be trained as a nonviolent witness.[7]  On Easter Sunday 1964, four women stepped off a plane in Jacksonville.  They were briefed on the drive to At. Augustine on the work of recent weeks: “Integrated groups had been turned away from most of the white churches that morning…and nearly seventy people had been jailed in the opening sit-ins.”

The next morning they went out themselves, three white women and one black one, to have lunch at McCartney’s downtown.  Asked to leave, they tried other places, but advance blockades materialized at every entrance they approached.  Later that afternoon they tried a motor lodge, where the manager offered to feed their group at the kitchen door.  “But that’s insulting,” Peabody protested.  “You and I will never live to see the day when people will be forced to take others into their hearts,” the manager declared.  “Where is your heart?” Peabody asked, leveling her gaze.  The next stop was a table at a bar at another motor lodge.  A tense scene ensued when the Sheriff entered with deputies and two German Shepherds.  Five stood their ground and were arrested.  On the way out a Boston reporter called to her, asking whether her husband would approve of her course.  “I have a higher loyalty to God,” she called back.[8]

That is our call – the contrast we are to embody – that our higher loyalty, that our ultimate loyalty, lies with God.  In a world that encourages us to be afraid, to cling to what we think is ours, to watch out for ourselves, we are called to head the exact opposite direction.  We are called to be generous, get our hands dirty, and, in a world with too much suffering and pain, tell the story of the One who, through his life, death, and resurrection, offers us the deepest and truest kind of hope.  We may not necessarily follow Mary Peabody to jail.  Not yet.  But boy does the world need the contrast our witness provides.  This Easter season, where is your loyalty?  Where is ours?

All praise be to God.  Amen.