Have you ever been put in jail?  Wait—don’t answer!  Well, if you have, I guess you know the awful feeling that comes with that clank as the barred door locks.  You don’t have the key, and no amount of pleading, protesting, apologizing, or attempting to be charming or persuasive is going to unlock that door.  Even if you’ve never been in jail—keep it that way!—you can imagine the sense of despair.  Your fate is in someone else’s hands.  Your life is in their power.

But isn’t it always that way?  Hasn’t it always been that way?  The question isn’t a question of freedom but of service: when you truly know whose hands are holding your life, you’ll know whom to serve.

Peter and John have gotten into trouble with the authorities—again: the religious authorities.  Trouble with the religious authorities might not mean much to you in the pews, but it could have real consequences for me.  This denomination began with reunion of southern and northern branches back in 1983, but reunion pointed to the disunion that had come before.  Presbyterian history is as much a history of separation as of reunion.  We have a long history of disunity.  That makes us worldly, indeed, and all too human.  I don’t doubt that our religious authorities suppose they labor for Christ’s interests, yet what they call Christ’s interests seem somehow and almost always uniformly to be nearly identical with the interests of one political party.  I put it to you, incomprehensible as it may seem, that Christ’s interests are not identical with any political party.  Jesus Christ is not a Democrat, nor is he Republican.  He isn’t even Libertarian.

Peter and John were doing just what the religious authorities told them not to do, so the authorities arrested the apostles.  What most deeply aggravated the ones in charge was this proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus.  Go ahead and teach “be nice, be good” as much as you like, but not this resurrection business!  Part of what may help to bring the matter into focus is that the religious authorities, for the most part, identified as Sadducees, the Righteous Party.  That group did not accept any teaching about any resurrection.  The Pharisees whom Jesus criticizes so strongly were convinced that there would be a resurrection, but not the Sadducees.  They would hear nothing of it.

To regard the Resurrection as a truth, a reality, would be to acknowledge the hollowness of all that the religious elite had been insisting upon for generations.  It would be to acknowledge the power of God rather than the power of the privileged.  All this insistence upon Jesus, Jesus, Jesus would expose their whole scheme to unwelcome light.  In William Barclay’s opinion, it was the Sadducees who were primarily responsible for the death of Jesus.  He writes: “It was really the aristocratic, collaborationist Sadducees who achieved the crucifixion of Jesus, in their terror lest he should prove a disturbing element and produce a situation in which they would lose their wealth, their comfort and their power.”[1]  Jesus is continually asking those who say they want to follow him, “yes, and what are you willing to sacrifice to do so?”  Wealth?  Comfort?  Power?

Although the Sadducees were not a large group, Barclay tells us they had enormous influence, because “they were the wealthy, the aristocratic, and the governing class.  The chief priests [. . .] were Sadducees.”[2]

What we’re hearing about in these early chapters of Acts, then, is a clash of influence: on one hand, the influence of secular power and position dressed in the garments of religion, and on the other, the influence of the Word of God, who came as one of the least and lowest.  Jesus had made life difficult enough for the religious authorities while he was alive; they were not about to allow him to continue to make trouble for them after he was dead.

But he wasn’t dead.  That’s just what the apostles were insisting upon.  They insisted that it was this reality that Jesus was risen that was responsible for the miraculous healings they were performing among the people.  This healing was happening because Jesus, who was dead—oh, yes—very, and very truly dead—was alive!  And if it was true that Jesus was truly alive, then no authority of the chief priests would be enough to stop this message, not even floggings, prison, and death sentences.  A dead man has no power.  If powerless Jesus really was alive, he now had all power.

As if to emphasize the priests’ powerlessness, Luke describes how, “during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought [Peter and John] out.  ‘Go, stand in the temple courts,’ he said, ‘and tell the people all about this new life’” (5:19-20).  Have you noticed, over these Sundays since Easter, how often Acts speaks of speaking?  Proclaim, testify, tell—such words are all over these early chapters of Acts—all over every chapter of Acts!  I guess we should stop and think about that for a while.  You and I are willing enough, if not exactly eager, to do things for people, even to go to people where they are and do things for them, or at least write checks.  And I don’t say we should be ashamed of that, or that such help isn’t very important: it is and does good.  Such actions are one part of a disciple’s life; these are not the sum of discipleship.

Putting our faith into action mustn’t be confined to the actions of our hands.  We are also called, and I believe Acts affirms this, to put faith into action through our Gospel words, what we say for Christ, how we speak up and speak out for Christ in a society and a culture dying for lack of him.  Oh, often we say doing is better than saying—“actions speak louder than words”—but that’s when saying really amounts to nothing and there’s no heart in it.  No one wants empty words: those have no value.  But words are actions, too.  Have you ever noticed that people react to what you say?  We can do things by our words as well as our hands.  And silence, also, is an action.

Oh, but I’m no good at talking!  Well, I just bet at least some of your family and friends might disagree—depending upon what you’re talking about and with whom you’re talking.  There’s something that gets you all excited.  How about Jesus?  Yes, we all love Jesus here!  But have you sensed the compulsion of Christ: Christ in you, impelling you to something that, without him in you, you would not do, would not say, would not try or think of trying?  It’s Jesus in me, making me do this!  Help, Lord!  Beloved, none of the apostles were public speakers by profession or preference.  That they spoke, anyway, was a compelling sign of the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit will give ability, just as Jesus said he would.  Power is ability; ability is power.  If we have the light, are we going to drop a basket over it or bury it in the backyard?

Oh, but I don’t want to get into arguments and fights!  Is it as bad as that, then?  Is Jesus a fighting word here in this stretch of Brazoria County, along your street, among your facebook friends?  Are you unable to talk about Jesus without raising your voice and pounding your fist?  Acts also clearly shows us (let us heed what we’re shown) that the Spirit prepares beforehand those whom God has chosen to receive and believe.  You and I won’t be convincing anyone: the Spirit will do that.  You and I are called to call, to keep going out, to keep speaking, and not imprison ourselves behind any walls of fear, or certainty of failure, or conviction of inability and incompetence!

“[T]ell the people all about this new life.”  The angel didn’t say to do that only if and when you had full certainty that what you said would be received and accepted, only when you knew for sure that what you had to say would be welcomed.  No, the message of Christ crucified and risen will not be accepted or welcomed by everyone in our circles.  Often enough, we will meet with firm rejection or barely polite indifference, but not every time, not every time.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay.  Gospel of Luke.  1953.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  278.

               [2] William Barclay.  Gospel of Matthew.  Vol. 2.  1957.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  275.