Weekly Sermon

March 3, 2002 - "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church

Philippians 1: 3-11 and Acts 4: 1-14

The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed, and the number of believers grew to about five thousand. The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest's family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?" Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is 'The stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. Prayer: Heavenly Father, when we hear how Peter and John were filled with the Spirit, we are astonished, too. We, too, have nothing to say. Open our souls to the Spirit that we might bring glory to your name. Amen. I'm enjoying preaching from Acts. It is kind of like watching a serialized novel. Each week something new happens. You can miss an episode and it will still make sense, but it is fun to watch the story unfold. Last week we talked about the first miracle performed by disciples in the book of Acts. Peter and John had gone to pray at the Temple at 3:00 p.m. There at the Beautiful Gate, one of the outer gates where the crowds would be largest, they encountered a man lame from birth. He asked them for money, but they told him they had no money. What they had was much more valuable. They healed him in the name of Jesus Christ. Of course, such a healing in the outer courts wouldn't go unnoticed. Luke tells us that following the healing there were even more believers then before. The religious establishment in Jerusalem had to be anxious about this new group. It was growing at a spectacular rate. In a matter of weeks the church had grown from 12 to 120 to 3,000 to 5,000 believers. Something important was happening. The healing was just the most recent development since the Jesus movement had begun. The establishment thought that having Jesus crucified would end it, but they were wrong. The religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, are pretty cynical about Jesus and all that had happened. When we read these stories, I think we can feel pretty cynical, too. I remember years ago talking to a dear friend. She told me that whenever people did something nice, she wondered what their motive was. I have to admit that I was hurt when she said that. I had been doing nice things for her for years with no hidden agenda. But my friend isn't really all that unusual. We are all somewhat jaded. The people in the story who aren't jaded are Peter and John. They believe! But the rest of us, we're like those people out in the Midwest, during the decade's worst drought. The entire congregation goes outside to pray for rain, but only one little boy brings along an umbrella. What's the difference between the boy and the rest of the congregation? What's the difference between Peter and John and the other religious leaders? Why aren't they cynical? I think we can find the answer in the story. First, they are filled with the Holy Spirit. Second, they give all the credit to God. Third, in faith these ordinary men do some extraordinary things. Inserted in today's bulletin is a story about being filled with the Holy Spirit. It is entitled "Trusting God's Blessing," and it is about a woman in Mozambique whose story is incredible. In the background material from One Great Hour of Sharing there is a story about an American woman who worked with the Presbyterian Church of Mozambique. She helped organize distribution of the livestock-cows and goats-to the families. She says that on the day when the livestock came, the women of the village lifted her up and carried her in their strong hands as they danced. One of the dancing women explained, "It's our way of sharing our joy. We feel as though we too have been lifted up by hands we cannot see." I think being lifted up by hands we cannot see is a powerful analogy for the way we feel when we are filled with the Spirit. Sometimes, we are afraid to trust in the Spirit, but there is no need for fear. The Spirit is more powerful than anything that is against us. The second thing that sets apart Peter and John is that they don't take the credit. Now that is not what we expect, even among the faithful. Make no mistake, pastors are not immune from the disease of wanting to claim all the credit. Eugene Peterson writes in Under the Unpredictable Plant, "North American religion is basically a consumer religion. Americans see God as a product that will help them to live well, or to live better. Having seen that, they do what consumers do, shop for the best deal. Pastors, hardly realizing what we are doing, start making deals, packaging the God-product so that people will be attracted to it and then presenting it in ways that will beat out the competition." [Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocation Holiness, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), p.35-36] One result of a consumer approach to faith is that pastors begin to measure their success not by faith but by attendance. The trouble is that credit moves from God to the pastor. That is pretty scary and like most pastors, I am guilty of the practice. Recently, a new phrase caught my attention. Instead of saying, "Let's give a hand for so-and-so," I'm hearing, "Let's give it up for so-an-so." I think that "give it up" means giving up praise to someone who deserves it. Here in the church, we need to constantly be giving up our best for God, just as Peter and John did. The final thing I want to talk about is how God takes very ordinary people and does extraordinary things with them. Most of the extraordinary things Christians do involve healing, strengthening, and sharing with the least among us. Emil Brunner said, "The church exists by mission as fire exists by burning." Mission is the lifeblood of the church. Peter and John were at the Temple to pray, but God enlarged their prayer to include the healing of the man who was lame. The things that a church can do are extraordinary. One of my favorite stories is about something that happened in Chicago after a great tragedy. On October 13, 1992, a little boy named Dantrell Davis was shot in the head by a sniper who fired from the top floor of one of the Cabrini-Green high-rises as Dantrell walked to school, hand in hand with his mother. The man who shot him said he thought he was shooting at a rival gang member. It is hard not to be cynical when you live in a country where children kill children, but we have a choice. John Buchanan, the pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, writes: "A remarkable thing happened after Dantrell Davis's murder. A Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene, who lives in the neighborhood of the church, wrote about the tragedy in his popular column. He expressed the question everybody was asking: 'What can I do to help?' Instead of wringing their hands and giving up in despair, Greene suggested that his readers telephone Fourth Presbyterian Church and volunteer to help with the tutoring program. In the next seventy-two hours we received sixteen hundred telephone calls, swamping our receptionists and our phone systems. We recorded each name and told them that we would get back to each as soon as we could. Fourth Presbyterian Church can't use two thousand new tutors! "So we called a community meeting on a Saturday morning and invited each person who had telephoned the church to attend. We also invited people from other tutoring programs and a variety of social service and literacy projects that depend on volunteers to attend. Several hundred people, again most of them young urban professionals, showed up. We thanked them for their interest and then referred them to the variety of agencies who need volunteers, including our programs. As a result, several hundred new volunteers went to work in the city, and although I know the problems not only are not resolved but have in many ways become more tenacious-more drugs, more guns-nevertheless, I saw in that modest response a reason for hope." [John M. Buchanan, Being Church Becoming Community, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press , 1996) 90-92] It is easy to be cynical-to believe that no good deed goes unpunished-but our faith calls us to reject that approach. Our faith tells us that we can be filled with the Spirit, that the credit belongs to God, and through us, Christ can do extraordinary things!