Weekly Sermon

March 10, 2002 - "They Couldn't Stop Talking"

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church

Acts 4: 13-26 and Acts 4: 13-26, 29-31

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus. When they saw the man who had been cured standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. So they ordered them to leave the council while they discussed the matter with one another. They said, "What will we do with them? For it is obvious to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable sign has been done through them; we cannot deny it. But to keep it from spreading further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name." So they called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in God's sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard." After threatening them again, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all of them praised God for what had happened. For the man on whom this sign of healing had been performed was more than forty years old. After they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. When they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, "Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them, it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant: 'Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, And the rulers have gathered together Against the Lord and against his Messiah.' And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. Prayer: Lord God, open our souls to this word, that we might learn to speak and live our faith with boldness. Amen. This week, we continue with the story of the healing of the man who was lame by Peter and John. The healing took place in the outer courts of the Temple, which was under the authority of the religious leaders. Two weeks ago, we studied the healing itself. Last week, we followed as the authorities threw Peter and John in jail overnight and then questioned them. Today, we read how the authorities reacted to Peter and John, and more importantly, we see how Peter and John reacted to the threats of the authorities. From our perspective, two thousand years later in a culture where we are not persecuted for our faith, it is hard to imagine the courage Peter and John showed. They spoke bravely to the same people who had Jesus crucified, the very same people. We have much to learn from Peter and John, because American respect and acceptance of our faith is eroding. I'm not sure that is all bad because we have become complacent, and we have accommodated our faith. We have let other things take center place in our lives. Peter and John did not let that happen. They had courageous faith and they couldn't stop talking about it even when they knew their lives were at stake. There are at least three spiritual principles that Peter and John demonstrate in this passage. First, they listen to God, not the world. The world is pretty bold in what it demands. The world says that money is the most important thing in life and everything you can buy with money comes next. The world says how you get your money is less important than having the money. According to the world, the last thing you want to do is look foolish about money. In Miracle on Boswell Road, John Eades tells a story about his youth. When he was growing up he had a friend named Matt that played on all the same sports teams. Matt was a very smart boy-not much of an athlete-but from the bench Matt was the best fan in the world. He always cheered enthusiastically for the team. Matt's father was Mr. Rice. He came to all the games. Mr. Rice was a good man, a veteran of World War II. He was a man of few words but a great big smile. Nonetheless, as a boy John Eades thought Mr. Rice was a natural loser. Here is how John Eades explains it: "I can't truly recall the very first time I got the idea that Mr. Rice may have had a tendency to lose things, but it seems it was that time I needed a new pair of baseball shoes. Being a pitcher, I had worn out the toe of my right shoe by pushing off the pitcher's mound and dragging it across the dirt of the mound each time I threw a pitch. I'm sure my momma would have bought me a pair if she could've, but the truth was we just didn't have the extra money…I do remember standing beside My. Rice's station wagon that day when he placed his right hand on his hip pocket as a cloudy, worried look crept across his usual sunny face. "'What's wrong, Mr. Rice?' I asked him, not believing that such an intelligent man like him could possibly lose his wallet. "'I seem to have lost my billfold,' he answered, checking all of his pockets as he leaned over and peered into the front seat of the station wagon. 'There was a lot of money in it; I have to find it. I'll go tell the other boys to start looking for it. I'll give a twenty-dollar reward to whoever finds it,' he announced as he started over toward the ball diamond with me right behind him…Suddenly he stopped and turned around and instructed me to stay right where I was. 'You stay here and check around on the inside of the station wagon. Maybe it fell under the seat.' "I went and opened the driver's seat as I searched for his wallet. My hand came to rest on his thick leather billfold, and I clearly recall hitting my head on the doorframe as I raised up quickly to yell that I had found it. "Mr. Rice came back to the car, shook my hand, and thanked me for the good deed I had done. He opened his wallet and pulled out a crisp, new twenty-dollar bill and handed it to me. 'Well, Johnny,' he said, 'what are you going to spend your reward on?' "I glanced down at my white-socked toe sticking out of my right baseball shoe and quickly smiled. 'I sorta thought I'd get me a new pair of baseball shoes, Mr. Rice, but I feel funny about taking the reward money. I think I'd feel better if you let me give it back to you. I didn't do nothing to earn this much.' I held the twenty-dollar bill in my hand and pushed it out toward him. "Mr. Rice closed my hand over the bill with his hand as he smile. 'You saved me hundreds of dollars and that's the end of the matter. After practice I'll take you over to Dixie Sporting Goods to be sure you don't spend it on a bunch of foolishness instead of shoes. "That was how Mr. Rice's pattern of losing stuff began, and I guess I almost felt sorry for him in a way, like he was some kind of absentminded old man who at times needed looking after. "I'm not sure exactly how much stuff he lost when I was growing up, but it seems it was quite a bit as I think back on it. He must have lost his wallet at least a dozen times, and I suppose I became an expert at finding it for him. Of course, he always gave me a reward…[Miracle on Boswell Road: True Stories of Unexpected Acts of Love, John Eades, (Uhrichsville, Ohio: Promise Press, 2000), p.133-139] Mr. Rice listened to God, not people. He was willing to look like an absentminded man who "needed looking after" in order to give a young boy a hand without embarrassing him. That is a pretty big man. There are other lessons that we need to learn from Peter and John. They prayed. They were grounded in prayer. If we want to live our faith, we must be grounded in prayer, too. If we're not grounded in prayer, our faith becomes a sham. A few weeks ago, I listened to a book of Richard Feynman's lectures. He was physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics. The lectures were gathered in a book called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. He tells a story about a South Pacific Island where a landing strip was built during World War II. The planes brought all kinds of things to the island-wonderful things that made life easier, but after the war, the Americans packed up and left. The islanders sorely missed the planes that brought all those things. So they decided to rebuild the airstrip and the airport. They built torches and placed them where the lights used to stand. They built a control tower, which housed replicas of all the instrument. They made headsets for an islander to wear as they waited for the planes to come in. Everything looked perfect, but it was all a façade. The replica equipment looked exactly right, but it was made out of solid wood. The technology was missing. Richard Feynman called this phenomenon "cargo culture." Everything was in place visually, but none of the guts of the equipment was there. We can have a "cargo culture" here in the church, too. We can have everything in place, but faith. Faith cannot live without prayer. There is one more spiritual discipline I want to talk about. In their prayers, Peter and John asked to be made bold in their witness. They prayed to be courageous. In your bulletin this week, you will find an insert called "Hearts and Hands." It is the story about a woman who became bold in her faith. When we hear the call to share everything we have, we usually hear it figuratively. We don't take it seriously. Fred Craddock, one of the pastors I love, tells a story about himself that illuminates the point. He writes: "I recall preaching in a university church in Norman, Oklahoma, some years ago, when a young woman came up after the service. I had preached on Mark 1, the call of the disciples. She came up and said she wanted to talk with me and said, 'I'm in med school here, and that sermon clinched what I've been struggling with for some time.' "'What's that?' "'Dropping out of med school.' "'What do you want to do that for?' "She said she was going to go work in the Rio Grande Valley. She said, 'I believe that's what God wants me to do.' She quit med school, went to the Rio Grande Valley, sleeps under a piece of tin in the back of a pickup truck, and teaches little children while their parents are out in the field. She dropped out of med school for this, and her folks back in Montana are saying, 'What in the world happened?' "And I was saying to her, 'Well, now, I was just preaching. I didn't mean to, you know.'" [Craddock Stories, Fred B. Craddock, (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 52-53] Most of us think that way. We say, "It's just a story, after all." "Jesus didn't live in Rockville, did he?" "We aren't supposed to take this stuff too far." "Moderation is all things." The woman described in the One Great Hour of Sharing insert didn't talk herself out of doing good. When you read it, you will see how it all began with one little kindness. She was a chef at a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. One night in 1982, she saw a homeless man digging through the garbage for food in the pouring rain. She fed him. The next night he came back, with a friend. She fed them both. In her prayers, she asked God for guidance. The answer she got was, "Just feed them. I'll take care of you." "I'll take care of you." Those are the same words Peter and John relied upon. Jesus had promised to send the Spirit to give them the right words and the confidence to say them. Jesus promised, "I'll take care of you." That is the promise on which our faith stands. And we don't need anything more than that promise. Once we experience that promised fulfilled, we won't be able to stop talking about it. Amen.