1 John 3:1–7
Saint Luke 24:36b–48
It’s funny and sad how often some people can take good things, great moments, and turn them in to something else, something less.
Take last Tuesday for example. People in a dozen states experienced a total eclipse. From Texas to Maine eyes were fixed on the sky waiting for the moon to completely cover the sun. Television networks and local stations sent reporters far and wide. Tom Skilling came out of retirement and returned from Hawaii to recreate the moment he first experienced an eclipse in 1997.
Some people cried with a sense of awe, wonder and amazement. Some folks drove hundreds of miles just to see one just as Lowell and I did during that 1997 eclipse. The drive down wasn’t so bad, but because the price of a hotel room was so greatly inflated we decided to drive back the same day. Mistake! Two lane highways were not meant to handle the amount of traffic on that day and after a ten-hour trip home nerves were frayed, and we were not speaking.
On the other hand, a friend whose son lives in Indianapolis gathered the whole family together, some coming from as far away as Oregon, for the first time since his mother passed. Since I have known him, his wife, and his sons since they were little guys the pictures of their reunion – now with their wives and children – made my heart swell.
While Chicago expected only a 94 percent totality it did give us a chance to experience a multi-generational moment and the children from the academy and the residents of Renaissance Place gathered on the top floor of our parking garage to gaze at the sky together and eat, thanks to our incredibly clever Mr. Comella and staff, Sun Chips.
Some of those gathered will probably never experience another event like it while there is a very good chance that our students will live the twenty years until the next one in 2044.
Since I will only be ninety, I hope to experience that one too. Only I do hope that I will not be doing so from the roof of the garage as our “Interim Pastor.” Just saying.
There was some, however, who just could not resist throwing a wet blanket over our national celebration of creation’s glory.
A performance politician from a southern state wrote on her X, formerly Twitter, account: “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent,” she wrote. “Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens.”1
One of the great things about our age is that if you say something stunningly stupid on the internet someone will call you on it as did one perfectly when he pointed on that “She has the scientific understanding of a medieval peasant.” While another reminded that eclipses “are not random, they follow strict mathematical rules and can be predicted centuries before they happen.”2
Some mistakes are benign while others can lead us into very dangerous waters.
Such was the case of Peter’s little speech in the third chapter of Acts in our First reading today. Up until the moment Peter spoke up things were going very well but as soon as he opened his mouth and began to “give a witness” things went south hurriedly and radically.
Peter had just healed a man who had been lame since birth but instead of taking the win and calling it a very good day Peter snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Here is what happened just before we picked up our reading for today.
As Peter and John enter the temple area for prayer for one day, they meet this disabled man begging for alms by the Beautiful Gate. Only instead of giving him money (which they don’t have), Peter offers him something much better. Announcing, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk, he takes the man’s hand and “raises him up.”3
The response is even more dramatic than expected. Not only does the {man} stand and walk; he also hops up, goes into the temple precincts with Peter and John on his own two feet, and proceeds to leap about “praising God”
When our reading begins the people are staring at Peter, and unfortunately it seems he is glaring back at them. He starts by saying that it was not of his own power that he was able to do this but “It is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, who has done this thing to honor his servant Jesus...”4
It would have been a good idea, a great idea, if Peter would have stopped there but he goes on in a very accusatory tone. “Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the holy and righteous one and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.”5
Biblical scholar Alyce M. McKenzie reminds us:
Everything about his speech would have been offensive to them, laying the blame for Jesus’ death entirely at their feet, his claim that the healing was by the power of the resurrected Messiah, his call for them to repent, and his warning of the consequences of ignoring that call.6
Perhaps what troubled me most is that this not only rings down through the years but stretches its boney finger of blame for Jesus’ death very close to this place when not very long ago “Scores of antisemitic flyers, placed inside small bags containing a substance with the “appearance of rat poison,” were spread across doorsteps in central Lincoln Park. In addition to that, “nine clear zip-close bags containing flyers and the substance were found on various vehicles and doorways on the 500 block of West Belden Avenue {and} 75 additional bags were discovered on the 500 block of West Grant Street."7
Peter may have healed a man but his little speech as been misused and misquoted down through the centuries leading to deeds far worse than flyers on doorsteps.
Before placing blame on any group we need to remember three things: First, that about “two thousand years ago a particular group of Jewish leaders, in company with representatives of the Roman government orchestrated Jesus’ crucifixion — not the Jewish people as a whole, either then or now.”8
Second, that the policies of the government of Israel, while they may be abhorrent to many of us in the needless death and destruction, they have wrecked upon their neighbors is, again, not to be attributed to the Jewish people as a whole.
Finally, most importantly, we need to understand what we are to be about.
Jesus told us to be his witnesses. This means we are to tell the story of Jesus.
A good friend of mine, Rev. Scott Opsahl, in a sermon he preached last Sunday at our church in Bellingham reminded us who Jesus is and what he was about.
Jesus was a man who believed that people would be set free from ideas and images about God that enslaved them.
{He believed} that people would believe that through their everyday acts of human kindness they are intimately connected with the sacred.
{He believed} that people would live without fear in the peace of God’s presence, all the days of their lives.
His intimacy with God freed faith from dead religion, giving life to the humble with whom God resides.
What Jesus taught sparked opposition in his enemies and devotion among his followers. He could speak truth to power shattering their illusions of authority and superiority.
His words could be biting, angry, and ironic, yet always just.
He touched people’s lives in such a way that they no longer saw themselves in the same way, nor could they continue to live in the same manner.
He healed the sick and brought peace to the confused.
He could reach into the fragile places of broken lives and make them whole.
He brought light to the dark places of people’s souls so that they could live again and hope again.9
That is what he was doing for his disciples when he kept appearing to them over and over in locked in their dark rooms of fear. That is the story his followers proclaimed down through the centuries as they proclaimed him Lord of their lives.
Their story is our story too. It is to that story we give witness. And, if we allow, it is a story that brings us beyond that which divides us to what unites us. It is Christ’s presence that calls us to look up, like we did last Tuesday, see in the glory of creation, the light of his love shining upon us, all of us.
Total Solar eclipses happen somewhere on earth every year with most occurring over the ocean where few get to see them.
The next to occur over parts of the United States will be in 20 years but will only be able to be seen if one is lucky enough to be in, or live in “Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.” The rest of us will just have to wait and be about the business of witnessing to others what Christ has done in our lives beginning in Lakeview, or wherever we live, and spreading to everyone we meet bringing Christ’s light to the dark places of their lives that they might believe again, hope again.
If we do this, unlike people who try to divide us up by politics, or clan, or orientation, or faction ours will be a winning witness to Christ’s life and love that is able to take every moment — even those moments on the cross — and turn it into something good.
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1. David Moye, “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘Repent’ Earthquake Tweet Shakes Up Internet,” HuffPost, April 9, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-s-repent-earthquake-tweet-shakes-up-internet/ar-BB1l8WnT?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=91909348a0464de3ac171d997661b0f1&ei=17.
2. Dan Gooding, “Marjorie Taylor Greene Says NYC Earthquake Is a ‘Sign from God’ to Repent,” The Independent, April 9, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-nyc-earthquake-is-a-sign-from-god-to-repent/ar-BB1l8WIp?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=de0ec3d249be4baa9ca721634aebf45a&ei=22.
3. Michal Beth Dinkler, “Commentary on Acts 3:12-19,” Working Preacher from Luther Seminary, April 10, 2024,-2/commentary-on-acts-312-19-5.
4. Acts 3:13a. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London, ENG: Collins, 2009).
5. Acts 3:13–15 (NRSVUE) [NRSVUE=The New Revised Standard Version. Updated Edition.]
6. Alyce M. McKenzie, “Acts 3:12-19. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture,” Connections. A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year B, 2 (April 1, 2020): 219–21.
7. Kate Armanini, “Antisemitic Flyers, Substance with ‘appearance of Rat Poison’ Found in Chicago, Alderman Says,” pantagraph.com, April 9, 2024, https://pantagraph.com/news/state-regional/crime-courts/antisemitic-flyers-substance-with-appearance-of-rat-poison-found-in-chicago-alderman-says/article_c27eb84e-a232-5b45-84e2-aedbe592531c.html.
8. McKenzie, loc. cit.
9. Scott Opsahl, untitled sermon preached at Faith Lutheran Church, Bellingham, Washington, 7 April 2024
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