What Did You Expect?

Acts 3:12-19
Now when Peter saw the people he replied to them, “People of Israel, why wonder about this? Why stare at us as if, by our own power or piety, we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and repudiated before Pilate, who had decided to release him. But you repudiated the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be given to you, and killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.
Now through faith in his name, this one whom you see and know was strengthened by his name and this faith through him gave him this wholeness before all of you. And now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did. But God, who foretold through the mouths of all the prophets the suffering of his Christ, fulfilled all this. Therefore, repent and return to the one who blots out sins.

This being Fiddler on the Roof weekend here at Franktown, I thought about titling this sermon, “What I Have Learned From Three Months as a Foot Soldier in Judi Tracy’s Army.” What a long, strange trip it’s been to get this production together. Most of you have had some experience with what’s involved, but this was a new thing for me. I had no idea that what Judi means by a “small part” meets no normal definition of that word. I didn’t know you really can’t highlight your lines in your script without violating the terms of the lease agreement, something I found out a little too late. And I did not know that something that causes this much stress could also bring so much joy.

What an amazing thing this show has been for us as a cast and for us as a church! John Wesley, the founder of the people called Methodists, was not a great fan of the theater. In his days the theater was a place where the worst tendencies in human nature were on display. Plays were where people went to celebrate the worst of what we could be.

Now there were times over this period when we were not at our best, but with this cast and crew and with this play, we mostly saw the best of what we can be in God’s eyes. The talent, the creativity, the flexibility, and the message – it was a revelation and it became a ministry. I mean, who knew that Erin Hayes could become Chava? Or that we had such talented children and youth actors? Or that Lois Fawcett could put together a crew and a set like the one we have? Or that God would send the backstage crew we needed? And I had heard rumors, “There were some rumors in the village,” but to watch Mark McNair transform into Tevye was…well, actually it was scary, but remarkable anyway.

But there is one scene from the play that came to mind as I was preparing for the sermon this week. For me this play is all about change and the challenges it poses for the people of God. It is set in the small Russian village of Anatevka in the waning days of the rule of the czars. It is a time when there is a great deal of tension between the ethnic Russians and the Jews, who are at the center of this story. The Jewish villagers are deeply rooted in traditions that connect them to God and to their history. But they are also going through a time of change as new ideas creep in and as the young people in the town challenge the old traditions, particularly the tradition of marriages arranged by a matchmaker. In the midst of this, the Russian government begins to oppress the Jews in a series of violent riots or pogroms. Everything is turned upside down and it is unclear how the community will sustain itself and continue.

One of the most poignant scenes is when the eviction notice comes for the Jews of Anatevka. When they are given three days to leave the village, the people know that this will be a change that trumps all the other changes they have been going through. As the play has progressed, the challenges have moved closer and closer to Tevye. Finally, they uproot him and his friends.

It’s at this point that Jewish ironic humor takes over. Jo Ann Molera, otherwise known as Yente the Matchmaker, says, “Well, you know, Anatevka hasn’t exactly been the Garden of Eden.” Tevye says, “Somebody should have put a match to this place years ago.” And everybody sings, “What do we leave? Nothing much.” But then the powerful phrase that puts it all in perspective… “Only Anatevka.” Only Anatevka. Only everything we’ve ever known. Only the place that grounds everything and that we can’t imagine living without.

But they go on and you have the feeling by the final scene that this community will survive, though it may be scattered throughout the world. As they begin the long journey away from home they are still a people waiting on God, still a people bound together by family and faith, still a people who “know who they are and what God expects them to do.” It is a final scene lived under a cloud, but you sense that these people will find a new life in a new place. They will not be defeated. They will laugh and sing and perhaps even dance again. They have a power that cannot be destroyed by the worst that others can do to them. This, all too often, has been the story of the Jewish people.

What does Fiddler on the Roof have to tell us as Christians? Well, we could do a whole series on the themes and lessons of Fiddler, but it does cause me to ask about the source of our strength and what it means to be faithful to what God has given to us. Our scripture this morning gives us one of the first Christian sermons and it talks about this theme.

Peter and John are walking into the temple in Jerusalem soon after Jesus’ resurrection and soon after the Holy Spirit had descended on his disciples at Pentecost. They see a crippled man laying by the temple gate begging for money. They say to them man, “We don’t have silver or gold, but we can give you what we have.” And what is it that they have? They have the name, the power of Jesus. And when they tell the man that he can be freed by the power of Jesus, he jumps to his feet and begins to dance and praise God.

This, as you might imagine, attracts a crowd. You can hear them murmuring to one another: “They healed the beggar by the gate! Can you believe it? These guys must be prophets or miracleworkers!” But when the crowds gathered, Peter responds with a sermon. “Why are you amazed at this? What did you expect? It wasn’t us that did this. Do you think we ourselves have the power or piety to make a man walk? No, it was God, the God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God we knew in Jesus who is the Christ.

Then the sermon changes to a new tone. Peter begins to tell the story of Jesus’ death and to tell the people that they were responsible. They were ignorant of what they were doing but they had repudiated him before Pilate, and they had asked for a murderer to be released in his stead, and they had put to death the one who offers life. Of course, all of this was to fulfill God’s purposes in overcoming death, but they needed to see that they were still captive to the power of death in this world. They were still bound by their own failures and sins. They were still as crippled as the man by the gate had been and just as in need to be released so that they could sing and dance and praise the God who was still their God despite all the ways they and the world had gone wrong.

Now here’s the word we need to hear as 21st century Christians: This sermon is for us. Yes, it was meant for those people of Jerusalem living in the aftermath of the crime and struggling with what it meant, but it is no less an important message for us today. We did not join the crowds to shout, “Crucify him!” on Good Friday but we repudiate Jesus every time we forget to see him in a suffering brother or sister or go along with the forces that are working against the intentions of God. We didn’t ask for the murderer Barrabas to be released, but we unleash the forces of destruction every time we give our money and our attention to music, movies, video games and TV shows and to political agendas that glorify death and violence. We weren’t there to nail him to the cross, but we give our hopes over to death every time we do not share where our hope comes from with our children and youth and when we do not live as if the God we say we believe in truly is God.

You know, we are Americans. We’re supposed to be an optimistic, forward-looking people. But we have become a people who suspect there is no grand hope, no great power, no cure for what ails us. We are becoming resigned to a future in which we continue to send our children off to an endless far-off war, an economy that is dragging and leading to huge layoffs like we saw in Norfolk at the Ford factory, a political process that is mired in division and which seems not to be able to do anything but spend money and to do that poorly. There is a deep cynicism in the land and we don’t dare to get our hopes up that anything will ever change because we are just not sure we have the wisdom, the energy, the leadership, the courage, the power to do what needs to be done.

We are people who also know that there is something wrong, not only in the world around us, but deep within us as well. We carry guilt over things we have done. We know that we have not loved our neighbors, our friends, our family, our selves the way that we should. We know that our faith flickers and we aren’t the light God wants us to be. We know that we are enslaved to things that keep us from being who God wants us to be and those things have many names – gambling, pornography, alcohol, materialism, anger, selfishness, busy-ness. How can we be healed from these things?

And we are people of deep wounds. Others have wronged us and we don’t know how to forgive. Others have abused us or slighted us or disappointed us or crossed the path of our own will and we cannot let it go. How can we be healed?

Or perhaps the wound is physical or mental. We face chronic diseases or bouts with depression. We face surgery or mental decline. And in facing these disorders we despair that we can ever overcome them.

This is why this story is for us. Because we know what it’s like to suspect that there is no power in the world that can release us from these things. But as Christians we know that there is.
We know that there is because we can look to a point in history in which it all changed for us. The God who was made known to the people of Israel with an everlasting covenant came to us in Jesus. God came to live with us! And when you read the gospels you can’t help but be overwhelmed by where he spent his time. He lived among folks who believed they had no power! Jesus, in the gospels, is constantly moving around among people who come to him with blindness, illness, bleeding, demon possession, and even death. He speaks to wealthy people who are burdened by their wealth. He speaks to lawyers who are burdened by their rules. He speaks to religious leaders who are burdened by their position. What they all have in common is that they feel trapped and do not know how to get out.

Jesus meets them where they are and some of them he comforts with the words that their faith has made them well. Some of them he confronts with the news that the things they are holding onto they will have to give up in order to be healed. And some of them respond with joy, like the tax collector Zaccheus. And some of them respond with sorrow, like the rich young man who is told to give up all he owns. Jesus meets the people where they are and demands that they recognize something one things – that when God comes they can never be the same.

It even took the disciples awhile to get that message. Peter, who gives this sermon at the Temple, was last seen before the crucifixion denying that he had ever met this Jesus. But he finally got it. When he encountered the Risen Lord, he got it. And those who came to Christ in faith knew that they could never be the same…that the world could never be the same. This resurrection power was so great that it would enable them to walk forward in the face of any danger, knowing that death didn’t get the last word – not on a hill called Calvary, and not in the depths of our souls. The end of the story, for those who walk in faith in Jesus, is always life.

What the disciples faced in walking on was persecution. Like those Jewish villagers in Anatevka, the next part of the journey for them was not pretty. Some of those early Christians faced lions and beatings and imprisonment and exile. But what marked them was their hope and joy and confidence in Jesus Christ. And those who saw them were amazed. One of the earliest recorded statements about Christians was by someone who said, “Look how they love each other.” You have a sense that even facing what was ahead, these Christians were also going to find a new life in a new place. They will not be defeated. They will laugh and sing and perhaps even dance again. They have a power that cannot be destroyed by the worst that the world can bring them.

You have that power, too. I know you wonder sometimes if you do. I know the world seems overwhelming. I know you don’t know if you can trust others or even if you can trust yourself. I know that you wonder if the pains you are experiencing can ever be relieved or if the things you have done can ever be forgiven. But God does not see us as the worst we have been, God sees in us the potential for what we will be if we accept life in Jesus Christ. In the beginning God said, when looking at the newly-created man and woman, “It is good. It is very good.” Because of the redemption offered to us in Jesus, God can still say that about the creation God loves.

One night in my former church we had a communion service to conclude our Disciple Bible Study and it was held in the sanctuary in the midst of a thunderstorm. The power had gone out awhile before and we held the service by candlelight because we believed we had no electricity. It turned out that the power had come back on before we even started but we didn’t know it because we had no lights on. We had the power and we didn’t know it. You have the power. It has been given to us. God has come in Jesus to heal the sins and the wounds of this world. We only need to claim that power as our own. Thanks be to God.