The Joy and Justice of the Gospel, #5

Last week we began looking at “conversion” stories in the book of Acts, by looking at the persons who gathered on the Day of Pentecost (c.2) and who responded to Simon Peter’s call to “repent” by the thousands. We recall that the narrator described this crowd as “devout people,” not sinners, evil, lost, or however else we might often hear the beginning of a conversion story described. They were devout persons, a term that Luke does not use ironically or sarcastically, but a term that shows great respect for one’s relationship with God. 

In other words, the people who heard Simon Peter’s message and were “cut to the heart” asking, “What shall we do?” were not people who had never heard the Word of God before. They were hearing that this phenomenon that was taking place was part of God’s plan – spoken by their own prophet Joel – and a validation of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, whom they and the Romans had killed. In response to their contrite question, Peter answers, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 

Let’s make some observations about Peter’s altar call. 

First, it is given to “devout people.” I keep banging that drum because this is a inter-religious conversation, not a call from believers to unbelievers. Don’t forget that the reason the crowd was gathered there was to celebrate Pentecost, Shavuot, a religious harvest festival, rooted in the Scriptures and all about God’s call to live with thanksgiving and abundant grace. This story does not contradict the celebration or meaning of Pentecost, it fulfills it. 

Second, they are called to “repent.” One part of that inter-religious conversation is that there was a real and horrible injustice that was committed when the religious leaders conspired with the Romans to kill Jesus. As Peter puts it “this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. (v.23)” Remember, this harsh claim is not a legitimation of anti-Semitic violence like the Kristallnacht violence of 1938. If anything, this story invites Christians to speak out boldly and forthrightly to other Christians who commit horrible acts of violence and hatred in the name of their faith. That’s what Peter is calling his fellow devotees to repent about – an inordinate act of violence legitimated by faith. Perhaps that is why Peter added, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” There was a real thing at that moment which required repentance and forgiveness, not just sin in general. 

Third, the repentance is for the sake of having their sins forgiven andfor receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit that Joel foretold. Between Luke, the theologian writing this story, and Peter, the preacher preaching this sermon, they make a synthetic connection between the wrongful crucifixion of Jesus and the fulfillment of Joel’s promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

This conjunction of repentance and receiving the Holy Spirit is a part of this story that I believe we ought to explore more closely. It is something that we’ve often left up to Pentecostal and Charismatic congregations/preachers to own. I think that is a huge mistake on our part, because congregations/preachers who cling to an exclusivist theology and fundamentalist approach to the Scriptures are among the least equipped to appreciate what is happening in this story. I’ll explore that more in depth next week. 

Until then, may your hearts be so full that people think you’re full of new wine.

Mark of St. Mark

The Joy and Justice of the Gospel, #4

In last week’s message, I promised to look at the book of Acts, revisiting some of the ways that the “conversion stories” are often read there. I’ll start today with Pentecost. 

The story of the Day of Pentecost, from the 2^ndchapter of Acts, is fascinating at many levels. The phenomena of the sound of wind, the fire, the ability to proclaim God’s mighty acts in languages other than one’s own – no wonder the narrator uses words like ‘amazed’, ‘astonished’, ‘bewildered’, and ‘perplexed’ to describe the scene. I would be amiss to overlook everyone’s favorite line in this story, which expresses one way of explaining the perplexity, when some people sneer and say, “They are filled with new wine.” And then there are the geographical references – a nightmare for a liturgist who tries to read some of these unfamiliar names in front of people, but a significant indicator of the linguistic and cultural identities that become part of this story. It’s interesting that the litany of cities, nations, and religious journeys – catalogued in verses 9-11 – is not from the narrator but is the way the people describe themselves. The narrator only says that these were people “from every nation.” 

The phenomenal beginning of this story is followed by Peter interpreting the outpouring of the spirit as a sign that God is at work in Christ. The stirring line that completes Peter’s sermon is: “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The crowd is cut to the heart and asks what they ought to do, to which Peter replies, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” Many of the people do – about three thousand added to the apostles’ number, according to the narrator. 

The typical way that I was taught to hear this story was that these were Jews who converted to being Christians. And, of course, there is a lot of truth to that statement. They were indeed Jews, we learn that from the start, despite their countries of origin. Some of them were born into Jewish families and some were “proselytes.” And they certainly were called to “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” “Repent” here is the verb μετανοέω, which means to change one’s mind, direction, or purpose. It was the message of John the Baptist and was picked up as the message of Jesus, according to Luke. 

So, there is a lot about the interpretation that this story is about Jews who converted to being Christians that seems correct – except perhaps the word “converted.” The connotation of that term suggests that these Jews quit being Jews and started being Christians, that they switched from one religion to another, perhaps even that they moved from being evil to being righteous, from being enemies of God to being God’s beloved. 

But, the narrator does not describe these persons as unbelievers or evil. They are called Jews, followed by the apposition, “devout people.” This adjective ‘devout’ is only used in Luke-Acts and in all three other cases refers to really and truly devout people. It does not signify anything hypocritical, like we might hear the word “pious” used sometimes today (sadly.) It really means living in reverence of God. These folks were devout Jews. And they repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus. That’s the pattern that we want to study a bit more closely next week. 

Mark of St. Mark 

The Joy and Justice of the Gospel, #3

As a teenager, I was on a Bible Quiz team at my church, which included a very competitive and intensive study of a single book of the Bible each year and competitions at the district, regional, and national levels against other churches. The year I was most involved was the year we studied the book of Acts. The premise of Bible Quiz was that we did not ‘interpret’ the text; we only studied ‘the facts’ and answered questions based on a literal reading of the King James Version of the book. That year we ended up losing in a regional contest on this last question on the book of Acts: In what two cities did Paul stay for “a very long time?” The other team beat us to the buzzer. They didn’t know the answer, but they only lost 15 points for a wrong answer and we needed the 30 points that would have been rewarded for the right answer. It was a strategic mistake - heartbreaking for us, delightful for them.  

While we ostensibly were not ‘interpreting’ the book of Acts, the truth is that there is a slant of interpretation about Acts that we took for granted – less like a conclusion and more like a lens through which we read the book. It is a common way of reading Acts as a book of conversion stories. A “conversion” – as we understood it – was when someone had no faith, or was following the wrong faith, and then heard the gospel and found the true way. The story of Saul of Tarsus, in Acts 9, was always the archetype of conversion stories. Saul was a bad guy, evil, fighting against Christianity, and then, Boom! he gets “blinded by the light” on the road to Damascus and becomes a Christian missionary and theologian. He once was lost, but now he’s found, was blind but now he sees. Saul of Tarsus’ conversion to Paul the Apostle was how conversions work. Once you see that pattern, it’s everywhere in the book of Acts, from magicians to Ethiopian eunuchs to women washing clothes by the river to Roman centurions – all walking in the wrong direction then turning 180 degrees to the true faith. It is a way of reading the book of Acts that, once you wear the lens of seeing conversion stories that way, seems to be exactly what the book is about. 

Then I tried on a different prescription and everything changed. It started after my teenage years, when I began to notice a pattern in some of these “conversion stories,” but I didn’t know what to do with it. Krister Stendahl helped. In this book Paul Among Christians and Jews, Stendahl argued that when Paul talked about his experience – repeatedly in Acts as well as in some of his letters – Paul speaks of it more as a “call” than a “conversion.” You can read and assess Stendahl’s argument for yourself, but for my sake it was a crack in the lens that I had been given for reading the book of Acts and it allowed me to explore my suspicions that the way I was taught to read these stories was not as “objective” as I had been told. It was not a deliberate mislead or a conspiracy of any sort – the people who taught me to read it that way had themselves been taught to read it that way by people who had been taught to read it that way, and so forth. They, and I, simply were trying to be faithful readers of Scripture, so it was not a matter of anyone acting out of perfidy. It was just a deeply ingrained way of reading that we needed to become conscious of. 

So, for the next few weeks I want to explore both the theological and biblical dimensions of reading the “conversion stories” of the book of Acts differently. My overall purpose is not to show just how wrong my mentors, teachers, preachers and teenage self from the past were, but to become more self-aware of how we read texts, in order to open ourselves up to meanings in the text, which we might not have seen along the way. I’ll try not to bore you to tears. 

Oh, by the way, the answer was “Antioch and Iconium.” 

Mark of St. Mark

And Now, for Something Different

On February 16 St. Mark will be hosting a Youth Choir from First Presbyterian Church in Caldwell, NJ at 5:00, presenting a version of the Broadway play, “Urinetown.” First Presbyterian in Caldwell is a church of 850 members, with an incredible music program – 3 Bell Choirs, 5 Singing Choirs, a series of special performances each year, including “Broadway comes to Caldwell” and a “Messiah sing-a-long.” And they have over 30 Jr. High and Sr. High students who put on a musical every year and tour the U.S. or overseas. Back in December we received a packet of letters written by the children in their Youth Choir, each of whom had gone to St. Mark’s web site and read about us. Many of them found our commitment to inclusion and justice to be very similar to their experience of their own congregation. 

I want to say this about hosting the play “Urinetown.” The topic is important - one premise is that there is a crisis over water. About the title: I am a big fan of puns, plays on words, and clever uses of language. I’m not a big fan of talking about bodily fluids. So, the double entendre of this play’s title is both a little admired and a little off-putting to me. And there are versions of this play that would be inappropriate for a church choir to perform or a church to host. Our Program Staff has inquired with the Associate Pastor of First Presbyterian whether the show is appropriate for us to host and for children to attend. Here is the main part of her response: 

“URINETOWN is the most clever show I have become acquainted with. It is funny, clever and spoofs various well-known Broadway shows. There are no "potty jokes," bad language or sexual innuendos. The clothing is all modest. Now, I am sure that there are some productions that may go in an off-color direction, but I can assure you that our production does not do that. I would be in deep trouble with my session if I even tried to do something like that! … For young children? The show moves fast and has lots of fun dance numbers. That would keep them amused. The clever dialogue would definitely go over their heads. (My 4-year old granddaughter will come to see the production with her parents when we perform it at home.) Teens and adults will enjoy the silliness and yet, the message of caring for one another and our earth. One of the reasons we wanted to perform in California was so that we could understand better the water shortage in your state as well as the recent fires.” 

Of course, you get to use your own judgment about attending the performance. I support hosting this event because I am willing to trust the judgment of the staff of First Presbyterian and because of my own understanding of art. I believe art can be an effective way of disrupting complacency. When that is the goal, art is necessarily edgy, provocative in one direction or another, whether evoking wonder at the ordinary, anger at the system, or hope when all seems lost. (I think I could take those last two sentences, substitute the word “parable” for “art,” and get a room full of biblical scholars to nod in agreement.) It seems to me that a serious issue like the scarcity of water can be addressed fruitfully through word-play, drama, and music. Besides, I’m anxious to see what a thriving youth music program can look like. 

So, here’s a fun idea: Find someone who is under 21 and ask, “Did you know that once upon a time you had to pay a dime to use a public toilet?” An interesting conversation is sure to ensue. It will cause us to ask: What is more ridiculous (absurd, offensive, edgy) – a fictitious Broadway play or a way of life that was largely accepted for a long time? 

Mark of St. Mark