It Keeps on Ticking
Acts 5: 27-32
Rev. John P. Wesley
April 11, 2010
There is something of the Everyready bunny in today’s scripture. We are told that Peter was arrested for preaching in the temple in Jerusalem. For the first few years after the resurrection, Christians did not see themselves as a separate religious group from the Jews. They saw themselves as a part of the Jewish faith, but with a different idea about the Messiah. While others waited for the one promised from God, the early Christians declared that he had come in the man Jesus, and that instead of recognizing him, the religious leaders had put Jesus to death. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand why the temple authorities had Peter arrested for giving this witness. The leaders thought they’d put an end to Jesus. But each day more and more people claimed his resurrection and followed this new way. So they put Peter in jail. But that night the doors were unlocked in a mysterious way. And the next day when the chief priests come to work, there Peter was in the temple courtyard talking about Jesus once again. Like an Everyready Bunny, this story just would not die. It kept being told by more and more people. Soon the leaders who ordered the arrest and death of Jesus began to strike out at those who gave witness to his name. Stephen was the first in a long line of people who would become martyrs, but the blood of these witnesses didn’t put a stop to the good news. It would come back again and again. The Jewish leaders would not be able to stop the life changing story of Jesus. The Roman empire would not be able to quench the fire of passion and excitement. And in the middle ages the church would not be able to lock the story up inside priests and cathedrals. Jesus has died and rose again and those who believed this could be silenced.
Some churches have revived a practice celebrated in the ancient church. They’ve renamed this Sunday Humor Sunday. The idea of humor Sunday isn’t about the way the crowds that were here last week suddenly disappear this week. Humor Sunday goes back to a tradition that said the resurrection was a joke played on the devil. Augustine wrote that God played a trick on the devil. Just when he thought everything was finished with Jesus, God brought him out of the tomb. In the medieval church the week after Easter was marked with parties and feasts and laughter. After walking with Christ in his passion, after remembering again the death of Christ on the cross and his burial, the church thought the announcement of the resurrection worthy of laughter, worthy of a party or two. God had tricked the devil, tricked death itself.
Godspell the musical uses the image of a clown, to portray Jesus. One writer has said, "Clowns represent the underdog, the lowly, the remnant people. Their foolishness is a call to unpretentiousness. They take incredible risks - balancing on tight ropes, eating fire, keeping silent, being poked by others, or getting soaked in water. Clowns are parables in themselves, spending great amounts of energy uncovering small things, then showing forth the hidden treasure of life (like the kingdom of God) and, surprisingly to us, giving their most cherished possessions to others."". . . . the clown may be down and out, but he is also continually raised up by a spirit within, lifting our own spirits as he overcomes life's stumbling blocks. Clowns look at the world . . . inside out and upside down: the last shall be first, the smallest seed is the greatest tree, and those who work all day get paid the same as those who worked an hour. To the world, this is foolishness." But in God’s eyes it is grace.
It was one thing for Peter and the other Disciples to go out and tell the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. They had seen the risen Savior. They knew what God could do. Some may feel we are too far removed from that event to be very excited about it. It may seem, since we were not there and did not see the Lord standing in the midst of his Disciples with the wounds in his hands and feet, that we don’t have a lot to talk about. But it seems to me we have even more reason to bear witness to today than those early Disciples. We have been witnesses to history. We have seen how this story told to a few people in Jerusalem became the narrative by which life would change for so many people in the world. We have seen how this story of Christ was not allowed to die, even when the church tried to encase the story in rules of orthodoxy and ritual. We have seen how one injustice after another has been overcome by people in whom this story of Christ has taken root. There is reason for us to join with the jokesters and jesters and clowns who believe there’s always more to the story than what meets the eye. God is always at work, and just when it may appear all is lost, the One who raised Jesus will act in a way that surprises us with joy, that renews us with hope.
It seems to me this is good enough news for us to remember, good enough news for us to want to share it with other people. If we are too timid to share the story of the risen Savior with other people, we should at least be willing to invite people to the table where they can be fed. Maybe we can’t go down to the city square and get up on a bench and tell the world about the wonderful things Jesus has done. But it would seem we might be able, if it wasn’t too much bother, if we got the chance, to invite one or two people to come to worship with us so they could listen to the preacher, or listen to the music or could see the table and we could say, “Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you about. That’s the story that’s claimed my life and the story I wanted you to hear.”
But so often we aren’t able to tell others about this risen Christ, we aren’t even able to invite people to come and hear the story. We get lost so deeply in our own concerns, we get so troubled at something that’s happening in our lives, that we forget about what it means to believe in a God who is in the business of bringing good things out of bad, in the business of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, in the business of tricking the darkness by sending a marvelous light.
Peter had that trouble once. You may recall that he’d told Jesus on the night of the Last Supper that he’d never deny Christ, that he would go with him to the grave if he needed to. Surely Peter meant everything he said in that upper room. But within hours he found himself in the courtyard of the chief priest warming himself by the fire. Things had changed. Jesus was now under arrest. People were talking about crucifixion. Peter appeared lost, uncertain, frightened and when someone said, “Weren’t you with the Galilean,” Peter denied that he knew him. Someone else said, “I’m sure I saw you with the teacher,” and a second time Peter said it must be mistaken identity. And then a servant girl passed by, and she stopped and looked hard at Peter and, pointing her finger at him, said, “I’m sure I saw you with Jesus just the other day.” And Peter, fearing for his own skin, cursed loudly and said, “I do not know the man.” And the rooster crowed and Peter dropped his head in shame knowing that he had missed the opportunity to bear witness for Jesus.
A lot of distance separated that moment of denial in the courtyard from this moment of proclamation in the outer court of the temple. Then he had kept silent. Now he spoke with power. Then he had feared the chief priest. Now he said he had to do what God said no matter the authorities ordered. One word could explain the difference in Peter: Resurrection! He’d seen that God could not be defeated and so he courageously gave witness to God.
The great theologian Karl Barth said people come to church with only one question on their minds: is it true? Does God love us and is that love strong enough to overcome anything we face? Is it true? If the size of the crowd is any indication a lot of the people who were here last week have made a decision, “It’s not true.” No need to bother with church. No need to bother with getting along with others. No need to bother with the needs of others. The joke of the resurrection for a lot of folks is that so many believe that it happened. So many folks have gotten their hopes up over nothing.
But there was Peter, and there have been others down through the centuries who have dared believe that it was true. There have been those who have laughed at Easter, not because a joke had been played on us, but because they believed God had played a joke on the devil. What appeared to be the end was really just the beginning. And that resurrection hope continues to fuel the hearts and minds of a lot of us today. We are the same witness to the resurrection that Peter was so long ago. By what we say and what we do, in the way we affirm the will of God in an unjust world, by the way we give our time and our energy and our gifts to the work of Christ’s church, we keep the story of resurrection alive in our world. We remind the world that there’s something more to life than what you see. There’s more to give yourself to than your own security and pleasure. Our brand of religion has taken a beating lately. Once called a part of the mainline church, people refer to us as the sidelined church. Many of our leaders are trying out new programs and new consultants hoping to kick start what our denominations was at one time. I’m not sure the world needs new programs right now. I think what they need is a simple, sincere witness from those of us that call ourselves Christians that it is true. God still lives and loves and saves.
Fred Craddock told a story in one of his sermons about a little girl that was dropped off for Sunday School at his little church each week. The parents were scientist at Oak Ridge. They’d moved in from up East. People in the community knew the parents had some really wild parties on Saturday night. They never came to church on Sunday. But their little girl liked to come to Sunday School, so they’d come through the circle in front of the church and drop her off. And they’d pick her up after church. Then one Sunday Fred was surprised to see the little girl coming up the sidewalk with someone with her. It was her mother and father. They looked a little rattled and shaken. They listened to the sermon and at the end of the sermon they came forward and gave their life to Christ, wanting to be baptized. After the service Fred asked them what had prompted this moment.
They asked Fred, “Do you know about our parties?’
He said, “Yeah, I heard about your parties.”
They said, “Well, we had one last night again, and it got a little loud, and it got a little rough. And there was too much drinking. And we waked our daughter, and she came downstairs, she was on the third step. And she saw that we were eating and drinking, and she said, ‘Oh, can I give the blessing? God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Goodnight, everybody.”
She went back upstairs. “Oh, my land, it’s time to go, we gotta be going. We’ve stayed…” Within two minutes the room was empty.” And the parents were picking up crumpled napkins and wasted and spilled peanuts and half-sandwiches and taking empty glasses on trays to the kitchen. And with two trays, he and she meet beside the sink on either side, and they looked at each other, and he expressed what both were thinking. “Where do we think we’re going?”
God doesn’t stop trying to get under our skin, doesn’t stop trying to penetrate our hard hearts and closed minds. Like the Everyready Bunny, God tries again and again to show the world what can be different, what can be eternal. And you and I are witnesses to that. Like this little girl our place isn’t to point fingers and condemn. It’s to come to church when the world looks a mess and give thanks to God for God’s goodness. It’s to look through the dirt and the grim in someone’s life and say, “God is great, God is good.” We can do this not because we don’t see all the frightening and awful possibilities of a world that appears in self-destruction mode. We can be this witness because God has a way of playing tricks on the devil. Just when all seems lost everything is transformed and God is the victor. We claim that to be true and we bear witness to it today.
