Acts 17:22-31
Well, this is the first exegesis I’ve written since December, so I’m more than a little rusty. I hope this doesn’t bring down the overall quality of the blog, but I’ll get back in the habit soon enough (as the bishop said to the actress). So I’m just going to jump right in, and may God have mercy on us all.
“Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how religious you are in every way.’” What an excellent way to start. I wonder if Jack Chick ever came across this passage. Instead of saying, “Athenians, I know you are all going to hell for your idolatry, sodomy, and for hooking my wife on tzatziki sauce,” he found a way not only to praise his listeners but to find common ground with them. This is an excellent model for dialogue (perhaps a better translation of the word translated “argued” back in vs. 17). (more…)

Link to Lectionary Text at Vanderbilt.

1 Peter 2:2-10

2:2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation-

2:3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

2:4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and

2:5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

2:6 For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

2:7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,”

2:8 and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

2:10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” - from Hamlet , Wm. Shakespeare; Act II, scene ii

The first Petrine epistle has some fun with rock imagery here.  Of course, even the name Peter literally means rock.  The Revised Common Lectionary links this reading up with the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts and selected verses from Psalm 31 - “Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.”  The only place you won’t find rocks and gravel are in the Gospel reading.

God is the ultimate junque artist here.  You’ve seen junk art, right?  A sculptor takes items that are traditionally discarded by most folks and welds, pastes, fastens, rivets, bolts, glues and otherwise attaches them together to make an entirely new piece.  God takes something as useless as rocks - ones discarded, outcast, and rejected - and builds a temple for a royal priesthood.

Of course, stones can be used as stumbling blocks, obstacles, or even weapons (Acts).  Or they can be used to glorify God.

This challenges our churches to look very carefully at who gets rejected in our communities.  Who are the outcasts that God would have us use?  Who are the living stones among us whose spiritual potential can be formed and nurtured?  Where do we see blessing while others see nuisance?

Atmospherics - rocks, gravel, concrete blocks, bricks.  Perhaps everyone in the congregation could be handed small stones.  Kids could build a temple from Lego blocks, or paint larger rocks with words like faith, hope, love, refuge, mercy, grace, fortress.

…most of us think of sheep as slobbering, untidy, dumb animals who exist only to be shaved or slaughtered.

Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered last Tuesday that someone I know actually grew up on a sheep farm in the Midwest and that according to him sheep are not dumb at all.  It is the cattle ranchers who are responsible for spreading that ugly rumor, and all because sheep do not behave like cows.  According to my friend, cows are herded from the rear by hooting cowboys with cracking whips, but that will not work with sheep at all.  Stand behind them making loud noises and all they will do is run around behind you, because they prefer to be led.  You push cows, my friend said, but you lead sheep, and they will not go anywhere that someone else does not go first - namely, their shepherd - who goes ahead of them to show them that everything is all right.

The Preaching Life (Cowley Publications: Cambridge, Mass, 1993) pages 140-141.

If you aren’t reading Barbara Brown Taylor, you really should be.  She combines masterful storytelling, critical reading of scripture, and a genuine pastoral warmth in a way I aspire to.

What does it really mean to say that Jesus is “the Good Shepherd?”

My Old Testament prof, John Bracke, asserts that shepherd imagery is overly romanticized in church culture.  In short Shepherds were not these gentle, passive, pastoral fellows who sat on rocks writing poetry to God while watching the flock out of the corner of their eyes.  They were bad dudes.  That big crooked stick they carried wasn’t a walking stick - it was a weapon.  They were at the ready to defend the flock against human raiders and natural predators.  Often plural.

Shepherds were literally in the business of saving the sheep.  Not saving them from sin, saving them from death.

NOW contrast that with Jesus as the good shepherd.  That phrase doesn’t carry the oxymoron connotation that good Samaritan has, but there is a bitter irony in it.  Conventional shepherds save the sheep by kicking some butt; Jesus saves his flock by first getting his butt kicked on a cross.  Then and only then can he conquer sin and death through resurrection.

Preaching the Johannine text leaves the preacher with an interesting dilemma.  In a narrative context Jesus seems to talk about himself as the good shepherd by being the one who lays his life down for the sheep.  Yet the liturgical calendar has us preaching this text in the context of Easter and resurrection.  The John pericope taken by itself has Jesus talking mysteriously about himself as both the gatekeeper and the gate; as the shepherd whose sheep recognize his voice, and the one who comes to give abundant life.

• Soteriology - what does it mean to be saved by this shepherd?  What does “abundant life” really mean?
• Ecclesiology - what does it mean to be a member of this shepherd’s flock?
• Pneumatology - what does it mean to recognize the shepherd’s voice now?

One fun ecclesiological question would be to unpack this pair of assertions:

1. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” (John 10:7)
2. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. (John 10:2)

Maybe all those who have entered into the Easter life through Jesus (the Gate) are called to be shepherds rather than sheep.  Or maybe as both sheep and shepherds - ones engaged both in being saved and in saving others.  I think that would preach.

Acts 2:42-47

2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

2:43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.

2:44 All who believed were together and had all things in common;

2:45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

2:46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,

2:47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

“You are what you eat” makes for a great communion sermon, but equally great is the historically accurate truth that “you are whom you eat with.”  When his critics accused Jesus of being “a glutton, a drunkard who eats with tax collectors and sinners,” (Matt. 11:19, Luke 7:34) he was being called the lowest of the low - truly unclean, unacceptable and deserving of marginalization.  A radically incarnational theology confesses, then, that God’s self came to earth in order to be with (and hence to be) the unclean, outcast, condemned.  Acts 2 is full of “breaking bread together” imagery.  One cannot understand the ecclesiology of Acts without a robust comprehension of what it means for a community to break bread together.  Sharing a table really does mean that we are in this together - that I am one of you and you are one of us.  Duling and Perrin write, “More than any other gospel, Luke has comments about meals: eating and drinking, meal parables, and Jesus eating with all sorts of people…especially “the poor, the maimed and blind and lame”…. Eating together symbolizes the life of the group (Page 373).

In his book The God of Jesus, Steve Patterson reflects upon the early Christian community as described in the second chapter of Acts.  He writes:

…it is clear that the early church did see this radically communal practice as directly related to him (Jesus)….  What people experienced in Jesus’ words and deeds was not just an encounter with a God who loves them, but also a call to form communities in which the experience of love and care would be institutionalized.  In the resurrection proclamation the early church expressed its faith that this experience was indeed an authentic experience of God; God really does gather people into such communities.  (Page 116).

Patterson (rightly, in my opinion) links the confession of resurrection with vindication - that God raised Jesus from the dead means that Jesus was right about God - and  further ties resurrection to the formation of Christian communities based upon how Jesus embodies and talks about God.  Therefore we are called to embody and talk about God in the here and now, formed and informed by the confession of the Lucan Acts Christian community.

Barclay ties this together well in his classic Daily Study Bible Series commentary.  In reflecting on this lection he points out Luke’s characteristics of the early church succinctly: teaching and learning, fellowship, prayer, reverence, a Church where things happen, sharing, worshiping, helping, and winsome (a Church people couldn’t help liking). (Pages 30-31).  I’m going to focus on two of these - a church where things happen (signs and wonders), and a church people can’t help liking.  Those two characteristics are strongly interrelated.

What’s happening in the church?  How you answer that question is crucial.  If your answer is given in terms of programming there is a problem.  One of my favorite testimonies about my home church is given by a guy who was dragged to a fellowship event by his wife.  As the day went on he began to realize that these people really love each other and they enjoy one another’s company.  By the end of the day he realized, “I want to be a part of that.“  Is there a sense in your church that anyone in trouble could lean on others in the church for support?  Is there a strong enough sense of security that you would be okay letting the church know that you are in trouble and need help?  Signs and Wonders can come in such simple forms as tangible, obvious love and mutual respect.  When I was thirteen years old I nearly died from appendicitis and my UMYF group came to visit me in the hospital.  That was a far greater sign and wonder than a visit from the pastor, and there was incredible healing power in it.

Other questions from this passage are relevant as well.  Is your church as devoted to learning as it is to teaching?  Too often the church is perceived as wanting to tell everyone else how to live and what to believe.  Our passion for learning should outweigh our passion to tell others what to do.

Are we as devoted to sharing our wealth as accumulating it?

Is our church prayerful, reverent, worshipful and humble?

How is the company at our dinner table?  How real is our conversation?

-Will Deuel