July
21st, 2019 “Jerusalem Defense” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Summer
Sermon Series: The Amazing Adventures of
Paul
Acts
22-23
This morning we continue our summer
sermon series “The Amazing Adventures of Paul.”
All summer long we have been following Paul’s missionary journey through
the Book of Acts. We have watched his
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ deepen and we have also watched his skills as a
church leader grow. Gone are the days of
blowing into town and wreaking havoc by causing religious unrest. Paul is now the planter of church
communities, leaving schooled and counseled leadership within his wake. Last week we saw Paul turn his face toward Jerusalem
and the suffering that was on the horizon.
Though warned by prophets, colleagues, and friends not to go into the
city, Paul was unable to resist the call from God. When we left Paul last week he was trapped by
a murderous lynch mob outside of the Jerusalem temple. His only hope of salvation was in his arrest
by a Roman tribune.
(Read Acts 21:37-22:21)
Just as Paul is about to be carried
away to the prison barracks, he speaks up and begs for mercy from the Roman
tribune. As soon as the man hears Paul’s
accent he realizes that Paul is not who he thought he was, namely an Egyptian
who had stirred up a revolt. Paul
declares that he is a Jew from Tarsus and asks to speak to the crowd.
Silence descends on the temple steps,
and in a dramatic gesture Paul speaks to his fellow Jews in Hebrew. He retells his story, reminding them that he
is part of their tradition and he himself once persecuted people of the Way as
much as he himself is now persecuted. He
tells of his dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and his
calling to bring the good news to the entire world. Expanding on the narrative told in Acts
chapter 9, Paul even recounts a time in the temple when he saw Jesus and was
warned that Jerusalem was not a place that would accept the word that he was
preaching.
Paul knows that there is no way out of
his imprisonment and chains, and so he does not give this speech in the hopes
of somehow being set free. Instead he
desires to show his faithfulness to God.
He wants his fellow Jews to understand that this is not a mission of his
own making. Rather it is the very God of
Israel that has sent him to preach to the Gentiles.
(Read Acts 22:22-29)
As soon as Paul declares that he has
been sent to preach to the Gentiles the crowd once again loses its mind. Not willing for Paul to be killed in a riot,
the tribune brings him back to the barracks.
Seeking to get to the bottom of things, he decides to employ an age old
method of getting information, examination by torture. He himself will not beat Paul, but he has his
hired men string Paul up to be whipped.
As Paul is being tied up for torture he
drops another key bit of information, “don’t they know he’s a Roman
citizen?” This causes a halt to the
whole affair as the grunt runs back to the tribune with the news. It is unlawful to bind a Roman citizen
without trial, let alone to torture him for information. The tribune questions how Paul came about
this status and is shocked to learn Paul is a citizen by birth. This calls for a change of plans.
(Read Acts 22:30-23:11)
The next day the tribune decides to
take Paul to his own people to see if he can figure out what all the trouble is
about. Once before the council Paul
clearly states that in the eyes of God he has done nothing wrong. This earns him a punch in the face, ordered
by the high priest. Paul responds with
an insult of the highest order, “white washed wall” referring to the white
painting on the walls outside the tombs of Jerusalem. This was to mark the place as unclean so
pilgrims visiting the city wouldn’t accidently touch them and become
defiled. Paul is basically calling the
high priest a defiled tomb, looks good on the outside but is nasty on the
inside.
Folks are taken aback that Paul would
insult the high priest and Paul responds with a catty comeback, “I didn’t know
he was the high priest”, implying that the man’s behavior is so bad he couldn’t
possibly be the high priest.
Paul is no dummy and as soon as he
notices there are Pharisees and Sadducees in the room he decides to stir up
trouble as a distraction. Dropping yet
another new piece of information, Paul declares that he himself is a Pharisee
and that the message he is preaching is of resurrection from the dead. As the author points out, the Sadducees do
not believe in life after death. The
Pharisees do believe in angels and spirits as well as resurrection. In fact, their whole theology revolves around
the hope that God will resurrect the nation of Israel itself.
Immediately the Pharisees come to
Paul’s defense, causing the Sadducees to take offense at them and not at
Paul. The whole council gets stirred up
and before long the tribune has to haul Paul out of there for the people are
becoming violent and he can’t have Paul’s blood on his hands.
That night as Paul is held in prison he
has a vision. The Lord stands beside him
offering him comfort and peace. He will
live through this Jerusalem trial for God has work for him to do in Rome.
(Read Acts 23:12-22)
(Read Acts 23:12-22)
The plot thickens as a group of more
than forty Jews conspire to kill Paul before he leaves the city. Theirs is a religious quest and so they vow
not to eat or drink anything before their act is complete. Conspiring with the religious authorities
they devise a plan that Paul once again be brought before the council for examination. On his way across town they will ambush the
tribune and his men and kill Paul.
Luckily Paul’s nephew hears of the plot
and comes to the barracks to warn him.
The tribune is told of the plan and now will take steps to keep Paul
safe.
(Read Acts 23:23-35)
Eager to have this troublesome prisoner
off his hands, the tribune plans to have Paul transferred to Governor Felix in
Caesarea. During the night he gives Paul
a horse and sends him away with 470 troops to insure his safety. He writes a letter declaring that he finds no
crime with Paul. Whatever Paul has done
wrong it is something to do with the religious law and even then it doesn’t
seem worthy of a death sentence.
The soldiers safely transfer Paul to
Caesarea and Paul is told he will have a hearing at a later date. In the meantime, he is kept in chains within
Herod’s headquarters.
So, where do we start when we are
looking at the parallels between Paul’s story and our world today? Shall we talk about the part where Paul is about
to be the victim of police brutality?
Shall we talk about the age old practice of torture? Shall we talk about the fact that since Paul
is a citizen he has rights other people don’t have, like the right to a fair
trial and to be treated with respect? There’s
a lot in the news today about the treatment of non-citizens at the border and
we could talk about that issue, namely human rights vs. citizen rights.
We could talk about what a mess the Jerusalem
council is. Pharisees and Sadducees, all
supposedly on the same side but all up in each other’s faces instead. Sounds like a few ruling councils I could
name in Washington DC. Nothing like
factions within the ruling body to help make things run smoothly.
We could talk about all sorts of uncomfortable
things today but the hot button I want to press is nationalism. Let’s talk about what everyone in our story
is so upset about in the first place, and that is the fact that Paul has been
called to preach the word of the God of Israel to the Gentiles.
Early on in our reading for today Paul
was sharing his testimony with the people on the temple steps. All was well and good until he made clear
that God’s mission for him was to preach to the Gentiles. Since Paul came to Jerusalem, everyone has
been up in arms about the Gentiles. Remember
last week when Paul made a show of taking the Nazarite vows to show he was a
faithful Jew. Still the rumor circulated
that Paul had brought a Gentile friend into the temple and for that they were
ready to kill him. Never mind that that
part wasn’t true. Paul himself says
God’s mercy and love extend to the Gentiles and to some of the Jews those are
fighting words.
Again, a warning about anti-Semitism. The Jews in our readings from Acts are
written in as enemies of Paul. They are
not the Jews of today, nor is this in any way a discussion of the real history
of the Jewish people and their faith.
These are characters in the story the writer of Acts is telling, and at
this point these characters are enemies of Paul. Our Jewish brothers and sisters today are in
no way, nor have they ever been enemies of Christianity.
So, in our story the Jews believe that
God has chosen them, that they are special, and that they are the people
through whom God works in the world. If
Paul is going to invite Gentiles into the family, then the Jews are nothing,
they have nothing, and their identity and their way of life are threatened. And these folks are upset for good
reason. Paul does end up starting a new
religion, rather than reforming an old one.
Folks leave the synagogue, new communities are formed with new
leadership, and the old guard does lose power.
What Paul is bringing is not good for them or their way of life.
Wrapped up in all of this is their
sense of nationalism. It’s not just the
religion that is at stake, it is the nation.
The Jewish identity is wrapped up in the identity of the nation of Israel
and salvation for the Jews is salvation for the nation. Resurrection is about a new nation state, not
about a life after this one. It can be
hard to tease apart nationalism and religion.
Even today, we find the Jewish identity tied up in the nation state of
Israel, and speaking critically of the actions of that country is often equated
with anti-Semitism. So too, in our own
country, we run the risk of defining God’s salvation in nationalistic
terms. “God bless America” and all that
goes with that.
The God we worship never intended for
us to equate salvation and nationalism.
And while the promise to the Jews was a promise of a land and a home, it
was never meant to be a marriage between religion and political power. We saw God fight against that throughout the
Old Testament from the first anointing of Saul to the destruction of the temple
in Jerusalem. Jesus makes it clear that
he comes to rule in the hearts and minds of the people and not on any political
throne. From the beginning to the end,
the salvation and love we have from God is all about how we live, not where we
live. God loves the whole world and all
nations, all people, are equal in the sight of God. In the worship of God there is no room for
nationalism.
This is a good stopping point so let us
take a break. I will be gone for a few
weeks and we will just leave Paul here at the end of chapter 23. He is in Caesarea awaiting another trial
within the headquarters of Herod. Will
things get better for our hero? Or will
they get worse? In a few weeks we will
return to “The Amazing Adventures of Paul.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment