Thursday of the Second Week of Easter

 Lectionary: 270

The God of our ancestors raised Jesus, though you had him killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins. We are witnesses of these things, as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

I was deeply impressed by my reading of Luke Timothy Johnson's Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church, subtitled The Challenge of Luke/Acts to Contemporary Christians. I recommend his book especially during the fifty day march from Easter to Pentecost when all of the weekday readings are taken from the Acts of the Apostles. First he shows how Luke's books reflect one another; the same Spirit that drove Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, impelled his disciples from Jerusalem to the far reaches of the Earth. Secondly, prophetically, he challenges Christian churches with their reluctance to heed the Spirit's urgency. 

The Acts especially shows how Jesus's words are fulfilled:

"(The Father) does not ration his gift of the Spirit." 

If Peter and the Apostles in today's reading had any fear of the Sanhedrin and the Roman authorities, they certainly didn't show it. Yesterday we heard of the comical incident when the Sanhedrin had the men jailed overnight. An angel released them and they returned to the temple early the next day, before the Sanhedrin convened, to resume their proclamation. When the Jewish authorities directed the jailer to bring them in to continue the trial and inevitable sentencing, he reported with some astonishment that they had escaped. And then someone else pointed out, "They're out there preaching again!" 

Hello? Who's in charge here?

I can, for the moment, restrain my impulse to judge churches for their apparent reluctance. I leave that to God. But I will remind my readers that American history is replete with men and women who defied the law and social conventions as they were caught up in the Spirit. Some were crackpots, it's true, but each left indelible traces in our history books.  I think of John Brown and Joseph Smith and Margaret Sanger; love them or despise them you have to admit they were impelled by some kind of spirit and were fearless. Many others draw only our admiration, like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglas. 

How fascinating that some would restrain the Spirit in their suppression of the mysterious CRT. We can imagine Gamaliel come back from the dead to say, (as we'll hear tomorrow)...

"...if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin,
it will destroy itself.
But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them;
you may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

When the Spirit ceases to cause controversy and turmoil in our society, we'll know we have been abandoned. We'll have become a nation like every other nation, doomed by forces beyond our control. 

In the meanwhile, we must see that women and men in our own country and in many other places, still suffer persecution for our faith. The Spirit of martyrdom abides and persecution continues in many forms. If American Christians sleep without fear of midnight arrests, we cannot ignore the plight of brothers and sisters in Muslim societies and formerly Christian nations. Only a fool would believe it cannot happen here; or that it might never happen within their lifetime. As Jesus said, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force." 

In the security of my own friary and the serenity of our chapel at Mount Saint Francis, I pray that we might be found worthy of their companionship. When Judgement Day comes we will beg the martyrs to speak a word on our behalf, and to declare that we indeed supported them with prayer and sacrifice.