sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 07/06/2014
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
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Ugandan anti-homosexual legislation introduced in February, carrying harsh penalties for homosexual activity (up to life in prison, having recently dropped the provision for the death penalty after international pressure), as well as a 7 year sentence for aiding and abetting homosexuality, which includes renting property or housing a homosexual. In the time since its passage, there has been an increase in reported cases of persecution of homosexuals of between 750-1900%. Things like violent attacks, arbitrary arrests, blackmail, and evictions.
For example, this letter from landlord to a tennant: "You are a wonderful woman as well as a tenant who hasn't given me any trouble over rent whatsoever," but added that "[d]ue to what is going on in the country ... I am sorry but I think you are a depraved person who I can no longer tolerate in my house. I also cannot fight against the government."
Regardless of your particular moral convictions or your interpretation of biblical sanctions regarding homosexuality, imagine that you are the parent of a gay child living in your home, and feeling compelled to ask your child to leave your home for fear of prosecution from law enforcement agents. Or a doctor to whom a gay person has come seeking medical attention. Or a server waiting on a gay person. What do you do? Follow your conscience, your best sense of what Love is calling you to do, perhaps risking imprisonment? Or say I am sorry, I cannot fight against the government.
Now imagine that you are Pepe Julian Onziema, a transgender human rights advocate living in Uganda, being interviewed on Ugandan television.
[full program on YouTube here]
Two things stood out to me as I watched him (and really, you get a better sense of it throughout the whole hour long program, which you can find on youtube). First, he seems to have extraordinary emotional maturity. He’s so calm, emotionally level, and focused on his primary goal, which is advocating for his country to treat homosexuals with dignity and respect, as human beings. He’s this way despite the ignorant questions and statements made by the moderator. Despite the tirades launched at him by opponents who call in via phone and show up in the studio. Despite the threat of arrest from the government. And secondly, he stays. He stays in the studio, and he stays in Uganda. Despite every kind of pressure, internal and external to disconnect, to leave it behind, to say, enough of this, he remains. It almost seems, as you watch him, that despite being essentially powerless and on the wrong side of all kinds of circumstances, he’s well. He’s in charge of himself. He’s alive and experiencing life.
What gives a human being this remarkable capacity?
My answer is the Holy Spirit.
I suppose it’s possible some combination of other environmental and internal factors in Pepe Julian’s life could produce a similar capacity.
But my money would still be on the Holy Spirit being at the heart of it all.
Because the witness of the scriptures is that what we see in this Human Rights Advocate is precisely what the Holy Spirit makes possible for a human being to set them free from the dis-couraging clutches of an anxious system, and allow them to become a non-anxious presence in that system, and ultimately an instrument of transformation.
That’s our thesis, in fact, for our Summer of the Spirit series. That the Holy Spirit is the gift of God that allows us human beings to grow in our capacity to experience the life Jesus invites us to, makes possible for us, gives us, and leads us into, despite the anxieties and fears rampant in our world. That the Holy Spirit is the personal, favoring, enlightening presence of divine Love that drives out fear and establishes a beachhead for the kingdom of God, both in us personally and in our world’s systems. True emotional maturity can only develop in the context of that kind of Love.
Last week we began to look at the way the Holy Spirit transformed Jesus’ disciple Peter from a shadow of Peter – afraid, insecure, posturing, violent, lying, betraying his best friend and his best intentions – into the real Peter. Secure, confident, standing up without shame, paying attention to others, authoritative, alive with full life because of the favoring presence of God present to him through the Holy Spirit.
This week we’re going to see a scene where we see Peter acting a lot like Pepe Julian Onziema. Except that Peter’s not advocating for the opportunity to live free from persecution. Peter’s advocating for the right to bear witness to reality. And as we’ll see, Peter demonstrates that same kind of emotional maturity, calm collected, that same focus on his goal, and that same commitment to stay, to remain, despite persecution, as long as it’s possible to stay.
Background…healing of cripple, response of the crowds…
4 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. 3They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.
5The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”
8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11Jesus is
“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’
12Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.”
13When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16“What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
18Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
2 stories happening here. One in its middle chapters, in full stride; the other just being introduced.
Story one: transformation of Peter through the introduction of the Holy Spirit.
He’s arrested, jailed, placed at the center of power, questioned.
He doesn’t posture, he doesn’t pull out a sword, he doesn’t lie.
He’s free, confident. Alive.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit.
As miraculous and supernatural as it might be, it’s not magic. It’s Divine Creativity working through powerful loving presence to restore a human being to the fullness of an image-bearer.
God’s Holy Spirit is his personal, favoring presence with Peter. Making Peter aware that he belongs with God, that he shares an identity with Jesus as a beloved child of the living God. The Holy Spirit brings Peter into an awareness that God loves him, and perhaps even more than that, mediates to him an experience of God’s loving presence. Producing a confidence that God will provide for him, whatever he needs to thrive in this world. Whether it’s food or protection or affection or rest or understanding of the world around him or a worthwhile task that fits his longings and passions or the gifts and empowering he needs to succeed. Whatever Peter needs, the Holy Spirit reminds him to ask, and waits with him for God to address his needs.
That’s the work of the Holy Spirit in you at work, facing a looming quota. Or a glory hogging co-worker. Or an upset customer. Or dysfunctional boss. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit in you at home, with your kids at their worst, or you at your worst, for that matter. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit with you in your ministry, teaching or serving or leading or bearing witness through words or actions or art to the goodness of God.
It’s miraculous, and supernatural. But it’s not magic. It’s Love. Right here. Right now. With you. Helping you grow in your capacity to experience Life.
Story two: transformation of the world’s anxious systems.
This is a story that’s still in process, even today, so here in Acts 4 it’s just the beginning of the story. But like any great first chapter, all the makings of the story to come are present in it.
And again, although it’s a miraculous and supernatural transformation that’s happening, it’s not magic. Here in story two, its divine creativity working through the powerful loving presence of spirit-filled, self-differentiated, non-anxious people.
Remember, the Bible is bearing witness to two worlds in conflict, two kingdoms at odds with each other. The first the kingdom of the prince of this world, the world under the rule of fear, the second the kingdom of God, the world under the rule of love.
World under the rule of fear is an anxious system. Anxious systems organize themselves around the least emotionally mature members. Those who throw the biggest fits.
Leaders in anxious systems, in spite of their best intentions and big dreams early on, usually end up spending most of their energies managing the emotional outbursts of the least mature members. Edwin Friedman calls this a “failure of nerve.” And it happens because the leaders themselves are subject to the same fundamental anxieties of everyone else in the anxious system.
Priests, captain of the temple guard, Sadducees are such leaders in an anxious system. Perhaps at one time in history they were actual leaders, in the true sense of the word, as in leading people some good where for some good purpose. But now they are pre-occupied with keeping their power and privilege. They’ve got to keep Rome happy by keeping the peace among the people. They’ve had a failure of nerve. They are caught in spiderweb upon spiderweb of anxious systems causing them to perceive Peter and John as threats.
What’s the threat?
Firstly, the people are excited about Peter and John (because they healed the cripple). This is always a threat to a leader caught in the web of an anxious system. The leader imagines that his or her power is a function of the favor of the people they lead. Which is why they respond to the fits of the emotionally immature. So, if someone else has favor, it feels like a threat to their power. (Parents!)
Secondly, Peter and John seem to be responding to the authority of someone outside the anxious system. This is always a threat too, for a leader caught up in the anxious system, since someone outside the anxious system is unresponsive to the system and therefore unpredictable to those in the system, who have come to organize all of their actions around the rules of the system. This kind of unpredictability is always dangerous to power players in the system.
Thirdly, Peter and John are announcing the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees believed that there was no afterlife, no reward, no punishment. This justifies their “just try to survive and get what you can” approach to their position of power. But if there is something more than this life, something that may include reward or punishment for the actions in this life, it changes the equations they depend on to maintain power in the anxious system. What if someone isn’t motivated by rewards here and now? What if someone becomes less concerned about punishments now? This disturbs the system, and thus also disturbs the leaders in that system, who have been trained to spend all their energy maintaining equilibrium.
Now here’s the interesting thing about anxious systems. The only hope for them is self-differentiated leaders who maintain a non-anxious presence in the system and stay connected. People who have a clear sense of themselves, who are motivated by an internal passion, a dream, a vision, something they are going after, and who stay connected to the people in the anxious system. When anxious systems are led by self-differentiated leaders, the least emotionally mature members actually grow in the direction of the leaders, rather than the leaders losing their nerves and organizing around their immaturity.
It takes two things to be a self-differentiated leader who maintains a non-anxious presence and stays connected. First, it takes remarkable security – a sense of belonging independent of the favor of the anxious system – the kind of security not provided by or achievable from within the system. And secondly, it takes the ability to see. To see who oneself is, what is included in the self and what is not, to see where oneself ends and where another begins, to see the thing, the vision, the passion that one is going after, spending one’s life on, to see the anxiety in the system and the immaturity of its members, to see them for what they truly are beyond, or under, their immaturity and anxiety.
This is the miracle of the work of the Holy Spirit in Peter, and in every human being. The Holy Spirit brings the security a vulnerable and flawed human being needs to be free of fear.
We’re vulnerable, meaning at the end of the day we all have needs we can’t meet on our own, so security can only come in the form of promised provision from someone more powerful than we are who has favor towards us. And we’re flawed, so security can only come from someone who has demonstrated that our flaws cannot threaten his favor towards us. The Holy Spirit is the perfect love of God made personal and present, fulfilling the promise and demonstrating unrelenting favor, driving out fear.
And the Holy Spirit helps people see. See in the word’s fullest metaphorical sense. As in perceive, understand, notice. We’ve talked about this before; it seems that this is in fact the primary work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy spirit helps us see ourselves, see God, see one another, see reality around us as it really is.
Isn’t this beautiful!?
How it is that God goes about rescuing humanity from evil, from sin, from death, from fear, from violence, from oppression, from slavery? God enters our anxious world as a self-differentiated, non-anxious presence, and stays connected. He incarnates himself as the most self-differentiated, non-anxious leader in human history, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus, secure, fearless, filled with the Holy Spirit, seeing himself as messiah, seeing God as the favoring, forgiving Father, seeing people as lost, anxious sheep without a shepherd, seeing the good news of God’s kingdom coming, present, arriving, spending his life on that mission, regardless of its cost, confident in the possibility of resurrection and therefore immune to the fundamental anxiety of our anxious system. And Jesus trains a community around him, to whom he gives his Holy Spirit so that they too might become self-differentiated, non-anxious leaders who would spread throughout the world, penetrating every anxious system with the announcement of good news and offering the gift of the Holy Spirit to every person who came to desire the life that Jesus offers. Thereby undoing the anxious systems and replacing them with the kind of system only love can work out.
And it works. It works because people actually want something more than a system organized around their emotional immaturity. They want life. It’s just that they settle for less than life – when it seems like life is impossible. (again, toddlers! Parents!)
The healing of this cripple is a sign of life. It’s a sign of the life present in Peter through the transformation the Holy Spirit has done in him. It’s a sign of the life of the risen Jesus, by whose authority this healing happened. It’s a sign of real life available to a cripple, who represents all of us living limited capacity lives, begging for what little we have, and then getting more than we ever thought possible from Jesus.
It’s a sign of life that signals the end of anxious systems and their fear-based leaders, and the beginning of the reign of the risen Jesus and his kingdom of love taking hold through the Holy Spirit.
Practical Suggestions:
1. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see the anxious systems you are part of.
2. Receive the Holy Spirit, intentionally. Before you go to bed, say to yourself: “Tomorrow I will receive the peace of the Holy Spirit when I am _______________, and I will ask God for what I need, trusting that he will address my needs.”
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