Easter 3 (B) + Can I Get a Witness? + 4.15.18

-
(Nafis White, "Can I Get a Witness?",
http://www.thewellatspringfield.org/can-i-get-a-witness/)

M. Campbell-Langdell
All Santos, Oxnard
(Acts 3:12-19, Ps. 4, 1 John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36b-48)
“Can I Get a Witness?”

The Urban Dictionary online describes this term as: “A phrase used when the user is accomplishing some [ridiculous] feat, or is doing something like a boss.”[1]
Well, I don’t know about you all, but to me, Peter is being a BOSS here in the Acts passage today. What you didn’t see is that he has just healed a man through the power of Christ. A man who was lame from birth. He is by the temple at about the time for prayer. And he sees this fellow, who has been carried out to the gate to make his money for the day – was it by well meaning family or friends or those who would take advantage of his disability? We don’t know. But Peter says, “Look at me.” And the guy thinks, oh good, I’m going to get some money, and next thing, Peter is saying “gold and silver I do not have, but in the name of Jesus, I heal you!”
And now, Christ did not heal this man through Peter because this was a good sermon starter. He healed because Peter turned to him and had compassion upon him. He had compassion because he was trapped.[2] Trapped in a body that would not work. But more so, trapped in a fearful life because of his condition. Trapped by the need to beg for his living. And he saw the opportunity for him to be free!
And what happens after this? This is one of my favorite stories to tell in Vacation Bible School because the guy totally leaps for joy! He is ready to be a witness. He has so much joy because he is free.
And as I said, Christ did not do this healing through Peter just in order for Peter to start preaching at people. But when it draws attention to him, he is like “Can I get a witness?” i.e., let me tell you why I did this. You are from a people that persecuted my leader, and who killed him. But he still offers you healing and salvation, if you will come to believe.
Can I get a witness? And Peter turns the moment that might just be one crowd’s fascination into a way to touch, change and convert hearts for Jesus. One physical healing becomes the door to open the way for the healing of many.
Can I get a witness?
Jesus, here in the gospel passage, shows a totally different kind of witness and then calls us to witness. He bursts on the scene, and here in Luke this story is hot on the heels of the story of the journey to Emmaus, when he like some magician walks alongside disciples, opens the scriptures to them, and then breaks bread with them and disappears. Can I get a witness? I mean, is that Jesus being a boss or what? Resurrected Jesus does some interesting things, indeed.
But here he shows up, and the disciples have just heard from their friends from Emmaus how Jesus appeared to them. And hardly had the words left their mouths, but, Can I get a witness? Jesus shows up. And they are terrified, scared out of their wits. They haven’t had time to process yet.
No. Just like any person nowadays who watches too many horror movies, in ancient times too they had spooky tales. So they go right there. This guy is a ghost! That’s the only possible explanation. We saw it in the play week before last. Get real! The dude is dead.
But wait… Jesus shows up, brings Peace to the party, because that is what he always does. But then he, amazing intelligent resurrected God and man that he is, he deconstructs the myth. So in the ancient world, how did you prove that you were not a ghost? You showed the parts of your extremities where your bones where evident- I guess ghosts had no bones- and then you showed your teeth and ate something.[3] So what does Jesus do? Like a boss, he shows them his hands and his feet. This is not, “Ooh, look at my manicure and pedicure.” This is, look at my bones. I am a real, fleshly, resurrected person!
And then, he says, “got anything around here to eat?” and here I think of everyone who has that one sibling or friend in high school who can never get full. But it isn’t really that Jesus has the munchies. He is proving a point. Ghosts can’t eat, either!
So Jesus basically witnesses to his own resurrected being! We are not making this up! Farther out than the strangest ghost story and weirder than the wildest science fiction, I am back from the dead, he says. Can I get a witness?
And so that is what he does. He goes on to open up the scriptures to the disciples, just as he did to those walking the road to Emmaus. And then he calls all of the disciples, and by extension, us, to witness.
So, can I get a witness? Do you feel called to witness? Sometimes it will be in small, simple ways, just living your life and your faith the bravest way you know. Like Jade and Jaivan visiting Puerto Rico and setting a few things right and encouraging a few hearts along the way. Like those of us in the local Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice group who walked with some folks facing deportation briefly week before last and who continue to look for new ways to witness hope to the many people scared and alone in our community.
Like those who are praying for peace in light of strikes in Syria, even as we also pray for the safety and peace of the Syrian populace, who wrongly suffer attacks from their own leadership.
The main idea is to find your own small way to witness. To see Jesus, blasting into our lives like a peace-boss and sharing that peace with a world that at times seems mad with fear, selfishness and lust, trapped in self-destructive patterns, and patterns of taking advantage of others. Let us find that peace, so that we, too, can witness. So that we can live lives bravely as Christ followers and not as those cowed by the fears of the day. So that we, too, can be freed of whatever renders us lame. So that we can shout for joy for the freedom we have in our God!
Can I get a witness?
Amen.

[2] Justo Gonzalez, Three Months with The Spirit (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 26.
[3] Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman, “Commentary on Luke 24:36b-48,” https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3627, for April 15, 2018.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Faith or Fear? Advent 1C

-
Melissa Campbell-Langdell All Santos, Oxnard Year C + Advent 1 (Jeremiah 33:14–16; Ps. 25:1–9; 1 Thess. 3:9–13; Luke 21:25–36) So… what are you going to do when you stand before the man with the holes in his hands? Now that may seem like a strange question to ask this first Sunday in December.  Surely, Pastor Melissa, we’re gearing up for jollity, not getting ready to meet our maker? But in a sense we are, always, all the time, waiting for Jesus, and I think that’s what Advent is really all about.  Reminding us that we are always waiting not just for the Christ Child to come and be born in our midst, but that we are also waiting for that awesome, if slightly scary Second Coming of Christ. And it is true that this passage talks about distress and the roaring of the waves.  And many looked at the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, that iconic image of the ocean-side theme park, including a Ferris Wheel, in the waves, and many said, this is something w...
Read more

Proper 20 (B) + A community of power + 9.23.18

-
Image
M. Campbell-Langdell All Saints, Oxnard (Proverbs 31:10–31; Ps. 1; James 3:13–4:3, 7–8ยช; St. Mark 9:30–37) Take a moment and think of the most powerful positive woman figure you know – in your life or in your favorite movie, show or book. Who is the woman who has most inspired you? Keep that image of that woman in mind as we look at this passage from Proverbs Chapter 31. Now here we see the verse “A capable wife who can find?” And all the feminists amongst us will be relieved to hear that a better translation from the Hebrew would be: “a woman of power” instead of a “capable wife.” [1] That changes things, doesn’t it? Then when we hear about this ideal ancient Hebrew woman’s exploits – her buying of lands, her trading prowess, her physical strength, even her domestic abilities such as weaving, and perhaps especially her kindness to the poor, we see strength and power in all of these. Of course, looking at this passage, this is not one woman but a concept of the most...
Read more

Proper21BAcceptingourownwounds29sept24

-
  Accepting our own and other’s wounds Mark 9: 38-50   St Michael’s, Isla Vista / All Saints Oxnard The Rev. Alene Campbell-Langdell; MCL additions   May I just start this morning by acknowledging that our Gospel reading is complex.   The images are startling (horrifying?) and the metaphors come almost too quickly to catch.   What is clear is that something serious is going on between Jesus and his disciples, and Jesus is using every means possible, including some pretty harsh language, to try to course correct.   To even begin to understand this passage, we need to back up to last week’s reading from Mark.   In that reading, the disciples are arguing with each other about who is the greatest and best disciple.   In response, Jesus gets a little kid, some commentators say “toddler,” and holds this child in his arms during the rest of the conversation.    The other part of the scene to keep in mind is that Jesus has just told...
Read more