By What Authority? A Sermon for Easter 4B (Acts 4)
When Peter and John went to the Temple to pray they encountered a man who had been lame since birth. When the man asked for alms, they healed him. After that the man who couldn’t walk got up and danced for joy. This display of excitement on the part of the man who had been healed drew a crowd. As this crowd gathered in Solomon’s Portico, Peter took that opportunity to preach a sermon that focused on the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 3).
When the religious authorities heard about this disturbance in the Temple, they got annoyed, especially because Peter and John were proclaiming “that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead.” You see, the Temple authorities, including Annas the High Priest, were members of the Sadducees Party, which didn’t believe in a resurrection. So they had Peter and John arrested (Acts 4:1-4).
This morning we pick up the story on the day Peter and John stood trial in the Temple Court because they had caused a commotion in the Temple. The Temple authorities, most of whom rejected the idea of the resurrection, wanted to know who authorized Peter and John to go about healing and preaching in the Temple. The authorities led by Annas, the High Priest, along with other members of the high priestly family, asked Peter and John: “By what power or by what name did you do this?”
I can empathize with the religious authorities because once upon a time I served as the chair of the Commission on Ministry for the Michigan Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Just like the Presbyterian Commission on Ministry, the Disciples Commission is responsible for authorizing the ministries of its clergy and holding them accountable to the region’s expectations.
Obviously, these two Apostles didn’t get their credentials from the Temple authorities, who wanted to know why they thought they could come into the Temple and begin preaching without their permission. They had a point because it’s important to vet the people who preach and teach in our churches. Although I’m not Presbyterian, I’ve been vetted. The church submitted my contract to the Presbytery and I filled out a number of forms, and I got my “approval” letter from the Presbytery. So, even though I remain a Disciples of Christ minister with standing in the Michigan Region, I’m fully authorized to preach here at First Presbyterian while Pastor Dan is gone.
While I have the proper credentials, the Temple authorities weren’t so sure about Peter and John’s credentials. So when they pressed the two Apostles for more information about who authorized them to heal and preach in the Temple, Peter took the opportunity to preach another sermon. Luke tells us that as Peter began to speak, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” and boldly declared that Jesus of Nazareth, the one whom, according to Peter, they had killed, had been raised from the dead by God. It was the risen Jesus who authorized their ministry. Even though the religious authorities rejected Jesus’ ministry, since he didn’t have the proper credentials either, Peter told them that God had credentialed Jesus by raising him from the dead. Peter turned to the Psalms to support his claim that while the religious authorities collaborated with the Romans to have Jesus executed, God had made him the cornerstone of a new work of God. Yes, “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone” (Acts. 4:11; Ps. 118:22).
The religious authorities raised an important question because down the centuries people have heard a call to ministry, and have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach the good news in word and deed, but faced questions about their authorization to preach. This was true of Jesus, Peter, Paul, Francis of Assisi, and a whole score of women, people of color, and many others who haven’t fit the expectations of the religious authorities. But, the Holy Spirit often opens doors that others have closed. When the religious authorities in England closed their pulpits to John Wesley, he began to preach in the fields and declared that “The world is my parish!”
Now I’m not against the proper vetting of preachers. After all, I served as the chair of a commission on ministry and I’ve had my call to ministry authorized by the proper authorities. Nevertheless, even though I believe there is value in this vetting process, history shows us that the Holy Spirit often lifts up voices who stand outside the normal channels of authority so that a word from God can be heard by the people. We need to remember that not only did Jesus, Peter, and John, lack the proper credentials, but so did most of the prophets of the Old Testament. These prophets often spoke challenging words to people in authority, which didn’t make them very popular with those authorities.
When it comes to Peter’s defense of his ministry in the Temple, he let it be known that they were on trial simply because they had done a good deed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whose ministry God had authorized by raising him from the dead so that he could be the cornerstone of a new work of God in the world.
Peter’s closing words in his defense have proven to be rather controversial. We need to remember that he was on trial because he had proclaimed that God raised Jesus from the dead. So, Peter told the authorities that when it comes to Jesus, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Many have interpreted this statement in a rather narrow and exclusive way, such that one must confess faith in Jesus to enter heaven. I know this perspective well because I once embraced it. While it can be read in an exclusive way, I believe it’s also possible to read it in a more inclusive manner.
I don’t believe Luke or Peter were speaking about the eternal destiny of people who hadn’t heard the Christian message or who followed other religious traditions. They were seeking to answer the religious authorities' question about who authorized them to preach about the resurrection of Jesus. Peter answered their question by asking the authorities to acknowledge Jesus’s authority in this matter. They wanted the authorities to recognize that the risen Jesus had changed the lives of his followers and they simply wanted others to have the same experience.
When it came to their own experiences with God, Peter and John couldn’t imagine any other way of experiencing spiritual wholeness except through a relationship with Jesus. Peter doesn’t offer us a detailed theology of salvation, but he is convinced that Jesus is the way of salvation.
While we often think of salvation in terms of being a ticket to heaven, the concept of salvation is much broader than that. The Greek word that we translate as salvation has several meanings, including healing, reconciliation, and wholeness. Rather than dive into that conversation I’d like to invite us to consider a different question.
That question has to do with the difference Jesus makes in our lives. Why does Jesus matter to you? Several years ago the acronym WWJD was all the rage. People wore bracelets with those initials to remind them to ask the question: “What Would Jesus Do?” That’s a good question because it invites us to consider what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the modern world.
While we might not know the answer to everyone’s ultimate destiny, we can seek to live in a way that reflects Jesus’ vision of wholeness in an often broken world. The starting point in answering that question begins with the two commandments that Jesus emphasized: Drawing from the Old Testament, Jesus calls on us to love God with our entire being and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. When Peter and John offered to heal the lame man, they acted out of love. Love stands at the center of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. So we read in 1 John that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 Jn 4:16). By embracing Jesus we experience the life-changing reality that is the love that is God. It is this love that serves as our authorization for ministry in the world. As Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church, in Christ, we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:20).
If we embrace the way of love, then the question of our eternal destiny will take care of itself. As this word from 1 John reminds us, to abide in love is to abide in God. If we abide in God, we participate in the divine nature. Eastern Christians refer to this pathway as theosis. This pathway, according to the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky, involves “divine love, which is simply grace, appropriated in the depths of our being.” This love is “an uncreated gift— ‘a divine energy—which continually inflames the soul and unites it to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Love is not of this world, for it is the name of God Himself” [Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 212].
What does it mean for us to be followers of Jesus? I believe it involves participating in the love of God, which Jesus embodied, and with which we have been empowered through the Holy Spirit. When it comes to the question of authority to engage in acts of love, that authority comes to us from Jesus, whom God raised the dead so he might be the cornerstone of this new work of God.
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Acting Supply Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
Troy, Michigan
April 21, 2024
Easter 4B
Image Attribution: Poussin, Nicolas, 1594?-1665. Saints Peter and John Healing the Lame Man, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58397 [retrieved April 20, 2024]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saints_Peter_and_John_Healing_the_Lame_Man_MET_DP340180.jpg.
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