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Manuscript 425 – “A Bold Witness” A Sermon delivered by Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell at Myers Park Baptist Church on May 27th, 2018/Season of Pentecost from Acts 4:1-22

One Wednesday night, an elderly woman returned to her home after an evening of dinner and bible study at the local Baptist church. When she entered her house, she was startled to find an intruder robbing her home of its valuables. When she saw him she yelled, ‘Stop—Acts 2:38!’ Which says, “Repent and turn away from your sin.” Upon hearing the woman yell, the burglar froze and stopped dead in his tracks. The woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done. As the officer cuffed the man to take him in to the station, he asked the burglar, “Why did you just stand there? All she did was quote a scripture to you.” “Scripture?” the burglar replied, “I heard her say that she had an Axe and two 38’s!” The book of Acts is a neglected and underappreciated book of the New Testament. But it is really not a book at all. It is a gospel. It is part two of the gospel of Luke. Luke and Acts not only share the same author, but they were never intended to be divided from one another. Reading them separately is like taking the Beatles White Album, cutting it in half, and releasing it in two parts. Neither Luke nor Acts make sense without the other. Some say Acts should have been titled “the gospel of the Spirit,” since it’s the story of what happened to the disciples after they were filled with the Spirit at Pentecost. Here’s a trivia question for you to ask your most bible believing family member: “What is the first thing that happened to the disciples after Pentecost? Answer: They got arrested. That’s right, the first thing the disciples did after Pentecost was get arrested. In fact, getting arrested is a theme in Acts. Acts could be called “the Arrests of the Apostles,” “the Acts of Civil Disobedience,” or “the Gospel of Going to Jail,” because the disciples are arrested seven different times throughout the book. Peter and John are arrested twice, Stephen is arrested once, and Paul is arrested four different times. Every time the disciples were arrested it was because of the words they spoke, the truth they proclaimed, and the acts of healing and liberation they performed. If what they said and did was merely spiritual or theological, the authorities would not have arrested them, but like Jesus their words touched a nerve at the intersection of the religious and the political, which is why those in power always accused them of both religious and political crimes: heresy and sedition; blasphemy and treason. We must not forget that teaching the gospel was a criminal activity! Proclaiming the healing and liberating truth of Jesus called into question the social, cultural, political, economic, and religious gods of the day. It was a dangerous activity. Jesus was killed for it, which means the disciples knew what they were doing was dangerous, yet they did it anyway, because they were bold!

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Criminal activity may be the reason Acts is less familiar to Christians in America. We don’t know much about being arrested. We see the early followers get arrested and say, “Wow, they took this Jesus thing a little too seriously.” Or we say, “That was the Roman Empire. They were brutal. We live in America. How would a Christian ever get arrested here?” Well, on Mother’s Day, a national movement called the Poor People’s Campaign, began a 40-day cycle of mass meetings, protests, and “teach-ins” at state capitals around the country, protesting policies that are negatively impacting the 140 million poor people in America. The Campaign has been going 14 days, and already over a thousand people have been arrested. When asked why, leader William Barber said, “The Bible teaches there are some things you've got to do beyond prayer, beyond hoping and beyond pleading. There's a scripture in Jeremiah 22 that says you have to go down to the palace and you have to be willing to engage in direct action like the prophets to dramatize the shamefulness of what's going on.” Peter and John were not arrested just because they healed a man and proclaimed the gospel. Their arrest was about power. They were arrested because they threatened the power structure, which is why the only question they were asked at their trial was, “By what power or name did you do this?” That is not just a spiritual or theological question—it’s a political question. The power of the Sanhedrin was derived from maintaining religious and political control over the people, and that was being challenged and undermined by the disciples. Annas and Caiaphas were the same leaders who had Jesus arrested, tried, and executed. Now his followers were continuing the mission they thought they’d eradicated. The trial of Peter and John is a parallel of Jesus’ trial before the very same people, but do you remember where Peter was during Jesus’ trial? He was outside the high priests house, sitting by the fire, hiding, afraid, pretending not to know Jesus, denying him before the cock crowed, and running away in shame. Isn’t it amazing how different Peter is this time at his own trial? Just look at the difference the Spirit has made! With the Holy Spirit, Peter is exactly the opposite of who he was before. Everything has changed. His life has turned upside down. He is in more jeopardy and yet he is less afraid. Once terrified to be arrested, he is now a prisoner. Once paralyzed by fear, he is now living courageously. Once afraid of death, he is now ready to die. Once denying Jesus, he is now proclaiming Jesus. Once lying to protect himself, he is now speaking the truth with boldness. Once running away, he is now standing as a witness. Whenever you see the word “witness” in the Bible it is the Greek word martyras or martyr. They mean the same thing in Greek. So, when a preacher calls out, “Can I get a witness?” be careful how you respond. A martyr is nothing more than a witness who is executed, and we are all called to be witnesses. As Jesus said in Acts 1, “But you will receive power when the Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses—my martyras to the ends of the earth.” The Spirit empowered Peter to overcome the illusion that we can follow Jesus without finding ourselves in the same situations he did—that we can follow Jesus without cost, without sacrifice, or without putting our lives on the line. Who are we to imagine we will not be martyrs? Is it not true that we follow a crucified Messiah? Is it not true that we stand in a line of crucified apostles and martyrs? Is it not true, as Bonhoeffer claims, that when Christ calls us he bids us to come and die? Is it not true that when we are baptized we are put under the water as a sign of our participation in Christ’s death? A lot of people have things that they are willing to kill for, but Christians are supposed to have things they’re willing to die for. Do you?

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Evangelicals are right to proclaim that discipleship is a matter of grave seriousness—a matter of life and death. Their mistake is imagining it is only about eternal life and death, and not about life here in the present. You might say, “Well, Peter was not trying to get murdered,” no, but neither was Jesus. And Peter’s testimony at trial was far more provocative than Jesus’. Peter did not pull any punches. What Jesus stated indirectly, Peter stated clearly and directly. In the face of those who killed Jesus he proclaimed, “This Jesus of Nazareth, who you crucified, God has raised.” Peter did not water it down, generalize, or avoid harsh words. He said, “you…you Annas, you Caiaphas, you rulers, elders, and scribes, you high priests, you Sanhedrin…this Jesus who you crucified, is the Messiah, the Christ, who God has raised.” Imagine someone in America standing up and proclaiming, “This Medgar Evers, this Martin Luther King Jr., this Malcolm X, this Fred Hampton, this Oscar Romero who you crucified…God has vindicated.” The gospel has always been a bold political statement because it is a statement made by the followers of a criminal who was arrested by the authorities, tried by the religious and political establishment, charged with blasphemy and treason, and executed by the state. Peter’s testimony was so bold it turned the tables on the Sanhedrin. Suddenly they were the ones trial for condemning and murdering Jesus. Suddenly, the judges had become the judged, and the judged had become the judges. You can see the turn happen when it says, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed.” The Greek literally means “ignorant” and “unlettered,” which meant illiterate at the time. With all their high learning, advanced degrees, and academic pedigree, the high priests were amazed by the bold witness and words of these ignorant fisherman from Galilee who couldn’t even read. It is amazing how bold the disciples became after they were filled with the Spirit, but sometimes we forget that they were just ordinary people—working in the family fishing business. They were not Rabbi’s, scribes, rulers, elders, leaders, scholars, or teachers of the law. They had no formal education, experience, or training. They were less like our well-educated heroes: MLK, Abraham Joshua Heschel, or Gandhi, and more like Ben Franklin, Sequoya, Fredrick Douglas, Mark Twain, or Jane Goodall—who all had little formal education, but spoke boldly and acted powerfully to change the world. The disciples were uneducated ordinary people filled with the Spirit who became bold witnesses for the truth of love, justice, and peace. This does not only mean that anybody can do it—it also means that everybody is called to do it. Every Christian is called to stand as bold witnesses who proclaim the liberating and healing good news of God through our words and our deeds. Every one of us who professes to follow Jesus must ask ourselves, “Are we being bold witnesses?” The word for boldness in Greek is parresia. It is a unique and uncommon word that appears most frequently in Acts. When Acts was written the word parresia was most commonly used to describe adherents of a particular Greek philosophical school known as the Cynics. Cynics were founded in 300 BC and concluded that nature is the opposite of all that we consider conventional or normal in society. Therefore, a good life, for the Cynic, is living unfettered by social expectations. They believed people could gain happiness by rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame and leading a simple life free from possessions. Cynics were noted for their boldness and for utilizing biting satire to deface the norms and laws of society. The word “Cynic” means dog, which is what they were called as an insult for their bold rejection of conventional social norms and decision to live on the streets.

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A Cynic named Diogenes loved being called a dog, and said “other dogs bite their enemies, but I bite my friends in order to save them.” Sounds like Jesus, right?! Cynics were very similar in their philosophy to the early church, and it’s very possible the high priests intentionally used the word boldness to describe the apostles to compare them to the Cynics. Make no mistake, calling them “bold” was not a compliment. They were calling them shameless dogs who did not respect authority, were breaking laws, and disrupting social conventions. Like Diogenes, Peter and John would likely respond by saying, “thank you very much, it sounds like you got the point!” The Spirit filled boldness that the disciples displayed was a clear indication to the authorities that these witnesses were not going to change their minds or and they were not be intimidated. The only recourse the Sanhedrin had was to hand them over to the Romans to be executed, and they’d already tried that with Jesus and it didn’t work. So, after some deliberation, the powers that be decided they would try a different tactic. They called the disciple together and ordered them not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. They gave them a gag order and attempted to silence them. This is the way the world responds to bold witnesses. They try to shut them up and silence them in whatever way possible. Things are not so different today. The authorities who owned and ruled the Temple in Jerusalem are not all that different from the authorities who own and rule the temples in America. In 2012 an NFL quarterback decided to express his Christian faith and engage in a bold witness by kneeling on the football field in prayer. Many praised his actions and celebrated his bold witness of faith. That quarterback was named Tim Tebow. Four years later another deeply religious quarterback, inspired by his faith, decided to kneel in prayer t0 protest police shootings. Before protesting, Colin Kaepernick consulted an Army Special Forces veteran named Nate Boyer who advised him to kneel instead of sit for the national anthem, as a sign of respect. The act was carefully thought out and prayerfully engaged in, however, unlike Tebow who got more jobs and praise, Kaepernick was widely condemned. His prayerful protest had great cost, and this Super Bowl quarterback was blacklisted by the NFL, lost his job, and lost his career. This week the NFL owners announced they are going to fine any player who follows Kaepernick’s lead and kneels for the national anthem. By instituting this fine the owners are saying, “get back to the game, get back to making me money, get back to worshipping the military, celebrating the war economy before every game, get back to supporting our propaganda campaign paid for by the Pentagon.” But truth be told it is not really about patriotism, it is about silencing black protests; silencing athletes who are boldly witnessing against police violence. The sad thing about it is that most Christians in America can barely recognize how similar kneeling is to other displays of faithful protest by athletes like Jackie Robinson and Muhammed Ali—let alone how similar they are to the bold and costly witness of the first disciples. When the rulers and authorities of the Temple tried to silence the witness of Peter and John they answered, “Whether it is right to listen to you rather than God, you must judge, but as for us, we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” They said, “We will not be silent.” Even if they wanted to stop for the sake of their livelihood or simply to live in comfort, they could not contain themselves. They were filled with a fiery Spirit, a fierce urgency, and they felt compelled to speak out as bold witnesses.

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As a child in Sunday School they taught me to sing, “This Little Light of Mine.” For years I thought it meant evangelizing, win back the lost, and trying to save souls. But later I learned the song was used in the Civil Rights movement and I discovered it was never just about saving souls—it was about saving bodies by standing against anything that brings violence, injustice, or death into the world and shining brightly as a bold witness to the peace, joy, love, and life-giving power of Jesus. The other verses say, “Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine…Won’t let Satan blow it out. I’m gonna let it shine.” This is the song of a community filled with Spirit, who are boldly following in the footsteps of a crucified Messiah, who are not afraid of the cost or consequences, who are speaking truth to power, who will not be silent, who could not keep from being bold witnesses. If there ever was a time in history when the church needed boldness—that time is now! If there ever was a time we needed the Spirit to take some fearful disciples and make them into bold witnesses—that time is now! The good news is the Spirit is moving again, just as it did before, offering ordinary people the power of a strange boldness and crying out, “Can I get a witness? Can I get a witness?” How will we respond? Are we brave enough? Are we brash enough? Are we bold enough to stand up and say, “Here I am. Here I am. I will not be silent, and I cannot keep from speaking.” Let it be.