Boldness, Foolishness or Stupidity

Acts 4:1-21

There are certainties and uncertainties in life. That men and women are often wrong in the predictions they make is one of the certainties.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
– attributed to Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
– Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
– Harry Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.”
– Orville Wright.

“A guitar’s all right, John, but you’ll never earn your living by it.”
– John Lennon’s Aunt Mimi

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
– Decca Recording Co. on rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“It can’t possibly rain for forty days and nights.”
– Noah’s neighbors

“Well that’s one problem we don’t have to worry about anymore.”
– Caiaphas to his guard on the way back to the temple from the crucifixion of Jesus

Caiaphas had to be pretty frustrated. Jesus had increasingly been a problem. Jesus threatened to stir up the people so that the Romans would feel forced to come in and take stronger measures against the people of Israel. And the power of the Jewish leadership was also threatened by this charismatic figure who was leading people away from them.

Caiaphas had worked under the instructions of his father-in-law, Annas, to take care of Jesus once and for all. He had stepped outside Jewish Law to arrest him and then get a guilty verdict in his trial. Then he worked to manipulate Pilate into condemning Jesus to death by crucifixion. After a couple years of increasing tension, it had come to a head and he had been successful in getting rid of the problem. Jesus was dead and buried and as with past messianic figures, his followers would fall away. The status quo would return. He left the crucifixion feeling good; a job well done.

Three days later there was a premonition that something had gone wrong when the soldiers came to say that Jesus was no longer in the tomb and that an angel had appeared in a bright light when the tomb stone was rolled back. But then they discussed this and paid the soldiers not to say anything except that the disciples had stolen the body in the middle of the night.

This appeared to work and things quieted down. A month, two months, three months, maybe four months and then the temple guard reported that a man born lame was healed and that two of the disciples of Jesus were preaching that it was Jesus who had performed this miracle.

This had to be pretty frustrating news to Caiaphas. It’s like one of those movies where the good guy kills the bad guy but he keeps coming back. Terribly frustrating and unsettling, but Caiaphas had effectively dealt with Jesus and he was not at the end of his resources. He had been ruthless in dealing with Jesus and he could once again be ruthless in dealing with these ignorant followers of Jesus. He still had the temple guard. He was not a toothless tiger. If these followers of Jesus wanted to continue the cause, he had ways of dealing with them. Caiaphas was still a dangerous opponent.

What were John and Peter thinking when they began to preach in the temple?

They set off one day to go to the afternoon prayer and on the way passed a beggar who must have been familiar to them from all the other times they had passed by. This time Peter had the impulse from the Holy Spirit to proclaim his healing through Jesus and that set things in motion. In an act of kindness the beggar was healed, but Peter’s sermon in the temple that followed was not inevitable. Peter could have healed the man and then slipped away.

Hadn’t anyone advised him about what he should do and not do? Didn’t anyone sit down with him and remind him that he had often gotten in a jam by stepping out of the boat when he should have remained sitting? Hadn’t he learned from his past mistakes not to be too impulsive?

“Look Peter, now is the time for us to keep a low profile. They just killed Jesus and we need to let things settle down before we make more trouble. Let’s be patient. Remember the example of Jesus. Remember the time he healed the man born blind and when the Pharisees came looking to see who had healed this man on the Sabbath, Jesus kept hidden in the crowds. He knew it was not his time so he was patient. We need also to be patient and let the Jewish leaders in the Sanhedrin calm down a bit. I agree with you we should be bold, but let’s not be foolish. Let’s get a year under our belts and then we can be a bit more aggressive.”

But this is not what Peter did. I don’t know if John whispered to him, “Peter, do you really think we should stick around here?” or if he was in agreement, but what Peter did was not only to stick around but to stick it to the Jews in the temple and the Jewish leaders of the temple.

Let me read part of his sermon and you tell me if he was provocative.
“Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?  13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go.  14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.  15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.  16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.
17 “Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.  18 But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer.

First of all, Peter kept saying “you”. If I feel the need to confront someone, the best way to do so is to make “I” statements as in “I feel hurt when you act this way,” or “I feel betrayed when you do that.” Making I statements is less confrontational. If you want to pick a fight, tell someone over and over again what you have against them.

You handed him over to be killed
You disowned him
You disowned the Holy and Righteous One
You killed the author of life

This is finger pointing provocation. You! You! You! You! You! And then he adds insult to injury. Not only did he accuse them of killing Jesus but he accused them of being ignorant.

I don’t think the religious leaders who were well-schooled appreciated being called ignorant by a hick fisherman from rural Galilee.

If you look at Peter’s sermon from this perspective it seems he was looking for a fight. He was like the Flannery O’Connor quote on the back of the bulletin:
I am not afraid that the book will be controversial,
I’m afraid it will not be controversial.

Peter intended to provoke.

There is a wonderful word in Yiddish, the Jewish language of Central Europe that is a mixture of Hebrew and German, and that word is chutzpah. Chutzpah has been humorously defined this way.
A boy is on trial for murdering his parents, and he begs of the judge leniency because he is an orphan.

In a picture form chutzpah is a man who sticks his head in a lion’s open mouth. This is what Peter did that day in the temple court. The lion opened his mouth, Peter had the opportunity to preach a sermon or walk away and decided to stick his head in the open mouth and he preached.

Was this boldness, foolishness or stupidity?

On the bulletin cover there is a picture of a man rock climbing. He is doing a horizontal climb with his back to the ground. I have never done this and don’t know how he is doing this, but he is climbing a rock and defying gravity in the process. This is not a trick photograph; it is real. Is he being bold, foolish or stupid?

When Charles Lindbergh set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a solo flight, was he being bold, foolish or stupid?

When a group from the west came to Marrakech and after a Bible study (I’ll bet they were reading the passage we are looking at today.) decided to go out into the square, Djamaa El Fna, and hand out Bibles, were they bold, foolish or stupid?

On the same line, when an American decided to come in from Ceuta to Tetouan and hand out Bibles in the street, was he bold, foolish or stupid?

Peter knew what the possible consequences were before he decided to preach. The American who was handing out Bibles also knew the possible consequences. Both Peter and this American were put in jail and then released. Why would one act be bold and the other foolish or stupid?

When most of us heard about the actions of the American in Tetouan, we said, “What the heck was he doing?” When we heard about the group in Marrakech, we marveled at the stupidity of the leader. Luke wrote about the actions of Peter and the rest of the believers and said they were bold.

What is the difference between these actions and what Peter did?

Here is one way of looking at the difference. In Peter’s case he walked along, God used him to bring healing to the man born lame and the ensuing commotion brought a crowd to him. Although the text doesn’t list the questions being asked, there were a lot of questions being asked. “What happened?” “Who is that man jumping up and down?” “Why is he jumping up and down?” “Isn’t that the man who begs in front of the gate called Beautiful?” “Who healed him?” “How did they heal him?” “From where did they get the power to heal him?”

From this perspective, Peter merely answered their questions. He did not walk into the temple court and decide that day he would preach the Gospel. He responded to a situation that God created which is very different from creating your own situation.

I talked about faith a few weeks ago and said that faith is our response to God’s initiative. God indicates in one way or another that we should pray for a miracle and then in faith, we respond and a miracle happens. We do not decide ourselves someone should be healed, that is God’s decision.

I think we can take a similar lesson here. Boldness is not deciding when and where we should act, boldness is our response to God’s invitation to act.

When Daniel and his friends were called to worship the image of Nebuchadnezzar and refused, the situation was created by their obedience to God and a fiery furnace awaited them. They responded with boldness telling the king
“O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.  18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Their boldness was in response to a situation created by their obedience to God. They did not decide to demonstrate to the people of Babylon that their God was the only God by deciding to create a fire and then walk into it.

I see this problem with many of us who are Christians. We want so desperately to see the kingdom of God grow that we become impatient and press forward where God has not called us. Being a man or woman of faith does not mean we can heal anyone anytime. Being bold does not mean we can do anything we want.

We must remember that we are not the one giving orders. We are not supposed to take the initiative. We respond to God’s directions and designs.

The problem is that the group in Marrakech and the American in Ceuta, I would guess, felt confident that God had told them to do what they did. But I would say that they jumped the gun and took off when God had not yet started the race.

When I am in this country, I respond to people’s questions and from time to time I have a dialog with someone about Christian faith. But in these cases I am not pressing the point. I am responding to that person’s interest, curiosity or their desire for me to convert to Islam.

Let me say this again and then move on. Boldness does not mean we choose the arena and then step into it. Boldness is our response to what God is telling us to do, stepping up to the challenge when it presents itself.

There are times when the ball is in God’s court and we go about our business and wait for him to act. These are times of preparation that will be crucial when it comes time to act but we make a mess of things when we presume to push when God is not leading us to act. These times of waiting are not wasted but are used by God to make us confident when the time comes for us to be bold. Part of being bold when we are called to be bold is to be confident because of the preparation that has taken place in the past.

When David went out to meet Goliath in a one-on-one battle, was he bold, foolish or stupid? King Saul advised him not to go.
“You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

No one in the army of Saul had been bold enough to confront Goliath, what made David confident he could be successful?
But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,  35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.  36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.  37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

I read an article in Scientific America some years ago in which they analyzed the power of the sling David used as a weapon. It is incredibly powerful and if the person using it has skill as did David, a Goliath would stand no chance. All those years of practicing with his sling and protecting the flock under his care prepared David for this moment when he stepped out to confront Goliath. God gave him an opportunity to act and David was bold to act.

If I were to attempt to rock climb like the man on the bulletin cover, it would be an act of stupidity. But if you have trained and know what to do and have the strength to do it, then it is not stupid or foolish.

When Charles Lindbergh set out for the coast of France, he did so knowing his plane and his skills and he was confident he could do it.

When Peter began to speak, he did so having trained with Jesus. For three years he heard Jesus teach. In the forty days between the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Peter had an intense refresher school. In the days following, the disciples met together and prayed and read the Scriptures and discussed the meaning together.

When Peter and John came before the Sanhedrin, they were amazed to hear them speaking so confidently and so intelligently when they had not received a formal education. When Peter stood up to talk, he knew what to say because he was prepared.

We are here for many different reasons. Some of us are in the diplomatic community, others are teachers or in business, others are here to do charitable work, others are students, others have married and live here with their families. God is at work in us, preparing us for the future. We may be impatient and read Acts and wonder when God will act in such a powerful way among us. I am impatient and pray for the day when the Holy Spirit will work in such a powerful way.

But now is the time for our preparation. Now is the time for us to develop the faith to be obedient even when it is costly to do so. Now is the time to persevere in faith when there does not seem to be much evidence for it.

Now is the time to be bold in smaller ways. When someone asks us a question about our faith, we need to respond with boldness and share what and why we believe what we do. When someone asks us to pray for their healing, we need to respond in faith and pray for healing in the name of Jesus.

Someday God will act in a more powerful way because in his plan, he has determined that now is the time to act. When he does, we need to be ready. We need to be prepared.

The time is coming and may soon come when God will choose to act in a more powerful way. It is not for us to say when and how God will act. It is our responsibility to be ready so that when he acts, when he initiates, we will be ready to respond with faith and boldness.