Intro:
This morning I want to suggest something extremely radical, subversive, and even confrontational. It is a message our culture does not want you to hear. And although I won’t get arrested, and probably even won’t upset you by saying it because “on the surface” it will sound reasonable, none of us really live like this and if we were to try it would be extremely radical, subversive, and even confrontational.
Here is what I want to suggest: money is the single biggest killer of life. Now I don’t mean physical life though some may wish to make that case, I mean “life” in the sense of joy, of healthy inter-dependent relationship, acceptance, challenge, significance, purpose, and love. Money kills all those things that really matter, in the grand scheme.
You’ve maybe heard the story of the Mexican fisherman: An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The Mexican replied, "only a little while." The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."
The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."
The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "15-20 years." "But what then?" The American laughed and said that’s the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions." "Millions.. Then what?"
The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
Context:
I’m excited about today’s passage of Scripture – Acts 3:1-11. Here’s why: about a month and a half ago, I was going to preach on this passage of Scripture, sort of do a single sermon on it and then start a new series for us for this fall. But then I got into it, and started to read to the end of this story, and found that this one story is the subject of all of chapter 3 and chapter 4. And I realized reading backwards that the story only really makes sense after we’ve understood Acts 1 and 2, where Jesus ascends to heaven, and then the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, and then the church is born and begins to have an impact on the world. This story sets up those next steps:
Acts 3:1-11 (NLT):
Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock prayer service. 2 As they approached the Temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day he was put beside the Temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the Temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money.
4 Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. 6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”
7 Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. 8 He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk! Then, walking, leaping, and praising God, he went into the Temple with them.
9 All the people saw him walking and heard him praising God. 10 When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded! 11 They all rushed out in amazement to Solomon’s Colonnade, where the man was holding tightly to Peter and John.
More Than A Healing:
It’s a great, simple story. A man in his 40’s (Acts 4:22), who has never walked but spent his life begging, is healed in the name of Jesus, and praises God. The reason this story is so much more than a healing, though, is because it was a powerful sign of God’s Kingdom come on earth, proof that Jesus was who He claimed to be, and evidence that the power Jesus had was now present in His church. It didn’t end with Jesus’ crucifixion; here was public proof of power. We’ll see a lot more about that in the next few weeks. But let’s look at the story a little more deeply this morning.
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Temple… vs. 1-3
The story begins in an incredibly ordinary way – Peter and John going to worship. Just like they have been doing, over and over, each and every day. And they encounter an ordinary scene – a beggar, sitting at a very public place, where hopefully people are inclined towards more generosity as they enter the temple, and he is doing what he has always done: asking for money.
The Encounter: vs. 4-6
The situation ceases to be ordinary in vs. 4, when Peter and John actually stop and look. They notice. God is present in them through the Holy Spirit, and I believe they see this man on a far deeper level than just a dirty, lame guy laying on a stretcher milking people’s guilt for a handout. They see a person. A real, living, hurting, needy person – a person who is loved by God, a person whose pain they see even past the many thick outer layers he no doubt covered himself with. They see beyond all the things we sometimes see in people like that, all the negative filters we have about them and how they should get a job, or should have made better decisions, or they should learn how to take care of themselves, all the subtle feelings we have about how we are better than they are because of what we have. Peter and John see something more… they see a person, his pain, but then they see what this man’s life could be like… They see transformation, possibility, new life – they see with a clarity and they know: God can touch this… God can heal this… God can breathe new life into this… And so, led by the Holy Spirit, they command, “Look at us!”.
Of course he does – he’s asked for money, they’ve responded by grabbing his attention back, and then the speak this famous line we might remember from Sunday school: “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”
Money is not what he really needs…
“He looked at them eagerly, expecting some money…” We really do believe that money is what we really need. It is ingrained in us, deep down, it has shaped our very identity, it really does come down to that. You might resist agreeing with me on that, but I see it, in obvious but more often in subtle ways. We have become defined by our money and possessions. We trust in our retirement savings. We are anxious when the bills are piling up. We express our love for others mostly (though not entirely) through material gifts. We create an identity for ourselves through our clothing, our cars, our homes, our vacations. We will be loved by others if we dress certain ways, drive certain things, live in certain places. We really do believe that if the bank account was larger, most of our problems would be solved and life would be easier. Our youth really believe that the most important thing in life is to get a good education so they can get a good job and be financially secure. Then they can enjoy life, after they’ve taken care of those important things first. They are like the Mexican fisherman except they’ve skipped the first part, where he is enjoying life, and have plunged straight into the second part where he is trying to accumulate as much as possible under the false belief that then we will be happy.
Now since I’m at risk of getting in trouble and losing you all here to what you think I might be saying, let me hint at the ending point: I am not recommending we get rid of money, and I am not going to say you should just give it all away to the poor, and I’m not launching some radical commune out in Entwistle were we hunt and fish and live in tents and make our own cheese. My point today is this: money kills life, so let’s stop loving it and believing that money, not God, can solve our problems.
This lame guy outside the temple gate helps us here. He needs money. He has to have it to live – with no way to produce for himself, he is left at the gate to beg for money from others in order to survive. And this is not wrong of him – in fact he is powerless to do anything else. But let’s go a little deeper – the problem is not that he lacks money. It looks like it – he needs money to live; if he has money he can live; therefore the problem seems that he lacks money and the solution is to give him money. But then Peter and John look at him through the eyes of God, and see that the problem is not a lack of money, the problem is that he is lame. His feet and ankles don’t work. His body is broken – that is the problem. And Peter and John see this and respond by the power of the Holy Spirit with this famous phrase – no money for you, we’ve got something better… and in the Name of Jesus they command him to walk.
The healing happens during the exercise of faith: vs. 7-8
Now, this is a critical, critical point: the healing does not happen when Peter speaks the words. He makes the command in vs. 6, but then he doesn’t stop there and watch to see if something happens. He doesn’t wait for confirmation, physical evidence, tangible change first. The text tells us he reaches out, grabs the man by the hand, pulls him up onto feet that still are useless, and “And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened.” I checked this out carefully, and it is really clear that the healing happens as they act. They don’t wait for the evidence and then act, as they act the healing happens.
This is at the heart of faith – acting, living, trusting that God will act; God will do; God will take care. Now let’s not be stupid about this, and think that we can walk up to someone with cancer and say “in Jesus name, be healed!”, and then tell them to stop all their medical treatments. I’m not even talking about physical healing here today, though I believe in that it is a subject for another time. I’m talking today about living our faith and letting God act “as we act/respond/reach”. We get paralyzed by feeling that we need to know and control the future, we don’t want to reach out like Peter and pull someone up until we see that God has already finished the miracle, when the real miracles happen while faith is being lived out – not prior to it. And the miracle addresses the real cause – the root cause – that keeps people in paralysis.
What Keeps Us Paralyzed:
So, then what keeps us paralyzed? What wounds do you and I have that leave us outside the place of life and love and vibrancy, sitting like the lame man begging for something that will enable us to cope but not actually set us free? I think that picture describes us, in different areas of our lives, we are the lame main, sitting outside begging for enough to cope, when we have a God that wants to heal the paralysis.
Those are different for each of us. But most of us have some… and underneath them is a deep lie, that if we had money we could make different decisions and then life would be all better. If we had money we could buy some space and time to work it out. If we had money we could get out of some relationship. If we had money we could retreat to some luscious vacation place and get away from it all for awhile. If we had money we could buy counseling. We are just like the lame man at the gate, and just like him we need something different.
We need the touch of God. I didn’t point out the touch from Peter, but it was just like Jesus. He reached out his hand, made physical contact, exerted his actual strength to pull him up, and in Peter’s physical and human touch came the actual healing touch of God. The Holy Spirit worked in that moment to heal that which was really, actually, tangibly wrong. And the Holy Spirit still does this today.
There is an old story about this passage, from the 13th Century. “Thomas Aquinas once came to Pope Innocent IV at a moment when the pontiff had before him a great treasure of gold “See Thomas,” said Innocent, “see the Church can no more say as it did in those first days ‘Silver and gold have I none’. “True holy father,” replied Thomas Aquinas, “but the Church of the present day can hardly say to a lame man what the Church the first days said, ‘Arise and walk.’” (Philip Schaff, A popular commentary on the New Testament: by English and American scholars of various Evangelical denominations, Volume 2. Scribners, 1880.)
Conclusion:
With deepest respect to Thomas Aquinas, I fully believe that the Holy Spirit can still say “Arise and walk”. And we desperately need Him to! Each of us, into our own wounds, hurts, paralysis, lack of life, areas where we are sitting outside the place of life, looking for the wrong thing. God still speaks, God still heals, God still changes, God still reaches His hand out, just like Peter did, hoping we will take it, hoping we look at Him, so He can pull us to our feet. And then we can rejoice.
