Lectionary Readings (Epistle reading)
In the name of the living God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In Latin America, the musical that we know as The Sound of Music is called “The Rebel Nun.” And they’re not wrong. The sci–fi blockbuster Blade Runner was going to be called “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. Who can forget the Steven Speilberg classic “A Boy’s Life,” better known as E.T. Or what if we called The Wizard of Oz, “The Witch–Slayer of Kansas”? Titles matter.
This morning, we heard a reading from the Book of Acts, which historically has been called “The Acts of the Apostles.” But that’s not quite right. For one, the author, Luke, doesn’t give it a title. Furthermore, the word “acts” is used only once in the entire book, and it refers not to the doings of any apostle, but of others. Calling it “The Acts of the Apostles” is problematic because it might lead us to read it and think, “Wow, they were such amazing people. I’ll never be able to live up to that standard.” And to think that would be a tragedy.
Instead, if we’re going to name to Luke’s unnamed second volume to the Gospel according to Luke, it really ought to be “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” It’s clear throughout the book that the actor is the Spirit, the apostles are merely the vessels. And that’s so much a better title for this book because instead of having us to look backwards in astonishment and admiration towards the apostles, “The Acts of the Spirit” would have us to look around us and ask, “I wonder what the Spirit is up to today?”
Some of you who have been around the Church for a while might recognize that talking about Acts in the fall seems a bit unusual. Don’t we typically read Acts in the spring, at Easter? Good observation. This year, along with many other congregations, we’re using an approved trial lectionary. A lectionary is a cycle of readings held in common across denominations. For years, people have noted a problem with how the lectionary had been constructed. In the season of Easter, a reading from Acts replaces the Old Testament reading. The unintended result is that it makes it seem as if Resurrection has no connection to the faith of Israel, which is not at all the case. In this trial lectionary, in Eastertide we heard passages of Scripture from the Old Testament that were connected to the themes of Easter. And in the fall, we get about 6 weeks from Acts.
The problem with any lectionary is that not all of the Bible will be covered. Most lectionaries use a three–year rotation. So, in 156 Sundays, there’s simply no way to read the entire Bible. At least for this year, we’re giving this trial lectionary a try, which means I’m preaching on a passage of Scripture that, in nearly 20 years of ordained ministry, I’ve never preached on. And chances are, you’ve never heard a sermon on this text because the first part of Acts chapter 3 is not included in the standard lectionary.
The title “Acts of the Spirit” helps us to read this passage. The healing happens not because of Peter’s great ability or holiness, but is driven by Peter proclaiming “the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” Healing comes by the power of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. What heals isn’t an act of an apostle, but rather the action of the Spirit.
Given the Spirit of Jesus who is on the loose, this sermon has two things for us to consider: attention and tomorrow.
First, our attention. Many have described our world as an “attention economy,” meaning that what drives profits, politics, and corporate strategies isn’t innovation or sales, but rather our attention. Some of the more profitable companies in our economy don’t have a product in the usual sense of the word. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram—you’ve likely never paid for any of those services. As the adage goes, “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” The product in question is our attention, our gaze, our desires, our time.
The attention economy is a lucrative one because we are so interested in being distracted. Watching another short, or episode, or scrolling another feed or board numbs us just enough from the discomforts and anxieties of life, that we willingly become the products if it means we can avoid facing the world around us for just five more minutes. And we become what we give our attention to.
I’m struck by how this healing takes place. Peter and John encounter this man lying at the gate of the Temple in Jerusalem and Peter says to him, “Look at us.” In other words, give us your attention, focus here. The prayer that we use towards the beginning of worship is called the “Collect” and it’s intended to be used not just on Sunday, but every day in the week that follows. So, this past week, as I was planning and writing this sermon, the prayer that I was using all week came from last Sunday in which we prayed: “Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.”
It’s a prayer about our attention. One author notes that “Attention changes the world; how you attend to the world changes what you find there.” So many things around us are passing away and won’t matter in a few days. Or for more serious matters, a few months. Or even in a crisis, very few things will matter in a few years. The singer–songwriter Bob Dylan recently commented on what it’s like being in his 80s. He said, “You’re haunted by how little of life mattered in the way you thought it would.” In other words, the things we focus on rarely are worth the attention.
This is what, in effect, Peter says, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I will give you.” Silver and gold belong to the economy of Rome, of Wall Street. And certainly, that’s one place to invest our attention. But that makes us just like the man at the gate, always begging and scheming for more. It’s a truth we all know, that somehow, expenses always rise to meet income. In the economy of silver and gold, there is no such thing as enough. The quest for more power, more influence, more money, more attention will always leave us coming up short, for those are fading away.
By telling this man to “Look at us,” Peter and John are inviting him to look at Jesus, to what endures. It’s as Jesus says to Mary of Bethany when she chose to sit at his feet, “She has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away.” This is why the Church, for millennia, has commended practices that cultivate our attentiveness: things like contemplative prayer, praying with icons, or coming to church.
Now, I’m well aware that what we do here is counter–cultural, weird, inefficient, and even, at times, boring. As they say in the tech world, this is a feature, not a bug. The Church helps us to train our attention towards eternity by praying prayers that have been used for generations, by hearing God’s timeless wisdom as recorded in sacred Scripture, by receiving the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, by gathering in a community that would not exist if it were not for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I mean, look at us. We’re a rather motley crew, aren’t we? Young and old, gay and straight, liberal and conservative, wealthy and barely scraping by. In high school, some of us were jocks and some were nerds. Some of us are risk–averse and some are thrill–seekers. Some of us prefer high–church liturgy and some of us think it’s just too fussy. For some of us, the ideal Friday night would be a cup of tea and a good book, for others it would be dancing at the club until 2am. And we gather across these differences because Jesus has brought us together, because his eternal love is more important than any of our temporal differences or disagreements, because his Death and Resurrection brings us, who would otherwise not even know each other, together to sing in public, to shake hands with people you don’t know, to drink out of the same chalice, and to have conversations over bad coffee in the Parish Hall. How amazing it is that the Spirit chooses to live in and among us!
And in doing all of these things, we are training our attention towards heaven, we are learning how to attend to the acts of the Holy Spirit around us. I said that the other part of this sermon is the question of tomorrow, and the bridge to that point comes in a small detail that would be easy to miss.
Luke records that “Peter looked intently at the man.” When reading passage this week, the word “intently” caught my attention. It’s a fairly rare word, and the last time Luke used it was when recording that everyone was looking intently at Jesus as he ascended into heaven. The same way that they looked at Jesus is how they look at this man. I can’t help but wonder when Peter and John saw this man begging at the gate of the Temple if they did a double–take, stared at this guy, elbowed each other in the ribs, and said, “Is that him, is that Jesus?”
In one of the parables that Matthew records, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” One of the ways that we give our attention to things that shall endure is by, as this week’s Collect teaches us, showing mercy and pity. The prayer notes that God’s power is seen chiefly in mercy and pity. In other words, not the sort of worldly power of silver and gold, of armies and stock options, of titles and awards. And we become partakers of this heavenly treasure by running to the promise of mercy and pity.
In focusing on mercy and pity, we are attending to Jesus in every interaction. Because the truth of the matter is that the only eternal thing in the world are humans. Landscapes will change, monuments will crumble, empires will fall, languages will go extinct, even this planet, when the sun becomes a red giant, will be destroyed. Every achievement, every dollar, every victory will, in the end, be meaningless.
But, because of the Resurrection, every single person remains alive unto God, and therefore every act of charity matters eternally. Every kindness, every forgiveness, every grace, every mercy belongs to eternity.
Tomorrow is Monday. And that’s why we come here to train our attention on the movement of the Holy Spirit. Because the acts of the Spirit are not finished. The Church is not a historical–appreciation society, we are vessels of the Holy Spirit who God is sending into the world on mission. Your work and vocation in the world matter so much because the Holy Spirit acts with you and through you. You are a part of the yet–to–be–completed work called the “Acts of the Spirit.”
The problem that we struggle with is the gap between Sunday and Monday. We get confused and give all our attention to making sure that Sunday goes well, when the mission happens on Monday. Now, this isn’t to say that Sunday worship doesn’t matter—it’s the foundation for Monday. But the mission is Monday.
And you are exactly who God wants to fulfill the mission of mercy and pity on Monday; and Tuesday through Saturday as well. What would the acts of the Spirit look in your school tomorrow? How about tomorrow at the office? How would your field be transformed if we focused as much on mercy and pity as we do the return–on–investment, deals closed, or test scores? Those latter things are all fading away. But by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we participate in eternity, just as Peter and John did when they paid attention to this man who they invited into eternity by focusing on what matters most—not the silver and gold of the Temple that surrounded them, but on Jesus Christ.
Titles matter and our faith rests not on the acts of the apostles, but the continuing and eternal action of the Holy Spirit. “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” Amen.
