This morning we continue our journey through Acts, seeing how the early church did things, and what we might learn from that for our own church life. Over the last couple of weeks we\u2019ve had a merry old time thinking about caring and sharing \u2013 lovely affirming stuff. This week, however, it gets a bit more prickly. This week we\u2019re thinking about being a disturbing church. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a great word, isn\u2019t it, \u201cdisturbing\u201d. Even the word itself somehow is disturbing in itself.<\/p>\n
It has a range of meanings. At the basic level, it\u2019s just another word for an interruption. Something that disturbs stops something else that was already going on. Often, though, something that disturbs doesn\u2019t just interrupt, but it throws something out of balance, it tips it over, knocks it out of equilibrium. Even more than this, there\u2019s usually an emotional meaning as well, something that disturbs makes us uncomfortable, upset, maybe even angry. <\/p>\n
So, I guess my first job this morning is justify the suggestion that church should be disturbing. That word doesn\u2019t appear in the Bible readings we had this morning, and in fact doesn\u2019t appear very often in the New Testament at all, so where is my justification for saying that the early church was disturbing? <\/p>\n
Well I\u2019m going to start by doubling down and suggesting that not only was the early church disturbing, so was Jesus. Again the word \u201cdisturbing\u201d only appears once in the gospels, so this might seem to be a stretch, but bear with me. <\/p>\n
That one appearance in the gospels is in Matthew 2. Jesus has been born, and the star has appeared in the East, and the wise ones have followed it to Jerusalem. They go to the palace and ask about the new King that has just been born. The current King, Herod, is not to impressed by this, and what does Matthew write? <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right from the beginning of his life, Jesus was disturbing people. As we read through the accounts of his life and teaching, it seems to me that \u201cdisturbing\u201d is a great summary. From calling people to leave their livelihoods and follow him, to upsetting the religious teachers, to challenging the priorities of the people in his teaching, all the way to the cross and especially in his resurrection, Jesus disturbed people, the status quo, and received wisdom. He was and is the great disturber.<\/p>\n
I would like to suggest that he expected his followers to follow his example. On the night before he died, he went to the Garden of Gethsamane to pray. We heard a part of that prayer in our reading from John\u2019s eye witness account of Jesus\u2019 life. We hear him pray for his followers, because the world is going to hate them. The world is going to hate them, because they have Jesus\u2019 word and live by it. Jesus doesn\u2019t ask his Father to take them out of the world, but to protect them as they remain in it. He fully expects those who follow him, and his teaching, to be hated by the world, because they disturb the world\u2019s way of looking at things, the values of the world, the comfort of the world. <\/p>\n
We see this \u201cdisturbing\u201d effect of the church in the world in a number of place in Acts, the accounts of the life of the early church. We read about one this morning. Even before we get to this morning\u2019s reading, however, it has already started. At the beginning of Acts chapter 4 we read this:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then in today\u2019s reading we see another example of the early believers disturbing things. They are still teaching people, but more than this, people are being healed as they pray for them. The religious leaders are mighty disturbed \u2013 they are angry and jealous, so they arrest the apostles and put them in jail. I love the next bit. God just sends an angel to let them out again, and they go straight back to preaching. And then in the morning the guards come to fetch them for trial, but they\u2019re not there. Can you imagine the scene in the council chamber \u2013 the whole Sanhedrin gathered together to condemn the Christians, and the captain of the guard coming in and saying \u201cthey\u2019ve gone, we can\u2019t find them\u201d, scratching their heads, looking a bit daft. Then someone coming in and telling everyone that the \u201cprisoners\u201d have gone back to preaching! <\/p>\n
So, they drag them in and give them a stern talking to, threaten them even. And what do Peter and his friends say? \u201cWe must obey God rather than human beings.\u201d They aren\u2019t going to stop disturbing things, Jesus didn\u2019t, and they\u2019re not going to either. They are going to obey their Lord\u2019s command and follow their Lord\u2019s example.
\nLater on in Acts we read more examples of this. As Paul goes around teaching and preaching, planting churches, there are riots and demonstrations against him and his teaching in a number of cities. As we know the early believers were widely persecuted. This was because they disturbed the \u201cway things were\u201d. They disturbed the religious and secular authorities. They acknowledged Jesus as Lord rather than Caesar as Lord. They wouldn\u2019t conform to the religious and moral pluralism of the time. They were distinctive, and made absolute truth claims that offended and disturbed people, as they followed Jesus\u2019 example. <\/p>\n
So, it seems fairly clear to me that Jesus was disturbing, and so was the early church. <\/p>\n
So, what about us, are we disturbing? For me the question isn\u2019t, should we be disturbing? Rather the question is, \u201cWho or what should we be disturbing, and how?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, if we\u2019re following Jesus\u2019 example in being disturbing, it seems to me that we should be disturbing the same things he did. So who did Jesus disturb? <\/p>\n
Firstly, he disturbed his disciples. He called them away from the lives that they were living, to follow him. He taught them things that turned the thinking upside down and inside out. He taught them to forgive those who hurt them, to love their enemies, to trust in God when things were difficult, to see things in a new way. At times Jesus\u2019 teaching was so disturbing that many of his followers left him. In summary, we should expect our lives to be disturbed by following Jesus. I would go so far to say that if following Jesus doesn\u2019t disturb our lives, or make us uncomfortable in any way, then we\u2019re probably not actually following Jesus. <\/p>\n
Secondly, Jesus disturbed the religious establishment and traditions of the time. He took people back to the heart of a real relationship with God. One not based in rules and regulations, but in the love of God for us being received and shared with others. More than that, he even disturbed the understanding of what love is. True love, Jesus says, is to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends. Love isn\u2019t about getting what we want, love is about giving ourselves away, and denying ourselves. We should stay alive to the possibility that our rules and traditions need disturbing, especially if they are getting in the way of sacrificial love.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, Jesus disturbed the world by comforting the disturbed. He reached out to those on the edge of society, the weak, the disabled, the sinner, the widow. Those who were counted least, he spent time with, he listened to, he valued, he loved. By doing this he challenged the values and systems of the world that he lived in. We can do the same. We can choose not to be sucked into the patterns of this world, we can disturb the received wisdom by doing things differently. <\/p>\n
So, if that\u2019s the who and what we are to disturb, what about the How? How are we to be disturbing? <\/p>\n
Disturbing can carry a sense of being creepy or inappropriate. We must avoid this at all costs in our demeanour and attitude. Again, we look to Jesus, and to the early church. As I read this account in Acts it strikes me that the disciples were winsome, polite, and respectful. They weren\u2019t looking for a fight, they were being faithful and obedient, not judgemental, but clear about the reality of the situation as they saw it. <\/p>\n
A great modern example of this is the non-violent resistance of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Refusing to give up a seat on a bus. Accepting beatings and water cannon hosings. Taking up school places in newly desegregated schools. Disturbing the unjust status quo with courage, strength, and perseverance. <\/p>\n
As I come to a close, I have a question for us to consider. Will we invite the Holy Spirit to disturb us, to fill us with such love and compassion that we are moved to change the way that we live, the way that we behave, and to go out with courage to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning we continue our journey through Acts, seeing how the early church did things, and what we might learn from that for our own church life. Over the last couple of weeks we\u2019ve had a merry old time thinking about caring and sharing \u2013 lovely affirming stuff. This week, however, it gets a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[1314,1315],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wellington","tag-acts-517-32","tag-john-1713-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carterclan.me.uk\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}