The excitement of the situation was being overshadowed by an ominous tension. Here in the middle of the temple of the one true God, the one true God that thousands if not millions had died for, had fought for, had been martyred for, in the middle of this temple dedicated to Yahweh, king of kings, God of Gods, the jealous God who would have no other before him…in the middle of this temple, was an eerie proclamation.

A few thousand years of history was represented by this building, the development of their religion was ehre, people came here to be made right with their God. A God who had saved them from slavery in Egypt many years ago, had made them great under king David, who had desired for their reconciliation while they were in exile, a God who had called out to them to be faithful to him, to not worship other Gods, to love him, to seek life in him, to respond to his constant mercy and faithfulness to them.

In the middle of this temple of absolutes, nineteen hundred and seventy years ago, stood a man who said that they were wrong and the thing is, he had something to prove it too.

It was not a popular thing to do, yet the crowd were excited about this. Here in their midst was a man standing who had until minutes ago been unable to walk. His legs had atrophied into gangly and awkward lumps. He had begged at the temple gate for all of his life, he was as familiar as the steps leading up to the altar. He was part of the furniture. Some thought it was miracle enough that he could survive for 40 years in this kind of life. This man, this beggar, this object of pity, this object of neglect, this painful reminder that life doesn’t go swimmingly for everyone, that there is such a thing as social responsibility, this man for the first time in his life stood. He stood in front of them all with his massive toothless grin. This was no trick or joke, this was true : those legs were healthy and you can’t fake something like that.

And the crowd wanted to know how. They wanted to know how this could happen.

And a man by the name of Peter had spoken up. Shouted boldly though he was dressed as fisherman, uneducated but knowledgeable—he was captivating and inspiring. He was giving the reasons why this miracle had happened, though he didn’t major on it, he had gone on to some other stuff.

There were a number of contentious things that he was saying and if you looked around you could see the security guards organising themselves for confrontation.

A few highlights of his address:

First of all he explained to the crowd that God had “glorified his servant”. It’s a phrase that had reached the same kind of status as we might talk us the word heaven. It was drawn from Isaiah 52:13 where there is a prophecy about the servant king, the one who will save Israel once and for all. And then he said that this one who they hoped for had already come, and that he was Jesus of Nazareth : a commoner. He went on to say that they had rejected him and crucified him. They had tortured their most faithful ally!

He used the phrase “you killed the Author of life!” and people would’ve stopped listening at that point because it was too ironic except that Peter continued that he was raised from the dead : which this man now claimed to have seen for himself. He went on to say it was this power that healed the man, not him, but this power that comes from Jesus Christ. And he was launching into his great repent and be baptised speech when he was interrupted by a cry from someone at the back. “Stop! Stop this nonsense now, this is an outrage!” There were a number of security officers who were standing in front of the officially robed man.

They muscled their way to the front of the crowd. The crowd hushed.

Peter felt a familiar fear and self-doubt start in his stomach. It’s the same fear that he had felt weeks before when he was by a campfire as Jesus was on trial. “You know the man don’t you” was the question thrown at him three times, and out of fear of being ridiculed, of being arrested even, out of fear of being spurned he receded into the dim lighting of denial. And this fear, started to well up inside him, but he said and did nothing.

Security arrested them all and put them in a cell over night. It was too late to do anything at the moment, so it would have to wait ‘til the morning.

The man who had been healed was quite confused by all of this and couldn’t understand what the problem was. “why have they arrested me? What’s going on here? What have I done wrong?” no-one answered his questions.

The next day we read some astonishing stuff. Peter and his mates stood with the healed beggar before a council of high priests. There was strong disapproval in the atmosphere and all the eyes in the room stared intently at the prisoners.

One of them spoke.

“Peter, is it? Do you know what you’ve done here? You’ve come into the very heart of our religion and our culture and undermined our very framework. Who are you to do that?”

no answer.

“Peter, you performed a miracle. We don’t know how you did it, but this man has got healthy legs now. So what power or by whose name could you do this?”

When he used the phrase ‘by whose name’ he was basically accusing them of magic, of Satanism. Ancestral names would often be evoked to perform miracles and magic. This was one possible and dare I say hopeful, explanation for what took place.

Peter suddenly became bold. The Holy Spirit filled him and his fears were put to one side. He took the position of power and said, “You are the rulers around here and you have the wisdom to lead. But if you are questioning us today because a miracle of healing took place yesterday, where someone’s life has just been totally and utterly turned around, where freedom is now a staggeringly big word. If you are questioning us on this, asking how we could do this, let me say something to you. We didn’t do this. I don’t know magic. I can’t do Jedi mind tricks. I can’t do anything spectacular. So let me tell you something. I’m on trial here? How can this be? I didn’t do anything. What was done was done by Jesus Christ of Nazareth : the very same one you tried to put to death a few months back, but he rose from the dead. And with the power that he gave me, this deed was done.

This Jesus is (and he quoted a powerful and familiar scripture against them) “the stone the builders rejected : yet it has become the cornerstone.” You cannot find salvation in anyone else. No-one. There is none. Jesus is the only one who can save people.”

And there we pause to reflect on what is going on here. Imagine for a moment that a Mormon came into our gathering right now and started to tell us that we need to follow their way. That Joseph Smith revealed truth to us in the gold tablets that he dug up in some field somewhere and then translated for us to read before he gave them back to the angel that led him to them. So as a result it is important that men have the right to take as many women as they like as wives : in fact that I as a pastor of the congregation really ought to lead by example. How would you react?

I would tend to think that you might get a little bit angry about this. And I suspect that you wouldn’t be sitting there thinking about writing a letter to the elders. There would be swift action. You’d think that either Evan or myself (probably Evan though because I’m a bit of a scaredy cat) would get up and quieten the person down. We would not as a congregation be very happy about that at all and while we wouldn’t have the legal power to inflict harm, the thought may or may not cross our minds.

Peter is standing before a group of men who have the power to inflict great harm, who believe there is only saving power in God : the one true God. Peter has basically said to them that Jesus has the same power of God and that essentially Jesus and God are one and the same.

They have been greatly offended by what he has just said and the only reason they don’t do something horrible to him is because there’s a lot of crowd support for what he had done : after all, a lame man who everyone recognised has been healed was standing right there. If they punished Peter for healing him, people wouldn’t understand.

They chose then to order them to keep quiet for the sake of the peace of Jerusalem.

And then Peter expressed some extraordinarily dangerous words.

“whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Whoa. These are the rulers of the people that Peter is talking to and they were already angry with him. What is he doing here?

You see at the heart of this story is the beginnings of a separation of loyalty. Peter is separating himself from loyalty to his culture, his nation and his history. His loyalty is to Jesus and Jesus alone.

He comes in to the centre of another religion. Says a few things about a few things that really upset that religion and then tells them that they are wrong and that he is right, that unless they accept what he is saying is true then they will not be saved and then has the nerve to say that he is only answerable to God.

Did he stop to think about their feelings on the matter? Why couldn’t he just accept them and tolerate them? Surely peace is a better way?

Make no mistake. The early church was not peace loving. In fact they created such a resentment towards them that they were constantly being persecuted and ridiculed. And there is no way that this would happen to a community that was silent. People didn’t like them. People arrested them. Precisely because they were being culturally insensitive.

There is nothing popular about the phrase “Jesus is the only way to heaven”. It doesn’t wash at all well with a society that believes that we should tolerate all religions and lifestyles. Our society believes this will bring about civility.

The thing is that tolerance is not love. Tolerance doesn’t have to engage with a social stream. Tolerance doesn’t take an interest, it doesn’t even have to appreciate. Tolerance takes the line : each to their own. Tolerance, is just not letting yourself get caught up in things. It’s not engagement, it’s distancing. It doesn’t build bridges, it builds walls. There is no dialogue.

Love on the other hand, embraces difference, builds bridges. It regards other people as worthwhile, takes an interest. Tolerance is a small view of the world, love is a big view of the world.

The question that is often asked is why can’t all religions just get along, aren’t they all the same expression of the one thing? Surely what works for you is ok even if it doesn’t work for me?

If that person wants to believe that then that’s ok.

And so we all get lumped in together. But it breaks down at this point. Christians hold firmly that Jesus is the only way to heaven. God is the final judge, but Jesus is the only way we are saved. That’s why we can’t get along in one big melting pot idea where it doesn’t really matter what religion we choose. Because religion is not some peripheral thing or interest, it is dear to my life. It is something that gives me a foundation and I see that Jesus can make a positive difference to this world! I’ve seen too much to be silent about it and like Peter I cannot keep from speaking about what I’ve seen and heard.

Except that I do. I often refrain from saying anything for fear of offence. I often sit comfortably with trying to make excuses for being a Christian. I don’t want the mudslinging to take place. I don’t want to be put in some category as being intolerant and bigoted. And it’s small surprise isn’t it when we hear of some Christian leaders saying this about homosexuals:

In summary, sodomites are wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly (Gen. 13:13), are violent and doom nations (Gen. 19:1-25; Jgs. 19), are abominable to God (Lev. 18:22), are worthy of death for their vile, depraved, unnatural sex practices (Lev. 20:13; Rom. 1:32), are called dogs because they are filthy, impudent and libidinous (Deut. 23:17,18; Mat. 7:6; Phil. 3:2), produce by their very presence in society a kind of mass intoxication from their wine made from grapes of gall from the vine of Sodom and the fields of Gomorrah which poisons society's mores with the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps (Deut. 32:32,33), declare their sin and shame on their countenance (Isa. 3:9), are shameless and unable to blush (Jer. 6:15), are workers of iniquity and hated by God (Psa. 5:5), are liars and murderers (Jn. 8:44), are filthy and lawless (2 Pet. 2:7,8), are natural brute beasts (2 Pet. 2:12), are dogs eating their own vomit and sows wallowing in their own feces (2 Pet. 2:22), will proliferate at the end of the world bringing final judgment on mankind (Lk. 17:28-30), have been finally given up by God to uncleanness dishonoring their own bodies among themselves, to vile affections, and to a reprobate mind such that they cannot think straight about anything (Rom. 1:23-28), have wholly given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh (Jude 7), must be pulled as faggots from the fire (Jude 23), and have no hope of Heaven unless they repent (Rev. 22:15), which they can't do in their prideful state (Jer. 6:15). They need to hear this truth if they are to have any hope of penitence, faith in Jesus Christ and salvation (I Timothy 4:2-4).

It’s small wonder that I wouldn’t want to be associated in any way or form with an expression of my faith in a Jesus who loves us warts and all, who cares for us deeply, who sees us in sin, not sin in us, who died on the cross for us, who sees that we are worth dying for, who will restore me, who has arms open for us, a desire for us to live life to the full, who models love so that we might love, who provides comfort, is my rock, my refuge, my counselor, my guidance. I can’t see Jesus rubber stamping the previous quote. And it hurts to be associated in any way with that kind of extremism.

So my question then is what really silences me? Society or extremism?

It’s both/and. On one hand there is society that dictates to me what is politically correct and sensitive. On the other hand extremism gives me lots of examples of why political correctness exists.

So I’m trying to find another way. Peter didn’t condemn the morality of the people he was talking to. He condemned how they had misunderstood Jesus and so therefore, were missing out on the greatest thing in the world. He preached to them Jesus. And he did it boldly. And I wonder if we get distracted nowadays by choosing to speak against society instead of speaking for Jesus?

Isn’t that the key? Rather than speak against society, speak for Jesus.

I think that if we are choosing this way of love, then we do have things to say to people. I think that if we care about people we won’t just tolerate them destroying themselves, but we won’t isolate them either. Love means stepping in for the hard yards. It also means looking past the sin and seeing the person in front of us. Imago dei. The image of God that is infused in all of us. This is what Jesus wants to restore to him. Our judgement is often not welcome, our opinion may be expressed, but our love is always cherished. There is a higher way.

It’s fuzzy only if it’s just words.

The importance of communion after a sermon like this is huge. We are a gathered community. A group of people under this love of Jesus. We take communion to remember his love for us. But we do it together because we should be reminded of our love for one another. We are responsible for one another. This means we speak in love for one another. So tonight, for communion we serve one another.