Good morning, Friends! Thank you all for coming here today.
I told you a couple of weeks ago that we’re going to spend some time together in the book of Acts.
Jesus himself was gone, but Jesus didn’t leave us alone. As we read a couple of weeks ago, God sent the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, the Teacher, the Encourager, to be with them.
The Holy Spirit filled their hearts and minds with fire. They were never going to be cold again. They were going to be people who stepped out in faith, every day.
They didn’t know everything. They were going to be learning new things, all the time. Each day was a new adventure, and they didn’t know at the beginning of the day what that day’s adventure was going to be. They sat down at supper every night, and they said, “Wow! Wasn’t today incredible! Praise God! I never knew something that amazing could even happen!”
They didn’t have a plan. Every day they were surprised by God, surprised by the Spirit, surprised by joy. They were growing faster than they could had imagined. When Jesus left, there was the core group, the apostles. There were about 120 people, who were the entire church.
One of the first things they did, was they needed to replace Judas, the person in the core group who had betrayed Jesus. What Judas did really shook them!
There’s different accounts of what happened to Judas. In one version, Judas tried to return the money the religious leaders gave him, and they turned him down. Judas felt so guilty and so depressed that he went out and hanged himself, even before Jesus was crucified.
In another version, Judas decided he was going to be a rich person now. So he took the money they gave him for betraying Jesus, and he bought some real estate. He went out to look at his new property, and he tripped and fell down, had a horrible injury and died there. Nobody wanted to live in a place like that. It was cursed, so they took Judas’ property and turned it into a cemetery for people who weren’t Jewish, because foreigners were considered to be unclean.
Anyway, there had always been twelve disciples in the inner circle – kind of like the twelve tribes of Israel. So they felt there had to be a replacement, to fill up the number of spots.
Jesus had personally chosen the original Twelve, so they didn’t feel they could just pick somebody themselves. So they talked it over, picked two candidates, and then let the Holy Spirit decide. They drew straws, and a guy named Matthias got the short straw.
Meanwhile, Peter and the others were in the Temple, every day, praying publicly and teaching that Jesus was alive. Big crowds came to listen to them, and before they knew it, the group of 120 had become three thousand.
That’s where today’s story begins.
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon.
Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.
When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.
When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
Acts 3:1-10
This is a pretty simple story. It doesn’t come with a long, fancy build up.
Peter and John, two of the main leaders among the disciples, were on their way to Temple to the afternoon prayers.
At the gate of the Temple, there were always a bunch of beggars and panhandlers, because it was a busy place and also because giving to the poor was considered a religious duty. It was pretty hard to dodge all the beggars when you were going into the Temple.
One guy in particular was a regular there. He was over 40 years old, and he’d been crippled since he was born. He couldn’t walk, couldn’t even move by himself.
So his family, or his friends, used to carry him, and park him there for the day. He was a fixture, part of the landscape. Everybody saw him there, all the time.
He was like one of those people you see on the street corners. He’d be saying, “Can you spare some change? Can you help me out? Do you got a dollar you could spare?” That was his whole day. He’d done it since he was a boy, and he expected to do it for the rest of his life.
Most of us, in that situation, would push on past him, or maybe drop a couple of coins in his hat and feel vaguely irritated for being taken once again. But – as you know, that’s not how this story ends.
Peter and John looked at him, which is the first thing that’s different. Most of the time we don’t even look at people like this. We look away from them. We avoid making eye contact. But Peter and John stopped, and looked at him. And the beggar looked back, which is also out of the ordinary.
Most of the time, these people don’t look straight at you. They usually focus somewhere beyond you, looking for the next person passing by.
I’m not sure what was exchanged in that look, but that’s where the pattern was broken. When people look at each other, really look, it’s hard to turn away or give a superficial response.
It’s that same look that Jesus used to give people. Time after time in the gospels, it says that “so-and-so asked a favor, and Jesus looked at him intently.”
There’s something special in that look, when we see people as individuals, and not just as cases or faces. Jesus did it all the time, and now Peter and John were following Jesus’ example. They stopped and looked.
Now, the beggar probably still figured he was going to get a handout. Maybe a big one. But that wasn’t what happened, either.
Peter said, “I don’t have any money to give you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and WALK!”
And then Peter reached down and took him by the hand and pulled him up. And as he did so, the man’s feet and ankles got strong, for the first time in his life. And then, the man went into the Temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God.
That is a pretty big story to swallow. I don’t think most of us know how to handle it. We just mark it “holy” and close our Bible, and say it’s got nothing to do with us.
Stories like this are kind of scary. They make us look at our assumptions about the world. Think like this don’t happen any more, do they? Really? Well, maybe they do, and maybe they don’t. But before we close the book, let’s see if there’s anything more we can squeeze out of the story.
It’s pretty safe to say that this healing was done out of compassion. Peter and John were deeply moved that this man, a child of God who was just like them, was crippled and not all he could be. They cared, and they acted. Or, if you want to be a little more accurate, they were open to the power of God to act through them.
But there’s something else going on, too. They did it as a sign, as an act which pointed to God. It’s a lot like the story where a paralyzed man was brought to Jesus. Jesus said to all the people who were standing around, “You tell me – which is easier? To say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mattress and walk home’?”
“Which is easier to say?” Jesus asked. “You figure it out! But as a sign, so that you all believe,” Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Get up. Pick up your mattress, and walk on home. . .”
That story is a lot like the one we read today. Which would be the more powerful sign – to give the beggar some spare change, or to look at him squarely and give God the chance to heal him?
Which would be easier – to give him a quick blessing, or to stop, and be a channel for God to work through?
That’s part of what’s going on in this story. It’s a sign, pointing to God. When people stop, and take time, and look, the Holy Spirit is starting to work. When healing takes place, when we take each other by the hand and pull each other up and walk in to worship together, then God is at work for certain.
Not too surprisingly, everybody who was there came to the same conclusion. God was there at work, and it was wonderful!
Also not too surprisingly, everybody listened to what Peter and John said when they stood up and started to preach. It’s kind of hard to argue with people who do signs like that. You can argue with ideas, but it’s a lot harder to argue when somebody who couldn’t even move, is walking and jumping and shooting hoops and hollering about how great God is.
I also want you all to notice that Peter and John didn’t have any kind of special preparation for all this. They’d never done this before. But they came, they stopped, they looked, and they dared to share what they could.
The whole story almost seems ordinary, as if this was just something that naturally flowed out of their lives now. This wasn’t a unique thing for them. This was part of their new way of life now.
There’s one other line in this story that I want you to focus on for a minute. It’s right at the heart of the story. Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have. . .”
How does that apply to us? We may not carry a lot of silver and gold around – at least I don’t! But we’re richer than most of the rest of the world. We do have a lot to give, and we can all share more freely than we do of our income and our possessions. But even if we pooled all our resources, there would still be plenty of poor people in the world.
We can all do a better job of sharing, but even our utmost will never be enough.
“I have no silver or gold, but I give what I have. . .”
That is the heart of the story this morning. To give what we have. What Peter and John had to offer, was being open to the Holy Spirit in that moment. And the Holy Spirit did the rest.
In another situation, silver or gold might have been more appropriate. Or some food might have been what was needed, or friendship, or listening, or teaching, or whatever. Sometimes sharing money may be the best thing. But sometimes we need to offer our time, to stop and look and listen. Sometimes we can offer a word from God.
Part of being a Christian is being open and creative. What can we give here? What do we have, what can we share? That’s the lesson to take home with us.
The Quaker John Woolman, who lived in the 1700’s and who was a cousin of our own Nathan Hunt, once wrote, “. . .to turn all that we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives. . .”
What do we have? What can we share? Experience? Grace? Time? Energy? Friendship? Money? Skills? Careers?
We are called to turn all of these into, as John Woolman calls it, “the channel of universal love”. Or as today’s story puts it, “I give you what I have. . .”
It’s not even that we have so much – though we always have more than we think we do. What matters is that God has everything we need.
There’s a hymn that we don’t have in our new song book. I’m sorry that it’s not there. It was in our old song book, and it says something important. The chorus of the hymn says, “Channels only, blessed Master, but with all your wondrous power, flowing through us, you can use us, every day and every hour. . .”
That’s what it’s all about. Not what we have, but what God makes available. Can we be channels of love, channels of grace? Not just who we are, but who God is, and sharing that, wherever we can.