[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the collective table where we celebrate the intersections of Jesus, justice and joy.
This podcast is brought to you by Oceanside Sanctuary Church. Each week we bring our listeners a recording of our weekly Sunday teaching at Oceanside Sanctuary, which ties scripture into the larger conversations happening in our community, congregation and even the podcast. So we're glad your here and thanks for listening.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Hey, good morning everybody.
For those of you might not know, my name is Jason. I'm one of the co lead pastors here and this is when we do a bit of adult teaching time. So that's my job today. One of the things that you might have noticed in not only the Juneteenth special spotlight that we just did thanks to Tara and the anti racism team, but much of that video is that our church here, if you didn't know what you were getting into, if this is your first Sunday, congratulations or condolences, whichever applies.
We're one of those churches that tends to be very actively involved in raising our voices and resisting whatever we might perceive to be expressions of oppression in our community.
And so we think it's important to acknowledge the Juneteenth holiday because we believe that, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion is maybe actually a good expression of the gospel. And I realize that's fairly controversial right now because there are people who might say that diversity, equity and inclusion policies are actually oppressive to, you know, I don't, I don't know white people like me. So that is not without its pitfalls. Right. It's sort of difficulties. It tends to create some tension, especially in folks who struggle with the conflict around these kinds of issues. And so June's just one of our favorite months. Sometimes I tell people that Pride Sunday is like, you know, our second Easter here at the Oceanside Sanctuary. But for a lot of other people, that's really tension or anxiety inducing as well. And so today I want to talk a little bit about that. We're in the midst of a series called called the Spirit of Action, because we're following what the Spirit of God is depicted as doing, especially in the Book of Acts. And I'm suggesting to us as a congregation what the Spirit is doing is very action oriented.
That the Spirit of God, or what we tend to call the Holy Spirit, is involved in taking very specific, concrete actions in the world through us and leading us to be engaged in exactly these kinds of things. And so we've been visiting different ways that the Spirit does that sort of thing in the Book of Acts. And today my title is the Spirit Resists. Because I think One of the things we see in the Book of Acts is that the Spirit is actively leading us into expressions of resistance. I want to start by reading our text today. It's Acts, chapter 4, verses 23 through 31. If you have a Bible, you are always, of course, welcome to turn there, or you can read the text with me up on the screen. Here's what it says.
Acts, chapter 4, verses 23. After they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. Now, quick pause. This is Peter and John, who were released from essentially jail. They'd been arrested by the chief priests and the ruling council in Jerusalem. We'll get into that a little bit more in a moment, but I just wanted to situate who the they were in this passage. So after Peter and John were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
And when they heard it, they being the rest of the church at that time, when they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and everything in them. It is you who said, by the Holy Spirit, through our ancestor David, your servant.
Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah.
For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
And now, Lord, look at their threats and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hands to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.
There's a lot going on in this short passage, and so I want to get into that in just a moment so that we can maybe better understand how this might be related to what we're talking about today and relevant to us. But first, that's a big task. So would you pray with me? God, we thank you for today, for this time and this space, for the gift of this congregation and community, for the gift of the prayers that we say together, for the songs that we sing and how these expressions remind us of what your Power, your goodness, your gospel looks like not only in our hearts, but in the world.
We ask God today that your spirit would come to us like it did in acts, that we'd be filled with boldness, that this place and the surrounding neighborhood and community would be shaken by your good purposes.
We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.
Okay, so some of you may or may not know this, but we have, you know, some extra spaces here in the church and we rent some of those spaces out. We have like a co working space, you know, in the middle of the week. We like the idea that the place gets used and we rent those co working spaces out usually to people in the community who, you know, whose work we believe in. So oftentimes nonprofits or women owned businesses, entrepreneurs sort of thing. And so we've got during the week any number of like co workers working here in the building. And we started this little endeavor right before a global pandemic hit. Terrible timing, right? Because everybody was like afraid to like, rub shoulders with other people.
But there was one person who really needed a place to rent during the pandemic, and that was a good friend of ours who is a salesperson for, you know, global software company. And. And he lost, you know, the ability to go to his office in Solana Beach. And so he tried working from home at the beginning of the pandemic. And then his wife and kids were like, you're too loud. Oh my God. And kicked him out of the house. And he was like, I need a place to work during the week, so I don't, you know, interrupt my family, my poor family. And so we rented a little office. And so for, I don't know, a year and a half or so, we worked, you know, shoulder to shoulder with one of our good friends who is not religious, is in the slightest. He's an avowed atheist. He loves having conversations with us about God and religion and what we do. And he's got a great, you know, sort of sense of curiosity about him. He's sharp as a whip. So it's lots of fun having these conversations. And, you know, he likes to tease us a little bit for, you know, being religious folks. And every day he would go out and, you know, have his lunch downtown Oceanside. One day he came back and he said, hey, Jason, I was walking on my way to lunch today, and I know I passed another church, it's about a block down the road.
And he said, on the sign outside the church, it says real God.
He said, if they've got the real God down the street.
What kind of cheap knockoff are you pedaling here?
What I love about that little joke is that that church, some of you may have seen it, is a great little church. It represents the denomination that Janelle and I came from.
It's where I got my first ordination back In, I don't know, 2002, 2003, something like that. And they're great folks at that church. I know the pastor. In fact, Janelle and I have known the pastor and his wife at that church for longer than we've been in this church, which has been about 10 and a half years now. So we know that church very well, have been there on a Sunday morning. And they're reh. Really great, lovely, amazing people. And yes, their sign says that they've got the real God.
And I get it. You know, it's like churches market themselves.
But it also highlights a very real tension that exists, because the truth is, is that Janelle and I, and some of you know this story, have pretty significantly changed our beliefs in our lives and no longer are comfortable worshiping in spaces like that because we just don't feel like we fit there anymore. And on any given, oh, I don't know, you know, school board meeting, we might show up to defend the use of DEI policies at the local school board. And members of that church and churches like it might be there arguing against them.
People that we know and people that we like, people that we care about.
These might be the very same people who will show up at the Pride by the beach event with protest signs while our church has a booth at Pride by the beach, and we are telling people, if you are gay or lesbian or bisexual or asexual or genderqueer, it doesn't matter. God loves you just the way you are. Those are not sinful conditions. I love the story that Jasper told last week. Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. If you weren't here, Jasper, one of our worship leaders, who is a member of the queer community, was at Pride by the beach, where his band, Strawberry Cassette, you should look it up on Instagram, because they're awesome. They were playing at Pride by the beach, and then he wandered a little outside the bounds of Pride by the beach and encountered some Christians who were protesting the event.
And when they found out that he's a worship leader in a local church, their minds were blown.
I love that so much, But I have friends and family who are deeply opposed.
So the way that I am a Christian, the way that Janelle is a Christian, the way that many of us here are Christian.
And so that resistance goes both ways.
And I think that's hard. And I think a bit of that is happening in this passage. And I want to share with you where I see that and how I think that could be helpful to us in this bit of a dilemma. So, first of all, what in the world is going on here in Acts chapter four? If you go back to Acts chapter three, there's a much bigger story story going on here. If you have a Bible. If you go back to Acts chapter three, there's probably a big subheading in your Bible like mine that says, peter heals a crippled beggar. All of this is happening, by the way, in Jerusalem. The Christians immediately, the followers of Jesus, immediately after Jesus is crucified and resurrected, they are in Jerusalem. They are worshiping in the temple every day as good Jews would.
They are engaged with their community, just like before. They just happen to be Jewish followers of Jesus. And so part of what they do is visit the temple every day. And one day, Peter shows up with John at the temple, and they find a beggar at the gate who's placed there every day by people who care about them in the hopes that the people going into the temple will worship, will have pity on him and give him money. Peter and John, they see the beggar. The beggar says, will you give me some money? Peter says, silver and gold have. But what I do have, I'll give to you. Get up and walk in the name of Jesus. He does. He gets up, he's healed. He's freaking out, losing his mind. He can finally walk. And this causes, as you can imagine, a great stir.
All the people who are there to engage in their regular worship in and outside the temple are amazed at what has happened. Peter says, you guys shouldn't be amazed at all. This is what God is all about. God is all about bringing healing to people who need healing. In fact, this is what Jesus talked about all the time. Jesus wants to see people healed.
This doesn't go over so well with the chief priests and the Sadducees, the ruling elite in Judaism at that time.
And so they haul Peter and John into it. Says they arrest him, haul him into, you know, like, whatever jail looked like there. And then they drag him before the ruling council, and they reprimand Peter and John and they say, you got to stop talking about this Jesus guy. Enough of that.
Go away. And if you keep doing it, you're going to be in trouble. Okay, so that's the backstory that's what happened. So when it says in verse 23, after they were released, it means after the council released them, after they were reprimanded, after they were told to stop doing it or they would be sorry, they go back to their fellow disciples, their fellow followers of Jesus, and they say, hey, guess what just happened?
It's not so good.
We got called into the principal's office.
We're in trouble.
And their response to this is really interesting.
It says that when they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in it. It is you who said, by the Holy Spirit, through our ancestor David, this. And that is where they quote Psalm Chapter two. And that can be, I think, a bit confusing because when we read this in Acts Chapter four, it doesn't seem to follow. It doesn't seem to make logical sense. They get in trouble, they raise their voices in prayer, and then they quote this psalm that says, why did the Gentiles rage and the people imagine vain things? They're dropping into the middle of Psalm chapter 2.
So it might be helpful to know what Psalm Chapter two is, what it's about.
If you were to turn to Psalm Chapter two, what you would discover is that it is a psalm traditionally ascribed to David. It is all about God's anointed one being placed on the throne, being placed in power, becoming the ruler in Jerusalem.
And Psalm 2 is a poem or a song or an expression of how the surrounding nations are responding to. To God's ruler being put in charge.
And so it says, the nations rage. The rulers lament that God's good ruler has been placed in charge. But David says they rage in vain. It doesn't matter that they're angry that God's good ruler has put in charge, because God will have God's own way in the end.
So the nations are angry about this.
But David says God's good purposes cannot be obstructed. They cannot be denied. No matter how much they resist God's good ruler, God will ultimately have God's own way.
Here in this passage, what we have happening is that the disciples in the upper room, the followers of Jesus, who have just been released from, like, rabbinical jail, the disciples realize suddenly this thing that's happening to us has happened before.
This is a reoccurring pattern that we see in Scripture. In fact, here it is in Psalm 2.
God's ruler is placed in power so that God will get God's own way in the world. And who are against God are angry about it.
The brilliant, innovative, even controversial thing that the disciples do is they realize that this pattern, the pattern of God getting God's way and people being upset about it outside of Israel, now applies to Israel herself.
The pattern has been reversed.
They realize that God's power has come in Christ. Luke, the author of acts, reinterprets Psalm 2 through a Christological lens.
He realizes that God's good ruler, God's anointed one. God's power has now been placed in Christ.
And that Christ represents the ruler who will ensure that God's rule. God's power, God's good purposes are achieved in the world. And the people who are angry about it are not the surrounding nations. They're not the Gentiles. The people who are angry about it are God's own people, the people who claim his name.
They failed to recognize that Christ was like David, the ruler who possessed the power that God desired.
But what are God's purposes?
How do we know that if somebody is in power, that if somebody is a ruler, that if somebody is in charge, that they represent God's own desires? Well, for that, we very simply go back to Jesus own gospel. In Luke, chapter four, when he stood up in the synagogue and he unfurled the scroll and he said, this text has been fulfilled in your hearing today. And what was that text? It was, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring relief to the poor, liberation for the oppressed and healing for the sick. This is God's gospel.
We know that whenever relief is brought to the poor, that whenever those who are being oppressed or enslaved are liberated, that whenever healing comes to those people who are sick, that it is only by the Spirit of God that those things happen.
That's how we know that the Spirit is holy.
Because if you or me or we or any power, governmental or corporate or nonprofit, any, any organization, any group of people have determined that they will make sure that hungry people are fed, you can bet that that spirit is holy.
That if people decide by their collective effort, by their will, by the animating spirit that has driven them, that they will proclaim liberation for the oppressed. That spirit that animates them is holy.
That anybody who sets themselves to ensuring that sick people get the care that they need, That they're provided with the medical necessities that will relieve them of their suffering and their illness and their disease, that the Spirit that animates them is holy.
And anything that resists that is animated by an unholy spirit.
It does not matter what religion you claim, what political party you align yourself with, or what theistic or atheistic belief you embrace, if you are working for God's good purposes, that is only by the Holy Spirit.
And what's hard about this is you cannot guarantee that simply by aligning yourself with a particular religion or a particular denomination or a particular political party that everything that they ask you to do is holy.
Tina sensed that it was time for a joke.
That spirit, too, is holy.
I'd like you to consider the possibility just for a moment.
Because when we read passages like this, if you come from a background like I do, then you might read this passage and think you know what this means. This means that if the Holy Spirit is with me, that if I'm with God, if I'm really a part of God's kingdom and God's power, then I'm going to be able to, like, put my hands on somebody and heal their illness, because that's the only legitimate expression of God's power.
Listen, if you guys want to try that, God bless you.
It works for some people. It does. All you gotta have is 13 years of education.
One of the things I love about this church, by the way, is not that we have hecklers. That's cool, too.
One of the things I love about this church is that you can't swing a dead cat in this congregation without hitting a doctor or a nurse practitioner or a therapist or a nurse.
I know that this is a congregation that is full of the spirit that is holy because of the work that so many of you do every day.
What I want you to consider is the possibility that when we read these passages of scripture, they're full of these fantastic signs. These signs and wonders. Is the phrase that's used in this passage. That it does not mean that the only way for you to express the power of God, the spirit of God, is if you are able to perform miracles. I want you to consider the possibility that those miracles, like any other expression, ancient expression of mythology, is symbolic of a bigger truth, a bigger reality.
And so every time you see healing happen in scripture, it is shorthand for the spirit of God making sure that people everywhere get the goods and the rights and the services that they need to live and thrive this world.
So when we talk about healing, we're not just talking about miraculous things.
And I believe miraculous things can happen. By the way, I could tell you stories about miraculous things, but the miraculous is not available to you at a moment's notice, anytime you want. Otherwise, we would all be spending Our time at the hospital, praying for people and healing them, and even the traditions that claim to be able to do that don't do it.
And the reason is they can't control it any more than you or I can.
But what we can do every day is make sure the hungry people are filled.
That we are resisting powers around us that say that we should be cutting food stamps, that we can advocate for policies that ensure that families in this community that have been living in this country for decades have built thriving communities of belonging are not torn apart by policies that have called them aliens and justified the tearing apart of our city, our families, and our communities in the name of Jesus. It doesn't matter what name you use. If you are at cross purposes with God's good purposes, that spirit is unholy, holy.
You guys must be ready for me to be done if you're clapping.
This is how we know. By the way, when I show up at a school board meeting and I speak on behalf of pride or DEI policies at a school board meeting, I believe I am convinced that I am able to do that by the spirit of God, because I'm advocating for policies that ensure that people's lives are good, that they get what they need, the liberty and the goods and the services that they need in order to thrive and survive. But the truth is, the uncomfortable truth is that my friends on the other side of the aisle, they believe it, too.
They believe that they are resisting by the spirit of God.
And it's too easy for me just to dismiss them.
I think some of that same tension, that same anxiety is happening in this passage.
I think when Peter and Paul are released from their captivity, when they show back up to the upper room with their followers or fellow followers of Jesus, I think that they're experiencing a bit of anxiety when they say to their friends, we were just released, and this is what we were told. We were threatened. We were told to stop.
And the reason I know they're experiencing some anxiety, the reason I know they're experiencing some confusion and some fear, is because they prayed.
So the other thing I want to suggest to you today is that there is a way for you to connect with this Holy Spirit that animates your resistance to oppressive power.
And the way we do that is to follow their example.
And the first thing that we do is we pray.
We don't pray like we pray to the God who's the great vending machine in the sky to ensure that we get the things that we want that will make us feel better. We Pray because we're confused and frightened and frustrated and disturbed and not sure what to do with the fact that our friends and family members on the other side of issues that we really care about. But for that reason, we pray.
We need, I think, especially in churches like this, a whole new imagination for what prayer is and what prayer could be to connect us to a sense of the Spirit, of God for his good purposes, for her good purposes, for our good purposes. I think we need a new imagination for how to pray.
I don't always know how to do that.
Half the time, what I'm doing up here is praying in front of you, like, trying to work it out.
But they prayed, and then they did something else that I think is super helpful.
They remembered.
They remembered Psalm 2 in the midst of their prayer. That prayer evoked something else holy in them, and that was the remembrance of those in the past who came before, who also resisted.
They were inspired, and a truth was revealed to them through that text.
And because of that, because they prayed and because they remembered, the text says that the building shook and they were filled by the Spirit that was holy.
And because of that filling, because they had a spirit that empowered them to resist, they were able to get up and go and speak with boldness about God's good purposes.
And I think we need that.
I think we have that.
Don't get me wrong.
I think we have that when we gather here every Sunday and we proclaim that no matter what, we will stand against the powers that want to keep bellies hungry and people of color oppressed and queer people crushed under the weight of homophobia and heteronormativity. I think every time we do this, we are tapping into a bit of that sense of that spirit that is holy. But we need it when we leave here, too.
We need it at work. We need it at home. Good Lord, we need it at Thanksgiving.
We need it in our Instagram feeds. We need it in our neighborhood meetups.
And I think one way that we get it is to pray and to remember so that we can resist.
Amen.
Would you pray with me again? God, we thank you again for today.
We thank you for this text and for these words. We thank you that these ancient letters, these ancient stories, somehow have the power to fill us with a new spirit, a new willingness to do what is good and right and true in the world around us, even though we are often frightened and frustrated, even though it often seems anything but simple.
And so it's our prayer here today as we sing one more time together, that you would shake this building that we would would be filled with your spirit that is holy so that we can go forth from here with boldness and proclaim, whatever your faith, whatever your religion, whatever your ethnicity, your sexuality, your gender, your nationality, your citizenship status, that the spirit of God is always with those who serve the poor, who liberate the oppressed, bring healing to the sick.
Give us the strength to do that. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us for this Sunday teaching, no matter when or where you're tuning in.
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