With Robert Fulgham, lots of life-rules were learned in Kindergarten or earlier. Hold hands while crossing the street, and only cross at the corner. Eat with your mouth closed. Don ‘t hit or bite. Always play nice, and tell the truth. If you can’t say nice things, don’t say anything at all. Parents, grandparents, teachers and other life-coaches repeat these cultural mores until we’re respectable children. Later, we learn rules that are more cynic: “nice guys finish last”; “finders keepers, losers weepers”; “what they don’t know won’t hurt them”. Scripture readings we’ll hear this Sunday confront us with questions of ethical integrity, amplified through the Resurrection of Jesus.
During the Season of Easter (the 50 days ’til Pentecost) Luke’s account of how believers were affected — the Acts of the Apostles — is read. This week’s lesson, Acts 5:27-32, sets the theme with Peter and other Apostles openly teaching about Jesus’ resurrection despite being officially silenced by the authorities. “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”(v.29) Their bold acts of civil disobedience go against “the Rules for Nice People” and are contrary to the accepted patterns of Good Citizenship! This conflict between civil regulations and a well-considered and documented protest has challenged the Church from rejection of military service in the Roman Legions to the selling of indulgences and other bribery in the Middle Ages, from the abolition of slavery to the ordination of women and acceptance of LGBT believers in more current times. Have the Rules changed? Or do we just understand Jesus better…?
More reactionary stuff comes in the Second Lesson, Revelation 1:4-8. Jesus here is identified as “the ruler of the kings of the earth”, and who “made us to be a kingdom”. Penned by a political exile, John’s Revelation describes a NEW heaven and a NEW earth which is beyond the terrors expected as the Old is purged! Filled with admittedly confusing imagery which seems quite foreign to our Twenty-First Century experience, the narrative becomes a dream-like wandering through the alternative universe, the one ruled and filled by the God-like, as opposed to “Babylon”, archetype of the venial and manipulative.
The Gospel is John’s remembrance of Jesus’ appearance to his pals (20:19-31). Former rules of locked doors and panic were dispelled: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.'” They were falling apart–and he offered them Peace! For some reason, Thomas wasn’t there and couldn’t accept the New Rules about Life Beyond Death: “Unless I see the mark of the nails…I will not believe.” (Don’t be so smug: Thom was speaking for ALL of us who’re trying to adjust to the New.) And the summation of the New Rules? “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
We United Methodists learned in confirmation class how to sort out the Rules, how to discern what God really wants us to be about. John Wesley offered his Quadrilateral, four tests of Holy intent: Scripture, Tradition, Experience & Reason. Is our proposed path congruent with Biblical teaching and practice? Is this path something that our spiritual ancestors have explored? Has the Holy Spirit spoken to our hearts about this matter? And does it make “sense”, as we attempt to live with integrity? Easter tells us that the Old Rules may be incomplete, and that there’s a new definition to maintain our life-bearing community.
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My thoughts on Biblical readings for the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this space on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com
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