Matthew 28:1-8 (9-20) Easter Day, March 23, 2008
It's what makes teaching preaching worthwhile. The quietest student in class gets up to preach. Grips the pulpit for dear life. Knees shake. Voice breaks. Then we're blessed by a true gospel sermon filled with authentic testimony.
s Luke tells it, Peter turns out to be everything his teacher hoped he would be. But Jesus isn't there to hear and evaluate Peter's debut sermon. Neither is Luke. In his day, speeches aren't recorded verbatim. They live on in the memories of those who hear them. Luke relies on such memories. Luke tells the story of the church's beginnings. Peter is the hero of at least the first episodes. When he stands up to speak, his message represents the church's testimony.
Anna Carter Florence, a professor of preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, Georgia, defines testimony as telling what you've seen and saying what you believe about it. Peter and his friends have seen and heard Jesus close up. Others around them may not have seen Jesus in person, but they see him in people like Peter. By the time Luke writes, another generation has received the first testimony and shaped it into their own.
Luke's account of Peter's testimony on Pentecost day presents a Jewish witness, testifying to Jews. The first testimony to Jesus has to be grounded in Hebrew Scripture. Peter's sermon may look to us like bad exegesis. In his day, biblical interpretation is a much more creative process.
The reading for today includes troubling words: “… this Jesus, whom you crucified.” These words of Christian Scripture and others (v. 23 for example) have been used to justify anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism for centuries. But the apostles don't begin by blaming all their fellow Jews and their descendants for Jesus' death. They see in Jesus a fresh understanding of covenant, extended to embrace more people than they have ever dared imagine. Verse 39 is their invitation to take hold of an old promise for a new age.
The Lectionary offers the first words of verse 14. Read the whole verse. Peter calls on “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem.” Peter speaks to those who should know what the unholy Romans did to Jesus in the Holy City. Peter indicts the city that should have welcomed Jesus with open gates. Not every Jew. Not every Judean. But people who could, by a slight stretch of imagination, be called complicit in something much bigger than themselves.
This is more than a westerner blaming Ottawa for everything and the weather. Or an easterner calling Toronto “sin city.” But remember how many of Jesus' first followers are Galilean. How many are poor. Judea isn't their home. Prosperous, powerful Jerusalem is more symbol than location. Jesus raged at the corruption of Jerusalem and wept over its spiritual poverty. Jesus, says Luke, had to go to the city (Luke 9:51). It was his hope and destiny. Only there could the event that would usher in the Kingdom take place. The Jerusalem of the Gospels and Acts is more symbol than location.
You of this corrupt generation, says Peter, wouldn't, couldn't see God at work in your midst. Fear not. “For the promise is for you, your children, and all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.” (v.39) About 3,000 people re-claim the promise that day, says Luke. What can top that? Wait for next week's reading!
This week let's hold Luke's portrait of Peter, empowered by the Spirit. Made bold by his testimony on behalf of the church. Peter doesn't stand alone. The words aren't his own. He says what he and his friends have seen of God at work in the world through Jesus. And what they're beginning to understand about it. Peter's testimony doesn't answer every question, solve every problem the gospel causes, or settle the relationship between Jews and Christians. It's but a beginning. Isn't every sermon just a beginning? Every testimony just an invitation to something greater than the witness could ever imagine? Our knees shake. Our voices break. But if we don't let that stop us, authentic testimony will follow.
