LUTHER SEMINARY CHAPEL, 1 MAY 2003

TEXT: ACTS 3:1-19 (EASTER 3, EXTENDED TEXT)

PREACHER: FREDERICK J. GAISER

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT?

“And what is worst of all,” wrote T. S. Eliot some sixty years ago—“what is worst of all is to advocate Christianity, not because it is true, but because it might be beneficial” (T. S. Eliot, “The Idea of a Christian Society,” in Christianity and Culture [New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949] 46).

Eliot would have had a hard time today. Why else embrace anything, whether jogging or Jesus, diet or deity, medication or meditation, other than the claim that it might be good for you? What T. S. Eliot feared was the public exploitation of a cultural Christianity to promote such presumed social goods as nationalism or moralism (Welcome to your political prayer breakfast!), but now he would have to add a whole new dimension: turning to the church as a provider of the kind of private spirituality that both Harvard Medical School and Redbook magazine endorse as an avenue to fewer ills and longer life.

Eliot was right, wasn’t he, that we should come to God because of who God is rather than for what we can get out of it? Still, the purity of that distinction might be hard to maintain. What were the motives of the man in our text, lame from birth and begging at the temple gate? Was he not ready to receive gladly whatever help he could get? And what of the ten lepers approaching Jesus and seeking mercy? Or any of the countless others coming out of the villages to meet this wandering healer? Were they not seeking something beneficial?

Fact is, the African Independent Churches are in common agreement that their emphasis on healing is the main cause of the explosive growth that impresses us so much (“Manifesto of the Organization of African Instituted Churches,” in African Initiatives in Christianity, by John S. Pobee and Cabriel Ositelu II [Geneva: WCC, 1998] 71). People in need reach out for help, wherever they can get it. A biblical scholar suggested recently that the situation was similar in the early church, that “[t]he ideas of health care reflected in early Christianity constitute a system that was an important factor in attracting converts” (Hector Avalos, Health Care and the Rise of Christianity [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999] 3).

Is that a bad thing, as T. S. Eliot might seem to suggest? Well, yes and no. There is probably something different about people with nothing trying to latch onto Jesus’ garment as their last best hope to pull them out of the valley of the shadow of death than people who have access to pretty much whatever they want trying the Jesus thing as one option among many to provide meaningful leisure and greater longevity. Still, if folks from that latter group knock at the door and ask for bread—even if they think it has to be artisan and organic—will we give them a stone?

Healing: it’s what everybody wants from the church now—whether they mean by that the basic needs of survival available nowhere else, like our friends in Africa, or some vague quest for illusive wholeness and undefined spirituality by folks open to anything and committed to little, or people genuinely seeking either the possibility of miracle or merely a richer life or an alternative to an all too impersonal health care system. The goal for all is therapy. And they come knocking at our doors, from without and within. And what will we give them?

Well, what happens in our text? Our lame beggar asked, and Peter and John responded. Interestingly, they never did give him what he asked for, because they could not; but they gave what they had, which was more than enough. Is that some kind of paradigm? Perhaps.

In our story, the beggar asked only for money, certain, no doubt, that physical healing for one lame from birth was impossible. But a little money would help, to buy food, to pay for shelter, to help him get from here to tomorrow. There was no reason to ask for anything beyond that. It was impossible.

Alas, in those days, unlike now, the church, in the person of Peter and John, had no money. But it did have Jesus, the resurrected Lord, and this it gave. “Stand up and walk,” said Peter, and the man did, just as Jesus himself had impossibly risen and walked a few days before. And the crowd was amazed.

The crowd, not knowing it wanted anything much at all beyond momentary spectacle, also got something it didn’t ask for: a sermon. Gee, thanks! Worse, they got a sermon that condemned them for killing the Author of life—which, if true, pretty much marks the end of possibility thinking. But they, too, were offered the impossible: resurrection, new life, forgiveness of sins; for the grave could not hold the Author of life.

What does this mean? Do we give people what they want? Well, yes and no. In our story, neither the beggar nor the crowd got what they wanted, because they didn’t yet know how to ask. They needed to hear the Jesus story in order to know that what they thought they wanted, however important, was not enough, that in raising Jesus from the dead God had offered a vision that made their own view of their wants and needs much too small.

Give them what they want? No one, no church, ever want broke with such a program, I suppose, and we certainly respond to genuine need in whatever way we are able. But what if they want too little? What if their concern is so immediate and so intense, or so vague and so superficial, or so limited and so self-centered that they can see nothing beyond their own horizons? Like Peter, we will certainly reach out a hand, but we will also reach out a story—one of promise beyond immediate help, one that calls people to life beyond the concern for self, one that invites them to partake of cosmic transformation rather than merely personal therapy.

Can we promise physical cure to all who are ill? Not with integrity. But we can pray for it, work for it, encourage it, and, when God sees fit to bestow it, we might be as surprised as the recipients. And to all we can offer the hand, the presence, the kind of personal care that is only possible to those who see Jesus in the face of the other.

Can we offer meaning to the spiritually impoverished who want fulfilment without repentance? Not with integrity. But we can speak of Jesus and rebirth and forgiveness and transformation and vocation and the rich life of service to others, and, there too, we might be as surprised as they when God opens ears to hear.

Can we offer chicken soup for the soul to those who seek alternative therapies for genuine ills? Not with integrity—at least, not as though that were the gospel. But we can offer the rich stew of the scriptural story that satisfies the soul, involves the body, opens the world, and provides hope even when therapies fail. And, like the apostles in Acts, we, too, might be surprised at how abundantly the Spirit chooses to bless this endeavor.

Give them what they want? Not exactly. For no human need, no human vision can anticipate the wonders God has in store, the perfect health that Peter announces. The Lord is risen. And only in that light can we begin to see. AMEN