by Mark Stenberg
New Testament Reading: Acts 5: 27-32
For Sunday, April 7, 2013: Year C—Easter 2
In this week’s episode of the Revised Common Lectionary, Peter and the increasingly emboldened disciples are dragged before the Temple council and threatened with death.
Yet they get off with a flogging and a stern warning to shut the heck up about this Jesus business.
Hurts Go Good
The trained THQ eye might be drawn toward the last line of this text, in which the disciples rejoice that they are going to be flogged. Yes. That’s what it says. “They rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.”
What sort of flogging was this? If it’s the kind they show in the movies, that sounds pretty dang masochistic to me. “Dear Luke: Do you really mean to be promoting this connection between pain and penance? Does it really honor “the name” to be struck down by more violence? And what sort of historical atrocities has this CS/CM (Christian Sadism/Christian Masochism) perpetuated?”
An Unlikely Hero
And yet, there’s a lot to like about this text. Compared to what comes before and after, it is less filled with magic and more about the dramatic conflict between these Jesus followers that those who consider them complete and utter heretics who must be destroyed.
If we use our imagination a bit, we are drawn into the rhetoric and the cunning of this character, Gamaliel, who convinces the entire council to set them free.
It’s Gamaliel, Not Gargamel
The more we ponder the swift and cunning actions of Gamaliel (quick, I dare you to try NOT to think of the Smurfs’ evil foe Gargamel) the more he begins to emerge as the real hero of the story. Surrounded by a roomful of very hostile, yea ENRAGED colleagues, he puts his august name on the line for Peter and the disciples.
Gamaliel passionately urges them to set these guys free. Allow me to paraphrase his argument: “Fellow Israelites, remember when Theudas rose to power with four hundred men? He got knocked off and all his followers ran away. Likewise Judas the Galilean went viral but when he died no one cared. So let’s relax and calm down. If God is not in their plans, they will fail, but if this movement is of God, you may even be found fighting against God.”
The Hardest Question
These middle chapters of Acts portray Peter as so valiant and strong. But as a character he almost becomes too flat and predictable to relate to.
As for Gamaliel? Now here is some delicious complexity, as his certainty in opposing the Jesus movement is being eroded, and he is nudged into this stunning defense of the outlaws. Could it be that, this time, the real hero of the story is not Peter but Gamaliel?
Mark Stenberg is a trained academic theologian who got side-tracked planting churches. He started House of Mercy House of Mercy, with co-pastors Debbie Blue and Russell Rathbun in 1996 and ten years later he left that call to launch Mercy Seat Lutheran Church along with his current colleague, Kae Evensen. Mark holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University where he studied philosophy with the likes of Jürgen Habermas. He is also an adjunct professor at Luther Seminary, teaching in homiletics and in the D.Min. program. Mark lost his spouse to cancer in March of 2007 but is profoundly grateful for every moment he gets to spend with his amazing children, Angela and Mateo.
