Tag: Willie James Jennings

Who do we see on our way to worship? A reflection on Acts 3:1-10

David Herbert1 Comment

This is part of a series of reflections inspired by readings from the Book of Acts. This time the focus is on a scene at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Acts 3:1-10. The text is included at the end of the reflection. You might want to read that first because, after all, this is just a reflection. This is the part of the passage where I started:

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer … And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.

And this is the question my reading left me with:

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

The beggar isn’t named but I want to find a name for him. He is sitting at the Beautiful Gate and has his eye on all those going into worship, including Peter and John. They recognise him though they might not already know him. They see him as he looks at them.

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

Willie James Jennings, in Acts, writes “At the doorway to worship are those whose very presence should discipline praise and guide hope. Before praises go up to God the poor and lame, the sick and pained must be seen.” (p41). Luke has already given his readers the story of the Good Samaritan featuring the pious hypocrites who fail to notice the needs of the wounded in the gutter.

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

There is a lot of seeing in this passage. The lame man “saw Peter and John”, Peter “looked intently at him” and said “look at us”. Those in need need to be seen. So many in need remain invisible in corridors of power – being seen by those on their way to worship is their hope.

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

The lame man, the beggar, probably didn’t know that he too was on his way to worship. Peter and John tell him to look at them. And Peter said to him: “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk”. (Acts 3:6). His feet and ankles became strong and he was able to jump up, stand and walk, entering the temple with Peter and John, “walking and leaping and praising God”. (Acts 3:8)

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

Jesus sees himself in the prisoner, the hungry, the stranger and the sick. In a parable the king curses those who gave him no food, no welcome, no clothing and no companionship. Those guilty ask the king, “When was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?” He answers them: “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-46). Do we see Jesus in and with the vulnerable or do we overlook them?

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

Perhaps we see Israel. From the beginning Israel walked with a limp. It might not be stretching imagination too far to see here those who inherited the name Israel from the patriarch Jacob who was called Israel because he wrestled with God. Israel is the Hebrew name that stands for those who wrestle with God. Israelites are bound by the injury and blessing of that wrestling and struggle. Jacob’s hip was put out of joint and he always limped after that. (Genesis 32:24-30). Is this who Peter and John saw? Perhaps significantly, we’re told that the man is more than 40 years old (Acts 4:22). 40 years is always the length of time that Israel waits. Did Peter and John see this man as Israel, limping and lame from the start, and now standing and leaping and praising God? If this is Israel, is this the Jewish people so often overlooked by Christians on their way to worship?

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

Or, is this the church (or us), lying there lame in our excuses for mission and our attempts at Jesus begging for the power of the Holy Spirit.

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

I said I wanted to find a name for the man born lame – we have a choice: he is the man born lame, he is Christ, he is Israel, he is church, he is us – all needing to be seen on the way to worship. Whatever his name, he is one who has been lame from the beginning and he is vulnerable. He begs to be seen and he begs to be seen by us, even on our way to worship. We need to make peace with him and take him with us in our hearts and imagination into our worship. If we don’t then our worship is hollow, hypocritical and unacceptable to God.

Who do we see on our way to worship? Who don’t we see?

Here’s the passage:

Acts 3:1-10
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter said, ” I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognised him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and astonishment at what had happened to him.

New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

Pentecost and the love of language

David Herbert2 Comments

This is the second of a series of reflections inspired by readings from the Book of Acts. Acts is a book of beginnings and the focus of this reflection is on what began at Pentecost through the gift of language.

This is Acts 2:1-6 (I’m using the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition):

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

In short, Luke describes a violent rush of wind that shakes up our settled ways of living and possessing. Life can never be the same again. Settled structures are blown apart and the apostles together with some women and some others (Acts 1:14) are blown to join thousands of others through the gift of language and a miracle of hearing.

Language has always been a barrier between people (from Babel) but this miracle brings people together who would have been stranger to each other. Here words are translated by love and the words are taken to heart by people from all parts of the world – “here at last, someone speaking my language”. Alongside that violent rush of wind there is this enormous sigh of people understood – the sigh of relief that here at last, someone is speaking my language.

What does it take to speak the language that makes sense to others, that makes their heart sing? To speak to people in a language they understand requires us to keep silent while we listen to them, while we learn from their words and the emotional history that lies behind them. To speak to a people in any way that makes sense requires an emotional intelligence and empathy that inspires the confidence in one anther that we have something worth saying to one another, and worth hearing from one another. Words on their own will never do because body language communicates far more in the bearing we bring to our words. For a miracle of hearing there needs to be nothing short of love.

The language of vulnerable people is often lost on people of power and many a language has been lost. The English used to forbid the use of Irish in the Irish pig markets insisting that English is the perfect language to sell pigs in. “That English is the perfect language to sell pigs in” is a line from Michael Hartnett’s poem A Farewell to English in which he announced to the world that he would no longer write in English. He did this as resistance and as a way of treasuring the Irish language.

When we think of the languages we are taught in school, they are all the languages of empire, the languages that are supposed to help us get on in life, that help us to get jobs in successful companies. Compulsory language education takes many forms. In the UK language education is benign, but Willie James Jennings writing from an Afro-American perspective, invites us to imagine something far more sinister. In his commentary on Acts he writes: “Imagine centuries of submission and internalised hatred of mother tongues and in the quiet spaces of many villages, many homes, women, men and children practising these new enlightened languages not by choice but by force.”

What of those who insist on the language of empire, who insist on the Queen’s English (should that now be King’s English)? They deprive people of language and understanding : their values, practical wisdom and subtlety are imperilled by a colonising power which conscripts the other for empire. They rob people of their past, present and future. They are responsible for the loss of language. Language makes the store and story of history and all of us want to have ourselves heard and understood. But so many have lost their language, and with it the store and story of their histories.

The book of Genesis sees languages as the curse of empire builders. The story of the Tower of Babel is a story of powerful people thinking they could build all the way to heaven. The seeds of confusion that were sown through their different languages were intended to prevent them getting above themselves.

The way of the empire is not the way of the Spirit or of Spirited people. The Spirit uses the languages long forgotten by the powers that be. In the beginning of this book of beginnings which is Acts Luke goes into detail where everyone has come from. Often readers skip over this long list. They shouldn’t because everyone of them heard the disciples speaking their language. Every one counts and not one of them should be overlooked by us readers.

Imagine this:

Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” Acts 2:7-11.

We might add other language barriers that would have been present – the young, the old, men, women, deaf, disabled – “we all hear them speaking our language”. This is a beginning for all of them. Now that they have heard God spoken to their heart they now have their own language for God-talk to take back home to their villages and communities. That was a beginning for them.

But we live in a world where divisions won’t go away, where little empires everywhere build their walled communities of exclusion. How do we make sense to one another through the thick walls of separation and in environments made increasingly hostile? What is the way of the Spirit of God? There is a promising beginning in this miracle of Pentecost. The gift of language, the gift in their tongues, is not for one way communication. It is a gift which enables the believers to join others and to enter into their language and life. It is for the act of living together, for the art of heartfelt conversation and for the creation of new relationships.

This is the way with God, embracing others with a love that is utterly understandable. Love translates, and only translates as good news.

Acts 2:1-21 is read in churches at Pentecost.