What'll It Be: Twinkies or Carrots?

Acts 5:12-32

We live in an era when the word of God has circumnavigated the globe.

What began as a branch from the root of Jesse and was preached to the Jerusalem masses under the Portico of Solomon on the east side of the Temple, came to be spread throughout the world on the wings of European empires and American foreign mission boards. And now, now as the world grows ever smaller and ever flatter, Christianity is finding its own way back to the west.

The word of God has always been on the move.

Now it finds us here in North America in the beginning of the 21st century - even right here in our Presbyterian pews where we thought we had already heard the word of God and where we thought Jesus was already among us. Right here amid the familiar and the reliable and the comfortable.

But this returning word of God stirs us out of those comfort zones with an Asian hallelujah or hymns with Caribbean or African rhythms. This rebounding word of God makes us anxious and confused because it isn’t our European tradition. We feel like the first apostles alone in a sea of competing theologies and spiritualities.

More than anything, we feel as though we’re being left behind but we can’t quite understand why. Why?

We’re educated. We’re faithful. We’re giving and we’re loving. But the culture that embraces the multitude of spiritual voices, the culture in which our footsteps fall every single day, doesn’t care. No it doesn’t. What our culture wants is only a simplistic maxim to live by. Something easy to digest, easy to remember, not too taxing for the brain or the soul. Too often, what we offer is the full 14 volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.

So, in the face of this swirling ocean of voices we’ve found ourselves in a crisis of relevance as a people loyal to the one gospel yet surrounded by a society whose values are the reverse of gospel values.

A society which reveres competition over compassion.

A society which seeks revenge rather than justice.

A society which promotes individual empowerment over connectedness and fellowship.

A society which finds in its soul absolutely no need for forgiveness.

A society which, as the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, puts it: feels no need for “adoption into God’s initmate presence.”

The well known and admired Barbara Brown Taylor has chronicled that she entered ministry with a strong desire for in depth religious dialogue. But she notes that her first parish required more of her attention in the arena of sustaining the congregation than challenging her congregation. It had more to do with questions of functional immediacy than questions of eternal meaning.

Well, maybe that’s as it should be - to some degree. Maybe faith within the parish is all about strengthening and sustaining, nourishing and nurturing. After all, if you want to teach your congregation about the theological undergirding of belief you’ve got to do a good job of pastoral care first. You’ve got to deal with real life before you can deal with theological structure.

But as important as feeding and caring for the parish is, it’s not the totality of Christian discipleship. More than that, those basic life issues are fundamentally connected to that theological structure. If we’re not careful, the parish can become isolated and insulated. It can live for years there inside the Temple and never breathe the vibrant air of openness.

But God calls Peter and the Apostles, indeed God calls each of us in every pew, in every parish to take our faith outside the Temple and be with the crowds beneath the columns of the Portico. We ‘ve got to out into the public square.

My country cousins might have said: “You can’t stay in the kitchen. You’ve got to get out on the porch.” While I may be too much of a city slicker to make that sound authentic, the sentiment is entirely accurate.

Suffice it to say that Peter and his pals make good role models for us. They got out of the kitchen and went out on the porch and when people began to listen and believe, Peter and the others got arrested. That’s the cost of discipleship. But we’re told that the Holy Spirit was with them and they were freed from captivity and directed to go back to the public square and teach some more.

Again the Apostles were arrested and made to appear before the Sanhedrin, the council of Temple authorities, arbiters of religious custom, validators of socio-religious practice.

And the council chastised these Christ followers and said: “Look! We told you people not to teach and preach anymore to that clamoring crowd out there. You’re just stirring them up telling them all manner of things that contradict what we know is best for the Hebrew people. We make the rules here and you can’t upset the established order of our society by talking about that false prophet, that crucified phony.”

Peter could have said: “We’re sorry. Okay, you’re right. From now on we’ll just teach about the prophets of old. We’ll talk about the glory days of David and the importance of adhering to the accepted laws of religious authority. Oh yes, and we’ll give the people some simplistic maxims that are easy to follow.”

But Peter did not say that. He didn’t say that at all. The Holy Spirit had commanded the Apostles to teach something far more meaningful than conventional ritual that would appear holy but would in truth offer no real sustenance to humanity nor honor to God.

Peter wasn’t willing to go along with the pronouncements of these human authorities when the Creator wanted so much more for the world.

Peter understood that societies built on the policies of human authority always fall short of the Kingdom of God.

A report just this spring connected obesity among the poor to that disfunctional bastion of American policy- the Farm Bill. In its contemporary form this familiar lesigslation supports farmers by subsidizing certain cash crops. Some $25 billion worth of subsidy goes to three products: corn, soybeans, and wheat – the very commodities that yield the fats and carbohydrates essential to the commercial manufacture of processed foods like, well like Twinkies.

By contrast, the Farm Bill does extremely little to encourage the production of healthy, fresh produce such as carrots. Every processed food, every sports drink, every quick snack, every corn-syrup enriched food product on your grocer’s shelf is Federally subsidized so that the most filling yet fattening and artery choking foods bear an artificially low price while unsubsidized, healthy, fresh foods don’t.

If you want to get the most for your food dollar buy those Twinkies. They’ll fill you up and you’ll feel that pleasing rush of corn derived sugars and soy derived fats. If you want something life sustaining, well then, you’ve got to pay full price for the carrots.

Societies built on the policies of human authority always fall short of the Kingdom of God.

But we’ve got to remember that the word of God is always on the move. And we've got to get going or else get left behind. We’ve got to get ourselves out on the porch.

You see, we can’t retreat inside the insular sanctuary of the parish because the Holy Spirit commands us to live our faith among the crowd of the Portico in that a mixed up world where the economic values of agricultural subsidy dominate the moral values of public health.

We’ve got to get out on the porch and talk about it.

But then when we get out there, out in that broken and fearful world, what will we say? Whose voice will we use? Which set of values will we say is truth? What will you and I say to the world?

Will we subsidize processed truth rich in social carbohydrates and cultural sugars so that we won’t get chastised? Will we say that mercy is an un-necessary social ingredient in civilization as long as our group can be powerful? Will we say that God just wants us to fulfill our independent, individualistic, personal goals and ignore others living obese lives on a thin economic margin?

Or will we witness some truth that supercedes sanctified cultural folklore and the disfunctional accumulation of social norms? Let us be witnesses to Christological values and divine truth.

let us witness that the last shall be first.

Let us witness that the meek shall inherit the earth.

Let us witness that the peacemakers, yes the peacemakers, are the children of God.

Let us boldly claim that adoption into the intimate presence of God, the need for self-awareness and forgiveness of sin are critical ingredients for healthy human life and spiritual well being.

I’m asking you these things today just as I’m asking myself. I’m asking us both to make a choice that will define our relationship with the world, a choice that will define our relationship with creation itself.

Will we give the crowd some cheap liturgy of popular cultural values?

Or will we live costly yet truthful discipleship to the God of our ancestors. The one true God, who on an Easter morning long ago raised up Christ Jesus, the one true hope for all people?

Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.