Don't Get on the Wrong Side With the Right Cause
"Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone!
Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it
will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these
men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” Acts
5:38-39
When I worked downtown, I used to get my hair cut by a Greek Barber
named Gus. Some of you may know him.
He was an intellectual and something of a philosopher. He had read all
the Greek philosophers and could quote from Socrates or Plato. I liked
Gus. One day as he was cutting my hair and giving me his version of
wisdom for the day he spoke about the differences in generations. He
said when you are in your twenties you should be full of passion and
ready to take up unpopular causes or you have no heart. He also said
that by the time you are forty or fifty, you should be leaning to be a
bit more conservative and appreciate the values you inherit, or you may
have no brain.
It is an interesting contrast: passion and restraint. Gus thought it
had a lot to do with having both heart and mind and being appropriate
to the stage of life you are in..
He may be right.
Here in the Book of Acts, chapter five, we see both passion and
restraint.
We see two groups pitted against each other, both believing they are on
the right side of the issue.
One group willing to commit violence in the name of their cause. The
other group willing to submit to violence in the name of their cause.
And there is one man whose wisdom bridges the gap between the two. And
I will leave it to you to decide whether he is on the right side
of the issue or not.
Here is the situation.
Peter and some of the other apostles have been arrested by the Chief
Priest's guard and locked up for preaching about Jesus. An angel has
set them free in the night and they are back at the temple telling the
same story of Jesus' death and resurrection, and accomplishing miracles
of healing to all who came.
Once again they are arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin council.
The Sanhedrin was the council of ruling elders composed of the party of
the Saducees, and the Pharisees, and has some level of authority in the
community. The Romans allowed local districts to govern themselves in
issues that were not a matter of concern to Rome.
The chief priest, Caiaphas presumably, accuses Peter and the rest of
disregarding their explicit instructions to stop talking about Jesus,
and particularly to stop blaming them for his death.
Have the courage of your convictions
What Peter says is really tempting to make the main topic of my
sermon today, but as impressive as it is, I have chosen something
different.
Peter says to the council, "we must obey God rather than man."
He tells the story again of Jesus, his death and resurrection and their
part in it. He tells them that God has taken what they have done and
used it to make Jesus the Savior and Prince.
Peter and the apostles are clearly on the right side of the issue and
they know it.
Furthermore they are not afraid to say so. "We must obey God rather
than man."
There are times in our lives when we have to take similar stands. There
are times when something is clearly right and we know beyond a shadow
of a doubt what God expects of us.
Let us pray for the same courage of our convictions.
There are occasions when we see injustice and know we must act.
Oh to have the heart of the young as Gus my barber would put it. If you
are not prepared to take unpopular stands when you are young, then
maybe you have no heart.
Peter had heart.
And he knew what was right and was not afraid to say so.
Furthermore, he and the others with him were prepared to take whatever
might come as a result of saying so.
Eventually they would.
One of the subordinate standards of the Presbyterian Church in Canada
is called "Declaration of Faith Concerning Church and Nation." In it we
read under the heading The Church
and Tyranny, "It is the church's duty to denounce and resist
every form of tyranny, political, economic or ecclesiastical,
especially when it becomes totalitarian." 1.
In other words there are times when we too must obey God rather than
man.
We are called to follow in the footsteps of people like Wilberforce,
John Howard, Elizabeth Frey, and more local reformers like the women
who demonstrated for universal suffrage.
The only difficulty is that those great causes are clear as crystal in
history.
At the time, there we no doubt many well intentioned and honorable
people who opposed their efforts.
But we say, they were clearly on the wrong side of the right cause.
Yes they were, from our vantage point.
The difficulty I have is that it is very easy for me to convince myself
that everything I support is the right cause; and of course, I am on
the right side of it.
At its worst, the phrase, "we must obey God rather than man", has been
used by many a person who simply cannot get along with other people to
excuse their bad behavior.
You can get on the wrong side with a right cause.
And its easy to justify our actions as being the will of God.
A mother named Esther Schmidt tells this story of
dinner time:
When my daughter-in-law noticed that
her two-year-old daughter
was ignoring her food, she said, "Keri, why aren't you eating?" Keri
replied, "I can't eat; God told me not to." Her mother chided:
"God wouldn't tell you not to eat your supper." Keri looked up at the
ceiling, then conceded, "Well, maybe it was Moses."2
When I was much younger and a pastor in my first congregation I was, in
many ways, quite arrogant and at times insufferable.
I loved to position myself on the right side of the right issue and let
anyone around know about it.
One particular occasion to do that came at the conclusion of an
evangelistic crusade that many of the local churches had hosted. It was
wonderful and many turned their lives back to God.
There was one pastor in the community who did not support it at all.
His attitude was that his people did not need evangelizing and if they
did, it was nothing like what we were doing.
So at the end of the crusade, those who had come forward to give their
lives to Christ filled out commitment cards. This is standard practice
and the purpose is to give the cards to a local pastor to follow up.
Two or three of us decided we should not give the cards to George. That
was our adversarial pastor's name.
We concluded that he would just try to undermine their new found faith
and convince them they had been duped.
Of course we never talked to him about it to see what he would or would
not do.
You see we were on the right side of the issue and knew he was not.
Ergo we were right.
George found out about our little conspiracy and hit the roof.
In the end we did give him the names of people who came forward from
his church, but we managed to widen an even deeper gulf of mistrust
between us.
But we were on the right side, weren't we?
We were also young. Much younger than George.
There are times we must obey God rather than man.
But I am glad I am in a church that puts us under the authority of
others. I know my own inclinations and need others to keep my sense of
my self importance and my ability delude myself in check.
Luke says that Peter's words cut the Saducees to the heart. No doubt
they did, and they immediately called for the death of Peter and his
colleagues.
Being right even when you may be on
the wrong side.
But there was someone else in the assembly that day.
His name was Gamaliel and he was a well known and much respected
teacher.
He is the grandson of one of Judas's greatest rabbis--the rabbi Hillel.
Rabbi Hillel was so influential that he gathered a whole group of
students around him to learn from this wise man.
It became known as the school of Hillel.
He was kind of a jewish Socrates. A very wise and moderate man.
Gamaliel followed in his footsteps and in his lifetime gained a
reputation for wise rulings similar to his grandfathers.
Later in his writings the apostle Paul boasted that he himself was a
pupil of Gamaliel.
Now we look back at that day and it is clear that Gamaliel is on the
wrong side of the issue.
He is a member of the Sanhedrin that imprisoned Peter the first time.
When Jesus is being accused and condemned, Gamaliel is nowhere to be
seen, certainly not protesting Jesus death.
And when the day is done, the Sanhedrin has Peter and the rest flogged
and told to be quiet.
Gamaliel is a party to that decision.
There are some traditions that say Gamaliel became a believer, but more
recent scholars are pretty much agreed those are not true. Gamaliel
never embraced Jesus.
He is on the wrong side of that issue as well.
We can imagine the scene that day.
Caiaphas and the priests frantic to put this business about Jesus
behind them, but it just will not die.
If it takes the death of Peter and the others, so be it.
On the other side we see Peter just as resolute, filled with the Holy
Spirit and the power of their convictions.
When Peter answers them you can almost see him pointing his finger at
the high priest and then slowly scanning the room, looking them all in
the eye as he says, "The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the
dead---who YOU killed by hanging him on a tree...We must obey God
rather than man."
Gamaliel is clearly on the wrong side of this issue.
But he rises and has Peter and the others removed from the room and he
begins his speech. And it is a wonderful speech.
He counsels the Sanhedrin to use restraint. He reminds them that if
these men are on the wrong side of God, their work will come to
nothing. He uses contemporary examples of people who stirred up revolts
but whose movements came to naught.
If they are opposed to God, he says, they will suffer the same fate.
Now here is the amazing thing Gamaliel says:
He says, "but if this is from God, we will find ourselves opposing the
will of God."
I suppose you might think Gamaliel is being touched by the Holy Spirit
and God is at work in him.
I think that is evident.
But as far as we know he never becomes a follower of Jesus.
But the Holy Spirit works in him and leads him to be on the right side
of the wrong cause.
Now Gamaliel and the rest were probably certain that it was THEY who
were on the right side of the right cause.
But this man is wise enough to exercise a bit of humility.
But what if they are right?
There are times like Peter when we need to stand our ground and do what
we see is right.
Even then, we can recognize that the people who we oppose are people
who may also feel that they are doing what is right. Maybe feeling they
are also doing God's will.
Our world needs people like Peter.
It also needs people like Gamaliel who stand their ground with a bit of
humility.
Our world needs more people who are not prepared to turn their
opponents into demons and write them off as not worth the air they
breathe.
Gamaliel is very Presbyterian in some ways.
His actions come from his strong sense of the sovereignty of God, the
same conviction that motivated the reformers.
He believed that God's will would be done eventually and that our task
is to ensure that we do not oppose the sovereign will of God. I
think that is a good stance to begin any action. And it is God's will
that we allow other people the space and freedom to deal with God in
their own way and own time.
Here is a story of being on the wrong side of an issue:
It is the story of Wrongway Riegels.
On New Year's Day, 1929, Georgia Tech
played Berkley in the Rose Bowl. In that game a young man named Roy
Riegels recovered a fumble for Berkley. Picking up the loose ball, he lost
his direction and ran sixty-five yards toward the wrong goal line. One
of his teammates, Benny Lom, ran him down and tackled him just before
he scored for the opposing team. Several plays later, the Bruins had to
punt. Tech blocked the kick and scored a safety, demoralizing the Berkley team.
The strange play came in the first half. At half-time the Berkley players
filed off the field and into the dressing room. As others sat down on
the benches and the floor, Riegels put a blanket around his shoulders,
sat down in a corner, and put his face in his hands.
A football coach usually has a great deal to say to his team during
halftime. That day Coach Price was quiet. No doubt he was trying to
decide what to do with Riegels.
When the timekeeper came in and announced that there were three minutes
before playing time, Coach Price looked at the team and said, "Men, the
same team that played the first half will start the second." The
players got up and started out, all but Riegels. He didn't budge. The
coach looked back and called to him. Riegels didn't move. Coach Price
went over to where Riegels sat and said, "Roy, didn't you hear me? The
same team that played the first half will start the second."
Roy Riegels looked up, his cheeks wet with tears. "Coach," he said, "I
can't do it. I've ruined you. I've ruined the university's reputation.
I've ruined myself. I can't face that crowd out there."
Coach Price reached out, put his hand on Riegels's shoulder, and said,
"Roy, get up and go on back. The game is only half over."
Riegels finally did get up. He went onto the field, and the fans saw
him play hard and play well.3
All of us have run a long way in the wrong direction. Because of God's
mercy, however, the game is only half over.
Be brave and don't be afraid to take a stand for what is right.
Be gracious with those you may oppose. God may be at work in them too.
God gives us a second chance. We should allow others a second chance as
well.
Preached April 15, 2007
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian
Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Notes
1. Declaration
Concerning Church and Nation, Paragraph 6., one of the
subordinate standards of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
2.Esther F. Schmidt, Coldwater, OH. Christian Reader, "Lite Fare."
3.Wayne Rouse in Fresh
Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the
editors of Leadership
Resources Consulted
F.F. Bruce, The Book of The
Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament,
Eerdmans, 1977
Johannes Munck, The Acts of the
Apostles, The Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 1967
T.C. Smith, Acts, Broadman
Bible Commentary, 1970
Online Resources Consulted
http://www.preachingtoday.com/
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