I have been reflecting on a question asked by Dr. Willie Jennings in his commentary on Acts. “What would it mean to educate people inside this hope?
Jennings speaks of educating people inside the hope of the Resurrection of Jesus. The context for his question is Paul’s case before Felix in Acts 24. Tertullus represents the argument of the state. Paul represents himself.
Jennings writes, “We don’t know whether Tertullus is Jew or Gentile, but that is not important for understanding his purpose in this story. What is crucial is that he is intellectual and legal power being marshalled against an innocent man. Luke here marks judicial sin that speaks to a wider condition—intellectual prowess in league with death. How many women, men, and children have been sentenced to prison, torture, and death through this kind of demonic connection? How many well-trained men and woman have used their gifts to destroy life? Here we see the discursive arts fully corrupted, and what makes that even more horrible is that such corrupted discursive arts are being used by the people of God.”
Over the last several years I have watched and listened as people who name the name of Jesus post and repost to their platforms without reflecting theologically about the topic for themselves, or even demonstrating Jesus’ compassion for people. They are very concerned for their political side and have crafted an identity in which Jesus is their politician of choice. Oh not that they are voting for Jesus. It’s just that their hope seems to be that Jesus has ordained their leader. A look down their feed reveals a famine of the Word or of Jesus’ compassion. I really wouldn’t know that they know Jesus or reflect on His Word much at all. Jesus allows no proxy. Could we be in “league with death” when we do such?
Through the memes and the outrage I have wondered if there is a way through this. “What would it mean to educate people inside” the hope of the resurrection of Jesus?
Why hasn’t the church done better?
I have tried to do two things along the way with Jesus and His Word: 1. Every day, listen to people I don’t reflexively agree with. And 2. Practice what Dallas Willard calls the “habit of not having the last word.”
That means I have at times allowed others to work out some things in conversation online with me. And I didn’t agree. And I didn’t keep taking them on. I left it. It also means that I have taken the conversation behind the scenes in private messages and that every once in a while I have had to remove a post from my wall. But in general, I’ve tried to remain friends with folks I don’t agree with.
I’ve tried to deny myself. Like a mad farmer, I’ve tried to practice the call of Kentucky’s Wendell Berry: Practice Resurrection.
Not everyone can take it. Some defriend and defund if their loyalties to state or denomination are tested. But still I find myself asking not for my own benefit alone, but for us all: what are we to do with the eloquent arts of this day that come to us in crafted videos and sound bites?
When the religious people joined Tertullus in Felix’s court, Jennings writes, “They build on the discursive power of Tertullus. This is the way of the world, and it has historically been also the way of many churches in many places, operating alongside and inside the machinations of brilliant but evil orators, lawyers, advocates who become our hired guns. Yet what has been more damnable has been our failure, a Christian failure to dedicate against the misuse of intellectual skill, verbal dexterity, and eloquence. Too often we have been mystified by such gifts and have idealized them abstracted from the real history of the horror they have created and the suffering they continue to inflict. We have been too quick to rush to their defence, announcing the inherent goodness of such gifts and the glory of those who exhibit them without counting the cost of their use. Tertullus has become a weapon of unrighteousness, and we must always ask ourselves, how might we prevent creation of such weapons?”
In Acts 24 Paul launches his defense. He states the facts and he moves beyond the facts to weave the gospel into his argument. How are we to think about the skills of Tertullus and Paul. Are they only duelling minds or there another conflict present?
Jennings writes, “Tertullus and Paul represent intellectual life before cross, resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit and intellectual life after these world-shattering and life-creating realities. Paul now speaks inside the hope of resurrection and as one who yields to the Spirit. His words aim at faithfulness and gesture divine presence. He certainly wants to win, finding justice against false accusations, yet the arch of his discursive work bends toward the resurrected body of Jesus. He speaks in witness to the hope of the resurrection.”
Don’t you love that?
Jennings continues, “What would it mean to educate people insider this hope? What would it mean to immerse, that is, to baptize intellectual ability, verbal dexterity, and eloquence inside the body of Jesus, inside his death and resurrection and his sending of th Spirit, so that our words, no matter of what we speak arch toward hope and give witness to resurrection?”
O Glory! What would it be to always speak no matter the subject in such a way that my words arch toward hope and give witness o the resurrection of Jesus?
In these days I’ve been on the look out for anyone who speaks of the pandemic, racism, and the protests of police brutality with an arch toward hope and so they give witness to the resurrection of Jesus. I am not comparing skills. I am looking for the Spirit of Jesus.
Today. Here is an example. Dr. Esau McCaulley writes,
“Racism sweeps our land, and the weakest among us suffer the most.
As I watch the news these days, I see genuine expressions of sympathy for the black situation in America. But I don’t simply want people to feel sorry for us. I want freedom. And in my best moments, I remember where that hope for freedom resides. It resides in the God who conquered death. Although the full fruition of that freedom will not come on this side of heaven, nonetheless, I am not forbidden the beginnings of it here and now. By desiring freedom now, I am not turning America into the kingdom. I am demanding the right to live and love and work as a free black child of God.
The defeat of death is God’s great triumph. It reshapes the Christian imagination, forever obliterating the limits we place upon our Creator. As the protests press on, then, I pray today and every day that we remember the Resurrection, when the entire cosmos became something different. We have yet to realize the full scope of that change.”
Esau McCulley, I Have Only One Hope for Racial Justice: A God Who Conquered Death, Christianity Today, 10 June 2020Esau McCulley, I Have Only One Hope for Racial Justice: A God Who Conquered Death, Christianity Today, 10 June 2020
Arch toward hope and give witness to the resurrection of Jesus.
Willie James Jennings, Acts, in the series Belief: A Theological Commentary On The Bible, 2017, pages 212-215