April 18, 2021 | Worship

Last Sunday, a mother answered her phone and spoke to her son for the last time. Daunte Wright was pulled over, and he called his mom because he knew he needed the insurance information. After the officer used her gun rather than her taser, Wright suffered a fatal gunshot wound.

Bodycam footage was also released this week of the events leading up to the death of Adam Toledo, a 13 year old shooting suspect. My mama heart breaks, I have a 13 year old son. You all know Cary as the goober who won’t leave his video games and art except for snack and hugs, but even if he were to be a suspect in a crime, I am pretty confident that my son would not have deadly force used on him. And while I breathe a staggered breath of relief at that, my heart and my brain cannot reconcile that painful difference in the reality I have as a mom with what mamas of black sons have to worry about. Is that uncomfortable to hear? It’s definitely uncomfortable to say.

All of this is taking place at the same time as the trial for Derek Chauvin is going on, will there be justice for George Floyd, and can there ever really be justice when a life has been taken? At the time of this recording, the jury is still deliberating. This may have changed by Sunday morning. What will not have changed over the next 48 hours is the fact that we are dealing with—or not dealing with—a systemic injustice that must be addressed and dismantled.

And yeah, okay, I know it’s like, but Kim, what does this have to do with the readings for today? But ultimately, all of this is wrapped up in creating a world that is just. Equitable, inclusive, and life-giving-and-affirming for all. To find wisdom to help us on our way to a world like that, we just need to take a closer look at our reading from Acts this morning.

In the text we read from Acts, we are transported to the immediate aftermath of a miracle, and a crowd has gathered. Realizing that he has an audience, Peter takes advantage and begins preaching to those who had gathered in wonderment and awe at what they had seen. And imagine it, every day they had passed by this same man—a man who from birth had been unable to walk was begging near the temple—he was such a fixture of the entrance to the temple that he had probably begun to blend into the scenery. Some folks probably even planned their route to bring them up to the door of the temple at a certain angle to avoid making eye contact with him so they could go pray without any uncomfortable interruptions. When I worked downtown, I’ll readily admit I was guilty of doing this on days when I couldn’t look a panhandler in the eye without it destroying the thin veneer of the lie of more humanity that I was clinging to in order to get through the work day. I understand, temple-goers. I don’t like it, but I’ve had plenty of days of willfully not seeing the sacred in a stranger because it would throw off my whole…thing.

 On this afternoon at the temple entry, however, Peter and John stopped. Peter wanted the man to look at him, and the man did, expectantly hoping that they would give him something—some cash, food, or the direct eye contact that confers recognized humanity. Peter says straight off that he doesn’t have any money, but he will give what he has.” He then commanded the man, in the name of Christ, to walk. He helped the man up, and he was able to walk, dance, jump, do tiktok dances, what have you. Of course, the crowd gathered around. This man whom they had all seen begging every day for as long as they could remember was suddenly standing rather than being carried. That’s big, right?

There is always some danger in interacting with these miracle healing stories of taking it to a grossly ableist place. I think that the same danger can be said in the performing of the healings. Maybe Peter recognized this, and instead of making this healing about the transformation in the body of the man who had been begging, Peter turned his attention to the people who were gawking at what had taken place.

“Why is this shocking to you? You all just had Jesus Christ in your midst, you know what is possible because he was basically doing this all the time—And MORE, but you turned on him.” I mean, it’s a clunky paraphrase, but it gets the point across. To push the point even further, Peter says, “you killed the Author of Life.” Ouch.

Peter doesn’t leave this to sting for too long, though. Just like any good call out, there has to be a call-in for real transformation. He follows up with “You acted in ignorance, but that’s how God fulfilled what was foretold. All of this happened, and Jesus suffered. But now you know better. It’s time to repent.”

Repent gets a bad rap. It’s been twisted around over the years and is used as a word that would control and exert power rather than what true repentance is: freeing. It’s letting go of what is no longer serving you and/or the community. Or letting go of what is serving you but not serving the community, which is more often the case.

Maya Angelou said, “””Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” And I feel like this fits in really nicely with what Peter is telling the crowd gathered, all gawking and surprised as they are.

However, within Peter’s critique, the unasked question lingers for me: What have we allowed to happen to have made this person an outsider in the first place? How was he stuck at the gate, but never invited in? What kept him from full inclusion?

I don’t think the miracle that Peter performed through Christ isn’t the focal point of this story. The miracle itself is left out of the lectionary. See, this isn’t a story that is teaching anything about bodies with disabilities or using it as a vehicle to move the point along—it’s also pointing out that the onus is on the community to offer full inclusion beforehand. Peter doesn’t want to talk about the healing. Peter wants the folks assembled to stop and think for a moment about what they’ve done. How they were not just complicit in the death of Jesus, but also, hello, this interaction points out that we have someone who has been sitting outside for YEARS and only now is he getting your attention? Know better. Do Better.

Many of us have had an experience some time in our lives of being othered. It’s painful. What would it have meant to be brought into the fold-unconditionally accepted and loved and lifted up, instead of being told that you were so dorky that you were making the rest of the girls in 6^th grade look bad. That’s right, Kelly. I haven’t forgotten.

Peter’s words and this text from Acts is an invitation. It offers us a chance to get it right. When we act out of ignorance, we can repent—we can know better and change! Peter offers to the people who are gob smacked at this miracle—and unsurprising miracle if you’ve been following along with all the latest Jerusalem gossip for the last few years—he offers this opportunity to make it right by turning to God, by following Jesus. Peter even calls this “knowing better/doing better” a season of refreshment. Refreshment!

Here in America, we need a season of refreshment. This is possible, but it will require repentance, and not the finger waggling “sinner don’t sin” kind, but the kind that happens through the gnarly, uncomfortable, dirt-under-the-fingernails work of digging up old ways of thinking and being that no longer serve us, and sifting through very intentionally. Sitting with the things that make us mad immediately and asking what God is trying to reveal to us through our red-cheeked, and sometimes shame-laced anger. The word in Greek that we get repent from in this text is metanoia: a transformative change of heart. Transformative repentance can’t exist while we’re still walking past the beggar at the gate, or indulging in the internet trauma porn of the person on the ground with a police officer’s knee on his neck while remaining silent. Repentance invites us to come a little closer to God by doing what we must—what we will have to do if we are to both survive as a nation and live into our commitment as followers of Christ—to first make sure that we allow Peter’s advice and Maya Angelou’s words to do better to sink in and penetrate through our skin and muscle right into our bones and transform us. May our repentance, our metanoia, transform us and in turn, may we transform what must be changed to bring about a truly just world for all. In Jesus’ name, amen.