More Than the Same Old Song

More Than The Same Old Song--April 18, 2018

"But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal. They said, 'This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.' Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, 'If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.' And he dismissed them from the tribunal. Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things." [Acts 18:12-17]

The powers of the day--past or present--are really all basically one-trick ponies.

The empire really has a limited repertoire, a small "arsenal," if you will, to use to response to perceived threats.  That seems a strange claim to make, when we think of Roman ingenuity and the many different weapons Rome had at its disposal for stamping down uprisings.  It had its tightly formed ranks of infantry, with their impressive shields that let them move armored formations.  It had a navy; it had catapults; it had cavalry; it had a whole host of other perfectly brilliant weapons and tactics for killing its enemies.  But that's just it--all of Rome's vast array of tools was essentially limited to one song--using violence to beat an enemy into submission.  The only other tool the empire seems to wield here is apathy--the sheer force of indifference and forcing subdued peoples to do their own dirty work.  War and indifference--these are the two songs the empire really knows how to play.  It can play them in nearly any key, but that's the whole repertoire--and it doesn't seem that the empire is keen on taking any requests.

You see it here in these verses from Acts the same way we know it from the story of Jesus and Pilate in the gospels.  The Roman bureaucrat, in this case the proconsul Gallio, is presented with a charge against Paul for stirring up trouble (as the disciples of Jesus seem always to do).  And Gallio seems to think that his only two possible responses are to violently punish Paul--to beat him, to crucify or behead him, or at least to do something to make an example out of him and attempt to keep the peace; or to ignore the situation and make the crowds administer their own mob justice.  He has only those two tools in his tool belt--violence or indifference.  They are, to be sure, both formidable weapons, although Christians have learned in two thousand years that it is really the latter, apathy, which is the biggest threat.  And even then, we are most susceptible to apathy when it is welcomed into our community like the Trojan horse--in other words, when it is offered to us to use and have, rather than when others are indifferent or apathetic toward us.  If Rome--or any other empire, for that matter--really wants to put down the Christian movement, it needs only present us with the gift of apathy, and let us do ourselves in.

This, however, seems to be a bit too creative for the empire--as we said, and as the story here seems to demonstrate, the empire really only knows two songs: using violence and dismissing others in ignorance.  So whether it would have been Rome having Paul beaten, or whether--as the story actually goes--the crowds are free to beat a leader of the synagogue who had come to faith in Jesus (Sosthenes), the worst that any of these opponents can do is to rough up the Christian community.  But they cannot stifle it.  This is the Christian community's secret weapon against the oh-so-limited arsenal of every empire that comes against it with brute force: The worst that anyone can ever do to us is to kill us, but we are resurrection people.  The wise and courageous Christian writer Tertullian said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." He understood, too, that a straightforward, brute-force kind of attack against the followers of a Risen Messiah is always a foolish enterprise--the empire can ignore us, kill us, or leave us to the mob to attack us, but none of those ultimately prove effective against a community that has been charged with the Good News that death's power has been broken.  The empire can send its proconsuls to act like they are in charge of our destiny, but we are given the calling to be a community unafraid of saying that the emperor himself is wearing no clothes.

The really crafty adversaries out there are the ones who know that we Christians will do ourselves in if we take up the empire's two favorite weapons.  When we begin to use the threat of violence against others in the name of our faith, or when we give into the lure of apathy, then the Enemy really has us.  Today, as followers of Jesus in a time when it is easy to be indifferent and just as easy to lash out against the "other" with violence, we are called to let go of those two favorite tools of the empire, and instead to dare the proconsuls and the crowds alike to go at us with them.  And when their tactics do not work against us--our suffering love will expose their weakness, the same way a crucified and beaten rabbi exposed the impotence of mob justice and Roman cowardice with the power of resurrection.

Today, you and I will face all kinds of challenges and threats and problems--it is life.  But because we are resurrection people, we are called not to use manipulation or apathy to get our way--but rather the living and suffering love that Jesus gives to us.  How can that kind of love fuel our actions today?

Lord Christ, we really would walk in your ways, at least on our good and faithful days.  But there are all kinds of temptations out there--including the temptation to use the tools and tactics that the world uses to bring success.  Give us the vision to empty our hands and follow in your ways.  Give us the courage to face down the hostility around us and to meet it with love.  Give us the compassion, too, that lets us suffer in love the way you have suffered in love with us and for us.