[AI translation] This passage that I just read from the Bible, many of you will remember it quite freshly, because our Bible reading guide says it was yesterday. It tells us about a period in the apostle Paul's eventful and interesting life. He is returning from his third missionary journey to Jerusalem, where his enemies have long had their teeth in him. He is recognised in the temple, accosted, almost lynched, and only the intervention of the Roman garrison saves him from certain death. The next day, the Roman colonel, wanting to know what this travelling prophet was accused of, summoned the whole high priestly council and brought Paul before them. It is here, in the presence of the foreign authority, that the story we have just heard from the Bible takes place. It is a moving scene, full of passion, not very moving. I have searched for God's message to us, and what I have found is what I would like to tell you now. Let's take the events of the story in order and highlight some of them.Paul has barely said a few words before the high priest is so outraged that he orders one of the servants to strike the apostle in the mouth. So unjustified is this outburst of temper that the apostle himself is seized with passion and says something that shocks the whole audience, and even us, because we are not used to such words from the apostle's mouth. He cries out, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! And do you sit down to judge me according to the law, and, acting unlawfully, command that I should be beaten?" (verse 3). Humanly speaking, the apostle was absolutely right. He was also right that God would smite this high priest who mocked his office. This is not the way the apostle said, "May God smite you," that is, he did not curse or blaspheme, but this: God smite him - that is, he spoke a prophecy, which was fulfilled. Eight years after this scene, he was killed by his own countrymen in a riot. And the apostle was also right to compare this arrogant, overbearing Roman hireling, the high priest, who was hated by everyone else, to a whitewashed wall. That's what Jesus called the scribes: whitewashed tombs. So, objectively speaking, Paul was absolutely right, and yet he regretted what he said. He was almost quoting Jesus' words, but without Jesus' emotion. The word may be Jesus-like, but if the emotion is not, the word is not true!
As soon as he is warned that he is insulting the high priest of God, he retorts, at once in a different tone and with a different temper: 'I did not know, my brothers, that he was a high priest. For it is written, Thou shalt not curse the prince of thy people." Behold, God's children can be caught in the heat of their own tempers, they can err, they can make mistakes, they can sin - but they confess it as soon as it is made known to them. They do not stiffen into haughty self-righteousness, they do not stubbornly defend themselves, saying, "But I am right after all!" but they confess and admit openly that the impulse was wrong. In the child of God, too, the old man is always rising again. That is what happened here with Paul. Even Paul is not a perfect, finished Christian. But when the old man's impulses come to dominate again in the thoughts and words of a man who wants to follow Christ, he will immediately admit it, as soon as the Spirit gives him light.
There are two very serious warnings in this. One is to examine our tempers. For example, we may have a judgment or criticism of people or events which is objectively true in its content - and yet be false because the impulse with which we say it is not Christian. It is not for nothing that it is said that an angry man is never right, because the impulse that heightens him is false. Parents, in raising their children, usually lose the battle here. The problem is not that the content of the scolding words they say is wrong, but that they are wrong in their temper! Not only should the content of our words be true, but also the emotion that is stirred within us. Someone once complained to an earnest believer, "It is so terrible that I am always full of temper! The other answered him, "That's all right, just make sure you have the same temper that was in Christ Jesus! Paul did not have this temper in him, but he immediately noticed it and confessed it. He says, as if apologetically, I did not know, I did not want to! I admit that I made a mistake.
That is the other warning of this scene. If you made a mistake: admit it! It is interesting that modern psychology and Jesus are in complete agreement on this point. Modern psychology says that if the conscience, as an observer, condemns the self because of some wrong action, and a sense of guilt arises from this, then three possibilities open up to the self-consciousness. It can choose to ignore the matter and let the sense of guilt act as it pleases. It can also choose to suppress the feeling. Or, he can choose to get rid of the overwhelming feeling - by confessing guilt. It is clear that the first two ways are unsatisfactory and even dangerous. To find oneself guilty and do nothing about it is to condemn oneself to live with a self that one cannot honour. This is the beginning of hell. Oppression is even worse. If we push the sense of guilt into the unconscious and close the door, it does not mean that we are free of it. There it only festers and causes inflammation. Life becomes nervous and one doesn't know why. There is no other way out but to admit, confess, bring sin out of the depths, expose it to the light and absolve it by confession. We must apologise to those we have wronged! Even if we are right! Can we apologise and forgive? Do we have anyone? Do we? This last question could be put this way: do we believe in God who, in Jesus Christ, wants to draw us to Himself by the grace of forgiveness?!
In the course of the rest of the story, we are given a glimpse into the inner life of the Jewish Grand Council, where we see some very sad things. There is unproductive theologising and dogmatic nit-picking going on in this august body of scribes and Pharisees. While the people are fighting for their lives in an unhappy political climate, struggling, tired, suffering, suffering from diseases: here they are arguing about doctrines, because 'the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; the Pharisees profess both'. This is a sad example of piety that escapes from the actual questions and tasks of life into theological speculations and the running of the cane-parapets of principles. It is not those who deny the necessity of religion who mock it, but those who make it a theory instead of a life. The worst discredit to all religion is when life is drowned in a battle of principles, theories and ideas. What a disgraceful thing is happening here: a religious body is arguing to the death over the possibility and reality of the resurrection, when someone, the Son of God, has already risen from the dead. They are arguing about the how and the what of overcoming death, when God has already solved this problem in the resurrection of Jesus. The fact of the resurrection should not have been debated long ago, but acknowledged, tested and lived. To count on it as God's revealed truth and to live with and from it. To believe does not mean to affirm a set of stated propositions with reason.
Of course, it is important to articulate the truths that are above us in a creedal way, but I know for myself that we can affirm with our minds all that is in the creed and still not possibly have faith. For faith is not contemplation, but action. Faith is a great enterprise, a whole life's striving for something, a whole life's commitment, not just a nod of approval. Faith is not a matter for debate, but a decision, a choice, a going forth with all one's life. I don't really believe in a thing until I act on it. Nor do I believe in Christ until I am ready to follow him at all costs! And I cannot follow Christ only when I have understood all His mysteries. We do not understand the intricacies of digestion and yet we eat. We don't wait to eat until we have cleared up all the physiological issues. I don't understand much about Christ either, but I know that if I surrender my soul, my will, to Him in trust and obedience, I can count on Him. And that is enough to get me started. Jesus once asked a paralytic to stretch out his hand, the very thing he was unable to do. He may have looked at Jesus in amazement at what little faith he had, he could not imagine how it was possible for the Lord to ask him to do what he wanted, yet he stood on him, directed his will to his arm and while he obeyed: his strength came, he succeeded in carrying out the command, he was healed. That is faith! Not to argue over principles, but to make myself follow Jesus and go!
And there is another sad scene in this story. "There arose therefore a great shout, and the scribes rose up from the party of the Pharisees, and fought... And when there was a great commotion, the colonel feared that Paul would be torn to pieces by them..." (Acts 23:9-10) What could that pagan Roman himself have thought about this general council, their religion, their God? What hatred he must have felt for this quarrel, this dissension! What a horrible circus it must be for the sons of the world to see religious men, Christian denominations, church-going co-tenants, members of Christian families, going at each other, fighting, fighting against each other! Can even those who proclaim and profess the Christian truth of forgiveness and love, can they look alike, can they get into a fight? Think of all the nasty, petty squabbles we have to make each other's lives miserable. Think of all the fierce fights that have broken out so many times in history between the different Christian denominations, and try to see it all through the eyes of that Roman colonel, that outsider: how despicable the whole cause of faith and religion must seem to him!
And it is with all the greater gratitude and responsibility that we should now think of the World Council of Churches' General Assembly now meeting in Evanston, America, where the very purpose is that the Churches of Christ throughout the whole world may live out their unity in Christ, above all their differences. The great common hope that Christ will come again and judge us will bring churches and Christians closer together. As long as we look at what has happened throughout history, what our heritage is: it is very difficult for us to find each other. But when we turn our eyes to our returning Lord and allow ourselves to be drawn like a magnet by our Lord, and we all go towards Him alone: we will find each other!
That is why prayers are being offered today in all the churches of the world and all over the world, that our Lord will again give us His gift, that He will have mercy on His bitter and oppressed Church and that He will give us the gift of a spirit of forgiveness and forgiveness. Instead of a Christianity of words and principles, let us follow Him actively, and with a joyful hope of unity for all His children and His Church. For this let us pray now:
Train us to unity,
As you are one with your Father,
Until we are one in you at last
All hearts under heaven;
Until the pure light of your Holy Spirit
Shall be our light and our sun,
And the world will see at last,
That we are your disciples.
(Canticle 395, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 11 July 1954.
Lesson
Zsolt 130