Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
Giving Credit Where Credit is Due by Rev. L. John Gable
June 14, 2020
Leaving worship one Sunday morning a woman shook the minister’s hand and said, “Oh pastor, thank you! That sermon was absolutely wonderful!” The preacher humbly responded, “Don’t thank me, thank God.” The woman paused and said, “Well, it wasn’t that good.”
Our Scripture lesson this morning from the book of Acts raises the question of who should get credit for what. One afternoon, Peter and John, two of Jesus’ disciples, were going up to the Temple to pray when they encountered a man who had been lame since birth. Just as many of us have our particular pews “reserved” on Sunday morning (by the way, your pew is still waiting for you), this man had his place reserved by the gate called Beautiful, and there he would be, day after day, begging for alms from worshippers going in to pray. It is significant, and a point in this story that may very easily be overlooked, that the pathway to worship and prayer goes straight through, not around, human suffering and misery, and the same is true today.
No doubt this poor beggar was delighted when his cries got the attention of Peter and John, but what he received from them was far greater than that for which he had asked. Like any person begging on the street, he was hoping for pocket change, but instead Peter said to him, “I have not silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” Then taking the man by the hand they raised him up to his feet and immediately his ankles became strong. He began to jump up and down, surely making a spectacle of himself, and who could blame him for he had been lame since birth. He gladly went into the Temple with them, walking, leaping and praising God. What he wanted was alms, what he got was healing.
We, too, are approached on a regular basis for our alms and gifts and financial support, formally through letters received in the mail and informally by those standing with hand-lettered signs at stoplights and intersections. All of us wrestle, I know, with how best we should respond to those who ask us for help. We know we have been blessed by God to be a blessing to others which means we cannot rightly separate our spiritual devotion from our response to the physical needs of those around us. However, our lesson this morning also reminds us that these are opportunities in which we can give them more than they ask for, for we, like Peter and John, have something infinitely more valuable to offer than mere silver and gold. As the Church, individually and collectively, we must resist ever limiting our ministry to simply the giving either of our empathy or our charity, for we have the power and authority to offer healing, wholeness, reconciliation and salvation in the name of the risen Christ, the same power and authority that was given to those first disciples centuries ago.
As one might expect, then and now, the response of those who witnessed this miraculous event was varied. It is interesting, whenever the Gospel is proclaimed, and by the Gospel I mean the Good News, the power and promises of God, it promotes healing and wholeness in some; astonishment and curiosity in others; anger and resentment in still others, particularly those who have vested powers in the ways of this world, those who are threatened by the demonstrated powers of the living God, so much so that they had the two disciples arrested, which ironically gave them an even greater opportunity to witness to their faith in Jesus Christ. There is nothing like a good miracle to attract a crowd.
Again, there is a message here for us today. As we are involved in mission and ministry in this community and beyond, mission and ministry which quite often draws attention to us and our resources, we must be ready and willing to speak a word of faith, to point beyond ourselves, to bear witness to the One who calls us into ministry and service. We who have gold and silver to offer must also offer the treasure that will never rust or rot or be taken from us, Jesus Christ.
In this way, Peter stood before this crowd and said, “Why do you wonder at this and why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” Peter explained that it was not them who had healed this lame man, it was the power of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Peter knew exactly why he was there and lost no opportunity to proclaim the Gospel. “But this Jesus whom you crucified, God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses, and it is by faith in this Jesus that this man is restored to perfect health in your presence.”
Peter went on to assure the crowd that any wrong doing they had committed in ignorance, namely condemning and crucifying an innocent man, could be set right by receiving the Savior they had rejected. He instructed them to repent of their sins and receive Him by faith, saying, “This Jesus, the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, has become the chief cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we may be saved.” And that day, some 5000 people received and believed the message they saw and heard.
When our words are supported by our actions, when our witness is consistent with the way we live our lives in ministry and service, people will respond. That is the power of the Gospel to heal and to save, even today.
Every aspect of this story is of interest to me, but let me tell you a story that starts to get at what most intrigues me about this passage from Acts. After an outstanding college basketball career at the University of Oklahoma, Stacey King was selected sixth overall in the 1989 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls. He played in the league for a decade, but never achieved elite status, so there wasn’t much attention given when he announced his retirement. One reporter, however, graciously asked, “Stacey, what would you say was the most memorable moment during your NBA career?” King smiled and said, “That’s easy! That would be the night that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70 points!” Impressive, right? When reporters fact-checked the records, however, it turned out that Jordan had scored 69 points that night and Stacey King had hit a single free throw.
I love that story and it helps to frame the question I posed earlier. It is important that we give credit where credit is due, so who really performed this miracle of healing? Was it God or was it Peter and John? The answer we give will greatly impact how we do our ministry today.
If we say that God healed this man, it would be absolutely true. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead allowed this man to stand up and walk. But isn’t it equally true to say that Peter and John healed the man? They were the ones who responded to his cry. They were the ones who actually looked him in the eye, took him by the hand, named the name of Jesus and commanded him to stand up and walk. Even if we say that God was the One who healed him, we cannot deny the essential part that Peter and John played in the working out of this miracle. Without them and their willingness to act in faith there would have been no healing that day by the gate called Beautiful. So who did the healing, God or the disciples? Already I am sure you can see that I believe the answer is not either/or, but both/and. And we must keep that answer in mind as we consider and carry out our ministry today.
The life of faith is one of entering into the adventure of a partnership with God. It means seeing the world with all of its sin and brokenness and complexity through new eyes and with new hearts, through the eyes and with the heart of Jesus. It means doing for God’s sake those things we would formerly have done for our own, or of actually doing those things which we formerly would never have considered doing at all. Walking with God in faith means trusting God to use us in ways that are at times beyond our imaginations or comprehensions or abilities. It means doing what we can do, all that we can do, and then letting go, trusting God to work in ways beyond our vision and control. Simply put, the life of faith is a life of partnership with God, even if it means God scores 69 and we only one! There are some things that only God can do, and in these we are totally dependent; but there are other things that only we can do, and in these God is equally dependent upon us. This is the balance in the life of faith, the partnership between the human and the Divine.
The story is told of the woman who decided to plant a garden. She painstakingly mowed down all the weeds, dug up all the rocks and picked up all the trash that had collected on her little plot of ground. She spent hours hoeing and breaking the soil, before carefully planting the little seeds. She labored for weeks, watering, weeding and fertilizing, and soon the garden produced beautiful flowers and generous vegetables. One day, near the end of the summer, the woman’s pastor stopped by for a visit, and admiring the beautiful garden, said, “Isn’t it wonderful what God can do with a piece of land.” “Yes, it is”, she replied, “but you should have seen it when God had it all to Himself?”
What is true in agriculture is also true spiritually. It is important that we give credit where credit is due. Faith is always a gift from God, but it is a gift which is given through the work and witness of others, people like you and me.
Without question it was the power of God which healed the lame man in our story this morning, but it could not have been done without the willingness of Peter and John, or someone like them, to step out in faith and name the name of Jesus. This story, once again, demonstrates to us that faith is a verb, not a noun. It is an action we take as we step out in dependence upon God, an adventure in a partnership with God. It is the invitation both to work and to pray, to pray and to work. And by faith we discover that prayer is our work and work is our prayer.
It is so easy to get the balance of the human and the Divine out of whack. The pendulum swings easily from the extreme of false pride which says, “I did it all!” to the extreme of false humility which says, “I did nothing!” In most things, if we are honest with ourselves, we realize that neither extreme is wholly true. There is a balance between what only God can do, and that which only we can do. So faith calls us to live in the balance of work and prayer, recognizing the value and necessity of each.
During World War I, in a little French village, a beautiful marble statue of Jesus stood – arms outstretched – in the courtyard of the local church. One day during a bombing raid a shell landed nearby and shattered the statue. The villagers were heartbroken. They loved this statue of Jesus and made up their minds to try to put it back together again. Piece by piece they collected the fragments and reconstructed the figure, all but the hands. Search as they did, they could not find the hands of Jesus.
“We need a new statue”, said one of the villagers. “What good is a Jesus without any hands?” Someone else had a better idea. Now the statue stands with a brass plaque on its base which reads, “I have no hands but your hands”, which inspired the poem.
“I have no hands but your hands to do My work today.
I have no feet but your feet to lead others in My way.
I have no tongue but your tongue to tell them how I died.
I have no help but your help to bring them to God’s side.”
We have been invited to join in the adventure of a partnership with God called faith, and what an adventure it is. In it we discover that there are some things only God can do, and in these we are totally dependent, and there are other things only we can do, in these God is equally dependent upon us. So, we are called both to work and to pray, and in this way we give credit where credit is due.