Life + Jesus = Riot (?)
August 2, 2010
Yesterday morning, we read Acts 19 in Ekklesia. If I’d been wearing my biblical studies hat, I probably would have focused on the ways Paul varied from his regular evangelistic pattern in Ephesus. If I’d been wearing my charismatic/Pentecostal hat I probably would have focused on the way the evil spirit spoke to the “itinerant exorcists” before trashing them so that they “fled the house naked and wounded” (v. 16). If I’d been wearing my postmodern theologian hat, I probably would have looked at guys who were called “disciples” regardless of the fact that they knew nothing of the Holy Spirit (maybe even Jesus).
But I was wearing my pastor’s hat and I focused on the riot. Over and over in this book, when Peter and/or Paul preach the gospel, people start living the gospel. And when people start living the gospel, it disrupts the world. The world doesn’t like being disrupted so fights break out. People are thrown in prison, people are stoned to death and whole cities break into riots.
My main question was this: why doesn’t the gospel cause riots anymore?
I’m not saying I want to see more violence in the streets, but I don’t think the world has changed much since the 1st Century. I think living out the gospel is still a disruption, and still think the world hates disruptions. That means part of living out the gospel is picking fights.
So which fights do we pick? We talked about consumerism – specifically the Christian-ish practice of buying and wearing $2 crosses made by (maybe children but at least) impoverished women in developing countries. And we talked about how to respond to governments who pass laws contrary to the gospel. But we also did something.
We did the dishes. Our church had a huge ice cream social last night and our group offered to do the dishes so that we could use real bowls and spoons, avoiding the usual dumpster-load of styrofoam and plastic. I don’t think it’s gonna cause a riot (actually the response was fantastic) but it is a disruption to our culture’s apathy toward waste. It was a place to start. We’ll see where it goes.
