Acts 22:30-23:10
30 The commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews. So the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the members of the Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul and had him stand before them.
1 Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” 2 At this the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!”
4 Those who were standing near Paul said, “How dare you insult God’s high priest!”
5 Paul replied, “Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.’”
6 Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” 7 When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8 (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)
9 There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” 10 The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.
Click through to hear some thoughts on the significance of this story.
The most fascinating part of this tale is how easily Paul exposed the unhealthy way in which the council of elders operated. Their task was to judge him or at least provide credible testimony about the validity of the message Paul was bringing. Paul uttered one sentence about the resurrection and the whole process fell into chaos. Pharisees believed in resurrection and angels and spirits. Sadducees did not. A single word from Paul, "resurrection", made this wise and respected tribunal abandon their reason and purpose in favor of squabbling over an argument that would never be resolved.
The first lesson here is that we have to be careful about people who know how to push our buttons. What Paul did is not much different than what presidential candidates do every election cycle when they talk about religion. (Paul just did it in a much holier cause!) Every election somebody claims to be the "Christian" candidate. They mouth words about God and attending the right church and high and holy guiding principles. They don't necessarily align with our principles any more than Paul aligned with that of the Pharisees. They're just searching for the hot button word to get us going, to get us on their side. When I hear them I don't think, "That guy is on my side!" Instead I think, "That guy is trying to exploit my fondness for Christian buzzwords, using God as bait to get my vote." In my experience faith is something you show day by day. People should be able to see it in everything you do. If you have to shout that loud that you're a person of faith something might be off. The most devout and holy people I know shudder when held up as paragons of faith because they realize how short they fall and how inadequate of an example their lives are when compared with God.
The Pharisees and Sadducees are made out to be fools in this story. We have to be careful not to jump into the same kind of foolishness by reacting without thinking when people utter push-button phrases. Not everything bearing the Christian label really reflects Christ, especially when that label is applied to people trying to sell you something...even if that something is themselves.
And speaking of pushing buttons...how many of us have this Acts experience at family gatherings or at work? How often have we gathered around a Thanksgiving table or meeting room already knowing what the arguments will look like, who will say what and who will end up mad at whom? How many of our relationship systems are rife with built-in divisions so familiar that it only takes one shorthand phrase to bring up the barely-buried tension? Many of our group relationships run according to familiar scripts, patterns with which we're comfortable and which keep everybody in equilibrium. It doesn't matter whether those patterns are healthy or not. As long as everybody knows what to expect and fits into the system everything goes fine even when "fine" involves rehashing the same old fights and prejudices for decades.
Paul's words shone a spotlight on the ridiculous family pattern of the elders council. They had a vital, important legal matter in front of them. They also had a true man of God speaking his Word in their presence. They missed both opportunities in favor of their traditional bickering. We miss out on growth and change in family members, opportunities to embrace new friends, great ideas at work or in church the same way.
It wasn't easy for Paul--in fact he was almost torn limb from limb for doing it--but shining the light on those messed up patterns was an important task. In the short view it showed a problem with the Sanhedrin, that they weren't fit to fulfill their tasks. In the long view it should have provided the catalyst for change, provided they would have listened. They didn't, but that light gave them the opportunity.
Sometimes we are called to shine a light on what's going on in our families or workplaces, bringing out patterns that are unhealthy and asking for the group to change them. It's dangerous work. Group systems are notoriously resistant to change even when change is healthy. Families dealing with alcoholism, for instance, will tend to adopt patterns that work around the alcoholic and get mad not at the person who's drinking but at the person who brings up the problem, even if bringing it up is an attempt to solve it. When the alcoholic does recover the family often has no clue how to treat them. We value stability over health the same way the council valued its own argument over justice.
When we perceive this going on, particularly when we perceive somebody getting hurt by it, we sometimes get the call to act. It might be our calling to speak as Paul did and shine the light...to ask the questions of our council that the Sanhedrin couldn't ask of itself: "Wait a minute. What's going on here? Why are we doing this? Have we no purpose but to tread the same fruitless ground of debate and argument we always have? What goodness are we missing by engaging in this destructive pattern?"
We cannot do this in every situation. A person who shines lights into the nooks and crannies of everybody else's business is a busybody, not a help. But we are called to examine our own lives, our own patterns, our own group and family dynamics. We have the right, even as Paul did, to refuse participation in systems that are unhealthy. We have the right to speak up when we're getting hurt by these dynamics or when someone else is. Our identity as an inalienable member of God's family gives us the strength to occasionally face and battle against the imperfections in our human families. Maybe it really is better to let Uncle Harold mention the dry turkey at Thanksgiving then watch Aunt Marie dissolve into tears because of it while grandpa explodes at him and grandma tries to heal everybody's wounds...the routine we know by heart. If that's easier and better, so be it. But if it's not--if we look at the groups around us and see Pharisees and Sadducees arguing about spirits and resurrection while missing the real point--we cannot be afraid to speak up. It might not make things better. It might, however, make the truth a tad more apparent.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
