Can you imagine not having any money to give away, but having the power to heal someone?  Luke records for us in the book of Acts that this man was crippled from birth.  He was, as one commentary put it, “a hopeless case.”  The man was over 40 years old.  In all that time, no one had been able to heal him, and he had given up looking for that blessing.  He would have been satisfied just to receive enough coins to live on each day.  Surviving.  Existing.  Holding on.  This man had simple goals.  Peter and John couldn’t do much to help the man with those goals, but thankfully, they had more to give him.  They offered him physical and spiritual healing.

From holding on—to healing.  From surviving—to thriving.  From existing—to eternal life. What a beautiful story of transformation!  The same power that transformed the virgin Mary into the mother of God, the same power that transformed the crucified Christ into the risen Christ, the same power that transformed a group of everyday Jewish men into healers and evangelists—this is the power of God that is still at work today!  And it is at work in us.  We might not ever see a miracle cure like the  man who couldn’t walk begging at the temple.  But we do know about the Spirit of God, helping us to go from holding on to healing, helping move beyond surviving into thriving, offering us not just a temporary existence but eternal life now and forever.  This is why we come to worship! Because there is no one else to give credit to for this transformation other than God.  To God be the Glory!  Great things God has done, great things God is doing.

Giving God the glory was top priority for Peter.  Last week we talked about how, three times, Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”  Three times Peter said yes, and three times Jesus commanded, “Feed my sheep.  Tend my lambs.  Feed my sheep.”  Today we have Exhibit A, Peter tending to one of the most vulnerable people in his community.  A man, crippled from birth, whose only option was to beg for mercy.  Peter and John tend to this beloved lamb.  They pray for his healing in such a way that the man knows not to give the credit to Peter and John.  He goes away walking and leaping and praising God.

It’s interesting that the newly healed man gives credit to God—but the religious officials observing this choose to instead place blame on Peter and John.  Who else could possibly be responsible for such an amazing transformation if not God?  No one!  Yet, the religious officials don’t want to give God the credit because that would mean admitting that Peter and John are indeed connected to the Truth.  We can see why they are so resistant.  What would we do if a bunch of grass roots fanatics swooped in and convinced a large number of our church members to leave their established faith communities to follow an executed criminal claiming to have risen from the dead?  Sounds pretty sketchy!  We would likely be defensive, skeptical, and angry.  We would likely think putting a stop to the hucksters would be the most righteous thing to do.  I imagine we would feel justified in doing everything necessary to protect our flock from the people we assumed were frauds or charlatans.

So the priests and temple officials and Sadducees arrested Peter and John and put them in jail overnight.  The next day, the authorities questioned Peter and John.  By what power or name did you heal this crippled man?  This gives Peter the chance to preach about Jesus.  The authorities cannot deny that an outstanding miracle has taken place.  The cripped man now walks and runs and leaps!  They can’t undo what this power has done, but they want to stop it from spreading while they investigate.  They order Peter and John to not speak to teach anymore in the name of Jesus.   Talk about lame!  There’s no way Peter and John are going to follow that order.  Not after they have been commanded by Jesus to follow him.  Peter knows what it’s like to fail in his mission.  He’s not going to go down that road again.  He tells the officials, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.  For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Peter and John are going to keep telling their story.  Why?  Because in Jesus they have gone from holding on—to healing.  From surviving—to thriving.  From existing—to eternal life.  And they are not going back!  They have seen this change happen in themselves.  They have seen it happen in others.  They are so filled with the “good news” that they cannot do anything but keep on giving God the glory.  Peter already knows how his story ends.  He will be martyred for his faith.  He will not get out of this alive.  But he is determined to do all he can to feed the sheep, tend the lambs, and follow his Lord until he draws his last breath.

Which shows us another transformation at work in Peter:  we see him go from scared, to empowered.  From denying Jesus and running away on the night Jesus was arrested, to just a few weeks later, speaking up and standing firm.   If I were making a moving of Peter’s life, this scene would be the climax.  From here on out, there’s something different about Peter.  He has tamed the tiger.  He is no longer afraid.  He has come into his own.

Luke records for us that the officials who questioned Peter and John marveled at how ordinary, unschooled men could pull off such an impressive miracle and be so courageous in the face of being arrested and questioned.  These guys were, literally, amateurs!  And yet they were doing great work, withstanding tremendous pressure, and through it all, giving God the glory.

Giving God the glory.  What a wonderful strategy for being able to persevere in our faith!  Last week we talked about “compassion fatigue”—this idea that caring for others gets tiring.  So true!  We talked about how having compassion for ourselves is a critical habit to develop if we want to be able to extend compassion to others over the long haul.  Speaking kindly to ourselves, having realistic expectations for ourselves, recognizing the universality of making mistakes and having struggles, being as patient and gracious with ourselves as we would be with our best friend—these are skills many of us are still working on.

But our scripture passage today points to another set of skills most of us need to continue to work on, skills I will lump under the category of “giving God the glory.”  This includes letting go of the illusion that if we love each other, we will all get along and never have any problems.  Not true!  Have you ever heard that saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.”?  All Peter and John did was heal someone, and they got arrested!  As the now deceased activist and legislator from Georgia, John Lewis, famously said, “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”  If we are going to give God the glory, that doesn’t mean just praising God in worship.  That is going to mean speaking up and standing firm for what we know is right, even when there is pressure to conform to old expectations and norms.

Giving God the glory means letting go of our desire for control.  We will not win everyone over.  We will not see everyone change right away, if ever.  Giving God the glory means being open to the new things God is doing.  It might mean cracking a few eggs in order to make an omelet.  It means giving up our desire to PLEASE PEOPLE and focus on pleasing God instead.  Turns out, giving God the glory takes a lot of courage!  Even doing what seems to be the most healing, compassionate thing for one person can sometimes be controversial and upsetting to others.

We don’t need to read about Peter and John getting arrested to know this is true.  We know it from our own history.  While Phil and I were on vacation in April, we visited Plains, Georgia on our way to Atlanta.  Plains is the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter, and he still lives there today.  Him and about 750 other people!  It is a little town!  But the National Park Service has done a great job turning the farm he grew up on into exhibits, and they have turned the school he attended his whole life, first through eleventh grades, into a museum.  One of the rangers told us to be sure to try the peanut ice cream in town, so we stopped and had our choice of peanut flavored soft ice cream, or peanut swirled with chocolate.  If it doesn’t involve peanuts, they probably don’t sell it in Plains!

We drove past the Plains United Methodist Church, where Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married.  We drove past the Plains Baptist Church where Jimmy and his family were long-time members.   We also drove out of town a mile or two to the Maranatha Baptist Church, where Jimmy Carter is now a member.  He became a member there because he had to leave his home church over the issue of integration.

In 1964, the Plains Baptist Church voted 50 to 6 to ban blacks from worshipping in their church.  Five of the six people who voted against this measure were Jimmy Carter and his family.  Jimmy Carter wrote that there were about 150 other people who turned up at the church for the vote but abstained.  They knew in their hearts that church should not be a place where certain people weren’t allowed in just because of their skin color.  But they were afraid to vote against the measure because they feared retaliation from others in their community.  Carter, however, was not afraid to stand firm and speak up.  But despite his passionate argument, the measure passed.  Blacks were not allowed in Plains Baptist Church, so Jimmy Carter went and found himself a church home where people of all skin colors are welcomed.  I think this story shows the difference between people who were focused on giving God the glory, in contrast to people who were focused on fitting in, surviving, and going along to get along.

When I first started in ministry, I realized quickly that most people have stories of times they gave God the glory. And often, those stories get told at funerals.  Even if they don’t use that language, of “giving God the glory”, I love how at funerals we almost always hear how the person who has passed away played a role in things changing for the better.   Maybe they didn’t get to help transform a country or even a community, but they made an impact on a family, a neighborhood, a workplace, the people closest to them.

I remember early on doing a funeral for a church member named Dean Tidd, who grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio but moved to Bristol to work for the steel industry in Fairless Hills, Bucks County.  Not wanting his kids to be “city slickers”, Dean took his family back to Ohio every summer so they could experience life on the dairy farm.

Dean’s son Randy gave the eulogy and told of how, one summer at the farm, they were out picking raspberries, and Randy saw a snake.  It’s not that we don’t have snakes in the suburbs, but he was scared.  His dad, though, was very calm and said, “Randy, look at what the snake is doing.  He’s not interested in you.  He’s not even interested in the raspberries.  He’s using the thorns on the plant to help scratch off his old skin so he can grow.”  Randy cited that as an example of how even though his dad became an engineer, he still loved farm life best.  But I took that example to heart, and have relied on it as an image of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  Sometimes as Christians, we have to stand firm while the snake rubs against us uncomfortably, so it can shed its skin and grow.

It would be nice if we could always be the raspberries.  The apostle Paul described the fruit of the spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  But the Bible is chock full of example of how, sometimes, we have to be the thorns.  It would be nice if we could heal people, and bring hope, peace, joy and love everywhere we go.  But like Peter and John, even with the best intentions, sometimes we will find ourselves in good trouble.  Instead of trying to please the people around us, we will only be able to please God.  We will have to stand firm, speak up, and allow the world to rub against us so it can shed its old skin, its old ways, and grow.

I don’t know anyone who has, like Peter and John, the power to perform miraculous healings.  But we all have the power to give God the glory.  We have the power to speak up, stand firm, and promote justice.  We have the privilege of helping God transform earth into heaven.  So let’s give God the glory, today and always.  Amen.