Complicit No More
Acts 2:14, 36-47
Our scripture passage is part of the great Pentecost story found in the second chapter of Acts. People from all over the known world were gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival we call Pentecost and they noticed that this new Christian sect seemed different from other people. They noticed that this community was a group where people were included even with various ethnicities or countries of origin. Men and women shared in leadership. Age, gender, physical capability and health were not obstacles to being part of this community. And evidently, this new church liked to worship. Their worship was so noisy and exciting that people all over came to see what was going on. This group sounds a bit like All God’s Children to me!
But, of course, there was some bozo in the crowd that felt a need to belittle what the group was all about. There’s always at least one! “They must be drunk!” “I bet they are doing some strange things on their altar in there.” “That must be a cult. Don’t drink the Kool-ade!”
This story in Acts is the earliest example we have in the Newer Testament of creating a Christian-style community beyond the inner circle of disciples. Peter and the other apostles preach a message of truth and hope to the crowd. The truth was hard for the original hearers to receive. Peter tells them bluntly, “You killed Jesus.” Probably nobody in that crowd that day had any direct connection to the crucifixion of Jesus yet Peter’s point applies to a broader complicity that makes us squirm with the same discomfort of the crowd. Some people think, “I’m such a worm God had to kill Jesus.” The gospel story is much more profound than that.
In our day we usually hear this kind of dialogue raised between conservatives and liberals. There is a weighing of what is more prominent in our thinking – personal responsibility or social justice. Good people come down all over the spectrum. For example, when we debate reparations for African Americans whose businesses were confiscated during the Civil War, or when Native Americans challenge the seizure of land by European settlers from hundreds of years prior, we’re caught in the same complicit dilemma. Do we bear any responsibilities for the choices of our ancestors and culture? While we can’t go back and re-write the mistakes from history, we can certainly make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes from history.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines “complicit” as “associated with or participating in an illegal or questionable act, especially with others.”
For most of us, it is pretty easy to avoid being complicit in illegal acts, although most of us in this room are illegal in about 25 states. Where it gets a little fuzzier is in questionable acts done by others where we are silent or don’t use our influence to protect the vulnerable. There are lots of good reasons why we don’t – fear, uncertainty, the outcome doesn’t impact us personally, etc. As we have seen down through history, injustice is rarely corrected by those who benefit from the injustice, and positive social change rarely happens because of the will of the powerful. The result is that nobody walks away without at least a little dirt or blood on their hands.
In South Africa, after the fall of the apartheid system, a fascinating approach to the ills of the past was undertaken. It was led by a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” (TRC). Unlike the course many nations have taken with their pasts, the TRC offered eligibility for amnesty to anyone who would completely and honestly confess their crimes so that families would know what really happened to their loved ones. [PP4] Chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the commission took statements from more than 20,000 victims of apartheid and considered 7,100 requests for amnesty. It has been held up as the model of how this kind of process can heal a nation. Certainly it has its detractors who note that people who committed great evil can receive no punishment. Several other nations have tried these kinds of TRC with varying results. Only time will tell if the recommendations of the commission are carried out and genuine healing is evidenced in the life and culture of the South African nation.
Still, the genius of this kind of approach is how it breaks the cycle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Although that phrase comes straight from our own Bibles and feels more just on some levels (particularly when it is your eye or your tooth that is the first to go), eventually it leaves everyone blind and toothless. How do we discover ways to move beyond the mistakes of the past – not glossing over them, not pretending they don’t exist – but simply not allowing decisions in the past to be the final word for the future? How do we learn not to give our power away to people and events long gone from the present?
We can always find the flaws in other people. We can always find some juicy morsel to chew on from the choices others make. But there seems to be very little about our culture that challenges us to draw forth from ourselves those noble virtues of courage, faith, love and forgiveness which are the only realities that can offer true and ultimate healing. That is one of the main reasons why this church exists. We who have been blessed by grace are ideal vessels to become dispensers of grace. We who are blessed are called to bless our world.
This past week our nation observed the fortieth anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was someone who lived his life confronting the complicity of our nation. He challenged the assumptions and lies that too many had come to accept as fact.
Examples: Lie – we can’t be successful. Truth – $22,279 for Miracle Offering, completed all the heating and roofing renovations, completed a full year of “Would Jesus Discriminate?” events and we are “this close” to being able to call our 2nd pastor again. All of this happening in what NPR reported this week as the worst U.S. economic picture since the Great Depression. Take that, recession!
Lie – you are worthless. Truth – God loved you before you were conceived. There isn’t anything about you that is a surprise. You were not a mistake. You are created in the image of holiness, health, love and wholeness.
There was a story on Friday in the Star Tribune about Parris Getty. He was driving down at South St. Paul street along with dozens of other motorists this week and noticed a package in the middle of the road. Everyone was driving around it and continuing on their way. Getty circled back and retrieved the package to discover it was from the post office. He returned it to the local station who had just discovered it missing from a delivery truck. The postal manager told the reporter how surprised they are to receive packages back that have not been opened. The story says that Getty is in recovery for addiction and that he knew that returning this package to its rightful owner was important for his recovery. Getty refused to be complicit like all the other drivers that day. He acted.
We need be complicit no more to the lies of the past or to inaction when the moment calls us to rise to a higher level. Truth has set us free.
Some of us rage about the damage done to us by our parents. That damage may certainly be real. The truth is that you and I are no longer those helpless children. We are able to choose how those experiences inform our lives today. Some of us stew about how heterosexism has denied us our rights. The truth of that is not to be denied. You and I have the choice of allowing those experiences to make us bitter or we can use our painful past to empathize with the plight of others in unjust situations. Some people just throw up their hands when life’s challenges seem overwhelming. “What can I do?” they ask. “I have all of this baggage that I’m carrying around and it is making me miserable.” My response – Put it down!
Complicity is not just about seeing a crime and doing nothing about it. In a spiritual sense complicity is participating in social norms that demean someone else, staying silent when nobody else stands up for the powerless, allowing evil to reign because we don’t have all the answers. It is seeing a need and assuming that God’s grace cannot heal it.
You and I can’t take on the entire world’s ills and still have any time left over for anything else, but we can recognize the ways we become complicit to our own prisons and the prisons we create for others and we can refuse to stay there any longer. Make the extra effort when others just pass an opportunity by. It may be a small step. The important thing is that we take it and that we are moving forward.
You and I are blessed – we have a community to support us, grace to heal us, worship to inspire us, ministries to use our gifts. The fact that we exist and thrive and grow is a witness that light is greater than darkness, truth is greater than the lies, hope is greater than despair and perfect love casts out all fear. Bless your world. Speak your truth. Live with integrity. Love with passion. Our community, our cities, our state and our world need it now more than ever before.
Amen.
Sources:
www.homileticsonline.com Colony Collapse Disorder, April 2008.
http://www.ways-of-christ.net/images/ways-of-christ_pentecost.gif
http://www.mott.org/upload/pdfs/truthintranslation/backgroundonapartheid.pdf
http://dictionary.reference.com/help/ahd4.html
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http://www.africabookcentre.com/acatalog/truth-reconciliation.jpg
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