Joseph Ton was pastor of Second Baptist Church in Oradea, Romania. In his book, Pastoral Renewal, he writes of his experiences during the Cold War: “Years ago, I ran away from my country to study theology at Oxford…When I was ready to go back to Romania, I discussed my plans with some fellow students. They pointed out that I might be arrested at the border. One student asked, ‘Joseph, what chances do you have of successfully implementing your plans?’” Reality is a tough task-master, isn’t it? Like for Joseph Ton, sometimes when we have an idea about how we want things to go, along comes reality to give us a splash of cold water. The house or car or vacation we want costs more than we can afford. The job we want requires experience we don’t have. The fun thing we want to do requires equipment we don’t have. We want to do something kind for someone, but there could be insurance problems with it. Reality is a tough task-master, isn’t it?
We see that kind of problem facing the disciples in our passage from Acts today, don’t we? On their way into the Temple in Jerusalem, Peter and John healed a crippled man, who walked, then danced, then jumped around with joy. Everyone who came to the Temple from near and far saw it or at least heard about—it’s the talk of the town. The next day, members of the ruling council of Jews in Jerusalem arrested Peter and John and started splashing the cold water of reality on them. No more preaching or healing in Jesus’ Name. Reality is a tough task-master, and what the ruling council hoped is that their splash of cold water would contain all this Jesus-talk and -action. Reality is a tough task-master, but the folks who decide what reality is, always choose what works the best for them, what keeps the gravy train rolling with the least amount of effort. Like the hired hands watching the sheep in Jesus’ teaching, the members of the ruling council are in it for what they can get out of it—money, power, prestige. Brought up in Jerusalem, perhaps in very religious and very wealthy families, they had paid their dues and done their time. They quite helpfully show John and Peter what the realities are—this is the way the world works.
Whenever the world and our culture tells us, or our co-workers, classmates and neighbors tell us what reality is, we who follow Jesus have to look to Jesus for direction. Joseph Ton, the Romanian pastor, remembers asking God about his decision. God brought to mind Matthew 10:16—“I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves”—and seemed to say, “Tell me, what chance does a sheep surrounded by wolves have of surviving five minutes, let alone of converting the wolves? Joseph, that’s how I send you: totally defenseless and without a reasonable hope of success. If you are willing to go like that, go. If you are not willing to be in that position, don’t go.” Sometimes reality is reality—if you step off a roof, you’ll fall and get hurt; if you jump into the water, you’ll get wet, and Joseph Ton was heading into a dangerous situation—no doubt. God doesn’t sugar-coat that reality for him. What Joseph understood though, is the key for us when we get to tough decisions: trust in the One who made reality. Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” Where we in this world, including all the powers that be, can only imagine what we can see and touch, what we can predict with the conventional wisdom, Jesus can see more—the possibilities out ahead of us, a future in which we walk in step with the God who loves us, changes lives, shares Good News, heals and supports people, shows deep compassion, and opens up new, abundant life. Like all good shepherds, Jesus knows where we can have our needs meet, even if we aren’t sure how that will work. Like all good shepherds, Jesus cares what happens to us, was even willing to lay down His life, so that we could share in His promises and find the peace and wholeness we long for. In fact, Jesus’ great compassion and willingness to sacrifice is what threatened the ruling council of Jews and led to His crucifixion. In his provocative book, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggeman writes, “Jesus…is moved to compassion. Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of ‘lawfulness’ in Jesus’ time…the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise, the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. Thus, the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction, but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context.” Reality is a tough task-master, and Jesus’ compassion draws our attention to reality too, defined not by the world, but by God.
In the face of his challenges, Joseph Ton continues, “After our return, as I preached uninhibitedly, harassment and arrests came. One day during interrogation an officer threatened to kill me. Then I said, ‘Sir, your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Sir, you know my sermons are all over the country on tapes now. If you kill me, I will be sprinkling them with my blood. Whoever listens to them after that will say, ‘I’d better listen. This man sealed it with his blood.’ They will speak ten times louder than before. So, go on and kill me. I win the supreme victory then.’” And in the face of their own arrest, and the banning of preaching and healing in Jesus’ Name, Peter and John reply, “’Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.’” And in the face of a world or co-workers who mock us for looking to Jesus—our Good Shepherd—for direction and strength, wisdom and compassion, we can listen to God first, put God first, lean into God’s guidance, and keep on living and loving like Jesus would. Joseph Ton concludes, “The officer sent me home [that day.] That gave me pause. For years, I was a Christian who was cautious because I wanted to survive. I had accepted all the restrictions the authorities put on me because I wanted to live. Now I wanted to die, and they wouldn’t oblige. Now I could do whatever I wanted in Romania. For years I wanted to save my life, and I was losing it. Now that I wanted to lose it, I was winning it.” The world and its powers that be want us to be so content that we are numb to the needs of people around us. The world and its powers will often tell us that compassion is a waste of time, or a danger to us or society. They may be right, but should we listen to them or to God? Today, let us find the life we have been missing, the life of compassion and imagination, that Jesus dared to live and die for. Reality is a tough task-master, and sometimes we can get discouraged. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)