No good deed goes unpunished.
It’s a cynical saying, brought about by the disappointments we all have in the way the world works, disappointments that find their way into the scripture story today.
While that’s not a biblical truth, it is a biblical experience, really the back story to today’s scripture. Our reading from Acts finds Peter defending himself before a sort of ecclesiastical trial court. It’s no joke because these people, the high priest and his assistants are the same group who managed to get Jesus crucified by the Romans. Why has Peter caught their attention? For what he calls a “good deed”–Peter performed a miracle, healing a lame beggar outside the Temple. Oh, and by the way, he did this miracle in the name of Jesus.
While it isn’t as obvious, in our Gospel reading today Jesus is in a similar situation. These words about being the good shepherd (which we probably find comforting) are words of challenge and conflict. In fact they so anger the Jewish authorities, that by the end of the conversation they are picking up stones to throw at Jesus. And why is Jesus in the midst of this conflict? Like Peter, he did a good deed, healing a man born blind. Apparently no good deed goes unpunished, even in the Bible.
But why are the authorities so angered by Jesus’ and Peter’s good deeds? Are they just mean-spirited religious hypocrites who can’t stand to see miracles and good deeds?
Reality is more complicated than that. It’s not that the Jewish authorities didn’t want to see God’s power displayed. They didn’t oppose wholeness and healing in and of themselves. It’s just that there’s a proper place and time for these things. There are rituals to perform, and people authorized to act and speak in God’s name. There are rules and institutions to bring God’s presence to his people. Who does Jesus think he is just claiming the power to do miracles all on his own?
Now when I say it this way, the whole situation sounds sort of silly, and really it should. The expectation that certain rules and protocols must be observed should sound particularly absurd to us because we know about Easter. We are people of the Resurrection, and is not the Resurrection the ultimate in rule-breaking? After all, if there’s one rule that we all have to follow–it’s not the one about taxes. Death is the one rule we cannot break. No one is getting out of life alive, as they say. But Jesus breaks that rule. Death does not have the last word. He is alive, his message unstoppable, his presence unending. If death can’t stop Jesus, what can?
This, of course, is the Good News. Jesus wins. Life wins. We are called to be on that winning side. We ought to repeat that message to ourselves several times a day: Life wins. Knowing that, we would certainly never try to box in God’s power or Christ’s presence.
Except we do. Now it would be easy at this point to point the finger at those other Christians, the intolerant ones, the ones who are so sure that God cannot be found among those other people, whether those others be different faiths, lifestyles or theologies. Jesus’ words in the Gospel stand in opposition to this limitation, as Jesus talks about his other sheep, his outsider sheep who nonetheless hear his voice and will one day be part of the whole flock. But those Christians aren’t the only ones who try to box God in.
Let’s go back to my introduction, back to our disappointments. We often find ourselves disappointed by the rewards of our good deeds, but it’s not just the world that disappoints. What about all those prayers that aren’t answered? What about the healings that haven’t occurred? What about the fact that we live in an unsafe world, a place where accidents and illnesses, failures and betrayals, conflicts and misunderstandings all can happen? And what about the fact that salvation protects us from none of this? Even our psalm today, that very comforting psalm, points out that our shepherd leads us through the Valley of the Shadow, not around or in the other direction. We are saved, but we are not safe. People walk away from the church and its message all the time, disappointed in salvation.
At this point, we have two ways of dealing with this disappointment. I could gather up some Bible verses, and we could put them all together to explain why this prayer works and that one doesn’t. We could construct our own set of rules to dictate what God will and won’t do. Like the Jewish authorities confronting Peter and Jesus, we set up the right Biblical protocols within which God can operate. Or, we could look for what the authorities in their fears and rigidity missed. We can find the unauthorized presence and power of Christ.
How do we do that? Let’s begin with the disappointment. What is that disappointment? People? Situations? Results? Anything from a lack of success to a lack of excitement qualifies. Not to make light of it–we all have disappointments with life’s promises and expectations, and how things play out. Looking at that disappointment, whatever it is, where is God? Probably missing. That’s the thing about our disappointments–God isn’t there; if he were, things would turn out differently.
Now let’s look at the disappointment from another perspective. What we are looking for are signs of life. In church talk we call them blessings. Blessings aren’t consolation prizes–things didn’t go your way, but you got this instead–blessings are signposts, pointing you toward the new life of salvation. They might be supportive people, or a word you needed to hear. They might be the results– a new strength or wisdom, maybe, or even the humility of self-understanding.
The authorities thought God was all about their system. Salvation would be found in this system, working better, maybe, more powerfully, but certainly the same structures and rituals. God would bring salvation the way they expected, not through some self-proclaimed outsider of a Messiah.
We might not be about the system, but we limit the power of salvation in the same way, assuming that it’s all about us. Christ’s message of life is all about our life, the way we want it to be–more comfortable, more successful and more popular, perhaps, but definitely all about us.
Salvation isn’t the victory of the old life any more than it is the victory of the old system. Salvation is the victory of the new creation, the Kingdom of God, or in the language of today’s Gospel, the one flock. Jesus offers us not the life we want, but the life we are meant to have. That means we are promised wholeness, but not independence, belonging, not superiority. It’s compassion that we gain through salvation, not success. Jesus gives us a love that accepts, but also transforms, making us into not just the people we thought we were, but the people we were created to be, God’s holy people, inspired, but not necessarily successful or admired.
Our disappointments are the door to the new life of grace. Do we dare to open it?
Doing so isn’t too hard. First thing is to offer those disappointments to God. Each Sunday is an offering; we bring what we have and who we are, putting it in God’s presence. Offer the disappointment. The next step then, with the disappointment out of the way, is to look deeper, farther, with a different perspective. Look for the blessings, those signs of life. They may not seem visible at first, but that doesn’t mean they are missing. After all, we are people of the Resurrection. If death cannot separate us from Christ, what can? Life wins. Disappointment doesn’t stand a chance.