Acts 12:1-17
“About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.
The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his wrists. The angel said to him, ‘Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.’ He did so. Then he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.’ Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.’
As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying. When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. On recognizing Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, ‘You are out of your mind!’ But she insisted that it was so. They said, ‘It is his angel.’ Meanwhile, Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed. He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, ‘Tell this to James and to the believers.’ Then he left and went to another place.”
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
It wasn’t until I was a graduate student in theological studies that I began praying for death row inmates and their victims, especially on the days of their scheduled executions. A number of times since 2009, I have spent time in the evening in a prostrate position with my face buried in the carpet praying that the single life of a death row inmate be spared. The first time it happened was for the execution of John Allen Muhammad, also known as the D.C. Sniper. He and an accomplice had terrorized the region in which I grew up back in 2002, killing 17 people over several weeks in October. I had a terrible theological reckoning trying to understand the United Methodist Church’s Social Principles, my developing academic sense of God’s grace, and the feeling in my gut that knew consequences were appropriate and necessary. I wanted John Allen Muhammad to be punished but not in that way. I knew meeting violence with violence was far less than what God calls God’s people to. I prayed for him anyway that night.
There were times over the next couple of years that I’d learn of an upcoming execution and set time aside to pray that another way might prevail that was oriented toward justice and reconciliation. In more cases than not, the executions have taken place. Clemency is so rarely granted. There are various reasons, perspectives, and ideological commitments that people invoke as to why the death penalty is and is not an effective instrument in ordering our social life together. As a person of faith in Jesus Christ, my primary concern personally and corporately is how the life, ministry, death, and resurrection places a call or demand when faith intersects with public life.
As a United Methodist, I’m thankful that our church’s Social Principles make this statement: “We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and that the possibility of reconciliation with Christ comes through repentance.”(¶164A) The death penalty ends any progress in this life that can be made toward experiencing and realizing the new creation promised and evidenced in Jesus’ ministry. For that reason, I pray and yearn for the day when that act of violence in the name of justice is no more.
Deep in your heart, what are you fervently praying for? A certain type of justice? Who are you praying for? As I read a particular line in this morning’s text from Acts of the Apostles, ‘the church prayed fervently to God for him,’ I thought about all those times that I’ve seen and heard of churches gathering in times of deep pain and yearning to fervently pray. Maybe families in the church signed up for 15 or 30 minute time slots over a 24 hour period of time so that the communal concern was bathed in prayer every second of the day.
A few years ago there was a woman, Kelly Gissendaner, who was an inmate at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Georgia and also a Candler School of Theology graduate with a Certificate in Theological Studies. She had murdered her husband and was on death row, and also had the opportunity to do theological graduate work. It’s not all that different from a program at Vanderbilt Divinity School where students, professors, and inmates at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison conduct classes together.
Students and faculty at Candler School of Theology at Emory University and across theological schools in the United States organized vigils in the weeks heading toward her execution. Students and fellow inmates had come to know the deep faith and mature discipleship exhibited by Kelly. They didn’t want to lose a friend, student, scholar, and teacher.
“Gissendaner wrote: “It is impossible to put into words the overwhelming sorrow and remorse I feel for my involvement in the murder of my husband, Douglas Gissendaner.
“There are no excuses for what I did. … I have learned firsthand that no one, not even me, is beyond redemption through God’s grace and mercy. … I rely on the steadfast and never-ending love of God.”
“God through Christ offers all of us redemption all of the time. Anyone who has sinned – and that happens to be all of us — can ask forgiveness for those sins and act to turn our lives around. God is not finished with anybody, God can redeem anybody. If God doesn’t give up on people, we shouldn’t give up on people.”” (http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/candler-students-join-call-to-stop-georgias-execution)
Prayer vigils were organized by students and faculty and local churches. Pope Francis wrote to the Governor. Clemency wasn’t granted. Another life extinguished.
The church gathers, shows up, and takes up a dependent posture of prayer to invoke the outpouring of God’s Spirit on situations far beyond our control. We pray fervently for healing, for resilience of spirit in life’s most trying moments. Sometimes prayers seemed answered when the outcome is what we envisioned. At other times, there is a sense of disappointment and prayers going unheard when there is no demonstrable break in pain and suffering.
Here in this community the church, not just Kingston Springs, but Christ’s church made up of Church of Christ, Baptists, Presbyterians, Nazarenes, and the list goes on, has prayed fervently for miracles. Prayers that David McCullough’s cancer would be cured. Prayers that Marcellus Newsome’s brain tumor would be cured.
If God heard the church praying fervently, wouldn’t God be compelled to do something? God certainly breaks into Peter’s moment of distress in a bold and visible way, perhaps compelled by the cries of Peter’s brothers and sisters in faith.
The church is praying on behalf of Peter in his imprisonment, in a difficult hour as he expects his fate to turn out like James. In miraculous fashion, an angel of the Lord visits him in his jail cell, shakes his shoulder to wake him up, tells him to get dressed, and follow. Peter follows the angel right out of the jail unharmed. When Peter comes to his senses, he realizes that the power of God delivered him out of Herod’s grip and he makes haste to go and tell the disciples of this miracle.
When he gets to the house where a number of believers have gathered, he knocks. The household servant goes to see who is knocking. It’s Peter! She runs back into the house to announce his arrival much to the disbelief of the others. They declare it is a visitation from his angel, which means they assumed he had been killed by Herod. But Peter keeps on knocking until he is brought into the house. He calms his friends and retells the amazing series of events that delivered him from the grip of Herod to freedom. It would seem on the surface that maybe the prayers of the gathered church had something to do with God’s decision to break Peter out of jail. Of course God could have chosen to rescue Peter of God’s own accord, whether or not anyone was praying for him.
Let me ask it just in case you’re wondering it yourself. Why is it when dozens, hundreds, or thousands of folks turn to God in prayer for a situation that it doesn’t always turn out as splendidly as Peter’s miraculous stroll out of jail? In other words, does fervent prayer work and should we keep at it? If it does, what are we as a community of Christ followers called to share in prayer with one another? Should we pray with specificity and risk disappointment? Or shall we pray in broad sweeps so that we can always say, God answers prayers?
In prayer, we trust God with our life, the parts we exert some control over and the parts that are achingly out of our hands. Health. Relationships. Future of our work. Health of our community. Movements toward justice in our world.
At the risk of being very specific, I was captivated recently in hearing it suggested we could pray fervently that every one of our neighbors in Cheatham County find freedom from the bonds of alcohol and narcotic addiction. Such a bold prayer requires fervent investment on the church’s part and even grants vision of what can be done in the spirit of Christ among us. What about a prayer that every child in this zip code will go to bed having had dinner and we won’t stop praying that prayer until God puts a rest to it in our heart.
Would you be willing to pray during a vigil for one of our brothers or sisters who needs the spirit of God invoked in his or her life?
Who and what are you willing to pray for fervently, expectant that the grace of God is going to show up in a powerful way as it did with Peter?
Amen.