Against The Grain, Acts 23:11
Introduction
When I was a teenager I spent a couple of years living with my Dad and Grandpa in Butte, Montana. It was a true bachelor lifestyle with three generations of Surber men living under one roof. The only place we shopped was as the local butcher shop which was called the Meat Block.
I used to work in our family business, The Furniture Clinic, a furniture refinishing and antique restoration business. I have helped to restore antique chairs, wicker benches, 2 hundred year old grandfather clocks, and all sorts of antiques.
Working with antiques was a beautiful experience for me. I always enjoyed hearing the stories that went along with a piece of furniture from the past.
I remember when I first started working in the Furniture Clinic, my grandfather taught me about wood. He taught me how important it is in woodworking to be aware of the grain of the wood.
He showed me how if you go against the grain you can scar the wood and upset the natural appearance of the wood. When you use a sanding block or an electric sander, you want to make smooth passes in the direction of the grain of the wood.
In woodworking it is important to go with the grain. And in our lives there are times when going with the grain is important.
But there are also times in our lives when going against the grain is the right thing for us to do. And occasionally a person comes along who, for the sake of Christ, goes against the grain and leaves an example for us to follow.
Transition
Horace Bushnell was an American Congregational clergyman and theologian. Bushnell was a Yankee born in the village of Bantam, township of Litchfield, Connecticut.
He graduated at Yale in 1827 and was literary editor of the New York Journal of Commerce. In May, 1833 Bushnell was ordained pastor of the North Congregational church in Hartford, Connecticut, where he remained until 1859, it was his only pastorate.
Thereafter he held no appointed office, but, until his death at Hartford, Connecticut in 1876, he was a prolific author and occasionally preached.
In an age of great thinkers and writers, Horace Bushnell produced some of the most profound writing and articulated some of the most insightful thought.
Perhaps his most lasting gift to us, though is his example of a man who followed after his conscience and Christ, even when to do so went against the grain conventional thought.
In his recent work entitled, “Of Single Genius, of Single Grace,” a biography on the life of Horace Bushnell, Robert Edwards writes, “Time and again Bushnell knowingly challenged establishment thinking.
Evangelical teaching held that Christ came expressly to die on the Cross and thus to square accounts with Divine justice. Bushnell thought the reverse, following his interpretation of Anselm: Christ did not come to die. He died because he came, and he remained obedient to the law of right and love despite all a hostile world could throw at him.
Dominant thought looked primarily at God’s exacting justice when it considered Calvary. Bushnell set forth a God not only just, but merciful. The Deity is not obliged to be “a precisionist,” he protested.
The God of Jesus Christ has a “justice above justice,” shaped by the higher law of righteousness and love. Thus what we see on Golgotha is not a frowning Providence, watching from a distance to see stern justice done. We are witnessing an intertwining of God’s everlasting justice and God’s everlasting mercy, “pearls that are alike on the same string," neither outshining the other.”
In a church climate which largely saw God as a harsh taskmaster who demanded righteousness and only sent His son into the world to satisfy His desire for Justice, Bushnell said that the beauty of the Cross of Jesus Christ was as much about mercy as Justice and that God is as loving as He is holy.
Many church historians regard Bushnell as the single most influential Pastor-Theologian of the 19th century. For the sake of Christ he went against the grain of his day.
As Congregationalists we are indebted to him for his contributions to our knowledge of the God and of the Scriptures. As followers of Jesus Christ, there is much we can learn from his courageous example.
He was a man who was faithful to the Scriptures, faithful to his conscience, and a man who went against the grain.
Scripture
Acts 23:11 “The following night the Lord stood by him and said, ‘Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.” (ESV)
Jesus
In Matthew 10:32-38 Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
Jesus is the ultimate example of a religious radical who went against the grain. The words of the well known hymn, “Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild” tell but a part of the story.
In John 2:14-16 is recorded the event of Jesus driving out the corrupt money changers from the temple, “In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.
And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” (ESV)
Mathew Perry, on of the Christian comedians who will be visiting our church later this month, tells a joke about being a Christian with an anger problem. He says that he turned to the Bible to find ways to deal with his anger problem.
The problem though is that when he opens his Bible to this passage and reads about Jesus getting angry and chasing the corrupt money changers out of the temple with a home made whip!
There is a big difference though, between unjustified anger and righteous indignation. Jesus was not angry because someone had slighted Him or been disrespectful to Him. He wasn’t out for revenge.
In running the corrupt money changers out of the Temple, Jesus expressed indignation at the corruption and injustice of the religious system of His day.
Jesus also expressed the authority God in demanding what will or will not happen in the Temple. Jesus came to this earth wielding the authority of Heaven as with a sword. The Lamb of God is also the Lion of Judah.
Jesus came against the domination systems of His day, just as He is calling us to come against the domination systems of our day. Jesus carried the sword of Justice, not the club of oppression.
During His earthly ministry, Jesus went against the grain of injustice and he is calling us to do the same.
Conclusion
Sydney Smith, the 18th century scholar and pastor wrote, “A great deal of talent is lost in this world for want of a little courage.”
Today, I encourage you to learn from the example of Horace Bushnell who was more concerned with the truths of God than the opinions of men. Let us, like Bushnell, learn from the ultimate example which is found in the life of Christ.
As we walk out our journey of faith, let us become more like Christ.
What domination systems exist in your life today? Where is there someone who is oppressed that you can help to make free? Where is there a person who has been treated unfairly that you can help?
Going against the grain is not about causing trouble. It’s about rejecting the injustice we see all around us and doing something about it.
Winston Churchill once that, “A man is as big as the things that make him angry.”
When Jesus saw the money changers in the Temple robbing from poor people, he became filled with something far more powerful than anger; he became filled with the righteous fury.
It only takes eyes to see what’s wrong, but it takes courage to do something to change it.
Bushnell affected an entire generation of pulpit communication because he had the courage to go against the grain.
He had the bravery to speak the truth of God’s mercy in an age when the church seemed to prefer a God of wrath.
When you look around you today, what makes fills you with the kind of anger that Jesus displayed in the Temple because of the corruption of the religious system of His day?
Let us learn from the example of Horace Bushnell. Let us find the courage in Christ, to go against the grain.
Amen.
