“Graffiti is always a political act,” writes Zack
Gingrich-Gaylord, “whether overtly or accidentally. The very nature of vandalism requires some
kind of confrontation between a disruptive actor and established structures of
the status quo.” He goes on to say: “A
pithy piece of political graffiti by Banksy observes that ‘society gets the
[kind of] vandalism it deserves.’ In
other words, graffiti is a sort of canary in the coal mine of social health…”
One of my favourite
pieces of this art form – attributed variously to Banksy himself, and to the
Australian Meek – depicts a homeless men sitting against the brick wall,
begging cup in front of him, and holding a sign that reads, “Keep your coins –
I want change”.
In my mind, this
work links to a biblical story of a beggar in a doorway, pleading for
alms. The story is told in the New
Testament book of Acts, but when I was a kid, I learned the story through the
medium of song. It went like this:
“Peter and John went to pray.
They met a lame man on the way.
He asked for alms and held out his palms,
And this is what Peter did say:
Silver and gold have I none,
But such as I have give I you;
In the name of Jesus Christ
Of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
He went walking and leaping and praising God,
Walking and leaping and praising God.
In the name of Jesus Christ
Of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
I’ll refer to the
full text from Acts 3:1-10 shortly, for some details, but most of the important
stuff is contained in this good, old-fashioned Sunday-school chorus. In fact, those songs were our bible as young
kids. Those and flannel-graph.
Just some
observations about songs. They have a
way of connecting. They communicate and
pass on stories or truths in ways that connect with us (maybe something to do
with the senses and synapses in our brains).
They also unite people – around a cause, in cases like a national anthem
or sporting chant, a battle cry or a protest shout.
And, as it goes, I
want to argue that this whole story is revolutionary, is about protest. It’s about an uprising that subverts or
overturns the status quo and the prevailing systems and structures. And it’s about change from the ground up
(literally and metaphorically), a real grassroots movement. Look at Peter’s command to the lame man:
“Rise up…” (This is where it’s good to have that old song, and the older
English translations of the Bible on which it was based, like the King James
Version).
If you think I’m
stretching it a bit here, let’s read around that. We’re told in Acts 3:2 that the man (who was
lame from birth) would be laid at the temple gate daily to beg for alms. A couple of points here: almsgiving was an
established and expected part of Jewish life; and, it was ‘working’ for this
man, otherwise he wouldn’t still be there, coming back. He’d be either dead or begging elsewhere.
But when Peter and
John came that way, they knew they had to do something. What though?
They didn’t have silver or gold to give him. And I wonder, if they had, would they have
given it to him? Or whether they
recognised that this man didn’t need coins.
He needed change. A total
transformation of his status, his situation, and the system at play around
him. After Peter’s words, the playing
field is suddenly levelled, so this man could now join in, going inside the
temple (for the first time, I presume) and finally enjoying self-determination
, mobility (physical and potentially social), agency and ability to contribute.
Particularly
powerful is Acts 3:7, where Peter “took him by the right hand and raised him
up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.” Peter literally gave him a hand up, not a
handout (to borrow the tagline from The Big Issue). Peter didn’t carry the man, he just gave him a
lift, a kickstart. The man suddenly
found his feet, and used them.
Christians sometimes
talk about being a voice for the voiceless.
But maybe it’s better to help the ‘voiceless’ find their own voice. Stand with them, echo their cries by all
means. What we need to show most of all,
though, is not ‘charity’, but solidarity.
Not paternalism, but ‘fraternity’.
Revolution has long
been a feature of Judeo-Christian tradition.
Hundreds of years before Jesus and his radical movement, the great
writing prophets of the Hebrew scriptures called for social justice, for
levelling of playing fields and upsetting of apple carts. And this incident in Acts 3 takes me back to
something Isaiah had said (Isaiah 35).
Speaking of the return of the redeemed to Zion (i.e. the exiled people
of Israel-Judah coming home to Jerusalem), he says: “Strengthen the weak hands
and make firm the feeble knees” (35:3).
It’s in the same territory as feet and ankles being made strong, isn’t
it (Acts 3:7)? Isaiah goes on: “then the
lame shall leap like a deer [walking and leaping?]” (35:6)…. “And the ransomed
of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing” (35:10; cf “and he
entered the temple with them… praising God”, Acts 3:8). This episode in Acts is a demonstration that
God is ending the exile, that God’s kingdom is becoming manifest in the
world. And by definition, that means revolution:
an overthrowing of the established and prevailing order.
Let’s not kid
ourselves. Jesus was partial to a bit of
protest and revolution. Remember when
Jesus entered the temple, a few weeks before this incident, on Palm
Sunday? He ruffled feathers and turned
the tables on those who were profiting from a corrupt status quo (doves and
pigeons were the offering of the poor at the temple, and this had become a
market, capitalising on them).
That act of defiance
was a precursor to Jesus’ greatest moment of resistance. It came a few days later, as he was
brutalised, de-humanised and crucified.
And, despite living a life of love and goodness, Jesus refused to resist
that great evil and injustice. Instead,
he absorbed it, and in so doing, he rose above and against the inhumanity of it
all. Interestingly, his death was
reported in all 3 Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) to have occurred at
3 in the afternoon, the ninth hour of the day.
And that’s also the time of day that this story in Acts takes place
(3:1), at the hour of prayer.
Time is significant
in this story, actually. First of all,
there’s the double use of the Greek word hora
(‘hour’) in verse 1. Then there’s a
repetition of the related word horaios (translated
‘beautiful’ in vv 2 & 10). That
relates to the temple gate called Beautiful, which many scholars have tried to
identify. It’s not referred to by that
name in any other extant texts. It has
been linked with a large gate used by many pilgrims – which would be an ideal
location for a beggar. However, I am
much more interested in the name, not the whereabouts, of this gate. It’s called ‘Beautiful’, but the Greek word
literally means ‘apt’ or ‘timely’. And
that is really fitting in this story. We
talk about a window of opportunity, and in a similar way, I think this was a
gate of timeliness. The Greek word horaios occurs in the LXX (Septuagint,
the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) in Isaiah 52:7, which
says: “How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace…” How timely. How fitting.
They’re a sight for sore eyes, we might say. And now is the time for Peter, for the
beggar, for God, for the people around.
The great rabbi
Hillel the Elder has been attributed with the saying, “If not you, who? If not now, when?” It’s probably a misquote, but this Hillel had
some influence on Jesus – perhaps not directly, as he died when Jesus was a
boy, but his teachings were spread by his ‘school’. Whether Hillel said it or not, it’s still
very stirring. It’s a call to action.
Add to that another
call: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk…” This is a
call to revolution. The call to disrupt
the established order is a divine call.
Peter invokes the name of Jesus.
And it works. It seems to me that
Jesus is about change. Jesus wants
change. He wants us to rise up and turn
the tables, subvert the system in favour of the kingdom – or (as Brian McLaren
has called it) the revolution – of God…
