Third Place Witness (CaD Acts 3) – Wayfarer

“You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.”

“Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.”

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord…”
Acts 3:15, 17, 19 (NIV)

About the time I was in college, I remember the coffee shop phenomenon began to explode. It was my grandfather who first introduced me to a daily cup o’ Joe. I was in high school and I spent that week drinking Taster’s Choice instant. Coffee was the pot of Folgers my parents made, or else it was whatever they were brewing at the greasy spoon or the 7-11.

Suddenly, there were specialty coffee shops popping up everywhere offering different varieties and flavors of coffee beans made in special ways. Freshly roasted coffee beans from exotic places were freshly roasted and brewed for you in comfortable and intimate spaces where you wanted to hang out and enjoy your java.

In those days, everyone was talking about “a third place.” You had your home, and you had your workplace, but everyone needed “a third place” to hang out, to meet with others, and to enjoy being. Coffee shops became popular third places to be and they remain so to this day. Even in our small town here in Iowa, you can choose from three different coffee shops within a few yards of one another.

In today’s chapter, it is still the early days of the Jesus Movement. Before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Jesus told them to start in Jerusalem. There, on the day of Pentecost and the beginning of the Festival of Weeks, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit happened. Jewish pilgrims from all over the known world had come to Jerusalem for the festival. When the Holy Spirit poured into the disciples, they began proclaiming Jesus’ message in all of the various native tongues represented in the crowd. About three thousand people believed in Jesus and were baptized that day. And, most of those three thousand would go back to their native lands throughout the known world when the festival was over and tell others about Jesus, His message, and the amazing things they’d experienced.

Talk about effective word-of-mouth marketing.

For Peter and the core group of disciples. They are still in Jerusalem, and each day they go to the Temple. The Temple wasn’t just a building. It was an entire complex with courtyards and areas where people gathered. The Temple was their third place. It’s where everyone went, not only to worship and follow prescribed offerings and sacrifices, but to hang out, to converse, and to socialize. It is where Jesus hung out when He was in Jerusalem. It’s where everyone hung out when they were in Jerusalem. And so, it is where Peter and John go.

When I go to a coffee shop uptown or to the pub, I typically always run into people I know. There are usual crowds that I can make a safe bet will be there. Friends and acquaintances will pop in for a pour-over or a pint and stop to chat.

The Temple would have been the same way. In today’s chapter, Peter and John heal a beggar at one of the Temple gates. It became a sensation because everyone knew that beggar. He was there begging every day at the same place. He was a regular and all the regulars passed by him. In the Temple courts, Peter and John would have recognized regulars. Some of the religious leaders who tried and convicted Jesus would have been there, and perhaps the very Temple guards who arrested Jesus in the Garden and were the first to strike Jesus’ face with their unjust blows. All of these people would have been in the Temple when Jesus was teaching there just a few weeks before. Peter and John probably even knew people by name. They had gotten to know certain individuals when they were there every day, all day, with Jesus. That’s what happens when you hang out regularly in a “third place.”

It is this regular crowd of good religious Jews that crowds around Peter, John, and the ecstatic, jumping-for-joy, and formerly lame beggar from the Beautiful Gate. When the crowd of regulars gather around, Peter delivers to them his message.

Peter doesn’t mince words. He calls out this crowd of regulars with the leaders and soldiers listening in. Peter states that they, this group of regulars, had rejected, wronged, and killed an innocent Jesus. But this isn’t a message of anger and condemnation, it is an offering of a second chance. Peter proclaims Jesus’ resurrection, which he and John had witnessed. “You and the religious leaders were ignorant,” Peter says. Now, he offers forgiveness, redemption, and salvation if they will simply repent and believe.

In the quiet this morning, I think back to my early days of being a disciple. In those days I was taught that being a “witness” involved standing on street corners, knocking on doors, and parroting a scripted and well-rehearsed pitch to strangers. I won’t deny that some people responded. The Lord works in mysterious ways, as they say.

But today’s chapter reminds me that being my witness begins at home, in my third place with all the regulars just as the Jesus Movement began with Peter and John’s witness in Jerusalem, in the Temple. My witness is woven into all the “third places” I frequent. It is in the way I greet people with kindness. It is my patience with the barista or pub tender who is so busy I feel ignored. It is my generosity in the tips I leave or the pint I buy for the person next to me. It is in the gentleness and mercy with which I relate to individuals who may have wronged me, or who simply rub me the wrong way.

The institutional church I grew up in loved to cram being a “witness” into programs, processes, and prescribed pitches. But, the further I get in my journey, the more I have come to realize and embrace that my “witness” as a disciple of Jesus is how I interact with the regulars in my life. It begins at home with my most intimate loved ones, at my place of work with my colleagues, and in the third places I frequent with friends and community. If my witness doesn’t start here, it will never make it to the ends of the earth.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.