NUCC

Easter 5

May 6, 2007

Acts 11:1 - 18 (NRSV) ¹Now the apostles and the believers^£ who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.  ²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers^£ criticized him,  ³saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”  ⁴Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying,  ⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me.  ⁶As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.  ⁷I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’  ⁸But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’  ⁹But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’  ¹⁰This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.  ¹¹At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were.  ¹²The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.^£ These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.  ¹³He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; ¹⁴he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’  ¹⁵And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.  ¹⁶And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’  ¹⁷If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”  ¹⁸When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” 

Revelation 21:1 - 6 (NRSV)  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

    “See, the home^£ of God is among mortals.

    He will dwell^£ with them;

    they will be his peoples,^£

    and God himself will be with them;^£

⁴    he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

    Death will be no more;

    mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

    for the first things have passed away.”

⁵And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

 

John 13:31 - 35 (NRSV) ³¹When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.  ³²If God has been glorified in him,^£ God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.  ³³Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’  ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

            Headquarters was in an uproar.  Peter had broken some rules and crossed some boundaries.  The bosses were not happy.  So, Peter made the trip up to Jerusalem and explained himself.  What were the church leaders upset about?  They were upset because Peter had eaten with outsiders.  He had abandoned centuries old prohibitions about what is proper and what is improper.  He had the gall to stand on the carpet and tell his Church Board that God had come to him in a vision and told him the old rules didn’t matter any more.

            For Peter and the bosses in Jerusalem the issue was eating forbidden foods.  (If you want to find what they are look in the books of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14.)  Peter was no longer keeping kosher.  What is more, he had gone into the house of one of the hated outsiders, a Roman soldier named Cornelius.   Peter had prayed with him, preached to him, seen the Holy Spirit fill him, and baptized his whole family.  He had consorted with the enemy.

            Mind blowing.  At least Peter’s mind was blown.  He  did an about face.  Before going to Caesarea he was certain that the good news he had about Jesus was only for his people, his kind of people, his rule-keeping people.  But that strange vision of all the animals you have seen in the picture and the experience he had with Cornelius somehow changed his mind and his heart.  He no longer cared about who was in and who was out, who was pure and who was corrupt, who was good and who was bad, who was God’s child and who was God’s enemy.  Peter came to the conclusion from his experience with God and God’s people that things weren’t as simple or as cut-and-dried as he one time had thought.  God was working in these other people just as much as God was working in him.

            Do we have any similar problems today?  Are we concerned about who is pure and who is impure, who is in and who is out, who is sinless and who is sinful, who God loves and who God doesn’t love?  Do we divide ourselves into groups of us vs. them?

            I believe we do. We divide ourselves into red states and blue states, liberal and conservative, old timers and new comers.  Even in the church. 

In the early church the hot button issues were circumcision, dietary laws and ritual observance.  Today the hot button issues include homosexuality, gay marriage, women’s ordination, and abortion.

            If you read religious news you know that the Episcopal Church is in turmoil about a gay bishop and a woman presiding bishop.   An African bishop is even coming to our country to help and bless a minority group of Episcopalians who want to separate themselves from the impure, homosexual loving, woman-led American church.

            Our church is not that different.  We don’t have the hierarchical structure or connectional loyalty that churches like the Episcopal, Catholic or United Methodist churches have.  We have more individual freedom.  But we are still divided over some of the same issues.

            I was in North Carolina last week to meet my new granddaughter, but one day I drove over to Abernathy Laurels, a UCC-sponsored retirement community in Newton, and had supper with my friend Larry Bolick, who is chaplain there.  He told me about churches in his area leaving the UCC because of our denomination’s friendliness to homosexuals and support of their push for acceptance.  Larry was saddened about this, but then he told me that forty years ago churches had left the UCC because of our denomination’s active support for the Civil Rights movement.  I share this, but also report to you that I saw a lot more racial diversity, acceptance and contact in North Carolina than I have ever seen in Wisconsin.

            What does all of this mean?  To me it means that the modern church is not so different from the ancient church.  We are dealing with the same tensions between inclusion and exclusion.  We are troubled by differences of opinion over what God wants us to do.  We have contrasting understandings of how to balance scripture, experience, tradition, reason, and God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.

            We acknowledge that we are not always of one mind.  The challenge which I see for us to follow holy hospitality while also remaining wholly committed to Jesus Christ.  I believe Peter’s experience has something to teach us.  Peter discovered that rules and regulations are not as important as living in love.  Peter discovered that God calls us to radical inclusivity rather than hierarchical exclusivity.  Peter discovered that inward transformation is more important than outward ritual.  Peter discovered that God calls us to a community shaped not by the ethos and politics of purity, but by the ethos and politics of compassion.  Peter, along with other early followers of the way, discovered that there are only two standards for a true Christian, one doctrinal and the other ethical:   to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and to love one another.

            As I make my faith journey I want to be more like Peter. 

• Like Peter I may sometimes be rather thick-skulled and require repetition ----- just like Jesus had to ask Peter, three times:  Do you love me?
• Like Peter I want to be zealous and passionate about following Jesus.
• Like Peter I want to be open to God’s spirit and God’s people.
• Like Peter I want to have the courage to change my mind.
• Like Peter I may at times be puzzled, just as he was after his fantastic vision of the animals all mixed together on a sheet.
• Like Peter I want to follow Jesus  wherever he takes me.  I hope you do too.