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Where Do You Draw the Line? |
Acts 11:1-18
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© Carole Jackson Cochran |
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Do any of you know what it's like to have your presuppositions, your preconceived notions, shifted and changed by the experiences of life? Let's start with something obvious, like marriage, for instance. For any of you who have been married, did the experience of marriage turn out any differently than what you thought it would be? Or, say, the experience of starting your career after years of schooling and training? How about the experience of parenthood? I have to say, I like to think of myself as fairly realistic and fairly aware. I had, after all, counseled a number of couples before their marriages and helped lead seminars on Christian parenting. And I'd lived with a preacher all my life! But when it came right down to it, all three of these experiences, and a number of others, have turned out to be far more challenging, as well as more wonderful, than I could have ever imagined. Even when my head thought it knew what was coming, my heart, and often my body, have had a lot of catching up to do. Our presuppositions about life: many are drawn from our imaginations, but more, from the culture that surrounds us, from our conditioning -- all we've learned and been taught through the years. What about your presuppositions about God? That gets a little stickier. Do any of you know what it's like to have your understanding of, your concept of, God, maybe even your whole faith system, turned upside down, if not completely shattered, by an experience of life? For many of us, our faith has undergone tremendous, often painful, reformulations, because God and life don't always fit into the boxes we neatly reserve for them. So it was for a man named Peter in the life-changing experience of which we will be reading this morning. Peter is one of my favorites of Jesus' disciples -- impulsive, hard-headed, passionate Peter -- who for all his faults, surely loved Jesus with all his heart. Peter was a man of courage. His courage had failed him the night of Jesus' arrest. But for Peter, as for many of us, the night of his darkest failure was transformed into new conviction and commitment and strength through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. The resurrected Savior had a new commission for Peter: "feed my sheep." "If you love me, Peter," Jesus had said, "then feed my sheep." Time alone would unfold the profound meaning of Jesus' words. Time alone would tell how much courage and sacrifice that task would entail. Jesus had said of Peter, "Upon this Rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." After Jesus' ascension, Peter boldly took his stand alongside the other apostles and believers to build this brand new church of Jesus Christ, born of a revolutionary faith in a resurrected Savior who had transformed his life forever. Peter had to have known he would face great skepticism and even great risk to his life. But nobody, not even Peter, knew what was coming next. Our scripture is taken from the book of Acts, as Peter is reporting back to his fellow believers in the church in Jerusalem on an astounding experience he had had in Joppa. Now we have to remember that the Christian church is brand new -- still trying to figure out who it is and what it's about, just beginning to formulate Christian theology as we know it today. Interestingly, through all these centuries, at least one aspect of church life seems to have remained a constant-- the criticism. The Christians at Jerusalem, or at least a group of them, apparently jumped all over Peter for his association with the Gentiles in Caesarea. So let's go back, just as Peter did in his defense, and see exactly what happened. Peter was tired; he was bound to be really tired. He'd been travelling for weeks, preaching and healing, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ everywhere he went. But again, we have to take note of the context: the people Peter encountered were, for the most part, his Jewish countrymen; and his message was that their Messiah had come. We must remember that Peter's strong convictions were grounded in the context of his Jewish faith. Peter's understanding, as well as the church's, was that a Gentile must become a Jew before he or she could become a Christian. They had not yet dealt with the Gentile question. Perhaps. But on the other hand, Peter's images of Jesus -- with the outcasts, with the Samaritan woman, memories of Jesus' compassion, Jesus' final words, "Go ye into all the world;" and Peter's firsthand knowledge of the revolutionary man Jesus Christ really was -- all this may have already raised the question in Peter's mind. Recently, Philip had made a missionary journey into Samaria and had even baptized an Ethiopian eunuch. Yet, somehow, all that seemed easily removed from the immediacy of Peter's concerns that day in Joppa. Apparently, Peter was already stepping outside the lines a bit: he was staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, a man who worked with dead animals, a person whose occupation was considered unclean in the Jewish law and who was required to live outside the village. Association with such a person was strictly forbidden for an orthodox Jew. Yet Simon the tanner was a Christian believer, and Peter was staying in his home. I wonder if any of these questions were swirling in Peter's mind that afternoon as he climbed, tired and hungry, to the rooftop to pray: where do you draw the line, what are the limits to God's grace? After all, if you have a religion that has no limits, you have no real convictions, and therefore you have no faith at all. Jesus had come to the Jewish people. What would it mean to the Jewish faith, held intact by its commitment to purity, if Christ's message was for everyone? Was the Gospel really meant for Jew and Gentile alike? Now I know this has never happened to you, but as Peter began to pray, he got very sleepy. Peter fell into a sort of trance and he had a vision. And here's how we know just how hungry he was -- he had a vision about food! Out of heaven descended a large sheet filled with all kinds of animals. Peter is told to slaughter the animals and eat. God's voice says, in effect: "Come on, then. You're hungry. Eat!" Peter's response was typically impulsive, even to a directive from God. He answered indignantly, "No, never! Never have I eaten anything that is unclean!" I think it's fair to say that Peter was repulsed by the idea of eating some of the animals he saw in that vision, so basic was his understanding of the Levitical dietary laws in the observance of his Jewish religion. I'm not sure it's even possible for us to understand the power of this vision in Peter's mind, for the dietary laws of orthodox Judaism have to do with much more than just food. They have to do with the identity and the survival of a race of people. In the covenant established between God and Abraham, the Jews were to be kept completely separate from the Gentiles, pure, undefiled and untouched by the heathen nations of the world. It was an understanding basic to the Jewish way of thinking and serving God, filtered through the Old Testament laws and even into the foods that were allowed to be eaten. Jews could only eat animals with cloven hooves or animals that chewed the cud. Period. That was the Law. And Peter knew it, inside and out. No matter how hungry he was, he would never partake of unclean foods. Peter's response to God was immediate and confident. If this was some sort of a test, Peter knew he'd gotten the answer right. But then, Peter got the shock of a lifetime when the voice of God said to him, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." WHAT?!?! "What God hath cleansed, don't you call common, or unclean." Can you imagine how radical, how scandalous, that statement must have been to Peter's protesting ears?! I'm not sure we can. Our best clue is that Peter had to have it repeated two more times before it seems to have even registered at all. In the meantime, God was also talking with a Roman officer in Caesarea named Cornelius -- a God-fearing man, a Gentile. God instructed him to send for Peter, and without a question, without hesitation, Cornelius obeyed. The dispatch arrived in Joppa with the message for Peter just as he was shaking his head over the vision he had received from God. And the Spirit of God spoke to him again, and said: "Go on and talk to them. I am the one who has sent them to you." Do you think Peter already knew the meaning of the vision? Had he already translated the symbolism of the unclean animals to address his question of the Gentile mission and the Gospel message? We have no way of knowing. But what we see is a man courageously willing to follow the Spirit's leading, even when the Spirit was leading into forbidden, if not repulsive territory. Peter invited the Gentiles into Simon's home, gave them a hearing, and offered them lodging for the night. The following day, he set out, with six of his Jewish colleagues, to go to the house of Cornelius. Again, for a devout Jew to enter the house of a Gentile was unthinkable, mostly because Gentile food preparation made it very difficult for a Jew to avoid ritual defilement. Nevertheless, Peter set out on the journey. What was he thinking as he walked that road from Joppa to Caesarea? I think he had to be scared -- scared of crossing a line so formidable, so sacred, in his mind and in his heart; scared, if nothing else, of what the others in Jerusalem were going to do with him when he made an account to them. Some authors have concluded, from their study of this text, that Peter was very resistant through this whole process. There is evidence that he continued to struggle with this issue, as the early church certainly did, for a long time to come. But if Peter was resistant, then who are we to be surprised? It's been said that the story of the church is a long story of how the church has been dragged, kicking and screaming, out of its safe, secure homogeneity into the surprising work of God by the Holy Spirit (Willimon, Pulpit Resources, Vol. 26, No. 2, p. 27). All we know is that Peter went, against one of the most basic tenets to his understanding of his faith, walking toward the house of Cornelius, the Gentile. Maybe it was as he made the journey, side by side, with those Gentile servants that the meaning of God's vision finally sunk into Peter's eternally thick skull. Because you see, the journeying together can make all the difference. When he got to Cornelius, Peter knew exactly what he was going to say: "You know, Cornelius, it's against our Law for a man who is a Jew to have contact with or visit someone of another race. But God has shown me not to call anyone common or unclean. In truth, I am coming to understand" --it's beginning to dawn on me -- "that God has no favorites. God has shown me not to call any man, any person, common or unclean." In other words, I have to let go of my prior understanding to make room for God's Spirit to work in a new and very surprising way. Peter went on to preach to Cornelius and a house full of family and friends, and the Spirit fell on these new converts with a power and affirmation that even Peter could not deny. And with that, the whole wide world was opened up to receive the Gospel of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Back at the business meeting in Jerusalem, Peter reported his actions and defended them with this final statement: "If God therefore gave to them the same gift he gave to us [the Spirit] after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?" Even though I don't understand it, even though it scares me, even though it crosses the line, who am I that I can stand in the way of God? It was a question that silenced even his critics, at least for a while. Some have said that Peter's finest moment was his sermon at Pentecost. Yet, for me, the courage of this particular moment outstrips all his others. In spite of all he knew and all he'd been taught, in spite of all the grief he would face for doing it, he carried the Gospel to the Gentile world. How could such have been possible? Well, I think in part it was possible because of the intimate way Peter knew his Savior. He knew and remembered Christ's openness, Christ's compassion, Christ's message for everyone he encountered. Yet Peter also had to have been extremely sensitive to the Spirit's leadership and remarkably open himself, willing to follow a brand new revelation in brand new territory, with absolutely no proof-texting to back him up. It was a momentous act of faith. So, it is a great story, isn't it? But, as I often ask my Sunday School class, what, if anything, does this great story have to do with us, here, this morning? Well, I guess you have to answer that for yourself, but as for me, this story is rich with relevance. Yet, as with Peter, it isn't necessarily easy for me to hear. This Scripture asks us a profound question; and it asks it of us both as individuals and as a community of faith. That question is: where do we draw the line on the limits of God's love? Yet, maybe that's a question we can't hear very well in the late twentieth century. Most of us, far removed from Peter's pivotal moment in Christian history, are quick to answer that there are no limits to the love of God. Yet often our lives don't reflect that belief. So let me try a different question: what preconceptions, what prejudices, what pre-conditioning or prior experiences do you hold that restrict your willingness to extend God's grace openly and freely to all? If God were to come to you in a vision and lower a large sheet filled with people you consider unclean, what faces would you find looking back at you? Who are the people you dislike, or look down on, or despise, or do not, cannot, or will not, love? Are they people of a different race, or a different class, or a different sexual orientation? Are they people who have hurt you, betrayed you or someone you love? Are they people who have committed heinous crimes and are receiving their "just punishment"? Could they be people of a different theological interpretation or even a different style of worship? Who are the insiders, and who are the outsiders? Do we, like Peter, as individuals or as a church, operate on an underlying assumption of God's partiality? And if we do, are we open enough to hear Peter's astonishing revelation: "God is not one to show partiality." God does not have favorites. And if we hear it, what are we going to do about it? How will it make our lives and our church community different? For Peter, it made all the difference. It was in Joppa that Jonah refused the call of God, and rejected the concept of God's love for the non-Israelite Ninevites. It was in Joppa that Peter began to understand that Jesus Christ has come for us all, transforming Christianity from a sect within Judaism to an international movement that would develop into a world religion. "God is not one to show partiality." For Peter, and, consequently, for you and for me, it made all the difference in the world. A second essential aspect of this whole Scripture text is the theme that God orchestrated every move. It was God's Spirit that spoke to Cornelius; it was God's Spirit that spoke to Peter, that motivated him to act. It was God's Spirit that convinced Peter of a startling, unnerving new revelation. It was God's Spirit that fell upon the Gentile believers, confirming their conversion. God's Spirit is still in the business of new and surprising and unsettling revelations. The question that comes to us as believers, and as the Church is how open are we to receive God's revelations, and how willing are we to act on them? Here at Woodbrook, we are again intentionally envisioning God's future for this great church. Where is God's Spirit leading us? What is God's agenda for the identity of this church and for the ministries to which we will commit ourselves in the years to come? A pastor named Lloyd Ogilvie says God is always preparing a next step for all of us -- calling us to be more than we have been, more than all our presuppositions, more than we can even imagine. Ogilvie says that if God provides us with a new insight, a new understanding or calling, God will also provide us with opportunities to act on what we've learned (Communicator's Commentary, Vol. 5). Peter's opportunity to act apparently came within minutes of his vision from God. When will mine come? This week? And when will yours? Will we be open to receive it? Will we be willing to act? With God's help, I pray for the openness and the willingness of a hard-headed disciple named Peter to perceive God's surprising grace at work, and to extend it, even beyond all my self-imposed limits, that I may not stand in the way of God. May it be so in my life, and also in yours. Amen. [This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.] |