(Acts 10.34-36)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull,
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ.
The 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 7, 2011.
The eighth in a summer series on topics the congregation has asked to hear reflections about. This morning’s reflection is based on the questions: “What do the Scriptures show us about how to make peace with nations and about violence?” and, “Why do we not learn lessons from history, but have war after war, unable to settle our differences in sane ways?” “What do the Scriptures show us about how to make peace with nations and violence?” and, “Why do we not learn lessons from history, but have war after war, unable to settle our differences in sane ways?”
At the theology book group last Monday night, four words from the Bible grabbed us. We spent a chunk of time talking about what they mean … and what it would be like if followers of Jesus really believed them. Though none of these four words is “peace”, “violence”, “war”, or “history”, I believe they directly address the questions for this morning.
Wars are supported by the tax dollars of Christians. The votes of Christian citizens and legislators. And the service of Christian soldiers. If more Christians believed the four words we’re focusing on today, and we gave them the power to change us, then our government couldn’t assume Christians will just go along with policies rooted in violence. When our government assumes it has our blessing when it carries out acts of military and economic violence, maybe words like these four words might lead us to resist in more powerful and effective ways.
Here’s the setting for these four words: Cornelius is captain of the Roman Guard in a beautiful city called Cesarea. It’s on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea in modern-day Israel. Cornelius is a Gentile, which means he was not born a Jew. An angel tells Cornelius to invite Peter to his house. Though Peter kept letting Jesus down while Jesus walked this earth, Peter is now a leader among these early Christians. Cornelius sends some people off to bring Peter to his home. While they are on their way to get him, Peter is praying on the roof in a house down the coast. In his prayer, Peter has a vision. He sees a tablecloth drop out of the sky. The tablecloth is filled with animals Jewish law says Jews cannot eat. For Jewish law says these animals are unclean. But in Peter’s vision, a voice from heaven tells him, Take these and eat. Peter protests, “Oh, no, Lord. I’ve never so much as tasted food that was not kosher.” The voice says, Do not call anything unclean that God has made clean (Acts 10.11-15).
This story points out an ugly truth about human nature. If we start calling certain foods unclean, it won’t take long before we start calling certain groups of people unclean. That’s exactly what the religious communities in Peter’s day did. Lepers, menstruating women, Samaritans, non-Jews: religious law said to these people: You are unclean. And you don’t have to look far in our country’s history to see how white people in this country have looked at slaves, and Native Americans, and communists, and Arabs, and said, You are unclean. For centuries, right up to the time of Peter, Jews believed God had divided the world between clean and unclean.
And now God is turning this pillar of Judaism on its head. As the Spirit gives Peter a new word. Nothing…no one…is unclean.
The messengers from Cornelius arrive where Peter is staying. And they travel to Cesarea so Peter can be with Cornelius and his family. Peter arrives. Just in time to announce the Spirit’s tongue-burning word.
Listen for a Word from God.
Peter fairly exploded with his good news: “It’s God’s own truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you’re from – if you want God and are ready to do as God says, the door is open. The Message God sent to the children of Israel – that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again – well, he’s doing it everywhere, among everyone” (The Message © 2003 Eugene Peterson).
[A parenthesis about this new truth Peter explodes with: God plays no favorites. There’s a member at Recovery Café where I also work who at times asks, “What are you preaching about this Sunday?” This week she asked me. And I told her, “I’m preaching on the place in the Book of Acts where Peter says, ‘God plays no favorites.’ Which to me means God doesn’t hate some of people and love others. We’re all God’s chosen people.
She looked at me and said, “I don’t believe that. God plays favorites.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Dave,” she said, “After my second miscarriage, it seems everybody else I knew was having kids. And they were so happy. I tried to be happy with them. But I kept asking God, ‘What did I do wrong? Why are you blessing everyone else with kids and holding that blessing back from me?’ So don’t tell me God doesn’t play favorites.”
I had to be in a meeting in five minutes, so I’ll have to continue this conversation the next time I see her. Last week what I told her was this: “I don’t believe everything that happens is God’s will. I said, “I don’t believe God decides who’s going to have kids and who isn’t. I don’t believe God says, ‘Oh, I’m going to make this person have two or three miscarriages.’ I believe God grieves deeply when people who want to have a child have miscarriages … or for whatever reason can’t have a child. I do not believe people who seem to have such blessed lives are people God loves more than everybody else. God holds all people in God’s embrace.”]
So back to this tongue-burning word…
I don’t know if you and I can grasp how terrifying it must have been for Peter to say, God plays no favorites. Say you have a dream. And God says, “Go tell Christians, ‘Jesus doesn’t care how you treat people who aren’t Christians. He only wants you to love Christians.’” To tell Jews, God plays no favorites, was telling them to forget everything they’d been taught for centuries. The last thing this good Jewish fisherman expected when he dropped his nets to follow Jesus was to find himself eating shrimp and sleeping in the house of someone who’s not even a Jew
(Justo L. Gonzalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2001, p. 134).
Peter may have been fairly exploding when he finally got these radical words out of his mouth. But before he snap, crackled, and popped with the Spirit’s explosive word, he made this classic understatement to Cornelius: “You know, I’m sure that this is highly irregular. Jews just don’t do this – visit and relax with people of another race” (Acts 10.28, The Message).
After his vision, Peter may have been tempted to forget about the tablecloth-full of food formerly known as unclean. And head back to the safe world of his fishnets. But Peter stays faithful. Irregular as it is, shocking as it is, Peter allows the Spirit to form these radical words in his throat. He feels the words traverse his tongue, and pass through the space between his upper and lower plates. And before he knows it, he is allowing the Spirit to speak through him.
God…plays…no…favorites.
And 2000 years later we still tell the story.
We have this world-changing, tongue-burning story to tell because Peter made room for the Spirit to make a home in him. Jesus has followers today because Peter and the other disciples didn’t surrender to the fear they felt right after Jesus was killed. How couldn’t they have been terrified? A Bible scholar tells us what happened to help them walk through their fear and step out onto the path Jesus called them to walk:
The Spirit came to them. And from the upper room they went into streets and public places, into turmoil and crowds and the lurking presence of the law. Their resource, an inwardness, a disposition toward prayer, self-understanding, solitude. And a word burning on their tongues (Daniel Berrigan, S.J., Whereon to Stand: The Acts of the Apostles and Ourselves, Baltimore: Fortkamp Publishing, 1991, p. xxviii).
The Holy Spirit gave Peter a tongue-burning word that changed the world.
What is the tongue-burning word the Spirit wants us to fairly explode with? Where on this Plateau and in this area can we embody the promise? Where do people experience things that say that God does play favorites? (Here, the congregation shared what they hear and see. Among their comments: “We are all connected.” “I help people.” “Economics.” “The first thing my daughter said after we adopted her is, ‘Why did God put me in a birth family that didn’t love me?’” “We have no right to decide a child of God deserves to die.” “ Some people get lots of job offers; others keep looking and get nothing.” “Love your neighbor as yourself”.)
My hope is that we listen to the tongue-burning words the Spirit has placed in our mouths. Because I believe these can help us see the kind of hands-on mission ministry the Spirit has placed before us. So we might step out as followers of Jesus … who have been transformed into those who know God plays no favorites.
In your bulletin, underneath the Bible reading from Acts, you’ll find words by Ruth Wiebe in bold-faced print. These are tongue-burning words which remind us how Jesus calls us who want to follow him to live. Let us read them together as a closing prayer.
we show wisdom by trusting people;
we handle leadership by serving;
we handle offenders by forgiving;
we handle money by sharing;
we handle enemies by loving;
we handle violence by suffering;
we repent, not by feeling bad but by thinking differently.
(Ruth Wiebe, The Blue Mountains of China, 1970, pp. 215-16, adapted)
Amen.
0 comments:
Post a Comment