It will be helpful, I think,
before we read this story, to set it in context. The scripture we are about to
hear is the earliest record we have of a serious dispute in the Christian
world. In Acts 10, we read the story that is often referred to as “The
Conversion of Cornelius.” If you recall, last week we left Peter in Joppa,
where he had raised Dorcas back to life. After that, Peter stayed in Joppa, at
the home of Simon the tanner, a man who tanned hides, and therefore was
considered unclean -- someone for a good Jew like Peter to avoid. While he was
in Joppa, Peter had a vision, which he describes in this text. Meanwhile, a
fellow named Cornelius, a God-fearing Gentile, also had a visitation, from an
angel of the Lord. Following the angel’s instructions, Cornelius sent for Peter,
who came to his house. Peter saw that Cornelius had believed the good news of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, and baptized the entire household. It is crucial to
recognize, as you hear this story, that in Chapter 11, we have a kind of
transcript of Peter’s testimony justifying that baptism. He has, in essence,
been called on the carpet for including someone in the gospel who was excluded
by every tradition, practice, and interpretation that the church had held to
that point. This is Peter’s explanation of what God has revealed to him through
his visit with Cornelius. Now listen for God’s word to the church, and to us,
today:
Acts 11: 1-18
Now the apostles and the
believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word
of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers
criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with
them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “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. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals,
beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to
me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for
nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the
voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call
profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to
heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the
house where we were. The 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. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his
house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will
give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And
as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at
the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John
baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If 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?” When 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.”
Same
Gift, New People
Acts
11:1-18
April
28, 2013
First
Presbyterian Church, Sterling, IL
Christina
Berry
One of the first tasks we were
given in my church history class in seminary was the memorization of important
dates. Those important dates were of church councils, gatherings called by
Christian leaders to resolve issues that arose about interpretation, scripture,
tradition and what they meant for the church. It is easy to forget, in this
post-modern era, a time of seemingly endless disputation, controversy and
church splits, that this has been the situation from the beginning of
Christianity!
This scripture is the testimony
of Peter, and forms the basis for his position at the Jerusalem Council, dated
about 45 AD. This meeting in Jerusalem foreshadows that formal council, described
in detail farther along in the book of Acts. That Council is the first recorded
church council, called to resolve a difference in opinion about God’s word,
God’s intentions, and God’s grace. In short, it is a dispute about who is in
and who is out.
The crux of the argument is
whether Gentiles need to follow Jewish law in order to become Christians. Do
they need to be circumcised? Can they eat meat offered to idols? Do they need
to follow all the Jewish law, in short, convert to Judaism in order to become
Christians? To fully understand this controversy, we need to know that
scripture was abundantly clear about this question.
Genesis 17:10-11 said: This is my
covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep:
Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and
it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.
Exodus 12: 48 said: If an
immigrant who lives with you wants to observe the Passover to the LORD, then he
and all his males should be circumcised. Then he may join in observing it. He should be
regarded as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person may eat it.
It is really impossible to
interpret these scriptures in ANY other way. If you want to be Jewish, you have
to be circumcised. Since the People of the Way, as the early Christians were
called, were Jewish, following a Jewish Messiah who fulfilled Jewish prophecy, they
need to follow Jewish law. It was obvious.
But then here comes another
revelation from God. Like the appearance of Jesus to Saul on the road to
Damascus, this is a dramatic vision, an in-breaking of the presence of God, and
a surprising NEW disclosure of God’s will for people. You see, the people who
followed Jesus thought they had gotten it. Of course, Peter, if you remember, was
always thinking he had gotten it, always shooting off his mouth, telling Jesus
this and that, and turning out to be mistaken.
He even sassed God, in this
vision. God shows Peter an array of foods, both clean and unclean according to
Jewish dietary law. And God says, “Eat!” Peter knows what the Bible says. “No,
sorry – can’t eat it. It is unclean.” But like a Jewish mother, God says, “Eat!
You should eat!” No, seriously, God says, “I will decide what is clean and what
is profane.” But wait, God! You said
something else, before. It is right here in the Bible. Didn’t you mean it? And
God says, “I decide. Not you.”
And then come the messengers from
Cornelius. And so Peter goes to Cornelius. When he arrives he finds a man who
is a Gentile, observant, pious, faithful, even though he is not accepted in the
synagogue as a Jewish adherent. These people were known as “God-fearers,” believers
in the God of Abraham who followed Jewish law but were not converts, not
circumcised, not Jewish. But here he is, hearing and believing the good news of
the Messiah.
Somehow, Peter overcomes a
lifetime of training and teaching, generations of tradition, and what he KNOWS
scripture CLEARLY says. And he baptizes Cornelius. Not only Cornelius, but his entire household. Peter
asks, “Who am I, to hinder God?” Who, indeed? And who, indeed, gets converted
here? Cornelius, to be sure, but also Peter. Peter comes to understand that his
thoughts are not God’s thoughts.
Whose mind is changed? God’s?
Apparently not – the visions are
pretty clear, and there is no reason to think that either Peter or Cornelius
misinterpreted them. So we seem to be on the horns of a dilemma. Roughly ten or
fifteen years after the events of Calvary, Christ’s death, resurrection and
ascension, what everybody knew and affirmed turned out to be mistaken. Because
God was still revealing God’s will.
This is as much a truth of
Christian history as the bodily resurrection: the message of God’s love and
grace is for everyone. Christ’s church is for everyone. Everyone. We tend to
imagine that God’s revelation in Jesus Christ was it – the totality of God’s work in our world, and that now it is
all done and over with, we just need to live as Christian disciples and follow
God’s word. But clearly, God’s word continued to unfold, in the word written in
the Bible, and in the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ.
The church continued to struggle
with understanding:
whether Gentiles could be
Christian;
whether meat offered to idols
could be eaten;
whether the Holy Spirit was of
the same substance, or a different substance, as God the Father and Jesus the
Son;
whether Christ was created by God
or co-eternal with God;
whether salvation comes by faith
alone or more is needed;
whether the Pope is infallible;
whether an intermediary priest is
necessary;
whether slavery is permissible;
whether Christians must submit to
government rule when it is evil;
whether Christians can believe in
evolution;
whether Christians can serve in
the military as combatants;
whether divorced people can be
leaders in the church;
whether divorced people can be
ministers;
whether women can be allowed to
lead;
whether women can be ministers;
whether gay and lesbian people
can lead and be ministers.
Every single time such disputes
arise, faithful people on both sides of the issue turn to scripture, to
scholarship, to tradition, and hopefully, to God in prayer. And every single
time such disputes arise, one side or the other prevails, and the other side
must decide what it will do.
In our own denomination, we have
seen congregations split away
and new denominations form,
over slavery,
over evolution,
over the ordination of women,
and most recently,
over the ordination of gay and
lesbian Presbyterians.
In our own community, we have
seen churches torn apart over that issue. And those who instigated the split
have done so with the deep conviction that they are right. They know what
scripture teaches, and they understand God’s intention. They know what is clean
and what is profane. Just like Peter did.
We are faced every day with the
same sort of questions. Who is in, and who is out?
We wonder if we are called to
forgive someone who injured us. We lay awake at night trying to decide whether
we should or should not. We watch political campaigns and try to determine whom
we should vote for. We are unsure about how to understand a certain scripture. We
struggle with doubts about matters of life, of faith, of truth.
It is not the job of the pastor
in a Presbyterian Church to tell you what to believe, or to decide who may
receive the sacraments. It is the job of the pastor in a Presbyterian Church to
order the sacraments rightly and proclaim God’s grace. So I’m not here to tell
you what each of us should decide about such issues. I’m here to tell you how we are called to decide.
The way we are to decide is to
deploy our reason, experience, and intelligence alongside scripture, tradition and prayer. Just
as we take the Bible too seriously to take it literally, we take our faith
seriously, seriously enough to believe that Christ is still at work in the
world, and that God is still revealing truth to us. We know that we are called
to obey Jesus, and his repeated command is
to love God and love neighbor,
to forgive and to show mercy,
to extend grace and peace
to walk the path of righteousness
and charity that Jesus followed.
St. Augustine said it so clearly:
If it seems to you that you have
understood the divine scriptures, or any
part of them, in such a way that by this
understanding you do not build up this twin love of God and neighbor, then you
have not understood them.”
So when what we have learned from
Scripture is on a collision course with our lived experience, we don’t simply
ignore what the Bible says. But we would do well to pause, as Saint Peter did, and
examine our own understanding, asking ourselves whether we’ve correctly understood
the Bible’s teaching. Theologian Mark Achtemeier said: “if the Bible’s teaching
does not help us make powerful sense of life and experience, if Biblical
faithfulness is not life-giving, that is a sure sign we have not understood our
Scripture properly.”[1]
So we are led to conclude, as
Saint Peter did,
“I truly understand that God
shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is
right is acceptable to him.”
Herein lies our salvation.
Christ continues to be at work in
the world, with light and life and love for everyone.
Everyone.
Thanks be to God!
Amen!
[1] http://www.pres-outlook.org/news-and-analysis/1-news-a-analysis/9496-achtemeiers-journey-to-accept-homosexual-marriage-ordination-.html
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