May 19, 2019: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
If you were here last week, you heard about the disciple Tabitha, raised from the dead through the intercession of another disciple, Peter. At the end of that story there was a line that said that our boy Peter was heading off to the home of a tanner named Simon. It was a set-up in a sense for what we would hear next, sort of like those teasers you get right at the end of one of your favorite shows – you know, the main character opens the door and says something like “What are YOU doing here?” only you can’t see who is on the other side of the door, and then the scene ends.
Annoying really, but now here we are… and yet wait – we seem to have skipped an episode. Which of those lectionary geniuses forgot to set the DVR? You see – the story last week was in Chapter 9, and now we are in Chapter 11. What about Chapter 10? What about it is a great question – because all we are really getting here today is the “Previously, on the Acts of the Apostles…” version of events. What Peter is describing today was the events that happened to him in the previous episode…I mean, chapter. And like those “previously on such and such a show” recaps, you don’t ever really get the whole story unless you actually watch the show. So, let’s get the whole story, because it is, as always, important to us today.
The story starts, not with Peter, but a Centurian named Cornelius, who commanded the Italian cohort…what’s that? – well, they didn’t make spaghetti, that’s for sure. Anyway, he as a good and righteous sort, and he had a vision about an angel in a dazzling white robe telling him to send folks to go fetch this guy who is staying at a great AirBnB on the coast, and so he does. Meanwhile, back at Simon’s house, Peter is having a dream of his own.
He is hanging out on the rooftop getting a tan, and he’s hankering for some food, when he dozes off. In a dream God says “Bacon – eat lots of bacon! It’s good for you.” A dream for Peter – a nightmare for pigs. Anyway, bacon, or any of the other animal meats Peter sees on display like a butcher shop, were not allowed to be eaten by Jews. He argues with God, but God wins – doesn’t God always?, and Peter says to the cook “I’ll have some ham with that cheese sandwich please.” Well, not really, because unlike biblical literalists today, Peter is smart enough to know that this is all a metaphor for something else.
Then, “knock-knock!” “Who’s there?” “Corney’s boys – that’s who!” Figuring this was all part of the dream, Peter decides to continue his nap, but the Holy Spirit told him to “Rise and shine, and give God your glory, glory…” so he answers the door. They tell him they were sent to fetch him, so off he goes to Cornelius’s house, where he indeed finds this Gentile to be a good and faithful sort. Peter being Peter starts to preach about Jesus, but the Holy Spirit was hoping for an Episcopal sized sermon, not an evangelical one, and got a bit impatient. Mid-sermon She just lit all over Cornelius and his whole household – right there in front of Peter and his gang of followers. So Peter did what anyone would do, baptized them, and hung out with them for a few days.
And now today’s episode… Peter feeling quite good about everything, headed back to headquarters in Jerusalem, and the board members there were not really happy. Why? Was it because he talked to gentiles? Was it because they were baptized? Maybe, but what really got their kosher dill pickle up was…he ate with them! I mean really, what was he thinking? He should have just baptized them, and gotten as far away as possible. You know, tolerate, but not accept. Preach to, but not welcome. Hmmmm…. I wonder where we have heard that before.
So, Peter tells the whole dream part of the story again, which I will not do here, but at the end he says something very important – something we might miss if we get caught up in the theatrics of a vision of dancing cows – and it is this. Referring to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them, Peter says “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?”
“Who was I that I could hinder God?”
And now we get to the heart of the matter. In those earliest days of the church, the disciples were always being lured to where God wanted them to be, not necessarily where they wanted to go. The church was never ahead of God, never leading God. It was always the other way around.
And here’s the thing: Nothing has changed in the centuries since. Nothing.
And we must ask ourselves – Why is that? Why do we always have to be lured like Peter? Why is our initial reaction to those who follow God’s call “How could you do that?” rather than “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” Because it would seem that the church is really good at trying to hinder God, even if that is not possible in the long run.
We hardly need reminders of how the church, while doing much good in the world – leading the way in charitable acts and organizations, being a voice for the voiceless, standing against injustice – has also been the same church that is often unwilling to see visions of God’s dream for us, sometimes refused to hear the call of the Holy Spirit, or tried to regulate the grace of Jesus, setting up restrictions on who is truly welcome in our homes to share a common meal with us at this table – a table that is not ours to control, but belongs to Jesus – whose body and blood we receive there.
The reality is that instead of being God’s visionaries, we often act as God’s guards – as though God needed to be protected in some way. We set rules, build walls, gather around tables – the Lord’s table – at which only some people are fully welcome and included. Our United Methodists sisters and brothers are heading toward schism all because there are some still stuck in Jerusalem wanting to know why others dare to fully share the table with LGBT Christians. Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers continue to argue about allowing women behind the table. We can’t point fingers mind you, as we still aren’t there yet on both counts, though we have made significant strides. Just a few weeks ago, our own Anglican Communion, through the uncharitable act of the Archbishop of Canterbury, denied an invitation to the Lambeth Conference – the large gathering of all the bishops in the Communion – to those spouses of bishops who are in same sex marriages, while extending an invitation, albeit as ecumenical guests, to those who broke away from the Episcopal Church over the inclusion of women and LGBT people. So, the faithful spouses of those who have continued to serve Jesus in our church are denied entrance, while those who left the church to form a splinter group in protest are invited to the table? It is our version of the Peter-Jerusalem story, only the Archbishop is saying “you know what, maybe we can hinder what God is doing.” You can’t make this stuff up.
And then there are the draconian abortion laws passed recently that seem to have tunnel focus on only one life as valuable and worthy of love and grace, the one in the womb, while the mother’s life, or for that matter, children on our Southern border, or in Flint, Michigan, or in some of these very states whose education systems are deplorable, just don’t matter.
Is this the dream of God? Hardly.
Even more, when some do try to act like Peter did, to welcome all – to sit at the table with those God calls us to love – women, LGBT people, Muslims, Jews, and more – they run up against the church in Jerusalem of our day – who accuse them of bending to the will of the society rather than to God’s will for us – because they alone understand God’s will, don’t ya know, and it just so happens that God believes the same things they do!
It seems that some shape God to their image, rather than remembering that everyone – even those who are different than us – who love, speak, look, or vote differently than we do – all of them are created in God’s image! And therein lies the trap. When we fail to realize that God, who is always yearning to be in relationship with us, who loves us deeply and unconditionally, is undefinable in human terms, we begin to create idols of God that match the smallness of our world view – using scripture to box us in, rather than allowing it to free us to see where the Spirit is leading us next. We put ourselves in the place of God.
You would think by now we would understand that right? I mean folks used scripture to justify slavery – they got it wrong. They used scripture to justify excluding women and LGBT people from full inclusion in the church – they got it wrong…oh wait, that is still happening.
Yet the truth is that to have respect for the inability of our human minds to truly understand God, to allow ourselves to be awed by the impossibility of fully knowing all that God is, is to step into a deeper faith and a more aware life. And, it requires that we let go of our fears, our insecurities, and allow God to bring us to that next place we need to go. And if we are not sure if we are hearing God, or hearing ourselves, just remember these words of our Presiding Bishop Michael Bruce Curry “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”
Peter followed the Spirit, opening the door to inclusivity in the name of Jesus, and encountered a church that was reluctant to embrace that vision of radical hospitality. Despite the abundance given to them through Christ, they sought to restrict who could feel fully included. The odd thing is that Peter would later slip back into denial mode, while others like Paul would continue pushing the early church forward. It seems there was a struggle with what to do with the amazing and abundant grace of Jesus.
There is a viral meme out there on Facebook and elsewhere that says “When you have more than you need, build a longer table not a taller fence.” While that is a good start to the problem in the church then and today, I think it misses the point. I am reminded of a story from Africa I heard once.
It is about “…a remote village called Shango Oba, whose people had a fine tradition of celebration. Always, when it was time for a feast, the whole village would gather, sitting cross-legged on the ground. The village elders would then carefully apportion the food, so everyone would have enough. A young man from the village, named Jacob, received a rare invitation to study at an American university. He was away for many years, and became steeped in Western culture. Eventually, he returned home to Shango Oba. To welcome him back, the people did what they did best: they put on a feast.
Jacob, however, was troubled by what he saw: “My family, I mean no disrespect, but why are you eating your food on the ground?”
“How would you expect us to eat: standing up or sitting in a tree?” asked one of the elders.
“No. Don’t be ridiculous,” said Jacob. “Civilized people sit at a table.”
His response gave them pause to consider. If this is what the wise people of America did, there must be something to it. The village elders decided to bring a table into the village. The table was just large enough to seat eight people. At every feast thereafter, the villagers quarreled over who those eight should be. Some said it should be the young men, for they had carried the new table into the feasting grounds. The women said it should be they who sat at the table, for they had prepared the food. “Such a sense of entitlement,” thought the elders, shaking their heads. “It should be us,” they declared. “Age has its privileges.”
Something had happened at Shango Oba’s feasting grounds that had never happened before. Peace had departed the village. Finally, Jacob’s father called him aside. “Look what you have done,” he pointed out. “In the name of civilization, there is no purpose, no unity, no community.” Later that night, under the sliver of a moon, Jacob took an ax and chopped the table into many pieces. He picked up the pieces and laid one at the door of every house in the village. In the morning, he called the village elders together and explained what he had done. “I want to see unity and harmony return to Shango Oba.” That very day, the elders decreed it was time for another feast: to celebrate the end of the table.[1]
The end of the table. The meme I mentioned earlier was close, but there will never be a table long enough for all who hunger. It is time to end the table. No, we don’t have to take out an axe and chop up actual tables, but like Peter, we need to see the metaphor of this and take it out into the world, and perhaps most of all, into our church. We need to take an axe to the notion that the table – this table – the table of our savior Jesus Christ – is limited. That there is only room for some, and not others. Because the truth is that the size of this table isn’t the problem – but the size of our hearts. It is we that need to be broadened and our smallness destroyed. And we begin it all by remembering the commandment of Jesus we heard today – to love one another as he loved us. It’s really that simple. If we always start from a place of love and not fear, of abundance, and not scarcity, our table will be boundless.
Peter asked – “Who was I that could hinder God?”
The answer is that no one can. We can either follow God toward Her vision of bountiful love and grace, or get out of the way. Jesus hopes that for our own sake, and that of the world, we always choose to go where we are called – because one way leads to our salvation, the other to our destruction.
We are in Eastertide – a celebration of the light that overcomes darkness. It is when we realize that the candle of God’s truth, love, and grace can never be extinguished by humanity, and that it shines for us even in our darkest night. And oh how dark the world can feel to us – as it does now for so many. God is setting the world on fire and calling us to bear witness to it – to the light of Christ alive – and to share that light with others who live in darkness. What will we do?
Will we choose to hinder, or to go?
Will we choose to build tables, or to end them?
Let us be the ones who follow the dream of God, rather than the fears of humanity. Let us be the Easter people we are called to be, and end the table – the table of injustice that is always too small, the table of bigotry that never has enough seats, the table of greed that always serves too little – and replace it with the wider vision of God’s grace – where there is always enough room for anyone who hungers and thirsts, and where there is always enough to fill everyone with the unconditional love of Jesus, served with joy by his followers – you and me.
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
[1]Adapted from Dorothy Winbush Riley’s story, “Shango Oba,” in The Complete Kwanzaa: Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 214-1
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 19, 2019
Easter 5 – Year C
1st Reading – Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
2nd Reading – Revelation 21:1-6
Gospel – John 13:31-35
