May 6, 2018: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
It is so good to be back from vacation – I really enjoyed the time away, but as always, I missed all of you very much. While I was away, I did a lot of outdoor chores around the house – because…well, I haven’t figured out how to do that whole Bewitched thing and make it all happen on its own. And, at this time of year, I enjoy it too, because the weather has finally taken a turn toward Spring. Thanks be to God!
I love Spring, because you get to watch and listen to everything outside quite literally springing back to life after winter. The birds are chirping (and fighting), the trees are budding, the grass is growing…and, I am sneezing. Of course, in New Jersey, Spring lasts for a day or two, and then it is summer – blink and you will miss it.
Yet, even if short lived, Spring always brings to my mind dreams about gardening, of one day having that fabulous looking English style garden – filled with all sorts of wildflowers. So, I started one last year. It doesn’t yet look like anything I have dreamed about, but I have set my hope on the possibility of it. See, I like those English style gardens – they are beautiful in their diversity, and wonderfully joyful in their messiness – that seemingly random mosaic of color, size, and shape.
If only the world was a bit more like the English wildflower garden…but, you see, that’s the beauty of it – it is! We come in all shapes and sizes, different creatures living side by side. And like gardening, we seem to sometimes only like what grows just like us, or just as we want and expect – and consider the rest weeds. It is also true that there is much to be weeded out, but it is our choices in these life gardening moves that defines us – for good, or for bad.
That’s why I love this reading from Acts. Peter is a good Jew, and like all good people of faith, he and the other disciples abide by the teachings of their tradition – these include dietary restrictions, circumcision, and laws on what is clean, good and moral. Most of those that they followed we can find today in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy – called the Holiness Code. These laws were meant to be followed by all Torah (meaning Scripture) abiding Jewish people. They were not for Gentiles, but were meant to set Jews apart from Gentiles as being the chosen people of God. These laws were so important to Jews that the earliest followers of Jesus, if not already Jewish, had to follow them – they had to be circumcised if male, and everyone had to adhere to all the other rules too. In other words, to be considered a true follower of Jesus, you had to first be Jewish, as he was. They were also part of the reason the Jewish authorities were troubled by Jesus – he often broke them.
But, to really understand what is going on here, and how important this moment is, we need to know a few things about what has taken place before this passage, so here is the Cliff Notes version I gave you last time we heard this snippet of text. Previously on the Peter channel, a Centurion, one of the Roman leaders, has an odd vision that tells him to get this guy Peter to his house. Meanwhile, back at the apostle ranch, Peter is having the weirdest dream – he sees a sheet filling the sky and in it are all these really great animals – animals he cannot eat according to that code I was telling you about. And God tells him to go ahead and feast on anything he wants. While Peter would sure love to have him some bacon, being the good Jewish boy that he is responds with “No way God…is this some sort of test? But God insists that whatever God has created cannot ever be deemed unclean by humans, so fire up the grill and eat up Peter. Now, nobody asked the animals how they felt about it, but I am guessing they wished God would have told Peter all about the virtues of being a vegetarian. Anyway, some folks drop by telling Peter to go to this Centurion’s house, which is a big deal because again, Peter is being told to go somewhere that good Jewish boys (or girls) just don’t go – into the home of a Gentile.
Fast forward and Peter sees that the Holy Spirit is with the Centurion, and like the dream, Peter realizes that human law, even if in scriptures, has little bearing on how God actually works in the world. God can do whatever God wants with whomever God chooses. Period.
So, in the passage we heard today, Peter then explains this to his astounded followers, who just can’t quite understand why Peter is there with “those people.” As the story says, they “… were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.” Imagine that! So the newly evolved Peter says “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”
In other words…God’s grace doesn’t follow us into the world, we follow it, and God brings us into the movement of the Holy Spirit that is already active, already present, we just have to be open to seeing it and to being a part of it. And that, as Peter and his followers discovered, is a choice we make. We choose whether we will participate in the on going work of God in the world – and God hopes we do choose to join in.
Unfortunately, we often don’t.
We draw lines of exclusion, and fervently stick by them, even fighting and killing over them. We essentially make the choice not to be a part of God’s work, not to be in relationship, not to love as Christ loved us. And sometimes, we have the audacity to say that God tells us (or the bible tells us) to make that awful choice. And you know what…we use these same Holiness Codes today to do just that. There are the Gentiles of today – Christians – who have used these texts, texts never meant for them, to weed the garden of God’s creation of all they consider “undesirable,” most often these days – homosexuals.
Isn’t it funny how the very people called to love one another as Christ loved us – as we hear in the Gospel today – often work so hard on creating boundaries of who is in, and who is out? They claim to love God, but do they? As the activist and writer Dorothy Day put it, “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
Think about that – “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
Here’s the thing: Love is a choice. We choose to love, and it won’t always come naturally to us. But, you know who set us an example of choosing to love? Jesus. He said in the passage today “You did not choose me but I chose you.” God chose to come among us, to be with us, to die for us – that we might know God’s love. God made that choice to show us how to choose to love and to serve, as Jesus commanded us.
This commandment to love and serve everyone is a choice – and it is not an easy one to make – people will resist you, as Peter found out. Yet, he tells his challengers of the vision in which the voice from heaven says `What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’
`What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’
It is a conundrum, isn’t it. We believe that everything God does is good – God made all of creation – therefore, all of creation is good! But what about snakes? Or big spiders? Or mosquitoes. I mean really? Well, I suppose we can get past our fear or annoyance at these. But what about Muslims, Hindus, Jews? What about Gay people? What about those who don’t speak our language? What about those who don’t look, think, or act like us? What about Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals? What about the undocumented and the homeless?
Yes, what about them.
I remember back in the aftermath of the consecration by our Episcopal Church of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Communion. I say openly because we all know he wasn’t the first gay one – just the first one out of the closet. From Lambeth came what was titled “The Windsor Report.” It was the Anglican Communion’s response to this act that they saw as divisive to the worldwide church. In paragraph 135 of the report it said: “We particularly request a contribution from the Episcopal Church (USA) which explains, from within the sources of authority that we as Anglicans have received in scripture, the apostolic tradition and reasoned reflection, how a person living in a same gender union may be considered eligible to lead the flock of Christ.”
And does anyone remember how we, the Episcopal Church, responded? In a136 page document titled “Setting Our Hope on Christ,” our church did as was asked – they prayerfully looked to our Scriptures, our apostolic traditions, and reasoned reflections. And while they quoted many parts of the bible in support of their position, the one that was primary was the one we heard today… from the book of Acts. They brought to mind the resistance Peter received, and yet he was called to move beyond the bounds of his faith toward the inclusion God wanted. The authors said “God took the initiative and it took the Church a while to catch up with what God was doing.”
Now, we have come a long way since that time, and there are still many divisions in the church – some over whether I have the right to wear this stole, or whether two of our three bishop candidates should ever be allowed to hold a crozier and wear a mitre. Yet today our church is much like the authors of that response to Windsor said would happen, “God took the initiative and it took the Church a while to catch up with what God was doing.”
Why is that?
Why is it that the church, from its very beginnings, has always been so very slow to respond to what God is doing in the world – to the workings of the Holy Spirit? We are like big slinkys…God pulls and we resist and resist until we finally come flying forward – and then God does it all over again.
God is always pulling us forward, so why do we try to stay so grounded in what we know. Why do we become so rooted in our comfort zones – surrounded by what we know, and like – that we are unable to go where God is calling us? I find it fascinating that we call the process of establishing a new congregation “Church Planting.” But like those English Gardens, plants cannot grow unless they are given food and water and sunlight. We nurture these plants rooted in the gospel with the love found in coming together in the Eucharist – in the love of Christ. Yet, once we grow we naturally change! The church likes to plant, but we forget that a plant is something that grows, that changes – if it doesn’t it dies! And change can be deeply uncomfortable for some, because it requires risk – risk for the sake of life.
Jesus was that type of risk taker – he moved beyond the human imposed bounds of his faith to break down walls that divided God’s people. Peter followed his lead in doing the same. Yet today, there are some who claim a Christian identity, who sometimes do not offer convincing witness to the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Just about a week or so ago, the Speaker of the House, Rep. Paul Ryan, dismissed one of the Chaplains for the House of Representatives, the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, a Roman Catholic priest and Jesuit. He has since been reinstated, but the incident is still disturbing. Some say it was over a prayer he gave that implored all those making tax law to remember the poor and the outcast. Aides of Speaker Ryan were claimed to have cautioned the priest to “Stay out of politics, Padre.” Others claim it was because he was a Roman Catholic, and Ryan (a Roman Catholic himself) was pressured by far right Evangelicals – those same folks who have been silent in the face of…well, how to say this – moral failings that some in power have displayed. Either way, it doesn’t speak well of anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus, as Speaker Ryan claims to be.
Now, you might think this isn’t such a big deal, but it is. It is, because the truth is that the gospel of Jesus is a radical idea – one that will make some folks uncomfortable – particularly those in power – and especially those who would dare use it to exclude and abuse others. It isn’t intended to be all sweetness and light, but to shake the very foundations of our institutional systems, overturn the world order, and set us all on a path of justice, inclusion, and love. And no matter which path one chooses in the Jesus Movement – we all are brothers and sisters in Christ. To act as if one Christian is better than another is absurd and the height of hubris.
The problem is, that many so called followers of Jesus – of all stripes – have grabbed the public microphones of Christian identity – and put forward ideals that should make all Christians want to rise up and challenge their twisted idea of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They say God hates – well, whatever they hate. Or, they say only their type of Christian is good, or just as bad, that if you aren’t Christian, then God will deny you Her grace and love. All this to say, that I believe we should all hope to one day be the kind of Christian that makes Speaker Ryan, or any other world leader – within or outside of the church – want to fire you, prevent your ordination, or try to shut you up!
If we are ever to live this radical good news, we need to follow the example of Peter who heard where God was leading, set aside his own fears, his own prejudices, his own ego, even the scripture of his faith, and decided to go with God. He opened the door of life to those who had been previously thought to be undesirable and unworthy.
Andwe need to follow Jesus who also broke the scriptural directives of his faith in the name of love, compassion, and justice.
Many are doing just that, but we sometimes fail to see it because it doesn’t come from where we might expect or be looking. You see, there was another story in the news that happened about the same time as the one about Speaker Ryan. It told of the story of a Hindu priest who carried a Dalit, a person of the caste system that was once called “untouchable,” on his shoulders into the temple. This was a radical act of love, and an enactment of a Hindu legend that some thought was too ridiculous to be believed. So, this man decided to make it real in the lives of his people. “The priest, CS Rangarajan, … carried Aditya Parasri on his shoulders to “propagate equalityamong all sections of society” and show that “everyone is equal in the eyes of God.”[1]
Two stories of people of faith – the one of Speaker Ryan & the Evangelical right, and the other of the Hindu priest Rangarajan. Which one lived as Jesus lived? Which one followed God as Peter did? Which one chose to love? The truth is though – it isn’t about them – not really – and we are called to choose to love them too. No, it isn’t about them – it’s about you and me – about us.
To be part of the Jesus Movement, we must chooseto love as Christ calls us and like Peter, follow God, who is calling us into the world to weed out the hate that divides us, and plant the seeds of love amidst this gloriously diverse and beautiful garden of all creation.
God is always taking the initiative rooted in love, and calling us to join with Her. What will we choose to do?
May we set ourhope on Christ, on the possibility of love, and never, ever, look back.
Amen.
For a copy of “To Set Our Hope On Christ,” click here:
http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/documents/ToSetOurHope_eng.pdf
For the audio from the 10:30am service, subscribe to our iTunes podcast, or click here:
[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/hindu-priest-carries-dalit-temple-untouchable-india-cs-rangarajan-aditya-parasri-a8314081.html
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 6, 2018
The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
1stReading – Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
2nd Reading – 1 John 5:1-6
Gospel – John 15:9-17
