May 13, 2012
Easter 6
Acts 10:44-48
Acts 10:44-48
John 15:9-17
(prayer)
Simon Peter was in Joppa – a coastal city of Judea (part of modern Tel Aviv). He was staying with another Simon, a tanner who lived by the seaside. One day, while there, Peter went up to the rooftop at noontime to pray. The bible doesn’t tell us ‘why the roof’. Maybe it was to be in the fresh air; maybe it was to be alone.
I like to imagine that (even though it was noon) that the sea breezes kept it comfortable. And I like to imagine that the view was spectacular: that the sights and sounds were nothing short of inspiring. I imagine that Peter went up to this high place to pray, because it was (for him) - as the Celts call it - a ‘thin place’ – where Peter felt especially in tune with his spirit – where Peter felt very close to God.
The bible says that Peter went up there ‘to pray’, but the rest of the narrative implies that his mode of prayer was not necessarily to speak to God, but to let himself go into to a state of meditation.
Maybe Peter should have waited until after lunch to go to pray, because his hunger seems to have influenced his prayers. Peter’s meditation led him into a trance-like state where he envisioned that, in his hunger, he was presented with a large choice of animals and a voice said, “Peter, rise, kill and eat!” But as can sometimes happen in these kind of dreams, what you want is exactly what you cannot reach – Peter is hungry, potential food is right before him and God is encouraging him to enjoy it; but all of the animals are ones that the Torah (the Hebrew Law) label as unclean and unavailable for food for people of faith.
Peter faces a dilemma: his gut or his soul?
He chooses the latter – ‘Thanks, but no thanks, God. I have never eaten any profane food.’ But this wasn’t a test of Peter’s adherence to the levitical cleanliness laws. The voice speaks again: “What God has made clean, do not call profane!”
This conversation repeated three times before Peter came out of this transcendental state and realized that he was just on a roof top in Joppa and that there was not large sheet of animals coming down from heaven.
As Peter regained his bearings, he noticed a group of ‘official looking men’ coming up to the house. Peter just seemed to know that he was to go with them. They said to Peter, ‘Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.’ The next day, Peter went to meet with Cornelius.
Cornelius may have been a centurion in the Roman army, but he was not ambivalent to the place he found himself stationed. He admired the culture and spirituality of the locals. As a result, he was well-thought-of by the people.
Even so, Peter said to his host: ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile’
Now Peter is being a bit liberal in his interpretation of the Torah – contact with gentiles wasn’t strictly forbidden; after all even the Temple in Jerusalem was open to the gentiles...up to a certain point – further, in fact, than a Hebrew leper or a Jewish women (who was menstruating) was allowed to go.
Peter’s point was metaphorically true – formally prohibited or not, the gentiles were not spoken well of in the scriptures; the word ‘gentiles’ was a catch-all word, meaning everyone who is not Jewish. The Hebrew word translated as gentiles (םיוג - goyim) means ‘nations’, in other words the ‘other nations outside of Israel’.
Gentiles were not part of the ‘in crowd’ as far as Peter was concerned. As far as his proclamations about Jesus, Peter was speaking out of the belief that Jesus was the Jewish messiah: this was a message for people of his OWN faith community – it had nothing to do with gentiles.
And yet, it seems that that rooftop prayer-time changed Peter because he went on to tell his gentile host: ‘but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean...I truly understand that God shows no partiality.’
Then Peter shared the good news about Jesus. What we heard this morning from Acts chapter 10, was what happened as Peter was preaching – the Spirit was obviously present with these gentiles. And then in a similar way that the Ethiopian convert to Judaism asked in the passage we read last week from Acts 8: “Can the waters of Baptism be withheld?”
No, of course not.
//
I love the way the story of the church evolves in the book of Acts.
U It starts with Jesus’ original disciples (minus Judas) and those that were with him at the time of the crucifixion.
U They add Matthias to get the “apostles’ number” back up to twelve.
U Then the Spirit moves on Pentecost and Peter’s sermon about the prophet Joel draws in hundred’s (even thousands) of new believers in the months that followed – this included Jews from beyond Judea and Galilee.
U Then the Jesus door opens to converts to Judaism, like the Ethiopian whom Philip met on the Gaza road.
U Now, the door was taken off the hinges as Peter welcomes gentiles who are open to the wonder of the Hebrew God.
U The next step would be to take away the need to have a pre-faith in the Hebrew God before being invited into the fellowship of Jesus. New believers would come to believe is Jesus’ God through Jesus.
U The story will go on to tell us that the early church will allow people from different faith backgrounds and cultures to co-exist in the church without have practice all the same traditions.
The obvious extrapolation of Peter’s words in Acts 10:34 is...that ‘if we truly understand that God shows no partiality, neither should we!”
// // //
It is everywhere in the Bible in one form or another – “Love cannot be stopped; Love never ends”. And yet, there are Christians who work very hard to talk themselves out of the truth of this truth. That is in spite of words like...
‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you’, Jesus says, ‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my [God’s] commandments and abide in [God’s] love. This is the fullness of joy, Jesus goes on to say.
I like the word “abide” in this passage. I know that it could also be translated as ‘live in my love’ and that’s fine: I want this passage to ask me to live my whole life in the context of God’s love. For me, the word ‘abide’ draws my mind to the imagery of ‘home’: maybe ‘reside in my love’ says that even better.
© Be at home with the idea that God wants us to be loving;
© Allow love to be part of your comfort-zone;
© Let love into where you live!
If God’s love endures, if Jesus showed that love and if we have been told to ‘do the same’, then I need some help to understand how it is that some people justify hate against anyone for any reason.
And let’s be honest, I not only talking about skinheads and terrorists and narrow-minded zealots, we all have issues with the edges of love.
Jesus wasn’t just laying out an easy path for his followers. It is deeply challenging to hear that love is not an option for us.
Yeah but, when Jesus said “love one another” he was only speaking to the disciples right? We only have to love others who are like us, who share our beliefs, right?
Loving the lovable is easy...it was Jesus who also said (Mt 5:46, Lk 6:32): “If you love those who love you, how good is that?”
//
Like a lot of people, I spent some time watching the media coverage of US President Barack Obama’s brave and right support of marriage equality this week (I’d like to say ‘welcome, Mr. President, to Canada, circa 2005’, but I don’t think I have ever actually heard a sitting prime minister in Canada ever say that they personally believed in same-sex marriage).
In the mix of the media coverage, of course has been the ‘other side’, sadly often draped in the vestments of religiosity.
And I must say, that I almost have more respect for those who say they oppose same-sex marriage because they don’t like homosexuals, than those who claim to have a Christ-like love for all, but can’t extend that to civil equality. Can love be truly 'love' if it is not lived out in practical and consistent ways? Otherwise, it is just a word or a concept, not something that is part of real life.
Live in my love.
//
Loving is easy, if we get to pick and chose who to love, or if we limit the impact that love will have in our lives.
Live in my love.
Abide in my love.
Reside in my love.
Let love take hold where you live.
Make love real in your life.
//
I cannot imagine that I am called to only love others who think and act like me.
I can’t imagine that I am to withhold my compassion for people-of-good-character, regardless of their race or gender or spirituality or sexual orientation or any other dividing line you can imagine.
And I need to imagine that I am to love even those who do not show love in their lives.
I must love the selfish.
I must love the hypocritical.
I must love the greedy.
I must love the politician I would never vote for.
//
I must even love those who hurt me, those who hate me, those who don't value me or my life at all.
I must love the criminal, the murderer, the sex offender, the terrorist, the pedophile ...the unlovable.
//
If God shows no partiality in the doling out of God’s love, if Jesus abides in this love and if I am invited to live in Jesus’ love, how can I set...any lower goal...for my life?
Will there always be work to do? Will the envelope of love continue to need pushing? Yes and yes.
Am I a bad person for needing to continue to evolve my ability to love? Am I a bad person for being unsettled at the edge of love. We call them unlovable for a reason. No, this is normal to find deep love, like Jesus talks about, very hard.
The really good news is that God’s love is already fully evolved and complete.
No matter what, I am the recipient of unconditional love.
//
Love, like God has, is not designed to be contained.
It is supposed to overflow like the cup in the 23rd Psalm.
It is supposed to move indiscriminately like the Spirit-wind that blew through the city on Pentecost.
It is supposed to reach unexpected places like the Holy Spirit that poured out over the crowd at Cornelius’ house.
// end //
I don’t pretend to think that the edge of this gospel is easy or comfortable, but I do think that it must be at the centre of our soul.
//
Let us pray:
God,
Keep loving us, even in our most unloving moments.
Amen.
#79MV “Spirit, Open My Heart”
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