Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 11:1-18 Psalm 148 Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who defines who we are and whose we are. Amen So Peter has a crazy thing happen to him, he’s out and about spreading the good news that Jesus is the Messiah, he’s doing it among his fellow Jews because they’re the ones waiting for the messiah the one sent from God to the chosen people of Israel. Now remember these are the people who God chose and set apart a long time ago and to mark their apartness God gave the chosen people all these laws to follow as a gift, you know the main ten, no other Gods, don’t use the name of God in vain, keep the Sabbath, don’t kill, don’t covet etc. and then after the main ten there came a whole lot more, some six hundred more laws and the arrangement was that as long as the people followed the law life with God would be good but if they broke the law God could do everything from hide to downright punish the people usually through occupying armies taking over the promised land. Now this is over simplifying the relationship because God is also gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but the essence is that the mark of the chosen people is the following of the law, however imperfectly, it’s how the Israelites show they are chosen both to God and the world around them. Following it is a big deal. Which brings us back to Peter and his crazy experience. Peter is in Joppa sharing the message of the messiah He takes some time to pray and while he’s praying he has a vision, in the vision he sees a buffet of animals that are prohibited for food by the law, and a voice tells him to “Get up, kill and eat” Peter protests saying “by no means Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth” he’s a faithful follower of the law it’s the right response, but instead of congratulating Peter for his faithfulness the voice says “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” as the vision ends some gentiles arrive, gentile is the blanket name for everyone else those who are not chosen by God and they invite Peter to come with them and nudged by the Spirit Peter does and as he shares the news of Jesus the Holy Spirit comes on these outsiders in the same way that it had on all the disciples and faced with the actions of the spirit Peter goes ahead and baptizes the people and stays with them and by doing so breaks the law. Which is why when word of this gets back to Jerusalem the people there are pretty upset with Peter, in spending time with the gentiles he has betrayed his identity as an Israelite in our first lesson we hear Peter’s explanation to his fellow apostles and believers, and at the end of his story he concludes: “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?” With this the complaints are silenced and the apostles praise God for giving even the gentiles the good news. Faced with a huge shift in identity Peter and the apostles hesitate, push back even it’s a natural reaction to changing identity but despite their misgivings as they pay attention to the work of the spirit and as they remember the teachings of Jesus they are able to praise God at the new thing God is doing in their midst. After all, on their last night together Jesus did give them a new commandment, a new identity marker for the community when he told them “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love is the new law The new marker for the community and honestly we struggle with that, even after all of these thousands of years, like the Israelites we go through periods of struggle where the communal identity shifts toward a more inclusive understanding of community and then we settle in until it seems like we’ve always done it this way And that’s when God shakes things up Reminds us of the law of love and breaks out the phrase “What God has made clean you must not call profane” And once again we struggle with our identity because things are changing, those we thought were out are now in, these are the moments where we must follow the lead of Peter and pay attention to where the Holy Spirit is moving and working around us and remember the teachings of Jesus and perhaps then we will conclude with Peter “who was I that I could hinder God?” Because when we think about it, what God is doing for them, whoever that happens to be, it’s the same thing God has done for us, In love God claimed us and gave us an identity that will never change, child of God that identity is ours no matter what anyone else says, or how the community changes we are God’s beloved, and when we think of it in this way, who are we to hinder God? Amen
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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