May 19, 2019

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