Weekly Sermon

Inside Out

I Corinthians 12:12-26; Acts 11:1-18

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church, September 25, 2002

Now the apostles and believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, "Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?" Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of pray, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, 'Get up, Peter; kill and eat.' But I replied, 'by no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.' But a second time the voice answered from heaven, 'What God has made clean, you must not call profane.' This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, 'Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.' 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?" When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life." Prayer: Lord God, Help us to hear this story deeply and be open to the way it resonates with the love found in the Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. This story is the centerpiece of the book of Acts. You will remember that we heard this story two weeks ago. But for Luke, telling the story only once was not enough. As the great Scottish scholar and theologian, William Barclay explains in his commentary on Acts: "The importance that Luke attached to this incident is shown by the amount of space he devoted to it. In ancient times a writer had by no means unlimited space. The book form had not come into use. Writers used rolls of a material called papyrus, which was the forerunner of paper and was made of the pith of the papyrus plant, a kind of bulrush. Now a roll is an unwieldy thing and the longest roll that was used was about thirty-five feet long which would be almost precisely the length required to hold the book of Acts. Into that space Luke had almost endless material to fit. He must have selected with the greatest care what he was going to set down; and yet he finds the story of Peter and Cornelius of such importance that he twice relates it in full." [William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series: The Acts of the Apostles, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), p. 86] Luke used his precious space on this story because he saw it as a major step in the journey of Christianity from a sect within Judaism to a world religion based on the revelation of God in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The early Christian community was struggling to find its identity. Would it be bound by the conventions of Judaism? Would it be restricted by the well-ordered religious system of Israel? In his account of the gospel and in Acts, the writer Luke emphasizes that the incarnation was deeply rooted in the Jewish faith, history, and traditions. He linked the promises of God to the actions of God in Israel's history. However, Luke did not stop there. He went on to link the promises of God with fulfillment in Jesus Christ. As Dennis Bratcher writes in his commentary of Acts: "Luke hinted throughout the Gospel that something new was at work in the world in Jesus, something that would overthrow the status quo and bring a newness to the world that would upend the established order of power and authority." [Dennis Bratcher, Christian Resources, May 13, 2001, Commentary, Acts 11:1-18 Year C, Easter 5, p. 5-6.] Luke makes it clear in both his Gospel and Acts that the good news of Jesus Christ cannot be limited to the status quo. Luke constantly includes the stories of Jesus reaching out to the outcast whether the outsider is a foreigner, beggar, sinner, tax collector, or woman. Like the church authorities of Jesus' time, we cannot identify people as "unclean" based on our own religious standards. Those we dismiss as unworthy are the very people God is seeking. Dennis Bratcher continues, "This is not a negation of the value of tradition or a rejection of all religious instruction (torah) by which God's people are to order their lives. But it clearly affirms that the Gospel does not exist for the sake of preserving tradition, even good and valid tradition. Rather, it exists for the sake of calling people into relationship with God even if it must be in spite of tradition." [Dennis Bratcher, Christian Resources, May 13, 2001, Commentary, Acts 11:1-18 Year C, Easter 5, p. 5-6. (Italics are directly from Bratcher's text.)] The most important point in this story is one that we find throughout the New Testament. It is that Jesus Christ is not only for the "insiders" but for "outsiders" as well. We as the church of Jesus Christ are charged with the responsibility of communicating that message in the world, but most of the time, we approach this task from the perspective of "insiders." We see ourselves as the "chosen" who are sent into the world to help others see the error of their ways, and conform to us. [Ibid.] In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott tells about her own erratic journey to faith. While she was still a suicidal alcoholic, she reached out to an Episcopal pastor. When she phoned he was on his way out, but the desperation of her voice caused him to wait for her. Their meeting was an important step in her recovery. She doesn't remember much of what he said, but she does remember that he listened, really listened. When she said she didn't think God could love her, he said, "God has to love you. That's God's job." Anne Lamott writes, "He was about the first Christian I ever met whom I could stand to be in the same room with. Most Christians seemed almost hostile in their belief that they were saved and you weren't." [Anne Lamott, In Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999), p. 43] Anne Lamott doesn't paint a very pretty picture of most Christians. I pray we don't come off like pious "insiders." I sure hope not because we have more in common with the "outsiders" in our scripture passage today than with the "insiders." "We are the outsiders who have been accepted, who have been allowed in by the grace of God in his new work in the world. We are the new work of God in the world, we are the subversive element of the Gospel, the salt, the light, the leaven that will transform." [Dennis Bratcher, p. 6] As the outsiders who have been taken in what are we called to do? Well, let's look at the passage. What was Peter called to do? Peter, Cornelius, and the gentile converts were called simply to tell the story of what God had done for them. They weren't called to make sophisticated theological arguments. They weren't called to argue the facts of faith. They weren't called to explain to nonbelievers that they were lost or damned. They were just called to tell their stories-the stories of what God had done for them. That is what we are called to do. You may know that I had a earlier marriage that failed. I don't talk about it much because I am ashamed of it. After my divorce I wasn't able to go to church for a number of years because I felt so guilty. Jesus is explicit about divorce. In Mark 10, some Pharisees ask him about it. He says that anyone who remarries after divorcing commits adultery. On that basis, I planned never to marry again. One result was that I became a foster parent and adopted Deborah since I didn't think I would ever have a child of my own. Eventually, I was able to return to the church and then I was called to the ministry. When I was being examined by my church to be taken under care, one of the people on the committee asked, "Since you are divorced, I'm wondering how you will respond when you are asked-which you surely will be-how you reconcile your divorce with Jesus' words about divorce." I hadn't really thought out an answer to that question, but Jesus' promised that the Spirit would come to our aid. The Spirit came, and I said, "Jesus' words about divorce and sin are explicit. If we only had his words of judgment, we would all be lost. But Jesus spoke a more powerful word. He spoke of grace. I know that I have sinned; I know that I sin more than I am even aware. But Christ has covered me with grace and so I have the strength to go on in his divine love." We aren't expected to become experts on Christian theology in order to share the Word on the outside. Instead, we are to understand what Christ is doing for us on the inside. Then we must take that story out as our witness. Years ago, when I was working at a church in New York, I counseled a young actress. She was in a destructive relationship. As she struggled with the pain she said again and again, "I will use this. I will use this. This pain will not be wasted." I asked her what she meant. She explained that fine actors use their own experiences to connect with the experiences of the characters they play. She told me that by finding a way to use the pain, she found some value in her suffering. Her words were a revelation to me. I realized that I, too, could find meaning in my suffering. Through suffering, I could become more compassionate as a person and as a pastor. The Lord calls us to understand everything that happens to us in the context of faith. One Sunday last spring, Charlie Judkins preached. He told his story. I have heard from so many people how meaningful his words were. In fact, one of the themes of our ReVisioning report was that we wanted to hear more faith stories from each other. The difficulty we face is that so few of us are willing to share our stories, but the Biblical warrant is clear. We are called to share the news of what God has done for us. Our stories reveal that we are all "outsiders" who have been brought in by the love of God. I've been emphasizing how we must respond to God's action in our lives, but another task of the church is to look to see what God is doing in the world-beyond our own little corner. Our scripture lesson details the action of God. "It is God who gives Peter the vision of a new way. It is God who works with Cornelius and his family. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit to the various groups of people that tie the whole story together. "In other words, this is not an account of Peter deciding what to become; this is an account of God calling him to become, indeed calling the church to become. It is God's new work in the world, calling people to follow…Perhaps the greatest task of the church is to find out where God is already working in the world, and then participate in that work as God gives directions. Perhaps we have too often missed the new work of God in the world because we were waiting for something to happen in our own corner of the world on our terms, when God was already doing great things over in Cornelius' house!" [Ibid. p. 7] Now looking for what God is doing in the world and joining his work…that's another sermon. That's something to pray about! Amen.