Weekly Sermon

New Glasses

Acts 15:1-21

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church

October 6, 2002 - from the Message Translation

It wasn't long before some folks from Judea showed up (in Antioch were great numbers of Gentiles were being converted). The folks from Judea were insisting that everyone be circumcised: "If you're not circumcised in the Mosaic fashion, you can't be saved." Paul and Barnabas were up on their feet at once in fierce protest. The church decided to resolve the matter by sending Paul, Barnabas, and a few others to put it before the apostles and leaders in Jerusalem. After they were sent off and on their way, they told everyone they met as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria about the breakthrough to the Gentile outsiders. Everyone who heard the news cheered-it was terrific news! When they got to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were graciously received by the whole church, including the apostles and leaders. They reported on their recent journey and how God had used them to open things up to the outsiders. Some Pharisees stood up to say their piece. They had become believers, but continued to hold to the hard party line of the Pharisees. "You have to circumcise the pagan converts." The apostles and leaders called a special meeting to consider the matter. The arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated. Then Peter took the floor: "Friends, you all know that from early on God made it quite plain that he wanted the pagans to hear the Message of this good news and embrace it-and not in any secondhand or roundabout way, but firsthand, straight from my mouth. And God, who can't be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person's thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as he gave him to us. He treated the outsiders exactly as he treated us, beginning at the very center of who they were and working from that center outward, cleaning up their lives as they trusted and believed him. "So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don't we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?" There was dead silence. No one said a word. With the room quiet, Barnabas and Paul reported matter-of-factly on the miracles and wonders God had done among the other nations through their ministry. The silence deepened; you could hear a pin drop. James broke the silence. "Friends, listen. Simon has told us the story of how God at the very outset made sure that racial outsiders were included. This is in perfect agreement with the words of the prophets: After this, I'm coming back; I'll rebuild David's ruined house; I'll put all the pieces together again; I'll make it look like new So outsiders who seek will find, so they'll have a place to come to, All the pagan peoples included in what I'm doing. "God said it and now he's doing it. It's no afterthought; he's always known he would do this. "So here is my decision: We're not going to unnecessarily burden non-Jewish people who turn to the Master. We'll write them a letter and tell them, 'Be careful to not get involved in activities connected with idols, to guard the morality of sex and marriage, to not serve food offensive to Jewish Christians-blood, for instance.' This is basic wisdom from Moses, preached and honored for centuries now in the city after city as we have met and kept the Sabbath." Everyone agreed: apostles, leaders, all the people. Prayer: Gracious God, may the Holy Spirit be our guide as we explore your word. Amen. This story is extremely important in the life of the Christian church. Had the council decided that circumcision was required, Christianity probably would have remained a small sect of the Jewish faith. From our vantage point, it appears that the Jewish Christians were trying to exclude outsiders, but that was not their motive. As William Willimon writes in his commentary: "None of them object to preaching to gentiles. They know that Israel's covenant included blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:3). The sign of that covenant and that blessing was circumcision, a sign in which Jesus himself participated (Luke 2:21). Without circumcision, how could a gentile possibly participate in the blessings promised to the covenant people; in short, how could they be saved? The concern is not over racial exclusion but covenant inclusion." [William Willimon, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Acts, (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 128-129] Yet, somehow the early church came together to make the momentous decision that circumcision was no longer the sign of the covenant. How did they do it? We could use some of their wisdom, after all, we regularly have differences to work out. We have much in common with the early church. There is a story about a corporate executive who lost his job. He was so depressed that he could not go home and tell his family. Instead, he took a long walk in a park and found a bench where he sat and bemoaned his fate. After a while, another depressed man came along and sat at the other end of the bench. He asked the corporate executive what was wrong. The executive explained that he had lost his job and couldn't go home and tell his family. The second man said that he had a bad problem, too. He explained that he ran a circus and the main attraction was a huge, threatening gorilla that people came from everywhere to see. He wasn't sure the circus would survive without the gorilla. The corporate executive said, "Hey! You need a gorilla and I need a job. I've got an idea. Why don't we skin the gorilla, dress me up in its skin and let me take a try at pretending." That's exactly what they did. The idea worked beautifully. The executive was marvelous at ranting and raging. The crowds grew. Then one day, a lion was accidentally put in the cage with the gorilla. The two circled each other while the crowd waited to see what would happen in this classic confrontation. Eventually the executive in the gorilla skin realized that the lion had him cornered. He screamed out at the top of his lungs, "Help!" The lion shouted back, "Shut up! You're not the only one out of a job!" [Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), p. 206-207] We don't have to feel alone. The early church faced problems and difficult issues, just like we do today. Our scripture story tells us about the first church council. They demonstrated the central principles of working through church conflict. First, they showed that to resolve conflict we have to talk to each other. Years ago when I worked in New York, during a time of social and racial unrest in the city, the church invited an Imam from a Muslim mosque and a Rabbi from a synagogue. The Imam said something that stuck with me. He stated a simple truism: "If you are talking about someone, you are not talking to them." I find that is consistently true in my life. If I have a difference with someone, it is so much easier to talk about them than to talk to them. It may be easier, but it is destructive. We cannot work through our conflicts by talking about the people who feel differently instead of talking to them. I'm sure you have had this happen to you: You meet someone or hear someone speak and you have an immediate dislike for them. Maybe you disagree with something they said or your dislike is more subtle than that and you can't even put your finger on it. That happened to me with the pastor of a church close by the church where I worked in New Jersey. Maybe I was jealous, but I justified my negative feelings by the fact that his church had drawn a good number of members from the church where I was the interim. This had all happened years earlier, but I blamed him. As luck would have it, I was assigned to work with his church while they looked for a youth director. In the process, I turned out spending a fair amount of time at his church and with him. As I got to know him, I began to respect him greatly. He didn't change; I did. I stopped talking about him and I began talking to him. It made all the difference. For the early church to resolve the conflict over circumcision, everyone had to sit down to talk. Paul and Barnabas had to come from Antioch to Jerusalem. They had to meet face to face. That was the first step. The second step was to work to understand each other's opinions. That is hard to do. In the late 80's, Stephen Covey published his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was a huge bestseller. It is a book I still treasure and return to often. One of his seven habits is, "Seek first to understand…then to be understood." Covey writes: "Suppose you've been having trouble with your eyes and you decide to go to an optometrist for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you. "'Put these on,' he says. 'I've worn this pair of glasses for ten years now and they've really helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can ware these.' "So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse. "'This is terrible!' You exclaim. 'I can't see a thing!' "'Well, what's wrong?' he asks. 'They work great for me. Try harder.' "'I am trying,' you insist. 'Everything is a blur.' "'Well, what's the matter with you? Think positively.' "'Okay. I positively can't see a thing.' "'Boy, are you ungrateful!' he chides. 'And after all I've done to help you!' [Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, (New York: A Fireside Book Published by Simon & Schuster Inc., 1989), p.236] Most of the time, we are so sure of our own opinion, that we can't see anyone else's. When Paul and Barnabas went to Antioch all the opinions had to be heard and considered. Everyone had to seek to understand everyone else. The issue was what would be the sign of the covenant. Since Abraham, the sign of the covenant had been circumcision. Now, miracle of miracles, the sign of the covenant was the coming of the Holy Spirit. God was doing a whole new thing! That is the third step: recognizing that we are brought together in the Holy Spirit. The sign of the covenant is the presence of the Holy Spirit. There is an old story about a man "in the backwoods of Kentucky who could be counted on to show up at revival meetings whenever an evangelist came to town. At the end of each service when the invitation was given, he would come down the aisle, get down on his knees, raise his arms to heaven and cry out, 'Fill me, Jesus! Fill me! Fill me, Jesus!' Then, within a matter of a week or two, he would slip back into his old ways of living. But when the next round of revival meetings was held, he would once again go to the meetings, walk down the aisle, and pray the same prayer over and over. "One time, he was down on his knees yelling to the ceiling, 'Fill me! Fill me, Jesus! Fill me, fill me! Fill me, Jesus!' when suddenly from the back of the church some lady yelled, 'Don't do it, Lord! He leaks!' "Of course, the truth is that we all leak. Being filled spiritually is not a once-and-for-all thing. Our spiritual energies dissipate, and we must find ways to be regularly refilled by the Spirit and reenergized by God." [Campolo, Ibid., p 96-97] Today, Christians around the world are coming to the table of the Lord to be refilled with the Spirit of the Lord. Let us join them. Amen.