Sermon for Easter 5C
May 2, 2010
Texts:  Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

Is the Christian Church inclusive or is it exclusive?

Most likely we like to think of ourselves as being inclusive.
We welcome everybody, right??

Think deeply about that.
Can you honestly feel that you could welcome everyone?

That’s a tall order.

Are there people who might walk in the front door of this church
Who might not feel welcome,
Or whom you would have trouble welcoming,
Or with whom you would feel uncomfortable or strained?

Most of us have some sort of internal mechanism
That draws boundaries between those we consider insiders
And those we consider outsiders.

If you look at the history of the Christian church,
In every age, there have been disagreements
About who’s inside and who’s outside.

Our own state history
Draws its beginnings
From those who were outsiders to the Puritan church.

Congregational ministers who were followers of Roger Williams
Founded New Hampshire because they wanted to welcome people
Who were not Puritans. 

The Lutheran Church and other Protestant denominations
Trace their history
To theological or practical disagreements with the Roman church.

The Nicene and Apostles Creeds date back to the first few centuries of the church,
When establishing a creed was a way of defining
Who was a genuine Christian and who was a heretic.

Disagreements about a clause in the Nicene Creed
Were one of the breaking points between the Roman and Eastern churches.

In the US, in the 19th century,
Churches and congregations split apart
Over the issue of slavery.

In the 20th century,
Different Christian denominations tackled the question
Of the role of women in the church.

Denominations again splintered over this issue.

Even today, my own ordination and right to preach
Are not universally accepted, even among Lutheran denominations. 

In our own time and in our own country,
Disagreements between those
Who are labeled Evangelical Christians and liberal Christians
Have been a source of both religious and political sturm and drang.

In my lifetime, differences in the methodology used to interpret the Bible
Have led churches and denominations to break apart.

All of these differences and disagreements
Have tried to define who is inside the Christian boundary,
And who is outside.

Who is a Good Christian?
Who is not really a Christian?

Yet in our human attempts to set boundaries,
We have to confront the question:
“Are these boundaries human boundaries
Or are they God’s boundaries?”

How do we know the will of God?
What is the Spirit saying to the Churches?

Our First Lesson today
Gives a picture of the very early Christian Church
As it struggled with the question of
“Who’s inside and who’s outside?”

Peter, the same Peter who denied Christ,
And who was asked by Jesus
To feed Jesus’ sheep
Is back in the limelight.

Peter has been called on the carpet by the church elders
For visiting with and sharing a meal with outsiders.

Throughout Israelite history,
God’s Law defined who was inside and who was outside.
God’s Chosen People were defined by the gift of the Law.
Those who were inside obeyed the cleanliness and purity laws.

God had given the Chosen People the Law,
And the covenant of circumcision 
As a way of marking them as God’s own people.

Included in this Law were instructions
About what to eat and who to eat with.

These rules were designed
To reinforce the boundaries of God’s Chosen People,
To make clear who was inside and who was outside.

If a one of God’s Chosen People
Ate with an outsider,
He became impure and an outside himself. 

In today’s lesson Peter has crossed that boundary.

In the first decades of the Church
There was a lot of controversy
About whether one had to follow these same laws
To be a follower of Christ.

The very early Christians were Jews
Just as Jesus was a Jew. 

In the very early Church,
There was a belief that to be a Christian
You had to also be Jewish.

The church council called Peter on the carpet,
Because he had gone off and eaten
With someone who was not Jewish,
And who did not follow the purity laws.

And not only did Peter eat with him,
But Peter also baptized this fellow and his guests.

What was Peter thinking? Baptizing non-Jews!
When he is challenged,
Peter tells the Church Council his story.

He didn’t go off and do these things on his own.
He was compelled to do them by God.

In story form,
Peter tells them how God came to him and told him
To violate the purity rules that he had formerly held sacrosanct.

In a dream God told Peter to eat whatever was put in front of him.

Peter tells the Church Council
That even when he protested to God several times,
God continually told him that God decided what was clean and unclean,
And that he was to no longer follow food laws.
God could make anything clean.

Peter then continued the story
With how he was told by God to go to Caesarea
And how the folks in Caesarea were told by God to seek him.

It was God, not Peter alone, who broke the boundaries
That had previously defined God’s people

Peter continued the story of how the Holy Spirit descended on the folks
He was visiting.

He knew immediately that if the Holy Spirit had chosen them
They should be baptized.

Peter, who throughout Luke’s Gospel kind of bumbles around,
Is pretty clear here in this story in Acts about what God has called him to do.

God has called him to be a boundary buster.
God has chosen to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ,
Beyond the boundaries of traditional Judaism to the Gentiles.

And although Paul will find his life’s work ministering to the Gentiles,
God has called Peter to start this push at the boundaries of insiders and outsiders.

God’s Gospel will not be contained.

Peter, who often missed the clues that Jesus dropped at him,
Has very clear insight in this story
That those who have been given the Holy Spirit have already been chosen by God.
Peter has enough clarity of vision to say to the church council,
“Who am I to hinder God?”

That is an amazing insight
And one that speaks to us, as well,
In our time and place.

Like Peter’s church council,
We are often tempted to decide
Who are the insiders and who are the outsiders.

In many congregations there are divides
Between long-timers and short-timers.
Long timers assume they know what is best for the congregation.
Newcomers think they can breath new life into the congregation.

Sometimes we struggle over priorities that have boundaries at their heart.
How much priority do we place on ministry inside the congregation,
How much priority do we place on reaching out?

Where is God in these boundary conditions?

Our own church body today
Is divided over another question of who is an insider.

We have great differences of opinion
Over the role that people of varying sexual orientations
Can play in the church.

Some of us believe we are clear in understanding what God’s Law speaks to this issue.

Others of us wonder whether this Law has been challenged
Much as Peter discerned that laws concerning dietary regulations had been challenged.

Do we presume that we know how God would answer these questions?

Peter was led by God in a dream to break a boundary condition
And to baptize non Jews
Because of the visual appearance of the Holy Spirit descending upon them.

Despite his strong adherence to the Law,
Peter, somehow, was open to the work of the Spirit,
And allowed his understanding of the rules to be challenged.

Peter lived through a fundamental change in how God’s people were to be indentified
And who could be one of God’s people.
Throughout history, God’s chosen people could be identified
Because of their adherence to the purity and cleanliness codes.

But on Jesus’ last night with the disciples,
He left them with the counsel
That they would be recognized
Because of the love that they showed to one another,
Not because of the rules that they would enforce.

Even before Peter’s encounter with God
Who told him that the purity laws were no longer relevant,
Jesus had redefined the criteria for being recognized as one of God’s people.

In the old covenant, God’s people were recognized by the Law.
In this new world, God’s people are recognized by the love that they show.

God broke God’s own boundaries.
God challenged Peter,
And God also challenges us to break boundaries
Between those we consider to be insiders and outsiders.

I think the Good News for us in our texts this morning,
We will be known by the love that we show one for another,
Love that is grounded in the love that Jesus gives us.

Think how freeing that is.

Jesus’ Law of Love
Frees us from a lot of speculation about who is an insider and who is an outside.

If we are focused on showing love one to another,
We don’t have to spend a lot of energy figuring out who is in and who is out,
And what boundaries God wants for God’s church.

Our job is to show love, and somehow God figures the rest out.
It’s God’s Gospel, and the Gospel will not be contained by humans.

Amen