Lectionary Scriptures:
Acts 17:22-31, Psalm 66:8-20, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21
Open with a bad joke.
I will warn you, I am going to preach around the text today. Sometimes, there is more in the weekly scriptures than is preachable in one sermon. Sometimes, it takes too long to explain the cultural and historical moment of the context of a passage, and we get lost in the translation to today’s world. Sometimes, our holiest of scriptures just do not sound like the right Good News for this time and place. Sometimes:
in the course of human events it becomes necessary it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
No, wait. That’s a different sermon, by our forbearers in faith. A good message—one of true unity in the face of oppression and injustice. But, it’s not the Gospel we’ll share today.
Sometimes, when I begin reading the scriptures for the week, I get caught thinking of other things. This week, I was drawn from the theological message of God’s still-speaking word, towards a walk to understand our walk together—our walk as one body, htough many, in Christ. These scriptures drew me into my own heart, and towards this time and place in which we are living. Among the many voices in today’s scriptures, my heart was held captive in one message—a message challenging us to live into a Gospel that is wider than many may be comfortable encountering. It was a message of disconnection. Divergent voices, with divergent answers, all preaching the Gospel of Christ.
The Psalm today calls us to remember the blessings that we have been given, as we have lived through the suffering of life’s days. In the Epistle, Peter reminds us to live beyond the suffering, and do so with good form. Then we hear the sermon of Paul on the Areopagus, his words falling on the ears of philosophers and the faithful with mediocre response.
The final passage of scripture that was not yet read today, and the one that made my mind wander, is from the Gospel of John, chapter 14 verse 27:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
I got stuck on that idea: where is there peace, when we are living in a time of disconnected unity—a time when as a nation and a world, we seem to have stopped listening to each other? How can we find each other, and our true path together if we do not (or cannot) see the face of Christ in each other? How can we not be troubled, in such a time as this, and not be afraid?
We are in a time beyond the Emmaus Road, where Christ is easily seen in the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup. While not quite yet to Ascension Day this Thursday, when we see again the mystery and magnificence of the Reign of Christ in our world. We stand in a time, like that of the Disciples, when the path is not clearly before us—guided in the footsteps of Christ.
My mind and my heart wandered, coming to the words of Peter, and the story of Paul. It is their journey that brings us to our faith in this time and place, beyond the Emmaus Road.
The Rock said
Simon Peter (Simon-he has heard, Peter/Cephas-the rock) was tasked with an impossible moment. Weeks after Christ has died, risen, and come again to the Disciples, Peter was trying to live into the role Christ had given him. Fallible, questioning of faith and purpose, it was the one who denied Christ three times who was to build the church into the future.
This was not the church that Christ had led. Peter found that there was a lot more gray than there had been when he walked with Jesus of Nazareth. Christ’s straightforward message of extravagant welcome and love for all of God’s people and creation brought many to find their life’s journey bringing them to this new church. With them came the pain, the joy, the “baggage” of all they had been before joining this part of the journey. Baptism could wash the soul clean, but the mind and spirit would take longer to be made whole.
This fisherman-turned-pastor was now challenged with bringing Christ’s rag-tag mass of human loss and longing into the church for their time and place. In the early years, the mission was to answer the great commission: preach and teach, baptize and empower. Give hope to the hopeless, faith to the searching, love to the broken. Peter and the other Disciples, now elders and Apostles of the church, knew this role. But as the church grew, the Gospel got out: yet even to the foreigner and Gentile!
Now, some fifty or so years later, Peter’s congregation was facing many trials and snares, challenged by the Roman occupation of Judea, and the persecutions of the Jewish and Christian communities. I can almost hear Peter’s exasperated voice, saying, “Look, you asked me what I thought. These are the rules are for right now. As we come to understand what God wants, I have faith that some of them will change. Trust me, this is where I feel led by God’s Spirit.”
You can hear his words strongly given in our Epistle from the “pastorals,” the short letters at the end of the Christian scriptures. Written to a group of people suffering the oppression of the Roman rule, Peter sought to succor their wounded hearts. If you are going to suffer, he says, suffer knowing that you are living in the right ways. No, it is not going to be easy; you have seen the horrors that have already taken place in our community. Still, never be ashamed of living a moral life. But things are going to change, just have faith!
The Rev. Sharon Watkins, the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ, tells this story:
The world is getting smaller. Different traditions meet and mingle. What are the characteristics of that meeting and mingling? How do we get along? Around the world, on the daily news, we see a different answer than the easy one I've been living.
From Bosnia-Herzegovina where Muslims have been oppressed and slaughtered by Christians, to the Mid East where Jew and Muslim clash and Christians are caught in the crossfire, to Iraq where Sunni and Shi'a exchange gunfire, to the United States of America were hooded Protestant Caucasian men by night terrorize Catholic and Jewish neighbors (as well as fellow Protestants of other races), to Ireland, to Darfur, to Kashmir, to Chechnya. In this smaller world of ours we see different religious traditions meet and mingle to disastrous effect.
We need another way.
Perhaps the Apostle Peter's way. He, too, lived in a time of violence, of suffering due to religious persecution. He called upon his community not to bludgeon, not to make war, not even to crusade or convert, but to give a defense, to give an explanation, to make a witness for the hope that is within you and to do it with gentleness and with respect.
Years ago, I was a missionary to Congo. I learned very quickly there that in order to tell my story, I needed to know the local language. And for people to listen I needed to be welcomed into their lives. And to be welcomed into other people’s lives I needed to be respectful of their ways. See, I don't let someone into my house to trash my house. And neither would they.
“Live bold,” Peter tells us, “ But ‘Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence’.”
I just have one question…
Saul of Tarsus (Saul-to ask or question) was famous for his piety and persecution of the followers of The Way, the reforming path taught by Jesus of Nazareth. He was present at the stoning of the first of the martyrs of the faith, Stephen. He was chief among the persecutors of the bourning church following the death of Stephen, setting his heart against the early followers for their unfaithfulness to the old, traditional ways.
We know the next part, right? Saul, now Paul (Paul-Small or humble), knocked from his position of power by the Spirit of Christ, this seeker went from the road to Damascus to a journey with Christ. Made humble by his excessive ambition to keep the faith (and the faithful) pure, God chose Paul’s questioning spirit to take the faith to ever-reaching ends.
What’s the old saying, “There’s no zealot like a convert?” With a turn that would give a NASCAR driver whiplash, Paul’s eye-opening experience brings him to a faith of open, affirming love for all of God’s people, wherever they had been on life’s journey.
Paul immediately began preaching the Gospel in the synagogues in Damascus. Eloquent in his scholiast logic, trained in Hellenist rhetoric and philosophy, Paul gave arguments to the validity of Christ’s message. And immediately, his Jewish colleagues began persecuting him! Paul’s first thought: go to the church in Jerusalem. They would understand, right? Those who had been persecuted would surely give sanctuary to one who was in need.
Would it be so easy that one’s past deeds were forgiven. It took the intercession of Barnabas to bring the church and Paul into conversation. And even then, the communion of the established, orthodox church and the new, evangelical church took time to live into fullness.
You go this way, I’ll go that way!
With Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem, our story comes to a turning point. Paul’s witness of his conversion was not enough for the fearful Peter and the other Apostles. One can feel the disconnect between these two—Peter, passionate for perfecting the work of the fledgling church; Paul, a convert to Christ and fanatic for the faith. Their personalities could not have been written better, describing the inspired tension of the church of Jesus Christ as it came of age.
For us, in our time and place, the question between these two ancient leaders of the church lives in new forms. Paul and Peter differed in their faithful response to the inclusion of the Gentiles. It was not that either wanted to exclude, but rather that there was a certain “test” for inclusion, namely circumcision.
I wish I could say that we are beyond this idea of tests of faith. I wish that we could be one in the Spirit, without dwelling on personal belief or difference of faithful opinion. Honestly, I do not know in my heart that it is within our humanness. Today in our United Church of Christ, our call to be United and Uniting, to be Open and Affirming of all God’s people, to be multi-racial and multi-cultural, accessible to all, seeking Justice and Peace in all places for all time, is being heard as divisive. A message of radical, extravagant welcome lost in translation.
In the interview with Bill Moyers on Friday, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was remembered in a video from the mid-1980’s:
“Unfortunately, most churches now are "status quo." And so that, to the extent that they're not trying to feed the poor, they're not trying to hook up jobs and people, they're not concerned about the lowest, the least, the left out. They're not concerned about the youth, they're concerned about "Let me come here on a Sunday, hear something that tells me I'm ok, and I'm going to back to where I've been going. Don't rock the boat…”
My heart fears that we are again approaching a temptation (maybe not right here at Rock Spring, but in our world around us) where that status-quo fear of confrontation is leading us to the need to define our faith and beliefs in light of our time and place. The protective “Peters” and the prophetic “Pauls” are again heading to a moment of conversation—and I am hopeful that our concern for the lowest, the least, the left out; for the youth and the children, lead us to grab hold, and rock the boat hard!
Finding inclusion in a prophetic voice
There is not a day that passes where I do not receive an email asking, “So what is this United Church of Christ? Who is this Rock Spring UCC?” I am asked about our views on Baptism and Eucharist, on faithful public witness, of what and how we teach our children and youth and care for our elders. While I have yet to be asked the question on circumcision, these questions feel to me like those posed to Paul and Barnabas.
Who is welcome? What hurdles need to be jumped to feel part of the church? The perceived walls built by the rejection and pain of our daily living, the moments when we have experienced ridicule, rejection, hatred for being the beautiful image of God that we are—these are the “tests” that we face today.
Privelege, by the color of our skin or by our economic status. Ethic origin and cultural identity. Political leanings. Age, young and old. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Physical giftedness, and mental and emotional capacity. Family Make-up and personal support community. Even (Dare I even say it), the sermons you listen to in church!
Regaining our Vision
As Rev. Watkins said, we need another way. In the same message, she shares this story:
Someone once told me about an interfaith conference where around the table were Hindu and Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Jew, and such was the politeness that each wanted at first only to listen to the other. And then one said, we must each be willing to tell our own story so that the others can receive it.
There is a message of hope for us in the lives of Peter and Paul, these two forbearers of our faith, and it is in the words of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. Paul, coming with honest concern and emotional witness, bore the stories of the many who had come to embrace the Way of Christ. Peter, claiming his anointed position of authority, asks, “Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? …God…has made no distinction between them and us.”
Paul embraces the generations of oppression that formed his Jewish faith, and brought him into Christian faith. Advocating for the most in need, he set aside the limiting laws and burdens of the older ways, finding a Gospel that was truly for all of God’s people.
Here is the other way, lived out in our heritage, binding in covenant faithful people of all aged tongues and races. Living in common, sharing in fellowship, being Christ to one another. Seeking to understand each other from the beginning of our journey, to this place where we rest and catch our breath.
This is not a place of “status-quo” or of checklists or tests of faith. It is a place where we are called to be who we are on life’s journey, and to become who we are for the fulfillment of the Reign of Christ in our midst. Today, and every day, remember that you are exactly the person God has made you to be. You are in the exact place you are supposed to be on life’s journey, and you are called to witness to the beauty of that place. The joy, and the burden, of living into that lies on each of us—and that’s why we’re here together. That is why we are still a united church, welcoming and accepting of all, wherever we are on life’s journey.
Jesus said,
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Let it be so, for all of our days. Amen.