5 Easter C 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Easter/CEaster5_RCL.html
When I was younger, if I were asked to name the miracles of the New Testament, I would have come up with a list like this:
The resurrection of Jesus
The raising of Lazarus
The multiplication of the loaves and fishes
The healing of lepers
Giving sight to the blind
There are more, of course. You could name more.
Now I am older. I have walked many streets. I have found there heartbreaking good as well as terrifying pain, loneliness, and rage. I have also walked the streets of my own heart, and there I have met the same loneliness, rage, and pain.
Ask me now to name the miracles of the New Testament, and I will come up with a different list:
The conversion of Saul, from a deadly religious zealot to a servant of Christ
The unity of the Christian assembly
The forgiveness of Jesus given from the cross
There are more, of course. You could name more. One is told to us today:
The inclusion of the Gentiles
This Sunday good old Peter, old flip-flop undecided Peter, tells us in fear and trembling why he is no longer a good predictable religious man like his momma taught him. This was not a safe or an easy journey. The early Jesus-movement was not only a Jewish movement, it was a Jewish movement very preoccupied with who was in and who was out. That is a very natural human instinct. In fact it is a natural function of religion per se. Scholars of religion in general say that the purpose of religion is to make sense of overwhelming chaotic reality, to mediate the enormous powers surrounding us. Most religions are instinctively conservative—they try to keep everything stitched together so things do not get too crazy. This is especially important when the times are dangerous or out-of-control. One piece of stitching things together is making it clear how one belongs to the faith-community, so we know who is in and who is out.
When communities are frightened or threatened, they get even stricter and more harsh about who is in and who is out. With the Temple destroyed and everyone scattered, the Judaism of the time was very threatened and very frightened. The Jesus-believers were simply among them, trying to stay together, trying to make sure they were still among those who were “in.”
Then, an unlikely miracle occurred to an unlikely man. Peter had a dream, a disgusting and disturbing dream, where he is told to eat snakes and jackals and buzzards and swine. Peter is even more grossed-out than we would be—it is not only nasty meat, but the Bible said it is unclean and God forbids it. Three times the heavenly picnic-cloth is held in front of Peter, and three times the voice scolds him, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Then Peter wakes up, probably nauseated and confused, only to hear someone knocking at the door.
It’s Gentiles. Goyim. Outsiders. Pig-eaters. Statue-worshippers. Enemies. Peter still needs one more nudge from God, this time not in a dream—go with them, and make no distinction between them and you. Walk with them, speak with them, eat with them.
We have trouble today imagining how this threw Peter’s world upside-down. We have to try and imagine what his culture and assumptions were saying to him, what he was feeling—fear, disgust, confusion. Who was God, what was truth, how can I go against the literal meaning of the Bible, who will we be if we are with these people, if they are with us, if they are us? And even if I accept this, what if someone sees me with them? What will the rest of the believers say and do to me if I tell them how I have changed my mind and heart?
But there were two miracles that day. One was this transformation in Peter. The other was, when the other believers heard Peter stammering out in fear and trembling his unbelievable story, they paused in silence, then rejoiced saying "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life." God makes no distinction between the outsiders and us.
And this is how a strange little Jewish sect changed. The Jesus-movement would have remained a forgotten historical footnote for archaeologists, a half-hour show on The History Channel. Instead it became a community that grew and that lives today and that still remembers this strange, upsetting, healing dream. Good thing for us: looking around, I see no one, myself included, who had a Jewish mom. We're here because of Peter's dream.
The Christian community lives Peter’s dream over and over. When Celtic missionaries overcame their hatred of the invading Saxons and began to make monastic communities with them, Peter’s dream came alive. When Bartolome de Las Casas and other voices began to speak against slavery of both Africans and Native Americans, Peter’s dream came alive. When women gained voice and leadership in both church and culture, Peter’s dream came alive. When amidst fear of losing members and pledges we had a change of heart and mind over lesbian and gay and bisexual and transgendered folks, already our own members, Peter’s dream came alive. When this parish first reached out to Spanish-speaking neighbors and began to learn how to welcome them and form community with them, Peter’s dream came alive. When we look up on any given Sunday and see among us the stranger, the homeless, the one different, the one whom our instinct says is not-us, and God nudges us to reach out, to welcome, to acknowledge the Christ in them, then Peter’s dream comes alive.
We are most the church when we let God nudge us from comfort to the discomfort of welcoming the other—the stranger, the previously unclean according to our assumptions, the outsider, and learn how to walk and eat and live with them. Each time this happens, we move from being a sect, a private gathering, and become the Church all over again. This is how the Church first came alive. This is how the Church comes alive today.
