Acts 11:1-8
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
It
seems like we talk a lot about love when we talk about Jesus. Today’s gospel is no different. As a matter of fact, that what it’s all
about.
We’ve gone backward in time, to those
few moments after Jesus had washed the feet of his friends and just after Judas
was sent out to betray Jesus. It is in
this place where Jesus has one of his most intimate conversations with his
closest companions.
What we hear today is Jesus giving the
new commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved them. Now, they know they are supposed to love, and
they have heard said that God loves them.
This is not anything new to them. What makes this a little bit different is that
Jesus tells this group of people that how they behave in public with one another,
how they love each other in public, will identify them as Jesus followers.
That must mean that we are to do the
same. Show the world how to love one
another, just like Jesus loves.
Yet, this seems big and complex and so
much harder than the words express.
We are called into our relationship
with God to live in communities that express the magnitude of God’s love in the
world. And yet, when we look at this
Gospel, it seems like it’s okay to be insular, to only love those closest to
us, those most like us, those who believe and behave like us.
That’s why I find the pairing with the lesson from Acts
revealing. If ever there were a lesson
that tells us that it’s not just okay, but required, for us to leave our
comfortable spaces, our familiar people, this is it.
This lesson from Acts tells us that it’s not up to us to
decide who to love; or who it is God loves.
Let me read it again, this time from The Message:
The news traveled fast
and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it—heard
that the non-Jewish “outsiders” were now “in.” When Peter got back to
Jerusalem, some of his old associates, concerned about circumcision, called him
on the carpet: “What do you think you’re doing rubbing shoulders with that
crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?”
Okay. Let’s pause a
moment.
Jesus and his followers were all Jews. Christianity had not been identified as a
different religion. These folks were
going out into the world as Jews, trying to tell the story of Jesus to people
like them: ritually circumcised men and their families.
The folks who were complaining about Peter’s baptizing this
group of people were a bit confused.
They didn’t quite understand that Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit were
not limited to certain people. In this
case, Jewish people.
This might seem a bit strange to us, who know that Jesus ministered
to Samaritans and Gentiles, women, sick people, children. Jesus' embrace was broader than to the
Jews.
Back to the story.
So Peter, starting from
the beginning, laid it out for them step-by-step: “Recently I was in the town
of Joppa praying. I fell into a trance and saw a vision: Something like a huge
blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and
settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm
animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I
took it all in.
Uh oh. Peter is presented
with all kinds of unclean animals. Animals
and reptiles and birds that aren’t on the list of “safe” food for Jewish
people.
“Then I heard a voice:
‘Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Master. I’ve never so much as
tasted food that wasn’t kosher.’ The voice spoke again: ‘If God says it’s okay,
it’s okay.’ This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up
into the sky.
Peter and the number three again. It took three times for him to hear the
words, “If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.”
Or, from the New Revised Standard Version: “What God has made clean, you
must not call profane.” Or, from the
Common English Bible: “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”
I wonder just how often we humans have decided for ourselves
what is not okay, or what is profane or unclean.
“Just then three men
showed up at the house where I was staying, sent from Caesarea to get me. The
Spirit told me to go with them, no questions asked. So I went with them, I and
six friends, to the man who had sent for me. He told us how he had seen an
angel right in his own house, real as his next-door neighbor, saying, ‘Send to
Joppa and get Simon, the one they call Peter. He’ll tell you something that
will save your life—in fact, you and everyone you care for.’
We need to go back to chapter 10. I think you need to know what was said in
Joppa.
The next morning he got up and went with them. Some of his
friends from Joppa went along. A day later they entered Caesarea. Cornelius (That’s who sent for Peter) was expecting them and had his
relatives and close friends waiting with him. The minute Peter came through the
door, Cornelius was up on his feet greeting him—and then down on his face
worshiping him! Peter pulled him up and said, “None of that—I’m a man and only
a man, no different from you.”
(I think this an important commentary on
ordination. We priests and deacons are
still people. We have different
education and letters behind our names, but we are still humans!)
Talking things over, they went on into the house, where
Cornelius introduced Peter to everyone who had come. Peter addressed them, “You
know, I’m sure that this is highly irregular. Jews just don’t do this—visit and
relax with people of another race. But God has just shown me that no race is
better than any other. So the minute I was sent for, I came, no questions
asked. But now I’d like to know why you sent for me.”
Cornelius said, “Four days ago at about this time,
midafternoon, I was home praying. Suddenly there was a man right in front of
me, flooding the room with light. He said, ‘Cornelius, your daily prayers and
neighborly acts have brought you to God’s attention. I want you to send to
Joppa to get Simon, the one they call Peter. He’s staying with Simon the Tanner
down by the sea.’
“So I did it—I sent for you. And you’ve been good enough to
come. And now we’re all here in God’s presence, ready to listen to whatever the
Master put in your heart to tell us.”
Peter fairly exploded with his good news: “It’s God’s own
truth, nothing could be plainer: God plays no favorites! It makes no difference
who you are or where you’re from—if you want God and are ready to do as he
says, the door is open. The Message he sent to the children of Israel—that
through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again—well, he’s doing it
everywhere, among everyone. (Acts 10:23-36)
I hope that helps set the stage. Sometimes it helps to know more of the
context. Continuing from today’s lesson…
“So I started in,
talking. Before I’d spoken half a dozen sentences, the Holy Spirit fell on them
just as he did on us the first time. I remembered Jesus’ words: ‘John baptized
with water; you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So I ask you: If God
gave the same exact gift to them as to us when we believed in the Master Jesus
Christ, how could I object to God?”
Hearing it all laid out
like that, they quieted down. And then, as it sank in, they started praising
God. “It’s really happened! God has broken through to the other nations, opened
them up to Life!”[1]
God’s love is open and available for everyone.
God’s love is a gift to each of us. God’s love, as taught through the life of
Jesus and then through the disciples, is bigger and broader that we can
imagine.
Jesus told his group of friends that they are to love one
another in the ways he loved them, that it is up to them to show the world what
it means to show love in the world. He
showed God’s love to outcasts, sinners and marginalized people, the “out” crowd,”
just as he showed it to the “in” crowd.
We are encouraged to act like Peter acted when he had a
vision that told him that God’s love encompassed more than he expected.
Beloveds, that’s the Good News.
Let us pray.
Holy, gracious, loving God, you gave us Jesus and his
disciples to learn how to love in this world.
You used them to teach us that your love has no boundaries. Help us, when we forget that we are all
beloved children of you, our Creator.
Amen.