A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey May 6, 2007

Text: Acts 11:1-18

These weeks after Easter are a good time for the Church as it always has been to ask: Is the resurrection of Jesus capable of evoking a new people, a new family that is different and dis-tinctive?

Proof of the power of the resurrection is the quality of the Easter community as we see it in Acts. Few barriers were stronger in those early days of the new Church than the wall between Jews and gentiles. Israel had survived through the ages because of its restrictive dietary laws that prohibited it from sharing at the table of gentiles.

And yet Peter, the premiere disciple, has done just that. He has gone among the gentiles and not only shared food with them, he has baptized a family of Gentiles into the Christian faith. How could this have happened?

The “Church” calls a meeting in Jerusalem and summons Peter and demands that he ex-plain himself. He does so by repeating his remarkable vision of the sheet and the animals. In that vision Peter has learned that with God, there is no distinction.

The amazing thing in this story is not so much Peter’s miraculous vision of God’s inclu-sive love, and not so much that Peter has changed in his opinion of the place of gentiles in the kingdom, the real miracle is Acts 11:18: The Church, the whole Church, realizes that the love of God is boundless. God’s promises have come even to the gentiles.

Is this a rather idealized portrait of the Church in its allegedly golden age? Or is this the Church as it is meant to be…Church as it may become through the gracious acts of God?
Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criti-cized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter be-gan to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the be-ginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” —Acts 11:1-18, NRSV

Four Sundays after the glory and the hoopla of Easter, the Lectionary assigns to us this passage from the eleventh chapter of Acts. The early Church is spreading like wildfire into the world. “With great power the apostles gave testimony to the resurrection and great grace was upon them all,” Acts says of the first Church. In today’s reading a gathering of the Church Coun-cil back at headquarters in Jerusalem becomes concerned. They have heard that Peter, the pre-mier apostle, has been fraternizing with gentiles, with members of the Roman cohort in Israel, with those who are oppressing these Jews and occupying their territory. Scandal! Peter is called to explain his fellowship with the gentiles. He tells them about his dramatic vision at Joppa, say-ing that God has shown him that there are no unclean persons, that everyone is within the scope of God’s grace. And the church, all those who once had objections and problems with Peter’s gentile mission, rejoice, praise God and the church moves forward!

In other words this early New Testament Church is seeking to overcome one of the deep-est, most historic of boundaries—the great wall between Jews and gentiles. Here is a Church hoping to live without prejudice, without barriers, without walls. The Church with the desire to have its doors wide open to all: Perhaps the earliest expression of our contemporary United Methodist vision of “Open Hearts…Open Minds…Open Doors.”

It is challenging at times to put that earliest Christian community, as depicted in the book of Acts, up against the contemporary Christian Church. Alabama/West Florida United Methodist Bishop William J. Willimon has reflected, “In my church, when we have similar problems, peo-ple express their opinions, people discuss and argue, perhaps we have prayer, and then we take a vote and everyone leaves the meeting with exactly the same opinions that they brought to the meeting! That’s the real church, not the ideal church.”

Earlier this morning our Adult Class had the opportunity to view the acclaimed 2004 documentary Sister Rose’s Passion. A Dominican nun, Sister Rose Thering was a relentless foe of anti-Semitism within her own Roman Catholic Church, and a passionate advocate for holo-caust studies in the public schools. She was a member of the faculty at Seton Hall University. I was blessed for seven years to work closely with Sister Rose in the planning of annual Holocaust Remembrance Services in South Orange and Maplewood. She dreamed of a day when the whole church would truly be open to all…to end what she referred to as “the tide of ignorance” in our church and in society.

John Shelby Spong, the outspoken former Episcopal Bishop of Newark—who also sees a dramatic divide between the church as it is and the church as it ought to be—says he wants to transform the faith and the church, not give it up. In a recent interview, Bishop Spong remarked, “I’m embarrassed by the Church, but I love it.” That is a sentiment with which many of us can identify. Bishop Spong goes on to observe, “There’s something about Jesus that crosses every barrier and calls people into a deeper and fuller humanity. He crossed the tribal boundary that separated Jew from Gentile. He crossed the prejudice boundary that separated Jew from Samari-tan. He crossed the male/female boundary where women were presumed to be subservient to and inferior to men. And the most important thing is, he crossed the religious boundary.”

Bishops Willimon and Spong, Sister Rose, and many others of us may be critics of the present-day, “real” church. But those who are the most critical are often those who also love the church. When we look at the church we see not just a struggling, sometimes squabbling band of people trying to survive in the world. We see the bride of Christ. We try to look at the church, not necessarily through idealistic, rose-colored glasses, but through the eyes of faith. We attempt to look at the church “under the view of God” (sub specie aeternatus), that we might be able to sing (with Samuel Wesley) of the church: “We are God’s new creation, by water and the word.” Such a vision is given only to those who have the eyes of faith…the ability to look through this rag-tag community we call “the Church,” and see the beloved community in Christ.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why—after the miracle of Easter and the spectacular report of Pentecost—we get this story in Acts 11 of a church council meeting and a report of a vision and a vote taken and a church moving out into a new area of mission. And even though it’s just a mundane meeting…an argument in the middle of a group of ordinary folk…this is truly the outbreak of the Kin-dom of God. This is the beloved community! Because of their participa-tion in the church, these ordinary folk were changed, made different, better people than they would have been had they not been part of this visionary and transforming community.

Bishop Willimon asks, “Is this being too idealistic about the church?” And he responds, “I believe that it is not looking at [the] poor old church with rose-colored glasses, deceiving our-selves about its grubby realities. I believe that it is being truthful about the power of God at Easter. Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and really intends to have a new people, a people gathered, not on the basis of our old, sinful social, racial, national, and ethnic distinctions, but gathered on the basis of the power of the risen Christ.” May it be so!

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PRAYER
Lord Jesus, you have called us together to be your church. You have summoned us forth to your presence on this earth. Despite our miserable shortcomings and failure to be the church you want us to be, keep remaking us into your body on earth. Keep working on us, Lord Jesus. Keep our eyes on the glorious vision that you have for us. Help us to see ourselves as you see us. Amen.
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