| The Rev. Catharine Montgomery | Fifth Sunday of Easter |
| Grace Memorial Episcopal Church | Year C |
| May 6, 2007 | RCL |
We are going to baptize two new Christians today because Peter had a vision in a place called Joppa. Peter is in trouble with the Jewish Christians. Because of this vision he has broken two taboos. Peter came back from a mission trip and said Gentiles can become Christians and he has broken strict Jewish purity laws by eating with these Gentiles. You know from scripture that there were three things that identified Jews and set them apart from the rest of the culture. The men were circumcised. The ancient Jews and indeed some modern day Jews have very strict rules about what they can eat – what is clean and what is unclean. The third thing was the rituals around their worship of the one God.
After the resurrection of Jesus the disciples began to spread his message of salvation. The early church was born and of course the first Christians were Jewish Christians. But what to do if other people become believers and want to know more? Who is in and who is out? Three things happened in today’s story. Peter had a message from the Spirit of God telling him that all the animals that God created were clean and OK to eat. That would as earthshaking to Peter as your mother telling you that she had a vision from God saying that snakes and rats were going to be on the table from now on.
The other thing that happened in the story was the Spirit told Peter to go with some men who wanted him to go to their house and preach to the people who had gathered there. The Spirit told Peter not to look at these men as any different from himself. The problem was they were not Jews – they were Romans – Gentiles - seekers who had heard about the message of Jesus and they wanted to know more.
The third thing that happened after they arrived at the house was as Peter began to preach to people gathered there he saw the Holy Spirit fall upon those Gentiles – those outsiders – those unacceptable people just the way the Spirit in tongues of fire had fallen on him and the disciples. If you have ever had a moment when you suddenly saw the light and did a complete about face in something you thought you believed – then you know how Peter felt at that moment. “If then God gave them the same gift of the Spirit that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” Who was I that I could try to keep God from doing his work?
Praise the Lord that Peter listened to the Spirit or we would not be here today. Yet isn’t it amazing how we try to hinder God and the work of the Spirit? The situation in the 21st Century church is not so different from the early church in Jerusalem. We still worry about how to preserve Christianity and what it should be like.
A few years back I was on a taskforce that explored the possibility of planting a new Episcopal church in this area. That certainly caused a lot of discussion! The questions that rose up for us to consider were similar to some that Peter and the Jewish Christians dealt with. Who are we trying to reach with the good news of the gospel? Do we want to attract seekers who have no church affiliation? O my gosh, they won’t know a thing about the Prayer Book or Episcopal liturgy and music!
Do we want to reach out to mainly young people? O my gosh, would that mean loud music and drop down screens? Someone suggested we go after lapsed Episcopalians or try to find all those people who have gotten mad at their church or their denomination. What would that be like? Do we want another church full of people just like us or start a church that is really different?
Who can be included in the Christian community? Who is good enough? What should they have to do to get in? Who are their people? How do they vote? What part of the country do they come from? The dividing line between exclusion and hospitality are not so different these days. Our councils meet and debate over issues of sexuality, who can marry, property rights for churches that are unhappy, the interpretation of scripture and the age old issues of racism and what should the role of women be in the church. Most of them are people rules and not God rules. We will have to continue to wrestle with our thoughts – our beliefs- and feelings about all of this just as the early Christians did.
The critical question for the church is do we believe that the gift of the Spirit was a static one time event or do we believe that the Spirit is a living force that moves among us teaching us and changing hearts? “Who am I that I should hinder God?” said Peter. Who are you that you should hinder God? The Spirit is going to continue to unsettle us the way she did Peter. There is a reason for that – and it has to do with what Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” The mark of a Christian is love. What would it be like if all of these things that church communities and communions argue about were held up in the light of love. Doesn’t it sound simple?
This Christian community at Grace has a lot of love to share today with a new family. Today we are going to baptize a tiny child and her father. We are going to make two new Christians. They come to us not knowing everything they need to know about being a Christian - none of us knows all the rules and rituals. They come because they are believers - this is the family church and they want to be a Christian family. We joyfully bring them into our fold trusting that the Spirit will work in their lives and help them grow in faith just as the Spirit helps all of us grow in faith. In the words of that wonderful old camp song… “We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord” – with God’s help this family will know we are Christians by our love. Alleluia.