Year C Easter 5: 19 May 2019
So let’s have a show of hands … who is good at remembering rules? I like to think I’m pretty good at remembering rules, but at times I find it easier to really remember the ones that matter to me. Sometimes these rules are unspoken, for example, if you get the clothes in off the line you should fold them, and other times they are not. When it comes to playing games I am someone who wants to make sure that everyone knows the rules before we start … that way we are all on the same page and there should be no confusion. I discovered early on that this is essential if you play a game like Mah-jong which is a great game, but seems to have many rule variations.
The first five books of the Old Testament are known as the Torah or books of the law. The word ‘Torah’ means instruction and these books were simply intended to be a framework for life, but by the time of Jesus the Pharisees had a list of 613 laws which the Jews were expected to keep. These laws were seen to keep the Jewish people pure but they were also a way for those in authority to maintain order and keep control. I can only imagine how it would have been impossible to keep all these laws and exhausting to try.
It is into this context that Jesus, who has predicted his betrayal earlier in this chapter of John, speaks. Jesus knows that this is the beginning of the end of his time on earth and this is something important he needs to say.
Jesus has told the disciples that where he is going they cannot come. The disciples who have given up everything to follow Jesus are now looking into the pain of separation. But rather than leaving them with nothing, Jesus reminds them about their mutual relationships in the community of faith. He gives them a focus – a new commandment.
One might ask whether it necessary to have another law when there were already 613, but Jesus saw it as important. It seems to me that there are two features of this commandment make it really ‘new’.
Firstly, a new model of unparalleled love has been given to the disciples. They are to love as Jesus loves. In following Jesus the disciples have been first-hand witnesses to the example of a living, concrete expression of love. It is not just a soppy emotion or philosophical virtue. Rather, Jesus becomes the definition of love.
Secondly, Jesus’ love for the disciples not only provides a new paradigm; it also inaugurates a new era. At the centre of this new era is the community established by Jesus, a community made up of women and men of questionable professions and backgrounds who become the family of believers whom Jesus’ loves even when they get it wrong.
These are often the people who are on the outside as far as the Jews are concerned … and as such, they are not accepted. But Jesus is concerned with them as he has come to bring the good news of God to everyone.
We don’t always understand instructions straight away, and it seems that the disciples were no different. When we find them in our story in Acts, Peter is being criticised for going “to uncircumcised men and eating with them”.
It is important to remember that the early Christian community are basically Jewish people who have long lived with a survival tension between welcoming outsiders and maintaining their religious and cultural identity of separation. So it is understandable that this new community believes that separation and division are essential for faithfulness. They continue with this Jewish tradition and believe that the survival of their community depends on their purity and separation from those they perceive as “the other”.
Peter is a little further on in his understanding than some of the other disciples. Last week when we heard about Tabitha we read that Peter stayed in Joppa with a tanner called Simon. A tanner would have been seen as unclean.
In the previous chapter of Acts (which I would encourage you to read) we learn that Peter, after receiving a vision from God, had visited the home of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion who lived in the town of Caesarea. Whilst Peter is with Cornelius and his family the Holy Spirit has come upon them. This event was a turning point for Peter, because he realised that the Holy Spirit which had been promised by Jesus has also been poured out on the Gentile community.
Since then, Peter has been healing Gentiles, preaching to them and even baptising them, and word has got back to the other disciples before he arrives back in Judea. There is some concern among the “apostles and believers” that Peter is doing this, because to their way of thinking this action is threatening their purity.
When they ask Peter why he is associating with these people, Peter goes into great detail to tell them “step by step” what has happened.
Peter speaks about his dream, explaining to the disciples that he has seen animals on a sheet being lowered from heaven, and that he’s been told to kill and eat. The problem is that all the food comes from animals that are on the forbidden list. So Peter says, “No thanks. I can’t touch that stuff. I never have and I never will, “nothing profane has ever entered my mouth”.
He then hears a voice from heaven and the voice says “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”. He hears this voice more than once before he gets the message. What God creates is not profane; God creates what is good and very good.
Peter is then approached by three men, three “others”, who under Jewish Law Peter could have no contact with lest he become unclean himself. The Spirit tells Peter to “go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us”. Then Peter remembers the words of Jesus about baptism, “John baptised with water but you will baptise with the Holy Spirit”, and realises that if this gift is coming from God then he could not be the one who stopped other receiving it.
Through this dream and encounter with the outsiders, Peter is reminded that the gift of God is something that draws us into deeper unity with all of creation. There is to be no distinction, for according to Acts, the Spirit of God is at work in the world blessing all who will receive with the life-giving spirit of resurrection’s solidarity.
It is this that convinces the disciples gathered in Judea. Firstly they are silenced, and then they praise God saying, “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
If we think about today’s passages as old stories that aren’t relevant then we have missed the point. We, too, need to think about how we respond to others.
Who are the ‘Gentile’s in our society? Who are those that are not acceptable or invited in? It is easy to say that we welcome everyone but do we really. We can put up signs and posters that speak about our inclusiveness, but how would we respond when one of those “other people” walks through the door.
It is easier to say we welcome, but harder to do because it challenges the boundaries of our community – boundaries that help us know where we belong and make us feel comfortable.
Even in our churches there are always those who are not like us. There will always be people that we do not believe are worthy to take on leadership roles. In some denominations women are not allowed to preach or lead worship. In other places those who have suffered through marriage breakdown are not permitted to continue to worship.
It is vital that we remember we are not people of the law, but people who have received the good news. And this good news is for all people, not just the people who we think are acceptable, after all God has accepted us. If we truly are people of the gospel we are called to love one another as Jesus first loved us.
God seeks individuals and communities who are willing to risk new ways of seeing and receiving. How might we open ourselves to welcome the still emerging and unfolding story of God’s gracious actions in our time and in this place?
May the God, who loves Creation in all its rainbow diversity, speak to us who narrow, define, pigeon-hole, and exclude those who are not like us. May we view the world as God sees it in all its strange beauty and wonderful diversity.
Amen.
©Rev Heather Hon – 2019