Easter 5: Love One Another

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.  2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him,  3 saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”  4 Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying,  5 “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.  6 As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.  7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’  8 But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’  9 But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’  10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.  11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were.  12 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.  13 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;  14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’  15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.  16 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.’  17 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?”  18 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  

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When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.  32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.  33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’  34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:31-35 

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Welcome to the fifth week of Easter! We are still focused today on celebrating all that Jesus did for us on the Cross, and all the good things that have come to us through the power of Jesus’ resurrection. Through the Cross we have been forgiven, and through the Resurrection we are called to new life – both in this world and the next. And as we will see in a couple of weeks, through Jesus’ Ascension, the Holy Spirit is released to Jesus’ followers, to guide and counsel us in this life.

We see the Spirit in action in today’s reading from the book of Acts, so I’d like to focus today on Acts, but I’d also like to look at our reading from John. These two readings will work like a sort of spiritual sandwich: John is the bread and Acts is the meat in between. John gives us a framework within which to understand what we see happening in Acts.

So starting with John: Jesus is speaking to his disciples about three things that are about to happen: God receiving glory, Jesus’ departure, and a new commandment.

The word glory can be tough to define. I once heard someone describe glory as ‘weightiness’ – something of real substance. Other people describe glory as ‘splendor’ or ‘majesty’. Almost always definitions of glory hint at royalty. But God’s glory goes far beyond that – in fact it goes beyond anything we could imagine (other than maybe creation itself).

Jesus says that God will receive glory through what Jesus is about to do on the cross. And likewise Jesus will receive glory from God through Jesus’ resurrection. So the glory is given by each to each: one giving glory to the other in a continual sharing of glory.

Jesus also speaks of his departure. The departure Jesus is talking about here is not his death (he’ll be back from that). He’s talking about his departure after the resurrection: he will be returning to God the Father, and he will not be physically staying here on earth very long. And he’s saying that where he’s going the disciples won’t be able to follow – because, as he says in John chapter 14, “I am going to prepare a place for you.” And he will return to take us there.

In the meantime, Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.”  This is indeed the great commandment – but is it new? Jesus has been talking about love all through his ministry. It seems what might be new at this point is love is expressed in action: in humility, as Jesus washes the disciples’ feet; or in heroic actions like his martyrdom. The love Jesus teaches and shows us goes beyond feeling and beyond emotion to doing what is best for others no matter what it costs.

Jesus also promises that the world will know we are his disciples by our love for one other. The world doesn’t see Christians as belonging to Jesus if our theology is right (even tho theology is important); the world doesn’t see Christians as belonging to Jesus if our morals are good (even tho living a good life is important); the world doesn’t see Christians as belonging to Jesus if we know a lot about God (tho knowing about God is important). The world knows we belong to Jesus when it sees Christians loving each other with the love of Jesus.

The challenge in this commandment is that Jesus doesn’t allow us to draw lines separating those we love from those we don’t love. We don’t get to pick and choose. And that’s where we pick up Peter’s story in the book of Acts.

Back in Jesus’ day, as in most periods of human history, there were certain groups of people a “good” person didn’t mix with. A good Jew, for example, would never hang around with Gentiles (that is, non-Jews). I’ll talk about why in a moment. But it raises the question: who are the people we don’t hang around with in our society? Not that we necessarily deliberately exclude, just that we don’t notice them? Maybe the poor? Drug addicts? Immigrants – legal or otherwise? The homeless? Minorities of any kind? The mentally ill? The handicapped? It’s amazing how many ways people can find to draw lines around people that exclude.

Here are a couple of other examples from history where Christians took notice and stood up and said to society, “here’s a better way”.

In ancient Rome: as the Christian church was getting off the ground in the first couple centuries, in Roman society it was considered a tragedy to be born female. Baby girls born in the Roman Empire were often left on the town trash heap to die. But Christians saw the likeness of God in these babies and rescued them – at great cost to themselves, both financially and socially. The early church became famous for having mercy on the least and the helpless.

In early Methodist history: John and Charles Wesley and their friends at school at Oxford looked around at their society and they noticed that poverty was a serious problem. The poor were stuck: partly because there were no schools for their children. There were no public schools at the time; education in those days had to be paid for, and the poor couldn’t afford it. They also noticed that if a poor man fell into debt and failed to pay it off, he would be thrown into debtors’ prison until he could pay the debt – which of course was impossible if he wasn’t free to work. The effect on poor families was devastating. John and Charles and their Oxford friends spent all time they had in between coursework teaching the children of the poor, giving them an education; and paying off the debts of those in prison – reuniting families and lifting them out of poverty. And they did this even though the well-to-do in the church and society didn’t approve and called them derogatory names.

 

 John Wesley also gave counsel to the poor on basic first aid and health care

Both of these – saving Roman babies and reaching out to the Oxford poor – are examples of what Christians have done to love others in Jesus’ name: what Christians have done to reach out to, and include, people who weren’t considered acceptable by the culture around them.

The tradition of doing this has its roots in our story from Acts. In this ancient society, the Gentiles were the outcasts: anyone not born Jewish. That would most likely include you and me. We tend to forget sometimes that the first believers were Jewish and that all of Christianity rests on the foundation of Judaism. As Paul says, we Gentiles are “grafted into the vine” – the vine being Judaism.  And as we can see from Peter’s story, even he was reluctant at first to bring the Gospel to people who were considered ‘unclean’.

Jewish purity laws since the time of Moses taught the Jewish people not to eat with, or even enter the house of, a non-Jewish person. Mixing with Gentiles meant mixing with people who worshiped false gods. It was considered a form of idolatry. And in the history of Israel, whenever people started relaxing this law, national disasters always followed. So keeping oneself away from Gentiles was loyalty both to God and to the nation.

But now the apostle Peter – the rock on which Jesus founded the church – has not only visited a Gentile, but had baptized a whole family of them, and then ate with them! How could the leader of the Jesus movement do this?

Peter travels to Jerusalem to explain what happened. He says, “This is God’s doing.” Peter tells them while he was in Joppa he saw a vision of a large sheet full of animals being lowered down from heaven. And he hears a voice saying, “rise Peter – kill and eat.”  But as Peter looked at the animals he realized they were animals Jews were forbidden to eat. So he answers, “By no means, Lord; nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” And he hears a reply, “What God has made clean you must not call unclean.”

Peter says this vision happened three times.

The number three is significant in the Jewish faith. For starters, there were three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Secondly, the number three is considered the number of completion: it brings harmony, peace, and stability. Something happening three times makes it permanent.

And after the vision – three men show up at the door! They’re from Caesarea, and they’ve come looking for Peter. The Holy Spirit tells Peter to go with them. Six of the disciples go with Peter (that’s twice three) and they enter the house of a Gentile, Cornelius, who says he has seen a vision of an angel who told him to send for Peter and listen to his message.

Peter shares the Gospel with this Gentile family – all their relatives and servants are present in the largest room of the house. And while Peter is still speaking the Holy Spirit falls on all the members of the household, and they start speaking in tongues. Peter, seeing this, is amazed.

And then Peter does the next logical thing: he baptizes them. It’s what Jesus said to do just before he went back to heaven: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt 28:19) Somehow the disciples had missed that ‘all nations’ part – until now. And then, after the baptism, they all had a meal together because… why wouldn’t they? They’re all members of God’s family now.

Back in Jerusalem, Peter draws this conclusion: if God has given the Holy Spirit to Gentiles, we cannot call them unclean because we would find ourselves opposing God.

At these words the Jewish critics were silenced, and the believers rejoiced and praised God that repentance unto life was now available to everyone, everywhere. They all realized – as Peter did – that where it comes to salvation God’s Holy Spirit was leading the way.

After these events, the early church had some difficult questions to deal with like: will Gentiles have to worship the same way Jewish people do? Will they have to eat the same foods? These questions and others caused some friction in the early church. But they would be worked out, mostly by Paul in his missionary journeys and his letters. What’s clear to them now is that Jesus’ call to “repent and believe the good news” is a call to all people everywhere.

So what does all this mean for us in the 21^st century? Bringing us back to our reading from John, it means that for all of us, no matter who we are, salvation is made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection and by his love for us. It means that all things are ours through God, because God was faithful and gave sacrificially in sending his son Jesus to do what he did.

It means also, as it meant for Peter, that we should rejoice when anyone comes to faith, when anyone believes in Jesus and receives the Holy Spirit, no matter where they come from or where they’ve been. The Holy Spirit reaches out across boundaries that our culture may not approve of. What God has called ‘clean’ we should not call ‘unclean’. We follow God not the world.

The Holy Spirit – the “Spirit of Truth” – bears witness to our spirits of the truth of God’s word. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to believe in and trust Jesus. The Holy Spirit guides us and helps us to avoid pitfalls. The Holy Spirit sheds light: both on the meaning of Scripture, and on the truth about the world around us. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to live by the love Jesus talks about in John: loving one another.

So then our question today is: where is God’s Spirit leading us now? Whose voices and whose stories do we need to hear? Where is God leading us to share the good news? May God inspire us with answers to these questions and give us the courage to follow. AMEN.

 

Easter 5: Love One Another (Clean vs Unclean)

Preached at Carnegie United Methodist Church and Hill Top United Methodist Church, 5/15/22