Presbyterians
at the Crossroads
A Sermon Preached by Rev. James D. Brown
at the Installation Service for
the Rev. Kent Winters-Hazelton
at Claremont Presbyterian Church,
Claremont, CA,
on January 21, 2001
[published here on 3-2-01]
The text: Acts 11:1-18
(Acts 11:1-18 NRSV) 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."
A while back I was invited to speak at a citywide
service in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, commemorating the life and ministry
of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The congregation was mostly
African-American, devout folks from a number of churches in the city.
The pastor who introduced me couldn't resist doing what has often
happened when I have been introduced in predominantly African-American
settings. He played with my name a bit: "Well, it seems as if we
may be in for a surprise this evening. Our next speaker is J-a-m-e-s
Brown!"
As I approached the podium there was an unnatural hush
in the air, for the audience wasn't sure how I would handle this
comparison to the Godfather of Soul. I stood silent at the podium for a
good ten seconds, then leaned forward and cried out, "I feel
good!" People laughed and hooted and hollered for a full minute or
two as some of the barriers that divide us came down, and I was welcomed
as a friend among colleagues in ministry.
My purpose for telling this story is this. Standing in
this significant pulpit this afternoon, I am fully aware that Kent
Winters-Hazelton and members of your Session and Presbytery have invited
me here at a crossroads moment for Presbyterians. And at the very onset
I want you to know that I feel good about where we are as a church.
Having said this, we can't ignore the barriers being
thrown up in our congregations and presbyteries these days as we debate
things like Amendment O, the so-called "Blessing of Same Sex
Unions" amendment. We recently had an evening of conversation on
this topic in Carlisle Presbytery in advance of our vote next Tuesday,
and I couldn't help cringing at the unnaturalness of our relationships
even as everyone sought to be civil and fair. It's just that we seem so
far apart from one another, and so unsure of ourselves as we try to
navigate the rough road we are on.
For one, we need to maintain our sense of humor and
lighten up a bit. In her marvelous little book, When God is Silent,
Barbara Brown Taylor mentions at one point how skeptical she always is
when she sees signs in the grocery store for vine-ripe tomatoes--you
know, the kind that are still attached to the vine, but when you take
them home they have no taste whatsoever. She connects false advertising
like this to the church:
Every time I pass a church with a sign out front that
says, "Our doors and hearts are open to everyone," I think,
"vine-ripe tomatoes."
No church I know is open to everyone. Whom do we think
we are fooling? I would so much rather see a sign that says, "We do
the best we can," or better yet, "Christians meet here. Enter
at your own risk." [1]
This reminds me of the uproariously funny thing that
happened at our congregation in Harrisburg a few years back. At that
time, the bulletin board out front said,
MARKET SQUARE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
THERE ARE NO STRANGERS HERE
One day we had to replace some sidewalk, and the work
crew used a jackhammer to tear out the old concrete. A few days later I
happened to glance at our sign as I was walking past, and lo and behold,
the vibrations of the jackhammer had neatly dropped one letter out and
replaced it with another. We now trumpeted to the world:
THERE ARE 10 STRANGERS HERE
God does have a sense of humor, and so should we.
Next, we need to slow down and reconnect to the real
world of the New Testament to see if we can discern how early Christians
dealt with the Amendment O's of their day. Here I want us to take a
careful look at our text for this afternoon, for in it there lie clues
as to what's at stake for us in our own crossroads crisis. I think
you'll discover why I for one am feeling good about what's going on.
Our lesson is from chapter 11 in the Acts of the
Apostles, or from what someone has said might better be named, the Acts
of the Holy Spirit. In the previous chapter Luke gives a fuller version
of two events that coalesce in such a way as to turn the world upside
down: the conversion of Cornelius, and Peter's vision of a sheet
containing animals and reptiles and birds of the air being lowered down
from heaven, accompanied by a voice saying, "Get up Peter; kill and
eat."
Cornelius was a centurion--responsible for 100 of the
archers in an Italian Cohort of 1000 Roman soldiers stationed in the
town of Caesarea, named after the Roman emperors. He was a God-fearing
non-Jewish man who with his family was generous to the poor and prayed
diligently. He has a vision of his own in which an angel of God directs
him to track down Peter, who is staying 30 miles from Caesarea in the
town of Joppa, and get this--Peter is staying in the home of a Gentile
tanner by the name of Simon. The outcome of all this is to be
Cornelius's conversion and baptism, and in the process the world-view of
the early church begins to give way to a level of inclusiveness that
astonished everyone.
Did you catch the significance of what I just
recounted? Peter, the rock of the early church, was in Joppa in the home
of a Gentile tanner. Wow! Tanners were outcasts in the eyes of Judaism,
for they dealt with the skins of animals in ways that were abhorrent to
devout Jews. And to top it off, Peter was Simon the tanner's houseguest,
eating at his table, an act that opened him to severe criticism from
circumcised believers at the church's home base in Jerusalem. Jews,
including Christian Jews, just didn't break bread with Gentiles. You
could preach to them--but not have table fellowship!
At the same time all this is in the works, Peter has a
dream that has a nightmare quality to it at first. A sheet loaded with
all the animals of the world--a scene reminiscent of the creation
narrative in Genesis--is lowered down from heaven before his very eyes,
and he is told "Get up, Peter; kill and eat." "No
way," says Peter. "You've got to be kidding! You mean to tell
me there is to be no more discrimination between clean and unclean
animals?" His thoughts have clearly turned to admonitions like this
one from Leviticus:
The pig, for even though it has divided hooves and is
cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. Of their
flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they
are unclean for you....For I am the Lord your God who brought you up
from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am
holy. (Leviticus 11:7-8, 45)
But the heavenly voice does not relent: "What God
has made clean, you must not call profane." And a third time comes
the very same message. Peter is agog.
Then, given their two visions and the lives of the two
men, Peter and Cornelius, become inextricably one. Peter is like us when
we are at a crossroads in our own lives, and dream dreams and see
visions--and have to live with real ambiguity and confusion as we await
clarity. As he recounts his crossroads experience, Peter fast-forwards
to the next happening, that of the visit of the emissaries from
Cornelius who ask him to come to Cornelius's home in Caesarea so that
Cornelius and his entire household might be saved.
Peter goes, and we now come to the climax of our
lesson for the day. Peter has arrived, in his "step by step"
rendition of the amazing drama that is unfolding, to the final act:
"And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it
had upon us [the believers at Pentecost] at the beginning."
Gerhard Krodel, in his instructive commentary on Acts,
suggests that "as I began to speak" is a crucial clue to the
theology of the early church as recounted in Acts. The Spirit falls not
after Peter has made his point--preached his sermon, if you will--but in
advance, illustrating that "God is ahead of his servants,"
that "God has accepted the Gentiles...without circumcision and the
question now arises whether the church will follow [God's]
decision." [2]
Peter goes on: "And I remembered 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 first believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could
hinder God?" When they had heard this, they were silenced. And they
praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the
repentance that leads to life."
There you have it. Peter's vision about a sheet filled
with all the creatures of the world is about more than clean and unclean
animals; it is a metaphor for the human family. The Gospel is for
everyone. And most importantly, this is God's doing, not a decision on
the part of the church.
As we leave this stunning tale, we are aware that all
the implications of this new reality have not yet been worked out. The
first great council of the church is still to take place in Jerusalem,
as recounted in Acts 15. But that's another story. For now we need to
affirm and cherish this crucial insight by Gerhard Krodel:
...the church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit
moves one step at a time....What is remembered from the past receives a
new meaning through the ongoing work of the Spirit in the present. [3]
The ongoing work of the Spirit in the present is what
gives me grounds for feeling good about the Presbyterian Church at the
crossroads. And the implications are clear. If the current roadblocks to
a united, healthy future are to be overcome, all of us -- across every
barricade and boundary -- must be willing to let this be God's church,
and not treat it as if it belonged to us.
I'd like to close with a story about Hans Küng, the
Roman Catholic theologian who has been at odds with Rome a good deal in
recent times. A few years ago I was in attendance when he spoke at a
Jewish synagogue in Palos Verdes. Someone in our group pressed him on
the subject of why the Pope can't admit he's wrong on issues like women
priests and birth control. Küng reflected for a moment, and then said,
"It's hard for the Pope to admit that he's made an infallible
mistake."
We have no Pope, but we have the same problem. We say sola
scriptura, Scripture alone. And then sometimes we use the pages of
Scripture to build barriers of infallibility against the work of the
Holy Spirit. In these testing times in which we find ourselves we do
well to follow the lead of Peter and the early church, saying to one
another in all humility, "Who are we that we could hinder
God?" To God be the glory. Amen.
_____
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, When
God is Silent, Cowley Publications, 1998, pp. 20-21
[2] Gerhard A. Krodel, Acts
(Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament), Augsburg Publishing House,
1986, pp. 202-203
[3] Krodel, pp. 204-205
