“What’s Most Important?”

Acts 15:1-21

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

June 5, 2005

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            It’s good to be here in this transforming and transformative community.  When we have other things competing for our time in these sleepy pre-summer mornings, we had better make sure that the time we spend here in this church is time well spent.  I think it usually is.  Every time we come together in community, we are stronger, less alone, less self-focused, a bit more compassionate, even a bit closer to God. 

            But how do we keep the focus on the important things?

            That can be a challenge at times for legislatures, for denominations, for congregations, for families, for each of us.  I would like to share with you a story from the Acts of the Apostles that points out how trivial things can blind us to the important things.  Maybe through this story, we can set our sights and our energies on the truly important things in life.

            In the weeks, months and years following that first Easter, the church faced some pretty major struggles. Virtually from its inception the church embraced the worldly us vs. them syndrome.  They wrestled with the tendency to keep out rather than to include.  When you are in chaos, you cling to what you know and don’t throw in another variable.  But each time the church added a new member, they encountered variables.  We are all variables.  Some more than others.  It’s easier in a time of chaos to exclude rather than include, to condemn rather than reconcile, to judge rather than to find a third way. 

            Today’s scripture is about who gets into the church and who doesn’t.  The way it played out was a turning point in church history.  Maybe we’ll gain some insights for today.

            The story by Luke in Acts 15 is also recorded by Paul in the second chapter of Galatians.  Paul’s version is harsher, since he’s on the receiving end of the exclusion.  We remember that Paul used to be a leading figure in Jerusalem.  He was a Pharisee.  Pharisees, we know, were an exclusive bunch who felt it their God-given duty to save the religious community from those they thought would pollute it.

            Jesus had his share of troubles with the Pharisees.  They were constantly in his face trying to confound and undermine his ministry.  They really got offended when he let women be part of his followers.  And every time Jesus embraced a tax collector or a leper, the Pharisees would shout “Blasphemy!”  Jesus, we remember said, “alas for you lawyers and Pharisees, you hypocrites who wouldn’t recognize the reign of God if it hit you over the head.” (or something like that)

            Paul had been such a Pharisee and as such watched over the stoning of young Stephen, the first Christian martyr—all because Jesus’ message of love and peace was going to shake up the fragile Jewish religious community.

            We know that Paul had a conversion experience on the road to Damascus as he was persecuting the Christians.  He eventually became one of the most important and influential leaders of the early Christian churches.

            For obvious reasons, Paul did not return to Jerusalem for a long time after his conversion.  The 9^th chapter of Acts shows Paul returning to Jerusalem, being presented to the apostles by his cohort Barnabus,  The first chapter of Galatians says that this visit was three years after his conversion.  He was met with mistrust and barely made it out of Jerusalem with his hide.

            But since Paul’s first visit, Peter had a vision recorded in the 10^th chapter of Acts in which he was clearly told that God showed no partiality to anyone or anything that God created.  This meant that those people who had been keeping pure by the laws of Moses for generations were now told that those kosher laws were no longer important.  There were told that there is no such thing as a clean and unclean thing.  What this meant was that the church no longer had to be just exclusive.  It could and should be inclusive.  But this meant abandoning years of tradition, and setting aside deeply held beliefs.  It was too much of a leap for a portion of the church.

            It would seem that within a few years of Jesus death and resurrection some of the people forgot about Jesus’ call that we all be one.  They forgot the great commission that we should go into all the world and preach the good news to every creature.  They forgot the great commandment that we should love the lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and strength and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.  They forgot the great criteria that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that all are welcome at God’s table without restrictions.

            People from the Jerusalem church heard that Paul had embraced Jesus’ inclusive message and had been making believers out of the gentiles.  Now, before this, all of the believers (at least in Jerusalem) had been Jews.  And as Jews, all of the men were circumcised according to the covenant that God had made with Abraham and Sarah.  So all of the men were the same in the way certain parts of their bodies looked.  It sounds kinda silly today, but the church really had to struggle with this one.  There were some who said that every male who joined the church had to be circumcised, even the adults.  Can you imagine?

            But the people were impassioned about this.  This was the social issue of the time, or at least it was the one the church chose to deal with.  In fact it was a whole lot easier to deal with than, say, the Roman occupation or the unfair tax system or the entirely unjust and idiotic system of patriarchy and its cruel misogyny.  A hundred years from now, history will look back on this part of the history of the church and ask, why are they so hung up on sexuality when the weightier issues of violence and injustice are so rampant?  Why indeed.

            Acts 15 opens with the sentence, “Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”  Luke identifies these people as Pharisees.  At some point, Jesus’ old opponent, the Pharisees became part of the Jerusalem church.  And they brought with them their judgmentalism and self-righteousness.  They might have also brought with them their wealth, which gave them influence and further muddied the waters.

            Paul calls these “men from Judea,” in Galatians 2:4 “false brethren brought in to spy.”  Paul and Barnabus had a long and heated argument with these people.  They finally decided to go to Jerusalem to hash it out with the apostles and the elders of the church.

            What was at stake was the future of the church.  Would it be exclusive, and have its membership restricted only to Jews, or would it be inclusive, letting non-Jews in to the fold?  But this was not only a religious issue.  It was also a race issue.  Would the church welcome people of a different nationality?—people with a different skin color?  How about a different language, a different culture?

            So after lots of long meetings, Peter finally stood up and said, “sisters and brothers, you know that the gentiles would hear the gospel and become believers as God has commanded,.  And God through the Holy Spirit cleansed their hearts by faith.  God has made no distinction between them and us.  So why are we putting a burden on their back that neither our ancestors nor we have had to carry?”

             The burden of proof is most often on the outcast, isn’t it in this society?  We make people fill out endless forms in order to get federal aid if they are unemployed and if they make any small amount of money, they lose the aid thereby discouraging getting off state rolls. 

            But Peter lays the cornerstone scripture in Acts 15:11 when he says the crux of the matter.  “We believe that we will be saved through the grace of Jesus Christ, just as they will.”  In other words, while we may look different, talk different, act different, maybe even love different, it is the same Lord Jesus Christ which saves us all.  All of our divisions are nothing but pettiness which shows our own sinful lack of faith.

            At this point in the story, Paul and Barnabus are finally given the floor and are able to tell their stories.  For the first time, they talk about people and they are no longer issues to be dealt with.  For the first time, the leaders of the church are silent.  They listen as it says in verse 12. 

This past week I was interviewed by my college alumni magazine.  They have this weird notion that what you and I do around here has to do with healthy spirituality.  They wanted to talk about my experiences in particular in Lynchburg, VA when I meet with Jerry Fallwell and Jerry’s kids at his church.  We met across tables to tell the truth, to listen to the stories of the people on the other side of the table.  But mostly what we did was to hear each other.  We were there to put faces on “fundamentalists” and “GLBT people and their allies.”  It’s harder to judge or categorize someone when you see them as people instead of the embodiment of an “issue.”  We found and modeled that in most things, we are the same.  And if we scratched the surface, we found that the most important things in our lives were the same as well.  We all wanted peace, freedom, healthy families, and an end to violence.  We only came to that understanding because we were willing to listen to each other.  That’s the beginning of the healing that we so desperately need.  That is a deeply spiritual thing. 

By the time Paul and Barnabus are done talking about the way the Spirit is alive in the Gentiles, the issue shifts.  James, the head of the church starts talking about how to include the Gentiles.  He welcomes them with open arms and only asks that they refrain from eating certain foods.  But he does this for a certain reason that is often lost.  It’s not to put a restriction on them.  It is so that everyone can eat together when they gather.

Would that the church or even our world would start looking at our mission as an opportunity to include everyone at the table instead of arguing over how to keep from being poisoned by the wrong people.  Inclusion is God’s way.  That’s what’s really important.

It takes listening, truth-telling, always erring on the side of inclusiveness, always wondering what might make a stranger feel welcome, and thereby living in the light. 

            As we approach this annual meeting, even this meal together, may we contemplate how we can make the table welcome, the church welcome, the world a more welcoming place where all people male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, red and blue, are all welcome at the table.  That’s what’s really important. 

May our individual and collective lives exude welcome over restriction.  May we pay attention to our own tendency to cut off discussion, to not hear the lives and loves of others.  May we always make our lives open to the presence of the Holy Spirit which may well be existing in the person of our perceived opponent.

For when we start asking why everyone isn’t at the table, then we’ll also start to address how we can make the world a safer, more loving, more just and more peaceful place for all of God people.

            May it be so with all of us.