Resurrected Change: Discipleship Break Boundaries
Resurrected Change: Discipleship Breaks Boundaries
Easter 5C Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 147
Pastor Ben Sheets – Good Shepherd Lutheran Church – 2010
The audio of this sermon will be available at www.eflock.org/sermons
Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
It seems somewhat appropriate that on the day we welcome new members and have a potluck that our lesson from Acts deals with eating and the welcoming of outsiders into a community. Today who we are changes once again. Our identity is altered as the community broadens to include more people. The question, then, is: Who will we be?
The identity of 1st century Jews was wrapped up in being different from the rest of the world. Their strict dietary, Sabbath, and ethical laws distinguished them from outsiders. It kept them separated from idol worshipers, it kept them connected to their history of deliverance, and it kept them worshipping God alone. From birth to death they were to be different – beginning with circumcision 8 days after being born to the years of holy eating and living they were claimed as God’s holy people. God’s set apart people. So it was an absolute scandal that Peter, the leader of this community of Jews following the way of Jesus would eat with gentiles. Those who are not set apart. Those who are not holy. Those who do not have a special relationship with God, like Israel does. Even Peter is so wrapped up in his Jewish identity, that he fails to see the new thing God is doing at first. One writer says, “[Peter] almost missed this incredible, unforeseen, astounding opening up of the gospel of Jesus Christ because he sneered at those pigs in a blanket.”[1]
It was that vision of killing and eating the unclean that changed Peter’s identity. He had to break with years of tradition and risk his family values in order to offer hospitality to those who he was trying so hard to be different from. Once again, in a meal, the good news was revealed. Good news was shown at the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, good news was shown at the meal in Emmaus after Jesus’ resurrection, and now it is being shown again with those who are outside the boundaries of Jewish law. And amazingly Peter sees that the “Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon the us at the beginning.” The God who has gifted us with faith, grace, and salvation, is giving the same gifts to those who we’d least expect.
But we like our boundaries that separate us from what we think is wretched and reviling. The boundaries that we are putting up don’t keep others out so much as they keep us in. They keep us from seeing and encountering what happens in our communities. We live in fear of what influences us and our children rather the being confident in the influences that we and our children will be. We have built barriers to keep our identity pure and safe. We shroud our own needs and differences from our neighbors so that we’ll fit in. We have put up walls to keep the other out and to blind us from noticing them.
On the radio program, This American Life, a story was told of the urban legends that foreign refugees hear before they come to United States. One man tells of the so called “legend” that there are homeless people in America. No one in the refugee class could believe it. It was inconceivable that in the land of opportunity and wealth that anyone would be homeless. He recalls meeting a homeless person sleeping on a park bench. He decides to call 9-1-1, thinking that she was in trouble. The operator asked him “Is she bleeding.” “no” “Is she naked?” He checked, “no.” “Sir, is she homeless?” So he went and asked the woman, “are you homeless?” And she simply responded “Of course I’m homeless!” What was so repulsive and unimaginable to him, has become common and everyday, even accepted for us. Can you imagine finding someone in deep need in a foreign place and all locals say “just ignore them?”
America the new land of milk and honey, the American dream and individualism, the land of opportunity. There shouldn’t be homelessness here, yet the Salvation Army’s Hope Center is nearly full on most nights. There shouldn’t be hunger here, yet every Tuesday when I drive by the food bank, there’s a line out the door. There shouldn’t be discrimination here, yet Native Americans, Hmung, and Hispanic persons are still seen as second-class citizens. As followers of the Way of Jesus, who, then, are we to be?
We are to be holy. We are to be saints. We are to be different. A people who tear down the walls of separation instead of putting new ones up. The walls that keep us in and isolated. When this worship space was built in 2001 it was built with temporary walls. The I-beam across the top provides all the support so that these walls someday could be torn down and expanded. So that more people could be brought into our community. More people could be brought into a sanctuary. So it is with us. Our support is from God above and not from the walls that we think keep life from falling in on us. The good news that feeds bellies as well as souls is to be ever expanded and we are to be spread out to the ends of the earth. We are to be different among the world, not from the world.
Jesus said to his disciples on the night of his betrayal “the kings of the gentiles lord it over them and the those in authority call themselves benefactors, but you are not to be like that. Rather whoever would be greatest among you must be like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.” Jesus then gives us a new identity. Jesus takes down the ultimate barrier – fear of death. The curtain in the temple is torn, the earth shakes and heaven and earth touch. Salvation, freedom, wholeness have come to us. Zechariah spoke of Jesus before his birth in the first chapter of Luke “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Through breaking of boundaries – God to earth, Christ to us, Christ has become our identity – and like Christ we seek to serve. We seek to break down the barriers that lead to violence and oppression, that lead to hunger and poverty. Our identity is wrapped up in telling of God’s saving power to whomever, wherever we are.
If we are serious about the power of God active and present, we must be open to new understandings of what God is doing in light of the work of the Spirit. God is not stagnant. God who changest not is ever changing. Speaking to us through ancient words and new visions.
Whether it’s a dream of pigs in a blanket, or that our children “will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”[2]. We have a dream today. The dreams that we have now will transform this community into an ever opening of the good news of Jesus to a people who are overwhelmed with despair and insecurity. To people who you know who can’t provide enough food for their family. To people who you know who may be in danger of losing the roof over their heads. To people who you know who have never known acceptance or welcome in a place of sanctuary because of their sexual orientation. To people who you don’t know who sleep night after night on overused cots. To people who you don’t know who wait in long lines on Tuesdays for a bag of groceries. The good news of Jesus’ salvation and transformation is intended for all the named and unnamed people who cross our paths each and every day. What dream is God giving you that will change everything?
What will define our identity in the world? Let it be a meal here now in which we receive all that God has given – his very son; and there soon as our community grows and welcomes new dreams and new visions from these new members, and out in the world every day in which young and old, male and female, rich and poor, gay and straight, black, white, and brown, clean and unclean are brought in together by the outpouring of God’s Spirit even among those whom we can’t imagine. Let us, a people who are saved to serve, break the boundaries of this building, break down the walls of hatred, apathy, and poverty, and praise God together for the salvation of Jesus that dawns anew each day for all.
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise God in the heights.
Praise the Lord all you angels;
Sing praise, all you hosts of heaven.
Praise the Lord, sun and moon;
Sing praise, all you shining stars.
[Praise the Lord, women of faith,
Sing praise, men of devotion
Praise the Lord, beautiful voices
Sing praise, you who are tone deaf.
Praise the Lord, broken-hearted ones
Sing praise, you whose hearts are being mended
Praise the Lord, parents and children
Old and young together
Praise the Lord, dreamers of God
Let your visions show God’s salvation
Praise the Lord, all you saints of God
Sing Praise, you who are different]
Let us praise the name of the Lord,
Whose name only is exalted,
Whose splendor is over earth and heaven
The Lord has raised up strength for all people and praise for all faithful servants,
You are children of God, a people who are near the Lord.
Hallelujah!
[1] Wilson, Sarah Hinlicky. Christian Century April 20, 2010 p 21.
[2] MLK – I have a dream speech
