Sunday April 19, 2015
Acts 10:1-17; 35-35; Psalm 119, part 1
At the risk of being too predictable, I begin again with a short video. This one was shown by the theological reflector at the end of the General Council Executive meeting in Toronto a few weeks ago.
The point, in the context of the General Council Executive meeting, is that the United Church of Canada is facing massive change and difficult decisions as it heads into its triennial General Council meeting in Corner Brook, Newfoundland this coming August. And, whether we like it or not, the world is changing. And more often than not, as in the case of Daffy Duck, the change is way beyond our control.
As soon as I saw it, I knew that I would have to show it to you folks one of these Sundays because of the obvious connections and similarities to how this community might be feeling after a discombobulating couple of years.
I think, it’s possible, that this might be how Peter and Jesus’ disciples might also have been feeling in the time following his death and resurrection. In fact, as one reads the book of Acts, which is the story of the early church, it’s probably how the whole community felt. More often than not, just when someone felt that they understood what was happening, the ground would shift and they would have to rethink things.
Let’s look at today’s story, which might be unfamiliar to you. It was new to many of the bible study folks this week. And to fully understand the whole story, I have to fill in the blanks – the parts that the lectionary folks left out in the official suggested readings.
We meet Cornelius, a centurion in the Roman army. A centurion, the highest an enlisted man could aspire to in the Roman army, was in charge of one hundred foot soldiers. They have been called the backbone of the Roman army, and were known to be well-traveled, knowledgeable, and well paid. We are told that Cornelius is a devout man who feared God, giving alms to the poor and praying constantly. Although he is not Jewish, he seems closely connected to Judaism. Cornelius has a dream – a vision of an angel, a messenger from God. He is told to send some of his men to bring Peter to him.
As the men set out to bring Peter to Cornelius, Peter is having his own vision. He falls into a trance, and sees a sheet full of what the Jewish faith believes are unclean animals, according to the laws laid out in the Book of Leviticus.
It was important for Jewish people to hold to their laws and customs as an occupied nation, to prevent from being absorbed into the pagan Roman Empire. Peter was a devout Jew who had not broken these laws, and responds to the vision by refusing to eat unclean animals. However, the vision and voice is persistent, coming to him three times, and finally saying “What God has made clean you must not call profane.”
At this point, the suggested reading for today ends, and skips ahead nearly 20 verses to Peter’s declaration that “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” But what has brought Peter to this point?
I think that the answer is in the verses left out, in verses 18-32. In those verses, we hear that Peter does indeed travel with Cornelius’ men back to his house. Cornelius, who is expecting Peter, has gathered together his family and friends. Although the Jewish law forbids Peter to even associate with a Gentile, or non-Jewish person, Peter says that God has shown him that he should not call anyone unclean. It is after Cornelius explains to Peter about his own dream that Peter finally makes the declaration that God shows no partiality. It is the encounter with Cornelius that enables Peter to understand his own dream. It’s not just the food that shouldn’t be called unclean, but people too.
Many have referred to this story as the conversion of Cornelius and his household. In fact, this story is more about Peter’s conversion, as he becomes more deeply aware of what it really means to follow Jesus. Peter had to come to the understanding that God was already active in Cornelius’ life.
So what might this mean for us today? What are the changing landscapes that cause us to ask in desperation, like Daffy Duck, “who’s in charge here?”
In the United Church of Canada, we have been hearing the words “intercultural ministry” for a number of years now. What exactly does that mean?
This is on the United Church website:
“In the United Church we are committed to learning about each other and taking our cultural differences seriously. We are trying to create new kinds of community together. To do this, we need to become aware of differences that are already present, and we need to distribute power fairly. Our goal is to create intercultural communities in which everyone can participate fully …
… To describe what intercultural means, let us first explore the meaning of culture. Culture is a way of being. It describes a group’s shared understandings, assumptions, or values. There may be no need to articulate these understandings, so they are rarely spoken about.
In fact, groups are often not aware of the cultural assumptions they share, especially when these assumptions are considered “normal.” Many people in a given group, though, may feel that they have to hide aspects of their identities in order to fit in. They may, intentionally or unintentionally, defer to what the group considers to be normal.
But what is normal? And who gets to decide?
Perhaps there is no normal. The “Vision for Becoming an Intercultural Church” says that “there is no such thing as a culture-free perspective. Our experiences and understandings are shaped by our cultures.” Culture, says the “Vision,” is a lens that affects everything we do.
Culture includes all of our identities, such as class, sexual orientation, and age. Culture includes race or ethnic background, but it is broader than that. Many different cultures, and many cultural expressions of faith, are present in the United Church. We welcome these differences; they can lead to deeper experiences of God and of each other.[1]
If I take these ideas of what intercultural means, and look at it in light of verse 15, “… what God has made clean you must not call profane” … a picture begins to emerge for me. It’s a challenging picture, but compelling.
I remember many years ago reading an article in the United Church Observer about a young man who used a wheelchair who connected with a Christian group when he went to university. He said he eventually stopped attending the group, because he got tired of having them pray for him to be healed every time he attended the group. He lamented that the underlying message was that he wasn’t accepted as who he was in the eyes of God.
And isn’t that what we are learning from the rainbow community – at least it’s what I am hearing from my friends and colleagues within the church that are part of that community. That all expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity are part of the incredibly diversity of God’s creation.
Cindy Bourgeois, the first known trans person to be ordained in the United Church of Canada, wrote this in 2010: “One time in the lunch room at seminary I was talking with a classmate about God and the fact that I am an out and proud Christian trans woman. At one point I said, “I just know that God created me this way.” We are close enough that they felt comfortable sharing their real thoughts with me, so they said, “But I just have trouble believing that God made a mistake.” My immediate response was, “Well, why do you think God made a mistake?” Another time I was speaking in a class about my lived experience as a trans woman and I said that I was glad that God created me trans. Someone objected, unable to understand how I could be glad that I was trans, because of all the discrimination and oppression and hatred that I face. They thought I must be angry with God or have a problem with God because I was created trans.
I don’t have a problem with God. God is not the problem. God is never the problem. And when God created me, there was no mistake. God was creating another creature in God’s image. We are all created in God’s image.”[2]
The United Church of Canada has recently formed a task group looking into the theologies of disabilities. It is sending an interim report to the General Council this August. In the section “Engaging Difference”, it says, “Disability is about difference: people with disabilities may move, see, hear, speak and think differently. The United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities names as a general principle respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity.”
Commentator Eric Barreto says that what we learn from this passage about Cornelius and Peter is that God wants a church that is “teeming with diversity.” The communities that God wants to draw together are both wildly diverse, and widely inclusive. He says that God welcomes peoples of the world in the midst of, not despite, their ethnic particularities.[3]
I’m going to show you another video clip. The Interfaith Amigos are a pastor, a rabbi, and an imam. It sounds like a joke, and they are pretty funny as you will see. They have been working together on interfaith issues since 9/11.
“It is very, veryt inconvenient.” Isn’t that the truth? To always be adjusting to the changing scenery of the world. To be at the ready to always welcome a stranger in our midst, at our tables. But to be faithful to our God, who demands diversity and inclusion, we can do no other. Thanks be to God.
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[2]Creative Differences in the Image of God, Cindy Bourgeois, UCC website
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