Acts 11:1-18 CEB
1 The apostles and the brothers and sisters throughout Judea heard that even the Gentiles had welcomed God’s word. 2 When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him. 3 They accused him, “You went into the home of the uncircumcised and ate with them!”4 Step-by-step, Peter explained what had happened. 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying when I had a visionary experience. In my vision, I saw something like a large linen sheet being lowered from heaven by its four corners. It came all the way down to me. 6 As I stared at it, wondering what it was, I saw four-legged animals—including wild beasts—as well as reptiles and wild birds. 7 I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!’ 8 I responded, ‘Absolutely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 The voice from heaven spoke a second time, ‘Never consider unclean what God has made pure.’ 10 This happened three times, then everything was pulled back into heaven. 11 At that moment three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them even though they were Gentiles. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered that man’s house. 13 He reported to us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and summon Simon, who is known as Peter. 14 He will tell you how you and your entire household can be saved.’ 15 When I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as the Spirit fell on us in the beginning. 16 I remembered the Lord’s words: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?”
18 Once the apostles and other believers heard this, they calmed down. They praised God and concluded, “So then God has enabled Gentiles to change their hearts and lives so that they might have new life.”
I think we can all agree that Belonging is one of the core values and main perks of Church membership. Joining the church is supposed to mean that you now have an extended family of God.
- Fellow church members are who you can call when you need a ride to and from your eye appointment.
- Who you can call when you need help moving.
- People who will give you a glowing reference for that job interview based on their experience of volunteering beside you.
- People you can call for emergency childcare when your world turns upside down!
As someone whose family of origin was “undependable,” yes, I’ll go with undependable as a polite way of saying it. This sense of belonging in action has largely been my experience of the church. The church was there for me when my family or origin was not.
That’s why I really love Mark 10:29-31:
29 Jesus said, “I assure you that anyone who has left house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or farms because of me and because of the good news 30 will receive one hundred times as much now in this life—houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and farms (with harassment)—and in the coming age, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last. And many who are last will be first.”
This isn’t some prosperity gospel/Multi Level Marketing/ Televangelist Investment scheme. Where you’re going to get 100% return on investment.
It means that when we commit ourselves to new members through our congregational baptismal vows to:
“live according to the example of Christ and surround (one another) with a community of love and forgiveness,” (found on p35 of our hymnal)
that we gain new siblings, new grandparents, new children, to love and be loved by. We gain couches we can crash on, friends with a truck, and invitations to holiday dinners with all the attendant hassles and privileges that come with being a part of a chosen family.
Church is messy because family is messy.
Because human relationships are messy.
Because people are messy.
People have bad days…bad weeks…bad months…even bad years.
People have differences in opinion…differences in upbringing…differences in culture…differences in how our brains work.
When somebody’s bad day and somebody else’s differences have an encounter it can get messy.
And messy is uncomfortable.
So there is a great temptation within the Church, and honestly in all human groups, to try to limit the messy.
One of the ways that humans have tried to limit the messy is by limiting our groups to “people like us.”
The idea being that “people like us” will have shared social norms, shared communication styles, shared habits, shared customs. We can’t eliminate bad days, but we can decrease differences… in theory.
And this is what we see happening in today’s scripture. You might want to pull out your bulletin so you can follow along.
Peter was raised within a group that had self-selected a low amount of difference, by requiring a high amount of compliance with a really long list of social norms.
Historically, some Christians have criticized Judaism for their exclusion of Gentiles, but really, if we say that then Christianity is the pot calling the kettle black, because, as Rev. Dr. King said, “11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, in Christian America” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q881g1L_d8
So really, Peter, the early church, Judaism, and the church today are just being humans trying to limit the messy, by limiting our groups to “people like us.”
The problem with that practice of homogeneity is that God places a high value on inclusion.
So Peter was just trying to do church the way he was raised, with the “people like us,” and God wasn’t having it.
In the chapter before today’s reading, a couple of Roman soldiers show up at the house where Peter is staying and ask Peter to come visit their commander Cornelius, a Centurion from Italy – so a hard core Roman soldier.
This would have been totally terrifying! Except, Peter had that weird dream about all the animals and God saying, ‘Never consider unclean what God has made pure,’ right before they got there. So Peter went to Cornelius’s house and told them about the Jesus he knew, and the Spirit came upon a bunch of Gentiles, who all asked to be baptized and Peter stayed at their house, eating non-kosher food for several days!
Our reading picks up with Peter’s return to Jerusalem, where naturally gossip travels faster than apostles, so the whole Jerusalem church is demanding an explanation from Peter as soon as he gets there! How dare Peter hang out with those people who “are not like us!” And not just people who are not like us… but dangerous people! Italian Roman Soldiers, for goodness sakes! Who could get them all killed!
So Peter has to explain to them, no guys, seriously – This was totally God’s idea!
I had a dream.
The Roman soldier had a dream.
It’s all Spirit’s fault!
Who am I to be standing in God’s way?
You might think that God has spoken, Spirit has moved and therefore it’s decided. Gentiles are now welcome in the church. But you would be wrong.
People continued to be people. They had the same dang argument with Paul in Acts chapter 15. And honestly, we’re still having this argument in the church today, and Sunday is still the most segregated time in America.
And the segregation isn’t only based on race or ethnicity.
The segregation in the church is based on all the big and little ways people try to reduce messiness by limiting differences.
- Socioeconomic class
- Gender identity and who you are or aren’t attracted to.
- Culture
- First generation immigrants vs second or later generation immigrants
- Different Generations and their worship preferences
- Long time members vs newer members
- Fashion choices
- Music preferences
- Communication styles
- Among clergy there is even a line between PK’s and us first generation clergy.
All of these excuses for why we don’t get along on Sunday mornings are absolutely silly.
We know this.
And on a good day, we are all able to keep our opinions on what somebody else is wearing, safe in our heads where they will do no harm…but on a bad day we just might say something messy.
This is when Belonging takes work.
Our culture often tells us that we need to go along to get along. Placing the responsibility for mess reduction on those who are different.
I want to be clear. God is the creator of difference!
God loves differences!
God is the original author of Diversity Equity and Inclusion!
The voice has spoken from heaven: ‘Never consider unclean what God has made pure.’
The work of belonging is Not AT ALL about assimilation or conformity!
The work of Belonging is about making space for ALL of God’s gorgeous Diversity and taking responsibility for the times we have a bad day, bad week, month, year, bad century… and say or do something messy.
And Jesus gave us pretty specific instructions for how in Matthew 5:21-24
21 “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment. 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment. If they say to their brother or sister, ‘You idiot,’ they will be in danger of being condemned by the governing council. And if they say, ‘You fool,’ they will be in danger of fiery hell. 23 Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift at the altar and go. First make things right with your brother or sister and then come back and offer your gift.
I have 2 notes on how we can read this for today.
- As modern day Christians who do not practice ritual sacrifice, I want you to just mentally replace, “bring your gift to the altar,” with, “go to worship.” So, read verse 23 as, if you realize in worship that you have done harm, make things right with the people you have harmed, then you will really be able to worship.
- Notice that the obligation for making things right belongs to the one who has done harm. Your sibling in the faith has something against you. It is not up to a victim to demand justice, or to make things right. In God’s Kingdom, it’s up to the perpetrator to make it right.
Too often in all kinds of human groups, not just churches, the most marginalized — the most harmed people are expected to do the bulk of the work of fighting for their own belonging.
Our country expects people of color to do the work of proving that they belong. It’s not biblical to expect people of color to teach white folks how to not be racist!
Our culture expects women to do the work of proving that we deserve equal pay.
Rev Dr. Jeanne spent most of her life trying to prove to our United Methodist Church that she as a lesbian clergywoman belonged.
Church – this is backwards.
What Jesus taught is that:
The work of belonging is primarily the work of those of us with power, status and privilege to prove to those who don’t feel like they belong, that they really do belong.
That person, wearing that wild outfit, could be the best evangelist this church Has ever had.
That person, with an accent, was sent here by Spirit.
That person who hasn’t been here since 1956, is the future of the church.
The work of belonging is to keep reminding ourselves, “who am I to stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)
And then not only get out of the way, but to hold the door open for those who have not felt welcomed in our church, in our neighborhood, in our country, in the world.
God is waiting at the door.
“who am I to stand in God’s way?” (Acts 11:17)
