What GOD has made clean

Sermon for 5 Pascha C RCL 5/2/2010, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35


All of you who have heard me preach before know that I stay far away from controversial issues of the political realm. There are a number of reasons for that. First of all, I frankly do not think it is the job of the church to get involved in politics. We have our hands full simply with the task of transforming ourselves and our families and our own local communities.

A wise saint was gave this advice: “Do not be angry when you cannot make others do what you want them to do. Because you cannot even make yourself do what you want to do!” So it is in the church. There is no point in legislating how others need to behave when we can barely even manage ourselves to live in accordance with the teachings of Christ.

Secondly, I do not think it is fair to subject all of you to my personal opinions and perspectives. Each one of us has our own opinions on certain matters, and talk on these matters tends only to be divisive. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to stick to the central matters of faith which the entire church holds in common, and around which we can be united in Christ.

Lastly, I am one of those odd types of people who are blessed (well, blessed or cursed, I’m not so sure!) to be able to see both sides of an issue with some degree of clarity. On most controversial matters of national debate which cause such heated rhetoric in the media, I honestly have a difficult time coming down on one side or the other. Both sides have some merit. That’s why there is a debate, after all! I personally find it to be the height of arrogance to assume that one’s side is of course in the right, while one’s opponents are obviously in the wrong (or in the left, depending on where you stand!).

However . . . . with all that being said, TODAY I feel compelled to wade into the troubled waters that surround the Church now like an angry sea in a tempest. As we all know, the troubles have arisen from our various ways of understanding human sexuality and its meaning and place within the kingdom of God.

The story of Peter, as we read it today in the Acts of the Apostles, seems to be such a clear parallel to our current predicament that the Holy Spirit would not allow me to leave this alone.

What Peter experienced, and what he participated in, there in Caesarea was mind-blowing, earth-shattering, revolutionary in every sense. We must recall that all of the first disciples were faithful Jews, loyal to their people and to their covenant with God. In their worldview, the covenant of God was with the descendants of Jacob only, and their new church was a means of reviving and restoring the Jewish people in their unique relationship with God.

But now, everything had changed. And it was God’s fault! Peter reported: “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.”

How could God, the Holy Spirit, tell Peter to do this? It was blasphemy!

Just imagine the struggles of these circumcised disciples who criticized Peter. For 1600 years, male circumcision had been a defining mark of the people’s unique covenant with God. Now, the actions of Peter seemed to suggest that this circumcision was all for nothing, that it was an unnecessary and useless action. If God was to send the Holy Spirit onto the uncircumcised as well as the circumcised, then what is the point of this distinguishing mark?

It is the same in these matters of orientation. For those of us who are straight, if we are honest with one another, it can be quite difficult to consider different orientations and the implications of these differences. I am convinced that a vast majority of the general conservatism in the Anglican world in this matter is a direct result of the difficulty of overcoming this inherent aversion. The majority of the resistance is not theological; it is gut-level response that has nothing at all to do with scripture. Surely, the bishops and priests who criticize the Episcopal Church today can articulate their stance in biblical and theological terms, but very few of the people in their pews can do so. They oppose the new developments in the Episcopal Church because they “know” they are wrong. They feel it in the inside. These changes are so foreign to their experience.

And now they hear the Episcopal Church saying: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 11:9). Or more appropriately: Those whom God has made clean in the waters of baptism, those who are fed faithfully at the Lord’s Table, those who truly love the Lord Jesus and seek to follow him, you have no right to exclude them from the full life of the Church. “What God has made clean, you have no right to call profane” (Acts 11:9).

The incredible vision that is given to us in the Book of Revelation points us clearly to the fact that God is calling us, pulling us forward, into a new future. The Church exists today as a vanguard, a forward operating post, of this new heaven and new earth that God is bringing into being. What we do in the Church is pull a bit of that glorious future into the present darkness of this world.

In this way, the Church is a bit like football practice, if you will allow the coarse analogy. The real game is coming up, and we’ve already been given the gameplan by our coach. Now we need to get everyone together to practice together on a regular basis, so that we will all learn how to work together in unison, to fulfill the coach’s vision, to be ready for action. And in that real game to come, in that new heavens and new earth, I feel pretty certain that none of these things that we are fighting about now are going to matter at all. There’s not even in the coach’s gameplan! Can any of us even imagine if sexual orientation will be part of this new heavens and new earth?

I make no claim at all to understand these matters fully, to comprehend these matters of sexual orientation among human beings and how they formed and develop within us. But I am convinced of this, just as Peter was convinced there in Caesarea: “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?”

And I am convinced that we in The Episcopal Church stand on the right side of history, that are following the coach’s gameplan. That when all is said and done, the judgment of Jesus Christ will prevail, for he is the one who said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

He did not say, “I give you a new commandment, that you maintain purity to the Law of Moses within the church.” He did not say that “everyone will know that you are my disciples if you maintain the ethical standards of ancient Roman society.”

What did he say? What is his standard? What is his gameplan? “Love one another.”

There is an old story about St. John the Evangelist, that as an old man in Ephesus he would preside whenever the church gathered for the Eucharist. And every week, it is said that John stood before the people to preach and, week after week, he stood, paused, looked over the gathered community and said, “My brothers, let us love one another.” Over time, the people became confused and they asked him why he never moved on to another topic in his preaching, perhaps on to something more interesting or inspiring. And the holy apostle replied and said, “Because, my friends, as soon as you master this lesson, then we will all be ready to move on to another one.”

I’m afraid that we Christians still have not mastered this most basic lesson of St. John. Perhaps we never will. But I’m not a quitter. What about you? What do you say? I say let’s keep practicing together, focused upon learning from the Lord Jesus Christ, not how to judge one another, not how to create walls of separation, but how to love one another in the way that leads to everlasting life. Now that’s a good gameplan. Amen.