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.

Have Salt in Yourselves

Sermon for Proper 21 B (RCL), offered by Nathan Ferrell at HS, Bellmawr & St. Luke’s, Westville

Texts: Esther 7:1-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
Title: Have Salt in Yourselves

There was a priest who was kneeling at a roadside shrine just outside of a town in Ireland. He was there praying when a young woman passed by right next to the shrine and so distracted the priest.

“You insolent girl,” the priest shouted out. “Can’t you see that I’m saying my prayers? Why do you have to disturb me when I’m praying?” “I’m very sorry, Father,” the young woman sincerely said. “I didn’t notice you. I’m on my way to see my young man, and I was thinking about him.”

“Well, I was thinking about God,” the priest replied very piously. Now there happened to be an elderly man who was traveling along the road at the same time, and he heard this entire exchange. He stopped and spoke to the priest: “This young woman was thinking about her man, and didn’t notice you. You were thinking about God, but you noticed her. If you loved God with the same devotion as she loves her man, you both could share this place in peace.” (Celtic Parables, Robert Van De Weyer, p. 110).

My dear friends: it is so very easy for us human beings, whether ordained or not, to get distracted from that which is of the upmost importance, and it is very common for us to place the blame for our challenges upon others. This is not the first priest to be distracted by the sight of a young woman, nor is he the first to blame the girl for his own shortcomings.

We can see these realities at work in this obscure teaching from the Lord in our Gospel reading for today. Now, this passage can be difficult to understand, but I hope and pray that you are not confused here. The good Lord knows that the most important thing today, at least in my mind, is that you leave here this morning with a better understanding of what Jesus is teaching us in this passage. He is the Master, and these words from the Gospel are not a mistake. They are often misunderstood, and misunderstood badly, and so we have some work to do, because it is of upmost importance that we understand what he is trying to teach us. After all, we have committed our lives to following him as our Savior and Lord.

In this passage, Jesus and his friends are inside someone’s home, talking together. There is still a young child there among them, whom Jesus had brought before them to illustrate the kind of attitude that he wishes to see in them. He had just spoken about the importance of welcoming others in his name when John mentions the fact that the disciples had just tried to stop this supposedly illegitimate healer.

This leads to a time of teaching in which once again, as he did so often during his teachings, Our Lord ridicules the teachings of the Pharisees that true righteousness can be gained by changing your outer circumstances. You might remember that their teachings included things such as the importance of washing your hands before eating as a way to ensure cleanliness before God.

The mindset of the Pharisees leads to a logical progressions such as this:
“If I cut off my hand, then obviously I will not be able to sin with that member of my body any longer, and consequently that will help me to be pure and holy before God.”
I haven’t quite figured out how my foot could possibly cause me to sin so badly in any way, but it’s no matter. The point our Lord makes is the same: this way of thinking is stupid! But it’s not just the Pharisees of 2000 years ago who think this way.

This tendency to lay blame outside of ourselves for our problems is a very familiar temptation for us human beings. For us men, it seems almost like instinct to blame many of the problems that we have on the women around us. Scripture shows that this instinct has been with us from the beginning. In the Garden of Eden, Adam blamed Eve for his failure in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree.

You see, in St. Matthew’s Gospel, this teaching from Jesus is placed in the context of discussing the problem that men have with self-control of their own sexuality.
“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). In that context, he refers to the solution of the Pharisees: cut off your hand, tear out your eye. That is, change the circumstances, but do not deal with the root of the problem. No matter what the context, this way of thinking is always in error. It is the way of thinking that causes men to blame women for their struggles.

The most obvious example of this in our world today is in the Arab world. Look at the women in the Muslim world who are forced to wear the burqa. Why are they dressed like this, covered from head to toe? Because of the men’s problems! Of course, it is the men who have mandated the need for women to be covered with the burqa. Men who lack self-control in themselves and so believe that if they never see the skin of a woman, then they will never be tempted by her.

It is a horribly patriarchal way of thinking, one that has reared its ugly head in many different cultures and societies. There have even been groups of Christian men over the centuries who, taking passages such as this one from the Gospel in a literal sense, have determined to live in a way that they can never see a woman and so therefore cannot be tempted by a woman.

How foolish, and how blind to reality! This way of thinking is a distraction from what really matters, and that is the state of the heart.

Dear friends, for a man’s heart that is filled with the love of Jesus Christ, that is deeply connected to the Creator, that is listening to and following the lead of the Holy Spirit, it does not matter at all if the woman in front of you is covered head-to-toe with a black Muslim burqa, or if she stands completely naked! What difference is that? The God-filled heart has the same response to a sister in Christ, no matter how she is dressed! And the response is always the agape love of God: the will and intention to do what is best for her within your own power.

Of course, if a man lacks any self-control at all, then that is a different matter altogether. But the point is always the same: who are you on the inside?! Remember, please, the crucial question by which Christ calls us to measure ourselves: What would you do if you could? If the opportunity were immediately before you, what would you do?

Here is the crux of the problem when we think about sin: we tend to focus upon the act, we get distracted by what we did or did not do, and we lose sight of what is really important: the state of the heart.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about transforming who we are on the inside, about the grace and love of God making us into brand new people. The grace given us at this Communion Table is about this work of transformation. When we share the peace of Christ together, it is about this work of transformation, so that we can meet every other one as an equal sister or brother in Christ.

We have been speaking here only in the context of the relationships between men and women, but the principles are the same in any context. Think of the challenges of self-control when dealing with alcohol. The response of the Pharisee is the call to prohibition. “If we forbid the sale of alcohol, then that will rid society of this evil!” What that mindset fails to understand, once again, is the obvious and clear reality that all behavior is governed by the human heart! If someone is intent on becoming inebriated, then they will find a way to do so, whether the sale and consumption of certain substances is legal or not.

Why cut off your hand, or hack off your foot, or tear out your eye? How can that change who you are on the inside? Even a mutilated stump of a human being can have a heart full of lust and anger and bitterness.

Like a blind guide leading the blind, the Pharisee fails to see the obvious: the law cannot control or change the heart. The law cannot change who we are on the inside.

Only grace, and love, and mercy, and peace from God can do that. And that, my friends, is why we are here.