A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, May 2, 2010
Acts 11:1-18
This past Tuesday I was honored to be a guest at an assembly at King Middle School, as part of a school project called “Small Acts of Courage – Memories of the Civil Rights Movement.” This 7th grade project was a model of teaching-learning at its best. The kids prepared questions and interviewed a dozen local people who had been involved in the Movement between 1955 and 1965: the lunch counter sit-ins, Montgomery bus boycotts, the March on Washington in 1963, and the March from Selma to Montgomery in 1965; as well as parallel events all across the country and in Portland, Maine. I’ve talked before about my adventures as a college freshman in Wisconsin, traveling to Selma, Alabama, in March, 1965, after the infamous police action called Bloody Sunday.
Well, three or four students interviewed each history-maker and wrote their accounts. Then they had an assembly for their guests, the kids, and their parents, and read some of what they’d written about each of us. After the program we enjoyed refreshments and conversations in the library as these wonderful young people showed us the posters they’d crafted about those historic events now 45-55 years ago.
As we, the guests, sat in the first rows of the auditorium I suspect we were touched with similar feelings… something like “look at this beautiful array of children of every color and hue and numerous countries of origin, language and religious traditions, all together in one class, one place, one school. And for all the problems we continue to face, look how far we’ve come in 45 years. Thank God for each new generation!”
And the kids on the stage were looking out at us and probably thinking something like this – “look at all those old people in the front of the auditorium. Can you believe they lived in a time when people hated other people because of the color of their skin, and when the laws didn’t protect everyone equally, and blacks couldn’t go where they wanted and do whatever they wanted without risking danger and even death?”
I recalled the wise remark of Gloria Steinem who said: “The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.” Not so for our children who can’t fathom why previous generations were so rigid and judgmental about race and religion and sexual orientation and native tongue and dietary laws and clothing. For today’s children and youth, diversity and dialog are the norms.
Human history is written over time – long sweeps of time. Lasting change often comes exceedingly slowly. True, there’s occasionally a seismic shift in a society that changes things almost overnight, but most change is incremental, evolutionary, step-by-step. Many matters of certainty when I was a child have now been let go; and much of what we hoped and worked for is now a reality. As Helen Keller said: “The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.”
So it was in that time so long ago, recorded in our lesson from Acts 11, as we’re reminded of the tensions in the first generation Christian community, sorting out the questions of what to retain and what to let go from the commandments of the first Covenant. Judaism was clear and strict about the boundaries between holy and profane, Kosher and traife, meaning not-Kosher, “unclean.”
In chapter ten we learn that Peter had been summoned to Caesarea, a Roman city filled with non-Jews, and bore witness to the transforming experience of knowing Christ. Cornelius, a Roman, proclaimed his faith and others were deeply moved. So when Peter returned to Jerusalem he was confronted by other Jews who accused him of violating kosher laws by eating with Gentiles.
As we read the story: “then Peter began to explain it to them step by step.” Step by step. He told of the vision he had while in Joppa – a vision directly from God in which something like a large sheet was lowered from the heavens and it was filled with many unclean animals that a Jew would never touch. And the voice said “Get up Peter. Kill and eat.” “Never,” said Peter. “I’m a faithful Jew and I’ve never touched anything profane, unclean.”
“Peter,” said God, “don’t call something ‘unclean’ when I’ve called it ‘clean.’” Three times this happened and just then three strangers appeared to Peter and summoned him to go with them to Caesarea where he had the opportunity to preach the Good News. Cornelius and his entire household heard and believed and were added to the community of the faithful.
So, as Peter now spoke to his inquisitors in Jerusalem, showing them step by step why he’d gone to the Gentiles, he then asked rhetorically: “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?”
The obvious answer? Peter was right to do as God had shown him. When they heard this, they were silenced. They probably stroked their long, gray beards and looked nervously at each other. They thought deeply and maybe grunted a time or two. And then (verse 18) they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
Think on that for a moment. Their minds were changed, their hearts were changed, and from that time their behavior was changed. Peter had led them, step by step, to a new place, a new vantage point from which they saw the world quite differently. And from that change of heart the early Christian community vaulted over the greatest obstacle to its future – it was no longer necessary for followers of the Way to be circumcised into the First Covenant. Gentiles, too, were welcome to follow the ways of Christ, to be baptized in the Spirit, and come into community.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his book Self-Reliance: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” [The line was borrowed by later statesmen like Winston Churchill and Spiro Agnew].
Emerson was right. His insight opens up the story in today’s lesson from Acts. The world has progressed because God has opened human hearts and minds. Aren’t many of the great movements and achievements precisely because people have kept open to the possibility that they didn’t already know everything?
The refusal to think in new and fresh ways isn’t a sign of strength but of fear. Scripture as a whole is filled with reminders that God is doing something new. The book of Acts is filled with stories of how God’s spirit knocked over the walls and broke down the barriers and threw open the windows and peeled back the defenses so people could encounter the living God and God could change human hearts and minds.
And it still happens all around us.
• The abolition of slavery and the residue of racism that rotted our nation could only begin to heal when human hearts and minds were changed, step by step.
• The homophobia that’s gradually losing its grip on church and community will be a distant memory within another generation because good people are able (by the grace of God) to let go of their fears and prejudice, step by step.
• The Roman Catholic Church will survive the raging scandal of sexual abuse only by honesty and penitence, by giving up the old ways, throwing open the windows and confessing that secrecy and denial aren’t the answer but are rather the very root of the problem. Decisions being made in the Vatican right now, step by step, will determine the future of the Catholic Church and whether it will flourish or wither.
And in our own individual lives Acts 11 offers a call and a reminder:
• This is not the God who nails down the rules of certainty and who defies fresh winds of the spirit.
• This is the God who delights when our fears are relieved, our hearts are opened, our minds are changed, our roots are deepened and one more wound is healed… step by step.
• This is the God who walks with us in Jesus Christ, step by step, through many toils and snares and calls us to embrace new promises, new challenges, and new blessings.