Dear
friends: grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ
Let's
pray: Thanks Heavenly Father, for bringing us into your house.
Thank you for Your word, your world and your way. Help us to live as
Your people, in Your world, in your way. Teach us now. We need your
help. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Lemme
tell you a little about my family. I have three brothers – Tom,
here in Winnipeg, Mark, and Joel, and a sister, Becky, all down
around Minneapolis. My sister's house has a big open door. She
lives with her husband, just outside of Minneapolis, near a small
town in Wisconsin. Often, at my sister's house, our family is bigger
than we thought. The
National Lutheran Church choir from Kenya would be there, plus an
obsessive-compulsive college student from Iowa, or three bedraggled
Scottish people, and a neighbour from down the street – all there
at my sister's house.
One
time, we were headed there for somebody's 50th
birthday, or my mom's 80th,
and my brother Tom and I emailed Becky and said, “You know, it's
nice to come and visit – but we never get to see you, what with the
Kenyan National Choir and the various hangers-on. Can we just be
family – the original size of our family – when we get there?”
She said she'd try. And when we got there, Becky met us at our car
with a look on her face. I knew from the look. “Is it the
Kenyan National Choir, Becky?”
She
looked to the ground and nodded. She tried, but she just couldn't
suppress it. It's just the way my sister and her husband are. Their
house has a big open door, and people are drawn to their place like a
magnet. They have the gift of hospitality, their love is God-shaped,
and our family gets bigger.
In
today's lesson from the book in the New Testament called Acts, the
family of God is getting bigger, but the followers of Jesus are
troubled. Acts is the telling of what happened to the followers of
Jesus. Around 30 AD, after Jesus lived, died, rose again, and went
to be with God the Father in His
dimension,
what happened? Well, Luke tells us what happened in the Book of the
Acts of the Apostles. And in this 11th
Chapter, we find the followers of Jesus troubled.
Why?
Well, they had heard troubling news about Peter – one of the
original 12 disciples. Had he denied Jesus again? No. Had he
committed some major sin like murder or adultery? No. This is what
he did: he had gone to the home of uncircumcised
people and had eaten
with them. That's it. He had gone to the home of uncircumcised
people and had eaten with them. Now, that doesn't seem like a big
deal to modern ears like ours – visiting and eating with people.
Sounds kind of nice, actually.
But
here's the story: the first Christians were Jewish. And being
Jewish, they had certain dietary laws that set them apart from the
nations. They didn't eat pork or shellfish, they washed in a certain
way, they did not got the homes of non-jews, because then they would
become unclean. Not dirty, like filthy or germ-infected – but
ritually unclean, not fit to go to the temple. They'd be “unclean”
until they gone through a prescribed cleansing ritual lasting a week,
when they could finally go to temple. So, they avoided becoming
unclean by not, and I mean NOT going to the homes and eating with
uncircumcised people.
So
here's a problem. Peter had gone and done what they should NOT do.
They had heard he had gone to
the home – and,in fact, IN
the home of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius. (If you have ever
lived in or near a Dutch community, you find lots of dutch men named
Cornie – named after this man Cornelius, found in the Book of
Acts.) By going in and eating with the Roman Centurion Cornelius, he
became unclean.
So
Peter went to Jerusalem, to the other apostles and followers of Jesus
to explain himself. His excuse? “Don't blame me! God toldme
to do it.” Peter had three times had a vision of a sheet being let
down from the sky on which were animals of every kind – both
ritually clean animals and ritually unclean animals. And a voice
from heaven said, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter objected
that he had never
eaten anything unclean. “Don't call unclean what God has made
clean, Peter.”
Just
then, there's a knock at the door, and there are men from the town of
Caesarea. Turns out that in that town of Caesarea, a Roman centurion
named Cornelius, a man who had faith in God, but did not yet know the
love of God in Jesus, had seen an angel. The angel said, send to
Joppa and get Simon, called Peter, who, he was told, “will
bring you a message through which you and all your household will be
saved.”
And the Spirit said to Peter, Go with the men, so Peter and six
others do.
And
in Caesarea, Peter brought the message - that we are rebellious
sinners, enemies of God, but Jesus, God-come-in-person, in His mercy
and in time, space and history, came searching for us, took the
consequences of our sin and died in our place, rose on Easter, and
offers forgiveness of sins, life and salvation to us.
And
while Peter was bringing the message, the Holy Spirit came upon the
group – on Cornelius, the Centurion, and the other non-Jewish
people - as it had come upon the disciples. Then Peter remembered
Jesus' words around the time of John the Baptist: “'John
baptized withwater,
but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'
So, Peter concluded, “if God is giving the gift of the Holy Spirit
to them
as He gave to us
who believe in Jesus, who am I to oppose God?” And the other
followers of Jesus praised God - "So
then, even to Gentiles – to non-Jews - God has granted repentance
that leads to life."
The
result of all of this? First, to an occupying super power nation
that said Caesar was Lord and God, came the message of Jesus, truly
Lord, truly God, truly saviour of all. Which kingdom still stands?
The Kingdom from heaven, God come to us in Jesus, or the kingdom of
the caesars? Second result: The Good News of Jesus came to
non-jews, who did not have to become Jewish in order to be
Christians. The rules of diet, though good for a time, are set
aside. The family is going to be bigger than we think. And if it
doesn't already, the family of God can include you and me.
We
may be like Cornelius – knowing there is a God – some might say a
Supreme Being, distant, a remote creator who set things spinning and
then left it alone. But until we know the love of God in Jesus –
who is God, make no mistake – we don't really know God. “When
you see me,” Jesus told his followers, “You see the Father in
heaven.” All of our ideas of God need to be thrown out and seen
through the lens that is Jesus.
*Please
know that the God who made you loves you more deeply than you can
ever imagine, and know that God longs for a friendship with you.
More than that, in that friendship you will learn to live as God’s
person in God’s world in God’s way. And that's the greatest
adventure that can ever befall a human being. It's what human beings
were made for.
And
how can you know the friendship of God and become the person God
longs for you to be? By saying yes to Jesus' call to become a
follower of Jesus. Why Jesus? Because Jesus is this God come in
person to our world to rescue us from our sin, to guide us, to teach
us.
It
may be that all this is very new to you. Maybe you didn’t know the
Christian faith was like this. So for you, the best thing may be to
read one of the very first biographies of Jesus to be written.
They're found in a little book called The New Testament, the second
part of the Bible. It might actually be helpful for you to join a
group of people who are also trying to figure out this Jesus stuff,
and work with them till you get some answers. If you don't have one,
ask me for a Bible. Talk with me, email me, phone me and let's talk
about it.
Or
you might be a person who says, “You know, I’ve been thinking
about this stuff for some time. I’m kinda sitting on the fence. But
I think this is what I want, I think this is what I need.” Maybe
for you it’s time to say yes to Jesus, to get down off the fence
and start following, with all that involves.
If
you are new to all this, but you want to investigate it for yourself,
here’s the sort of thing you might like to say to Jesus: Jesus:
I am curious about the things I’ve heard about you, and I want to
know if they are true. Please help me learn about you and find out
how these things can be true for me. Amen.
And
if you want to begin following Jesus now, here’s the sort of thing
you might like to say to Jesus: Jesus:
Thank you for inviting me to follow you, to be part of your family. I
confess I have gone my own way, I am a sinner, and I need
forgiveness. Thank you that you died for me. Today I want to say
“YES” to your invitation. Please give me your Spirit so that I
can begin to live as your person in your world in your way. Amen.
Please
know that Jesus hears and honours our prayers, and that He wishes to
make us all a part of his growing family, with the job of making His
family bigger. Amen
*This
part is mostly stolen and adapted from the John Bowen article, Seven Reasons You Should Not
Become A Christian (And One Reason You Should), found here:
http://www.freshexpressions.ca/2002/09/seven-reasons-you-should-not-become-a-christian-and-one-reason-you-should/
He
puts it better than I could.
