Sermon for May 6: Peter, Who Ate Calamari
Easter 5 C, Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35
Our lesson from Acts 11 is the conclusion of a longer story. In the story, the Gentiles are Roman soldiers, of the Italian regiment, and Cornelius is their officer. Peter has baptized them without first circumcising them. This had never been done before, because, of course, to this point all Christians were Jews. Having baptized them, Peter ate with them.
The point is not that he sat down for Italian food, though if he had, he’d likely pass on the calamari. If you grow up kosher, squid isn’t easy to get down. The point is that he broke bread with them in the technical sense, he ate the sacred meal with them, he served them holy communion. And if Peter was in communion with them, then everyone else should eat with them as well.
This was a major step, another defining moment, and controversial for the nascent church. So Peter has to meet with the council of apostles and explain himself. His explanation is our lesson from Acts 11. Peter claims he had done this not on his own, that it hadn’t even been his idea, but that God had led him into it. The Holy Spirit led, the apostle acted.
The believers who criticized him were not just being difficult. There were problems to consider. Like the scripture from Exodus 12, which prohibits Gentiles from eating sacred meals with Jews: "This is the law of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat of it. . . . If any visitor wants to eat the Passover, let all the males of his house be circumcised. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be a single law for both natives and the foreigners who are residing among you." What Exodus 12 specifically prohibited had been done by Peter.
The first Christians did not feel that the gospel negated their Judaism but expanded it. Jesus did not cancel the Passover meal—he accelerated it. He pushed it from once a year to every week. Every Sunday, from Easter to Ascension Day, he came among them breaking bread. He made the meal the center of our fellowship and the symbol of our community, and so every week the apostles kept breaking bread and passing the cup as the central symbol of his resurrection. They sang these words: Hallelujah, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast. But if it’s a Christian Passover, who are we to include persons excluded by God in Exodus 12?
The problem was more than theological. It was also personal and emotional. We’re talking about Roman soldiers, about occupation troops. "With their fists they beat our Jewish people down, and all day long they finger unclean things, and from their hands we should take the bread of life? We have been breaking bread through centuries of deportation and captivity, and now these guys think they can share it just because they like our God? Peter, you’re not expanding this meal, you are destroying it."
During his actual vision Peter must have felt a similar discomfort. You know how when you wake up from a dream, your body still holds the sensations of your dream? Peter will have felt his vision in his gut. Peter had been conditioned by generations of dietary discipline, and the command to eat creeping things and reptiles will have triggered his distaste and disgust. He will have felt it in his body no less than in his mind.
But of course—it’s the resurrection of the body that is working out. The resurrection is not so much about the spirit, but the body. The body is the seat of our appetites and emotions, and it bears the memory of our pains and our fear. What we feel in our bodies is where the power of the resurrection is most relevant, where we experience salvation and express our faith.
I take this passage as one incentive for our consistory’s stance on welcoming and affirming gay and lesbian people. If provides us with the pattern for dealing with Biblical texts against inclusion when the Holy Spirit brings us people who want inclusion.
In this case, it’s certainly arguing from the greater to the lesser, because the issue of the Gentiles is far more central to the Biblical story than the issue of homosexuality, and the inclusion of the Gentiles was predicted by the prophets, and by our Lord himself, while Jesus never once refers to homosexuality, and it’s just not a very big issue in the Bible, say compared to poverty, or the Sabbath day. Yet the Bible does have four or five verses which are against it.
But there are forty or fifty verses against eating unkosher food or admitting the uncircumcised among God’s people, and Peter acts to suspend the prohibitions of these verses. He suspends them even though they are very clear in the Bible and once they clearly were God’s will. Wait a minute, does God’s will change, does God change God’s mind? Well, God’s will certainly develops and evolves. And in the Acts, it’s by means of the Holy Spirit putting a person or a class of persons in the face of the apostles: the Samaritans, the eunuch, the uncircumcised. And so Peter decides for the person and suspends the prohibition of the law.
That’s been our experience as well. Gay and lesbian folks have come to us in the traditional, orthodox churches and said, we want to worship God, we want to follow Jesus Christ, we want to be among God’s people, please baptize us and let us break communion bread with you.
Please take us in, not as second-class, not as defective, but as people who have accepted the way that God has made us, who have gifts to give you. Please bless us and rejoice in us. Please let us be among you. Please let us practice the "repentance that leads to life." Not the repentance that leads to death, that is, the repentance of frustration, shame, and guilt, but the repentance that leads to life, from the sanctification of how God has seen fit to make us.
And some of us, like Peter, have said, ‘By no means Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ And a second time, a voice from heaven said, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ Peter had to have it repeated three times; some of us dumb Dutchmen need to hear it six or seven times.
This movement in Peter was the power of the resurrection, the power of our risen Lord. The Lord sees fit to work it through the church, but the church does not possess it or control it. Sometimes we feel like we are riding it, or like we’re surfing on it.
No wonder Peter had to get the feel of walking on water. It doesn’t feel natural, it feels uncomfortable.
God has used this issue as a wedge in my own life, and it still makes me uncomfortable. But I have to face how I go about being a Christian. I don’t want to spend my deciding who I’m going to say No to, and what I’m going to say No to. "You’re in, you’re out; yes, you can, no, you can’t." I want to be risking as much as I’m preserving. I don’t want to spend my time defending, I want to spend my time welcoming. I don’t want to spend my life in fear, I want to spend my life in love. I don’t want to spend my ministry condemning, I want to spend my ministry blessing.
I stand here every Sunday and I give the benediction. It’s a blessing I spread it out equally to every one sitting here, no matter what your sexuality. I don’t exclude you from the blessing of the benediction if you are sitting close to someone of the same sex. And if, on a Saturday afternoon, you stand up front, holding hands and exchanging rings, I will bless you too. I might feel uncomfortable in body, like Peter eating calamari, but I will bless you.
What a difference the resurrection made in Simon Peter. Peter was the one who denied Jesus three times on the night before he died. And three times the vision came to him, and each time Peter will have been afraid to deny his orthodox convictions. But the Spirit led him past his fear, his fear of the taboos involved and his fear for his reputation. He let himself act in love, he took the risk of love. This was a huge act of love, on Peter’s part, to have communion with these Roman soldiers, to love them as disciples. That’s what made them disciples — Peter’s loving them. Well, actually the risen Lord was doing it, through Peter. It’s the privilege of the church.
Copyright © 2007 by Daniel Meeter, all rights reserved.
Our lesson from Acts 11 is the conclusion of a longer story. In the story, the Gentiles are Roman soldiers, of the Italian regiment, and Cornelius is their officer. Peter has baptized them without first circumcising them. This had never been done before, because, of course, to this point all Christians were Jews. Having baptized them, Peter ate with them.
The point is not that he sat down for Italian food, though if he had, he’d likely pass on the calamari. If you grow up kosher, squid isn’t easy to get down. The point is that he broke bread with them in the technical sense, he ate the sacred meal with them, he served them holy communion. And if Peter was in communion with them, then everyone else should eat with them as well.
This was a major step, another defining moment, and controversial for the nascent church. So Peter has to meet with the council of apostles and explain himself. His explanation is our lesson from Acts 11. Peter claims he had done this not on his own, that it hadn’t even been his idea, but that God had led him into it. The Holy Spirit led, the apostle acted.
The believers who criticized him were not just being difficult. There were problems to consider. Like the scripture from Exodus 12, which prohibits Gentiles from eating sacred meals with Jews: "This is the law of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat of it. . . . If any visitor wants to eat the Passover, let all the males of his house be circumcised. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. There shall be a single law for both natives and the foreigners who are residing among you." What Exodus 12 specifically prohibited had been done by Peter.
The first Christians did not feel that the gospel negated their Judaism but expanded it. Jesus did not cancel the Passover meal—he accelerated it. He pushed it from once a year to every week. Every Sunday, from Easter to Ascension Day, he came among them breaking bread. He made the meal the center of our fellowship and the symbol of our community, and so every week the apostles kept breaking bread and passing the cup as the central symbol of his resurrection. They sang these words: Hallelujah, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast. But if it’s a Christian Passover, who are we to include persons excluded by God in Exodus 12?
The problem was more than theological. It was also personal and emotional. We’re talking about Roman soldiers, about occupation troops. "With their fists they beat our Jewish people down, and all day long they finger unclean things, and from their hands we should take the bread of life? We have been breaking bread through centuries of deportation and captivity, and now these guys think they can share it just because they like our God? Peter, you’re not expanding this meal, you are destroying it."
During his actual vision Peter must have felt a similar discomfort. You know how when you wake up from a dream, your body still holds the sensations of your dream? Peter will have felt his vision in his gut. Peter had been conditioned by generations of dietary discipline, and the command to eat creeping things and reptiles will have triggered his distaste and disgust. He will have felt it in his body no less than in his mind.
But of course—it’s the resurrection of the body that is working out. The resurrection is not so much about the spirit, but the body. The body is the seat of our appetites and emotions, and it bears the memory of our pains and our fear. What we feel in our bodies is where the power of the resurrection is most relevant, where we experience salvation and express our faith.
I take this passage as one incentive for our consistory’s stance on welcoming and affirming gay and lesbian people. If provides us with the pattern for dealing with Biblical texts against inclusion when the Holy Spirit brings us people who want inclusion.
In this case, it’s certainly arguing from the greater to the lesser, because the issue of the Gentiles is far more central to the Biblical story than the issue of homosexuality, and the inclusion of the Gentiles was predicted by the prophets, and by our Lord himself, while Jesus never once refers to homosexuality, and it’s just not a very big issue in the Bible, say compared to poverty, or the Sabbath day. Yet the Bible does have four or five verses which are against it.
But there are forty or fifty verses against eating unkosher food or admitting the uncircumcised among God’s people, and Peter acts to suspend the prohibitions of these verses. He suspends them even though they are very clear in the Bible and once they clearly were God’s will. Wait a minute, does God’s will change, does God change God’s mind? Well, God’s will certainly develops and evolves. And in the Acts, it’s by means of the Holy Spirit putting a person or a class of persons in the face of the apostles: the Samaritans, the eunuch, the uncircumcised. And so Peter decides for the person and suspends the prohibition of the law.
That’s been our experience as well. Gay and lesbian folks have come to us in the traditional, orthodox churches and said, we want to worship God, we want to follow Jesus Christ, we want to be among God’s people, please baptize us and let us break communion bread with you.
Please take us in, not as second-class, not as defective, but as people who have accepted the way that God has made us, who have gifts to give you. Please bless us and rejoice in us. Please let us be among you. Please let us practice the "repentance that leads to life." Not the repentance that leads to death, that is, the repentance of frustration, shame, and guilt, but the repentance that leads to life, from the sanctification of how God has seen fit to make us.
And some of us, like Peter, have said, ‘By no means Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ And a second time, a voice from heaven said, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ Peter had to have it repeated three times; some of us dumb Dutchmen need to hear it six or seven times.
This movement in Peter was the power of the resurrection, the power of our risen Lord. The Lord sees fit to work it through the church, but the church does not possess it or control it. Sometimes we feel like we are riding it, or like we’re surfing on it.
No wonder Peter had to get the feel of walking on water. It doesn’t feel natural, it feels uncomfortable.
God has used this issue as a wedge in my own life, and it still makes me uncomfortable. But I have to face how I go about being a Christian. I don’t want to spend my deciding who I’m going to say No to, and what I’m going to say No to. "You’re in, you’re out; yes, you can, no, you can’t." I want to be risking as much as I’m preserving. I don’t want to spend my time defending, I want to spend my time welcoming. I don’t want to spend my life in fear, I want to spend my life in love. I don’t want to spend my ministry condemning, I want to spend my ministry blessing.
I stand here every Sunday and I give the benediction. It’s a blessing I spread it out equally to every one sitting here, no matter what your sexuality. I don’t exclude you from the blessing of the benediction if you are sitting close to someone of the same sex. And if, on a Saturday afternoon, you stand up front, holding hands and exchanging rings, I will bless you too. I might feel uncomfortable in body, like Peter eating calamari, but I will bless you.
What a difference the resurrection made in Simon Peter. Peter was the one who denied Jesus three times on the night before he died. And three times the vision came to him, and each time Peter will have been afraid to deny his orthodox convictions. But the Spirit led him past his fear, his fear of the taboos involved and his fear for his reputation. He let himself act in love, he took the risk of love. This was a huge act of love, on Peter’s part, to have communion with these Roman soldiers, to love them as disciples. That’s what made them disciples — Peter’s loving them. Well, actually the risen Lord was doing it, through Peter. It’s the privilege of the church.
Copyright © 2007 by Daniel Meeter, all rights reserved.
Labels: Sermons
posted by Old First at 3:42 PM
2 Comments:
Great sermon. I wrote a hymn text about this a couple years back, to match a tune by a nice Brooklyn lady named Amanda Husberg. Her it is:
When Peter was napping, he dreamed a great dream
of fabulous food, and yet it did not seem
this feast was quite kosher. Then God made it plain:
“What I have made clean you shall not call profane.”
Our Lord lays a harvest of grace at our feet
in family and neighbors and strangers we meet.
When led by the Spirit past judgments and fear,
we’ll live out Christ’s reign as we draw others near.
Cornelius kept praying and hoping great hope
that his new-found Savior would throw him a rope
to help this outsider and shepherd him in.
So God brought a brother to help him begin.
Our Lord lays a harvest of grace at our feet
in family and neighbors and strangers we meet.
When led by the Spirit past judgments and fear,
we’ll live out Christ’s reign as we draw others near.
Our hopes and our dreams show us what God can do
both in us and through us while making us new.
The Maker’s great work becomes real when we dare
to grow beyond limits, to reach out with care.
Our Lord lays a harvest of grace at our feet
in family and neighbors and strangers we meet.
When led by the Spirit past judgments and fear,
we’ll live out Christ’s reign as we draw others near.
Copyright 2005, Wayne Leupold Editions, Colfax, NC. All rights reserved.
Amen! Reminds me of last year's Easter 6 sermon with the Eunoch.
Post a Comment
<< Home