Acts 10:34-43 (NRSV)
34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly
understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation
anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36 You
know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he
is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout Judea, beginning
in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went
about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was
with him. 39 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and
in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but
God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41 not to
all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and
drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to
preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge
of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him
that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his
name.”
Year A
First Sunday after the Epiphany
January 8, 2017
Cross~Wind UMCTitle: DIY Religion or Christ-centered Following
Introducing the passage
At this point in the story of the
early church in Acts, we are seeing an expansion of the mission of the church.
It has focused upon witnessing to the Jewish people and the people of Samaria.
With this story, we see that Peter, the same man heading up the mission to the
Jewish people, acts as a bridge to the Gentile world. He works with a Roman
soldier who is part of the occupying army. To this largely Gentile audience, he
does not quote the Jewish scripture, yet, he still offers a powerful witness. Instead,
he focuses upon the way Jesus lived his life in care for others. At the same
time, we have to admit that Peter is hardly excited about this mission! The
Spirit of God drags him into this mission. In a sense, two conversions occur,
the obvious one of Cornelius and his household, but the less obvious conversion
of Peter to expanding the mission of the young church. We must also commend him
for seeing the new direction the Spirit was leading the church. Peter shares
the basic proclamation (kerygma) of the early church in verses 37—41 concerning
Jesus. Yet, what Jesus has taught him as a Jewish person is that God does not
lift up one group of humanity over another. He even has another version of the
great commission. He will stress that the mission of the church embraces
humanity, for Christ is Lord of all. All people may receive forgiveness. The past
can hold us in bondage, like a prison. We can carry our prison around with us
wherever we go. We need freedom from the past when it has become a prison for
us in the present.
Introduction
I have come across a couple of
articles that seem to have competing truths.
A friend on Facebook shared an
article with the title “The Death of Expertise.”[1]
The author makes a good point. Google has made all think we can be experts. All
we have to do is plug in a topic, click on a few articles, breeze through them,
and we are experts. Developing an expertise in something is something Americans
use to respect. After all, it takes work to gain expertise in any field,
whether it is painting and writing, or whether it be surgery or health care.
I think of people enjoy going to
Home Depot and Lowe’s. You will not find me there, but I do get persons who
love to work with your hands and complete projects.[4]
Nevertheless, this DIY movement is
not only about home improvement. We also see the impulse when we print our own
photos, make our own movies, or publish our own book without the services of
professionals.
This tension between expertise and
do it yourself is present in the church as well. Churches have generally valued
those who set aside time to devote themselves to the things that matter to the
church, whether examples of saintliness, good students of the Bible and
theology, or leaders of the church. Yet, in many places in America today, small
clusters of people are creating worship services and prayer cells without the
benefit of the “experts,” namely, the clergy or denominational leaders. They are
the creations of religious amateurs. We also call them laypeople. Some form due
to frustration with the organized or institutional church. Scandals have not
helped the institutional church. Some want to follow their faith strictly. Some
have frustration with the social or political position of the institutional
church. They even form because of frustration with the mega-church. Those of us
who can remember the church of the 1960s, this movement is similar to the house
church movement.[5]
Application
In some ways, early Christianity
was like these do it yourself groups. Jesus did not follow the established
Judaism of his day. He had not received official training. The early church did
not adhere to the pattern in the synagogue. Among the primary concerns of the
early church was to make the God of Israel, the God who inspired the prophets,
available to people outside the Jewish circle. Yet, the Holy Spirit had to drag
Peter along in some areas. If Jesus Christ is Lord, though, then we should
expect surprises and new implications of the gospel.[6]
Established religion has many
gifts. It can offer expertise based upon centuries of experience and tradition.
Yet, it can also develop practices that limit the gospel message.
I think our passage today opens the
door for an important discussion. Our passage shows that institutional
religion, as it develops expertise, also tends to put limits on its mission and
more importantly on God. When Peter saw that God showed no partiality, he also
saw that it meant a change in the mission of the church. The love of God for
human beings has no limits.
There are many examples of partial, limited love.
Three examples of limited love come
to mind:
Loving the lovable.
Often, the only love we are able to
manage loves the lovable.[7]
By definition, a lovable person is not hard to love.
Does God call us only to love the
lovable?
Jesus says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." He
does not add the exception, "that is, if your neighbor happens to be
lovable." A love like that would be shallow.[8]
Therefore, that is one kind of
partial love: loving only the lovable.
Reciprocal
love
Another type of partial love is all
about gauging our love according to the possibility of receiving love in
return. This is reciprocal love: "You scratch my back, I'll scratch
yours."
Many human relationships are like
that. It is a fine and helpful thing for two people to decide they are going to
come together and meet each other's needs. Often we refer to this sort of love
as a "partnership," highlighting the even exchange.
Yet, this, too, is only a partial
love. What happens, for example, if one partner gets sick and is unable for a
time to care for the partner's needs? Does the love-partnership fall apart at
that point?
Some do. An important relationship
that has this dimension is marriage. It would be a sick marriage if one partner
carries the weight of the relationship in giving love but never receives. A marriage
needs to have that mutuality of love, friendship, and affection. However, any
marriage that gets into keeping score is already heading for trouble.[9]
Controlling
love
The final sort of partial love is
controlling love. We have all known people like that: a spouse or a parent or
someone else. An element of control often makes its way into human
relationships. In such relationships, one offers love for a time, free and
clear, then abruptly snatch it away. Afterwards, one usually keeps such love in
storage, bringing it out the next time the controlling lover has need of it.
Controlling love, too, falls short
of the full measure of love, the biblical ideal. Controlling love is not the
sort of love we see God exercising in the Bible. You would think it would be
just that way, in the uneven power-relationship of an omnipotent God and a
frail and flawed people. Nevertheless, it is not. The track of God's love for
Israel -- several millennia long but still in effect -- has had some rocky
interludes. Even on their epic journey through the wilderness, the people of
Israel sometimes acted foolishly and disobediently. God had to dispatch the
prophets, one by one, to call them back to faithfulness. Were God's love
controlling them, that never would have happened. However, God's love is never
a controlling love. The Lord values human freedom, knowing there are going to
be times -- lots of times, to be perfectly honest -- when we will greedily
snatch up that freedom, then go out and abuse it.
Therefore, Peter now perceives that
the chosen people include everybody.
“I
truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every
nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Acts 10:34-35
Each of these forms of love may
have their place. I am not so sure about controlling love, although I suppose
it might act to keep a loved one out of danger. Usually, however, controlling
love is manipulative and self-centered.[10]
So, if these are all partial forms
of love, what does complete love look like?
36
You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by
Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37 That message spread throughout
Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38 how
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went
about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was
with him.-Acts 10:36-38
Jesus gets at this when he teaches, "Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you." Can there be a more difficult teaching than that?
In the church today, confessing
that Jesus is Lord is mostly a foregone conclusion, but usually with
substantial qualifiers attached.
“Well, yes,” we say, “of course
Jesus is Lord of all, but people have to believe thus and so before he will actually
be their Lord.”
Or, “He’s your Lord if you are
willing to be baptized by immersion.”
Or, “If he’s really your Lord,
you’ll be tolerant and open-minded.”
Or, “Jesus is Lord doesn’t apply to
[choose your hated group][11]
unless they first [your favorite qualifier].” We have fences to maintain, after
all. We have litmus texts to administer.
That God shows no partiality means
that nobody has the edge, that all people are equal before God and none are
“more equal” than others; nor is there any hint of a “separate but equal”
doctrine, rather, the only litmus test that counts is whatever Jesus administers
in the human heart.
As Peter preaches it that day, “the one ordained by God as judge of the
living and the dead” (10:42).
DIY religion at its best means that
we take what God has revealed to us and put it into practice. Salvation is not
a Do It Yourself project, of course, and even our fulfillment of the mission
and vision of the church are under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
If God shows us that we have
behaved unjustly, then we need to start behaving justly. If God shows us that
we have been racist, then we need to shine the light on our racism and give it
the boot.
If God shows us that we are
shutting out some that he includes in, then we need to move to where God is. In
each case, we need to act ourselves on what God has shown us. In this sense,
religion is always a DIY kind of thing.
Conclusion
People today need to see that the
"next new thing" is the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. This is
a truly divine innovation, not a fascinating but fading phenomenon. If we
deliver anything else, in worship or in Bible studies, we are offering what
people might call cool junk, but it remains junk.
Well, these do it yourself groups,
these reincarnations of house churches, have much to teach established
churches, but they also have much to learn from the traditions of the faith.
Toward the end of I Corinthians 13,
that well-known "hymn to love," Paul speaks of love in terms of
partiality and completeness: "For we
know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes,
the partial will come to an end." There is the model. There is the
ideal. We can all unite behind that.
We have got our work cut out for
us.
Going deeper
Acts 10:34-43 is the fifth scene of
the larger story of the conversion of Cornelius and his household that we find
in Acts 10:1-11:18. We should note that Peter does not have a direct quote from
scripture as he does in earlier speeches, showing sensitivity to the context of
the audience. Although the primary mission of Peter was to the Jewish people, this
story shows that Peter reached out to at least one Gentile, Cornelius.
Geographically, Peter has now travelled to Caesarea, west of Galilee, almost to
the province of Syria. This extension of God’s fellowship to the Gentiles is a
truly momentous event, as it opened the door for the Gentile ministries of both
Peter and Paul, which led to the urban growth of the Christian movement
throughout the Roman Empire. This story raises an interesting question. Is God
converting a Gentile into the faith community, or is God converting Peter into
seeing new possibilities for mission? In the previous scene, Peter has shared
the gospel, and the Gentiles present received the gift of the Holy Spirit in
the same way the Jewish people did in Acts 2.
We might note that such conversion
comes about not because of competent leadership, scriptural interpretation or
persuasive preaching. The hand of God drags along Peter, Cornelius and the
church. There are no calculating efforts by the Jerusalem church, no strategic
planning by Peter, no manipulation of the scriptural witness by Cornelius and
the Gentiles. Conversion is an astonishing, unanticipated act of God's grace.
Acts 10:34-43 (NRSV)
34 Then
Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality,
35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right (he
must have in mind something other than obedience to the covenant) is acceptable to him (think of an
acceptable sacrifice. Such a view would have gone against most of the Old
Testament, which viewed Israel as the unique possession of the Lord. Isaiah
56:7 prophecies that even Gentile offerings will be acceptable to God.). [The point is not about the
possibility of salvation outside of Christian confession. Plainly, there are behavioral, if not national,
qualifiers to establish those who are "acceptable." Peter's
confession is still profoundly dramatic. This concept of a God who shows
"no favorites" gives tangible teeth to the Jewish insistence that
there is only one universal God. It is one thing to proclaim your God is no
mere tribal or local deity. It is quite another to admit that "your"
God is as concerned and interested in distant tribes and peoples as those who
first proclaimed God's oneness and saw the light. Barth acknowledges that this
statement reflects “biblical universalism,” in that the general human situation
is one in which all people live in the light of life.[12]]36 You know the message (logos)
he sent to the people of Israel,
preaching peace by Jesus Christ— [the core confession of Peter] he is Lord of all. [The message
stretches beyond Israel. Hans Conzelmann, in his commentary on Acts, points out
that the expression “Lord of all” is found in classical religions with
reference to Zeus; in Hellenistic religions with reference to Osiris, the
revered Egyptian god; and in Roman political discourse with reference to
Caesar. He is expanding what the faith community has already affirmed: that
Jesus Christ is Lord! The Lordship of Jesus is over all of creation. Therefore,
in any nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable. The
affirmation that Jesus is Lord does not come from a text quoted throughout the
Law and the Prophets. Rather, the affirmation is a theological truth rising out
of the experience and faith of the disciples. Recounting the same incidents of
other earlier speeches, Peter concludes with his freshly obtained new
perception of the movement of the gospel.] 37
That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the
baptism that John announced: 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing
all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. [Peter puts the
knowledge of Jesus as beginning with his public ministry rather than with the
birth narratives, as Luke has himself begun with his gospel. Barth comments
that Jesus is the man for others, referring to this passage as pointing to the
sympathy, help, deliverance, mercy, and solidarity that he shows with the fate
of humanity. His humanity consists in the fact that he is “for” humanity,
thereby fulfilling his saving work.[13]]
39 We are witnesses to all
that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging
him on a tree; [Peter testifies to the real, agonizing death that Jesus
suffered. He uses the language and images from Deuteronomy 21:22-23 --
"hanging him on a tree" -- to depict the contempt and cursedness
associated with Jesus' death by crucifixion.] 40 but God raised him on the third day [which we also
find in I Corinthians 15:4, echoes Hosea 6:2 and Jonah 2:1] and allowed him to appear, 41 not
to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate
and drank with him after he rose from the dead. [Here is one of the reasons
that the Lord’s Supper was so central to the gathering of Christians.[14]
The apostles were witnesses to Jesus' earthly ministry and to the stunning
events of the Cross and Resurrection.
Coupled with his previous revelation that God shows no partiality
between Jew and Gentile, the Christ-event now stands before Peter and Cornelius
as a common bond. Christ's triumph over death and his saving resurrection were
not just for the obedient of Israel. They were gifts of the offer of universal
salvation for all nations.] 42 He
commanded us [in a version of the great commission] to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by
God as judge of the living and the dead. [Pannenberg notes that Jesus
looked for the judgment of the Son of Man, which the New Testament then applied
to Jesus. Yet, the New Testament generally looks upon God as the judge. Yes, he
is judge of all, but Peter quickly moves to the notion that the prophets
testify about him so that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of
sin through his name.[15]]
43 All the prophets testify
about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins
through his name.” [Early Christianity, says Pannenberg, quickly related
baptism to the forgiveness of sin.[16]]
[4] They are the ones streaming out of a crowded Home
Depot or Lowe’s store on Saturday afternoon, pushing a cartload of stuff —
perhaps a new tubular skylight, power drill, caulking gun, joint tape, trowels,
pans, hammers, miter saw and the like. They are facing a project — however
grimly— and they are going to do it themselves.
[5] It is only a matter of time until the same
I-can-do-it-myself attitude pops up in the church. This notion clashes with the
idea that we also value those with expertise, whether it is in examples of
saintliness, biblical study, theology, or church growth.
In
many places across America today, small clusters of people are creating their
own worship services and special-interest prayer cells, without benefit of the
experts, namely, clergy or denominational leaders.
There
are noteworthy differences in these groups, including their motivations for
coming together and in how they worship. While many are gatherings of
Christians, the DIY phenomenon is occurring among disaffected Jews and Muslims
as well. What these groups all have in common is that they are the creations of
religious amateurs. We also call them laypeople.
Many
of these groups formed because of frustration with organized religion. One
Catholic laywoman, for example, tried five parishes after she relocated to
Austin, Texas, looking for a priest she could relate to and a church that
offered significant participation to women. Finding neither, she started her
own group.
Other
DIY gatherings are assemblies of people aggravated by the attempts of
established churches and synagogues to make religion more “culturally
relevant.”
Still
other groups started because they found mega-churches too impersonal or because
the individuals disagreed with positions their churches held.
In
general, the new groups are more observant than their predecessors are. They are
modern versions of the Christian "house churches" and Jewish havurah
("friendship") groups that emerged in the '60s.
The
scandals that have rocked some established churches have not helped either, and
some of the disappointed have chosen to worship separately with like-minded
folk.
[6] Will Willimon, commenting on Peter’s speech in this
setting, observes,
“This is
the way it sometimes is in the church. If Jesus Christ is Lord, then the church
has the adventurous task of penetrating new areas of his Lordship, expecting
surprises and new implications of the gospel which cannot be explained on any
basis other than our Lord has shown us something we could not have seen on our
own, even if we were looking only at Scripture.”
[7] That is a curious word, "lovable." Usually,
when we say a person is lovable, we mean the person is attractive, pleasing,
gifted in some way, to win the affection of others.
[8] What kind of love would that be? Pretty shallow! No,
the sort of love Jesus is encouraging is not about being attracted to another,
as a moth is drawn by a porch light. The love Jesus wants is, rather, the sort
of love that gets up and does what the other person needs, no matter how tough
that may be.
[9] Plenty of couples have headed for separation or
divorce out of a sense of unfairness, when one partner comes to believe the
even exchange is no longer so even. The other partner is not holding up his or
her end is not doing enough. Any love that keeps score in such a way is only a
partial love. It does not measure up to the ideal of selflessly caring for the
other.
There are times and
seasons, in some marriages, in some deep friendships, when one partner does end
up carrying more of the weight of the relationship. God did not intend marriage
or friendship to be that way, of course, but sometimes that is just the way it
is. The truth is that, if we are in a reciprocal relationship, there is always
the temptation to engage in scorekeeping.
[10] It is not that there is anything terrible about these
three limited types of love -- loving the lovable, reciprocal love and
controlling love. They are still examples of love, and love is the one power in
the universe that is universally good, even in partial form. A love that loves
only the lovable can be shallow, but, as far as it goes, it is still love. A
love that demands the recipient to pay back to the giver can still bring much
joy, as long as the other partner in the exchange continues to deliver. Even a
controlling love can yield some benefits, contributing to the loved one's sense
of worth.
[11] fanatics / homosexuals / Republicans / Democrats /
lazy people / reactionaries / liberals / the deluded / the bigoted / Pharisees
[12] Church
Dogmatics, IV.3 [71.1], 487.
[13] Church
Dogmatics, III.2 [45.1], 210.
[14] Pannenberg, Systematic
Theology, Volume 3, 283.
[15] Systematic
Theology Volume 3, 613.
[16] Systematic
Theology Volume 3, 240.
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