It depends on how you define “all” Chapter 28 of THE STORY RUMC 3/1/15

It depends on how you define “all”

Chapter 28 of THE STORY 

RUMC 3/1/15

“Dear God, I have a problem. It is those people over there.”

That’s the way Peter thought of the Gentiles. In his mind, there were two types of people: Jews (Whom God loved) and Gentiles (Whom God didn’t love, and good Jews avoided.)

That worked pretty well in the old days. In the old days, it was pretty easy to tell the Jews from the Gentiles. They looked different, the talked different, they thought different, and frankly good Jews didn’t run into Gentiles all that often. With the advent of the Greek and then Roman Empire, things had changed. They call it “Pax Romana,” the Roman peace that broke down borders, built roads, secured trade routes, protected ships, and moved people around within the Roman Empire to places they would have never dreamed of going, as merchants, politicians, tax collectors, entertainers, athletes, and soldiers moved freely from region to region. Therefore, good Jews, just minding their own business, started to come into contact with people they hardly knew existed.

 It used to be that a Jew could live his whole life without encountering a Gentile. Now, they were everywhere. They were in the market, the seats of government, the amphitheaters, the guardhouses, and the neighborhoods all around Judea.

Many Jews had a problem… and it was “Those people.”

·        “Those people” were in the market.

·        “Those people” were in the halls of government.

·        “Those people” were in the theatres and sports arenas.

·        “Those people” were knocking on the door to collect taxes.

·        “Those people” were keeping watch over them in the streets.

Peter had seen Jesus interact with “those people” from time to time. They went to

·        Tyre,

·        Sidon, and

·        region of the Gerasenes. The

·        Canaanite woman entreated Jesus to heal her daemon-possessed daughter, and he

·        healed the centurion’s servant. There was the

·        woman at dinner who asked for the crumbs from the table, and the

·        Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus encountered a number of Gentiles and, even though he was the Jewish messiah, he helped each and every one of them, even though they were “Those people.”

What were Jesus parting words? “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” It apparently didn’t occur to Peter that “Those people” lived in those places. Maybe that’s understandable, though, given the culture in which he was raised and lived. The possibility of God wanting anything to do with Gentiles may have just never even crossed his mind.

 The time had come, though. The time had come when Cornelius, a Roman Centurion (a soldier roughly equivalent to a sergeant)… A Gentile was experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in his life and wanted to know more about Jesus.

Now, we are told that Cornelius and his family were God-fearing. That meant that they were Gentiles who ascribed to the Jewish religion. They even did everything a good Jew would do worshipping and giving to the poor. God -fearers clearly, however, were still Gentiles. They were still “Those people”

 In a vision, Cornelius was told that he should send men about 30 miles to Joppa to find a man named Peter.

Now, you would expect that Peter would avoid these Gentile Roman soldiers. One would expect that Peter would, maybe not so politely, decline the invitation to visit Cornelius in Caesarea. That would have been in keeping with how he had been raised, and what the Pharisees taught to that very day.

Something had happened to Peter, though. He also had a vision. His vision was of a sheet with all kinds of animals, clean and unclean, being lowered from heaven. Remember that back in Leviticus, God had designated some animals as clean - or OK to eat, and others unclean. Jews were forbidden to eat those animals.

Pharisees went one step further, then, and taught that anything that touched those unclean animals was impure. There are two different Greek words here. Unclean is an existential problem, defined by God. Impure is a ritual problem, defined by the Pharisees.

So, you have to picture all these animals clean and unclean on this sheet, being held by the four corners. If you put things on a sheet and hold it by the corners, what happens? They all roll to the middle, don’t they? So all these animals clean and unclean were rolling around together in the middle of this sheet. In the Pharisees mind, then, the clean animals were made impure by contact with the unclean animals. Now do you see why I made that distinction, between unclean and impure? It is not that the acceptable animals were made unacceptable, but they were defiled and made impure.

When God then said, “Peter, kill and eat.” Peter, being a good Jew taught by the Pharisees, wasn’t about to have anything to do with those impure, animals. Even when God told him 3 times, he didn’t want anything to do with them. He reassured God that he had never eaten anything unclean OR impure. The punch line is God saying, “What God has made clean you must not call impure.” “What God has called acceptable, you must not despise as unacceptable.”

Now the story starts to make sense, doesn’t it? Because just at that moment, when Peter is still trying to figure out the vision, “Those people” come to the door. “Those people” being the Gentiles… the IMPURE Gentiles. Remember, Peter’s instinct would have been to send them away, but he gets up and goes with “Those people.” And he travels with “those people.” And when he gets to Cornelius’ house, he goes into the house of one of “those people.”

Cornelius had gathered quite a crowd and after clearing up some confusion about who should be worshipped, Peter said, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” The moral of the story is “I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”

Peter preached to them and the Holy Spirit worked in their lives. The Bible reads, “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” “Those people” were the first Gentiles to become Christian.

THOSE PEOPLE became US. The lesson is that ALL PEOPLE are GOD’S PEOPLE

The whole direction of THE STORY changed. It turned from inward to outward. It turned from US to THEM. Or should I say it turned ALL OF THEM into US, or all of THEM into US.

The upper story vision is complete. Not fulfilled, but complete. That ALL PEOPLE would come to believe in, trust, love, and obey the one almighty God. Someday… but that’s not easy to swallow. ALL? Really? ALL?

We pray, “Dear God, I have a problem, and it is my neighbor. Surely ALL doesn’t mean my hypocritical neighbor does it?” We all have at least one of those neighbors don’t we? Either next door, or down the street, or at the next desk, or maybe even sitting next to you in the pew right now. You know they are such hypocrites. God certainly can’t have much love for those who make a show of their faith. They pretend to be Christian, but we all know that they are just pretending… because they are one of THOSE PEOPLE.

Jesus taught that we ought not be like them, but he never taught that they shouldn’t be in the church, or that they are outside of God’s love.

Maybe our prayer ought to be “Dear God I have a problem… and it’s me because I am not sure what you mean by the word ALL.”

We pray, “Dear God, I have a problem, and it is the people in Gladbrook.” Surely, ALL doesn’t mean THOSE PEOPLE who have lied and said evil, selfish things. Surely it doesn’t include people who wanted to shut down our school does it?

Believe it or not. Like it or not. There are good people on both sides of every issue. Their behavior may not be attractive, but they are deep down good people and more importantly, they are God’s people.

Maybe our prayer ought to be “Dear God I have a problem… and it’s me because I am not sure what you mean by the word ALL.”

We pray, “Dear God, I have a problem, and it’s those homosexuals. Surely, ALL does not mean THOSE PEOPLE does it? Look what they have done to the United Methodist Church over the last 40 years. Look what they have done to our culture and family values. Surely, ALL does not include them does it?

You can debate whether you think homosexuality is a sin. I don’t think being homosexual is a sin. I would argue that the Bible views our God given sexuality as a gift. Further I would argue that  ANY sexual behavior (heterosexual or homosexual) that

·        degrades,

·        controls,

·        manipulates,

·        abuses, or otherwise

·        hurts people, or

·        damages relationships is condemned by God.

We can disagree about that, but we cannot disagree that homosexual persons are of sacred worth to God, and deserve the church’s ministry and our love and respect.

Maybe our prayer ought to be “Dear God I have a problem… and it’s me because I am not sure what you mean by the word ALL.”

Maybe we pray, “Dear God, I have a problem, and its militant extremists.”

Frankly, we all have a problem with the politics of terror and hatred. However, I was reading a story about a prisoner who witnessed to her militant extremist captors and turned them to Christ. I had a strong visceral reaction when I read that story… I wasn’t sure I wanted that person as a brother in Christ. For most of us, lining 21 Christians up on a beach and beheading them for a propaganda video is way beyond unforgivable… but not for God. THOSE PEOPLE… even THOSE PEOPLE are loved by God. I know it’s hard to believe. Nevertheless, even THOSE PEOPLE are inside God’s circle of love.

Maybe our prayer ought to be “Dear God I have a problem… and it’s me because I am not sure what you mean by the word ALL.”

Maybe we pray, “Dear God, I have a problem, and it’s THOSE PEOPLE”… I don’t know who THOSE PEOPLE are to you.

·        Maybe it has to do with differing opinions in the increasingly divisive political climate in our country. Maybe it has to do with race- (although I think we should be long past that by now).

·        Maybe THOSE POPLE are on welfare.

·        Maybe THOSE PEOPLE are drug dealers or users.

·        Maybe THOSE PEOPLE just dress differently.

·         Maybe THOSE PEOPLE go to a different church.

·        Maybe THOSE PEOPLE have questionable immigration status.

·        Maybe THOSE PEOPLE… I don’t know… you fill in the blank.

The question is, are any of THOSE PEOPLE outside God’s love? Are any of THOSE PEOPLE so far gone that they are beyond God’s reach? I assure you, they are not.

God’s circle was a lot bigger than the Pharisees realized. It was a lot bigger than Peter realized. It is a lot bigger than most of us realize--- and if we are honest, maybe even bigger than we want it to be. “Dear God I have a problem… and it’s me.” Right?

Edward Markham wrote

“He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In![i]

God has drawn a circle and it includes ALL people. If you have any questions, let’s talk about how YOU define the word “ALL.”

---

[i] From the poem " Outwitted”

A new age… a new vision Chapter 28 THE STORY Rumc- 2/15/15

A new age… a new vision

Chapter 28 Pentecost story

Rumc- 2/15/15

Marc Andreessen, who invented the Netscape internet browser, tells of a lunch he had with Steve Jobs not long before the iPhone was unveiled to the rest of the world. It was the fall of 2006 and sitting at an outside cafe, Jobs pulled his personal prototype iPhone out of his jeans pocket and said, ‘Here, let me show you something.’  

He proceeded to share with Marc all of the features of the new device. And “after an appropriate amount of oohing and aahing” Marc said, ‘Boy, Steve, I don’t think people will buy it if it doesn’t have a physical keyboard.” Jobs looked his friend right in the eye with a piercing gaze and said, ‘They’ll get used to it.’” In the last 8 years, Apple has sold more than half a billion iPhones (none of which has physical keyboards by the way). Steve Jobs was a man with a vision.

Thomas Edison tried 1000 prototype light bulbs before he found one that worked. He said, “I didn’t fail 1000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps.” Edison was a man with a vision and even 1000 “steps” couldn’t stop him.

In 1962, Sam Walton opened a small store. By 1966, he had 20 stores. Now the Wal-Mart brand is behind 11,000 stores, under 71 different names, in 27 countries. Why? Because, like it or not, Sam had a vision of a new way of doing business, and he never swerved from that vision.

Jonathan Swift wrote, “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”

In their own ways each of these men, were men of vision.

The Pentecost story is a story of God’s new age and new vision. 

·        Not an age created by a new gadget, or philosophy; but an age marked by the power of the spirit of God working in and through God’s people called the church.

·        Not a new vision from a human mind; but directly from the mind and heart of God. A new vision for God’s people empowered in a new way, on a new mission, in what was in some ways an entirely new world.

A new age, and a new vision, going hand in hand. Pentecost ushered in a new age and a new vision for God’s people and all of creation.

                  After the resurrection, Jesus appeared on the road to Emmaus in order to say, “Surprise... I’m here in the bread.” He appeared in the upper room in order to say, “I’m baaack… In flesh and blood.” He appeared at the beech to say “Bazinga. I know where the fish are hiding.” He appeared in Jerusalem to say “Now you see me now you don’t.” and then he was gone from sight. Before he ascended to heaven, though, he left one last instruction. He told them to wait in Jerusalem until “the Holy Spirit comes; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” There is our first clue to the meaning of Pentecost.

        Many people do not realize that Pentecost is not a Christian holiday. It is, rather, a Jewish holiday on which something important happened to a bunch of Christians. Of course, they wouldn’t be called Christians for another 30 years. As Christians, we have almost completely forgotten that Pentecost is the first Sabbath day after the 50^th day after Passover. It was a harvest celebration, because that is when the barley harvest should be completed. Jews from all over the world came to Pentecost, not quite like Passover, but you can tell from the list of hometowns in this passage that people came from all over to offer the first fruits of the harvest to God in thanksgiving.

        There were 120 disciples, the Book of Acts tells us. One hundred-twenty followers of Jesus gathered in the upper room in which Jesus and the disciples had eaten the last supper. It doesn’t say what they were doing. We might speculate that they were debating their next move. While they were there, something happened. Something they weren’t expecting and something that had never happened before.

First, there was a holy rushing wind, then tongues of fire. Both wind and fire are manifestations of the presence of God’s power. 

Then, everyone started speaking languages that were foreign to the disciples Galilean ears… yet they were coming from their very Galilean lips. Don’t mistake this for the United Nations. These were relatively uneducated Galilean disciples, who likely couldn’t point to these places on a map, let alone speak their language. This is nothing short of a miracle.

Everyone was scratching their heads, trying to figure out what is happening, except for Peter. Peter knew that this signaled a new age .Peter caught God’s vision and began to preach.

He quoted from the book of Joel, saying, “God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and our sons and our daughters shall prophesy, and our young men shall see visions, and our old men shall dream dreams.” That explains everything we need to know, doesn’t it?

God poured his spirit out upon Peter, and he caught the vision. But not just any vision, God’s vision. At Pentecost, God’s spirit was poured into Peter and the disciples and they caught God’s vision of a completely new chapter in Salvation history… they caught a vision of the new age of God working through the church.

The coming of the spirit at Pentecost marks a completely new chapter in the story of God’s quest to bring his upper story vision to bear on our lower story lives. In the beginning, God asked Adam and Eve to walk hand in hand with him, but sin took over, and the Old Testament tells the story of how that turned out. In the incarnation, God says, I’ll walk hand in hand with you, but even with God in the flesh, sin took over and we all know how the gospels ended- with Jesus death. In Pentecost, God does something completely new by filling the disciples with God’s own Holy Spirit. Not to live hand in hand with God, but to live heart to heart with the creator of all that is, heart to heart with the savior who died for our sins, to live heart to heart with the presence of the power of God. Or is it the power of the presence of God?

That is God’s vision for this new age…and that is God’s vision for us.

The disciple’s new Job is to be the hands and feet of God. To catch God’s vision to take God’s story to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth…. To be honest, for Peter and the other disciples, Reinbeck would have seemed like the end of the earth. It is our job as disciples in Reinbeck in this new age, then, to catch God’s vision, to be the hands and feet of God, and to take his story right out the door of our church, down spruce street, through all of Reinbeck, to the rest of Grundy county, and to the ends of the earth… like waterloo, DesMoines and Nigeria. But it all starts with the vision. 

A church without that vision, looks just like a country club except we sit on uncomfortable wooden “couches,” singing 200 year old songs, and talk about doing good a lot. With vision, the talk stops, and the action starts. The vision comes alive in our loving, our sharing, our hoping, our praying, our proclaiming, our doing justice, our loving kindness, and our seeking righteousness.

A church without vision knows in theory what it is supposed to do. They can read it right in front of them in black and white in the Bible, but they don’t do it. A church without vision talks about love, but a church with vision lives the new age of actually loving. A church without vision talks about justice, but a church with vision sees a new age of justice coming and actually stands up for the weak and the powerless. A church without vision talks about filling the pews, but a church with vision actually bears witness to God’s new age by filing needs in its community which may or may not fill a pew, but it sure fulfills God’s vision of the church being his hands and feet in this new age.

Remember I said that Jonathan Swift wrote, “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” The vision for the church is not made up of visible things like big buildings, full pews, and budgets being met. God’s vision for the church is that the invisible things will be made visible in our ministry. That generosity will be visible in every one of our checkbooks. That Love will be visible by the hands we hold. That mercy will be visible by the food and gas, we buy, and the utility bills and rent we pay using the aid and assistance funds. God’s vision is that hope would be visible in the children that come on Wednesday night. That joy might be heard in the songs we sing. That acceptance will be visible in every word we say. And that God’s new age would be visible in his hands and feet, which we call the church.

In the Healthy Small church initiative group Sunday, we shared an illustration that gave me an idea. This is not exactly the same, but I think it drives the point home, so to speak. Imagine the church as a car. Even better, let’s make a car. And let’s get a driver. Let’s call that driver “vision.”

At Pentecost, and when any new church is being started, there is lots of vision but not much else. There aren’t any or many programs, (would you go sit in the back seat behind vision) There isn’t much structure (Would you go sit in the back seat beside programs). It is just vision and a few friends that we will call relationships. (Would you go sit beside vision?) As the church ages, things shift around a little. Programs might come up here, and relationships back there. All four might be sitting in the front seat on each other’s laps (I won’t ask you to do that) but no matter where anyone else sits, vision is still in the driver seat with both hands on the steering wheel and the pedal to the metal.

When programs kick vision out of the driver’s seat, the church starts to decline because no one understands why they do what they do. If relationships kick vision out of the driver’s seat, the church becomes a by invitation only country club, but no one is ever invited. If structure or administration kicks vision out of the driver’s seat, the church can get a lot of talking and planning done, but they may never actually get around to doing ministry by starting the program or developing the relationships. No matter how it happens, if vision is no longer in the driver’s seat, the church starts going downhill at first slowly, then more quickly. Attendance declines, energy declines, volunteers are harder to find, and conflict increases. If vision is left in the back seat long enough it falls asleep and no one can really tell which direction the car or the church is going.

There have been a few times, to be honest, when I am afraid we might have been guilty of at least making vision let go of the steering wheel and slide over into the passenger seat so we could coast. Perhaps because we didn’t want to go where God’s vision was leading us. Perhaps we didn’t even realize it at the time. It is always easier to see these things in retrospect.

There have been many more times, however, in our ministry together, when we have had vision squarely in control of the car, driving us to do things like start LIGHT, offer the community pancake breakfast, take on THE STORY, and lead the way in Homes for Haiti.

Solomon said in Proverbs, without vision, the people perish. Peter would probably say in conclusion to his sermon in Acts that we read today, that without vision the church will perish. If our old men and women stop seeing the vision of God’s new age ; if our young men and women stop dreaming the dreams of what God can do; when our children stop leading us toward God with their child like faith and  understanding;  the church will perish. And none of us wants that. That is in part why we are engaged in the Healthy Small Church Initiative.

I am not saying that the church is dying. Far from it.

I am saying that being a faithful, vibrant, life-giving congregation requires that we not get distracted from the vision God places before us.

I am saying that being a faithful, exciting, life-transforming community of faith requires that we get ourselves, our agendas, and our egos out of the way of God’s vision.

I am saying that being a faithful, proactive, world-changing people of God requires that we all be dragged, some of us kicking and screaming, into God’s new age.

The way we used to do things won’t work. The way the church used to think has to be put on the shelf with the history books. The church of the 1950’s, or even the 1990’s will no longer work in the 21^st century.

Because along with the new age, comes a new vision. Not the pastor’s vision, not your vision, not our vision, not a vision for a new gadget, or a new company,  not a vision of  flesh and blood at all; but of power and spirit. May the spirit blow like a mighty rushing wind through our church. May the spirit burn like an unquenchable fire in each of our hearts. And may our sons and daughters prophesy. May our young men and women see visions. May our old women and old men dream dreams.

And may the rest of us catch the wind, catch the fire, catch the vision, or get out of the way.

AMEN