In my sermon last week I talked a lot (a lot!) about names, about the significance of names in our own lives and in the world around us. Different names can indicate different emphases; and this season of the church year, the Easter Season, this season itself has different emphases and thus is known by other names as well. This period of time between Easter Sunday and the Feast of Pentecost is also variously known as Eastertide, as the Great Fifty Days, and as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, as the Mystagogia.
“Mystagogia” is a Greek word that means “to lead through the mysteries” – and an important distinction here is that in the realm of faith and theology, unlike in detective stories, a “mystery” is not a puzzle to be solved, but rather a truth to be embraced.
From the Church’s very beginning, these fifty days of the Mystagogia have been the period of time when, with the support of the community around them, those baptized at the Easter Vigil have learned how to live into the concrete ramifications of their new faith and into the full meaning of Christian discipleship and of their baptismal promises.
Because the Church that follows Jesus the Christ is, in its teachings, its sacraments, and its values profoundly counter-cultural – something we need to remember in today’s world – because the Church is counter-cultural, the Mystagogia can be a difficult time, not just for the newly baptized, but for all of us; a time when our everyday assumptions and beliefs about “how life is” and “how the world works,” when these assumptions are challenged by the words, the life, and the questions of Jesus – the questions he asks us. (“Do you believe this?”)
Our assumptions are also challenged by the study of Scripture itself; and we see one of these early challenges in our readings this morning, a challenge that in its essence is at the forefront of our news today.
In words that echo the prophet Isaiah before him, John the Seer in Revelation raises up a vision of God’s future that is to be: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.’”
This is a vision about reconfigured boundaries and erased lines – the boundaries between God and humankind, the boundaries between life and death, and the boundaries between groups of people themselves. Even the boundaries of Creation have been reconfigured, as the sea, the primeval dwelling place of chaos and disorder, is no more. From now on, God will dwell in the very midst of God’s people, and everyone who is thirsty will receive the water of life.
This is both a magnificent vision and a great mystery; but as Peter had discovered 65 or 70 years before this vision of John’s, for both individuals and for communities, dealing with the concrete reality of newly reconfigured boundaries is never easy. Both the event and the action that Peter is defending here in our passage from the Acts of the Apostles were a challenge for the early Church community to understand and to accept.
At the urging of God and witnessed to by the action of the Holy Spirit, Peter had baptized, and then, more astonishingly, more shockingly, had shared table fellowship, had eaten a meal outside the restrictions of the Law; had eaten together in one place with the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household.
Until the moment of Cornelius’ baptism, there had been no such thing as a baptized Christian who wasn’t also a Jew – and this is of tremendous significance for us, because this is the event that first opens the way for our own journey of faith today. This first Gentile conversion – and remember, “Gentile” is simply a term that refers to a non-Jew; anyone who’s not a Jew is a Gentile, no matter what their beliefs or their ethnicity – this conversion of Cornelius is the beginning of the early Church’s mission to all Gentiles through the centuries up to and including us.
Ultimately, this event redefines the identity of the people of God. It reconfigures the previously sacrosanct boundaries between groups of people as Peter is told by God’s Spirit “not to make a distinction” between Peter’s group and Cornelius’; and because this is so incredibly radical, it’s no surprise that this “new thing” stirs up controversy back in Jerusalem and draws harsh criticism upon Peter.
That Peter and his companions ate Cornelius’ food, in Cornelius’ house, with Cornelius’ family, and with the blessing of God no less; all this is so scandalous, is such a skandalon, a stumbling block, for the folks back in Jerusalem that Luke tells this story three times in his writing of Acts. The first telling, a telling that also begins with Peter’s vision while praying, is in the previous chapter in Acts and the focus there is on the food restrictions, the designation of some foods as being “unclean” and therefore forbidden for Jews.
In chapter 11 of the book of Leviticus, we read, “The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: Speak to the people of Israel, saying: From among all land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat. Any animal that has divided hooves and is cleft-footed and chews the cud – such you may eat. But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following: the camel, for even though it chews the cud it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you.” (Lev. 11:1-8)
All the provisions in the Law given by God to the people of Israel through Moses were the basis of the Covenant between God and the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Law was, and continues to be, the source of their Jewish identity. The Law, and faithfulness to the Law, defined who the Jews were and are, as a people culturally; and who they were and are spiritually, as the people of Israel’s God.
This identity didn’t change as Jesus’ disciples continued to follow him after his Resurrection. All of Jesus’ followers were still Jews – Jews who had recognized him as the messiah, as the one whose coming the prophets had foretold. They saw following Jesus as a deepening of their faith and their heritage, not a negation of them – and so consequently, in Acts 10 and again here in the retelling in chapter 11, for both Peter and the church in Jerusalem, the whole unexpected event with Cornelius is a profound systemic challenge both to their understanding of God, and to their understanding of their own relationship with God.
Why is all this such a challenge? Because in telling Peter to go to Cornelius and not to make any distinction between them as Jew and Gentile, God is contradicting God’s own Scripture. God is rewriting God’s own Law, changing God’s own rules, reconfiguring God’s own boundaries – and God is telling Peter to make all these changes too.
Adapting to change is never easy, especially when the change is as spiritually and fundamentally radical as this: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God who delivered the children of Israel out of bondage in the land of Egypt – the God of the Covenant is now suddenly expanding God’s divine concern beyond the people of Israel alone. Here, in the conversion of Cornelius and his household, the early Jewish Christians are confronted with the spiritual and cultural reality that God has reconfigured God’s own boundaries; that following Jesus means sharing their God with people who have always been defined by God as living outside of God’s Law; sharing their God with people whom God has always designated as “the Other.”
Anselm of Canterbury was a 12th century theologian who is recognized as the framer of what’s known as the “ontological argument” for the nature of God; “ontological” meaning “having to do with the being of God.” Of God, Anselm said, “God is that than which nothing greater can be thought.”
In other words, if we can think of anything greater than our idea of God, then our idea of God – isn’t God. God is greater than anything we can think about God, greater than anything we even have the capacity to think about God.
On the surface, and until he lays out his defense, it appears that Peter has been the one to change God’s rules; that it has been Peter’s idea to challenge Scripture by reconfiguring the boundaries that define fellowship and acceptance, and then by affirming that acceptance with a shared meal. Certainly that interpretation, that this was all Peter’s idea, would have been far more comfortable for all of us…but that’s not what Peter says happened. It was all God’s idea, Peter says. “If then God gave [Cornelius and his household] the same gift [of the Spirit] that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,” he says, “who was I that I could hinder God?” Who was Peter to stand in the way of the Spirit, and in the way of the freedom of God?
As a result, this challenge for the early Church is a continuing challenge for all believers through the centuries on their way to the New Jerusalem, up to and including today: the challenge for us to acknowledge Anselm’s proposition of the supreme greatness and the supreme freedom of God; and to acknowledge therefore God’s right to reconfigure the boundaries between people; God’s right to change our paradigm as well as Peter’s; God’s right to move our cheese, to color outside the lines that we think are cast in stone; to acknowledge God’s right to change our understanding of who we are and our understanding of who the people around us are; no matter what human governmental authority or our own fears might try to say.
Living with reconfigured boundaries isn’t necessarily a bad thing -- again, no matter what human authority or human fear might say. But even so, as I said previously, reconfiguration is never easy. Just as Cornelius and all the Gentiles who came after him did back in Jerusalem, newcomers will always change a group’s dynamic, change a Church’s dynamic, even a nation’s dynamic, by bringing in people with different lived experiences, different perspectives, and different strengths; experiences, perspectives, and strengths that need to be heard and honored, if the newcomers’ acceptance is to be genuine. And if indeed we wrestle with fear, it might be helpful to remember that math being math, just because one new factor is added into a mix, it doesn’t automatically mean that another factor, already there, is negated or removed. It simply means that the mix becomes richer, more varied, more gifted, more challenging, and more real.
At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Jesus promises to be with the disciples always, telling them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….” (Mt. 28:19a).
Speaking to the Church for all time, Jesus says in John, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
As we encounter the challenges of boundaries in these days, arbitrary and otherwise; as we encounter people who are different from us, who dress differently, eat differently, speak differently, where do we find the common ground to honor and hear their voices and their stories? What can we use as our foundation for building a relationship with them?
One commentator has said, “If love is understood as acting toward one another as God has acted toward the world and as Christ has acted toward his disciples, then love is not simply a feeling.” (Craddock, 253)
Here in the Mystagogia, the Love of God, the Love God has for each one of us in God’s Creation – this is the greatest mystery of all, the greatest truth for us to embrace. Living in this Love, living out of this Love that is not simply a feeling; this is how each of us does our part in bringing God’s vision of a new heaven and a new earth to fulfillment. “The home of God is among mortals,” says the voice from the throne.
When we truly, actively love others as we ourselves are loved; when we turn towards each other, reach out to each other, without anger and without fear, when we speak on behalf of those outside the boundaries and reject those boundaries that are man-made, then, truly, truly, God is in the midst of God’s people.
I was taught in seminary to always start and finish a sermon with my own words. Even so, I would like to finish this sermon by offering the Prayer Book’s Collect for the Whole Human Family (BCP 815):
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
May God bless us, every one!