The lectionary of readings for today gives us the Gospel lesson in which we read Jesus' words, "Love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another." The reading about loving one another is paired with the account of Cornelius's conversion, which we just heard. What we heard is the second telling of the story. Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, told the story in the preceding chapter of his book. Luke tells the story of Cornelius's vision of someone telling him to send for Peter to come to his house, and Peter's simultaneous vision telling him to go to the house of a Gentile as part of his mission. The reason for re-telling the story is the reaction to the event it describes. When the strict constructionists in the early church heard that Peter had taken the good news of God's affirming love to the Gentiles, they "criticized him." (Criticism in the Church? How quaint!) So, Luke repeats the story as part of Peter's defense of what he did and his explanation of why he did it: God told him to.
It's hard to overstate the importance of this story, especially in a time when much of the Christian church is acting like the "circumcision party" of the early church. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism. Jesus was a Jew; he worshiped in the Temple; and he celebrated the Passover. Much of his ministry as we read about it had to do with seeing God and godliness in a new way. Jesus went out of his way to help spiritually sensitive people understand that adherence to the historic purity code was not what God wanted. In his words and in his actions Jesus taught that God was far more interested in having people treat one another with love and respect than in having them conform to outdated rules and regulations.
Jesus broke the Sabbath observance laws in order to bring about physical and spiritual healing in full knowledge that the Sabbath observance rules were at the heart of Jewish holiness law. He mingled freely with and had dinner with people categorized as outcasts by the religious authorities, in full knowledge that rules about social intermingling and table fellowship were at the heart of the Jewish purity code. Jesus wanted very much, it seems, to move earnest seekers after God away from making narrow distinctions between who is unacceptable to God and who is acceptable to God—in other words, between them and us.
Central to the story we heard from the Book of Acts is the message that God usually surprises us—especially when we try to make God out to be a moral scorekeeper and when we reduce morality to categories that have long since lost their usefulness. Two thousand years ago earnest Jewish seekers after God believed Scripture clearly taught that non-Jews or Gentiles were unclean and should be avoided at all costs. Judaism has evolved since then and so has much of Christianity.
But many Christians still read Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, as though its teaching can be understood apart from the time in which it was written, apart from new understanding about the riskiness of eating pork, the equality of men and women, the indignity of slavery, and the nature of human sexuality, to mention just a few topics. In the story from the Book of Acts the pivotal factor in determining God's approval was the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Peter said, "If then God gave them the same gift that God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I should hinder Christ?"
God surprised Peter. Peter knew the Jewish dietary laws spelled out in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus. What was in the sheet let down from heaven and what Peter was told to kill and eat was not in the category of acceptable or clean. Peter protested. But God said, "Don't call unclean what God has made clean." God had updated the concept of clean. The story in Acts reminds us that God often surprises us and challenges us to update our ways of seeing holiness, morality, and godliness.
A little over a week ago I attended a party some long-time friends of mine gave for themselves to celebrate his seventieth and her sixty-fifth birthday. He is of Russian descent and she of Swedish origin. They are staunch Lutherans—both retired educators. Their younger daughter married a man who is the headmaster of a private Lutheran high school in Cleveland. Their elder daughter married a man who is from the Middle East and is a Muslim. He and his wife have been guests in our home, and he and I exchanged a great hug at the party.
A woman sitting near me last week said, "Getting to know Rommy has forced me to re-think my attitude toward Muslims. He's one of the kindest young men I know, and he's a devoted father." We both acknowledged that it's so easy to make generalizations. But God keeps surprising us.
That experience and the story in Acts remind us that the process of understanding God's surprises is rarely easy or quick. We live in a society that values instant gratification and decisiveness. But the process of spiritual discernment is often gradual, sometimes painfully slow. We have made progress in some parts of the church on issues such as racial equality and gender equality. But we still have a way to go. A few parts of the Christian church have even made progress in the area of the full inclusion of lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/and transgendered people—one or two denominations, several presbyteries, and even more congregations. But we still have a long way to go.
The Book of Acts helps me to be hopeful. God's will is full justice for everyone, and God is persistent. Amazing things happen with the passage of time.
A few weeks ago a major southern seminary with a long Presbyterian history announced its choice of a new president. The seminary has a hyphenated name and it is located in Richmond, Virginia: Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education. The president elect is Dr. Brian K. Blount, a professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary. He was raised a Baptist and became a Presbyterian in 1982. He is an African-American.
Dr. Blount has been invited to become the president of a seminary where a hundred and fifty years ago a faculty member published a book that offered "an extended biblical and common sense defense of the institution of slavery." When making the announcement of Blount's appointment, a trustee said, "As we gather on this glorious day...we gather in humility and confession for the damage done to countless people by the dead-sure Southern theology emanating from our school's past....We gather today in great joy and celebration that this distant descendent of a Southern slave family has been called by the will of God to serve as president of our beloved school."
Advocates and workers for full racial justice are rejoicing in Brian Blount's becoming the president of a major Southern seminary in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). And I am rejoicing because my friend Brian Blount is fully committed to the ordination of qualified LGBT people as deacons, elders, and ministers in the Presbyterian Church. He will be in a position to help bring about change in a region that has long resisted removing exclusionary language from our Book of Order. God works in mysterious ways, but God keeps on working.
The same God who changed Peter's reluctance to include Gentiles in the Christian church two thousand years ago, who changed the church's stance on slavery and the ordination of women, will also bring about the full inclusion of LGBT people in the life and ministry of the church. Churches like Rutgers are a preview of things to come. Who are human beings to resist the ways of God?
The story of Peter and Cornelius has a clear connection with the Christian church's current struggle with the issue of human sexuality. It also raises the question for all Christians, What are my blind spots? What are yours?