We remain in on-line only worship until the end of May. Hopefully another month of vaccinations will help create the right conditions where it is time to move to in-person AND on-line worship in June. You can find us Sunday mornings at 10:00 on our You Tube channel.
The Scripture Reading this week is Acts 10:9-16, 34-48.
The Sermon title is Breaking Boundaries
Early Thoughts: Humans, as a species, are good at drawing line. We are really good at determining who is in and who is out, or who is and who is not acceptable/holy/righteous/____________.
To a degree this is helpful. If you are forming a specific community, with specific goals, with a specific identity, it is important to name what marks someone as a member of that community. Where it goes wrong is when that setting the limits of a community is used to pass judgement on others, or when the limits are created specifically to ensure some "undesirable" group or person can not join.
Religious communities are not immune from this tendency. As far back as the Nicene Creed in the 4th century the Christian Church has used statements of faith not only to define what Christian faith is but also to define what is unacceptable within the church. In more modern terms, many a Ministerial Association has written a faith statement within their structure to specifically exclude groups like the Church of Latter-Day Saints or the Jehovah Witnesses. And the reality is that in those discussions the language moves from "this is what we believe" to "we have the truth and those others are heretics" (or pagans or misled or flawed...). When that happens we have a problem.
The Gospel, as I understand it, is not about setting limits and building fences. So from the beginning of the Jesus movement, even before they were called Christians, there has been tension about who belongs. This week's reading from Acts speaks to the first major source of that tension.
The earliest church was, essentially, a Jewish sect. The members were Jewish, they followed Jewish law. But there were increasing numbers of Gentiles, non-Jews, attracted to the community. Did they have to become Jewish to follow Jesus? Did they have to follow Jewish law (circumcision and dietary laws being two key sticking points)?
The book of Acts has a few stories about how the Gospel of Christ breaks down the wall of a Jewish sect. The stories also talk about how previous assumptions about what makes one clean/acceptable/holy and what makes one unclean/unacceptable/profane need to be questioned. From the beginning to follow Jesus means to question and break down boundaries. Following Jesus is about openig ourselves to the wideness of God's grace and love.
Peter's dream helps him come to a new understanding of who belongs on the community. Paul's work around the Eastern end of the Mediterranean will expand the sense of who is part of the community, extending to his letter to the Galatians where he will proclaim that "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
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| I saw this one on Twitter |
Christians communities are still busy setting up fences and defining who is unacceptable. God is still in the business of challenging those fences, sometimes in the business of breaking them down and erasing the lines we draw. We still need to hear the words from Peter's dream: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
What boundaries is God breaking down in our midst? Are we helping in that or are we busy trying to repair the breach?
--Gord
If you take a fence and lay it on its side you have a bridge.
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