Sermon May 6, 2007

Easter 5, Year C

Today's readings lie at the heart of our identity as Christians, and they reflect some of the struggles that, even 2,000 years later, continue to vex our faith. They are, therefore, vital to us, not just as Christians, or as Episcopalians, but as brothers and sisters of this particular community of faith here on south Whidbey Island.

In our first reading Luke - in his story of the spread of a Pentecost-driven faith - allows us a glimpse into a community struggling with how to implement Jesus' great, new commandment, as reported in John's gospel, "that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

In the Acts passage we have Peter sharing his great realization - no doubt stunning to his fellow Jewish Christians - that God had spoken to him in a vision that the Jewish purity code no longer mattered. That's the meaning of the lowered sheet. Its power lay in its symbolism - it said that the Jewish way of being Christian was no longer relevant.

"The Jewish way?" you ask!? That communal struggle I just mentioned in the post-Pentecost Church was between two groups:

• those who saw themselves as Jews continuing to be Jewish - like Peter - who, believing Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah, wanted to retain all the purity practices of Judaism, including the food codes and, particularly the requirement for male circumcision; and,
• those who either abandoned their Jewish identity - like Paul - or who were not Jewish in the first place and who thus believed Jesus was calling them to abandon the purity code in favor of a compassion code. Luke - the writer of the Acts of the Apostles - quotes Jesus introducing this Compassion Code in chapter 6 of his Gospel: "Be compassionate, as your heavenly father is compassionate", replacing Leviticus' Holiness code: "Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy" on which the Purity code was based.

This division was formally established at the Council of Jerusalem that met sometime in the early '50's A.D - both Paul and Luke mention it (Acts 15) - and it set the pattern for the next 25 years of early Church history.

It was a huge 'bust-up'! And Peter provides the shocking consequence here where he abandons the Purist camp, telling them essentially that Paul is right, that God does not discriminate, that purity codes are destructive, and that it is only by embracing the fullness of God's creation that we can truly enter into that place of God's good intent for all of us as creatures of the Creator.

Notice what the Jewish Christians say, though, in response to Peter's vision: "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."

They don't get it! They think this will allow Gentile Christians to join them, not - as the vision clearly states - that they should abandon the Purity Code that they were living by and embrace the Compassion Code!

This is a struggle in Christianity - perhaps in all of human existence - that gets replayed again and again.

• You can see it at the Synod of Whitby in 664 A.D.
• You can see it in the 16th Century Reformation - most particularly between Luther and Calvin.
• In England you can see it between the 17th Century heirs of Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker on the one side, and the Puritans on the other.
• You can see it in 19th Century's struggle between the largely evangelical Church of England and the High Church Tractarians.
• You can see it today within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

And we will continue to see this same struggle. What does it mean to love your neighbor as God and yourself? What does it mean - in the words of today's gospel - to "love one another"?

Within 25 years the Purists had disappeared from the early Church. There is no Jewish Christianity nor any record of it, by the time the century turned.

And the history of our tradition is, at least, that while Puritanism continues in its many forms to reappear it also continues - ultimately - to be rejected by Christians of good will, who recognize, I believe, that faith should be all about proclaiming what we believe but never demanding that others abandon their beliefs so that we can feel better about ourselves and our beliefs.

So how do we continually reject Christian Puritanism - what is it that keeps us holding to a different perspective?

I believe if we look at Jesus' words in today's gospel we can come close to an answer. Our love, Jesus says, is predicated on "Just as I have loved you".

So what are the qualities and characteristics of Jesus' love? That's the clue for us.

• Most obviously, it was other-centered. It was never about Jesus, always about others.
• It was predicated on a compassion that didn't say "I feel your pain" but rather "I will walk beside you in your pain and support you". We recognize that journey - it leads to a cross.
• And that love was expressed only in the context of community.
• It was never judgmental. "You may convict yourselves," Jesus always said, "but I will never convict you".

There are many markers of this way of loving but I want to mention just a few that I believe are relevant to our own community here on South Whidbey Island, because I believe they are, for us, particularly important to our common life.

1. I believe that if we are to love as Jesus loves we are called to be a community of healing. Of course, its easy to think of healing in a medical context but I don't mean that definition of healing, which is largely a secular one. Christian healing is much more: Christian healing is about seeking harmony, seeking balance. Jesus' vision was of wholeness - of a spiritual, mental, physical, and relational harmony and balance that is transforming. It's a balance and harmony to which all Christianity aspires on some level.
2. And if we are to love as Jesus loves then we are also called to be a community of hospitality. Jesus never turned down an invitation to any party, and - if John is to be believed - he had a habit of making the parties (or weddings) he attended much better - bring on the best wine! Hospitality was a high value for him, an expression of what he believed to be central to faith, namely community.
   
   And look at the nature of that community. Jesus never excluded anyone from his own celebrations! You can see in the Gospels how angry this made the Purists, who believed that the impure should always be excluded. In other words,
3. if we are to love as Jesus loves then just as Jesus promoted diversity so must we - which means not just ethnic diversity but in all the possible ways we can be diverse. That means political diversity, gender diversity, a diversity of sexual orientation, it means welcoming the unwelcome, embracing the rejected. As one theologian has said: "A Christian practice of diversity is the....active construction of a boundary-crossing community, a family bound not by blood but by love, that witnesses to the power of God's healing in the world" (Diana Butler Bass "Christianity for the rest of us"p.148)
4. And if we are to love as Jesus loves then we are also called to be a community of Justice. Our baptismal covenant calls us to stand against injustice, to be a community of reconciliation. When we use that word "justice" we have to be careful - justice in 2007 is primarily, we think, about law courts. The justice of Jesus is about fairness, about standing up for the downtrodden, about care of the widow and orphan, it's way more than a political thing. Rather, justice is about 'engaging the powers" "transforming the 'inner spirit' of all systems of injustice, violence, and exclusion" (ibid. p.161).
5. And, lastly, if we are to love as Jesus loves then we must be a community of theological reflection and contemplation. To turn away from the struggles promoted by a Purist agenda, to refuse to engage the difficult questions of faith, to settle into the familiar patterns that, in their lack of challenge, will lead to spiritual death - all of these things are the byproducts of a community that has failed to engage its faith with generous intention and vigor.

This means being biblically literate, not biblically literal. It means engaging our faith and our tradition with openness, with a willingness to see in old things the new possibilities being ushered in by God's redeeming grace.

This is what we are to do: we are to love as Jesus loves, which, I hope you all now realize, is a great deal more than a mushy feeling for another, but is the active sharing of God's grace and compassion with each other and with our world.
       May we be willing to make this journey, together.       Amen.