PostScript: Even to the Gentiles - the same gift
The good news leads to life (Acts 11.1-18)
Peter gives us a glimpse of a world in which the news of the resurrection counters human categories of clean and unclean, accepted and excluded, or insider and outsider. Acts 11.1-18 underscores that the good news of Jesus Christ leads to life and the power of God’s love and purpose breaking through restrictive social protocols creates something new. No one is unacceptable to God.
This week's news
While the barriers we construct cannot stand in the way of God’s expansive love, much of the news around us suggests that we continue to display restrictive and life-negating habits through lies, prejudices, bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, acts of terror, divisive politics, economic policies, and the scandalous disparities of wealth. These habits, contrary to what God in Christ intends, only serve to contribute to the further corrosion of our life together. The Christian faith insists that the way of God in Christ is an open embrace of goodness and grace, reaching out to include all who have been excluded.
Reflection
God’s new way
What does resurrection mean in the face of bombings, massacres, terrorism, bankruptcy, racism, and economic policies that favour the privileged? The resurrection has consequences. Our churches are to be communities that demonstrate and live out what resurrection looks like. Can we stop thinking of each other primarily in categories of 'in or out', 'pure and impure', 'saved or not', 'believer or nonbeliever'? God is making all things new!
A gospel that lives on the edge
Are we able to see why the earliest gospel movement is one that could live on the edge? Yes, it took seriously the principle of inclusion at the heart of God's heart and applied it to people who were excluded from the Covenant community. Peter was originally locked in his religious world of the ‘ordering' of salvation, but the Spirit was way ahead of his restrictive view, drawing him out to walk the edge, rather than waiting on him to finish his sermon. Here is an invitation for us to ‘live on the edge' by seriously asking how and whom we exclude and who are the ones we need to include.
The Spirit told me and who am I to hinder God?
Peter's vision is more than about food. It is about his relationship with the ‘outsiders' to whom God’s love and offer of full life is also extended. And, the only power that can transform deeply ingrained prejudices that interfere with faith and faithfulness is the power of God's Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit prepared the hearts of Peter, the Gentiles, and his protagonists.
God who gives with open arms
It is a question of power, and the power belongs to God. God has decided to give the gift of faith and the repentance that leads to life that accompanies it. How have I distorted the self-sacrificing, inclusive love of God into self-serving, exclusionary elitism? What boundaries do I wrongly build or might I bravely shatter? How do we follow and model community-shaped habits of compassion, hospitality and inclusion?
Why do you go to them?
Our continuing Easter journey of new life is a call to embrace the inclusive nature of the gospel message. This will always be a costly undertaking. It was not easy for the friends and followers of Jesus even though they were very close to him. And the Early Church found it challenging to move from a Jewish culture to acceptance of Gentiles into their family of faith. What to do with and how to respond to those who are different from us (believers in Jesus Christ or not) remains a challenge for all of us.
Prayer
You may wish to include the following as a prayer of approach or a collect
God-who-disrupts-our-neat-boundaries,
you whose truth is larger than we are,
by your presence and through your Spirit
enlarge our minds and hearts so that we may seek truth,
catch a glimpse of truth, hear truth, learn truth, tell truth, live truth –
your truth of the way of full life for all.
In Christ’s name we pray.
Amen.
Questions
- Who are the groups of people we are tempted to exclude as ‘impure’ and ‘outsiders'?
- Consider and reflect upon a contemporary version of Peter's encounter with Cornelius?
Action
- As you gather for worship look around your church and note all of God’s people present. Consider whether your congregation reflects the diversity of your neighbourhood? What are the barriers and hurdles to overcome? Have you allowed God to open your heart to embrace and welcome all who come to join you in worship?
- Reflect on the following news items and what they say (or not) about inclusion and exclusion: the top five happiest parts of the UK; the UK Peace Index; illegal school exclusions.
- Peter is an Easter person who met new people and ate new foods to share God’s love with people. Consider some of the ways you can do likewise?
Michael Jagessar, a minister of the United Reformed Church, is currently secretary for racial justice and multicultural ministry and is moderator of the General Assembly (2012-2014) of the United Reformed Church.
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