Christian authenticity – what
distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian – this is a huge topic. For me, whose or what table I could or could not
eat at was a major faith question back in my university days, back in the ‘80’s. I grew up mostly in and around the
Presbyterian Church with a few diversions here and there among the
Baptists. I grew up believing that being
a down-to-earth good person and a faithful member of the church seemed to be
what it was all about. Christian faith
was broadly assumed of everybody. If you
were American, you were Christian; just ask Ronald Reagan.
Back in the early 80’s TV ministries
and ministers started gaining importance.
They began to cobble a common definition of Christian
authenticity. They leaned heavily on
folks like Jerry Falwell and his political group, the Moral Majority. They were anti-Secular Humanism,
anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, anti-liberal, anti-tobacco and alcohol,
anti-pornography, anti-Hollywood, and pro-Christian schools having the right to
be racially segregated. I thought they
were a bunch of prudes. Regardless, that
“faith-based” political organization did more than any other to define the
behavioural boundaries of something called Evangelical Christianity. If you did not act according to their list of
anti’s and pro’s, you were not a true Bible-believing Christian. Unfortunately, it's by this list of anti's and pro's that non-Christian media still defines what it is to be a Christian giving us a bit of a PR problem.
When I was 19 (1985) I had some
profound life and faith experiences that led me back to church. I began to feel the presence of the Lord at
church, the Holy Spirit. I began to
sense a call to the ministry. I started
going to a Nazarene church and to a Mennonite University because my girlfriend
had convinced me that Presbyterians were “spiritually dead.” Both that Nazarene church and the university
fell within the bounds vocalized by Falwell’s group and other Evangelicals like
them. But to their credit, the
Mennonites had a much more profound understanding of social justice and
cultural differences and toleration.
Regardless, I became one of them Evangelicals. I bought into their list of anti’s and pro’s and
likewise passed judgement on those who didn’t act accordingly.
Well, time went on and I found that
the solid Bible education that I was receiving from the Mennonites was making me
suspect at the Nazarene church for the simple fact that I was receiving a
Biblical education in something called a Liberal Arts university. I became disillusioned with that church and
returned to my Presbyterian roots and then went on to seminary where a good
dose of Reformed Theology and an appreciation for an educated faith and for
studying the Bible in its original languages has set me down a less judgemental
path.
I have found that what distinguishes a
person to be a Christian is not a list of anti’s and pro’s, but what God has
down in, through, and as Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to save
his creation from sin and death and restore his image in humanity. The boundaries around the people of God are
defined by what God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit does
in and through his people, not by our accordance with lists of what we believe
to be right and wrong in the eyes of God even if we have derived that list from
Scripture.
Our passage from Acts this morning
reflects the early church’s struggle with this issue. Circumcision was a focal point. There were those who believed that a true
Christian was one who upheld the Law of Moses to the full extent of males being
circumcised as God commanded to Abraham.
Circumcision was required of all Jewish males whether they were born
Jewish or converted to the faith. It
distinguished them as true Jews.
Cornelius, the Gentile concerned
here, was a “God-fearer”. This was a
Gentile who believed that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the one true
God. He observed the Jewish faith, but
wouldn’t get circumcised. For this, even
though lived as a faithful Jew, he was ostracized from Jewish community. He could not have table-fellowship with Jews even
though he observed their ways.
Circumcision would have remedied that.
Our passage begins with stating that
the Apostles and brothers in Judea had heard that the Gentiles had received the
Word of the Lord meaning they had had the Gospel proclaimed to them and were
believing it. There were those who said
circumcision needed to be observed who began to dispute with Peter about the
authenticity of this. They wanted to
know in the first place why he was even having table-fellowship with these
“God-fearers”. No matter what these “uncircumcised”
men believed about the God of the Jews if they would not get circumcised, they
still were not one of God’s people and therefore Peter should not have gone to
eat with them in the first place. So
also, if they were not going to get circumcised they really hadn’t received the
word of the Lord. So with that doubt in
mind, they challenged Peter, “Why did you go to ‘uncircumcised’ men to eat with
them?”
It hasn’t been too long ago in the
Southern U.S. that many white Christian ministers were asked a very similar
question by their churches and governing bodies as to why they were befriending
leaders in the black churches. Many
church leaders today face the same sort of judgement for befriending Gay church
leaders and gay friendly churches.
Well, Peter gave his account of how it
all happened. He had a vision in which
three times the same thing happened. A
voice from heaven asked him to do something for which he had a “faith-based”
repulsion. He refused to do it, but then
the voice said to him “What God has made clean, you must not call
profane.” What God himself has made
worthy of being in his presence and serving him we must not judge to be vile
and unworthy.
Immediately after the three visions
three men from that wayward port city of Caesarea show up and the Holy Spirit tells
Peter to go with them and make no discriminations. He went and when he arrived he shared the
vision and then began to proclaim the Gospel.
While he was preaching the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and his
household just as he had done on the day of Pentecost with the Apostles. Peter baptized them.
Peter, closes his defense with a very
humble observation, “If then God gave them the same gift
that he gave us faithful ones in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could
hinder God?”
Now here comes your Greek lesson for
the day. Making a judgement about
another person is a key idea floating around in this passage. First, the circumcised believers sit in
judgement of Peter and his actions.
Second, the Holy Spirit tells Peter not to discriminate, not to pass a
judgement on those he was going to meet with.
The Greek word there isn’t the word that
is simply the equivalent for our verb “to judge”. In the case of the circumcised believers, it
wasn’t simply that they were criticizing him.
It was they were contending with him on the basis of doubt. We translate the same word as doubt when
Jesus says “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this
mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in
your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done
for you. So I tell you,
whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will
be yours.” It is looking at the things
that God does or makes possible for us to do as being impossible on the basis
of a limited interpretation of Scripture. That is the judgement
they are making
These “circumcisers” doubted that
this wonderful new thing that God had done for the Gentiles could be truly of
God because it didn’t happen according to their understanding of rules of Scripture. They would have thought that Cornelius and
his people should have been circumcised before Peter ever talked with them and
they certainly should have gotten circumcised once the received the
Spirit. They doubted that God could do
this new thing outside what they believed to be the boundaries of the people of
God. And so, they criticized, contended
with, judged Peter for his actions.
Peter, on the other hand, did not
doubt this new thing that God was doing and kept an open mind. Yes, God had told Abraham to circumcise, but
he also had spoken through the prophets that the day would come when he would
welcome all peoples to be his people not just the children of Abraham.
It is amazing to see what happens in
the end here. The judges became silent.
They were not “shut up” because Peter made such a strong case. They were prayerfully quiet. They came to see that God had done this and
were awed. So, they praised God for God
truly had welcomed the “uncircumcised” into his people.
The moral of this story is that we
need to be careful whom we judge and for what.
We have to be careful that our judging isn’t really simply our doubting
that God can, will, and does act in the lives of people today, here and
now. The tendency of the “circumcisers”
is to mire down the new life-giving, resurrection power of God being with us in
the Holy Spirit in a murky bog of religious rules. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Law
for us, for all people, and yet he left us with one commandment, that we love
one another as he has loved us. Jesus
touched and healed the unclean. Peter
did the same and found himself eating with “those” people and “those” people
were included by God himself into “God’s” people. Indeed, the Holy Spirit fell on them before
they could even profess faith in Jesus. Awesome.
Amen.
