Cure for Picky Eaters

Last weekend the Middle School Youth group and their adult sponsors camped out at Gennie Springs. As they say, "A good time was had by all," but the weekend was not without its trials and tribulations. It seems our church group was surrounded by campers whose idea of a good time was to drink excessive quantities of cheap beer, shout obscenities at the top of their lungs, and stay up past three in the morning, competing for the title "Most Obnoxious Neighbor of 2007"

Our youth, on the other hand, were models of Christian propriety. Simply by speaking to one another courteously, helping with camp chores, and praying over their common meals, they made an impression on their pierced and tattooed neighbors. Before the weekend was up, they were known simply as "The Christians." Apparently, at Gennie Springs these days, "Christians" are an endangered species.

As Christy Williams was reporting on the weekend to the Session last Monday night, I couldn’t help thinking of the words of Jesus at the supper in the upper room, quoted every Maundy Thursday, and again in today’s Gospel reading. After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus gave them a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

An elder suggested to Christy that, given the clientele at Gennie Springs, the youth could keep going every Spring, as they have for the past 17 years, not so much for fun and fellowship but as a form of evangelism. Christy said something about "wild horses" and "over my dead body." I got the impression the youth will camp somewhere else next Spring.

"Love one another as I have loved you." Read the wrong way, that mandatum novum, that "new commandment" of Jesus to his disciples, sounds far too chummy and exclusive. Love another and to heck with everyone else. Certainly, the way some churches behave, you couldn’t blame outsiders for thinking that the church is some kind of private club with extremely arbitrary admission requirements.

Just last week I was reminded of an incident that took place years ago. A man who owned a downtown restaurant died very suddenly. He was not a member of any church, and neither was his wife. She called several churches looking for a venue and someone who might preside at her husband’s funeral. The churches she reached wouldn’t give her the time of day. At least one told her that if she wasn’t a member, the pastor wouldn’t even talk to her. "I’ll try one last church," she decided. "The one on the corner of Park and Adams."

I remember that funeral well. I was worried that the guitar amplifiers plugged into the single socket in the pulpit might trip the circuit breaker. The music was by J. B. – not Johann Bach; Jimmy Buffett. Not what you would call high liturgy, but at least we gave the folks who loved that man and were grieving his loss a place to gather together and say so.

In the course of that service I got to bear witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ, the hope of the resurrection to eternal life, and the good news of the Gospel. So far as I know, the church didn’t gain a single convert that day, but I’m pretty sure we did a better job of following Jesus than the disciples who told that widow, "If you don’t belong already, our doors are closed to you."

The love Jesus mandated for his disciples was not exclusively for them. He showed that same love for the world a few hours later, when he spread his arms upon the cross and was lifted up for all the world to see. "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself," he had said (John 12:32). His "new commandment" to his disciples was not to love another to the exclusion of the world, but to love one another with the love he showed for the world. When people see kind of love in us, they’ll know whose disciples we are.

Christ’s love forms the church, the beloved community. The question of who gets to hear the good news and be joined to the beloved community came up very early in the church’s life. Things came to a head when Peter was called on the carpet for baptizing non-Jews. He was over on the Mediterranean coast, rubbing elbows with folks who’d never set foot in a synagogue, when he got the summons. "Come back to Jerusalem headquarters immediately. You’re in a heap of trouble."

Our passage from Acts is more or less a transcript of the trial before the Christian Council in Jerusalem. Peter testifies that what got him into trouble was a vision of (Are you ready for this?) a church picnic. He was on the roof (that is to say, the top floor) of a house in Joppa, praying (and, I suspect, dozing) when he had a vision of a red-and-white checkered table cloth being lowered down from heaven. On it were the usual goodies enjoyed by Jewish Christians – lox, bagels, gefilte fish, chicken soup, but also several dishes that Jews weren’t allowed to eat: pulled pork barbeque, collard greens cooked with bacon grease, crawfish étouffée, and even some fried rattlesnake (which everybody says tastes like chicken).

"What are you waiting for, Rocky?" the voice from heaven says to Peter. "Dig in!"

"Lord," says Peter, "You know I can’t eat this stuff. I’ve kept kosher all my life."

"Well," the voice says. "You’re in Easter country now. The rules are different here." (To be precise, the voice says, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane," but you get the idea. Following Jesus and loving one another as Jesus loved his disciples was getting a lot more interesting for Peter, that good Jewish boy from Galilee.

The next day who should show up but a delegation from Caesarea (not Caesarea Philippi up in Galilee near Mt. Hermon, but Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast not far from Joppa)? When Peter came to the door, he figured they were Gentile encyclopedia salesmen. "No," they said, "The Spirit sent us here. We’re supposed to fetch home somebody named Simon Peter who has some kind of good news for us."

So Peter and six other brothers followed the delegation to Caesarea, where they encountered a group of Gentiles jumping around, speaking in tongues, praising the Lord right and left – as though they had all grown up in the Blountstown Assembly of God.

"Now what?" thought Peter. "First I dream of eating pickled pig’s feet and the next thing I know I’m back in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. Only this isn’t Jerusalem; it’s Caesarea. Either I’m dreaming again, or the Holy Spirit is getting way too creative."

He was right the second time. "Just then," Peter tells the Council, "I remembered how Jesus told us, way back when we joined up, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So I figured, if God gave these Gentiles the same gift that God gave us Jews when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?"

It was a shame for the Jerusalem Council that Peter had to put it that way. It’s so hard to stick to the Book of Order when people invoke the Holy Spirit.

The Council members had their fingers in their Rules of Discipline, ready to quote D-0807, Paragraph C, subsection Q: "Evangelists will preach only to the Chosen Few and will refrain from eating hog jowls, chitterlings, and shrimp gumbo, no matter how strong the temptation."

And of course Amendment B in the Form of Government: "Presbyters shall on no account extend the grace of baptism to self-affirming, practicing Gentiles."

Yep, they were ready to lower the boom on Peter, to kick him out of the club, to rip of his epaulets, break his sword, and send him out of the fort branded as a traitor to the cause, when he comes up with this strange story about the Holy Spirit working outside the church, almost in spite of the church – of the Spirit of God going ahead of the church, showing the church were to go next.

What could Peter’s critics do? Suppose his story were true. If the Council took away Peter’s commission, they’d be opposing the very Spirit of God. "When they heard this, they were silenced," Luke says. Then, after a very long and pregnant pause, somebody started singing the Doxology, followed by "Bless be the Tie," and the trial was suddenly over.

Luke doesn’t say that next they all went out for sausage pizza. Treasured traditions, such as keeping kosher, die hard. The Council later came up with a compromise that wouldn’t cause riots at covered dish suppers.

Still, that hearing in Jerusalem marked a turning point in the life of the church. From that point on there was no going back to "being church" in the old way. No more assumptions that the gospel is for Jews only. No more evangelistic apartheid. No more hording God’s love, as though there were not enough to go around.

Ever since, the Spirit has been dragging the church out of itself, constantly undermining the restrictive impulse, the impulse to circle the wagons, to man the guard towers, to protect the body of Christ from those nasty infections outsiders might introduce.

Every time we think we know what the church should look like, the Spirit blows in a new direction. To be the body of Christ is to be constantly in the process of repentance and reformation.

You could say that being faithful to Jesus command to love another with the love he shows the world is like being at a covered dish picnic like the one we’re about to enjoy. You’re making your way down the serving table and you see something familiar. Ooh, that looks good! You put some on your plate.

You look for the deviled eggs. Too late! They’re all gone.

You come to the next dish. What in the world is that? I never saw that before! A voice sounds in your ear, the same voice Peter heard in Joppa. "Try it! You’ll like it!"

The time has come for the church to expand its palate. As Peter says, speaking with his mouth full, "Who are we to hinder God?