The lesson from Acts talks about: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." (Acts 11:15). I was particularly interested in the fact that this lesson had to be taught to Peter who had to confront what made him the most uncomfortable. After all, he had been taught by a tradition to regard certain four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles and birds of the air as unclean. God makes use of Peter's turmoil and turns it into a moment of conversion. Peter is given a new vision and understanding of people who he once would have distanced himself from. God however, was calling Peter to a new understanding of other people, and he was challenged to over come his taught behavior and reach out his hand so that others would receive God's Holy Spirit and know the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.
This is such a powerful illustration of where the Church and the United States seems to be. This past week, we were all challenged by Arizona's new immigration law: "Paper's please." To see this law so carelessly put together and signed as if it was divinely inspired, when it will cause great racial profiling, was heart wrenching. Yet, because of this outrageous use of legislative power, people from all over the country have risen in defense of the immigrant. This is exciting. People in a nation that once would not speak up for African American's rights, now rise up in protest to a draconian anti-immigration law and call for it's repeal and for boycotting businesses in a State that writes and legislates such a law. Yet, the reality is that America is still a Country that is far from racial and ethnic divisions and prejudices. Many people still need to see that with in every immigrant who crosses our borders is a person created in the image and likeness of God, and loved by God. So, as Americans who have been blessed with such abundance, do we have any right to keep people from finding new and better ways of living, just because we have become such a selfish people?
The message of Acts and Jesus' command to love one another as he has loved us in John's Gospel is a message of inclusive love. Inclusive love means just that, it includes everyone. This is a very difficult message for most of us. All of us have someone that we just cannot stand as soon as they walk in the door. There is someone who is just a loud mouth, or a weepy guilt trip that just drives us crazy. Yet within the household of Faith there are all kinds of people, from all walks of life. The Church in the 21st Century still struggles with the place of women as ordained Priests or Bishops. The Church in 2010 still has people who want lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals to be excluded from receiving Communion, being ordained as Deacons, Priests or Bishops, or from participating in the rite of Marriage. The Church in the 21st Century still behaves like Peter in the early Church. There are many in the Church who look upon women as being less than men, or LGBT people as being so different that the Church has no place or ministry for them, or to which they should participate.
The trouble with this logic is that these attitudes do not reflect the kind of love that Christ commands us to have for each other. Jesus' command to love one another as he has loved us, comes as Jesus is about to leave his disciples. As Canon Richard Norman said during his well given sermon at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral this morning, the Church is again preparing to remember Jesus leaving us on Ascension Thursday, which is May 13th. So, before Jesus leaves his disciples and us as this Easter Season draws to it's close, Jesus reminds us of his final and most important commandment. "Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples." (John 13: 34-35)
Jesus has loved us all as God's beloved children, with whom God is well-pleased. Jesus gave his life, because he regarded each of us as being very important to God. We really do not have any business as Christians determining that any one person has no place at God's Holy Table to receive God's Presence in Holy Communion. We also have no right to say that because someone is female, African American, Native-American, Asian or any other nationality, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered, divorced, old, challenged means that they have no place in the ministry of the Church. God loved all of us to the point that even the life of God's only Begotten Son was not too much to give up in his passion and death. God overlooked all that was not so correct in each of us, and chose to love us all unconditionally and all-inclusively. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, room has been made at God's Table for everyone. A place to serve and be counted as servants of God has been made for everyone, because of how much Jesus Christ loved us. Why are we making it so difficult for others to know that Christ loves them through us? Why are we making distinctions about loving others as God loves us?
The best news on this Fifth Sunday of Easter is that Jesus loves us in spite of the fact that we fail. God still loves us and offers us God's Presence in the Eucharist to help us to grow in our vocation of loving others as Christ has loved us. God's love does not stop because we struggle to follow Jesus' command. In fact, God is closest to us, because we need God to help us to be more loving, giving and receptive to other people. Today in "Speaking to the Soul" Vicki Black wrote:
Christ commands us to love as he did, putting neither reputation, wealth or anything else before love of our brothers and sisters. If need be, we even need to be prepared to face death for our neighbor’s salvation as our Savior’s blessed disciples did, as well as those who followed in their footsteps. To them the salvation of others mattered more than their own lives, and they were ready to do anything or to suffer anything to save souls that were perishing.
From Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb, John 11-21, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2007).
Let us rejoice in the knowledge that in Jesus, God loves us all, and challenges us to love each other. Let us never stop accepting God's love and challenge to love others.
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps int eh way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Book of Common Prayer, Page 225).
O God, who created all peoples in your image, we thank you for the wonderful diversity of races, cultures *and sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions in this world. Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Prayer for the Diversity and Cultures, *sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions added by the author of this blog, Book of Common Prayer, Page 840).
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