Jerusalem. News came to the apostles and the members of the church in Judea. The Gentiles, too, had accepted the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were of Jewish birth raised the question with him. You have been visiting people who are uncircumcised, they said, and sitting at table with them. Peter began by laying before them the facts as they had happened. He said, I was in the city of Joppa at prayer, and while in a trance I had a vision. A thing was coming down that looked like a great sheet of sail, cloth slung by the four corners and lowered from the sky till it reached me. I looked intently to make out what was in it, and I saw four footed creatures of the earth. Wild beasts and things that crawl or fly. Then I heard a voice saying to me, rise, Peter, slaughter, and eat. But I said, no, Lord, no, nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth. A voice from heaven answered a second time. It is not for you to call profane what God counts clean. This happened three times, and then they were all drawn up again into the sky. At that moment, three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where I was staying, and the spirit told me to go with them. My six companions here came with me, and we went into the house. Cornelius told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said, Send to Joppa for Simon, also called Peter. He will speak words that will bring salvation to you and to all your household. Hardly had I begun speaking when the Holy Spirit came upon them, just as upon us at the beginning. Then I recalled what the Lord had said. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. God gave them no less a gift than God gave us. When we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then how could I possibly stand in God's way? Now, when the Jewish Christians heard this, their doubts were silenced and they gave praise to God. And they said, this means that God has granted life giving repentance to the Gentiles also. It's hard for us to imagine what the truth of the matter is, and that is that Jesus was a Jew and Jewish lived. Jesus lived a Jewish lifestyle. One reason it's hard for us to imagine that, or to identify with that, is because we are followers of Jesus, and somehow we get things reversed in our mind, and we tend to think that Jesus should be like we are. And if we're not observing a Jewish lifestyle that somehow we forget that Jesus lived a Jewish lifestyle. Jesus spoke Aramaic at the age of eight days. He was ritually circumcised. He grew up attending synagogue. He observed a Jewish calendar and all of the Jewish feasts and festivals Passover, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Booths, and throughout his entire life. So far as we can tell from Scripture, he also seems to have kept the kosher table, at least as you heard in the Scripture lesson this morning. Peter, who was with Jesus all the time, said, I've never eaten anything that wasn't kosher. Jesus lived a Jewish lifestyle. And yet we are Gentiles and we do not live that lifestyle. We are followers of Jesus, but not in that way. Now Jews and Gentiles. In Jesus day in Galilee, where Jesus grew up, and in Galilee, where Jesus ministered, there were about 50% Jews and about 50% Gentiles. They lived there. They co-existed, but they were sort of like oil and water. They didn't really mix. They touched at the margins. They didn't really mix. They spoke different languages. So it was hard to speak to each other. They had different dietary customs, and so they didn't eat with each other. They observe different calendars, so they weren't on the same cultural rhythm in just about every way. These two people existed practically next to each other, but never had anything to do with each other from a Jewish perspective. They considered their life to be the life that God had ordained for humankind, that to be Jewish was to live a holy life, and to be Gentile was to live an unholy life, a life that was profane. Every once in a while, a Jewish youth would be attracted to a Gentile lifestyle and would leave the Jewish way of life and become a Gentile. And if and when that happened, it was an occasion for great sorrow in the Jewish household. Indeed, they might even conduct a funeral service, recognizing that the person had died culturally and spiritually, if not physically. And the Jews had a word for the Gentiles and for their culture. And when they use the word, it was oftentimes with a kind of a tone of harshness and an edge of hatred and bitterness, and the word that they use to describe the Gentiles and to describe that culture was the word goy. How Jesus was Jewish. If you read the Gospels, you don't see him encountering many Gentiles at all. As I said, Jews and Gentiles really didn't mix very much. But we do notice that when a Gentile came into the orbit of Jesus, he treated them with dignity and with openness, and he related to them. And some became his followers. Jesus died, and at the time of Jesus death, the overwhelming majority of his followers were Jewish. Jewish Christians and certain decisions had to be made in the life of that early community as to how they would structure themselves, how they would organize themselves, what kind of lifestyle they would live, what would be the requirements for membership in the community of Christ? Now, as I said, the overwhelming majority of these first Christians were Jewish, and although Jesus himself seems to have been open to Gentiles who came to him, the Jewish Christians tended to think like Jews in that they believed that to become a follower of Jesus, one should adopt a Jewish lifestyle. One should be circumcised. One should observe the dietary rules of kosher. One should in other ways follow the ritual life of the Jewish people. And so the very first generation of Christians following the death of Jesus really was a Jewish Christian movement. And they insisted that to become a follower who professed faith in Jesus, that you adopt the Jewish lifestyle. Now, if I were to ask how many of you here follow a Jewish lifestyle, may I ask you to raise your hands? How many here follow a Jewish lifestyle? There is one person. So that, as you can see, there is a large majority of you who find yourselves following a Gentile way of life. A way of life. And so, since how many are here, I don't know, 299 of us, or however many of us are here, are following a goy lifestyle. One of the things that occurs to us is what happened. How did it change, if indeed the very first generation of Christians all followed the Jewish way of life? Where was the turning point? Where was the moment when something different happened? Well, it's to be found in the book of the acts of the apostles, and it's to be found in this encounter between Peter and the family of a Roman centurion. The name of the Roman centurion was Cornelius. And in this episode, Peter catches a vision. And the vision is that one can be a follower of Jesus. One can affirm the truth of God's Word in the ministry of Jesus. One can affirm Jesus as sovereign and Savior without also adopting a Jewish lifestyle. Let me tell you the story. The people in the Roman Empire were very, very interested in a change of religion. Most of them were unsatisfied with their old and traditional religion. Most of them were polytheists in tradition. Most of them grew up in a tradition where religious ritual was separated from moral life. And they were looking for something also a religion. Since they were very mobile people, they were looking for religion. If you move from Corinth to North Africa when you got there, you could find your God was still there. And so many of the people in the Roman Empire were attracted to universal religions, religions that preached one God, religions that preached that this was the God of the whole world, religions that saw a connection between your ritual life and your moral life. And one of the most outstanding religions at the time was Judaism, and it was growing by leaps and bounds. And in the early first century, Judaism was mushrooming. And many demographers and historians of the Roman Empire really believed that as many as 10% of the entire Roman Empire was probably Jewish at this time. But if you wanted to become a Jew, you had to adopt the Jewish lifestyle. You had to be circumcised. If you were a male, you had to obey the laws of the diet. You had to follow all of the commandments, ritual as well as morals. And there were a number of people in the Roman Empire who were attracted to monotheism, who were attracted to the moral code of Judaism, but who, for one reason or another, simply couldn't bring themselves to be circumcised, or who couldn't bring themselves through a circumstance or other thing to adopt the dietary rules of the Jewish community. These people were tolerated in the synagogues of Judaism, but as second class citizens. They were a category of person that was called in the Jewish tradition as God. Fairer, a nice term. But what it meant was, you're not exactly one of us. You are indeed a worshiper of the one God, but you aren't fully a Jew. And so there was this fascinating status in the Judaism of the first century world, of a second class citizen called a god, fairer one who is like us in faith in God, but one who does not follow everything about our lifestyle. Now the family of Cornelius was a family of God fairies. That's who they were. Cornelius was stationed in the land of Palestine at the capital of Caesarea. He had his whole household there women, children, men, friends. He was a person of dignity and stature. He was attracted to Judaism, but he was unwilling to be circumcised, and he was unwilling to follow the laws of kosher. But listen to how the book of the acts of the apostles in the 10th chapter describes this man. He was constantly in prayer. The whole family were worshiping God. They were giving gifts and charity all the time. They were filled with a fervor of religion. And one day when Cornelius was in prayer, an angel came to him, and he's a bit startled and frightened, as I think any of us would be. And good news comes to him. He is told that if he will send to another city where there's a holy person by the name of Peter, if he will send and get Peter to come to him, that something fascinating will happen. So he sends off messengers. Now, Peter, at just about the same time. Peter was a man of action, a man of his stomach in many ways. And he's hungry. And it's noontime and the food isn't ready, and people are off busily preparing the food. And while he's waiting hungrily, he has this vision of food as his trance. And from the sky he sees this thing that looks like a sailcloth coming down. The four corners of it are suspended, and in the sail cloth are all of these animals, every kind of animal and bird on the face of the earth, every class, every category of animal right there in that sail cloth. And then he hears a voice from heaven that says to him, Peter, rise, slaughter, and eat. Well, every animal is in that sailcloth, and that includes pigs, that includes shrimp, that includes lobster, all these things that Jews are not able to eat because they are considered to be unclean or ritually defiling. And so Peter is unable to follow that, and he protests to the voice that comes from heaven and says, I have never in my life touched anything that was unclean or profane. And the voice comes from heaven a second time, saying, it is not for you to call profane what God counts clean. A thousand years, the Jewish people have assumed that certain classes and categories of animals were unclean, and a voice from heaven says, it is not for you to call profane what God counts clean. Peter's puzzled, and as he's in the midst of his puzzlement. Messengers come calling him to visit, and Peter clicks. He has had this extraordinary vision. He now has this extraordinary request coming to him. There must be a connection. Something about this dream, something about this vision has something to do with his call to go visit the family of Cornelius. And so he sets out with messengers and goes down the road. Meanwhile, Cornelius has assembled all of the women and the children and the men and the friends of his household, waiting for this holy person to arrive. Peter comes, and when he arrives at the scene, his first words are these. I need not tell you that a Jew is forbidden by religion to visit or associate with a person of another race. Yet God has shown me clearly that I must not call any other person profane or unclean. You see, this is the connection Peter has made with that dream in that sailcloth where all the classes and categories of animals, and what he has done is to learn that the meaning of that dream was that one should not call any class or category of animal or human unclean, that no class or category of human, no class or category of person. Is unclean. And so Peter begins to preach the Word of Jesus Christ as sovereign and Savior. Telling the life. Recounting the death. Bearing witness to the resurrection. And in the midst of that experience, the Holy Spirit comes with a rush upon all of the women and the children and the men, all of them Gentile. All of them go. And Peter has nothing to do but to stand back and game at what is happening. An outpouring of the spirit upon the guy of the world. And Peter baptizes the entire family. But he's in trouble with the Jewish Christian authorities, and he has to go explain himself. And so he is summoned before them, and he tells the whole story as I recounted it to you in the Scripture. And he concludes his narration of what happened. Remember these words? He concludes it by saying, God gave them no less a gift than God gave us when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter stands up and bears testimony, bears witness that he himself has seen the power of the spirit in these lives. And it is no less a gift, no less a gift of the spirit, than the Jewish Christian leaders themselves had received. And when the Jewish Christian leaders hear this, they affirm the truth of what Peter has testified. And they say this means that God has granted life giving repentance to the Gentiles also to all who put trust in Jesus Christ as sovereign and Savior. God pours out the same gift in full and equal measure in the community of Christ. There is no second class citizen in the community of Christ, Jew or goy. No one is second class. Each has a full and equal measure of the spirit. Their Gentile friends in Christ and one Jewish Christian friends in Christ. 1900 years ago, something quite unexpected happened. And it came clear that one could follow Christ in more than one lifestyle. Now we are the large majority of us Gentiles. We are Christians. A strange thing has happened. The kind of an irony, you see, because we tend to forget that we shouldn't be here except by a miraculous occurrence. We should all be Jews or Jewish and lifestyle. But something happened. We need to remember that. That our Gentile way of life. Is something that happened because of a liberating action of the spirit. We tend to forget that and we find ourselves in the same place the Jewish Christians found themselves. In the first century. Jewish Christians sought to enforce a particular lifestyle. Too often we Christians, Gentile Christians, have sought to enforce our own lifestyle on other persons. Too often in the missionary movement, that was the case as they moved into Africa or into Asia, not only bringing the saving word of Jesus Christ, but also bringing a particular style of culture. But closer to home, right here in our own midst, in the United States of America and the Presbyterian Church of America, the same kind of thing happens. We are all prepared to say that 1st May be a follower of Christ in a goy style. You finish the sentence. We are not so willing to say that one can be the follower of Christ in a gay lifestyle. And this is for us a moment of decision and of witness in the life of the Presbyterian Church. We need indeed to make a clear vocal witness that to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Sovereign and the Savior of us all. There are no second class citizens. That when the word is preached and the spirit is received, the gift of the spirit comes in full and equal measure to all. Gay and lesbian Christians have heard the word of Christ, the Word of God. They have responded to the story of the ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. And many of us in this room, perhaps all of us in this room, have seen the presence of the spirit in the lives of gay and lesbian Christians. We have seen it with our own eyes, like Peter of old. And people will call us to account and say, what do you mean it can't happen? It can't be. But when the authorities asked Peter what he was doing. He said what he saw. The spirit came upon these people, and it was no less a gift than I myself or you have received no less a gift. Who was I to stand in God's way? And so Peter stood back. And simply affirmed what God had done. That God had poured out the spirit on people he had not expected to receive the spirit. As Presbyterians. Most of us in the United States heterosexual, we are called upon to do very much the same thing. But whether we are heterosexual or homosexual, we are called to witness to the truth that we have seen the spirit poured out in power in full and equal measure on gay and lesbian Christians. That we have seen it in their lives, that we have seen it in their work, that we have observed the profound spirituality that we have seen, a clear love and actions of mercy and grace. And I pray that when we give that witness and when we give that testimony, that the reaction from our denomination, that the reaction from our nation will be the same as the Jewish authorities, the Jewish Christian authorities. When Peter gave his witness. When they too were led to affirm, yes, it is true. I would invite you to finish my sermon this morning. Our church needs to hear a witness. It needs to hear a testimony. It needs to hear the names of lesbian and gay Christians. Who have the spirit, who have had the spirit, who are full and equal members of the Church of Jesus Christ. We need to stand up. To say their names. To profess their spirit. Let it begin here. Let it continue throughout the church. I would invite anyone of you who chooses to stand in your place to name a name. A lesbian or gay Christian, you know, living or dead, in whom you have seen the spirit and whom you have felt the power of God. Share your testimony with our church.
