Christ and culture, 6.30.13

Leviticus 11:1-8. 13-18, 45-47

The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: ²Speak to the people of Israel, saying: From among all the land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat. ³Any animal that has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed and chews the cud—such you may eat.

⁴But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following: the camel, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. ⁵The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. ⁶The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. ⁷The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. ⁸Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you… ¹³These you shall regard as detestable among the birds. They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, ¹⁴the buzzard, the kite of any kind; ¹⁵every raven of any kind; ¹⁶the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; ¹⁷the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, ¹⁸the water hen, the desert owl, the carrion vulture, ¹⁹the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat…

⁴⁵For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy. ⁴⁶This is the law pertaining to land animal and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms upon the earth, ⁴⁷to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.

Jesus set the agenda for the disciples at the beginning of Acts: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” The story of Acts is a story of ever expanding circles. First the gospel spread to Jews in Jerusalem. Then, under persecution that scattered the church, the message spread throughout Judea. Before long, Philip and others started preaching to Samaritans and Jewish foreigners like the Ethiopian eunuch.

            In today’s passage the gospel takes another step and crosses the biggest barrier yet. We have a hard time getting how big a divide there was between Jews and gentiles in the first century. That’s because we are Christians living in a Christian culture. For Jews in the first century it was a totally different story.

Beginning in 63 BC the land of Israel was occupied by the Roman Empire, which stretched from Spain to Jordan to Egypt. Within that empire, people had a fair amount of independence, but they were all required to bow to the Emperor. Subjects of the Roman Empire not only had to obey the Emperor, they also had to worship him along with their other gods.

Jews had a special and challenging standing in the Roman Empire. Because they were only allowed to worship God, Jews did not have to worship the emperor. Instead, they were required to pray to God for the emperor. That’s a pretty reasonable compromise, but it came with a cost, as faithfulness always does. Most of the social and economic life of the Empire took place around pagan temples, so it was off limits to Jews. They didn’t worship or socialize in the same ways their neighbors did so they did not fit in.

They kept themselves apart to protect their faithfulness to God. God called the Jewish people as God’s special people; that meant being different from their neighbors. With pagan neighbors in control of so many parts of life there were many temptations to blend in. But Jews knew that their faith called them to stand apart. Basically one’s entire life would have been defined by their Jewish identity. Everything, from food to friendships was seen through the lens of clean and unclean, as our passage from Leviticus points to.

            Jesus was Jewish. All the apostles were Jewish; so were the first several thousand Christians and all the leaders of the church. Until our story today, Christianity was an entirely Jewish movement. Given that, our story today represents a shocking change in direction.

Acts 10:1-20, 24-29a, 44-48

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. ²He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. ³One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” ⁴He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. ⁵Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; ⁶he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” ⁷When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, ⁸and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ¹⁰He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. ¹²In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. ¹³Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” ¹⁴But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” ¹⁵The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” ¹⁶This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

¹⁷Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. ¹⁸They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. ¹⁹While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you. ²⁰Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.”

²⁴The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. ²⁵On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. ²⁶But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.” ²⁷And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; ²⁸and he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. ²⁹So when I was sent for, I came without objection…

⁴⁴While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. ⁴⁵The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, ⁴⁶for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ⁴⁷“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” ⁴⁸So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

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I’m interested in people who get out of their normal setting. People grow up in a place and culture. Culture is the air we breathe, the lens we see the world through. We believe things we don’t even know we believe because they are part of our culture. It takes active effort to go against the grain of the culture we grew up with.

Cornelius’s culture believed that Roman civilization was superior. Through its military strength and cultural refinement it had blessed most of the known world with peace, stability and learning beyond what they could have imagined otherwise. Pagan religion was important in that it provided celebrations and basic moral guidelines for society, but it generally wasn’t the most important part of people’s lives.

Peter’s culture believed Jews were superior to pagans, and assumed that one of the most important parts of staying faithful to God was keeping away from pagans. Even Jesus used gentiles as examples of what was wrong with the world. Peter and Cornelius both had culture pushing them away from each other. But God was clearly leading them together and leading both of them to step outside the boundaries of their cultures.

In our own world Christianity is like pagan religion was in Cornelius’s world. It is an important part of the culture we grew up with. Most people accept and identify with Christianity, but it is more a set of assumptions about the world than the ultimate commitment to Jesus that true faith is. Christianity shapes our view of the world like our nationality or political outlook or economic status.

Because we grew up in late twentieth century US Christianity we think it’s normal to vote in elections and think it’s normal that many people don’t vote. We think it’s normal to be able to express ourselves freely. We think it’s normal to believe in God and celebrate Christmas and be nice to other people. We think it’s normal to buy things and raise families and go to work.

Cornelius started to wonder about things; he found truth that echoed in his soul through teachings about the God of Israel. Maybe the truth he found there answered questions his pagan religion never had. Spending time in the synagogue, in a faith community his culture looked down on already started prying him loose from his culture. He let the truth of God shape his life and kept reaching out to God. Then God invited him to go deeper, to send for Peter so he could hear a word of salvation, a word that would change his life.

We don’t know anything else about how Cornelius and his friends and family responded to the message. We don’t know how their lives changed because of faith in Christ. But we do know that God doesn’t force faith on anyone, so the fact that the Holy Spirit fell on them must mean that they put their trust in Christ.

I’m inviting you to make the same choice today. Christ calls us to a faith that changes our lives. Going to church, even making church a high priority in our lives is not enough. Believing in Jesus means allowing him to set the course for our lives. It means making him the center of everything we do.

Conversion in our culture is a little different, both easier and harder, than it was in Cornelius’s time. He was converting from pagan religion and culture and I am inviting you to convert from a culture that says it is Christian to a true devotion to Jesus that will change your life. It’s easier because Jesus is already part of our landscape, because we already have a faith community. It’s harder because the lines are blurry so it’s easy to fall back to cultural Christianity that is nothing but a label.

            I struggle with that everyday. Every part of faith is constantly in motion in my life. There are moments of faith and moments of doubt. There are times when I feel sure that greater openness is what the church needs and other times that I am sure we need more commitment (really, we need both). There are times I worry that I will be judged and come up short and other times I’m sure that God’s love will prevail in everyone’s life when the judgment comes. I am uncertain about many things in faith, but I am certain of one thing. I am certain of Jesus Christ. I’m certain that Jesus loves us and offers us salvation from fear and selfishness.

            The more I think about what it means to be a minister of the gospel in this time and place, the more convinced I am of a few things. Only God gives faith, and it is no one’s job to judge faith but God’s. My job is to remind you that God loves you absolutely and that Christ died for you. My job is to invite you, to invite everyone, actually, but especially you, to repent, to turn to God and to put your trust in Jesus Christ.

            I’m not going to put a limit on God’s salvation. I can’t tell you who is saved or not saved. I’m not going to tell you you have to believe x, y or z. But I am going to invite you to put your trust in God and to decide to make Jesus the Lord of your life. Making that decision is not a one time thing; it’s a decision we reaffirm with all our other decisions. It’s a commitment we will do better at some days than others. Christ calls us to more than the cultural Christianity we grew up with. Christ calls us to trust, to let go of our fear and to follow.

            We all decide and trust in different ways. If physical action helps you own a commitment, I invite you right now, while I am still speaking, to come up to the front as a sign of your commitment. If you want to make that commitment silently in your heart, that’s fine. And if you don’t know where God is leading you, if you’re not sure you can commit to trusting in Jesus all the way, that’s fine too. However you feel led to respond to Christ’s calling in this moment is OK.

            What I will say, not to pressure but to invite, is that religion is not entertainment. It’s not something we do to fit in or because we always have. Christianity means following Jesus in our lives. We are not talking about light things; we’re not talking about an interesting teaching to learn more about; we’re talking about the very shape of our lives. Jesus didn’t die to give us something to do on Sunday morning; he died to free us from sin and death. And he calls us to a life shaped in every way by love and grace.

            Thanks be to God. Let us pray.

Many gifts; one Spirit, 1.20.13

John 2:1-11

¹On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." ⁴And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come" ⁵His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

⁶Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. ⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." ¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

¹Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. ²You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. ³Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.

⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

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            Paul spent a year and a half in Corinth building up a community of believers. After he moved on to other areas of ministry, he kept up a close relationship with the Corinthians through letters and personal connections. In this letter he discusses issues of life in community, marriage, family, food and the resurrection of the dead.

            Most of the Corinthian Christians had converted from paganism, not from Judaism. While some of them knew the Old Testament pretty well, many of them were still learning. Paul wasn’t just teaching people about Jesus, but showing them a whole different approach to life and faith.

            In our passage for today, Paul explores the importance of spiritual gifts and faith in Christ. Christian faith is about following Jesus. When we follow Jesus, God gives us the Holy Spirit. Presbyterians don’t talk about the Holy Spirit a lot, which is too bad. In some ways our challenges with the Holy Spirit today are very different than the Corinthian church’s challenges, but Paul’s wisdom is still just what we need. The Corinthian church had a clear sense of God’s power in them. Some of them had quite powerful spiritual gifts. The trouble was that they focused too much on their gifts and thought of “flashier” gifts as evidence of stronger faith. Sometimes they boasted about their gifts or saw them as spiritual status symbols.

In that situation, Paul’s task was to remind them that the Spirit and the Spirit’s gifts were about God’s will and about the community’s life together. We’ll touch on that too in a moment. For us, the bigger problem is underrating the power of God working in us. We sometimes forget that we have God’s Spirit inside us. We forget that God can do powerful things working through us because of the Spirit. While humility is always important, we need to be less shy about God’s power and our gifts. We don’t often see the drama of speaking in tongues or miraculous healing, but we still have God’s Spirit, part of God inside each of us, guiding and gifting us for ministry.

When we do think about the Spirit’s power we have to remember that power isn’t for us to use any way we want. The Holy Spirit isn’t power we can harness for selfish ends. Because Father, Son and Holy Spirit make up one God, the Spirit’s power in us is part of the God we serve. When we’re full of the Holy Spirit we can’t say, “Jesus be cursed,” because the Spirit and Jesus are united. The Holy Spirit and Jesus are one, so they cannot be in conflict.

In the same way, we can’t truly proclaim that Jesus is Lord without the Spirit working in us. If we call Jesus our Lord, we have to intentionally submit to him in our lives. That means not only claiming faith in God or going to church, but also seeking God’s will in our everyday decisions. It means giving up our claims to absolute independence and seeking something greater.

            Those aren’t decisions we can make casually. It’s serious business to make Jesus our Lord, to trust Jesus to guide us and seek to model ourselves after him. We can’t do that alone; we need God’s Spirit to help us, and God gives us what we need. So the first thing that Paul wants his readers to understand about spiritual gifts is that the power of the Spirit is about seeking Christ as our Lord.

Jesus is Lord (3.28.10)

Luke 19:28-40
28After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.29When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, "Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it'"
32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 34They said, "The Lord needs it." 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying,
"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, And glory in the highest heaven!"
39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." 40He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."

Philippians 2:5-11
5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
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For many chapters now it’s been clear that Jesus is going to Jerusalem. Today we finally get there. As Jesus and his crew are getting close to the city, Jesus sends a couple of disciples into a nearby village to prepare for his arrival.

Long before, the prophet Zechariah had proclaimed: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey.” Jesus sends his disciples to get a donkey to fulfill this prophesy.

In case we’re still confused about who Jesus is, Luke tells the story carefully. Jesus tells his disciples that if anyone asks why they’re taking the donkey they should answer, “The Lord needs it.” Luke wants it very clear that Jesus isn’t just the Lord’s servant or prophet or messenger; Jesus is Lord.

What does it mean that Jesus is Lord? Since Jesus gets a royal parade and a criminal execution in the same week, obviously the answer is complicated. The crowd of disciples that followed Jesus into Jerusalem waving palms and lining the streets with a red carpet of their cloaks didn’t miss the significance of the donkey Jesus is riding. The Psalm they sing with joy was a royal Psalm used to celebrate the crowning of a new king in Israel. The people watching get it; they see Jesus and expect a king.

The Pharisees get it too, that’s why they’re upset about the singing. It worries them that people see Jesus as David’s heir. For one thing, they’re not so sure about this Jesus guy. Sure, he draws in a crowd and clearly he knows the scriptures and has authority in his words, but his teaching is sort of unorthodox and his behavior challenges tradition.