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| "The Angel and Cornelius" Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, 17th Century |
“As the Father has loved me, so I have
loved you; abide in my love.” (John
15:9)
Every week, it seems, I find myself
scratching my head and trying to figure out why the dudes who composed the
Revised Common Lectionary chose to marry the First Lesson (Acts 10: 44-48 this
week) with the Gospel Lesson (John 15:9-17). I have to ask: what kind of
connection do these guys see in these two readings?
(Please note: I assume the RCL was
compiled by men, because no one who
could possibly give birth to and nurse a child would ever intentionally create
the kind of emotional chaos we sometimes find in the RCL!)
So okay. This week, I’m going to go with
the cost—the inconvenience, if you will—of Christ’s love.
The First Lesson really cheats us because we
should be reading all of Acts 10 in order to get the context. It goes like
this: a really cool Roman centurion named Cornelius—a guy who figured out it’s
easier to rule a conquered people if you try to understand their culture, participate
in their community, show mercy and compassion, and not act like a total bastard—gets
a message from God that he should meet Simon Peter. So he sends some of his
underlings to seek Peter out.
In the meantime, Peter, who is napping
before lunch, has a dream in which God presents him with some un-kosher food
and tells him it’s okay to eat it. Peter—being Peter—thinks this is some kind of sly test of his orthodoxy and
refuses to eat the unclean food. He does this three times before God tells him “What
God has called clean, you must not call profane.”
Cornelius’ messengers find Peter and ask
him to come to the gentile soldier’s house. Peter agrees, and discovers that
these hated, conquering foreigners actually seem to be pretty swell folks.
Putting two and two together, Peter figures out that his un-kosher dream was
meant to prepare him for loving people he wouldn’t normally choose to hang
with. He even tells 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. (v.28)”
Cornelius explains to Peter why he sent
for him, and eventually Peter makes a rather radical statement: “I truly
understand that God show no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears
him and does what is right is acceptable to him. (v.34)”
In the context of a Bible story, this
sounds pretty cool, but even I have to confess that I’ve had a little bit of an
issue putting that last verse into practice. The other week I attended a
seminar at the Greater Philadelphia Interfaith Council on preparing multi-faith
events that work. I happen to be preparing just such an event at the moment. I’m
scheduled to be the Christian presenter at an interfaith dialogue between
Christians, Jews, and Muslims at the new Muslim Youth Center of Philadelphia
which has opened around the corner from my congregation.
When I arrived at the GPIC headquarters, I
was delighted to greet one of my Muslim neighbors and to be embraced by a
distinguished Jewish scholar who would be a presenter at our local dialogue. I’ve
participated in the past in the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Dialogues, and, as
chairman of the Far Northeast Philadelphia Ministerium, I’ve had much
involvement with people of many traditions. I’ve preached in Methodist and
Presbyterian churches, and I’m scheduled to preach in a Baptist church early
next month. I’m just Joe Ecumenism—always believing that God shows no
partiality.
But then I saw them.
Yup. You can spot ‘em a mile off—the Samaritans
of Christianity. There they were with their perfect, cheerful, Brady Bunch smiles,
their button-down attire, and their little name badges identifying them as “Elder”
and “Sister.”
Freakin’ Mormons..!
I was always taught that they were some
kind of a cult. Not a real religion. They were blaspheming heretics who
practiced polygamy and racism and had swallowed the Cool Aid of Joseph Smith’s
flim-flam bogus theology. I can hug Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists,
and Wiccans, but Mormons..?
Truth be told, whatever I might think of
the origins of the Latter Day Saints, I have to admit that just about every
Mormon I’ve ever met was a really nice person. They do wonderful charity work,
and they really love their families. This forces me to wonder: Could God use
and bless people who practiced a faith I’m pretty sure was made up by a 19th
century con artist? Could ol’ Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon actually contain something of God’s will for
humanity? Could God use these people for the healing of the world, in spite of
the specious origin of their faith tradition?
I had to consider that the Mormons I encountered
at the GPIC were there for the same reason I was there—to foster greater
understanding and love between people of different faiths and backgrounds. And
that’s a pretty noble—and Christian—reason.
Our Gospel lesson tells us to love one
another as Jesus loved us. And Jesus loved us by giving everything up for us.
He humbled himself to wash the feet of the disciples, he welcomed the outsiders
and the foreigners, and he gave his life on the cross. Loving like Jesus loved,
I think, will always involve some inconvenience. It may involve surrendering
preconceptions and the assumption of our own superiority. It will involve
humility. It will involve, on some level, a loss, and loss will always hurt a
little.
I will always be a pretty orthodox, Trinitarian
Christian. I have Lutheranism in my DNA, and God speaks to me through high
church liturgy and classical hymn-singing. I won’t give up my own faith or its
practices, but one of its greatest practices must always be a radical love of neighbor
and a willingness to surrender all judgment to God. In this, I believe, God’s
joy is in us, and our joy is complete.
Thanks for stopping by .Please come again.
PS –
For another take on the cost of loving like Jesus loved, do check out the post
which immediately precedes this one on my Saint of the Month, Fr. Pat Conroy.
Fr. Pat gave up a really cool gig in order to speak a word of God’s love.
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