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| "Peter's Vision" Domenico Fetti (It. 18th Cent.) |
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)
It’s going to be a pretty
busy Sunday at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia. We’ve got a baptism and a
confirmation to celebrate, and the lessons appointed in the Revised Common
Lectionary for Easter 6, Year B will fit very nicely. We start off with the
awesome story from Acts about Peter and the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:
1-48) and segue to Jesus talking about how we are to abide in his love (John 15:9-17).
The first lesson works
out for us pretty well because it references both Holy Baptism and the
anointing of the Holy Spirit. The rite of Confirmation is all about affirming a
baptism one may have had when one was, perhaps, a bit too young to be affirming
it oneself (as will be the case with the young fellow I’ll be baptizing). The
confirmand is asked to confess his/her faith, and then kneels and has the
presider lay hands on them and pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Ordinarily, we like to
celebrate confirmations on the Day of Pentecost—the day the Holy Spirit first
descended on Jesus’ disciples. Indeed, we still plan to confirm two of our
youngsters on this feast day, but on Easter 6 we’ll affirm the baptism of a
confirmand with special circumstances. She’s a young adult who, for whatever
reason, never made her confirmation as a teenager as most Lutherans do. She
won’t be available on Pentecost as she’ll be graduating from a military academy
and will be away doing officer’s training. But that’s okay. We don’t have to go
by the book or by traditions. Our lessons for this Sunday are all about keeping
Jesus’ commandment and breaking some of the more traditional rules.
First a little back
story: The lesson from Acts is actually the end of a really great story. It’s
about this Roman centurion—a pretty cool guy who seems to believe in the Jewish
God and observes Jewish prayer customs—who gets an angelic vision and is told
he needs to send for Simon Peter. Jump cut to Peter, who is getting ready to
have a little snooze before lunch on the roof of the house where he’s staying.
God sends him a weird symbolic vision in a dream. Peter sees all kinds of
animals, those permitted by Jewish dietary law and those deemed profane and is
told he can eat any of them. Peter, being Peter,
thinks this is some kind of test of his orthodoxy and boldly proclaims that he’d never eat anything unclean. God
explains to him what God calls clean, no one should call unclean. Peter doesn’t
get it. So God sends the vision again. Still no comprehension. God tries a
third time, then gives up. Peter will just have to figure it out on his own.
Peter is awakened by
messengers from Cornelius who have come to ask him to visit their boss. It’s a
long journey to Cornelius’ house, so Peter and his host do the absolutely
unthinkable thing of asking these gentiles to stay the night. Normally,
inviting non-Jews into a Jewish home would be a violation of the rules, but it
looks like Peter is starting to catch on to the meaning of his vision[i].
The next day, Peter and
some buddies visit Cornelius’ house and share the Gospel with him and all his
household. The whole gang gets the Holy Spirit, and Peter, who has figured out
that in God’s love there is no longer Jew or gentile, clean or unclean, them or
us, baptizes everyone. The old-time purity rules have gone in the dumper.
There’s a new rule that supersedes all of them.
In the Gospel reading
Jesus gives us the new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” He
says this after having just washed his disciples’ feet on the night of the Last
Supper. He’s broken the rule that makes distinction between teacher and student,
rabbi and disciple. He’s called them “friends” and not servants. He’s taught
them all are equal, all are servants of one another, all are welcome. If they
keep this rule, they will abide in his love.
The word “abide” in Greek
means literally to live or dwell within something like you live in your house.
It’s also translated as “remain,” “endure,” and “continue.” It’s
all-encompassing and never-ending.
So how do we keep this
commandment to live and dwell in the love of Jesus? How do we abide? The liturgy for the Affirmation
of Baptism in our service book, Evangelical
Lutheran Worship, gives us a really nice roadmap to follow. Those affirming
their baptism are asked:
Do you intend to continue
(abide) in the covenant God made with you in baptism:
To live among God’s faithful people,
To hear the word of God and share in the
Lord’s Supper,
To proclaim the Good News of God in Christ
through word and deed,
To serve all people, following the example
of Jesus,
And to strive for justice and peace in all
the earth?
When an infant is brought
to the baptismal font, we ask the child’s parents and godparents to promise to
raise this child in such a way that, when this youngster comes of age, he/she
might say yes to the above questions.
All of us who are
baptized, who believe we are part of the family of God, friends of our Savior,
are called to this life-long missional dwelling—this commitment to love God and
love everyone else, humbly and without distinction. It’s a tough rule to follow
at times, but it’s the only one that matters.
Keep abiding, my friend,
and thanks for looking in on me this week.
[i]
Peter was actually doing a pretty outlandish thing by staying where he was
staying. He was at the home of Simon the tanner. Tanners were semi-outcasts
from the community because tanning leather is a really smelly job and their
homes tended to stink. They were also constantly in contact with animal carcasses,
and Jews found it unclean to touch dead stuff.
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