Have We Done Enough?
Preached at St Nicholas’ Church, Leicester on Sunday 15th of May 2022
READINGS
Acts 11:1-18
Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’ Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, ‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” But a second time the voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.” And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’
John 13:31-35
When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
SERMON
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer
Do you ever think, when reading the New Testament, and all the arguments, debates, and hand-wringing in the Early Church about the inclusion of ‘The Uncircumcised’, ‘The Gentiles’, that they’re kind of talking about us?
When Peter is being criticized for fraternising with the wrong sort of person, worshipping with the wrong sort of person, eating with the wrong sort of person… that’s us. Non-Jewish believers in Christ. People who do not follow the Mosaic law. People who have not been circumcised. People who were not born into belief. People who converted. The Stranger. The Other.
I think many of us here are used to being seen as The Stranger. The Other. Used to being someone that others are warned away from - explicitly or implicitly, for so many different reasons. Someone that bigotry, in any of its myriad forms, has converted into something profane, or unclean. And whether it’s the church, the wider society, or just one single person saying that we are not to be included, it hurts.
So I sometimes wonder about the Gentiles in the very early church.
Those people who saw and knew who Jesus was - who listened to His message long before it became the foundation of one of the world’s largest religions. Back when being Christian in itself was deeply dangerous. When following Christ meant being part of a sect following an executed Criminal condemned by the state.
Those people who said: Yes, this is real, this matters, this matters to me, and to the world, and I will risk myself for this truth - only to find themselves part of a controversy they did not ask for. Judged and excluded - not just by those who did not believe in Christ, but by those who did, too.
I think most of us are used to being unwilling parties in arguments about who we are these days.
Arguments about race, sexuality, disability, gender identity, neurodiversity… any diversity.
Arguments in which the way that God created us is used as an excuse to exclude us, belittle us, or simply talk about us as if we are not there.
This week ILGA Europe, an enormous NGO covering over 50 countries, released its annual map and report, tracking and ranking LGBT inclusion in Europe and Central Asia.
One of its findings is this - that national newspapers in the UK ran one or more anti-trans news article every single day for the past year.
Every morning trans people, like myself, wake up, and find new arguments going on about us, and without us.
One of the people arguing about us, is the Church. And I think it’s fair to say we’re not the only minority being argued about by the Church.
But God is not the Church.
God is the one who says to Peter, fully three times, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” God is clear about this. God is explicit.
And you will know, if you have spent even a moment arguing about theology - (or if you’ve been attending our Wednesday Bible study course) - that God is very rarely that blatant.
And so Peter goes out, and eats with a household of Gentiles, and does not “make a make a distinction between them and us” Because God’s gift, God’s favour, God’s love, is given equally.
And that applies to all of us.
And so this all seems simple, right? Eat what you want, with whoever you want. Don’t exclude, don’t be bigoted. Don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or ableist. Don’t contribute to the exclusion of those God has blessed, and filled with the Holy Spirit.
But this is religion. It’s never that simple.
Because our gospel reading today also follows this theme of inclusion, but in a way that shows us what it really means. How far the ask really goes.
Jesus says: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” And I am sure we love one another. Or, we try to. Right?
But do we love one another as Jesus loves us? As Jesus loved his disciples?
Or perhaps it’s better to ask, not “do we”, but “can we?”
And I don’t know the answer to that. I genuinely don’t. But I do know that we can try.
And so as we all sit here here in this church, surrounded by these people, and these signs, and symbols, and statements of inclusion, is it so easy for us, in particular, to think, smugly, that our work is done.
But it’s not. I think we know, in our heart, that it’s not.
So I want to ask you, today, to think of someone you do not love as much as you could.
Some single person, or group of people, or aspect of those people that you, consciously or unconsciously, see as unclean, or profane, or simply not worth as much consideration as others.
I ask you to think of ways in which, through active works, or though simple neglect , you have failed to be as inclusive and as loving as you are called to be.
Ways in which you mirror those who confronted Peter, asking, “Why do you go to them? Why do you eat with them?”
I do not ask you to think of many - I do not ask you to hate yourself, to criticise yourself too harshly - I just ask you to think. To pick one. To begin to consider the world around you.
It is when you are actively inclusive in a world that is actively exclusive that it is easiest to think that your work is done. To slip into that danger of thinking “I have done enough”.
But as Christians we can never do enough. And this work is impossible alone. But as a community, and with the help of God, we can, every day, work to do better. Work to fulfill that which Christ has asked of us.
Because, as he says later in the reading - it is through our love for one another that our Christianity will be seen.
Think of that.
Think of how, so often, bigotry and exclusion are seen as the markers of Christianity. And then think of these words, uttered by Christ himself - “everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Love is what we are called to.
Love is the good work.
So let us go out into the world, and, one tiny step at a time, work towards being, not those who exclude - either through deliberate acts, or through our own failures - but those who, in our radical love and inclusion show the world something of God every single day.
AMEN