Sermon, Sun 18 June: 'Don't'...wk43 WMRBW

Let’s pray: May the words of my mouth and the
thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

‘Don’t touch it – it’s dirty!’
‘Don’t go near that beggar with the skin disease!’
‘Don’t forget to wash your cup the right way!’
‘Don’t play with those boys – they’re different!’
‘Don’t eat that – it’s forbidden!’
‘Don’t!’
‘Don’t!’
…‘Don’t!’

All his life, he’d been hemmed about by a wall –
a wall built upon hundreds upon hundreds of ‘don’ts’.
The ‘don’ts’ determined how he navigated his way through life –
who he spoke to – or didn’t;
when he worked – or didn’t;
where he went – or didn’t;
what he ate – or didn’t;
how he prayed – or didn’t.

The don’ts determined his identity:
who he was and who he belonged to.
The don’ts reminded him that he was special, different…
chosen.
The don’ts reminded him, too, that if he disobeyed the rules, he’d be unclean;
unwanted;
tainted;
that unless he went through particular rituals, he would no longer be marked out as chosen.
Rather, he’d just be like those beyond the wall of don’ts –
the ones less special,
the ones…who didn’t belong.

His very identity had been physically incised on his body
on the eighth day after his birth:
his circumcision.
And as he grew from baby, to toddler, to man
he learnt about why he, and his people were special: marked out by God.
A people of destiny, busy building up their identity
by showing the rest of the world who they were …not.

When we first come across him we don’t really know just how old –
or young – he is, when Jesus calls him to follow.
He’s worked on boats – a fisherman.
There is later mention of a mother-in-law, so we do know that he’s married.
But, this man, in accepting the call to follow a wandering rabbi,
begins to broaden his horizons –
often due to encountering the very people he’s not supposed to be spending time with.
Those who are not like him;
those who risk making him…unclean;
the ones who could get him into trouble;
the ones on the other side of the wall of don’ts.

For three years, he follows the rabbi.
For three years, he meets with those that the rabbi spends time with:
respectable folk like him…
and the disreputable –
outcasts, beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors;
the flotsam and the jetsam of society.
He encounters Gentiles – non-Jews – and he can smell them a mile-off:
pork-eaters.
It disgusts him.
It makes him feel sick.
For three years, in the company of Jesus, he finds his carefully built wall besieged,
his assumptions continually challenged – by the rabbi –
and, by the very people that, for his entire lifetime, he’s been told not to spend time with.
Maybe, as he listens to the rabbi teaching,
an occasional chink of light is let through his wall…
Maybe, as he watches the rabbi accept water from a foreign woman at a well;
as he watches the rabbi touch the sores of lepers,
or dine in the house of tax collectors,
more light breaks through that wall of don’ts.
Perhaps, after three years, his wall has extended, just the tiniest bit,
through watching, and living with, love, not only in word, but in action.

When the rabbi dies, his own world feels like it’s ended –
and he hides behind another wall in an upper room in Jerusalem, wondering what to do next.
And then, resurrection:
and the rabbi, walking straight through walls and locked doors.
Obediently, he, and his friends wait as instructed.
And then, Pentecost:
the wind of the Holy Spirit blowing out the cobwebs in their minds,
warming up their cold hearts and blowing hope and understanding into their souls.
And 3 000 people from all around the known world become followers
of the One who is love with skin on.
Love, in flesh and bone.

The wall of don’ts is getting harder to live with, harder to maintain –
so many chinks of light seem to be pouring in through the now-many cracks
in this heady time of the early church.
How to live and be and grow together when old rules and regulations
seem no longer fit for this new purpose?
For a while, the old guard is insistent:
certain rules still apply:
Gentile followers – the males – are to be circumcised…
are to be grafted in to the old system.
But, those in charge of that very system, are in process of distancing themselves
from this new movement – building their wall higher, thicker, and stronger.

Since that strange day of Pentecost, he has been travelling,
just as before, just as his master did.
He walks the dusty roads, passing through towns and villages,
and shares the story of the man called ‘Jesus’,
and encourages, and spends time with, those followers who have chosen
the path of peace, and the way of love.

He is staying in Joppa – at Simon the tanner’s house…
Simon the tanner who, if working within the framework of a wall of don’ts…
would cause Peter to be ritually unclean, due to the nature of that work.
Peter is up on the roof at noon, taking time out to pray…
and has the strangest vision:
as he begins to feel hungry, he falls into a trance-like state,
and watches as the heavens appear to open.
Through this opening is lowered a large blanket, on which is all manner of animals.
Animals that he would never contemplate eating;
animals all listed under ‘don’t’.
And yet, in his vision, this is what seems to be required…
Three times, a voice commands him to kill and eat.
He is shocked.
He can’t.
It’s impure.
Eventually, the voice tells him that these are now no longer impure:
God has made them clean.
The blanket with animals disappears back into the clouds, and the vision ends…
just as a group descends, and knocks on the door, begging him to visit their master, Cornelius,
A Gentile.
A Roman Centurion –
the enemy, in fact, who is part of the vast empire that holds Israel in its vice-like grip.
At the urging of the Spirit, Peter goes with these men to the house of Cornelius,
tells those gathered, about Jesus, and is amazed, along with the
other circumcised believers present, at the Holy Spirit’s presence at work, right there in the midst.
His wall of don’ts is fairly tumbling down now:
‘Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?’ he asks.
And the answer is ‘no’.
Cornelius and his entire household are baptized.
Peter’s wall has crumbled into bits by his feet, and he understands more deeply
- to borrow from last week’s text from Ephesians –
the amazing width, length, height, and depth of God’s love, for the many, not just the few.

This breaking down of barriers will be on ongoing process in the early church –
in fact, it still is a process that’s ongoing:
we are nothing if not keen to put walls up when we should be pulling them down…
But, for the early church, and even for our much later church,
bit by bit, the circle of God’s grace and love is drawn wider and wider
to bring more people in, rather than to keep them out.

Last week, we talked of God’s love for us, and our response to that love -
being, to love God in return.
But it’s not just about God and us – sitting all comfy and cosy –
that love needs to overflow further and extend to those around us.
to those who are just like us, and who like us;
and, to those who we’d rather keep out by building a wall
because we find them extremely hard to like.
But the blowing breath of God’s Spirit challenges us:
to break down walls;
calls us to notice our neighbour and, more than that, to see God’s image in our neighbour.
The Spirit of love calls us to follow that ‘most excellent way,’
according to Paul, the way of love.

The community that Paul is writing to, in his letter to the Corinthians,
is a group of relatively new Christians.
They come from all classes, and all walks of life.
They are a hugely diverse bunch of people and they’re squabbling and fighting
and forgetting the core of the gospel:
namely - to love the God who loves them,
and, to love one another…
to love their neighbour.
Some of them are investing in trying to become the power-brokers in the community.
Others want to maintain social classes and barriers –
when it comes to communion:
making sure the elite, the higher-up, are served first,
and are served the nicest bread, the best wine…
after all, the servants and lower classes should be thankful for the dregs and left-overs.
Some are lording it over others, implying that, given their gifts, their skills,
that God favours them most; that those who don’t have certain gifts
are somehow second-class Christians.
Basically, the church in Corinth is a mess.
They’ve lost the glue that holds them together: love…
and without love, they are lost,
they…are nothing.

Into this messy, divided community, comes Paul’s letter,
and, within it, this passage – so often used at weddings –
but really aimed at how to best live in community.
Paul has observed earlier in his letter, the variety and diversity to be found
in Christ’s body in Corinth;
and he encourages them to celebrate that diversity for it’s a demonstration
of the Spirit at work in their lives.
He doesn’t want them to break up into little tribal groups…
he doesn’t want them to point fingers at those who may express their faith a little differently;
he wants them to follow that more excellent way
of living within a culture, living within a community, that has at its heart love.
As the saying goes: love covers a multitude of sins,
but, in this instance, it is what should be the life-blood of this Corinthian community.
They are called to witness, to model, God’s love in their lives,
and to share that love with all.

Instead of a wall of don’ts,
instead of identifying themselves by their rules, their gifts, their status,
their ethnicity, their gender, favourite doctrinal position,
or a myriad of other things…
they are to find their identity through who they are loved by,
and their response to that love:
to understand that they are God’s beloved, and to share that sense of being beloved…
which is tricky, when they’re at each other’s throats.
They’re not called to be clones, though they are acting a bit like clowns:
they’re called to love.
As are we.

We bring into our community a diversity of experiences, gifts, skills, personalities.
There may be some similarities too.
But we’re not called to be put into a box,
nor are we to put others into a box –
or build a wall…
to make folk fit in with our expectations.
We celebrate one another because
each is made in God’s image,
each is loved by God,
and each in turn, should love one another…
and enjoy the whole diverse mix.

Love for neighbour should also extend beyond the church walls –
our love for God should see us speaking of God’s love –
showing our love in our wider communities demonstrating that:
God’s love is the glue that truly holds us together…
without it,
we are fractured,
dismembered,
we are…
nothing.

Love of neighbour should see us use our various talents and skills
to share, to care, to bear one another’s burdens;
to protest when lack of love for the other results in poor, unsafe housing,
or in the increased need for foodbanks.
Love is understanding that, in this present age, we live with imperfection,
while longing for the perfection of all things
and working for the coming of the kingdom – when there will be no more tears.
To live in love, in that excellent way, is to daily demonstrate
God’s love at work in the world;
to show that love can’t be walled up, or boxed in…
that love in action is stronger than any wall or box,
and that it can be found in the most surprising of places,
among the most unexpected of people.

Writer, Andrew King, described the way of love in his poem titled
‘Escaping from the boxes’:
There you go again, God, moving to the margins,
taking love to the outcast and the alien,
breaking through the barriers we’ve constructed from our prejudice,
a light that shines into the world’s dark corners;
unfettered by our selfishness, unhindered by our blindness,
there you go, defying our expectations,
surprising us with the wideness of your grace.

There you go again, God, slipping through our fingers,
escaping from the boxes put around you,
crossing fences of theology we build to hold you prisoner,
a wind that blows beyond our closed horizons;
uncaptured by our doctrines, unbounded by our dogmas,
there you go, defying our expectations,
surprising us with the freedom of your grace.

There you go again, God, calling us to a journey,
prodding us to leave our shells of comfort,
bidding us to examine the rigid shelters of our thinking,
a voice that reaches deep within our souls;
undiscouraged by our stubbornness, patient in our fearfulness,
there you go, defying our expectations,
surprising us with the closeness of your grace.

‘Do touch – for God makes all things clean’
‘Do go near that beggar’
‘Do play with those boys – they’re cool’
...‘Do - love’
‘Do love, with every fibre of your being’
Do love,
this moment,... this day, ...this life.
Amen