St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

May 2, 2010

Jesus preached a shining vision of the Kingdom of God, a time of peace and justice, of compassion and joy. And then, after he had gone… well, the cynics ask, how ever did we end up with the church? The Kingdom of God… and then … the church!! Perhaps like a lot of folk, I have had a love-hate relationship with the church over many years. Oh, I was brought up a good “United Churcher;” my mother helped with that. But then, in university days, I drifted away, to become, “spiritual, but not religious.” I was still pretty keen on God, but kept my distance from the church. So when I arrived at theological school – and that’s another story, I was clear that I was focusing on the former, not the latter. No weekly chapel service for me; no practicum in a nearby congregation. But I do remember taking the required course on the theology of the church… well, that’s not really true; I don’t clearly recall anything about the course content, but I remember the title of our textbook, a borrowing from Paul: We Have This Treasure in Earthen Vessels. Exactly! The church on the corner? – definitely an earthen vessel; what I wasn’t so sure of was whether there was any treasure left!

However, one of the things I did discover early on is that we are stuck with the church. Oh, there’s room for lots of changes, and you sure don’t have to do church exactly the way we do it, but it’s pretty clear that Jesus meant for us to hang together in this spiritual journey. I mean, one of the very first things he did was to start calling disciples, building a community… he didn’t exactly say “church”, but he was clear that his Way was not just a solitary spiritual journey to God, but also meant entering into a new way of being with other people. He kept saying in a hundred different ways, “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.”

He said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am to be found.” Two or three… something happens in the “in-between” … that space between two people, with its intertwined possibilities for trust, vulnerability, respect, love, forgiveness, laughter, compassion. He said, “Inasmuch as you do it to the least of these, you do it to me… offer water, food, clothing, shelter… yes… a home; and friendship… inasmuch as you do it to the least of these you do it to me. “ He said you are my followers, my disciples; you are my friends; you are daughters and sons of God.

So we ended up with the church… which sometimes gets it right: You are the body,” says Paul, “and everyone part of it… eyes, feet, hands ears… you are the body of Christ.” The family, we say; the family of God; brothers and sisters in Christ. And in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free; we are all one. But just as often, the church has struggled with who actually does get welcomed into the family. Who really is included in the Body? Are there requirements, standards, expectations? Who decides who’s in, and who’s not … and on what basis does that decision get made? How open? How inclusive? Who is church for? What is church for?

Now, this is the moment when we need a bit of context to understand what was happening in the early church, as people began to wrestle with these questions. We need to remember that Jesus was a good Jew, a reformer, and the main thrust of his ministry was to his fellow Jews. Yes, there were encounters with “outsiders” – a Syrophoenician woman, for example; or a Roman centurion. But they were the exceptions. Christianity began as simply one strand of Judaism. Which meant that the questions of who’s in and who’s out carried a real edge, because Jews had defined and retained their identity through particular rituals, like circumcision, and through daily patterns of living, particularly focusing on food… what you could eat, and what you couldn’t; who you ate with, and who you didn’t. Very strict; very important.

So when the church began, the first so-called Christians were Jews. And when non-Jews, Gentiles that is, began to express some interest in being involved, well, there was a conundrum. Some said no, non-Jews were not welcome; let them go to their own temples. Others said, “Yes, come on in… BUT… you have to become like us.” Meaning of course, that to be a member of the church, you had to accept the rituals of Judaism, including circumcision for men, and whole nine yards of Leviticus 11, the Holiness Code, with all its do’s and don’ts about eating. There were also a few who said, “Yes… and yes again.”; no “buts,” no preconditions, no need to become a Jew in order to be a Christian. This was radical stuff -- deeply offensive to the majority of early Jewish-Christians. And the result? – one of the church’s first big fights!

So with this in the back of your mind, let’s turn to the story we heard in today’s Scripture reading, although we only got the final summary of what started a chapter earlier. One Roman Centurion of the Italian Cohort, Cornelius by name, had a vision, and an angelic visitation. He was actually one of the “good guys,” interested in Judaism because of its monotheistic belief, and its ethical demands, so when an angel told Cornelius to send a couple of servants off to Joppa, to meet Peter, who had a special word for him, well he decided to do just what the angel suggested. Meanwhile, Peter was in the midst of his own vision. He had headed off to the roof top for a little time of prayer; ended up feeling hungry, sent for some food, and bang, found himself caught up in a most amazing trance, where he saw a sheet descending from the skies, filled to overflowing with every creature that had been listed in Leviticus 11 – badgers, weasels, lizards, camels, eagles, ostriches, vultures, snakes, centipedes, pigs, rabbits, and lobsters, crabs and clams. All the stuff that he had been told his entire life, over and over, that these creatures were unclean, verboten, dirty, forbidden… on and on. And just as Peter was turning aside in horror, there came a booming voice… “Take, kill and eat.” Peter must have done a double-take, and then thrown up. “No way, Lord,” he cried out, “nothing unclean has ever passed my lips.” Well, Peter was always a bit thick, so it took a triple repetition, but eventually he heard what the “voice” was announcing: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” It was exactly at that moment that Cornelius’ servants arrived, and Peter made the connection… he heard the invitation from a first-class Gentile, one of the great unclean, and from somewhere deep inside he heard the voice, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” And maybe Peter turned to those gentiles, those non-Jews, and said, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Now, I can hear you quietly muttering, “Get on with it; good story, but so what… Jews, Gentiles, and here we are, two thousand years later.” But strangely enough, we\re all here precisely because of that story, all of us gentiles; and probably all of us, at one time or another, wondering about ourselves – do we really belong? So perhaps we need to give thanks that Peter finally understood the radical inclusion that was at the heart of Jesus’ ministry; that he learned to say, “Now I know God shows no partiality… or perhaps better translated, God has no favourites…. But in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” Jesus’ new commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you” trumps everything else. “No discrimination, no matter how biblically based, can stand in the way of God’s outreaching love.” (source unknown)

There are no limits to God’s welcome; and that means that you are welcome in this community, this congregation, as it tries its best to embody that welcome. The circle is drawn wide to include the young and old; men, women; gay, lesbian and heterosexual; all colours, races, ethnicities; differently abled and gifted; new Canadian, long timer…. What God has declared clean… included, blessed, forgiven, embraced, loved…. what God has declared clean let no one call profane… exclude, reject, scorn, ignore, turn away from…. let no one call profane.”

I think that’s one of the reasons I like pews…. Oh I understand all the drawbacks… straight lines, everybody looking to the front, at the backs of heads… but pews also embody a certain freedom -- anyone can sit anywhere, and you have no idea who might end up sitting beside you, behind you and in front of you. You may suddenly become the neighbour of a complete stranger, who is different from you, another part of the body of Christ, a brother or sister in your extended family. “Whew,” you might say, “I hadn’t necessarily bargained for that when I headed off to church this morning.”

It’s also one of the reasons I like the United Church. Yes, we have our troubles, but sometimes we get it right. Like ordaining women, one of the first denominations to do so… 1936; mind you, it took us another couple of decades to realize that women didn’t suddenly lose their call or their gifts when they got married; and then, it wasn’t too long before that welcome had to include pregnant women…. especially those who are carrying twins; who call us into worship.

The nineteen seventies, the United Church started talking about how to include children in the full life of the congregation, in a richer, more authentic and respectful. For instance, children were included in communion; they baked the bread, they helped to serve the elements, giving the bread to each other and to adults; and they ate the bread, full members of the Body of Christ. And thus they enabled us to recognize that communion is all about grace, and does any of us ever fully understands the power of ritual? That’s why it’s exciting to know that last week, here in this congregation, there were four little babies, with their parents, at the back of the church; those Mums and Dads were glad there was a Nursery, but they were also glad that they could worship with the whole community, sometimes not wanting to leave the sanctuary, wanting to sing the songs and pray the prayers while holding their baby in their arms… sometimes. And it’s why I’m excited to know that in a few moments the children will be returning from the Upper Room and Marnie’s Room, where they have been learning together, returning so as to participate in Communion.

Then came the nineteen eighties, when the United Church started talking about sex, and relationships, and marriage … and homosexuality. It was an amazing time, Spirit-led and Spirit-filled I believe, as finally, at General Council 1988, we declared that “in and of itself sexual orientation was no barrier to full membership in the church.” It took a while for the church to understand all that those words meant, but the welcome had been spoken. And over the next decade it was as if the church were being guided by Peter’s voice, “I now know that God has no favourites, but in every nation anyone who fears, loves, honours God... is acceptable to God.” And look around this congregation, homosexual, heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bi, straight; members, leaders, ministers; single, married; old, young; with or without children. Sometimes we get it right – “What God has declared clean, let no one call profane.”

Which is perhaps why I have been so upset these past several days at the firing of Lisa Reimer, a music teacher at Little Flower Academy. Lisa had asked for parental leave because her spouse had just given birth; the only trouble was, Lisa was lesbian; her partner was a woman. So she was fired; well, not technically I suppose, since she’s still on salary until the end of June, but she’s not allowed to be near any children. Now I rarely criticize another denomination, but I am convinced that the Catholic Church is doing bad theology; they are too quick to call profane, sinful and impure what God has declared clean.

And then came the nineties, when we looked around our churches, and our cities, our country, and slowly recognized the faces of the people who had lived in this land for ten thousand years, First Nations people. We had to admit that we had confused gospel and culture -- when we arrived in this land, we said to Aboriginal peoples, “Yes, you are included, but only if you become like us. We tired to take away language, custom, culture; and wanted to insist our own equivalents of circumcision and food laws. We had forgotten that early church story that proclaimed that God has no favourites, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” We’ve had a lot of repenting, and there’s still more to accomplish as we continue to understand and respond to the pain of Residential Schools.

And then there’s this past decade, as the United Church continues to ask questions -- who’s not included, who are we excluding; where is the Spirit challenging us to widen the circle? So we now are struggling to discover what it means to become an intercultural church. How do we become a family of many colours? How will that change us? What changes do we need to make now in order for that to happen? You might not know, just for instance, that the National Church, for the first time in its history, is ensuring that all ministry staff, across the country, participate in a day long workshop on racism. My first reaction? Hey, I don’t need that… but then, thinking, well, probably I do, because racism is alive and well, but like most people, I’m often blind to my own participation in it.

And maybe asking the questions about who’s part of the family has sparked the new partnership with Coast Mental Health that we have initiated with our programme “Homes to Heal.” That cheque for six thousand dollars that we presented earlier, in Time with the Children, well, that will provide a rent supplement for a young adult with mental illness to transition from dependent to independent living, with Coast Mental Health providing the needed support. Differently-abled people, living with the challenge of illness, mental illness – doesn’t make them any less a part of the family. The story of Jonathan that you heard about earlier, how he came to this congregation and ended up being part of the Body – surely that was Spirit-led; it certainly wasn’t something that we went out looking for.

Enough… just look around; each one of us, welcomed by God. And that’s good news for you -- you are welcome here. And it’s good news for your neighbour, every one of them; even the ones you may not always be so keen on. Because what God has declared… well you know the line now; don’t even think about calling your neighbour unacceptable. Then look around, and note who isn’t here – not as an exercise in guilt, but as a wondering; where the Spirit might be moving now; inviting us to follow, to catch up. And to be ready for every Cornelius, for every opportunity to embody love. Then, finally, feeling this welcome all the way down to your very centre, and all around, then come to this table, God’s table of communion; come, eat the bread and drink from the cup; come to the welcome table.