Acts 10 : 44 48 John 15 : 9-17 Sermon Let me begin with a little story. There was once a wise old man who learned a great deal about the various plants and trees that grew round about his house. He used his great knowledge to develop a simple medicine which his family found tremendously useful. It could cure colds, it could ease pain, it could be used as a tonic if you were just feeling a little low. After the old man died his family was very careful to keep making the medicine the way he had taught them and they continued to enjoy the benefit of it. So the tradition was kept alive over many generations, each one having great respect for the recipe and following it very carefully. And the medicine never let them down. In fact it continued to be so effective that news about it spread and they were happy to share it with their friends and neighbours. But soon, there was so much demand that they were not able to provide the medicine to everyone who wanted it. It was a local businessman who suggested the solution. He offered to produce the medicine on a much bigger scale in a factory. It would provide enough for everyone who wanted it, but they would lose control over how it was made. He wanted to add flavourings and sweeteners, colourings and preservatives. So the family had a real dilemma. They wanted to be faithful to the man who had invented the medicine, but how should they do that? Should they make sure they remain in control, keep doing things just as the old man had taught them, and keep for to themselves and their friends? Or should they let go of their control in order make it available to everyone even though it would look and taste very different from what they had known and loved? Which choice would the inventor have wanted them to take? Well you will just have to live with those questions because I don t know the answer. But I tell that story to help us understand the very real dilemma, which the leaders of the early church faced. They too had been following the instructions of a wise man they had known and trusted,
instructions which they found gave them peace and energy and direction. But his followers had all been Jewish people and his teaching had all been about their own traditions. The very idea of a messiah was a Jewish one which would make little sense outside of those who had shared in the life of the nation and the stories which shaped their identity. Yet after his death and resurrection, word about Jesus spread so quickly that soon people who were complete outsiders came to them wanting to be his followers. What were the leaders of the church to do? For them being faithful to Jesus had meant being faithful in a new way to all the ancient teachings of their religion. Was it sacrilege to allow people who had no understanding of that to join them as equals? Was it even possible to believe that people who didn't share that background could ever join them as equals? Giving the faith which they knew and loved into that hands of people who were very different from them, people who didn't share their values, would surely change it beyond recognition. And how, in all conscience, could they welcome people who did things, and said things, and ate things, which they always believed God found offensive? How could they treat as equals people they had been taught never to have any contact with? They faced a real theological crisis which went to the very heart of what they believed about Jesus and how they understood themselves. So what were they going to do? We know that many were anxious to keep it all tightly controlled, to keep the movement contained so that the message could remain pure and untainted. We know that some wanted to insist that if anyone wanted to follow Jesus they must first be circumcised and obey all the purity laws which they had been brought up with as jews. And yet... What if this way of Jesus were so spectacularly special that it was able to do its transforming work regardless of the external things which they had assumed it depended on? What if the message of Jesus were so deeply true that it could retain its power to speak to the human condition, no matter what cultural expression it is given? What if the life of Jesus were so profoundly significant that people would recognise
the value of it and make their own connection with it, whatever language they speak and whatever lifestyle might be normal for them? Much of the NT from this point on is going to be taken up with questions like these. And the incident which we read this morning turns out to have been one of the key moments in the history of our faith. Peter and his colleagues, having gone so far as to actually be in the home of gentile, are, in the words of our scripture astounded when they see the Holy Spirit having the same effect on their hosts as it had on them. They were astounded because everything they knew about life up to that point told them that this should not happen, but the evidence of their eyes and ears told them that it was happening. This is not long after the risen Jesus had first appeared in their presence. That was another event which everything they knew about life told them should not happen, but when the evidence of their eyes and ears told them that it was happening. Then we are told they were terrified. Now we are told they were astounded. It is almost difficult to say which of these two events would have been the most difficult for them to believe and to accept. So Peter returned to Jerusalem and in chapter 15 we get a description of the big church council meeting at which the dramatic decision was taken that the church was to be open to anyone who would commit their lives to following Jesus Christ. With the great benefit of hindsight we can say that they really should have understood this before. It is all there in the life of Jesus. How he repeatedly went to those who were shut out of their religion by their profession or by illness or by gender. How he reached out to the foreign woman from Samaria at the well, and made a Samaritan man rather than a priest the hero of a key story. How he became furious when he found that the temple, which should have been a house of prayer for all the nations had so many restrictions built around it. How he repeatedly refused to be acknowledged as the saviour of the nation and instead spoke in universal terms about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, saying that be being lifted up he would draw all people to him.
It should have been obvious all along. But lets not be too quick to condemn. For we always live with the same dilemma and we never find it easy; working between our desire to have a faith which is pure and clear and well defined and a faith which is open and welcoming to everyone, even those who may understand it differently. Working between our desire to have a church which suits us, which meets our needs and speaks our language and sings our songs, and a church which is open to new generations and different cultures, even those who may want or need to use different words and sing different songs. And so that ancient question keeps on recurring: is our faith something which we need to build barriers around in order to protect it, to keep it pure, or does our master have other priorities for what he has given us? Do we believe that at its heart the good news of Jesus Christ is robust enough to retain its power: no matter what cultural language it is expressed in, what form it is presented in, what shape and colour and taste it is given? This is a key question again of rus in these days, when our particular form of christianity is in very rapid decline in Europe. What is it that we have our faith in? At a time when all the traditional forms of church are in rapid decline in Europe, we need to be clear that our faith is in something which is spectacularly more special than any of them. At a time when the new generations have little interest in ways of doing things which we might know and love, we need to be clear that we have truth much deeper than that to offer them. At a time when we oursleves might grow weary of trying to keep the church going in the way we have always known it we need to be clear the heart of our commitment is to something profoundly more significant than that. And whenever we are tempted to think of our faith as something which is small and private and personal, or something which might be weak or fragile or vulnerable, we need to be reminded that it is much more than that. For the way of Jesus turned out to be so spectacularly special that it is able to do its transforming work regardless of the external things which might be associated it with. The message of Jesus is so deeply true that it does have power to speak to the human condition, no matter what
cultural expression it is given. The life of Jesus is so profoundly significant that people do make their own connection with it, whatever language they speak and whatever lifestyle might be normal for them. This is not something we can keep control of, and nor should we want to. This is not something we can keep for ourselves, and nor should we want to. This is not something to lose confidence in, and nor do we need to. For our faith is in the gospel of Jesus Christ which never loses its power. And one day we will surely see that this should have obvious to us all along.