Between Them and Us

Between Them and Us--May 18, 2018

[Peter told the apostles and other believers:] "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." [Acts 11:11-18]

If it had just been up to us, the boundaries would have remained.

If it had been up to a vote of the insiders, the lines between "them" and "us" would have endured forever.

Let's just admit that, shall we?  If the question of whether the church would allow Gentile "outsiders" to be included or not depended simply on whether a committee of existing members of the club decided to let them in as Gentiles (that is, without first keeping the ritual and ceremonial laws of Judaism), the apostles never would have worked up the courage to reach out to share the good news of Jesus with anyone who wasn't already keeping kosher.  The wall--the "distinction," as Simon Peter calls it--between "us" and "them," would never have been crossed, because on their own the apostles were afraid to go in new directions.  Being leaders of the fledgling Christian community was frightening enough as it was just in staying out of the sights of the police and the religious leaders, without making more waves by reaching out to... you know, those people.  It was hard enough to hold the church together as it was.

But, as Simon Peter recalls it here, the move to include Gentiles (without first making them "just stop being Gentiles," as though that were possible) wasn't his idea.  It was the Spirit.  It was the Spirit, Peter says, who "told me to go" to Joppa to meet Cornelius, the Roman (ahem, read that as "Gentile, big-time") centurion, and to bring the message of Jesus to him and his family.   It was the Spirit who manifested in some form on Cornelius and his family, confirming for everyone that they really did belong to the community of Christ.  And it was the Spirit who told Simon Peter "not to make a distinction between them and us."

The Spirt, mind you, is the One making waves.  The Spirit is the One pushing the church beyond its older boundaries.  The Spirit is the One leading the followers of Jesus to blur the old lines that separated the "acceptable" from the previously "unacceptable."  This is not a matter, Simon Peter says, of two fighting factions within the church fighting for power and control. This is not a matter of two different groups playing, "Who Has A Bigger Stack of Bible Verses On Their Side?"  to win a contest over whether Gentiles will be allowed to belong. And this is not about the Spirit having to hold some group within the church back from going "too far" by letting Cornelius and his family belong as Gentiles.  The Spirit isn't the One trying to keep the church restrained and out of trouble.  The Spirit is the troublemaker.

That's not usually how we think of God, is it?  We tend to picture God as some supreme Referee, keeping us following the rules with the threat of penalties or lightning bolts if we cross a line on the field.  We tend to assume that God values order, decorum, and keeping-things-the-way-they-are as supreme values, and that God still insists on strings or preconditions for being deemed "acceptable" in the community of Christ.  But that's not how it actually went here in this decisive moment in the early church.  It was the Spirit stirring things up, pushing and prodding Simon Peter, and erasing the old lines between "us" and "them."

So let's just ask the question: where might the same Spirit--who still indwells and moves the people of Jesus--lead us today?  Where are we still stuck behind lines (that we have drawn) between "us" and "them," and what do we imagine the living Spirit just might do with us in this day to cross those lines?  How have we grown comfortable with seeing "those people" (however we have drawn the lines) as somehow less-than-human, and therefore not worthy of our respect, our love, or our care?  How might the Spirit challenge us no longer to draw lines dividing us? How might the Spirit push us beyond what we were comfortable with to reach out in love, rather than waiting around for us to have the idea ourselves?

Be ready, today, people of God: the Spirit of the living God reserves the right to push us beyond boundaries, and to erase the lines we had thought were permanently drawn between "them" and "us."

Spirit of Life, lead us where you will in love.