What does the Lord bless that we do not?

What does the Lord bless that we do not?

Easter Time
Pastor Mitch Coggin May 15, 2022 Easter 5C

Let me tell you a story.

As I was leaving a parking garage in the city where I lived a number of years ago, I came up behind an SUV stopped at the exit gate. Standing behind her vehicle, a young woman in a silk robe was rifling through her purse. She approached my car and asked if I had a parking ticket she could use to get out. My first reaction was that if I used my ticket to get her out, how will I get my car out behind her? Her face melted as if all hope was lost, and she turned back around to continue her purse search. As she turned, I heard her mutter, “I’m in a wedding today, I’m the bride, and I’m going to be late for my own wedding.”

Suddenly, I remembered my daughter on her wedding day. I called out and asked the young woman to use my ticket. She did not turn or respond, but I knew what I had to do.

I got out of the car, walked to the ticket machine, and put my ticket in. She saw what I was doing and protested. I told her I would figure it out my exit.

The point I want to emphasize is my first thought. If I give you my ticket, how will I get out of the garage? I almost made a selfish mistake, thinking of my own needs first.

But the story doesn’t end here. Also in the garage, I had noticed a man who had tattered clothing and long, unkempt hair. I’d seen him earlier, walking between the floors of the garage. He looked as though he had nowhere to be, and I eyed him suspiciously. We made eye contact, but no words were spoken and he went his way and I went mine.

But I did notice that my reaction to him was different than the young woman. Yes, I gave a parking ticket to a young white woman in route to her own wedding, but I merely dismissed the black male I was unsure about.

The point of the story for me is my hesitation to first help this young woman because her needs conflicted with my own, but I did finally assist. More significantly, I judged and dismissed the man to be one that I just wanted to avoid.

What will it take to change our patterns of behavior? How can we move toward new situations with love and compassion? How must we confront situations that challenge what we’ve traditionally understood or believed?

How do our stories help us consider how God calls us to love and acceptance? Let’s turn to our story from Acts read earlier…

In Acts 11, Peter is called on the carpet by those in the church who felt they knew God best because they were “the circumcised believers.” Their circumcision meant they were part of the sacred history of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This group called a meeting with Peter because he seems to have forgotten the importance of the beliefs and practices handed down by their spiritual ancestors. “Peter”, they accused, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” In essence, they complained that Peter was hobnobbing with the wrong crowd. Peter should know that keeping company with those who haven’t been circumcised, who are religiously and ceremonially unclean goes against everything our ancestors taught us.

The conflict came to a head when the Jewish believers heard that Peter had dined with Gentiles in the small village of Joppa. They believed the Gentiles must first become Jews to be accepted by God, even in the new Church Jesus’ followers were establishing. Peter reacted to the criticism of the circumcised believers by telling them a story that was detailed in Acts chapter 10.

Peter had a trance or dream where he imagined a sheet descending from heaven full of every kind of food you would never eat under any circumstances. Rise and eat, Peter. Three times Peter rebuffs the invitation to eat and three times the invitation/command is reissued. He had been taught by his Jewish heritage to never eat such profane cuisine.

Everything Peter believed and had been taught since bar mitzvah was at war in Peter’s mind and heart in that dream. Ringing in Peter’s ears were the words of the Leviticus scripture he had been taught since childhood, “All creatures that swarm upon the earth are detestable; they shall not be eaten. Whatever moves on its belly and whatever moves on all fours or whatever has many feet, all the creatures that swarm upon the earth you shall not eat, for they are detestable. You shall not make yourselves detestable with any creature that swarms; you shall not defile yourselves with them and so become unclean. For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming creature that moves on the earth.” But Peter’s head fought with his heart to denounce the dream. You know better than to entertain eating birds, snakes and four-footed animals which were considered profane. But his heart won out and Peter went to the city where he met Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man who was well spoken of by the whole Jewish people. They ate and they worshiped and what kept ringing in Peter’s mind was God’s reminder, “‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

Peter’s story silenced their criticism. God declared to Peter, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ How would you answer the question in your own life, “What does the Lord bless that I do not?”

God has always had the audacity to choose ordinary persons to accept into the family of faith those that we would otherwise exclude as unworthy. From the beginning God created a world in which God embraces even those we oppose and those we do not understand nor agree with.

The John scripture reminds us to love at all costs. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Peter was commanded to love, to accept and to dine with the Gentile centurion who he had been taught was unclean.

Peter ends the reading from Acts with a powerful Ah Ha moment when he says, “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?” As our world becomes more fearful, more distrusting, more exclusive, hear the reminder that the arms of God’s love are broad. Listeners are invited not to “hinder God” as they glimpse the newness that God is working toward.

My experience in the parking garage was a startling reminder of how easy it is to be led by our fear and distrust. ​​The reason the text continues to be urgent is that we, as the church, is called to embrace new ways to end the distinctions that divide between people and more fully live into the command to love one another, just as God has loved us.