5 Easter C April 24, 2016
Acts 11:1-18 Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35
How can a diet change represent a theological revolution? What does food have to do with theology?
Religious people can fight over food and one can say it was in part a "food fight" which divided the church from the synagogue. How so?
Religious persons have had their identity formed by their diet? Observant Jews since the time of the law of Moses have had dietary restrictions. Jews and Muslim do not eat pork. Hindus do not eat meat. Muslims do not drink alcohol. Seven Day Adventists do not eat meat. Mormons do not drink alcohol or caffeine. People have practiced their diets as expressions of religious identity and as a deep belief that they are obeying God's law.
So if you want to be an observant Jew, then follow the rules, don't eat pork. Peter was an obedient observant Jew; he did not eat pork.
But we have read the account of how Peter came to believe that observant Christians were those who did not have to follow the specific diet of Judaism.
What was happening for Peter and Paul to allow religious people to neglect to follow the rules of circumcision, dietary restrictions and other rules of ritual purity?
Gentiles in the Roman Empire were not circumcised. They ate pork. And they did not have practices of ritual purity. When the message of the Gospel of Christ came to the peoples of the Roman Empire there were some new issues? Should non-Jews be allowed to be followers of Christ? And if non-Jews wanted to follow Christ, should they also conform to all of the rules of ritual purity practiced by observant Jews?
Paul and Peter made a determination upon the ritual purity issue; they decided that even though the ritual purity was the required practice of people who came from a Jewish upbringing; it was to be an optional practice for new Gentile Christians. Peter and Paul did not believe that Gentiles should be required to conformed to the ritual purity practices in food and personal hygiene of ritual Judaism.
This concession to the Gentiles was very controversial. Peter and Paul made a determination that the evidence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people was to be the criteria for valid religious experience and identity. Circumcision, ritual purity and dietary restrictions were not to be required practices for Gentile Christians.
How could such radical changes be permitted and the followers of Jesus and the members of the synagogues stay together? It is difficult for even a kitchen to be shared by kosher and non-kosher people since non-kosher cooking residue is hard to clean and keep from polluting the purity of a kosher kitchen in food preparation.
So in part, the followers of Christ and the people of the synagogue separated over the issue of food.
How could the early Jewish followers of Jesus dispense with the requirements of ritual purity which was so much a part of their religious identity?
I believe that the essential issue was the question of success. How does one handle success? Some of the parables of the Gospel are about parties and banquets to which a target group is invited, but the people invited were not interested in coming to the party so the host of the party invited others who were not originally invited.
The historical fact is that most Jews did not accept the message regarding Jesus. The historical fact is that many Gentiles did accept the message of Jesus, but these Gentiles came from cultural habits which required too many changes for them to conform to all of the ritual purity requirements of Judaism.
What did the Jewish leadership of the Jesus Movement do when they found the message of the Gospel more popular within the Gentile populace than with their fellow Jews? They went with success. They could not turn away from the people whose lives were being changed by message of Christ.
So the Jesus Movement was going from being another rabbinical school within Judaism to becoming a departure from Judaism which borrowed the foundations of Judaism while becoming something new with an entirely different mission from Judaism.
What makes a person's faith valid? Following rules of ritual purity or having evidence of a Spirit which changed their moral and ethical behaviors? For Peter and Paul, the evidence of spiritual change in the life of a Gentile person was an adequate sign that a person was a member of the household of faith.
But one could also understand the consternation of the Jews. If the Holy Spirit could convert the life of a Gentile person, could the Holy Spirit not inspire that person to follow and adapt to the rules of ritual purity?
In this dilemma one can find the issue which separated Christianity from Judaism into different communities with different missions. The Christian mission was to offer a style of living with a spirituality which could be adopted to the social and cultural diversity found with the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire. The Christian mission was not to live as a visibly separated group by living in segregated communities with visible signs of difference from the populace of the peoples in the cities of Roman Empire. It was to be a spiritual practice which allowed more interaction in the public life of the cities of the Roman Empire. The mission of Judaism included a commitment to visible separation while the Christian mission manifested a spirituality which made ritual Jewish practices into optional cultural choices. This was unacceptable for those who wanted to maintain the purity of Judaism.
Peter and Paul and others had to decide whether to go with the wildfire of success of the message of Christ within the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire or remain isolated within the synagogue communities. The New Testament really is a chronicle about how the message of Jesus was adapted to the Gentile peoples and the painful transition from the synagogue setting. And so there is this confession recorded: "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."
Spiritual traditions naturally get institutionalized and institutions tend to function for their own perpetuation. So spiritual traditions by nature tend to be conservative, that is, they tend to "conserve the notion of how we're always done things." "We can't move the altar away from the east wall, because that's how it's always been done. Jesus must have said the Last Supper at an altar next the wall." This is how religious institutions conserve their practices, by just assuming everything we do and believe and practice has been this way since antiquity. When religious traditions conserve too much, they no longer become accessible to whomever the "new Gentile" people of society are.
Who are the new Gentile people in our society today? The pollsters call them the "nones" They are the people who respond to religious polls by saying that they have "no religious" affiliation. And now the "nones" have become the largest group of people in our society.
One of the challenges for us today is ponder the relevance of how we practice our faith to the people in the world. Why don't people find our message successfully relevant to their lives today? Have we become so cloistered within our institutions that we find ourselves unable to make meaningful contact with people who will never darken the doors of a church building? Have we become like the synagogues in the time of Peter and Paul who are more interested in maintaining separate identity rather than engaging the diverse people in our world?
I think that the biblical revelation is based upon the understanding that God is always able to do new things in making the message of divine transformation accessible to people in all ages. Is God doing new things in our time and in ways and in people different from ourselves and we are missing it?
The writer of the Revelation understood God to be one who could make a new Jerusalem. Why? The old one had been destroyed by the Roman army. God was one who could make a new heaven and a new earth. Apocalyptic people like to limit this vision to some future end of time, as if, time could ever end. Time could only end when there are no longer clock users. God did a new thing in Christ and this Christ went beyond the walls of the synagogues to the diverse people of the Roman Empire. The message of the Gospel is a message that is so spiritually adaptive that it can continue to create and make new things happens within the lives of anyone who is desiring transformation in excellence.
The message for us today is that when we think we are conserving tradition, we need to be certain that we are not putting limitations upon God's Spirit to do new things in this world with people who are different than we are.
Let us rejoice that the Gospel is a witness to God being able to do new things in new places in new times. And let it also be a witness to us that God can do new things in and for us as we can know new energy towards excellence. The Spirit of Christ is alive and this Spirit is always adaptable and creative in each new moment of life. Amen
Religious people can fight over food and one can say it was in part a "food fight" which divided the church from the synagogue. How so?
Religious persons have had their identity formed by their diet? Observant Jews since the time of the law of Moses have had dietary restrictions. Jews and Muslim do not eat pork. Hindus do not eat meat. Muslims do not drink alcohol. Seven Day Adventists do not eat meat. Mormons do not drink alcohol or caffeine. People have practiced their diets as expressions of religious identity and as a deep belief that they are obeying God's law.
So if you want to be an observant Jew, then follow the rules, don't eat pork. Peter was an obedient observant Jew; he did not eat pork.
But we have read the account of how Peter came to believe that observant Christians were those who did not have to follow the specific diet of Judaism.
What was happening for Peter and Paul to allow religious people to neglect to follow the rules of circumcision, dietary restrictions and other rules of ritual purity?
Gentiles in the Roman Empire were not circumcised. They ate pork. And they did not have practices of ritual purity. When the message of the Gospel of Christ came to the peoples of the Roman Empire there were some new issues? Should non-Jews be allowed to be followers of Christ? And if non-Jews wanted to follow Christ, should they also conform to all of the rules of ritual purity practiced by observant Jews?
Paul and Peter made a determination upon the ritual purity issue; they decided that even though the ritual purity was the required practice of people who came from a Jewish upbringing; it was to be an optional practice for new Gentile Christians. Peter and Paul did not believe that Gentiles should be required to conformed to the ritual purity practices in food and personal hygiene of ritual Judaism.
This concession to the Gentiles was very controversial. Peter and Paul made a determination that the evidence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people was to be the criteria for valid religious experience and identity. Circumcision, ritual purity and dietary restrictions were not to be required practices for Gentile Christians.
How could such radical changes be permitted and the followers of Jesus and the members of the synagogues stay together? It is difficult for even a kitchen to be shared by kosher and non-kosher people since non-kosher cooking residue is hard to clean and keep from polluting the purity of a kosher kitchen in food preparation.
So in part, the followers of Christ and the people of the synagogue separated over the issue of food.
How could the early Jewish followers of Jesus dispense with the requirements of ritual purity which was so much a part of their religious identity?
I believe that the essential issue was the question of success. How does one handle success? Some of the parables of the Gospel are about parties and banquets to which a target group is invited, but the people invited were not interested in coming to the party so the host of the party invited others who were not originally invited.
The historical fact is that most Jews did not accept the message regarding Jesus. The historical fact is that many Gentiles did accept the message of Jesus, but these Gentiles came from cultural habits which required too many changes for them to conform to all of the ritual purity requirements of Judaism.
What did the Jewish leadership of the Jesus Movement do when they found the message of the Gospel more popular within the Gentile populace than with their fellow Jews? They went with success. They could not turn away from the people whose lives were being changed by message of Christ.
So the Jesus Movement was going from being another rabbinical school within Judaism to becoming a departure from Judaism which borrowed the foundations of Judaism while becoming something new with an entirely different mission from Judaism.
What makes a person's faith valid? Following rules of ritual purity or having evidence of a Spirit which changed their moral and ethical behaviors? For Peter and Paul, the evidence of spiritual change in the life of a Gentile person was an adequate sign that a person was a member of the household of faith.
But one could also understand the consternation of the Jews. If the Holy Spirit could convert the life of a Gentile person, could the Holy Spirit not inspire that person to follow and adapt to the rules of ritual purity?
In this dilemma one can find the issue which separated Christianity from Judaism into different communities with different missions. The Christian mission was to offer a style of living with a spirituality which could be adopted to the social and cultural diversity found with the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire. The Christian mission was not to live as a visibly separated group by living in segregated communities with visible signs of difference from the populace of the peoples in the cities of Roman Empire. It was to be a spiritual practice which allowed more interaction in the public life of the cities of the Roman Empire. The mission of Judaism included a commitment to visible separation while the Christian mission manifested a spirituality which made ritual Jewish practices into optional cultural choices. This was unacceptable for those who wanted to maintain the purity of Judaism.
Peter and Paul and others had to decide whether to go with the wildfire of success of the message of Christ within the Gentile peoples of the Roman Empire or remain isolated within the synagogue communities. The New Testament really is a chronicle about how the message of Jesus was adapted to the Gentile peoples and the painful transition from the synagogue setting. And so there is this confession recorded: "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."
Spiritual traditions naturally get institutionalized and institutions tend to function for their own perpetuation. So spiritual traditions by nature tend to be conservative, that is, they tend to "conserve the notion of how we're always done things." "We can't move the altar away from the east wall, because that's how it's always been done. Jesus must have said the Last Supper at an altar next the wall." This is how religious institutions conserve their practices, by just assuming everything we do and believe and practice has been this way since antiquity. When religious traditions conserve too much, they no longer become accessible to whomever the "new Gentile" people of society are.
Who are the new Gentile people in our society today? The pollsters call them the "nones" They are the people who respond to religious polls by saying that they have "no religious" affiliation. And now the "nones" have become the largest group of people in our society.
One of the challenges for us today is ponder the relevance of how we practice our faith to the people in the world. Why don't people find our message successfully relevant to their lives today? Have we become so cloistered within our institutions that we find ourselves unable to make meaningful contact with people who will never darken the doors of a church building? Have we become like the synagogues in the time of Peter and Paul who are more interested in maintaining separate identity rather than engaging the diverse people in our world?
I think that the biblical revelation is based upon the understanding that God is always able to do new things in making the message of divine transformation accessible to people in all ages. Is God doing new things in our time and in ways and in people different from ourselves and we are missing it?
The writer of the Revelation understood God to be one who could make a new Jerusalem. Why? The old one had been destroyed by the Roman army. God was one who could make a new heaven and a new earth. Apocalyptic people like to limit this vision to some future end of time, as if, time could ever end. Time could only end when there are no longer clock users. God did a new thing in Christ and this Christ went beyond the walls of the synagogues to the diverse people of the Roman Empire. The message of the Gospel is a message that is so spiritually adaptive that it can continue to create and make new things happens within the lives of anyone who is desiring transformation in excellence.
The message for us today is that when we think we are conserving tradition, we need to be certain that we are not putting limitations upon God's Spirit to do new things in this world with people who are different than we are.
Let us rejoice that the Gospel is a witness to God being able to do new things in new places in new times. And let it also be a witness to us that God can do new things in and for us as we can know new energy towards excellence. The Spirit of Christ is alive and this Spirit is always adaptable and creative in each new moment of life. Amen
