Acts 11:1–18

This wonderful passage is appointed for Morning Prayer today, the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul. It gives a very nice description of how the church successfully comes to recognize an innovation in practice. We have not here just “oh, an innovation happened,” but a nice step-by-step description of the process.

First, the backstory is that Peter has not been keeping the kosher laws. In chapter 10 we hear of this, that Peter has been called by Cornelius, a Roman military officer and a devout godfearing man—but not a Jew. Cornelius has been told by an angel to send for Peter. Meanwhile, Peter has the vision which he relates again in Acts 11:4–10, and he accepts Cornelius’ invitation, he preaches to his household, the Holy Spirit falls on them all, and Peter baptizes them. He then stays with them “for several days.”

The innovation starts with the initiative of God, speaking through an angel to the pagan Cornelius and the apostle Peter. But God’s initiative is expressed mystically, individually. There is no corporate revelation of anything; there is nothing visible in either vision to anyone but Cornelius and Peter. There is merely their private revelation, a vision, which told each of them to do something quite unprecedented. Peter does not test this revelation against the scriptures, he does not consult with the other apostles.

We must not conclude from this that anyone who receives a bolt from the blue is always right. That is not the message. But we should conclude that there is no necessity in the order of things to consult any of scripture, tradition, or reason—for all of these would have counseled against Peter’s innovation—and certainly there is no necessity to consult with the rest of the church. Both Peter and Paul, the subject of today’s feast, insisted that they pursued the Gospel as they believed they had been commanded, without consulting anyone, and without needing the agreement of other leaders in the church, who, in each case, constituted the majority party and were insisting on a clearly articulated position, based unquestionably on the most solid foundations of both scripture and tradition.

Thus far chapter ten. But today’s reading is chapter eleven. Today’s reading is not about whether one should innovate or on what terms, but about what the proper course is to investigate an innovation; this is about how the rest of the church should go about evaluating what has happened.

First off, verses one through three. Notice that there was a recrimination from the traditionalists. They criticized Peter, and ask him point blank, why have you done what the whole church agrees must not be done? Why have you violated both scripture and tradition? Do you not know that your actions will bring disrepute upon the church? However, the recrimination is expressed as a question. It is a good question and a fair question. But it is not a declaration that the other apostles are now out of communion with Peter. There is no deputation to Peter’s friends to tell them not to listen to him anymore. But there is a question.

Next, verses four through ten. Peter explains the special revelation he has received. He does not expect this alone to carry the weight, but it is extremely important. He stresses that what has happened was not his own initiative, but was from God. They presumably do not believe him. They will, later, but they do not insist that Peter must first have proved his case to them before taking this unprecedented step.

Then comes verses eleven through fifteen. Peter accepts the invitation from Cornelius. He does something entirely unprecedented. He finds that God has already been at work with Cornelius. But again, this is a private revelation. He does not insist upon or need proof; there is no statement here that Cornelius somehow convinced Peter that his own vision was genuine. It is just that Cornelius says, “God has told me to ask for you.”

Now we have the crucial moment, verses sixteen through seventeen. Peter offers a theological conclusion. The conclusion is not based upon the visions that either he or Cornelius had, but instead upon the effect of his preaching upon Cornelius and his household. Cornelius believes, and God pours out the Holy Spirit upon them. We are not told what this was, but it is clearly public. It is not just a private revelation, as were the two visions that started the ball rolling. Acts 10:45 reports that “the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded.” They went along for the ride, relucant, nervous, not sure. Unlike Peter, they had had no vision. Peter was not astounded that the Holy Spirit was poured out, but these others were.

Now the new innovation is accepted in the church. Verse eighteen reports first that the questioners were silenced. And they praised God, they were genuinely happy that the old rule had been overthrown, that people were being included in the church who had previously been excluded.

Finally, after this, the remainder of the chapter, verses nineteen through thirty, describes the foundation of the church in Antioch. There had already been some christian activity in Antioch, but exclusively among Jews. The new innovation is put in place, however, missionaries are sent to the gentiles in Antioch, and the church in Antioch is founded. This is, it should be noted, the first gentile church.

From this, we can distill the following procedure for innovations and their possible eventual reception in the church:

1. Individuals, both within and without the church, based on their own private experiences of God, are led to violate existing norms. They may be doing so without any consultation or approval from established authorities.


2. The gift of the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the new effort. The sign of the Holy Spirit is not some sort of conformity to existing practice, but is instead some sort of publicly visible grace. We might think of communities of joy and growth, of feeding the poor, of fruitful prayer.


3. The rest of the church, nervous and upset by the innovation, asks for an explanation. They do not insist that approval had to be granted in advance. If the innovation is right, then it does not matter that they were not consulted; if the innovation is wrong, it would not matter if they had been.


4. The private experiences of God which led to the innovation are explained.


5. The experiences of violating existing practice are related, signs are described of God’s activity preceding the innovation, activity which occured outside the church.


6. The gifts poured out by the Holy Spirit are described.


7. Now, for the very first time a public theological rationale for the innovation is given. Crucial reliance is placed not on scripture, tradition, or reason. No explanation is given about how to interpret the scriptures which prohibited the innovation. Reliance is instead placed upon the visible gift of the Spirit.


8. The church responds in joy and thankgsiving, genuinely pleased that the innovation has overthrown what had been previously understood to be the bounds of God’s grace.


9. The church’s missionary apparatus swings into action, not to block the innovation or argue against it, but to spread it as soon as possible, as widely as possible.

Comparison of these steps with the process outlined in the Windsor Report as normative is left as an exercise to the reader.

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Luke 7:1–35

More healings first, which are valuable witness to many things. These get richer and richer as the story progresses. The healing of the centurion’s slave shows the centurion’s great faith and Jesus’ accessibility to the hated Roman oppressors. There’s more, but that’s meat enough. And then this young man in Nain, whose death has left his mother destitute, and Jesus raises him to great acclaim. It comes to the attention of John, who sends messengers to find out what’s going on.

So it’s clear that despite the initial encounter between Jesus and John, the baptism, and all that; the disciples, and so forth, John still isn’t sure. Jesus refers to a text from Isaiah, a messianic prophecy, and shows how these healings he is performing have marked him as “the one who is to come.”

Now Jesus bears his witness to John, just as John had borne his to Jesus. He says that “among those born of women no one is greater than John”: high praise indeed. And that even the least in the kingdom of God is greater still. So this is big stuff. Ok, point made. Then comes two little verses, the two cited at the top above. The Episcopal lectionary has curiously marked these optional for the reading. Hrm, when this happens, one always wonders why?

Perhaps, most likely, they are worried about the anti-semitic cast one might place on them. Though, given all the anti-Pharisee stuff already, and yet to come, excising two verses can’t change that. Moreover, this is about “the Pharisees and the lawyers” as opposed to the “tax collectors” and “all the people who heard this.” The latter two groups are Jews, just as much as the former. So if this is why the lectionary authors diddled the text, it’s a silly reason.

But isn’t it telling what these verses say? Remember back to John’s baptism. Why did the Pharisees and the lawyers reject it? Because they didn’t need it or so they thought. For them to admit they needed a new beginning would be to admit that their old beginning isn’t enough. I am much fond of the Benedictine saying, “Always we begin again.” Those who think they do not need to begin again, reject God’s purpose for themselves. God is never content with what we have accomplished so far. The Pharisees, in their proud confidence that they did not need a new beginning, on the theory they had not sullied the old one, end up excluding themselves.

And, once more, who is included? Even “the tax collectors” (the hated collaborators with the Roman state), “tax collectors and sinners.” Who’s out? Those who are proud and confident in their in-ness. Who’s in? Those who are excluded and rejected by society, who have no place, who have no one to trust but God.

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Luke 6:27–49

Here we have the guts of the “Sermon on the Plain”, Luke’s analogue to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. It starts with the beatitudes, and continues with much of the same material (though much less of it) that Matthew puts in the Sermon on the Mount.

He is speaking to “a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon”; the last suggests that there are probably non-Jews in the audience too.

The part I’ve picked out here is Jesus’ new version of the lex talionis, the law of retributive punishment. The lex talionis is the “eye for an eye” law of criminal punishment (or tort liability, depending on how you think of it). It worked a reduction, because no longer could you exact whatever punishment you wanted, you were limited to exacting an equal punishment in kind to the harm that had been done to you.

Jesus lays out a different standard, but one based on the old. He says that you will meet with whatever you give out, “the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” In other words, be aware of the divine lex talionis and so if you want mercy, show it; if you want not to be judged, do not judge; if you want to receive richly, give richly.

The implication is that merely keeping your own hands clean, doing no wrong, is not enough to avoid judgment. For judgment hurts. To judge someone hurts them; it’s painful to be judged. You might have thought that if you did nothing wrong, then you would receive no painful judgment. That’s the pharisaic mentality as Jesus criticizes it. But he says, no! If you judge others, you will be judged, even if you judge them rightly and fairly, even if you keep your own hands perfectly clean. The only way not to be judged, not to be condemned, to be forgiven, is to refrain from judgment and condemnation, and to be forgiving.

Some like to quote Paul’s talk about right judging as if that nullified Jesus’ clear command not to judge. They have misunderstood Paul, but today’s text is Luke, not Paul. So here it is enough to answer to them, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? ... The one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.” What is the foundation? Mercy, kindness, gentleness, non-judgment, non-condemnation, forgiveness, love.

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Luke 6:1–26

Now in rapid succession the story gets going. Three elements. First, Jesus and the sabbath; then he picks the twelve; then the beatitudes.

Jesus breaks the sabbath law. Having just shown that God’s grace is open to all, those whom the Pharisees would exclude, having shown that the bounds of God’s grace are...well, no bound at all: that there are no bounds to God’s grace, Jesus proceeds to march through the field eating grain on the sabbath. This breaks the rules. And his appeal is to David, who broke the rules. This makes clear what the preceding miracles had implied, that Jesus is about a new set of rules, a breaking of the old rules. He proceeds to heal on the same sabbath, and this in turn enrages the Pharisees.

Then the Twelve are chosen. The old community is over: a new crowd is allowed in, and a new set of foundational rules are in place, and now a new community is made. These had all already been called. What happens now is that they are chosen for a particular role. He chose twelve of them to be the leaders of the community. This new community is the immediately itself an instrument of healing for others.

And the foundational principles of this community are then laid out. Blessed--happy--fortunate--are those who are poor, hungry, weeping, excluded, reviled, or defamed. Huh? Yep, that’s what he says. These are the lucky ones. This is the new community, the community of the excluded, the shut-out, those without power, those who are oppressed by the old rules. Who is the unhappy, the unfortunate? the rich, the full, the laughing, those who are well-spoken of.

How tragic that this could be missed. The church is the continuation of this community; the proclamation of the one holy catholic and apostolic church of the creed is the proclamation of the lineal descent of today’s church from this community: or rather, that we with them are one community. But we are so not because of our lineage, our inheritance, our continuity. Fine things those may be, but what is most important in this community are these three characteristics:

First, that the community uses rules and policies as tools for its own mission; never constrained by them against its will, but using them as holy tools for the proclamation of the new redeemed and liberated community.

Second, that the leaders are chosen of God, from among the excluded and rejected, of every sort with a stunning diversity, and whose choice results in healing, not distress.

And third, that this community values first and always the poor, the excluded, the oppresed, the sad, the weeping; that it never courts or seeks those who are rich, powerful, or well-regarded. It proclaims that happiness, joy and the blessing of God are with the former; that the latter are in a sad and sorry state.

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1 Peter 2:19–25

In his preaching, Peter was very focused on the paschal mystery, on the cross and resurrection. Here in the middle of Easter, the preaching returns to the passion. But it is the passion as infused with the understanding of the resurrection.

The motif here is that we follow in Christ’s example. But why should this work? In other words, why should an abused and suffering failure to obtain our goals somehow get our goals fulfilled? Now the Pauline idea is that we become united with Christ in his death; our baptism joins us to him, and so by joining him in his death, we are assured we will join him in our life. Paul’s first way of doing this joining is baptism, but the patient endurance of suffering is also a theme of his preaching.

My theme in the past few Sundays however has been to look at Petrine preaching in its distinctiveness. Peter has a different thing to say than Paul. What Peter says then here is quite different. We follow in Jesus example, in part, because it’s the right example, but also because in this way it is a credit to us. We build up credit, merit, reward, by following in Christ’s example, because God repays. So if we suffer unjustly, God will reward us and make it right in the end; by our patient endurance then we win a reward.

But this is still Christian preaching; it’s not just “do right and God will reward you.” Peter says that Jesus “himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.” This is much stronger than Paul’s first Adam/second Adam language. Peter’s language is less about ontological union with Jesus and more about a functional relationship. Jesus bore our sins “in his body,” and those sins were nailed to the cross and died. In this way we are free of them, and now we have returned to him, as the “shepherd and guardian of [our] souls.”

Our patient endurance, then, indicates our commitment that Jesus himself did right by patiently enduring wrong, and we have God’s approval when we do so, just as Jesus did. It is that approval of God which we crave and which Peter assures us we have.

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Luke 5:12–39

Two miracles, the calling of Levi, and a confrontation with the Pharisees and their scribes.

The miracles are miracles which grant access to those who have been excluded. The leper cannot be touched by anyone without making them unclean. Indeed, lepers were supposed to announce their presence shouting “leper! unclean!” wherever they went, lest someone accidentally touch them. Jesus, without missing a beat, “stretched out his hand, touched him, and said...” Did Jesus have to touch him to heal him? From the standpoint of the miracle, no. But the point is to show that this person is to be cured, and to be allowed to be part of the community. Jesus is willing to go outside the bounds, to transgress the rules, to make himself unclean, in order to reach this person and bring him in.

The second miracle is of a paralyzed man. Such a person isn’t necessarily excluded from the community in the way the leper is. Instead, he is unable to get in simply because of the facts of his disability. He would have to push through the crowd, but he can’t. So his friends bust through the ceiling and lower him down. Here we have the opposite of the healing of the leper. This time, the excluded ones bust through, breaking the rules (and committing no small act of property destruction) in order to gain access. Jesus forgives the man (for what, exactly? who knows! perhaps vandalism...) and the Pharisees are shocked. Sinfulness is what excludes someone from the community, and Jesus has no right to change that. The role of a leader (as the Pharisees see it) is to maintain the boundaries. Jesus, by contrast, is a physician, whose job is to cross the boundaries, and to legitimize the boundary crossings of others.

Then he includes a tax collector, Levi. And he sits down and eats a banquet which Levi prepares for him. Now the money for this banquet came from the people of Israel, whom Levi had been oppressing. Surely this boundary should not be crossed! But Jesus crosses it. He enjoys the feast and the honor Levi shows him. The Pharisees are once more incensed. Why do you do this? What justification do you have? You aren’t doing the proper religious activities (fasting and prayer), instead you’re hanging around with collaborators, dirty lepers, wicked sinners, whores, fags, drug dealers, and all the rest! Jesus, what’s up with you?!

Jesus does this. He crosses the boundaries, even the ones we think are most dear. He legitimizes the boundary crossings of other people. And why? Because only in this way can the people on the far side of the boundary be cured of whatever ails them. God’s concern (as Jonah teaches and Jonah doesn’t understand) is for everyone. The old regime in which a boundary is maintained to preserve the safety and security of those within it is gone.

This is new. It cannot be absorbed into the old or matched with it. It is so new that if you try to add this to the old system, it will tear the whole thing apart. This new attitude can only work if you are yourself made new. This is not a mere addendum or a tacked-on extra to the old system, very well it was, thank you very much. (Hence dispensationalism as such is wrong.) No, the old system must pass away. If you want to preserve what was good and preserved by the old system (the old wine in the old wineskins) you cannot do it by putting it into the new system (the new wineskins). And if you have drunk the old wine, if you are attached to the old system, you will naturally reject the new. Content with what you like, you will not see the need for change.

But those who are being included, they see the need. The leper, the paralytic, the tax collector, the collaborators, the wicked sinners, the whores, the fags. We get it. We know why the new is better, and we are drinking deep.

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Luke 5:1–11

Finally we get the calling of the disciples, and it is this extraordinary tale of a great fish-catch. John places this tale after the resurrection. Matthew and Mark just have the calling of these four men as they are mending their nets. John has an entirely different depiction of the calling of the first apostles. But for Luke, it’s here, with this tale of a fish catch.

The fish are obviously symbolic of the catch of the church, the great number of people that these men will gather into God’s net, a mighty harvest of the fruits of the sea. But not every apostle necessarily gathered this crowd of fish. Amidst the fact of the divine call, we often sometimes miss its specificity. How easy it is to look to this story, as so many preachers do, and proceed to say how we are supposed to go out and gather such a mighty harvest of Christian folk ourselves. But are we, in fact, all evangelists?

I notice that Jesus gave them direction: do this. And they, did, and they received a great catch. And they followed and caught even more. But to other disciples, Jesus may give a different message. Indeed, James did not earn such a mighty catch after all: he was the first to by martyred. But if the words of Jesus are correct, it may will be that this martyrdom was the way that James was called to be a fisherman of people, not by evangelism, but by his own passion, his own passive witness.

This is the Calvinist truth: we are all called by God. And the Catholic truth: this calling is sometimes to very serious business, to martyrdom or to great renunciation. I will have none of those nattering preachers who say such nonsense as “None of us are called to martyrdom, but we are called to ...” or “We today are not called to give up all our possessions, but we are called to ....” I wonder, how does such a preacher know that nobody in his or her congregation is called to martyrdom or the renunciation of all worldly goods? No preacher can tell us what we are all called to do or not called to do: whether martyrdom, renunciation, evangelism, marriage, or whatever. The Catholic and Calvinist agree that God’s call is particular and individual.

There is a heresy rampant in the Episcopal Church today which, like all heresies, starts with a great truth, and then distorts it to mean something quite different, often the opposite. The Catechism of the Episcopal Church teaches that the ministers of the church come in four orders: lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons. And unlike most churches, we insist on this, and we are experiencing great and wonderful revival of the sense that every Christian is called to ministry. And we call them “ministers” and the work they do “ministry.”

But the heresy now rampant is to turn this around, and start telling people that whatever they are doing is a ministry. The ministers of the church are found in all four orders, but it does not follow that everyone in each of those four is actually a minister! Some of them are falling down on the job, not doing their part, have not counted the cost, and may find themselves on the wrong side when Jesus Christ separates the sheep from the goats. From a wonderful statement that all are called to be faithful, some have drawn the lesson that all are faithful; from a statement that the ministers of the church come in four kinds, some have drawn the lesson that everyone in those four kinds is a minister. They are not. Some are, some are not. All are called to ministry, but not all have heeded that call.

No preacher can say what everyone is called or not called to with any specificity. But one of the tasks of certain ministers is to, individually, help people to discern where God is calling them, and help them to live out the call to ministry which each of us receives. But this task cannot be performed if it has been replaced with the pernicious notion that everyone is already ministering where God wants them to.

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