Clean

 Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church 

Rev. Natalie Bowerman, Pastor 

May 22, 2022 

Service of Worship 

 

Let us pray 

 

When the news is loudly proclaiming anger, hostility, hatred, we are called by Christ to love one another. How hard that is, O Lord! Prejudice abounds in our land, and it is our shame, as we proclaim our faith in you. You call us to love one another, but we put conditions on that love: some of these conditions regard race, economic status, gender, age, nationality. It is easy to love people with whom we feel comfortable. It is more difficult to love those who are different from us. And that, O Lord, is our dilemma. Teach us how to love and accept the diversity in our land. Help us to treasure each other for the wondrous gifts and talents each person has. Sharpen our ears to hear words of love when whispered and shouted. Tune our hearts to your healing message of acceptance and compassion for all. Help us to be the people of the Resurrection - who have been freed from the bonds of death. We place our lives in your care, merciful Lord. AMEN. 

From Nancy Townley 

 

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen. 

 

Acts 11: 1-18 NRSV 

 

Peter’s Report to the Church at Jerusalem 

 

11 Now the apostles and the brothers and sisters who were in Judea heard that the gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers[a] criticized him, 3 saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 4 Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners, and it came close to me. 6 As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8 But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.[b] These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 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; 14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16 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.’ 17 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?” 18 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.” 

 

A message 

“Clean” 

 

Y’all…it’s been a week. It’s really been a week. 

 

Just after Mother’s Day, we got the news that our two younger children, Lillian and Alexander, were exposed to Covid. Then the clouds of doom began descending upon my home. Before even hearing the news of the exposure we knew something was wrong with Lily, because she woke up in the middle of the night gasping for air, coughing, and telling us she couldn’t breathe. A few hours later, in the morning light, we learned she’d been exposed to Covid, and by the end of the day we learned she had it. The next morning, Alex tested positive. For a few days, Sean and I circled the wagons, dispensed Tylenol, took temperatures, and administered snuggles while smugly convinced we wouldn’t get sick. Then on Thursday we woke up feeling like death warmed over. Eventually, our oldest son Daniel got sick, too, and suddenly our life was upside down. We were coughing, we had chills, we hurt from head to toe, we were exhausted but could never get comfortable enough to sleep.  

 

Guys, please, stay healthy out there. 

 

We made it through because of your love. Your prayers, your bringing over food, your checking in, your support. Sincerely, and I’ll never be able to say this enough: thank you. This love, that of a found family, of people who are there for you even though they don’t have to be—that love is the love that shows you God. 

 

I was so grateful that I did see God, that I knew the Divine was out there and alive and active in the world, before the week ended, and I read the devastating local headline: Payton Gendron, an 18 year old from Conklin, NY, drove to a Tops in Buffalo, wearing a bullet proof vest and armed with an assault rifle, and opened fire. He killed ten people and injured another three. Near as we can tell, not that you can ever make any sense from gun violence, he drove to the neighborhood in Buffalo that he did and carried out this massacre with the intent of killing Black people. 

 

Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy.  

 

I want to say something like “what has happened to this world?” Or “this is not the America I know,” or even “I’m shocked”, but tragically, none of those sentences are true. In the words of my older sister, several years back after a different horrific shooting: “You know the worst part about today’s shooting? That we have to use the word ‘today’s’.” 

 

Where do we go from here? We can predict what some of our neighbors will do. The NRA will double down on gun rights. Talking heads on TV will spout words about “mental health” and “a misunderstood youth” and “violent video games” and “absentee parents”. My Facebook friends will fill up my feed with “thoughts and prayers.” And somewhere out there, another hate-filled person with a broken sense of right and wrong and a gun will teeter closer and closer to the edge. 

 

We can’t go on like this. We have to “look for the helpers” in the words of the large Fred Rodgers. We need to lift up what we have done that has actually created change: the prayer vigil organized by the Schenectady Clergy Against Hate, those of us calling our elected representatives and demanding change, the first responders who helped the victims and survivors, those holding the young shooter accountable for his actions. And then we need to not only admire those helpers, but be them. 

 

The first and best place I turn to for advice in these times is scripture. As it turns out, last week’s lectionary-appointed reading from Acts puts our heads and hearts right where they should be. In the early decades of the Church, when the disciples acted only on Jesus’ commands to “love one another” and “go and make disciples”, both of which ended up being astonishingly open to interpretation, Jesus’ disciples met droves and droves of people, and had to decide, on a case by case basis, how to proceed. The biggest controversy that Peter faced early and often had to do with Gentiles. After centuries of caution against associating with Gentiles, Peter is now interacting with people who have never been Jewish on the daily, and some of them even want to join the Jesus Movement! What should he do? Should he risk his ritual purity by even talking to them? Is there any chance at all that they can become Christian without becoming Jewish first (a particularly risky proposition for the men)? And perhaps most of all, and threatening to shake what Peter has believed his whole life: are Gentiles equal to him? Are they human beings as worthy of love as Jews in the eyes of God? 

 

When Peter wonders if the answer to that last question is yes, his Jewish friends are aghast and disgusted. They see Peter crossing over and loving who they have never loved, and they take that as a betrayal of their identity. In repo se, Peter says this: What God has made clean, you must not call profane. 

 

Gosh. After a week like the one I’ve had. “Clean.” What does that word even mean?  

 

We don’t follow the same laws as the ancient Jews, and at one point in my life I assumed that meant we, 21st Century American Protestants, had no purity code of our own. The reality is I just didn’t know to look for one. I believe Peter was aware of his, but it’s an interesting thought: was the purity code this extra set of restrictive rules to him, or just the way things were? 

 

In a post-Covid world, and especially in houses where we have been afflicted by the virus, let me tell you…we have a purity code. “6 feet apart.” “No big gatherings.” “Wear a mask.” “Get vaccinated/ get boosted/ get boosted again.” And if you break those rules, you regain your ritual purity by quarantining for 2 weeks, during which time you wash your hands while singing happy birthday enough to make up for all the canceled parties. 

 

In this post-Covid world, we’ve become so fearful. Oh God, they aren’t wearing a mask. Can I stand really far away and still look polite? I’m not comfortable with this. Did I just cough? Oh no, could this be it? 

 

More so, in a post-Covid world we’ve become more divided than we’ve ever been. We might raise an eyebrow at Peter and his friends, and think we’re so far past a world where I know, care, or want to know whether someone is circumcised. But where Peter knew the circumcised and uncircumcised, I know the vaccinated and the anti-vaccine. I know those who will wear an N95 in public for years to come, and those who have never put on a mask. I know those who followed scientists like Dr. Fauci, and those who distrusted him. I know Republicans and Democrats, who have never felt further apart. I know the pro-choice and the pro-life. I know the RMN and the WCA. I know proud gun owners, and those who would rather see guns banned. I know Black and White. 

 

I also know, despite our huge differences, a grayer world, one with nuance, one where we sit at one another’s tables and acknowledge that the world, our faith, and our God are bigger than us vs them. I know the world Peter told us about, the one from his vision where God told him to look beyond our earthly separations. I know a world where we love one another, where we defend and protect one another. I know a world where White people use their voice of privilege to demand racial justice, where the healthy mask to protect the vulnerable, and where we fight for common sense gun laws to love our neighbor. I know a world, most of all, where we push one another to grow, where we use our diversity as strength, and where listening to one another brings forth peace. I know a world where we transcend thoughts and prayers and find Kingdom Building and justice. 

 

Seek peace this week. Stay healthy, stay safe, and stay open to love. Don’t settle for what we have known, keep looking because when you least expect it you, like Peter, might envision a better world. 

 

Amen. 

 

I invite you to receive this benediction 

 

Our God: our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, will guard our going out and coming in, from this time on and forevermore. And as all of God’s people, we say together: Amen.