Pastor Peter

 After Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, Peter got a big promotion amongst the disciples, and started a new job, as “the rock upon which Jesus would build the Church.” No pressure, though.

The book of Acts, that we’re getting these verses from, was written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. We know that because both books begin with a special thanks to some dude named “Theophilus”. We have no historical records of anyone ever being named Theophilus, and no other books, save for these two, dedicated to Theophilus. Theophilus was either a wealthy patron of Luke with a crazy unique name, OR, we can take a look at what “Theophilus” means in Greek–lover of God–and go with the alternate theory, that Theophilus wasn’t one specific person, but rather the author’s way of giving a nod to all people who will read these stories as he intended, with love for God. Either way, dedicating your book to Theophilus is right up there with “call me Ishmael” as an easily identifiable first sentence. Show us what you got, Luke, we’re listening.

Luke wrote the book of Acts as the sequel of his Gospel–The Disciples Strike Back, if you will. We’re now eleven chapters in, and Peter has taught and interpreted scripture, he’s joined his fellow apostles in many healing stories, they met a new friend named Matthias to move on after the tragic loss of both Judas and Jesus, they’ve named a bunch of new folks, both women and men, as new apostles, they’ve received the Holy Spirit, and they even managed to convert Saul. Peter has been busy! And, though he’s never alone, he is considered the Face and Voice of the Church. Again, no pressure.

Though we’ve gone this far with Peter and the early Church, he faces a huge rite of passage this morning, one he didn’t see coming simply for lack of experience: the first fight.

Who should the Rock of the Church and his fellow disciples be reaching out to? It was long believed among Jesus’ most inner circle that Jesus was Jewish, his disciples were Jewish, and they were there to reach more Jewish folks, to bring back together all the scattered descendants of Jacob. The most conservative among Jesus’ followers believed Jesus’ only job was to bring all the Jews together to Jerusalem, and then overthrow Rome. Jesus did neither of those tasks. Now that he’s passed the baton to Peter, what decision will he make? He’s been faced with the possibility of reaching out and doing ministry with non-Jewish folks, with Gentiles, or with “the uncircumcised” for those who insist on putting such a fine and personal point on it. What should he do, reach out and expand the Church, or maintain the status quo? The latter is the popular decision, the safe decision, the one that will ensure that Peter keeps the strong base of support he’s enjoyed. But it doesn’t feel right.

What do we do when we have to make a decision, and the popular choice, the one your friends want you to make, just doesn’t feel right? What do we do when our personal compasses put us at odds with those we love? These aren’t fun questions to ask, but you don’t get to adulthood without facing them.

In this case, the controversy is about who God loves. The oldest of religious controversies, one that comes up over and over and over, in all times, in all places, in all houses of worship, in homes, in holy texts, in newspaper op-eds, in podcasts, in social media rant posts, from megaphones on street corners and between the lines of distinguished, best-selling novels. 

The day we stop fighting over that might be the day I’m out of a job, so for reasons of self-preservation maybe I shouldn’t try to clear that up, but that would be a matter of what’s popular vs what’s right, wouldn’t it?

It’s human nature to want the one that loves you all to yourself. It’s human nature to operate from a scarcity mindset, and see all resources out there, even non-tangible resources like LOVE, as limited. The same way you and your siblings fought as little kids about who mom loves best, well, it’s how we are as diverse peoples at the kitchen table of life. And we’re smart and intuitive, we see how different we all are. So how is it possible we’re all loveable? And how could there be enough love to go around? I saw that jerk next to me take the last cookie. How is love not the same?

I could go on forever about how knowing God loves us all is the right and just thing to believe. It’s the sermon Peter proclaims. But more than that, more than the justice of not calling any created human unloveable to God, is the reality that we already all agree on this. We just have to be willing to say that out loud.

We don’t all agree on who God is, what God looks like, how many gods there are, what we should call them, or even if any God or gods exist. But, we do agree, on one level or another, that if a higher power is out there, that higher power is out there to give love to anyone who would receive that love.

The first letter from John tells us “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” Our Jewish friends lift up one beloved verse from Deuteronomy and call it the “Shema”: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” And later on in the narrative, in Psalm 136, all who revere that text observe that “God’s love endures forever.” Our Muslim friends look to the Qur’an, Surah 3, verse 31, which says, “Allah will love you and forgive you your sins, Allah is all-forgiving, all-merciful.” Our Hindu friends can look to the Upanishads, one of their sacred texts, and read the words, “All is change in the world of the senses, but changeless is the Supreme Lord of Love. Meditate on him, be absorbed by him, wake up from this dream of separateness.” Our Wiccan friends may turn to a popular poem titled “the Charge of the Goddess” and read: “I am the Gracious Goddess, who gives the gift of joy unto the heart. Upon earth, I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal; and beyond death, I give peace, and freedom, and reunion with those who have gone before. Nor do I demand sacrifice, for behold I am the Mother of All Living, and my love is poured out upon the earth.” Sikh writings will teach us that “The One God is permeating each and every heart.” And our Baha’i friends can turn to one of their sacred texts, “The Hidden Words”, and read: “Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty.”

Peter, stepping into those big First Pastor of the First Church shoes, taught that God calls us clean, so we have no business calling one another profane. He proclaimed that a God that we imagine staying in this building and only talking to people we like is too small a God. Ultimately, for us here today, if we want to grow into the best disciples we can be, we have to grow not only our discipline and faith, but our concept of God. We have to start imagining a great big God who loves every single kind of person we can imagine, and a bunch we can’t. We have to conceive of a God who loves even the people in which we see no potential. Not just because we already agree on that anyway, and not just because that’s best for all our human family. But because it’s best for us. If God can love so many different people, then God must love you a whole lot.

Amen.