Peter said: 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? Acts 11:17

You may have noticed – from friends, neighbors, relatives, when you are in the grocery store – that the Jewish festival of Passover began Friday night. It is, of course, the central and guiding narrative of Judaism: that God liberated his people who were enslaved in Egypt. Moses led the people through the Red Sea and into forty years of pilgrimage in the Sinai wilderness before they finally were allowed by God to cross over into Canaan, the Promised Land.

Passover is the time when the kosher dietary laws – a spiritual practice – are most adhered to. You’ve probably seen the labels on different food packages, “Kosher for Passover”, and you probably know that one category of forbidden foods is pork. But shellfish and some other types of fish, birds of prey or scavengers, and any land animal that does not have a split hoof and chew its cud, are all outside the kosher regulations.

Throughout Jewish history keeping kosher has been one way that Jewish people have set themselves apart from the wider cultures in which they have lived. It has been a marker of identity, a boundary drawn around their community that says “We belong together, we are the Lord’s People.” And so in the ancient world – at least by Jesus’ time - faithful Jews were not allowed to share a meal with Gentiles, or even have much to do with them. Sharing a meal, table fellowship with Gentiles, was a huge barrier.

And as we are reminded in today’s reading from the Book of Acts, the first followers of Jesus, the first disciples, were all Jewish, they all kept kosher, they all worshiped in synagogues - and the Temple when they could - they all recited the daily prayers of Judaism and read the Hebrew Scriptures.  All the while they met together as followers of Jesus, to practice his Way, the One they knew to be God’s Messiah, who had finally inaugurated the fulfillment of God’s purposes for his people and for his creation. Christ had come to fulfill the Law for God’s people, to bring it to fruition – not to start a new religion. And so the first disciples’ expectation was that if a Gentile person wanted to follow Jesus, then he or she would first have to go through the Jewish rituals of conversion: circumcision – the mark of the Covenant - for men, a ritual immersion bath for women.

Just to set the scene from the Acts passage…. The Apostle Peter was an out-of-town guest at Simon the tanner’s. He had gone up on the roof – a flat roof – to pray. He had a vision of a large sheet appearing in front of him, filled with forbidden, non-kosher animals, and he heard a voice commanding him to butcher the animals and eat them. Peter was horrified, and refused, claiming his faithful kosher practices. He had this vision three different times, and finally the voice said – God’s voice, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane or unclean.” Just then messengers arrived from Cornelius, the Roman centurion, a Gentile who was faithful to the Lord God, although he had not made a formal conversion. Cornelius had had a vision, also, telling him to send for Peter to come so that Cornelius could here whatever it was Peter was going to tell him. When they met, Peter told him about Jesus, and how Jesus was the Messiah who offered hope and freedom and joy and the fulfillment of God’s purposes. While Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon Cornelius and his household – even before they had been baptized, even without having gone through any formal conversion process to Judaism – which for Cornelius would have meant circumcision. Peter’s response to all this was to recognize that God was at work there, and who was he to hinder God? So Peter and those other disciples who had gone with him – brothers in the faith - accepted Cornelius’ hospitality and stayed with him a few days, teaching him more about Jesus, sharing his own experiences, and eating the food that was set before him in that Gentile household. That was all in chapter ten; and our reading picks up immediately after it in chapter eleven.

This is where the story stats to get tricky. Word of Cornelius’ commitment to Christ made it back to Jerusalem: an important Roman army commander now a follower of Jesus; hooray! But he is a Gentile with whom Peter – a faithful Jewish Christian – had shared non-kosher meals; boo. And so when Peter went to Jerusalem and met with the Council – you might say the Vestry of the early Church – the called him on the carpet: what was he thinking?? So Peter told them what had happened; he shared the way he had seen and experienced God at work in both himself and in Cornelius’ household; how could he possibly hinder and contradict what God was doing right in front of him? And the other leaders of Jesus’ Way then also saw that God’s plan included Gentiles as well – without the need to first become Jews. God was opening up a new frontier, and the rules were changing.

How often has that happened to us? We thought we understood the rules of life or society or religion, only to find that all around us the game was changing? It can be a scary, unsettling thing, and when we feel anxious we start to pull in our identity more closely – our spiritual identity, our personal identity, our political or cultural identity – and our identity becomes a wall.
Walls can be good things – in times of danger they can keep us safe. With appropriate doors and windows they make a good house for us to live in. They can provide structure. But when we erect walls, we can’t see the people who are on the other side of them – we cut off any knowledge of them or true communication with them; the walls block our view.

And if those walls continue to exist in our minds and hearts and behavior – whether they are made of fear or prejudice or ignorance or even good intentions – those walls will only get thicker and taller and more difficult to dismantle.

Eventually the walls we have built for ourselves will begin to isolate us, perhaps even imprison us, and our connection and relationship to others will deteriorate; we’ll be cut off from them, perhaps even from ourselves, from image and life that God wants to nourish in us. And finally, our walls prevent us from seeing Jesus – the One who encompasses both Jew and Gentile, the One who surprises us by pouring out his grace upon those we least expect, on those whom we fear. We may even be found to be hindering God with the walls we build.

So what do we do? We take our courage in both hands, we ask for God’s wisdom and guidance and love. We allow (or challenge ourselves) to be curious about the other person – to see in them a fallible human being, just like us; to see a person made in the image of God, just like us; to see a person beloved of God and for whom Christ died, just like us.

And yet not like us, for God made us in all our diversity and difference – as well as in all our similarity and solidarity with one another. To embrace the difference in others is to be open to trusting what God might be doing in their lives and hearts – without needing our permission, and even most times without our knowledge. And the wall will come down a bit.

When we can lay aside fear and suspicion, and look for the presence of Christ in one another, the wall will come down a little more. When we can trust God’s goodness and God’s providential care and his gift of grace, the wall will come down a little more.
This is not an overnight project. Putting aside our fears and anxieties can even be the work of a lifetime – for a person and for a society. But the Risen Christ who knows no bounds, for whom locked doors are no obstacle, asks us to see the world with our eyes open, face-to-face, knowing that the power of his resurrection is precisely so that we may be free from fear, anxiety, hatred, rigidity, prejudice; and may be free to live in God’s kingdom – on earth as it is in heaven – with joy, feasting, and delight in God and in our fellow human beings. The reign of God has begun even in our midst, in which all who seek the glory of God are welcome and received.

Let us pray.
Lord Christ, you tell us that the world will know we are your people by the way we love one another. Help to step outside of fear, confusion, anxiety, and selfishness and give us the strength and grace to love others with the same love you have for us. We ask this in your name. Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 24, 2016

Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, "Please come to us without delay.” Acts 9:38

News travels fast., they say, and bad news travels really fast; and these days, not only are the difficult events themselves news, but so are all the yearly anniversaries. They show up regularly in newspapers and on-line news sites. And our own personal histories get replayed randomly on Facebook, as the algorithm pops up that says: Here are your memories from one year ago today, with a little border around the photo you shared last year at this time, askng if you would like to share it again.
This weekend is one of those anniversaries; it’s been three years since the bombing at the Boston Marathon, and there has been much talk about who is running he race this year, what the security will be like, and interviews with people who were there on the day.

There was a quotation that surfaced in the hours after the bombing that seemed to give many people solace and encouragement; it was from Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood fame. Many people know he was a pioneer in quality children’s television; you may not know that he was a faithful Christian and an ordained Presbyterian minister. The quote was something he often told children on his TV show about times when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world."

And, of course, right after the Boston bombings the news showed multiple pictures and video clips of people – whether bystanders or staff on duty – running toward the sound of the explosions; they were nurses, doctors, police, EMTs, fire-fighters…. anyone who thought they could be of service in an emergency. So many people do respond when’s there’s a tragedy – in the moments and hours after the event, and sometimes in the days and even weeks following. There seems to be a basic human response to want to help, to do something, an impulse towards empathy, exactly what Fred Rogers was talking about.

But what happens when the incident is not something so public, where the victims are merely innocent bystanders and everyone wants to help? What if it is the tragedy of addiction, or divorce, or losing a job, or having a very public fall from grace and loss of face, or being diagnosed with a debilitative condition? That is often much harder, and it goes on for a long time – moving past the point of first aid or what a first responder can do; people tend to move away from the crisis, and stay away, feeling they don’t know what to say or do, or they get worn out when they can’t improve or change the actual situation.

Our first Scripture reading today was from the Book of Acts, as it always is during the Easter season; we hear the stories of the formation of the earliest Church, those first Christian communities who gathered together in the light of the Resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit.

There was a Jewish Christian community in the town of Joppa, on the Mediterranean coast of Judea, and a woman named Tabitha was part of that community. She seems to have been a skilled and creative seamstress, and was known for her generosity to the poor and for her many good works. Tabitha died – we don’t know how or why – and in their grief, the disciples at Joppa sent to the town of Lydda (eleven miles away) where they knew Peter was visiting. We don’t know what they expected of Peter, but they wanted his presence and strength; they wanted to honor Tabitha’s life and to draw comfort through being together.
And then God, through Peter’s faith and prayer, restored Tabitha to life; Peter showed up for their grief and distress, and God worked through that presence and compassion and faith, and made a way for life where there had previously been no way. And that is a very large part of what it means to be part of Christian community, a community of faith in Christ, followers of Jesus walking together in his Way.

When there is a tragedy, a challenge, a concern, the whole community rallies around (or at least large parts of it) in one way or another – even if we don’t know the person - with meals, rides, prayer (lots of prayer), a listening ear, companionship, perhaps advocacy when it’s needed, a ministry of presence. I think most of you know that kind of work and care is not easy.

When I was doing chaplaincy training, as all Episcopal clergy do, my supervisor told us that if we were called to the emergency room, or some other difficult and painful situation, and we felt at a loss for words – our response was just about right. Because so much of care for one another in difficulty is about presence, about just showing up, not leaving the person or the family alone; we walk through the difficulty with them because that’s what Jesus does, and in those times and places, we are there on Christ’s behalf, being the human hands and face of God, a conduit for the Holy Spirit. The Christian community – our community – is at its best when we remember this, when we move towards one another, towards pain and hurt and sadness and brokenness, and don’t let ourselves be immobilized and separated by it.

This morning we are having a baptism: Tyler Edward Schroeder; and in a few minutes Tyler’s parents and godparents will make promises on his behalf to live his life as a follower of Jesus, to receive the love and grace of God – a gift through and through. And we, all of the rest of us, will promise to support Tyler in his life in Christ, to be that community that gathers in good times and in bad, that looks beyond our own daily concerns and pressures to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”, as our Baptismal covenant says.

This afternoon at our diocesan cathedral in Newark, five of our parish teens will be Confirmed: Julia Celeste, Max Kosempel, Kenzie McNulty, Logan McNulty, and Sarah Sullivan. They will be making a more mature affirmation of the faith to which they were given in baptism. As they kneel before the bishop, and he lays his hands on their heads and prays for them, they will be responding to the grace given them in baptism, claiming for themselves a path through life, a commitment to the way of faith in Jesus.

And all those gathered in the Cathedral this afternoon from many different parts of our diocesan church family, and those of us who gather next week to celebrate these newly Confirmed, will again offer our love and prayers and support for them as they continue to live their life in Christ every day. Because that is what we do as Christians: we show up for one another, and for others outside our community of faith who need us.

We gather because, as Jesus said, whenever two or three are gathered together, I am in the midst of you; our being together in faith and prayer and witness and service provides an opening and a way for God – perhaps a way that was even closed off when we were isolated and alone.

Our baptism calls us to make Jesus’ character the model for our own character, and in Confirmation we reaffirm this. We are here because we are committed to following Jesus – however well or badly we currently do that – and to get better at it, so that it becomes the core of our being, individually and collectively.

Our faith is always lived and expressed and experienced best in community, the Body of Christ; we are not alone, we have God and we have each other. And for that, we give great and heartfelt thanks.

Let us pray.
Dear Lord, thank you for calling us to be you People, your Body, your community. In this Easter season, help us to renew our faith and our living of it, that we may reflect your joy and hope into the world. May we always be people who run to the service of others in need. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.