Preached April 10, 2016
Scripture: Acts 11:1-18
So here we are in our second week exploring the theme of flunking sainthood. And this week, we are again looking at the apostle Peter. Poor Peter can’t catch a break – apparently both the writers of the Gospel of John and of Acts really wanted to show his flaws.
Because here in Acts, we have Peter telling a story about how he flunked sainthood…and how he grew. He is telling this story to a group of people who are upset because he has begun sharing the gospel with those who were previously seen as outside of the sacred community. See-- he used to agree with these folks who thought Christ had come just for those who were part of his own ethnic group. But he had a major change, a transformation.
Here is how it happened: God communicated to Peter through a dream or a vision. And in the vision, Peter sees all of these animals that, as an observant Jew, he is not supposed to eat. But God says to Peter “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” We know Peter knows this is the voice of God, because he replies, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”
Now I’m not sure about you, but I’m thinking if I literally heard the voice of God in a dream, I probably wouldn’t argue with Her. But Peter does. In fact, Peter refuses to listen to God three times, even when God says “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
But no worries, God has other means of convincing. As Peter wakes up, three men arrive. And God had told them to go get Peter and bring him to the house of Simon of Caesarea. Simon of Caesarea is a God-fearing Gentile. He is not ethnically a Jew, but he does love God and does what is right.
And when Peter arrives, Peter witnesses something amazing and unexpected. Something that helps him to understand that his vision was not just about dietary restrictions– but it was about whether Gentiles were part of God’s beloved community or not. Peter sees the Holy Spirit come upon the Gentiles, just as it had come to the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost. And seeing that God chooses Gentiles as well as Jews to be part of the beloved community and part of God’s work of salvation, Peter finally gets it. He says essentially, “If God chooses to give these people the same gift that God gave us, then who am I that I could hinder God?”
Peter has come to understand that God includes all people in God’s work of salvation and restoration. Peter finally understands the meaning of “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This is not about meat. This is about human beings.
Peter’s world, like ours, contained binaries. You were either this or that. A Jew or a Gentile. And one of those things was clean, and one of those things was profane. In our world, we are overrun with binaries. Male or female. Black or white. Gay or straight. Cis-gender or transgender. Rich or poor. Able-bodied or disabled, American or immigrant. And one of those things is always seen as the norm, and one of them is always less than. In this biblical language: perhaps one is clean, and the other is profane. One is understood as fully created in the image of God, and one…not so much.
And this is where my tattoo comes in. In seminary, we read the writings of Virginia Ramey Mollenkott in my Christian ethics class. Dr. Mollenkott is a self-described progressive evangelical. In an article called “Trans-forming Feminist Christianity,” she quotes part of the poem “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. You heard it in the opening prayer. And if you looked at my tattoo while you heard it, you may have noticed some of the images reflected on my arm.
Here are some lines again:
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings…
And Mollenkott writes, “Father Hopkins, a Jesuit priest, here praises God for everything that is queer, as is he himself." [1] She goes on to explain that Hopkins was a closeted gay man, and possibly also transgender.” And she writes that in this poem, Hopkins expresses a theology that is “profoundly healthful for LGBTQ Christians...: a glad acknowledgement that in all our uniqueness we are embodiments of a Creator who loves diversity so much that She created all sorts of spotted, freckled, in-between, counter-expectation, original, unusual, strange landscapes and creatures.” [2]
God’s delight in diversity in this poem is not just about nature. It is about human beings. And we are called to see that God delights in human difference. Because God created all of it! If we think back to those binaries I mentioned, there are two falsehoods at play. The first lie is that one is better than the other. And the second is that God’s creation fits neatly into human-made categories at all!
And I think that engaging with this queer theology can be liberating for everyone – including of course, but not just those who identify as LGBTQ+ and have perhaps found themselves directly named as being outside of God’s good creation. I think the miracle of this poem is that it helps us to see the very things that perhaps we wish to change about ourselves because our culture tells us we are not okay...and it invites us to experience those very things as gifts from and reflections of God.
And I also think that God has given us a way to receive this truth, just as Peter received it. It is revealed to Peter that he has to expand his mission, expand his notions of who is made in God’s image, who is included in God's plan of salvation. He is clued into this expansion in his vision, this dream from God. I too believe that God works within us to reveal to us that all people are made in the image of God, beyond all our binaries and categories and prejudices. But Peter needs more than that – he resists God at first! It’s only when he sees the gift that God gave to the very people he once would have categorically excluded…only then does he understand that God shows no partiality, that we are all created in the image of God and are part of God’s dream for the world.
Like Peter, we are called to be in relationship with, to be in ministry with, all kinds of people. Partially, this is because we are called to be like Christ and stand with the oppressed and marginalized. But also it is because encountering the phenomenal diversity of God's creation -- a creation that we might understand as an expression of God's very self – is the only way that we can get a glimpse of the phenomenal complexity of God Herself / God Himself / God Themself.
And when we understand the audacious diversity of God’s creation, it might just free us to look at ourselves – with all of the ways we have been told we don’t fit in, we don’t live up, we don’t count, we aren’t good enough, we need to play some role that we cannot play – maybe it will free us to see ourselves as part of the beautiful creation, the one that reflects God’s image – as well.
So back to my tattoo. When I met with my tattoo artist Devin, I told him that I didn’t want just a solid sleeve tattoo. I wanted something more delicate, something with open spaces where you could see my skin through it.
And what happened, though I did not plan it, is that in the parts of my arm that are not covered with ink, you can see my freckles, my moles breaking into this tattoo. And it seems to me a poignant reminder that I am a dappled thing too.
We are dappled things too.
Our sacred beauty and goodness transcends everything that the world would call flawed. And it reflects the very image of God.
As Hopkins wrote:
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Praise Her. Praise God.
Amen.
-------
1 Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey. “Trans-forming Feminist Christianity” in New Feminist Christianity, edited by Mary E. Hunt and Diann L. Neu. Woodstock, VT: Skylight Path Publishing, 2012.
2 Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment