UNITY IN THE SPIRIT

SCRIPTURE READING: Acts 11:1-18

I once lived in the house that Billy Bruton and Hank Aaron lived in. Now that is unremarkable enough. There are many places that claim that celebrities, kings and presidents have slept there. If you travel east, you will find the claim that George Washington slept here so often that the only conclusion is that the father of our country never did much of anything, but he got a lot of rest. Even in Wisconsin there is much made of Abraham Lincoln’s stay in the Tallman House in Janesville.

What is remarkable about the fact that Bruton and Aaron slept in the house I lived in is that there was no other place that would house them in the years they played with the Eau Claire Bears, a farm club of the Milwaukee Braves. Remember them? Northern cities were hotbeds of racism in those days in the forties and fifties. I can’t say that racism has disappeared altogether, but we don’t deny people places to stay based on their race now. It is against the law of the land, even though often it isn’t the law of the heart.

When Billy and Hank came to Eau Claire, there was no place that could be found where they could live. The minister of First Congregational Church at that time, Maurice Haehlen, welcomed them to stay in the parsonage. That house had a suite on the third floor where they lived. In later years my two oldest sons occupied that suite.

You may chasten Eau Claire for its racial exclusivity, but before you do I understand that Marian Anderson could not eat in the dining room of the Conway Hotel when she came to town to sing here in Appleton. She had to eat in her room. William Warfield, when he came to sing with the McDonnell Men’s Chorus, I am told, could find no lodging in Appleton and had to stay in Neenah.

These are only a few of the marks of the shameful history of “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

While we have moved well beyond those times, we are confronted in the text today with the same kind of exclusivity practiced in the darker days of our history. This time it was spiritual arrogance. Peter was called on to explain why he had gone to Caesarea to eat with Gentiles. Why was he taking the gospel to outsiders and a Roman army officer, an occupier, at that? He explained that he had a vision in which God showed him that he could call nothing profane that God had made, namely food from creatures that he would have formerly thought an abomination according to the rules of his faith. Those of you who have a special fondness for lobsters, crabs, shrimp, scallops and clams may relax now.

Peter’s dilemma before that divine revelation was one that is common to our humanity. Do we make allowances for the differences among us or do we hold to our old loyalties rigidly? The early church was struggling with that issue and the author of Acts put it in the history not once but twice, once in the telling of the experience of Peter and his vision in chapter ten, and then in the retelling of it in chapter eleven when he explained why he ate with Gentiles to his detractors in Jerusalem. He gave it a double emphasis so that we wouldn’t miss the point. The conclusion of both Peter and the church was that no one had a corner on the Jesus market. The Holy Spirit fell on all regardless of previous loyalties or affinities. That big banner outside our door says it all, “If you accept Christ, you accept everyone.” God is still speaking this truth to us. You would think that we would not need such banners on our churches, but it reminds us of the darker side of our nature which seeks to divide the world into camps of them and us. It is a good thing to have such banners because they remind us of the love of God for all God’s creation. That was, after all, the point of Peter’s vision. What God has made clean, you must not call profane.

I remember vividly the times when my mother would speak earnestly to us as children that we should not date a Catholic, because….and I knew all the reasons then, but, as I should have, I’ve forgotten them now. I bet there are some former Roman Catholics in this room whose parents told them not to date a Protestant. As the line in the hymn goes, “Time makes ancient good uncouth.” What we once honored, God has made obsolete with God’s lavish love for all creation.

We still create division among races and clans. We still sow dissension among faith groupings. We still war over old slights and resentments. We still differ vehemently over politics even though on each side we avow that our aim is for the good of all and the welfare of all. We can create all manner of injustice and strife. Even though we can do it, it is not that to which God calls us.

It might be healthier for all of us if we looked at ourselves in the way Groucho Marx did when he said, “I wouldn’t belong to an organization that would have me as a member.”

Some personal humility would help overcome the pride that divides us and makes us unable to accommodate for the feelings, sentiments and beliefs of others.

The one thing that we can count on is the surprising freedom of God. It is God’s spirit that brought Peter and Cornelius, the Roman officer and Gentile together. It was God’s spirit that overcame Peter’s rigidity. It was God’s spirit that enabled Peter to speak with such authority to his detractors of God’s all encompassing love. It was God’s free spirit that overcame death and the grave in Jesus’ resurrection. It is God’s free spirit, free of human restrictions, that allows us to come together and celebrate the Lord’s Supper and find, not only forgiveness, but also genuine community here around this table without keeping any, who are in Christ, away from Christ’s table.

A word for our time comes to us from the pen of Anne Lamott: “If the God you believe in hates all the same people you do, then you know you’ve created God in your own image.”

Sermon preached by Reverend Jake Close at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on May 6, 2007.