Coming to the Table Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church On Sunday June 9th, 2021 Scripture: Acts 10:44-48 This morning we continue our sermon series on the lectionary passages from the book of Acts. A name like “Acts” begs the question, “whose acts?” Traditionally the book has been known as the Acts of the Apostles, but many scholars say that it ought to be called “the Acts of the Holy Spirit” instead. In every story we have read over the past weeks, the main actor has been the Spirit of God. She has not been passive but very, very active. She has been disturbing, prodding, and interrupting the apostles to behave in powerful and dramatic new ways. Our passage from Acts for this week begins “while Peter was still speaking” … so we know right away that there is some background to the story. We have to start there. At the time of the story, the apostle Peter is staying in Joppa on the Mediterranean coast. One noontime Peter goes onto the roof of the house to pray. He is hungry and while he is praying he has a vision of food. He sees a large sheet coming down from the sky, carrying all kinds of creatures that Jewish people were not allowed to eat under the law. With the vision there is a voice “Get up Peter, kill and eat.” Peter objects saying “I have never eaten anything profane or unclean,” to which the voice replies “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” The whole experience - vision and voice -happens a total of three times. This primes Peter for what is coming next. Peter’s prayer time is interrupted. There is a knock at the door, when he looks he sees three men. These men have been sent by a Roman Centurion, Cornelius, who lives in Caesarea. Cornelius is a good, God-fearing man. He has also received a vision, from the angel of God, telling him to summon Peter. And so he has sent his servants. There is one problem: Cornelius and his household are Gentiles. The men are uncircumcised and they do not observe Jewish dietary laws. Jews, like Peter would not normally give or receive hospitality from such Gentiles. In spite of this, Peter invites the men in. He says “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” The men stay overnight and then travel together to Caesarea to meet Cornelius and his family. Here Peter preaches his now familiar sermon on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He invites the family to believe in Jesus and receive the forgiveness of sins. Peter does not get to complete his sermon. The Holy Spirit interrupts, yet again, falling on the people so that they speak in tongues, praising God. At this Peter proclaims “can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit?” and he baptizes them all in the name of Jesus Christ. We may be inclined to put this passage aside as one of those strange Bible stories that doesn’t mean much in today’s world. And yet, this episode describes a major and incredibly significant event in the life of the early church. Up until this point, the apostles have been requiring Gentile converts to undergo circumcision and observe Jewish dietary laws. This is likely a major impediment to conversion. When Peter returns to Jerusalem he confidently tells the other apostles what has happened. They are shocked that Peter even associated with these Gentiles, never mind that he has baptized them. They ask “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” But, when they hear the story of the visions and the dramatic interruptions of the Spirit of God, they are amazed. They cannot deny that God has spoken, even to Gentiles. An enormous barrier to membership melts away. The church universal has begun. Peter’s visions and the Apostles’ reactions focus on the thing at the heart of the matter: food and hospitality. Peter gave and received hospitality to and from the Gentiles. What is more, he ate their food, whatever they were serving that day. He abandoned his culturally ingrained customs and religious regulations to expand the community of Christ. And doing so, he drew the circle much wider than it had been drawn before. The apostles are rightly disturbed, because they know that when people gather at a table, boundaries come down. Change happens. Peter and the Gentiles come together like a family that has been estranged. There is joy in the celebration. Those who were once “them” and “us” are now simply one family. They literally meet at the lunch table. Just this past week, I had another conversation with Will, the spouse of one of our members. You may remember that Will has begun a chapter of the “Coming to the Table” organization here in Quincy. This is the first such group in New England. Coming to the Table is an organization formed by descendants from two American families: the Hairstons and the descendants of Thomas Jefferson. [1] In both cases, black and white descendants have come together through family reunions. Jefferson’s family is directly descended from both his white wife, Martha, and the black mother of his children, who was enslaved on his plantation, Sally Hemings. “Coming to the Table” facilitates conversation about the deep history of slavery and racism in the United States: these the things that estranged these family members from one another. Whenever an estranged family reunites, there is a need to talk about things. It is necessary to confess hurts and to make amends. “Coming to the Table” provides for this conversation, figuratively at the table, by having individuals speak from their own experiences. Participants do not try to change or fix anyone else, but they work on their own personal barriers to reconciliation with “the other”. This requires honesty, vulnerability and work. Even if we are unaware of any connections we might have with those who enslaved Africans and other people of color, anyone who lives in our culture is a part of this division between “them” and “us.” Racial divides are not the only divisions in our culture. We are also divided by politics, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientation and gender identity, even religious differences. When someone appears different from us in any of these ways, they become “the other” in our minds. Earlier today, we talked about the history of our church, and how the church was founded following a split from the Wollaston Baptist Church. I imagine that the real reason for the split was because the former Congregationalists wanted their own church home with their own practices and customs. This kind of has split happened often, as well as new immigrant groups coming in, giving rise to a huge number of protestant denominations in the United States. People in this community who are curious about belonging to a church have a plethora of offerings. They can afford to be picky, choosing the one church that has just the right fit for their beliefs, their preferences in music, or their family’s needs. To be truthful, I don’t think this number of options serves Christ’s purposes for the global church. When small churches operate independently and in competition with one another they limit their ability to make God’s love and justice known in the community. Still, I remember going through a similar process when I moved away from home to college far from my home in suburban London. When I found churches that sang the same hymns, served the same food, preached the same kind of sermons as I was used to, I felt at home. These churches did their evangelism through food offered to hungry students. And it often worked. But the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let me stay at the homey kinds of church I found. It would be years before I understood what true inclusion means, but I was prodded and pushed to a different kind of church. This was a merged congregation of Methodists, one of my “home” traditions, and the United Reformed Church. Yes, they were Congregationalists! To be truthful, the food they served at this church was really good too. And these church families invited students home to eat with them as well. But the overlap of the traditions meant that the preaching pushed and provoked me. I often pushed back. This was exactly the kind of place I needed to grow. It is my hope that Wollaston Congregational Church can be a place of belonging for us, and at the same time be a place when we encounter “the other” at our table and at theirs. I hope that we can explore other customs and traditions in our worship, remembering that the Spirit of God is always interrupting, pushing and prodding us to grow. When I talked with Will, we discussed beginning a kind of “Coming to the Table” group for our church and community. The thought was for a series of meetings to sit down and talk about the things that separate us from one another and from the people in our community. Things like political differences, race, disabilities, sexual orientation and gender identity. Will made the point that just as someone cannot recover from alcoholism by going to AA once, these conversations cannot be done just once. They need to become our practice. I told him I thought that maybe if we begin with 4 or 5 meetings people may enjoy them and want to come back. Will smiled and said that “enjoy” might not be the best word, but perhaps people would value the meetings. I believe he is right, I do hope we can do this, I hope you will come to the table and I hope you will value the conversation. And so, may the active Holy Spirit prod, push and cajole us, as necessary, to come to the table with those who seem different from us. so that the church universal may be more fully realized in this place. And perhaps so that all humanity will be invited into the ever-widening circle of grace that Jesus Christ himself draws. May all God’s people say: Amen. [1] https://comingtothetable.org/
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