Paradigm Shift Preached on May 6th, 2018 Scripture: Acts 10:44-48 The early church is just beginning. Peter, Philip and the other apostles have received the Holy Spirit. Thousands of Jewish pilgrims have been baptized in Jerusalem. Now the apostles are traveling, beginning in Judea, to bring the Good News to the dispersed Jewish people. But, someone is going ahead of them. The Spirit cannot be confined, she has been out and about speaking to all kinds of people! And so, for our stories from the book of Acts, these past two weeks, we learn of what the Spirit has to teach the Apostles from completely unexpected places. The early church is experiencing what might be called a “paradigm shift.” Last week we heard that Philip was led out to a wilderness road. There he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a treasurer of his queen, in a chariot returning home following a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After Philip helped to interpret the scripture he was reading, the eunuch points to some nearby water and asks the question: “here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized?” What prevented it? The man’s nationality; his sexual status; his employment by a foreign sovereign. But the Spirit posed the question and so Philip responded. He baptized the man, they both go on their way, rejoicing. Meanwhile, in our brief excerpt from the book of Acts today, the apostle Peter is put into a similar situation. A Roman centurion, Cornelius, who lives in the city of Caesarea, is known to be a “God fearer.” He prays, gives alms and is curious about this one-God of Israel. Today we might say he is a spiritual person. But the Holy Spirit has something in mind for Cornelius and sends him an angel to tell him to send for Peter who is staying in the coastal city of Joppa. Peter is unaware of these events, and goes up onto the roof to pray before lunch. He falls into a trance, and sees a vision of a great sheet filled with all kinds of creatures descending from the heavens. They are things that kosher Jews are forbidden to eat. And yet, he hears a voice: “Get up, Peter. Kill, eat.” This is a very strange invitation! When he resists on the grounds that such food would be profane the voice says "what God has made clean, you must not call profane." He is puzzled! This vision repeats a total of three times. In the midst of this confusion, the men from Cornelius show up and invite Peter to go with them to Caesarea. There they find Cornelius’s entire household gathered. And so Peter begins to preach his well-rehearsed sermon, proclaiming the good news of the coming of Jesus to the world. But he is interrupted. The Holy Spirit falls upon the Gentiles and there is no choice but to baptize them. Peter finally understands the meaning of the vision and asks "can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" Peter stays in the household, as the guest of Cornelius the Gentile, something he would never have done before. And I imagine that he had a great time with his new friends. Two fantastical stories, two baptisms and a complete paradigm shift for the apostles and the early church. Up until this moment, only circumcised Jews have been baptized in the name of Jesus. “The way” of Jesus has been rooted in the Jerusalem temple, and all followers have been required to follow Jewish law. This paradigm shift opens an entirely new way of understanding Christian baptism. It’s not surprising that the Spirit had to lead the way. Just last week, I watched a Netflix movie called “Come Sunday.” This movie tells the story of Carlton Pearson, an African American Pentecostal bishop. Bishop Pearson led “Higher Dimensions” church: one of the largest churches in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the 1990s, the church attracted up to 5,000 black and white worshippers on Sundays. Bishop Pearson is portrayed as a charismatic preacher, stirring up the members of his church with powerful sermons. As each sermon reaches its climax, he begins to sing a rousing hymn. The organist picks up the tune, next the choir joins in and soon the entire congregation is brought to their feet, waving their hands and swaying. I admit, I felt a little jealous of Bishop Pearson’s abilities and wondered whether Sally, our pianist, and I might be able to pull off the same effect. As soon as one worship service was over, Pearson was preparing for the next one. He traveled to many preaching engagements and where ever he went he would attempt to save the unbelievers he encountered. As he traveled, he will reach out to the person sitting next to him on the plane, to see if they were in need of salvation. The alternative, he believed, was these unbelievers would be destined for hell. But, one day Bishop Pearson’s belief system was turned upside down. He was watching news of the genocide and displacement in Rwanda. He saw starving children and babies who were unable to nurse from starving mothers. Out loud he asked how God could allow this suffering and then simply suck the dying children into hell. He wondered how he could possibly find a way to preach the gospel to these people. But then he admitted to himself and to God that he could not save the whole world. In this moment, Pearson heard God speaking to him: “precisely … that’s what we did.” In Christ, God had come to the world, to save allpeople, not from the wrath of God, but from the evils of humanity. The next week in church Pearson came clean. He said they he no longer believed that a loving God would condemn God’s own children to hell. This shook the foundations of the Higher Dimensions church. Many members left and four of the eight pastors went away to start a new church. Bishop Pearson was condemned as a heretic by the Board of Pentecostal Bishops. The church kept going for a while, as Pearson preached his “gospel of inclusion”, but it eventually folded. Bishop Pearson still had his family, but he had lost many of his closest friends and his church. He was devastated. Healing came when Pearson was invited to preach at “City of Refuge”, a UCC church, in Oakland, California. Bishop Yvette Flunder, pastor of the church, describes herself as a same-gender-loving woman, of African American and Native American descent. Her congregation, mainly black and LGBT, is outwardly and visibly open and affirming. They have a special ministry to all marginalized people, especially those with AIDs and HIV. They are literally saving people, often from the abuses of their own families. Pearson confessed that there was a time when he would have been terrified at the thought of consorting with sinners, gays and Unitarians. And yet, Bishop Flunder’s church welcomed him as a preacher. They ministered to him, by hugging him and washing his feet at a time when he was lonely and grieving. Today, Pearson feels great freedom from the exhausting need to witness to everyone he meets. He serves on staff at a Unitarian Universalist church in Tulsa. Bishop Pearson, Philip and Peter all experienced a paradigm shift. The boundaries that they had perceived around the message of the love of Jesus had been broken down. Our stories, today, focus on the leading of the Holy Spirit to dramatic new perspectives: paradigm shifts. The Holy Spirit is still leading in this way today, but as our stories tell, the Holy Spirit can be pretty disruptive. When I first heard my call to come here to pastor at Wollaston Congregational Church, I didn’t know what kind of paradigm shift I would experience. I just knew it would be something. On my first day here with you, a friend sent me a message saying: “I’m praying that all goes well as you worship together, Liz, and God’s presence would be very tangible.” You may remember the weather that day was unsettled and warm. The wind was gusted and slammed closed the front door. I replied, “… tangible indeed, the Holy Spirit blew through and there was a thunderstorm in the middle of the sermon.” I was only half joking. And yet, I didn’t really know what was to come. This congregation had earned the reputation as “The Turnaround Church” and you had all done good work with Rev. MaryLou. I had thoughts of the “Church Revitalization” I had learned about seminary. Our colleagues in the UCC were ready with programs for us to adopt. I had visions of popup office hours in a local coffee shop; “invite your friends to church” days; extending an offer support to stressed parents of young children. But I realized that the remaining members of the church were weary from the exhausting efforts of growing the church. Meanwhile, in just 10 or 12 years, our culture has undergone its own paradigm shift since the days of “turnaround.” As the generations of “churched” people age, there are fewer who have any experience of what a welcoming church community means. The media project a one-dimensional characterization of Christianity that looks like Bishop Pearson’s first church in Tulsa. On the other hand, there are those Christians who also paint one-dimensional picture of so called “liberals” as heretics, who have lost Jesus in their quest for social justice. Now wonder that so many people in our culture remain largely ignorant of the expansive love that the Spirit would have us share with them. But, also, our neighborhood here in Wollaston seems to have experienced something of a paradigm shift. There is a growing diversity of people, some of whom have visited our church and bringing in their joy. Over the past year, we have welcomed several young adults who have brought gifts of music, public speaking, poetry reading, and passions for racial justice and advocacy. We have the beginnings of a new young adult group. These young adults have all have expressed their desire to belong to a church that is welcoming and affirming of all people. During January’s Annual Meeting we adopted our “who we are” statement. The statement expresses who we are at this time, but also who we might become as we continue along the path we believe the Spirit is leading. The Spirit is leading us through this paradigm shift. We are not all the way through and she is not done with us yet. Like a chick breaking out of its shell, we do not now what we will discover on the outside. But I do believe that we, like Philip, like Peter, like Bishop Pearson, will find joy and healing on the other side. May all God’s people say, Amen
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
If you enjoy a sermon or have a question, please leave a comment. If you would like to quote any of my material in your own sermons or writings, please use appropriate attribution. I look forward to hearing from you!Archives
April 2022
Categories |