Acts 11:1-18
Fourth Sunday of Easter: April 28, 2013
Al,
you’ll all agree, is a great liturgist.
But, I think no matter how well this passage is read out loud during worship, just hearing it once is not enough to have any sense of what's going on. I have to tell you it took me about 15 minutes of going through
this passage verse by verse, slowly following what was happening before I had
any idea who was doing what, where, when and why. So, I’m going to save you that 15 minutes and
take just a couple here to paint the scene for you.
First,
before we can understand what’s happening in this passage, we have to know that
one of the questions of the early church was whether or not Gentiles –
basically any non-Jew – could be followers of Jesus without becoming Jews
first.
To
be a part of the Jewish faith, things were required of you. You couldn’t just visit a synagogue, sign up
for a new members’ class and join a few months later. You were required to do everything a Jew
did. You were required to be
circumcised, you were required to keep kosher laws, you were required to live
by the purity laws – there were about 613 laws total. Being Christian at that time was the same as
being a part of the Jewish faith, so, some argued, anyone who wanted to join in
had to become Jewish.
Others,
however, weren’t so sure. Others thought
that central to Jesus’ message was that all are included without restriction or
requirement. It was a radical –
extremely radical – idea. Jews had
always kept to themselves, lived as their own communities by their own customs
and laws. There wasn’t a lot of
intermingling with Gentiles. To declare
that a Gentile was a part of the community of believers, without becoming
Jewish, was a violation of custom, law, and purity.
Peter
was one of those who came to believe that Gentiles were very much included in
the community of believers – and they didn’t have to be Jewish first. And, at the beginning of our passage, we see
that he had apparently been called to the principal’s office because of his
views. Some Jewish Christians were
upset: They had heard reports about his
ministry to the Gentiles. They wanted him
to account for himself.
So
when the passage begins, Peter is sitting with these concerned folks, and he’s
making his case. He’s laying out for
them exactly what happened that converted his heart and actions. In other words he’s telling them a story
about what had happened to him recently so that they would come to accept
Gentiles as well.
Peter
first tells them about a dream he had where he was commanded to break some of
the most sacred Jewish commandments.
After the dream, Peter tells his audience, three men came to get him and
take him to the home of a Gentile when they got there, the owner of the house
told Peter that he had been visited
by an angel who told him to send some
people to Joppa to get Peter. The angel
told the man that if he did this, he and his entire household would be
saved.
Finally,
Peter tells them of his amazing experience in that house. “It was incredible,” he said. “I was about to say something, but all of a
sudden the Holy Spirit fell upon them – just like it did on us at
Pentecost. And I remembered that Jesus
came to baptize with the Holy Spirit, so I’m like, ‘who am I to stop God from
doing what God does!?’”
And
that’s the end of telling the story for Peter.
Who am I to hinder God? In the
next verse we get the response of the Jews listening to him: Silence.
They were so stunned by the story they didn’t know what to say. So they were silent for a moment until they
realized that the only appropriate response was to give thanks to God for such
a great thing: It’s not just us that are
a part of God’s realm of love – it’s everyone. All are welcome. They were completely convinced by the story.
Lucy
Craft Laney had a story to tell. And a
pretty tough audience. And though Peter
seemed to get his whole audience on board, Laney learned that it only takes
one.
Laney
was born in 1854 in Macon, GA. Her
parents had been slaves, but had bought their freedom. Her father was a Presbyterian minister and a
carpenter. Laney, for her part, was
destined for education. She had an
incredibly quick mind and a good instructor in her earliest years: She learned to read and write by the age of
four and could translate difficult passages in Latin by the age of twelve,
including Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War. In other words she was Ed Phillips’ dream
student.
She
excelled at high school and then at the newly formed Atlanta University, where
she was a member of the first graduating class when she was 19 years old. While there, there were some hints of a
temperament that would serve her and her purposes well. Someone wrote about when she found out that
women were not allowed to take classic courses at Atlanta U. She, as they wrote, “responded with
blistering indignation.” A child of
slaves, living in the south, and a woman in the 1800s: I don’t know what it must have taken for her
to stay the course, but surely determination and passion, and the Holy Spirit
played a role.
When
she graduated, she noticed that there was a group of folks who were being
relegated to the margins of society, just as the Gentiles had been from the
Jewish communities: black children –
especially girls. For ten years after
she graduated, she taught in several different schools – but she never found
one adequate enough to really be educating these kids from beginning to
end. They weren’t getting the rigorous
studies, the courses in Latin, classics, math, and science that they needed to
make it in higher education and beyond.
She knew how important it was to society that children be educated and
able to be citizens in our country that would have a true impact for the good.
She
moved to Augusta, Georgia where she started the first school for black girls. She began with six students in the basement
of a church. I don’t know if Laney had
visions, or saw angels who told her what to do, but she was inspired. Her class of six turned into a class of more
than 200 – girls and boys – within a couple of years. Her success created a new problem: now she needed funding. She needed to tell her story to some people
who worshipped the God she did – the God of radical inclusion – and who would
know how important it was to educate young black kids who were not getting what
they needed from schools.
At
that time, public schools had not long been around and churches were the ones
building and running schools: denominations like the Presbyterians, Methodists,
and others saw education as a major mission priority. Lucy needed funding, and knew the Presbyterians
were meeting in Minneapolis for their yearly General Assembly in 1886. It was a long shot. This was not the typical school that churches
supported; these were black children in a school being run by a woman. But long shots were not deterrents for
Laney. She scraped together the money
she needed for a one-way bus ticket to Minneapolis, and headed there without
enough money to get back.
This
was pretty much a room full of white men.
There were some women there, but not many. And I don’t know for sure how many black
people, but even today the PCUSA general assembly gathering looks pathetically
pale. So a black woman stands in front
of GA and tells them they have to pay for her school. It was a tough crowd.
Different
accounts give slightly different descriptions of the response of GA in terms of
how friendly it was, but all agree on the fact that the only support she got
from the denomination that year was a prayer and her fare home….from the
denomination. Luckily there were some women there, and one of them
was named Francine Haines. She was
completely compelled by Laney, and became a lifetime benefactor. The school was eventually named the Haines
Institute.
In
the 20 years she was a principal of the school, Laney never stopped seeking funds. She continued to remind the church of their
commitment to education, and ultimately they supported the school with more
than prayers. After all, who were they
to hinder God?
And
of course, who are we to hinder God?
God
is on a relentless path to inclusion.
God works in all people, giving them the Holy Spirit that they might be
agents of God’s love, justice and hope in the world. Our job, as people of faith, is to go with
this – to support it, and to get others on board as well. It makes me think: Who might be in need the
church’s support to continue to grow in faith?
Where is the Holy Spirit moving?
This morning, given
Laney’s work with children, I think of especially the kids. Laney believed in educating the kids not just
because it was fair or just. She
believed that each child had something to give the world, and to not educate
them was to thwart that purpose – to hinder God’s plan for them. Education for her was for the sake of the
world, not just the child. She wanted
them to grow into good citizens and agents for change in a world that
desperately needed change. She knew the
spirit was in and with each child, and she wanted to make sure the spirit had
as much room to work as it needed.
Many articles about Laney
pointed out that the students she taught went on to schools like Harvard, and
many became influential in society on behalf of civil rights. To be educated at her school was no small
thing, and it was the door to being an agent of change and freedom in the
world.
Today we baptize three
children. Today we give bibles to 3rd
graders. Each child in our church is
unique. Each will need different things
from us in order to grow in faith in such a way that they will flourish in this
world and make a world a better place. I
share that goal with Laney. Rigorous
education in the faith at every age is necessary to form disciples who will
spread the love of God to those who most need it – to a world desperately in
need of love.
The spirit is upon each
of our children – I think you all can see that.
In our baptismal liturgy, after I put the water on the head and baptize
in the name of the triune God, I place my hand on each head and say, “The Holy
Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the spirit, you may
be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.”
The Holy Spirit work within you.
That’s what Peter saw that day in that house. The Holy Spirit works within everyone, whether we think it does or
not.
Our job is to not
hinder that spirit. So let’s ask
ourselves: Are we? Are we at this church, or we as a
denomination, religion? Are we hindering
the spirit with doctrines? Are we
hindering the spirit with behavioral requirements? Are we hindering the spirit with a
requirement that they have to be or stay Christian in order to get our
support?
The spirit is wild,
radical, unpredictable, inscrutable. We
need to be willing to do whatever we need to in order to not hinder that
Spirit. We, like Peter, need to be
willing to change rules – sometimes even break them. We need to be willing to
teach service and justice instead of doctrines and cultural norms. Like Lucy Craft Laney, we need to plead our
case in unlikely places to let people know this is not just a place where you
become Christian, but a place where we let the spirit move and work in you no
matter what religion you become. We need
to not just give the kids bibles, we need to help them read it and study it
with critical and inquisitive minds. We
need to find funding for the best possible curriculum, we need to continue to
have the best possible teachers for our kids, we need to think about each child
individually and what we need to do for them so the spirit can work and move
within them.
Ultimately, we are not required for the spirit to work. As Peter saw, the Holy Spirit was coming with
or without him. But I do think we can
either help or hinder it. Who are we to
hinder God? Amen.
