“Who was I that I could hinder God?”[1]
Peter asks this question in the Book of Acts this morning. His question is
addressed not only to himself, but also to those to whom he speaks.
Who was I that I could hinder God? Who
are we that we could hinder God? Most
of us can’t imagine that we ever would. Surely we would willingly go along with
whatever God had in mind. If only we knew what that was, of course. Or, if only
what God had in mind included a road map we could sneak a peek at now and then.
Just to make sure we were even going in the right direction, let alone are on
the right road.
Peter, it
seems, is for whom the prayer, “Guide me, O lord, in the right direction,” must
have been specifically written. And particularly in this morning’s reading at
the story’s beginning, Peter is determined to take the familiar road, the road
of tradition, the road of custom, the road he believes leads to upholding the
faith.
But something
is not quite right after all. The believers in Judea heard that the Gentiles
had also accepted the word of God. How did this happen? It was shocking The right
way, God’s way, what everyone knew was the revelation of God came only to the
Jews, to the believers, and to those who had been with Jesus during his life.
Now a bunch of upstart Gentiles, non-Jews, unclean, uncouth, and uncircumcised,
were claiming they too had accepted the newly revealed word of God. Peter,
because he listens to his God-inspired dream, finds himself in the position of
defending his actions. He broke with tradition by associating with Gentiles and
has to justify what he did.
Peter finds
himself in a position we often do, frankly without recognizing it much of the
time. God’s desires often have very little to do with our cherished traditions
and ways of doing things.
In the church
and in our lives, we work to preserve our traditions out of a need for safety,
for comfort, for respect for those who have gone before us, and to re-establish
our common identity. But what if, just what if, God is doing something
different, something new, something never done before? What if God wants to
break through our cherished notions and our self-imposed human limitations and
boundaries?
Most of us
resist even the concept of change. In our innermost places we metaphorically
fold our arms and say, “Hell no, we won’t go!” Yet even as we do this, God us
moving to change us, remold us, to make us different, and to be more like who
God created us to be with every breath and every move we take.
When we work so
hard to preserve and protect our traditions and our identity, we could, just
possibly, be working against the very thing God is doing in the church and in
our lives.
Peter was given
a vision of inclusiveness and love. His vision had nothing to do with food and
everything to do with maintaining a tradition that excluded rather than
included. Peter, like most of us in the same situation, was convinced of his
rightness. He had conveniently forgotten what Jesus taught. “Listen to me, all
of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can
defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”[2]
Peter,
convinced of his own rightness, and of his ability to understand what God
wanted, was defending the old rather than embracing the new. His vision was God’s
way of speaking to him and showing him what God had in mind that was different,
new, never done before. Peter was being asked to live out what Jesus said to
Peter and the other disciples on the night before he died, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one
another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[3]
Not just one another in the enclosed circle of believers but in the world.
What Peter saw,
and then defended to the other believers was change. Change: that thing that
God does constantly that we all resist. Who really wants to change? Who really
wants to step beyond our safe and confortable traditions and our same identity
and do a new thing?
Yet if we
refuse to change, we will fly in the face of all that scripture tells us God
does with us. We are creatures designed for change. We have within cells that
renew, time after time, year after year; this is what keeps us alive. This is
how God implanted in us the way of change, the way of something new, and the
desire to become more and more who God wants us to be, as individuals, as a
society, and as the church.
If there were
ever a time in which the Gospel promise seems null and void, this might be it.
Yet above the exploding of bombs and chemicals, the rumbling and shaking of the
tortured earth, and the shuddering of buildings, and the screams of the injured
and dying, there is a louder voice. It is the voice of change, the voice of
God, the voice of God’s vision that proclaims these things to us. God
proclaimed to Peter and proclaims to us, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
See, the throne of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God;
they will be God’s peoples, and God's self will be with them; God will wipe
away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and
pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. See, I am making
all things new.”[4]
“Love one
another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love
for one another.”[5]
“Who are we
that we could hinder God?”[6]
AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
©2016
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