Sermon: In Common

First Presbyterian Church

April 26, 2026, Easter 4A

Acts2:42-47

 

In Common

 

Do you remember “choosing up sides” as a kid?

You know, the group is all set to play some game, but you need to divide into teams, so two “captains” are appointed and then they take turns choosing until everybody’s on a team?

I remember mostly being chosen near the end most of the time. Never have been terribly athletic, although I could hit a little if the game were baseball or softball.

But maybe you remember “choosing up sides” and then playing. Of course, how you chose depended a little bit on what game you were playing. The big stocky guy would be great for a game of pickup football, or for that childhood favorite “Red Rover” where you formed lines and called out one from the other team to dare them to break through your line. I never really thought at the time just how violent a game “Red Rover” was. But anyway, that big stocky guy might not the best choice for a game of pickup basketball (or especially soccer, but we weren't playing that much back then).

So yeah, choosing up sides could sting a little if you were chronically chosen last. Maybe the bigger problem, though, is that in a lot of ways, we never do get over “choosing up sides,” even as we pass from childhood to adulthood and we’re not playing games anymore. In many ways we “choose up sides” when we choose where to live, with whom to socialize or spend our time, certainly when we vote, who we respect or who we scorn. Even the chocolate-covered caramel wafer we might pick up in the supermarket dares us to "pick a side"; are you a Left Twix or a Right Twix? (hold up candy)

And yeah, Christians can be guilty of “choosing up sides” even in the church.

Sometimes it shows up simply in choosing which individual church to attend, seeking out people who “look like us”, or who we know “think like us”. Sometimes it’s all about whatever gain a person can gain from being among that congregation’s members in terms of social status or influence.

Suffice to say that this kind of “choosing up sides” isn’t at all what is at work in today’s reading from Acts. This brief vignette from the life of the early followers of Christ, still not quite a church yet, follows after the Pentecost story and Peter’s subsequent sermon that day (which, due to the quirks of the Revised Common Lectionary, we don't hear for a few more weeks). One of the key points of that Pentecost account was the presence of Jews from points far and near, speakers of many languages, who were first drawn to the event by hearing the disciples’ proclamation in their own varied languages. Aside from the moving of the Spirit in that Pentecost event there was very little reason for those people to be together in that place in that time, much less for three thousand of them to stick around and be part of the still-forming community.

Today’s reading contains another similar point, maybe a little hidden behind the part of the scripture that always gets people on edge.

Particularly among those of a particular political persuasion, verses 44-45 are guaranteed to provoke a pointed reaction. Just the mention of a community that “had all things in common” and that “would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” is virtually guaranteed to provoke horrified gasps and mutterings of “socialism!” or worse. I’m watching y’all right now, you know, for signs of exactly that.

And yes, I get that this is a shocking thing to see right here in your Bible, and probably downright offensive to that particular political ruling class holding power right now.  But maybe the larger shock, the larger miracle is that this particular community, drawn together by nothing other than the Spirit, includes both the folks with possessions to sell and those without. Rich and poor together, in addition to people of all nations together. Let’s not mince words; we just don’t see that so often in many churches, either of those let alone both.

And all of the things happening in this community described in this passage – together in fellowship and breaking bread, the “wonders and signs” in verse 43, being together in the Temple and in one another’s homes, and yes, the having everything in common and selling stuff to provide for one another – seems to be connected to, and maybe inseparable from, this being brought together in the Holy Spirit. Maybe none of those things happen in a community that comes together by plain old human “choosing up sides.” Maybe it takes being so caught up in the leading and moving of the Spirit that we live and work among a community we would otherwise never have chosen to be ready for wonders and signs. (And if Acts 6 is taken seriously, that didn't necessarily last long, it's as if the community resorted to "choosing up sides.")

As we come together, especially on those Sundays of communion around the table but any Sunday after all, like those followers so long ago, look around. Did we "choose up sides" to be here? Or is the Spirit moving among us and within us and through us, drawing us together for, literally, God only knows what? Who knows what wonders and signs might come?

For whatever comes and for whoever comes, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #236, The Strife is O'er; #317, In Christ There Is No East or West; #238, Thine Is the Glory

 

 

 

 

Yes, even your candy is provoking you to choose up sides. 

 

 

Notes on the Services for Holy Week

A few notes on the services for Holy Week at First Presbyterian Church of East Moline:

 

Thursday, April 2, 6:00 p.m.: Agape meal with communion, FPC East Moline library/meeting room

The early Christians gathered for services of worship and instruction which also included a community meal. While Christian converts from Judaism might have remembered the observance of Passover, Gentile converts were more likely to be familiar with the symposium, or banquet, and as the church spread out and became more far-flung and less focused on Jerusalem and Judea, this model was quickly adapted and fitted to Christian practice and tradition.

In addition to the meal itself, one or more teachers or evangelists would speak at such events. The remembrance of Jesus's last supper with his disciples was quickly adapted to all such gatherings, not only those for commemoration of an event like Maundy Thursday.

This meal will seek to capture the spirit, if not the actual form of such meals, with the message reminding us of Jesus's time with his disciples and how we best put into practice Jesus's instruction to "do this in remembrance of me."

 

Friday, April 3, 12:00 noon, Good Friday service, First Presbyterian Church, Milan

We are invited to join our siblings in the faith for observance of this holy day of the church year.

 

Saturday, April 4, 12:00 noon, Holy Saturday observance, the labyrinth at FPC East Moline

Weather permitting, we will commemorate the day Christ was in the tomb. Scripture, song, and a brief spoken meditation will be includedm as well as time for silent meditation and prayer. Those who are present will be invited to walk the labyrinth as part of your time here. (If weather does not permit we will gather in the sanctuary.

This is not an Easter Vigil. On this occasion we mark the fact that was indeed dead and buried, something that can often feel glossed over or rushed through to get to Easter Sunday. Participants are invited to take the time to consider the depths to which our Savior descended to reach us.

 

Sunday, April 5, 10:00 a.m., Easter Sunday service 

Traditional Sunday service for Easter Sunday, including communion. Also this year, the church's confirmation class will be presented as they begin their confirmation studies. 

 

We hope to see you at one or more or even all of these services.

 

Rev. Freeman

 

 

 

Sermon: One Really Disruptive Letter

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

September 7, 2025, Pentecost 13C

Philemon

 

One Really Disruptive Letter

 

 

There are five books of the Bible, across the Old and New Testaments, that were not in the course of history subdivided into chapters. The lone such example in the OT, the book of the prophet Obadiah, is not wildly different than its longer prophetic siblings. The letters named 2 John and 3 John and Jude are likewise similar if not nearly so long as the general epistles found towards the end of the New Testament. None of those books appear in the Revised Common Lectionary. Today's book, however (which does appear in the RCL), is significantly different.

It's a letter that should not be overlooked, as the book has had an influence out of proportion to its size across the history of both the church universal and the church particular in this country, especially in the US South. That influence was not good, largely because those who interpreted it did so more for convenience than from any genuine desire to learn from it. 

You see, this little letter became, in such empires or nations as sanctioned the practice, a primary scriptural justification for the institution of slavery. That list of such nations, of course, includes the USA for about the first two hundred-plus years of its colonial and national history. To be blunt, the only reason you’d have ever heard a sermon on Philemon was in order to support or prop up slavery as “biblical,” frequently (although not exclusively) in the southern part of the country, in churches that separated from their northern fellow churches over slavery – including, yes, Presbyterians.

The tragedy of it is that this could only be done by emphasizing something that is not in the letter. For all that Paul says in the letter, there is one thing he does not say: “Slavery is wrong.” (He also doesn't say "slavery is right.") Neither does he explicitly order Philemon to free the slave Onesimus (although in verse 8 Paul does claim the spiritual authority to do so). And hey, if Paul doesn’t say slavery is wrong, then it must be OK, right?

This was not the only such passage of scripture that preachers of the past would have used to justify slavery, but it made this letter damaging all out of proportion to its size and was also completely contrary to the spirit of the burden that Paul laid upon his “dear friend and coworker” Philemon.

I could have left off some of the preliminary and concluding verses of this chapter in the interest of shortening the reading and focusing on the “important stuff” in this little letter. In the case of this letter, though, the preliminary and concluding verses of the chapter are really part of the “important stuff.” The salutation of this letter names other members of the “church that meets in your house,” specifically “Apphia our sister” and “Archippus our fellow soldier”. This wasn’t a truly ‘private’ letter; the whole community is being addressed and included here, and what Paul asks of Philemon is in effect being asked of the entire community, not just the one who actually owns the slave in question. At the same time, the end-of-letter salutations from Paul's fellow workers - Epaphras, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke - wraps them up in Paul's instruction and request to Philemon.

That brings us to the central character, or object, of the letter. Onesimus was a slave, this much is clear. Even if there were no other clues about his identity his name itself would be a giveaway; the name ‘Onesimus,’ which translates as ‘useful,’ was not given to a free-born person in the Roman Empire. Would you name your child ‘Useful’? (And yes, this makes a bad pun of Paul’s words in v. 10 about Onesimus being formerly “useless” but now “useful”.)

Onesimus’s situation is less clear. Most interpreters of this letter believe that Onesimus had run away from his master. Others suggest that possibly Onesimus was guilty of some other wrong against Philemon, maybe some kind of theft or some mistake that had cost Philemon. Aside from the "useless" pun in verse 10, we don't know what's going on, but there is some reason Onesimus doesn't want to return to Philemon and Paul is interceding on his behalf, via letter (he can’t do so in person because he’s in prison, remember). It might be simply that Paul wants Onesimus to work with him, and Onesimus wants that too. It could just be as simple as a slave wanting to be free, maybe even free to do a work God is calling him to do.

As is the case when you only hear one half of a conversation, we can’t be sure about much. But one thing is inescapable; how Paul envisions Onesimus being received by Philemon (and Apphia, Archippus, and the church in his house) is dramatically, life-alteringly, status-threateningly different than the way Onesimus had functioned in Philemon’s household before, and Paul understands that Philemon has to choose, himself, to take this radical step.

Paul is not asking Philemon to readmit Onesimus to his former slave status. A reset, a return to status quo would not require words like these:

·      Paul calling Onesimus “my child” “whose father I have become during my imprisonment” (v. 10);

·      Paul telling Philemon “I am sending him, my own heart, back to you” (v. 11);

·      Paul encouraging Philemon to receive Onesimus back “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother … both in the flesh and in the Lord” (v. 16);

·      Paul charging Philemon to “welcome him as you would welcome me” (v. 17).

 

This isn’t “take him back and I’ll make up your loss and nothing changes," even if Paul does promise in verse 19 to make up any loss Philemon has sustained due to Onesimus. This is “change everything,” “totally turn things upside down.” And it's not how any self-respecting Roman citizen treats a slave. If you can figure out how to treat a piece of property with no legal human status as a beloved brother or sister, the way you would treat the man who brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to you, well, you’re evidently cleverer than me.

What Paul asks is not without consequence for Philemon; you didn’t just free your slaves all willy-nilly and get away with it. Besides the social stigma and cultural backlash such an act likely to face, Philemon could even face legal consequences for such treatment of Onesimus, even if he did not technically “free” Onesimus. Anything that had the potential of setting off unrest among slaves or upsetting the social order could be punished by Roman authority; and seeing Onesimus gaining status and acceptance in Philemon’s household could very well provoke such disruption. Paul does not care and engages in monumental arm-twisting to persuade Philemon while in every technical respect leaving the choice in Philemon’s hands (in the context of the community of faith in which Philemon lived and moved; Apphia and Archippus and the church.).

An aside: one of the great wrongs of slaveholding societies is their utterly misguided and destructive attitude towards work. Work was, in such societies, beneath the well-off. Work was for other people - those people, whoever that society demeaned with such a label. It seems needful just after Labor Day to note that labor of whatever sort is an honored thing in God's eyes. Remember the words of Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes, about how there's really nothing better than to do one's work and enjoy the fruits of it. The business of exploiting the labor of others for one's own convenience simply has no place in the kingdom of God, where any and every human being is a fellow child of God; this is part of what Philemon is now charged to learn.

While I hope there aren't many today who would seek to restore the discredited practice of using this letter to justify slavery (although one can't be completely sure these days), plenty of forms of oppression fall under the ban if we take this letter seriously. Racism simply cannot stand in the face of a call to love others as beloved siblings in Christ. Any kind of bigotry at all, any claim that the world would be just fine if they would just “stay in their place” or “not rock the boat” or simply stay quiet and out of the way, has no place in the mind of a follower of Christ, no matter how entrenched or enmeshed in our culture such an attitude may be. “That’s just the way it is” might have made a great song for Bruce Hornsby back in the 80s, but it can never be the response of a follower of Christ in the face of any injustice or oppression. (And if you remember the song, even Hornsby wraps that "just the way it is" chorus with the imperative “but don’t you believe it”.) 

If it is a coincidence that this scripture happened to fall on a Sunday when the Lord’s Supper is being observed, it is a happy one indeed. The table of the Lord is decidedly non-selective about who is welcomed. Anyone – anyone – who calls upon the name of the Lord is welcomed as beloved brother or sister. And if that fact produces anything other than an “amen” from us, it might be well for us to remember that this radical openness might just benefit us as much as anyone. 

We don’t know what Philemon did in response to Paul’s letter. It seems unlikely that such a personal and particular letter would have come into the canon of scripture, even under the Holy Spirit, if Philemon had responded to Onesimus’s return with thirty lashes and an order to “get back to work, Useless.” We do know that later in the century, a bishop named Onesimus served in the city of Ephesus and may have even been responsible for the preservation of many of Paul's letters. Even if not the same Onesimus, somebody’s slave became a “beloved brother” along the way. And we should note that evidence suggests that in the communities touched by Paul's preaching, all who were part of that church - rich and poor, male and female, slave and free - were really together in community, just as Paul is instructing Philemon and all the church in his house to be.

But in a way, not knowing the outcome places the burden of answer on us. How do we respond to one who, like Onesimus, of no status or even humanity in the eyes of the world or especially of our nation in this time, is set before us as beloved in Christ, one of God’s own children, no matter how much troubler it might cause us?

For the call to answer that question, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns: (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #515, I Come With Joy; #761, Called as Partners in Christ's Service; #529, Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether; #765, May the God of Hope Go With Us

Sermon: In Praise of Martha. Yes, Martha.

First Presbyterian Church

July 20, 2025, Pentecost 6C

Genesis 18:1-10a; Luke 10:38-42

 

In Praise of Martha. Yes, Martha.

 

Hot on the heels of the Good Samaritan parable (which, you’ll remember, ends with Jesus’s instruction to “Go and do likewise” in showing mercy to those in need), we come to an event that almost – almost – seems to contradict that instruction. 

A little context is helpful here: this happens, as does last week’s account, during the journey that takes up the central portion of Luke’s gospel. In 9:51, Luke tells us that “when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” That particular idiom points not only to the geographical destination of the city of Jerusalem itself, but also the inevitable confrontation that would take place there – the “final showdown” of Jesus’s earthly ministry that would end (or so it seemed) in his crucifixion. While trying to trace out a map of Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem according to Luke would be a pretty vexing task, this unnamed town was apparently on the way. Even the most determined travelers need to stop and rest on occasion, after all.

We are told here that “a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” This raises a lot of questions for such a seemingly simple sentence: who is this woman Martha? Did she know Jesus already? How is it she is the “head of the household,” so to speak – it wasn’t unprecedented in this time, but it wasn’t common either. Did Jesus already know Martha? And what happened to the disciples? Were they not invited in? Luke, however, isn’t interested in such details.

The story is pretty familiar: Jesus enters the home, where Martha is at work on the tasks of hospitality. Her sister Mary sits at Jesus’s feet – the traditional posture of a teacher’s disciple at the time – and listens, offering no help to her older sister (it’s not said, but you just know that Mary is the younger sister, don’t you?). Martha loses her patience, but rather than calling upon Mary to help, she appeals to Jesus to make Mary help her. Jesus declines, answering Martha with the somewhat cryptic words of verses 41 and 42, and that’s the end of this brief narrative.

It’s at least possible, and maybe even likely, that Martha knew who Jesus was and vice versa. Earlier in chapter 10 Jesus commissions seventy of his followers to go out and visit and proclaim in the towns he intended to visit on his journey. It’s possible that Martha had hosted one or more of those witnesses in her home, and some have even suggested that she and Mary had actually been among those seventy. At any rate, that mission might well have prompted Martha to welcome Jesus into her home. 

Whatever the case, Jesus enters the home, where we first encounter Mary. We never hear from her, though, and there’s no suggestion that she speaks at all, even if she is in the disciple position at Jesus’s feet. This is actually a little odd, in that exchanges of questions and answers would have been expected between teacher and disciple; perhaps Luke just didn’t care about recording that, or perhaps she never spoke. Whichever was the case, she wasn’t providing any help to Martha, and this eventually got to Martha. She complains; Jesus does not come to her aid, and the story is over. 

And from this, for decades if not centuries, Martha has been made into the “bad guy” (so to speak) of the pair. And this isn’t fair. There is, in the end, a needed lesson that comes out of this encounter, but the church has long mastered the art of getting the wrong lesson.

First, let’s be sure that we understand that Martha’s work itself is not the problem. I'm from Georgia, and I know that southerners tend to think they have the corner on hospitality, but both the Jewish tradition Martha inherited and the Mediterranean culture in which she lived both mandated the provision of hospitality to any guest, even an unexpected one. The former is demonstrated in the reading from Genesis we heard earlier. Note that when the three men passed near Abraham and Sarah’s dwelling, Abraham went out of his way to welcome the unknown guests. (Just because Abraham referred to “my lord” – small ‘l’ – doesn’t mean he knew he was speaking to The Lord –  capital “L”.) Both Abraham and Sarah end up thoroughly busy preparing food and drink for the three men, without the guests even asking. For the most part this story is told because of that out-of-the-blue promise by the stranger that Abraham and Sarah would have a son before long, but the extravagant act of hospitality offered by the two is almost prototypical of the expectation of hospitality in that tradition. So Martha is not wrong to be doing the work of hospitality: indeed, in ninety-nine similar situations out of one hundred, Martha would have likely been judged to be in the right.

But what makes this Situation No. 100? Notice how Martha is described: not as “busy,” but as “distracted.” Do you ever have the experience of getting so involved or overwhelmed, or “distracted,” by the “many tasks” involved in preparing for company that you almost forget you have company at all or why that company matters? That’s a bit of where Martha has ended up, and Mary’s absence doesn’t help. The tasks themselves take over in her mind, rather than the guest for whom those tasks are performed. 

That’s a problem. And that problem is amplified by the fact that this is no ordinary guest Martha is hosting. Much as it turned out for Abraham and Sarah, this is not an occasion to be distracted and miss the message that this guest is bringing.

Remember, this is the Jesus who has “set his face towards Jerusalem,” and who had sent out witnesses in advance to the towns he intended to visit on the way. Whether or not Jesus had met Martha and Mary before this visit, it seems pretty clear that Jesus’s presence in this village was not an accident, and quite likely neither was his presence in Martha’s home. And when Jesus  (again, Martha knew enough to call him “Lord” – capital “L” - rather than the more common “my lord” – small “l”) has come specifically to you, to speak to you and to listen to you, it’s kind of important not to miss that.

And it’s definitely out of line to seek to prevent another from being present for Jesus. Honestly, for me it’s pretty easy to be suspicious of Mary in this story and to suspect that she’d quite likely behave the same way whether the guest was Jesus or not, but in this case she does get it right. Jesus is here, and (as Jesus himself knows whether or not Mary or Martha do) Jesus won’t be there for long. Listen while you can. 

Here lies the dilemma for us, those of us today who would learn from this story. The mandate that was given at the end of last week’s parable (which, you’ll remember, leads directly into today’s reading) doesn’t go away. We are still called to do. We are still charged to show mercy to the ones in need, to refuse to engage in hatred or fear of the stranger or the wounded or the foreigner in the land. We are still charged to provide hospitality. That doesn’t go away. 

But we are also charged to stop and listen to the speaking of God. We are still called to study and reflect on the words of Jesus. And we are called to listen, listen always for the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit, that pervasive presence of God that broke out at Pentecost and still moves and breathes and acts and, yes, speaks in the world today. God has not shut up; God, the Holy Spirit, still speaks.

We are still charged to listen for the calling of God. God is not a closed book, confined or imprisoned forever in history or tradition or bound up in the pages of any book. God is not contained, and the moment we decide we’ve got God all figured out and don’t need to listen anymore, we become heretics. Yes, I used that word.

God still calls. Believe me, sometimes I wish God had stopped calling people years ago and that I was still in that comfortable old academic life I used to know. Being a pastor in this day and age is no picnic, but God does still call women and men into the vocation of service, whether in ordained ministry or in any other form. God still calls us to do the more mundane tasks of love and compassion and mercy as well. But being able to answer that call requires listening, and sometimes that requires stepping away from the work and taking time to be disciples, sitting at Jesus’s feet and doing nothing but listening.

In short, there are times and places to be Martha, and times and places to be Mary. Honestly, we live in a world that needs a whole lot of Martha-ing. Need and suffering are endemic, and when people are calling empathy a sin, compassion and basic human decency are in seriously short order. Our call is not to stand down from the world and retreat into some kind of splendid isolation or contemplation. We have work to do.

However, in order to do that work properly, we do need to spend time, maybe even in isolation, listening for God, awaiting the moving and prompting and sometimes cajoling of the Holy Spirit, studying and taking in the words and life of Christ, and making ourselves ready for that service to which we are called. 

For Mary and for Martha, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #634, To God Be the Glory; #----, This One Thing Only (insert); #361, O Christ, the Great Foundation

Sermon: The One Who Did Mercy

First Presbyterian Church

July 13, 2025, Pentecost 5C

Luke 10:25-37

 

The One Who Did Mercy

 

 

It is such a familiar story, what’s a pastor to do with it? 

It is maybe the most well-known parable Jesus told, rivaled only by the parable of the prodigal son or maybe the parable of the sheep and the goats. It’s a full-fledged story, with plot and development and conflict and all the good stuff that makes a story compelling enough to hear. 

Well, one thing we can do is back up and remind ourselves that the story didn’t just come out of thin air; Jesus is – cue the dramatic music – being interrogated. By a lawyer. 

The lawyer is, as Luke tells the story, testing Jesus. Throughout the different gospels different parties at different times do just that, trying to trap Jesus in some kind of bind that would either set him up to be found in error theologically or cause him to fall out of favor with the people. The lawyer (not the kind of lawyer we think of nowadays but an interpreter of the law) seems to be probing Jesus for some kind of theological misstep about the commandments. 

Instead, Jesus (as he so often does) turns the question on his interrogator, who could hardly get away with declining to answer – it was his job to answer questions about the law. So, he answered, and did so appropriately, turning to words from Deuteronomy 6 (with the "mind" added to the heart and soul and might - here given as "strength" - found in that passage). That's the part of the scripture reading covered in that first hymn we sang, and it also shows up in different contexts in the gospels of Matthew and John. 

In this case, with the famous parable coming right after it, it's easy to overlook this summation of the "greatest commandment," but we shouldn't. While here it is quoted by Jesus's interrogator, in those other gospel context Jesus himself states it as "the greatest commandment" and "one like unto it," to use the King James style of speech. If you were seeking to summarize the faith in as few words as possible, this isn't your worst possibility. 

Jesus more or less congratulated him and invited him to go his way in peace and security. This of course left the lawyer stewing in the same kind of humiliation that Jesus’s would-be interlocutors typically endured; their questioning turned against them, their duplicity exposed. 

But in this case the interrogator can’t leave well enough alone, and – using a long-favored legal tactic – tries to recover himself by questioning the terminology in the answer: “And who is my neighbor?” 

The novelist and Presbyterian pastor Frederick Buechner offers this take on the lawyer and his question:

He presumably wanted something on the order of: "A neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the party of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three statute miles from one's own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred to as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part than one is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be construed as neighbor to the party of the first part and one is oneself relieved of all responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever."

Instead Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, the point of which seems to be that your neighbor is to be construed as meaning anybody who needs you. The lawyer's response is left unrecorded.

 

Well, not that I want to be in the position of questioning a Pulitzer Prize nominee like Buechner, but one small part of the lawyer’s response actually is recorded for us. And it’s a pretty revealing answer. 

Upon finishing the parable, Jesus again turns on his would-be interrogator. Having told the story in which a Samaritan steps up, above and beyond the call of duty, to aid a badly wounded man who had been passed over by members of the religious elite, he again questions the lawyer, asking him to identify which of the three travelers in the story had been a neighbor to the wounded traveler. Do pay attention to the lawyer’s response:

“The one who showed him mercy.”

On one level, of course, the lawyer has answered rightly. Now the way the Greek is constructed in this particular sentence, a more literal translation would read something like “the one who did mercy to him.” That’s actually a theologically superior way to put it, if not so wonderful grammatically. “Mercy”, like so many of the loaded theological words we use, is active. It’s not a feeling or emotion or empathetic reaction. Mercy is, even if English doesn’t quite capture it, something you do. And this traveler had indeed “done mercy” to the wounded man, unmistakably so. And Jesus’s answer to the lawyer acknowledges this, as he leaves him with the command “Go and do likewise.”

But notice the lawyer’s answer again, even in the theologically superior but grammar-awkward version: “The one who did mercy to him.”

The three passing travelers in this story didn’t get names, but they did get pretty clear identifiers that Jesus’s listeners would have immediately recognized. One was a priest, a religious authority, and the second was a Levite, a member of that tribe set apart since Moses’s time for service in the Temple. Two figures to whom would be attributed qualities of righteousness as a part of their standing among the people.

The third man? A Samaritan. The lawyer couldn’t even say the word.

In the time of Elijah and Elisha Samaria was simply a region of Israel, the northern of the two kingdoms that had resulted from the machinations of those who succeeded Solomon as king after his death (the other kingdom was Judah, which was centered in Jerusalem). The city of Samaria sometimes served as the seat of government of that northern kingdom, and a lot of prophetic activity was concentrated there. By the time of today’s story, though, all of the region is simply lumped into a larger Roman province called Palestine. Yet over the centuries a virulent schism had erupted between those Jews (whose worship was centered on the Temple in Jerusalem) and the Samaritans, who were, technically, Jews, but whose practice had evolved to worship on Mount Gerizim in their own territory. That site was, they claimed, the original holy place in Israel, dating to the time of Joshua, as opposed to Jerusalem, which only became prominent during the era of King David. In short, a disagreement over what might seem to outsiders an arcane theological point had become a hard-and-fast schism, with Jerusalem Jews literally going out of their way to avoid even passing through the region of Samaria, much less actually having anything to do with Samaritans.

For Jesus to invoke the third, merciful traveler as a Samaritan no doubt provoked agitated bristling, and probably an oath or two, among his listeners, if they were a well-behaved group. And let's be clear; had the parable been told in Samaria, and the identity of the third passerby been Judean, reactions would have been extremely similar. Vitriol ran both ways.

It was a two-sided provocation that Jesus put before his listeners. By no means would any self-respecting Jew of what we might call the Jerusalem party even think of defiling himself by dealing with a Samaritan at all; being a neighbor to a Samaritan was out of the question, and no such self-respecting Jew would conceive of a Samaritan being a neighbor to a Jew. It would never happen, they might say, the way a plantation overseer of the 1850s might say that someone of the same skin color as the slaves he ruled over would never be President of the United States. 

Such was the vitriol that our lawyer couldn’t even vocalize that “the one who did mercy” could even possibly be a Samaritan. 

It’s easy enough for us to grasp the main point of the parable, and to apply to it Frederick Buechner’s point that a neighbor is basically anybody who needs you. But it’s not always easy or comfortable - or, frankly, desirable to us - to get Jesus’s point that “anybody” really does mean anybody. We live in a world that isn't prepared to give up our grudges, our ancient hostilities, our prejudices or superior attitudes or whatever ruses we use to divide ourselves and keep ourselves set apart from and above others. It would never happen. It can’t happen. 

I won’t let it happen.

Our society is pretty good at demeaning and dehumanizing “the other.” The world out there calls them job-stealers and threatens to build a great big wall to keep them out, never mind who’s going to pick all those tomatoes and strawberries in south Florida or California. Or people call them terrorists and yell "go back where you came from" even if they were born here, never mind that they are likely to be the ones that the actual terrorists kill first.

Or, when they get shot, people just call them thugs.

Jesus has this nasty habit of not caring one whit about our preferences or prejudices or whatnot. The world tries to respond with “but Jesus, they’re…” and Jesus cuts us off and finishes the sentence “your neighbor.” Society protests “but he’s a…” and Jesus won’t let us finish but says “the one you should imitate.” See, the kingdom of God doesn’t honor those divisions we create. The kingdom of God sees need and moves to meet it. End of discussion. If we want to claim to be part of that kingdom of God, if we call ourselves disciples, we’d better move that same way.

Which one … was a neighbor to the man who fell among the thieves?

The one who did mercy to him.

Go and do likewise. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #203, Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us with Your Love; #---, O love your God with all your heart; #707, Take Thou Our Minds, Dear Lord

Sermon: **Those** People

First Presbyterian Church

May 18, 2025, Easter 5C

Acts 11:1-18

 

Those People

 

First of all, let’s make sure we get one thing straight: that’s not a typo in your bulletin. The sermon title is exactly as I instructed Alberta to enter it, so don’t go fussing at her (as I know some of you do). Leave her alone.

It’s printed this way because you need to read it this way. It’s not “those people,” it’s “those people.” You know how the conversation goes: “…oh, one of those people.” The inflection has a world of meaning.

And that world of meaning, and how it gets broken down and exposed, is what you need to understand about this story, a story of Peter making a leap he never expected, in today’s lesson from Acts.

The part we heard a few moments ago is basically Peter’s defense speech, given when he is summoned (a much more sinister-sounding word than merely “called”) before the council of the church in Jerusalem to account for his actions regarding a certain Gentile named Cornelius, whom he had first encountered while staying in Joppa in the days after the raising of Tabitha, (also known as Dorcas) from the dead.

While staying at the home of a tanner named Simon, Peter gets hungry one day. In this case, though, getting hungry becomes the occasion for the Holy Spirit to visit and show a vision to Peter, a vision which called upon Peter to take a step that he could never have imagined taking, one that, literally, charged Peter to do something that went against the way he had been raised and against everything he had ever been taught about scripture.

In the vision, which is recorded directly in chapter 10, Peter sees something like a great sheet being lowered from heaven, containing animals of every kind, including all the creeping things and bottom-feeders you could imagine, and hears the divine voice – at least that’s clearly how Peter hears it, as his reply makes clear in one of the few times in Acts that Peter falls into his "speak first, think later" pattern that happens so often in the gospels: “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” This time, though, the voice of the Lord says virtually the most shocking thing possible: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 

Let’s not try to soften things here. Peter is not wrong or just making stuff up. You can, if you’re so inspired, look to Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14 for a starting point in surveying the amazing and very particular detail on dietary law in the Torah. And this wasn’t minor stuff in Jewish thought of the time. Peter’s response might have been heated, but it was also virtually a reflex – “we don’t do that.” And yet here God is telling him to do exactly that and getting in Peter’s face about it just a little bit – “must not” is never wishy-washy language in scripture, and that’s what Peter has just been hit with.

As if all this wasn’t shocking and destabilizing enough, Peter sees this vision a total of three times. If you remember Peter’s story, you remember that he has a bad history of things happening three times.

Finally, the visions are done, no more sheets full of unkosher food descending from heaven. Peter is left trying to sort out just what he has seen and just what it means. Little does he know that the Holy Spirit has already been at work well before this set of visions. The messengers who come from Cornelius, the Roman – and very Gentile – centurion, are there because the Holy Spirit has already been at work responding to the earnest prayers of a God-worshiper.

Apparently, Cornelius was a Gentile who nonetheless claimed allegiance to the God worshiped in the synagogue community but had not become a Jew. The extent of such dedication was that he was a generous giver and was constantly in prayer, and that “the whole Jewish nation” spoke well of him, according to 10:22. Those prayers got a dramatic answer when Cornelius – at least a day before Peter’s vision – received instructions to send for Peter. Of course, his messengers arrive as Peter is trying to sort through his own vision, one that must have seemed far more nightmarish to him than Cornelius’s to him.

For all his confusion and distress, Peter at least seems to get that his vision must have something to do with these visitors. That doesn’t mean he’s immediately comfortable with what he’s being asked to do; even if the spirit tells him to go with these visitors “without hesitation” that doesn’t mean he’s going with comprehension or ease. Nonetheless he does something quite remarkable, giving them lodging for the night before making the trip with them the next day to Caesarea, a seat of Roman power and a thoroughly Roman city.

Why is all this so remarkable? Well, Peter is associating with those people. The regulations in the Torah about associating with Gentiles and purity are as precise and fixed as the ones about food and purity. You didn’t just have Gentiles in your home, and you certainly didn’t go into their homes and share meals and things like that. Torah was quite clear that one was not to be cruel to Gentiles, and that one was not to abuse them if they were travelers in their land, and that one was to live in peace with them. But there were limits, and Peter, if still a bit uncomfortable as he makes clear in 10:28, was about to do all those proscribed things and more. 

And it was this choice that had caused Peter to be brought before the church leaders in Jerusalem, which is where his account is given that is recorded in Acts 11. Notice how in verse 3 of that chapter, the leaders in Jerusalem had thoroughly failed to understand what has happened; all that they can think about is not that Gentiles have received the word of God, but that Peter ate with Gentiles. As you might have noticed, we today live in a world, and in a church, where God’s work is too often and too easily ignored in favor of humans taking offense.

So Peter has to relate his experience to them. In the end, what finally gets through to the church authorities is that the story is not really about Peter, as much as he is the one telling it. The actions that matter here are not Peter’s, but God’s.

It was God who answered Cornelius’s prayers and instructed him to send for Peter. It was God who gave Peter that strange and disturbing vision. It was God who told Peter directly to go with those messengers from Cornelius. 

And it was God the Holy Spirit who came upon Cornelius and his household, right in front of Peter. Peter was at Pentecost; he knew what it looked like. He knew exactly what was happening. And it happened at the Spirit’s own initiative, without waiting for any cues. The Spirit came upon them while Peter was still speaking, giving what might have been his more-or-less standard introductory sermon. Other unexpected converts had received the Holy Spirit upon being baptized, but not Cornelius and his household; the Spirit didn’t wait. Peter called for their baptism, because after what the Holy Spirit had just done, how could he not?

We moderns really aren’t always any quicker than Peter to catch on to what the Spirit is doing in the world. We are more prone to seek comfort and familiarity rather than be open to those among whom the Spirit is moving. To put it rather bluntly: when was the last time you invited someone to this church who was in some demonstrable way – in race or ethnic background, or class, or orientation, or national origin, or (shudder) even political party – different from you? Clearly we do not reject persons of different races or backgrounds; we have welcomed, we do welcome, we will welcome – but do we invite? Do we take the initiative to reach out? 

The silos in which we live in society can be composed of very nearly anything, not just the classifiers noted above, and we in our homes, our workplaces, our social circles (and most certainly our churches) can fall into the trap of sticking with what’s comfortable, what’s familiar, instead of practicing the welcome of Christ, or following the initiative of the Holy Spirit. But we can’t do that, and not just because – not even primarily because – the church dies if we don’t follow. We’ve got to open ourselves to where the Spirit will lead us because that’s how we follow. That’s how we submit to the Lordship of Christ, not by memorizing rules, but by being active followers of Christ and seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit always.

We worship a God who does a new thing. We worship a God who makes clean. What God has made clean, we dare not - must not - call unclean.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #234, Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain; #---, The Holy Spirit fell; #282, Come Down, O Love Divine