Food is such a complex thing that God has given us. It seems so simple. On the surface, food is what we use for energy. You feel hungry – you eat. But as each culture has developed its own style and tastes, eating food from another culture is an important signal that we accept people.
As we get ready for the Cambodia trip, accepting Cambodian food for two weeks is part of the experience. One woman said to me, ‘I decided to eat Cambodian food only for a month because I was able to kill my desire for my home food that way. Otherwise I would not have been happy.’
Now, I was worse than most when I started going to Cambodia. Cambodians eat rice three times a day. For me, eating rice was more like three times a month. Cambodian breakfast is usually soup with a salty taste and I’m more accustomed to pastry with a sweet taste. The thing I noticed about the differences was not hot curry or tastes that I’ve never experienced. It was the subtle differences that were so hard to accept.
Cambodians usually serve three kinds of meat at a meal. Actually, I like meals where you have to choose. It gives me an odd feeling to mix my pork, beef, and fish. And Khmers prefer the lighter sweetness of fruit to the more intense sugar of pie or cake. I’m actually allergic to most fresh fruit. And chocolate never made it to Cambodia and not much coffee either.
After 25 years, I have changed my list of favorite foods. I could eat Cambodian food for the rest of my life. But it took some training and that is out topic today as we look towards Pentecost. Who is the gospel for?
The poor Christian Church in the United States is being torn asunder over this question. We are in the newspapers this week for the ways in which we fight with each other. The New York Times had an article this week with one of the Episcopal priests who may be kicked out in Connecticut. And of course, the United Methodist Church kicked out a pastor at one trial two months ago and reinstated her this week.
If we cannot love each other, then we have no message of liberation and salvation to offer others. The Bible says, ‘they will know you are Christians by the love you have for each other.’ The non-Christian world is watching.
There is a passage of Scripture that was written for just a time as this. You will hear Peter’s encounter this morning. It is not the easiest passage of Scripture to hear because it challenges our feelings and pushes us to accept others. But it shows us how to live in this difficult age and how the Church can regain its message. So if you feel confused by what you hear from various Christians, I pray that this will be a comforting guide. Let’s worship.
While we draw clear distinctions between Judaism and Christianity, the original disciples and the Jewish community did not. Christians were regarded as one more renewal movement in Judaism and there were other Jewish sects that were similar. There are four Catechumanate groups from St. Joan’s that worship here during the week. I called the monsignor to see what a Catechumanate was. He said, ‘O its simply Christians who want an additional service during the week in a smaller intimate setting for worship and a common meal.’ The United Methodist Church has the ‘Road to Emmaus’ and Wellspring on our conference website, nyac.com They are renewal groups, not new religions.
Three things united early Christians with the Jewish community – circumcision, Sabbath, and kosher food. Gentiles were godless, idolatrous, unclean and rejected by God. Dealings with them made Jews unclean.
Peter was already on a risky mission because he was going to Jews who lived in Caesarea. Think about that name for a moment. Caesarea is a form of Caesar, because it was built by Caesar. He added an artificial harbor and created the city. Jews were a minority in Caesarea. Many Jews refused to accept it in the map of Judea and called it ‘the daughter of Edom.’ The Jews who lived in the coastal plain or in Caesarea were looked at with suspicion because they had to buy food and speak with Gentiles.
So we are talking about strong feelings. We are talking about people that think somebody else is so bad that it get you dirty to get near them. And Peter was more liberal than most! So when God gives him the vision that all food is clean, God has to do it three times. If Peter just got the vision once, he would have called it a nightmare. The vision directly contradicts one of the three key Jewish laws of separation – kosher, circumcision, and Sabbath.
It is interesting that most Christians now don’t even know about those three laws. Many Christian men are not circumcised, the Sabbath is Saturday and we worship on Sunday, and most of us could not define kosher if our life depended on it. So the issues in each generation change.
The Christian community is currently split on war, homosexuality, and culture. It is probably true to say that Christians helped George Bush get re-elected. And yet, the United Methodist position on the Iraq war is that it is wrong, because it does not mean the historical Christian standards for war. And of course, you have heard me several times on this theme and there are links off our home page to those sermons. So I disagree with Mr. Bush about as fervently as is possible and yet we both are Christians and ironically, we are both United Methodists.
Rev. Beth Stroud, a United Methodist, decided to push our system in April, 2003 by preaching a sermon where she told of her covenanted relationship with another woman. The sermon led to a church trial in December last year at which she had to surrender her pastoral credentials. But Friday, the church appeals court reversed the decision and gave back her credentials. The whole sorry business expresses the pain that Christians have with each other accepting gay people. Just like Peter, people on both sides of the issue feel a strong distaste for their opponents.
And Christians have not settled the issue of race. There was fresh attention this week to the Crystal Cathedral in California and the connections of Robert Schuller to a neo nazi, William Baker. At first, it sounded like Schuller had simply invited him to speak at a conference. But now it seems established that Crystal Cathedral helped him start his web site and actually owns it. With malice towards none, we would have to say that our experience in this sanctuary this morning is the exception rather than the rule in Christian worship.
I want to offer some ways in which Peter’s experience may help us today. First, even in the areas we have settled in our local congregation, we have to make sure they stay settled. We are a culturally diverse congregation in a racist society. So we cannot just say, we have solved that issue here. We have to keep reaching out to each other and so prove the law of love. The change you see today in the bulletin for coffee hour is part of a larger policy. I am going to the Spanish service later to announce that I welcome Spanish members at the English coffee hour. I know there have been some tensions at times. But the pastors and leaders of this church want the members of the church to know each other as much as possible. Food is often the context where that happens. So we have clearer guidelines about what we can provide for free and what we must pay for. And I hope you give even more than a dollar for a pastry because the profits will go to the garden Communion offering.
As a local church, we look amazingly like our neighborhood. That was the old comment by Bill Clinton, that he wanted a government that looked like the people. We have copied that for church life in many ways so that by age and ethnicity, we look like Jackson Heights. The way in which we have not yet succeeded is that Jackson Heights includes the third largest gay population of New York City. And yet people do not seem to hear that this is a church where you can be accepted in your search for the Lord and spiritual life.
And for our personal lives, I have concluded that I have to balance my view of scripture with a generous hand to others who claim the name of Christ. Jim Wallis was writing in Sojourners that Martin Luther King, writing in the Birmingham jail, wrote with compassion to those pastors who had helped put him there. He appealed to the scriptures, and to their finer feelings, but never did he call them evil.
I think that the spirit of Peter is in that approach. Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. He disagreed with other Jews most of his life and was actually the one with God’s thoughts. But he never separated from other Jews and even chose to go into captivity with them.
I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.
The Christians at Caesarea were helped by speaking in tongues. Suddenly a clearly supernatural sign that was given to the believers among the Jews was now experienced by Gentiles. That means that if we are all searching for God’s truth in a humble way, ready to be less accepting of our natural political or social attitudes, we can expect the Holy Spirit to be in the process, guiding and giving supernatural signs.
The Christian community is not clear in its message to society right now – war, homosexuality, or race and culture. And they are critical life issues. I am going to speak to these questions with all the clarity I can find from the scriptures. But I also hope we all develop more of Martin Luther King’s approach – to speak powerfully of our convictions while maintaining an accepting spirit of others in the body of Christ. That was what caught people’s attention in Acts, Peter accepting Gentiles as friends at the table. And that acceptance is the law of love, noted in John 13:35, they will know you are my disciples by your love for each other.
