Psalm 8
Mark Edwards
May 22, 2016
Trinity and Confirmation Sunday

Conformation. At first I thought it might have been a typo. But then I got two emails with the subject lines stating “conformation.” Perhaps he thought that is what the program was called? Or perhaps, after a few months of debating whether or not he wanted to be confirmed, he decided to simply give in and conform to the expectations. Conformation.

It is, after all, a common assumption about this “religion” thing, isn’t it? Religion breeds homogeny. Religion is group-think. Religion is the opiate of the masses. Religion is a slave morality that resents the power of the strong and establishes a counter-narrative to unite the oppressed and overturn the tables of power. All through a collective conformity to rules and an agenda of weakness. Conformation.

And yet in the face of such stereotypes comes Romans 5, a passage that speaks of freedom, endurance, hope, and of God’s self-sacrifice for those who are unworthy.

Are we talking about the same things?

And then we come to Psalm 8 in which words of truth from young mouths are powerful enough to overturn foes and avengers. In which God’s glory shines out beyond the Hubble Deep Field. In which a human stands alone under a starry night and asks, “What am I?” “Are you there God?” “Do you know that I am here?”

And the answer comes back “I’ve made this world for you.” “I have made you and you are not a fish lost in the sea.” “I have made you and you are not a bird who was only born to tweet.” “I have made you and you are not a beast of the field.” “You are not simply born to work and born to die.”

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them?”

And the answer comes back that we are given feet, so we hike and explore and take journeys. “You have put all things under their feet.”

“What are mortals that you care for them?”

And the answer comes back that we have been given hands, to create, to give, to serve, to hold.

“What are we? Why am I here? Who am I? Of what value are we children of men?”

And the answer comes back that we are made “a little lower than the angels.” Wait, scratch that. That is a mistranslation based upon a prejudiced anthropology: “We are made a little lower than the elohim — than the divine beings.” We are made a little lower than the Gods — just right up there with the God himself.

And yet, how could this be? “Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise.” How can we humans be ranked that high?

“O Lord, Our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” What human do you know who is that good? Who is that majestic? If this is what God is, how can we compare as something even close?

“Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”

How can this be?

“Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

Today is Trinity Sunday. It is a day in which pastors all over the country struggle with language inadequate to describe how the one God can be three persons, how the three persons can be one God and not three Gods. And though I’ve got lectures that I’d like to read to you on the eternality of the Triune relations, I’m going to try and keep this brief.

Creator, redeemer, sustainer. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let’s start with the Son, using the familial, personal language of the New Testament and a passage the confirmands know well: “though he was in the form of God, Christ Jesus did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in human likeness…”

We’ll pause there, on the “not considering equality with God as something to be grasped, retained, owned, manipulated.” It is in this moment that the triune God is begotten: The Son makes himself other than the Father, makes himself less than, sends himself out into the distance, makes himself humble. And yet the Father loves this other, however unlike Himself the Son now is. And so the Father pours out the Father’s love on the Son, anointing — as the Holy Spirit — the Son with all his own glory and love.

Here we have a perpetual giving, loving, humbling, raising up, pouring out, refilling, self-differentiating, and uniting. It is, using the profound wisdom of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as a three-fold, eternal “give-it-awayedness.” Give it away. Give it away. Give it away, now. In a snapshot, that is the triune moment in which God perpetually lives and loves.

“What are the Daughters and Sons of Man that you care for them?”

“You have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”

See, you were made to be introduced into that eternal, triune relationship. To be made “a little lower than the Gods” doesn’t mean we were made to be like Zeus or Aphrodite. It means we were made to be like the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who in faith, hope, and love lives in dependence on, reliance on, and trust in God the Father. We were made to be like Jesus Christ, who — when in his humbling and service “goes deep” — is united across space and time, beyond life and and death, with the Father by the Holy Spirit.

And it is for this reason that critiques of religion and even Christianity are not limited to the skeptics and cultural despisers. Many great Christian theologians have been all too aware that “the Christian Religion” could stand in the way of God. For instance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Religion is always in danger of thinking it has God.”(1) For this reason, Bonhoeffer thought the essence of Christianity was beyond ethics and conforming to rules of behavior. “The question of Christianity is not the question of good and evil among people but the question of whether God wishes to be gracious or not. The Christian message stands beyond good and evil.”(2)

Bonhoeffer’s life and work, in pursuit of the will of Jesus Christ and in opposition to the Nazi kingdom of hate and darkness, led him to conclude that “Christian decisions are made only within the ongoing relationship with God, within a constantly renewed surrender of oneself to the divine will.”(3) This did not make for an easy life, but it made for an admirable one. At the end of his life, sitting in a jail cell amidst both hope and fear, Bonhoeffer wondered, “Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.” His deepest answer: “Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine.”(4) Bonhoeffer, like so many other theologians, realized that we could easily let religion get in the way of hearing God’s voice for our lives.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Those words from the Grateful Dead song “Ripple” describe the journey ahead. And yet, though that path is for our steps alone, we are not made to be alone, for there is one who will guide us.

Conformation? Yes. You were made, we were made, to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, to be invited in and rolled up into the eternal, triune loving forever and ever. And to walk the unique path that the Holy Spirit will guide us upon. In Christ’s image. It is a way of being in which there is the truest freedom, the deepest love, the widest acceptance, and the longest life.

Here we have eight youth who have grown up in the church and who are about to be confirmed. They each have written statements of faith that, while affirming of the core elements of the Christian faith, are unique and that, in their individuality, are not conformations to group think. They are personal confirmations that they believe, that they trust Christ, and that they want to be led.

Let us all be encouraged that they “do not [want to] be conformed to this world, but [want] be transformed by the renewing of their minds” (Romans 12:2). And let us encourage them and each other, for we know the road ahead is no simply highway. But we also know “that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

This is the road that Jesus Christ walked. And this is the road for which you were made.

Amen.

(1) Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The History of Twentieth Century Systematic Theology in The Bonhoeffer Reader, ed. Clifford J. Green and Michael DeJonge (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 162.
(2) Bonhoeffer, Basic Questions of a Christian Ethic in The Bonhoeffer Reader, 78
(3) Bonhoeffer, Basic Questions of a Christian Ethic in The Bonhoeffer Reader, 85.
(4) Bonhoeffer, Who Am I? in The Bonhoeffer Reader, 817.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Acts 2:1-21
David A. Davis
May 15, 2016
Pentecost Sunday

A few weeks ago I was in West Philadelphia at the federal office of Homeland Security and Immigration. I had an appointment to get my digital finger prints and facial recognition for my application for a temporary religious worker visa to serve the Church of Scotland this summer. Though I had an appointment, as you would imagine there was still a bit of waiting involved. I had the opportunity to observe what was going on around me. I noticed that the federal officers and the staff members were incredibly helpful, calm, polite to everyone in what was quite the hustle and bustle. From another room I could hear the National Anthem being played and then lots of applause. Later I saw the folks all dressed up, celebrating their new citizenship. I looked around the waiting room where I was sitting and it was clear I was the only one looking to get out of the country. I listened as one anxious young woman explained that she had lost her Green Card. I noticed that everyone else had a friend or family member there for support, for translation, for company. The room was quiet and tense. Every couple of minutes, a man would appear from behind a partition. We all had numbers but instead of calling the next number he would pretty much whisper, “Next.” He said it with no inflection, little volume, like he was trying to not contribute to the anxiety already in the room. He said “next” with neither a question mark or an exclamation point.

Usually it comes with one or the other; “next.” At the deli or in a pizza shop or down at Hoagie Haven, someone says “next” with an urgency, a demand. It’s an exclamation point that implies frustration, even disdain, if you are not absolutely ready to respond. In another setting, like at the barbershop where men wondrously honor and keep an order in such a respectful way, one of the barbers honestly doesn’t know who is next so it comes with the question mark; “next?” Or sitting with your child at the pediatrician waiting for the nurse affectionately known by all as the “shot lady.” When she says “next” it’s not necessarily a good thing for all involved. It’s a question mark for her, an exclamation point for the kids. “Next.” Question mark or exclamation point.

The story of Pentecost is a story about who is next. It has all the bells and whistles of a good Bible story: a rush of wind, divided tongues as of fire, a polyphony of language. But as with most Bible stories that have such bells and whistles, the bells and whistles aren’t the point. The special effects can so easily be a distraction. Here in the story of Pentecost, it’s easy to miss is the “who is next” part after the Risen Jesus is gone. The “who is next” part and God’s implied punctuation is what makes Pentecost relevant to you and to me. It’s not the bells and whistles. It’s about “whose next” when it comes to the unfolding story of gospel proclamation and carrying forward God’s kingdom way and the midwifery of the church of Jesus Christ.

Here in the Book of Acts, Jesus has been lifted up. Luke tells that a cloud took him out of their sight. After staring too long up into the heavens, the eleven return to Jerusalem to an upstairs room that must have been very familiar to them by then. The Bible says they devoted themselves to prayer together with a few women and the Mary the mother of Jesus. They selected Matthias to be added to the eleven apostles. And when the Jewish festival came they were still all together in one place. The now-twelve apostles, together with the women, they were still sort of Upper Room-centric. Set apart. Gathered together. Jesus was gone. There was a lot of prayer. Probably still a lot of fear. It doesn’t say, but the door was locked again. There in the one place where they were sequestered away from it all, away from those whom they feared. They were away.

That’s when God calls “next.” Yes, there is the wind and tongues of fire (whatever that means) and all those languages, all those people, each hearing in their own language from the twelve Galileans. The story tells how the Jews were gathered from every nation. It’s quite a litany of area names. The accusation of drunkenness sort of stands out. But what happens amid all that stuff of biblical proportion is that each of the twelve was given a word. A word to the world. They had something to say to the world. They told of God’s deeds of power. No more upper room. No longer sequestered away. No more hiding from the world. The Risen Jesus is no longer there so its time for someone to stand up. The cloistered upper room isn’t a long term option. God rattles the twelve with the Spirit-driven call of “next” and each one of them turns to face the world with something to say.

Professor Tom Long put it this way in a Pentecost sermon. “When all is said and done the gift that we get on Pentecost is not the superficial gift of energy and excitement, an injection of artificial adrenaline. And it’s not the kind of power that the world thinks of as power.” To use my image, Long is affirming that the gift to the church is not the bells and whistles. “The gift we get on Pentecost,” he continues, “is the one gift we most desperately need and the world needs… the gift of Pentecost is the gift of something to say, a Word to speak in the brokenness and tragedy of the world that is unlike any other word.” When the church received the Holy Spirit, Professor Long concludes, the church stood and spoke. Pentecost is more than God’s sending the Holy Spirit and birthing the church in a spiritual, ethereal way. It’s God offering the Word to the apostles, to the twelve, to the followers of Jesus, and telling them “now it’s your turn.”

When Peter takes the floor, notice that Luke describes him standing there with the other eleven. Peter is preaching now but all twelve are standing there with him. Peter quotes the Hebrew prophet Joel on the Spirit of God pouring out on all flesh: sons, daughters, old, young, slaves, men, women. Peter doesn’t start to tell of that mighty wind. He doesn’t give testimony to the tongues of fire. He draws upon the prophetic tradition that affirms the Spirit of the Living God pouring out on all flesh. Joel and then Peter proclaiming that the Holy Spirit comes to sons, daughters, old, young, men, women, you and you and you and you and you.

“Next? Next! Next…” God’s call. It doesn’t come with a question mark. God wondering who is next. Any sense of exclamation doesn’t come from God’s disdain or frustration. It comes with the world’s need, that brokenness that cries out for a healing word. The despair that yearns for hope. That death and destruction that always assumes the last word. “Next.” God’s next is the sending of the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, the church stands up to speak. To speak a word to the world. When the Holy Spirit comes, the church can no longer be an upper room-centric, fear-filled, cloistered band of Christians who think they are under siege. Because God’s next is the sending of the church smack out into the world with that Word, with that Living Word. God’s “next.” It comes not with a question mark or an exclamation point. It comes with a promise. Emmanuel. God with us. I will be with you always. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Go therefore to all the nations. When the Holy Spirit comes, God rattles the church with the Spirit-driven call of “next” and each one turns to face the world with something to say.

Nassau Presbyterian Church: on the edge of campus in the heart of town, proclaiming in Word and deed the love of God. Come, Holy Spirit, come. That the church might let the world know that as a child of God, a beloved child of God, a sense of self has nothing to do with how smart you are or how successful you are or how much money you make, and it has everything to do with how much God loves you and that God created you and that God goes with you. That this church might be about God’s love and embrace. Come, Holy Spirit, come. That the church might have something to say in response to how the world stokes fear, how the world responds to fear with might, how the world always thinks a bigger hammer, a bigger weapon, a bigger wall is the answer. How the world idolizes “security.” That the church might then sing, “Our hope is in no other save in thee; our faith is built upon thy promise free; Lord give us peace, and make us calm and sure, that in thy strength we ever more endure.” That this church might look to a future in God’s hands.

Come, Holy Spirit, come! That in a world that tries to argue that “charity begins at home,” and “to thine own self be true” and “what have you done for me lately” and “it’s all about me” and fearing them, that the church might have something to say about “doing justice, and loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God.” And loving the Lord God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and our neighbor as ourselves. That this church would always be about God’s welcome and inclusion. Come, Holy Spirit, come! That in a world where election cycles and political rhetoric have forever brought out the darker side of humanity’s willingness to do anything to win, that the church, that this church, might be a beacon of light and civility standing on the gospel truth and the theological tradition that people of good conscience can disagree about important things and still be bound together by the love and power and grace of Great God Almighty. Come, Holy Spirit, come!

So today marks my last Sunday in the pulpit for a while. This gift of a sabbatical is so very gracious of you. But the pulpit will be filled by Lauren and Joyce and Cindy Jarvis and Tom Kort and Jacq Lapsley. Our preaching life will be in capable hands. Please don’t take a sabbatical with me. You can show up at the Round Church of Bowmore in July, but don’t stay away from here, from Nassau Church. Because the proclamation part, the proclaiming the Love of God part, it is so much more than this pulpit… and have you paid attention much to the world lately?

Next.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Lauren J. McFeaters
May 8, 2016

I grew up in a church called the Beverley Heights United Presbyterian Church. It’s located in Mount Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh. And in 8th grade I went through Confirmation. For some reason the Session of the church thought it would be a good idea to use the Book of Revelation as that year’s Confirmation Curriculum.

It was a mistake. Rather than have the Confirmands dive into Revelation as scripture that can inspire, a witness to the justice of God, the teaching team decided that for nine months we would focus on the bizarre, the horror, and the menace of Revelation. All this to 13-year-olds who were preparing to confirm their Baptism on Easter morning.

These Sunday morning classes took us through every possible image and enigma and secret message Revelation can throw at you. It seemed Satan and the forces of evil were trying to abduct our souls through music, concerts, and movies. One week we were given a list of all the musicians, albums, and songs considered to be a malevolent force for youth.

I’m going to completely date myself here but I remember, when I saw the list, most of the banned music I knew by heart, as did my friends. The list contained groups like (don’t laugh) Hall & Oates, Kansas, Marvin Gaye, the Eagles, and, wait for it, the Bee Gees. You know “Stayin’ Alive” and everything from Saturday Night Fever.

I know every generation has a conversation about the efficacy of popular music. The waltz was first considered to be an abomination of impropriety. Just ask Jane Austen.

My church’s fear was bone deep. How to protect children in a world gone mad was a guiding question. And the Book of Revelation was the place to begin. My teachers used the threats of eternal fire, the dread of weeping for the lost, and the terror of the pain of hell. Week by week we de-coded seals and beasts and disasters.

They believed if they could keep us scared they could keep us safe. If they could keep us scared they could keep us safe. Sound familiar? If they can keep us scared, they can keep us safe.

Let’s pause for a Revelation refresher and a corrective. We can forget about trying to decode Revelation. It can’t be done. We can’t possibly know if this particular seal means a future calamity, if a winged creature and a two-edged sword signifies disaster in a particular part of the world, if a sea beast with ten horns and 100 crowns indicates an impending catastrophe. It’s all so – Nostradamus.

And it’s all part of the Doomsday Industry I mentioned several weeks ago. Many churches continue to be caught up in it. There’s the old Left Behind series, the End of Time gaming apps, Judgment Day publishers, Armageddon Press, and big-screen, end-of-the-world Hollywood productions.

It’s all modern-day marketing, playing on fear, anxiety, and panic, and using the Revelation to John as a timetable for the rapture – the very end of the world. The word “rapture” never appears in the Bible. It’s all to make a buck on the backs of people’s anguish and distress. The Doomsday Industry has made billions and it’s nonsense. Garbage. All of it. Every bit of it can be left behind.

Wiped away. Goodbye. Fine. Amen.

And why? Why is it nonsense? Because Revelation is a letter written by the theologian John of Patmos to seven churches experiencing unimaginable persecution and tyranny. It’s nothing to be afraid of because John’s letter is, first and foremost, a book of comfort and hope for the suffering. It’s not desolation and despair.(1) Revelation is, first and foremost, proclamation, not prediction. It’s poetry, not blank verse. It’s lyrical, not discordant.

Can you hear it? Can you feel it? Can you sing it?

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.”

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth!
For the first heaven had passed away and the sea was no more.”
“I am the Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and end.”
“Come, Lord Jesus!”

“And He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away.”

“Blessed are those… Blessed are those… Blessed are those…
who wash their robes, who come to the font,
who profess their faith at the tree of life.”
“Come, Lord Jesus!”

“And here I am. Jesus your Lord!
I’ve sent you my angel.
I am the ground of your being. The descendant of David.
The Bright Morning Star.”
“Come, Lord Jesus!”

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
Everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
Everyone who is thirsty say, ‘Come.’
Come, there’s a gift:
Come, take the water of life.”
“Come, Lord Jesus!”

Riff upon groove upon refrain upon phrase.

This is no dirge or indictment or reprimand or reproof.

This is a Song of Life.
An Anthem to Hope.
A Canticle Divine.
A Chorale of Justice.

Brian Blount says, like rap, Revelation is a blend of memorial music and unruly rhetoric. And it ever, ever gives up hope. God’s purpose rings out, compellingly singing, “You, O Lord, are worthy.”(2) The entire book, the blues and spirituals, the gospel and rap — the Revelation Hymns are all fighting music.(3) Fighting for courage and fairness, optimism and encouragement.

These letters written to seven churches suffering persecution offer us hope in some of the most beautiful music of the Bible. There are nine hymns embedded in the Book. Seven of them are antiphonal in form. Call and response. Musical exchanges happen between angels, cherubim, elders of the church. Even the voices of those who have died cascade down to earth and rise back up to the heavens in joyful celebration of grace.(4)

And it is in this final Epilogue and Benediction that we hear the Finale with strands of both harmony and discord, insistently proclaiming, when all is said and done, after all the uproar, and suffering, and sorrow, after all the racket, and chaos, and drama human beings can make — it is singing that will endure. For John, ordinary everyday language cannot meet the deep need of our suffering.(5) A new song is born and his name is Bright Morning Star.

I loved the church of my childhood. I still do, but they missed a wonderful opportunity. In their fear and panic they only saw words printed on paper. They forgot to listen to the text. They failed to listen to the hymns, to enjoy the songs. They forgot that singing brings the healing. Singing brings the balm to the fear.

In the bleakest of days, John fills the church with audacity and confidence. His hymn becomes an anthem for an Easter people living in a Good Friday world. That when we forget how to sing our hymns of faith, our Lord sends new testimony. When we can no longer stand by ourselves, our Lord puts in our path those who are strong. When we witness someone being disdainful to new neighbor, or patronizing to the elderly, or condescending to children and youth, we can speak up of each one’s worthiness to the Lamb. As the world is crumbling and fear runs rampant we can turn to one another, offer the Peace of Christ, and then turn to the world and be the Peace of Christ. And rather than be self-applauding in our giving, or dominant in our talking, or self-complacent in our call to service, we come week by week to sing the songs of faith, and pray the prayers of devotion, and baptize the newest members of Christ’s church, and welcome new members, and weep and laugh and embrace.

That’s quite a song.

(1) Thanks to Susan W. Thompson for this reference from a class taught at Princeton Theological Seminary by Bruce M. Metzger.
(2) Brian K. Blount. Can I Get a Witness: Reading Revelation through African American Culture. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 102-107, 2005.
(3) Blount, 117.
(4) Blount, 103.
(5) Thanks to Tara Woodard-Lehman for this image.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Acts 11:1-18
David A. Davis
April 24, 2016

A week ago Friday the Princeton Packet published a letter to the editor that I signed along with the other three elected officers of the Princeton Clergy Association. It was letter to the wider community in response to the disturbing story of kids from Princeton High School playing a beer drinking game in the basement of a neighborhood home. It was more than a beer drinking game. It was a beer drinking game labeled “Nazis vs. Jews.” Someone at the party “snapchatted” a picture. A student not at that party received the snapchat, posted it on her blog and wrote about how wrong and hateful and stupid it was. The Packet gave a headline to our letter that read, “Religious Leaders Condemn Anti-Semitic Act.” You will excuse for parsing words here but our letter never used the word “condemn” nor did it declare anything “anti-Semitic.” The Rabbi himself suggests that what was most offensive was the trivializing of the Holocaust, making a game out of such a horrendous event in history. The letter tried to name the various issues that bubble up from that party but none of us were interested in “condemning” anyone. I agree with another community leader who said to me “these kids lives might be changed forever in a world that only knows their faces. But in our community, every one of those kids has a name and when you know the names the response is just different.” She wasn’t defending what happened only lamenting how everyone involved has been portrayed and treated by the dark underbelly of social media.

When you know the names. There had to be names. Here in this story from the 11th chapter of the Book of Acts, there had to be names and faces. These few chapters of the New Testament tell the story of Cornelius, the first Gentile to respond to the Gospel, the first Gentile Christian. The conversion comes when an angel visits Cornelius and when Peter has a dream in triplicate of that sheet and the animals and the voice of God. Peter took six people with him and headed to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and so he called together friends and family. Peter’s sermon at Cornelius’ house had that great opening line, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality…” While Peter was speaking, the Bible tells it, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard what he was saying. The Spirit fell on the Gentiles in the house. New Testament scholar Beverly Gaventa points out that it is the only time in Luke and Acts that the Holy Spirit comes prior to the act of baptism. The Holy Spirit coming that day to Cornelius, to the Gentiles. The Holy Spirit coming, it didn’t accompany a baptism but it wasn’t spontaneous either. It was a unilateral, unrequested, non-mandated, unmerited, boundary shattering act of God.

Peter and the six people he took with him. Cornelius and his friends and family gathered. It says they invited Peter to stay for several days. So there had to be names and faces. Here in what I read to you, it’s too bad Peter doesn’t use any names. As he defends himself to Jewish Christians, he tells what happened, he tells it step by step. But he doesn’t use any names. Maybe if they knew the names, their response would have been different. You heard their response. It started right when Peter returned to Jerusalem. The apostles and believers had already heard that the Gentiles had accepted the word of God. Those apostles and believers, they didn’t ask Peter how many souls had been saved or how many people were added to the church that day. They didn’t ask about the Spirit thing, the speaking in tongues and extolling God part. They didn’t ask him to defend his actions theologically. They didn’t ask for the scriptural support for baptizing those Gentiles. They didn’t even flat-out ask, “Peter, how could you baptize them?” No, what they said was, “Why did you go and eat with them?” “How could you eat with them?” Laws. The religious connotations of what to eat and how to prepare. “How could you eat with them?” They are not us. They are not part of us. “Peter, how could you eat with them!” Of course it wasn’t “them.” It was Cornelius and his friends and family. There were names and faces. When you know the names.

I have only repeated a sermon once here at Nassau Church. It was a sermon on Vashti in the Book of Esther. Vashti who refused to dance naked before the king. The sermon was entitled, “Here’s to Vashti.” One repeat in 15 years. Until now. Almost ten years ago I preached a sermon on Peter and Cornelius. I repeat a significant portion now not because the sermon was all that great but because it is oh-so-relevant. That sermon title was, “Us and Them.” The people of God don’t have the luxury of allowing “them” to become a four-letter word. As if life in the community of faith were a cable news show where a liberal-leaning host invites a gun advocate on just to excoriate him and make fun of him. Or as if being a faith leader today grants you the authority to pronounce that all who disagree with you on important matters are going to hell, a sort of church sanctioned demonization of “them.” As if we Presbyterians, steeped in the tradition where people of good conscience can disagree about important things, as if we could ever settle for the rhetoric of our life together being shaped by two people on television trying to talk over one another, or radio talk shows intended only for like-minded listeners, or a two-party political system that has elevated “us and them” to an apocalyptic, scorched-earth way of life. I’m not sure there is any room for “them” (the term “them” with all the scandalous and disgusted tone I can muster intentionally left dripping from the word), I’m not sure there is any room for “them” in the Body of Christ. And that’s because of Cornelius. The conversation about “them” in scripture, in the New Testament Church, the discussion was never the same. It was no longer “them,” it was Cornelius.

In 2004 Professor Peter Gomes gave the opening convocation address at Harvard Divinity School. Dr. Gomes was the minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard University and he taught at both the Divinity School and the college. When delivering his address Professor Gomes stood right in front of the then president of the University, Larry Summers. It was a tense moment because the president and one of his deans had made it clear to the university and to Peter Gomes privately that they had little time or commitment to the Divinity School and Memorial Church in the future vision for the university. Peter told me the dean had said to him if they were building the university today Memorial Church would never have such a prominent place in Harvard Yard. To which Peter responded, “Well, it is where it is and I don’t suppose you will move it anytime soon.”

The address became an occasion for defending the existence of a theological education that continues to claim and grow out of its own Protestant Christian roots. The roots upon which that university and Princeton’s were both founded. At one point Peter Gomes noted the irony that the setting for the address, for the opening of the semester in the Divinity School was in a theater, not in the stately gathering place of Memorial Church. The reason we are here and not there, he said, is that “one of our students in recent years accused me of praying too ‘theistically.’ I’m not sure what she meant, but I knew she didn’t like it.” He went on to say… “I speak as an out-of-the-closet Protestant Christian with decidedly Trinitarian tendencies, and as such I believe that the well-laid Protestant Christian foundations of this school are broad enough not only to embrace Christianity as its central tradition, but also the great wealth of religious traditions, which because of that foundation, have come now to join us. If this school’s future is to be worthy of its past, that future dare not compromise the essential Christian identity of the place, without which no other identity here would be possible.”

You hear the wisdom of his argument? The inclusiveness and hospitality and respect of the other embedded in the historic Protestant Christian identity is what allows the place to flourish in all its plurality. Without that outward lean of the tradition, no other tradition would be present at all. Not only that, few if any of the other traditions would have ever welcomed the other to begin with. Roman Catholic. Orthodox Jew. Evangelical Christian. Even a secular approach like that of the former Harvard president and the student who thought the prayers were too theistic. That pure secular approach that some would assume best describes a place like Harvard now offers little welcome or engagement with people of faith. For far too many, those who don’t agree simply don’t belong. They ought not to be welcomed. They become “them.”

Professor Gomes wasn’t preaching a sermon that day with the university president looking over his shoulder, so he stopped a bit short. There is a prior step in his description of the well-laid Protestant Christian foundation of Harvard Divinity School and the university of which it is a part. A prior theological plea to make. That would be the unilateral, unrequested, non-mandated, unmerited, boundary shattering act of God. The embrace of the other radiates not from the tradition, but from God. Presbyterians remain committed to things like “God alone is Lord of the conscience” and “people of good conscience can disagree about important things” not because we or the tradition have been particularly good at it; far from it. We remain committed to it and stand for it and live into it because of God, the grace of God, the unpredictable grace of God, the wondrous grace of God. The prevenient grace of God. The unearned grace of God. The undeserved grace of God. The grace of God that is new every morning, new every morning. The grace we celebrate every with each and every baptism.

There is no room for “them” in the Body of Christ. I mean that word that comes with all the intended sinful disdain of humanity’s collective use of the term. God is so much greater than our hearts (I John). “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians). “The gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on them” (Acts). The unilateral, unrequested, non-mandated, unmerited, boundary-shattering act of God.

Remember, before we were us… in the story of salvation history, before we were us… we were them.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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