Acts 11:1-18
John 13:31-35
“Will They Know Us?”
Jesus said, “When you love one another, people will know that you are my disciples.” In other words, the true followers of Jesus were not going to be identified by their race or culture, by their attire, or even by their practices of worship or prayer. There was going to be one characteristic that Christians would share in the generations to come, and that would be their striving to love one another.
In this morning’s wonderful story from the Book of Acts, we see the Apostle Peter growing in his understanding of the faith community that Jesus was forming in the world. Up until this point, the followers of Jesus has been Jewish people, primarily from Palestine. Their community had included men and women, mostly working people, but with some others with financial resources as well. But it has been limited to people who already believed in the One God of Israel, who followed in the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The disciples of Jesus had been people like Jesus, Jewish people who practiced their faith in the home and the synagogue, and followed the laws of Moses, including the circumcision of their men and the dietary rules and practices that set them apart from others. But in contrast to the distinctives of the Jewish faith, Jesus tells his earliest followers that the thing that they should be known for is their love for one another.
I’m sure that Peter heard the new commandment that Jesus gave them, and he probably paid close attention to the fact that LOVE was going to be the centre of their identity. But I think he needed an extra push from the Holy Spirit in order to realize the radical implications of the new Christian identity as people who are identified first and foremost by their LOVE.
It happened one day when Peter was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance he saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners, and it came close to Peter. As he looked at it closely, he saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.
Despite the fact that these were animals that Jewish people would normally abstain from eating, Peter heard a voice saying to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”
It wasn’t that Peter was looking for a reason to avoid the strict dietary rules of his faith tradition. In fact, his first response is quite resistant to the instruction. He replies, “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” But the voice from above is insistent, saying, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
And, of course, the whole conversation is repeated two more times, reinforcing and affirming the message until Peter is ready to accept the vision and its implications. Then suddenly three men from Caesarea arrive at the house, and the Spirit prompts Peter to go with them and “not to make a distinction between them and us.”
You see, the men from Caesarea are Romans. They are Gentiles. They are people who would likely eat most of those animals that Peter saw in his vision. They are men who would not have been circumcised, and whose experience of religion included a whole host of different gods and human rulers who were considered like gods as well.
And yet, despite all these differences, barriers, and boundaries between the Jewish Christians and these Gentiles, when Peter has the courage to speak to them and share the good news about Jesus with them, he sees the Holy Spirit fall on them “just as it had upon us at the beginning,” he says.
And when Peter tells the story to the other Christian leaders, they also are convinced that God is opening up the Christian community to embrace and include a much broader diversity of people than they had imagined. It won’t be dietary laws or circumcision or cultural or ethnic background that will set apart the followers of Jesus. But truly, as Jesus said, it will be their love.
Two thousand years later, as we think about the Christian Church around the world today, the diversity of culture, language, food, attire, practices of prayer and worship, and even theological convictions are even greater.
A few years ago, when I attended the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Germany, that reality was very much on display. It was visible in the faces and clothes of the Christians from around the world who gathered there, and it was audible in the many languages that were used in prayer, song, and conversation.
Diversity was starkly evident in the need to carefully balance different traditions in our times of shared worship, and it could not be ignored in the challenging dialogue sessions on issues of justice, Creation care, and international relations.
I wonder what Jesus is thinking about the state of the Christian Church today. Although it has grown exponentially in numbers and diversity, sometimes our differences keep us separated into denominations that can feel like factions. And very often it has been our disagreements and our lack of love for one another that has added to the divisions.
When we gather in Councils of Churches, whether locally, nationally, or internationally, it shows a commitment to staying connected, working on our disagreements, and growing in love for one another, and I think that is faithful to Jesus’ new commandment that we love one another as he loved us.
But I do keep on thinking about what Jesus said about how people “will know that we are Christians by our love.” I wonder… when non-Christians look at the church, do they see a community of people who love each other across differences and diversities? Do they recognize us by our love? Do they even associate LOVE with Christians at all?
Certainly, the label of “Christian” has been co-opted in many places, and it has come to be associated with the “Christian Far-Right” that is known for judgement, exclusion, privilege, and political power. Biblical verses are used to judge and condemn people, and Christians symbols become associated with hatred and violence against others.
When that kind of Christianity becomes the face of our faith to non-Christians, many of us find ourselves saying things like, “I’m not that kind of Christian,” and feeling frustrated and angry about the way that our religion is associated with values and ideas that are so contradictory to the core of our faith.
The sad reality is that many people today do not associate Christianity with love. They have no idea that Jesus’ new commandment given to his followers was to “love one another as he had loved them” or that the ONLY identifying characteristic of being a follower of Jesus was supposed to be LOVE.
And that’s why I think it’s so important that as Jesus’ followers today we not only strive to love one another, but that we be seen to be loving one another. We need to actively counteract all those negative stereotypes about Christians by being determined to put love first. That includes not only being kind, welcoming, and loving towards all the diverse people who may come to join us at worship. But it means proactively making it known that everyone is welcome here.
Like Peter, obeying the Holy Spirit’s instruction to go to Caesarea and make no distinction between the Gentiles there and his own Jewish Christian community, we must be clear about our conviction that differences in language, culture, gender, age, economic status, or sexual orientation are not barriers or boundaries to keep us separated, but diversities to be welcomed and celebrated. And then, whether we are here in our church building or out in the community, our mission as disciples of Jesus is to enact that love in all the places where we meet and interact with other people.
In our time and place, people may not “know that we are Christians by our love.” They may well associate Christianity with the opposite of love.
So, when we treat our neighbours with care and kindness… when we engage with our co-workers with patience and respect… when we offer our time, talent, and gifts to serve others with generosity and compassion… people may not assume that we are Christians. When they find out that we’re active members of a Christian church and that our faith is the foundation of our way of life, they may actually be surprised.
But let’s go ahead and surprise our neighbours by our love. Let’s show our neighbours what it really means to be a Christian by our love. Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to guide us, and have the courage of Peter to cross boundaries, and learn about differences, and share Jesus’ love for all people.
We’re going to be doing a thing next Saturday that I believe is a good opportunity to show our community the kind of welcoming church community that we are striving to be. We’re partnering with a local artist, Olivia Redman, who painted the mural on the back wall of our building a couple of years ago.
Olivia is going to be painting some more murals along our back wall to add beauty to the neighbourhood and discourage the graffiti that tends to appear on blank walls as well. And this Saturday, Olivia is inviting the community, our Cathedral neighbourhood, to participate in painting a Community Mural on our back wall. With the guiding question, “What is meaningful to you?” everyone will be welcome to add an image or a word to the mural.
I hope that many of us will participate in the mural painting, and if you can volunteer at the free BBQ as well, your time and presence will be very much appreciated. I hope that we’ll all think of this as a beautiful chance to meet and welcome our neighbours in Christian love. We won’t be preaching at anyone, but letting Jesus’ love shine through in the way we greet and serve the people who will stop by.
If they don’t recognize that we are Christians by our love, perhaps our welcome will surprise them a little bit, and that will be good.