Making all welcome, as a sign of discipleship

We are now only three weeks away from Pentecost, the Church’s birthday. We will soon be celebrating the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit, the one who draws alongside us, who guides us, teaches us and transforms us. That’s quite a gift to have received. A gift that we keep receiving every time we open ourselves to the risen Jesus’s invitation to follow him.

Our Easter sermon series continues this week as we hear more of Peter’s time in Joppa. This Mediterranean coastal town, today called Jaffa near Tel Aviv, is where last week we saw God use Peter as a channel to bring Tabitha back to life.

Luke includes this story to show us not only the remarkable work of God but also the remarkable truth that God uses others to be channels of it.

Others, like you and me.

This week the remarkable continues in ways that shocked the early believers.

Have you ever been somewhere familiar only to find that it has changed? And rather than experience the comforts of familiarity, you find yourself instead temporarily dislocated. At best puzzled, at worst anxious. Because what you thought you knew and could rely on was now in fact, not waiting for you.

For example, have you ever been to a supermarket only to find that they rearrange the shelves or change the aisles around? Or perhaps you've been on a car journey, a familiar one, but then you're facing a diversion sign because there's a road closure ahead? These more trivial examples may still perhaps stir in you a sense of discomfort.

Now imagine being the people described in the reading from Acts today (Acts 11. 1-18). The ‘circumcised believers’ when they found out that Peter of all people, their leader, faithful Peter, the person who they thought was trustworthy, was in fact eating with ‘the uncircumcised’. In other words, Peter was mixing with those not brought up with the Israelite tradition. He was mixing with those who are not abiding by the way we do things around here.

Having all been raised in the traditions that flowed from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they understood that it was only the Israelite people who would be redeemed by the Messiah. Peter’s tradition-shattering vision awakens them to the truth that it is all people, all people, who are redeemed by Jesus’ death on the cross.

It is hard for us to imagine how difficult this would have been for many to accept. Many stories follow in Acts and other New Testament passages that show how churches struggled to accept non-Israelite people into the fold and change the established way of doing things to make space for them.

Perhaps the closest we come to this, week by week, is the challenge of changing our ways to make church a more welcoming place for a wider range of people?

Peter's response to being called out by those that were challenging him was to explain to them step by step, that which God has called clean, we must not call profane.

Those who God welcomes; we are to welcome.

There is to be no distinction between different categories of people. Differences do not define welcome; they are subverted by it. Peter's appeal to them ends with a simple argument, ‘If this is God’s way, then who am I to hinder it?’

If our faith in God is real, then we will follow God’s lead and not hinder what God is up to, making all things new, wiping away all tears, now that the first things are passing away.

This week’s passage from John’s Gospel reinforces this message (John 13. 31-35). The setting is Jesus’ bittersweet final words to the disciples at the Last Supper. Judas has just left the room and is on the way to the authorities to betray Jesus and receive his reward. Jesus knows this and sees the time he has with his closest followers drawing to a painful end.

Powerfully he shares, that even though betrayal is now underway, it is God’s glory that is being revealed. Five times in that first sentence as the door closes behind Judas and his footsteps fade into the distance, five times we see the word glory. All is not lost, despite the way things appear, because God is making all things new.

Jesus’ instruction to those who remain, to the faithful, to the hopeful, for those who are longing to see tears wiped away, is stunningly simple.

Love one another.

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

This is my favourite verse in the Bible and, for me, pretty much sums up the other 31,102.

Love one another.

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

Lay down your lives for each other. Put down that which hinders you from building one another up.

Why?

Not just because it’s a nice way to live, and, quite frankly, easier than putting people down.

But because by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

And that is how others will come to see that God is real and is at work in the world.

Every time we choose to love sacrificially and welcome everyone in.

Every time we are prepared to change those ways that we hold tightly to.

Those ways that served us for a season, but which now hinder others being served.

Every time we get behind what God is doing and calling us to do.

Then, everyone will know that we are disciples.

And we will be one step closer to a new heaven and a new earth.