God’s Food Revolution

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Paul Debenport

May 2, 2010

It’s an old joke, but still pertinent:  “How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?  …  Change?  What’s that?”

Of course this shoe fit the earliest church, too, especially of the conservatives in charge of the first, first church, the Jerusalem church where Christianity was born and charged to “go into all the world,” but… not to all people.  Not to uncircumcised men, non-Jewish people, people who didn’t keep the laws of God, especially the dietary laws where it was clear who was “in” and who was “out” with God.  And Peter was as conservative as they came.  Never had broken God’s law and defiled his body with unclean, non-kosher food.  That is, until God’s Holy Spirit got a hold of him to change all that.   “How many Christians does it take to change a lamp wick, Peter?”  Change?  What’s that?

Hear God’s revolutionary Word from today’s lectionary passage—Acts 11: 1—18:

Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.  So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’  Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I 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 me.  As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.  I also heard a voice saying to me, `Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’  But I replied, `By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’  But a second time the voice answered from heaven, `What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’  This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.  At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were.  The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.  These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.  He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, `Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’  And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.  And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, `John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’  If the God gave them the same gift that he gave us where we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God.”  When they heard this, they were silenced.  And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

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            I didn’t get it.  Even after a year of Seminary, I didn’t get it.  I didn’t get just how vitally important the Hebrew dietary laws were to faithful Jews, not only in Biblical times, but right now.  But I learned—the hard way—just how ignorant and insensitive I was, in one of my most embarrassing moments.  I had been hired as a day-camp counselor at the Trenton Jewish Community Center, a gracious act of equal opportunity employment on their part.  But I probably should have lost my job the first day of training.  At lunch time when all the staff gathered at a picnic table under a tree and I opened my sack lunch, everyone went dead quiet when I pulled from my lunch sack, of all things, a ham and cheese sandwich!  The camp director sitting across from me, paled ghost white, audibly choked, covered her mouth, and almost lost it—literally.  She was so revolted that she had a visceral, physical reaction to my transgression.  They kept me on—amazing grace—though much later, I learned that the whole camp had had to be ritually purified that night.  I also made sure I learned a lot about what was kosher and what was not, and just how serious that was.

            Peter, who had never broken God’s law, had never even sat with anyone with a ham and cheese sandwich, must have been equally, viscerally revolted by this vision from God.  All those animals, birds, and shellfish that had clearly been banned by God for thousands of years, and those gentile men with whom he was to sit at table, would God change God’s own law?  Could God really mean that in Jesus there would be “no distinctions?”  As usual, Peter thought he knew better than God, which is why it took three times to get Peter to realize that God was changing things big time.  And when the Holy Spirit was obviously given to these gentiles, finally Peter realized, “who was he to hinder God?”[1]

            Now God had given the dietary laws in order to form and unify God’s called-out people.  Distinctions were useful and needed and followed for thousands of years.  But God’s people were to be a light to all the nations, and now, in Christ, the light of the whole world, food had lost its power to unify the community, because God wanted a wider community with no such distinctions.  Food was now to be inclusive, not exclusive. 

            Now this all may sound rather quaint to us gentile Christians today, but think about the food revolution that’s going on now.  We now have multitudinous food distinctions: vegetarians and vegans, raw food-ists, and many others.  Some add a radical political dimension and call themselves veg-anarchists.  Morality has also been re-introduced.  The pedigree of foodstuffs is assured by labels of fair trade and organic, and the slippery “all natural.”  Of course the righteousness of even all of these distinctions comes into question when we stir in that our food needs to be local to reduce their carbon footprints.  High-fructose corn syrup, which turns out to be everywhere, may be poison to children, or at least increase obesity, while some superfoods like kiwis whisper promises of longlasting, if not quite everlasting life.  I’m not making fun of these trends; rather, I’m using them to show the food hysteria of the Pharisees is neither so quaint nor so past.[2] 

            Yet again, food seems to have lost its power to unify the community, for as in Biblical times, communities form around food specialties that are premised on the exclusion of others who fail to meet the moral standard.  And God decided that God’s laws needed changing to unify, not to exclude. 

Now it’s not just that Peter’s good religion cast aspersions on pork and shrimp; his good religion cast out other human beings.  For at the very moment the vision ends, three gentile men arrive.  They too had had a vision; they are advised to seek out a Simon name Peter who holds a message that will lead their whole household to salvation.  Peter was no believer in inclusiveness, so his queasiness at the sight of the gentiles probably matches his queasiness at the sight of gentile foods, but the Spirit is no respecter of nauseated stomachs and orders Peter to go with them, saying to Peter, “Thou shalt make no distinctions!”  And when Peter begins to proclaim Jesus Christ, lo and behold, the Holy Spirit falls on the gentiles, and the un-clean, un-welcome ones are now pronounced clean and are welcomed into Christ’s body the Church!  Talk about equal-opportunity-amazing- grace!  And to think Peter almost missed this incredible, unforeseen, astounding opening of the gospel because he sneered at those pigs in a blanket!

Of course, this pattern has happened over and over again through the centuries, as God continues to pour out the Holy Spirit on the church:  the Reformation, the end of apartheid and official church segregation, the ordination of women, and, most recently, the inclusion of children in the Lord’s Supper.   Always, it seems, God’s Spirit, continues to break open our exclusions, to welcome more and more and more people of all stripes to the table- fellowship of God’s welcoming grace.  God seems to want to break bread with all people that on earth do dwell.  And the Spirit of Jesus is still moving among us today.  Therefore, as Peter learned, “who are we that we could hinder God?”

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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Benediction:

Let us be dismissed with this exhortation from the in Ephesians 4: 1—6:

Therefore, …lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the body of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were

called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”