Sermon of the Month - July 2008
Change in Mission
1. Challenge to Change
This morning we move on to the theme of change in mission. And the first side to this is that there is a Challenge to Change in Acts 10 and 11. Acts 10 and Acts 11 tell the same story – but with a twist. They both tell the story of Peter needing to be persuaded to enter the house of Gentile Cornelius, but through God’s guidance he tells this Gentile household what God has done in and through Jesus. And then he and his fellow Jews are truly astonished: they see Pentecost all over again. But this time, it is Pentecost for the Gentiles. Then they realise that God has accepted these Gentiles, and so should they, and they baptise them without any further delay.
When we read this story, we usually read from Acts 10, where it comes fresh. Acts 11 gives an abbreviated version, because Peter is telling what has happened. But this is where the big difference comes: Peter is telling what happened for a reason. In verse 2, the circumcised believers criticised him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
We like Acts 10 because it provides the story of change, change we like, because we are Gentiles, and this is the story of how the gospel first became available to us. The Holy Spirit was poured out on the Gentiles, and they were baptised. There is a challenge to change sometimes in the church, and the story in Acts 10 reminds us that sometimes we are on the side of change. We welcome it; we think it is fantastic. There will be changes you have seen and found really brilliant – not to say overdue. An easy example for most people will be the vast improvement in our facilities in the opening up of the Pathways Centre. There are changes we like.
But Acts 11 has a bit of a different focus. This provides an altogether different Challenge to Change. Here we see change challenged. Peter and his friends go home on a high. They have seen God spectacularly at work. But when they come back to Jerusalem they are brought down with a jolt. The circumcised believers criticised him. How dare you become ritually unclean! How dare you wreck our reputation in this city! And so on. Perhaps we can imagine the fireworks.
Who were his critics? The phrase translated the circumcised believers is even vaguer than that – it means ‘those of the circumcision’. As such it could mean all Jewish males whether Christian or not. The context and Peter’s reply clearly place it within the church, however, so our translation expands from the circumcised to the circumcised believers. Since – Cornelius apart, all Christian males were circumcised this would still mean all male Christians. Possible but not likely. The context suggests a group. Bearing in mind comments elsewhere in Acts and the Letters of the New Testament, we should probably take this as the ‘circumcision party’ – those believers who were inclined towards saying that there should be no change on the fundamentals of Old Testament practice. Gentiles should be encouraged to become Christian – by becoming Jewish Christians, becoming proselytes, circumcised and following the traditional practices of Old Testament faith, while also confessing Jesus as Messiah. They were the conservatives of the church, and they provide a challenge to change here.
Now if we are among those who welcome the change, the inclusiveness of the church, that it welcomes Gentiles like us, then we might react to these conservatives in a negative way, treating them as reactionary. This is because we are so used to this change. After all it happened 2,000 years ago. But changes happen all the time, and I think we need to learn a bit more sympathetically from these circumcised believers.
2. Change is a Challenge
Change is a challenge. Some changes we may welcome. But others we will not. The Church of England, and the worldwide Anglican Communion is in danger of splitting because of challenging changes. One of these is the proposal to have women bishops, the other to tolerate or not the US appointment of a gay bishop. When it comes to changes like these, I would be astonished if everyone had exactly the same opinions. Change is a challenge, and some changes are very challenging.
So how can Christians face up to changes which might be disturbing – or indeed might be wrong? Let’s look at those conservative believers and learn from them again.
First of all they criticised Peter. But then they listened. That’s the first good thing they did. They engaged both mouths and ears. They may have been conservative, but their minds were not so made up that they refused to listen. That’s vital. We must listen.
Second they heard what God was doing. This is vital. They reacted to something that shocked and disturbed them. But as they heard Peter speak, they heard that at every stage he was led by the Holy Spirit. It was through the Spirit that Peter saw a vision, through the Spirit that his prejudices against the unclean were chalelenged; through the Spirit that he was led to the house in Caesarea and entered; through the Spirit that he preached; and it was the Holy Spirit that was poured out on Cornelius and his household.
And third, they accepted what they heard. It must have been difficult for them. God was challenging their certainties even more than Peter’s. But they looked at what God was doing and allowed themselves to be changed by it. Remember this is the most conservative, old fashioned, reactionary people in the church we are talking about. But they listened, they looked for God and they learned. Even their first move, the criticism of Peter was fine, if taken in a positive spirit. We should always check if a proposed change is right before God. But if we get a clear answer, we should accept it.
And the clear answer comes if we can see that God is clearly in the change.
But that is not the end of it.
3. The Challenge of Change Continues
Change in never done and dusted. Never in the bag. Never complete and over. Just when these people who had struggled with a radical change, with all its upheaval, we see another one. They have accepted that God can after all convert Gentiles, and even welcome them in to his kingdom without circumcision. Even long practised rules about not entering the house of unclean men (that is, Gentiles) can be overturned. But they have this as an extraordinary exception. God is God. If God does something extraordinary, then we will have to accept it. That is where they have got to. But what if he does the same extraordinary thing several times a day?
The rest of Acts 11 goes on to tell of a massive change in Antioch. A great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. Now what we are told is that men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also. In other words these great numbers of believers include both Jews and Greek-speaking Gentiles. And let’s not miss the vital footnote to this story. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. Remember him. He was the hater of Christians, converted by God, but with a call to reach out to Gentiles. Now Barnabas seizes the moment. This is the man for the occasion: when [Barnabas] found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. A new nickname, because they were a new phenomenon. Cornelius was the exception. Antioch was wholesale change.
This pace of change will come back to challenge our conservative Christians, identified in Acts 15 as Christian Pharisees.
Change doesn’t stop still, except where the church has given up and settled for decline and death. Change can be wrong. It must always be checked against what God wants. Check it against Scripture, and against evidence of the Spirit at work. But we can never say there will never be change.
Instead long for the right changes. Pray for right changes. Pray for discernment, that we may fulfil God’s plans in all our adaptations of mission and Christian faith and life.