"Wild Kin(g)dom"
May 6, 2007: 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.unitedchurchonthegreen.org

Scripture:
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 then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" When [the church leaders] heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life."

"God is still speaking to the world. May we open our hearts to hear. Amen."

Sermon:
There was a fascinating little piece in yesterday's New York Times It wasn't very flashy, sort of there in the US political coverage among more prominent articles about the war and Congress and all the pre-election hubbub. It was titled "A Split Emerges as Conservatives Discuss Darwin"1 and, I don't know, maybe it was the increasingly infrequent use of the word "discuss" in current events reporting that caught my eye, but whatever it was, it was enough to make me sit down and read the whole article.
1) Patricia Cohen: May 5, 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/us/politics/05darwin.html?ref=politics)

Of course, we all know that Mr. Darwin and his newfangled ravings about evolution have been persona non grata in evangelical Christian circles since the days of the infamous Scopes "Monkey Trail" more than 80 years ago. In recent years, though, that long-running animosity has been given new life, and a new spin, with the popularization of the term "intelligent design" to replace the more down-market "creationism." This new incarnation has been championed recently by right wing politicos riding the wave of evangelical political influence, including not one, not two, but three of the Republican candidates who participated in last Thursday's debates and our sitting president. But it's still the same old song and dance: faithful persons of a more literalist bent dismissing the theory of evolution as mechanistic, soul-less and God-less.

Except apparently it ain't necessarily so, at least according to some within the conservative camp. Apparently, there are some modern political philosophers of the right who are willing to challenge the widely accepted evangelical position and embrace Darwin, at least in part, arguing that his "scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today's patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances." As Dr. Larry Arnhart, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois State University writes in his 2005 book, Darwinian Conservatism, "Darwinists and conservatives share a similar view of human beings: they are imperfect; they have organized in male-dominated hierarchies; [and] they have a natural instinct for accumulation and power," and so the traditional institutions that have evolved over time, apparently with the blessing of God, to cope with the rather famously "nasty, brutish, and short" nature of human life are "naturally" conservative.

In other words, if I'm reading this right—and I realize I have my own biases here—in this particularly conservative view, life is a jungle, a swamp, a wild kingdom, all pointy teeth and treachery, in which only the most traditional are fit to survive. "Traditional" morality, the God-given institutions of the church, heterosexual marriage, male domination and capitalism, a belief in radically individual responsibility and limited charity, and fierce tribal loyalty are the best tools available to the "civilized" world to carve out and defend our gated communities against the hordes of... well, other people. So folks, it appears the rules are there, and they're strict, for a reason. Without them, it seems, we're all doomed to become radically relativistic witchcraft-practicing communist lesbian abortionists.

Or worse: Gentiles. Because, you see, in many ways, that's just the same sort of carefully, even painfully circumscribed sort of world the Apostle Peter inhabited as an observant Jew in first Century Palestine. Mostly as a reaction to hundreds of years of continuous occupation by foreign powers, from the Babylonians to the armies of Alexander to the legions of Rome, but also partly, I'm sure, just because it does seem to be in our human nature to define ourselves over against the "other," the moral boundary between Peter's Jewish-Christian community and the wider Gentile world was defined and strictly enforced by traditional interpretations of Jewish law. Just as is still the case in our own modern world, a complex network of do's and don't's around worship, politics, family, work, sex, even clothing and food served to separate the in's from the out's, the civilized from the un-, and as in Peter's case, Jew from Gentile.

So when kosher-keeping Peter sees that sheet descending from heaven filled with "four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air," he doesn't think "How nice—a petting zoo!" No, this wild and wooly vision is very real threat to Peter's identity, his whole worldview. There are scary creepy crawly things in that heavenly picnic blanket, things he's not even supposed to look at, much less "rise, kill, and eat." Wriggling around in there, bleating and baying and snorting and sniffling, are creatures he has been taught to fear and hate because they are dangerous to his people's way of life, to their very survival as a nation chosen by God for a great purpose in the world. "But, Lord, there are nasty, brutish, beasty Gentiles in there!"

To which God replies, "Yea, I know. I made them, too. And what I made clean, you must not call profane." Thanks to God, for Peter, it's no longer a conveniently simple legalistic matter of period, end of sentence, for this is the living God, the still speaking God. This is comma, end of one chapter and beginning of a whole new one.

And so, as Peter reports later to the higher-ups in the new Jerusalem church who call him on the carpet for his boundary violation, when three men, three Gentile men, subsequently arrive on his doorstep, asking him to accompany them to Caesarea—a sin—to enter the household of the Roman centurion, Cornelius—a bigger sin—to share a meal—a great big sin—he goes with them. Imagine Peter's trepidation at crossing that particularly threshold! I mean, after all, he's heard the rumors about Gentiles—every good Jewish boy has—about the weird things they eat, the strange things they... do... behind closed doors. Imagine his surprise then when what he finds on the other side isn't some wild kingdom, but incontrovertible evidence of the same gracious Spirit that shapes his own community of faith. And so, just like that, Peter changes his mind, remarking, with some long-overdue humility, "If then God gave them the same gift God gave us when we believed... who was I that I could hinder God?" Peter goes in full of fear, but finds fellowship. He goes in expecting foreigners, but finds family.

But that's what happens when we look at the world through God's eyes. You see, life isn't just one more season of Survivor. God doesn't go around handing out immunity to the winners, and, God knows, we don't get to vote the losers off the island. Quite the opposite, in fact. God is intent on transforming the world, on turning the wilderness into a watered garden, of reconciling "natural" enemies so that "the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together" (Isaiah 11:6). As Peter finally understands, "God shows no partiality" to any whom God has made (Acts 10:34). God doesn't divide the world into in's and out's, have's and have-not's. Christ is the living sign of God's extravagant embrace of the whole world, not just our tiny, tight part of it. In Christ, who "came unto his own, and his own received him not" (John 1:11, KJV), everyone who is an alien or a stranger or simply far off or far out in the eyes of the world finds a welcome and a home. In Christ, God breaks down the dividing wall of hostility between us and them, whoever they are and whatever I is—whether race, ethnicity, nationality or creed, age or socio-economic status, physical ability or mental health, marital status, sex or sexual orientation or gender expression, whatever labels we bear or boxes we're put in—that keep us from recognizing one another as fellow children of God, as family.

That's the heart of the matter, really: God is in the business of making families—all kinds of families, not just mom and dad and 2.5 kids with a dog and a high-def TV and a two-car garage. The power of God's holy spirit crosses every boundary we can imagine or invent to include all creation in the circle of God's wild and wacky kin-dom: Jews and Gentiles, evangelicals and atheists, liberals and conservatives, Sunni and the Shi'a, fishermen and their catch, soldiers and the peaceniks, spotted owls and lumberjacks, the straight politician and his lesbian daughter—If you don't think God has a wicked sense of humor, guess again. Because it's clear God believes in big, messy, blended beyond-Brady Bunch families, families of choice, God's choice. As the Apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Romans, itself a sustained study in God's non-traditional family values, "Those whom God foreknew," ie, everyone, "God also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son," that is, Jesus, in all his peace, justice, and compassion "in order that Jesus might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom God predestined"—remember again, that's all of us—"God also called; and those whom God called God also justified; and those whom God justified God also glorified" (from Romans 8:29-30). In other words, there is no need to squeal and squirm like little Lord of the Flies piglets fighting for God's hind teat. In God's family, there is more than enough love to go around.

Now, of course, I'm not naïve enough to believe that just because we're one big family that means we're always going to be a happy family. Families are tricky things. I mean, I know none of you has ever had difficulty relating to your own family, but you've heard stories from your friends, right? Right. We know from experience that families can be caring or cruel. They can build us up or tear us down. They can be places of scarcity or abundance. They can keep us chained to the sins of the past or give us wings to fly free into the future. But the one thing our families always are is ours As the saying goes, you can choose your friends, but you're family...? Like it or lump it, you're stuck with them. And though as a human family of nearly infinite variety we may have nothing more in common than the same home address on this planet, we are stuck with one another. And since we are, God wants us to stop fighting like cats and dogs and love one another.

Notice that I said God wants us love one another—love. I didn't say anything about liking one another. Which is lucky for me, because near as I can tell, a whole lot of my new brothers and sisters in this one world family are jerks—stupid, ignorant, pushy, misguided, even malicious jerks. But my faith doesn't require that I like any of them, just that I love them, because they, like me, are children of God, adopted into the family of God's grace. And like me, there is nothing they can do to make God love them less and nothing they can do to make God love them more. I am bound to love them—that is, to treat them with respect, to seek their welfare as my own, to work for their justice and their peace—even when they are utterly unlikable, because ultimately they, too, are made in the indelible image of God, our Father, our Mother, and bear within them the spirit of Christ, our firstborn sibling.

And we forget that at our peril, as Jesus' reminds us in his shocking story from Matthew 25. There the Son of Man confronts those scrupulously faithful folks, those "compassionate conservatives" who always played it safe and colored within the lines, and who are gathered now around his throne on Judgment Day. The Messiah tells them straight out, "When I was hungry, you gave me no food. When I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink. When I was a stranger, you did not welcome me, and naked, you have me no clothing. When I was sick and in prison, you did not visit me." But they're confused by his accusation and answer him, Lord, we looked for you in all the old familiar places, the traditional places—at church, at the club, in the best parts of town, on the right side of the tracks, "when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?" "Truly I tell you," says the Lord, "just as you did not do it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did not do it to me" (from Matthew 25:42-45). Surprise!

Friends, as much of a Darwin fan as I am when it comes to biology, I believe natural selection makes a pretty bad basis for theology—or social policy, for that matter. Social Darwinists in days gone by used their work to support white supremacy and eugenics, for instance. Rather, for my money, divine selection is where it's at, the good news that God chooses me and chooses you... and you... and even you, God chooses all of us and blesses all of us and challenges all of us to grow up together in love. We are called to transform this gated community, this dog-eat-dog world in which we all struggle and strain and snap at one another, into a public garden, a place where all creation, not just the fittest few or the most traditional may flourish as one family. We are called to be children of God, interrelated and interdependent, all making the very unnatural choice to love one another, as unlikable as we may yet be, because we are aware of the grace that has been poured out for us all.

Like Peter, I pray we may all have our own a-ha! moment, where we come to understand that "if then God has given them" —and you can fill in your own them here; I know we're not yet all so pure that we don't already have somebody in mind—"If then God has given even them the same gift God has given us... who are we to hinder God?" Who are we indeed! No, friends, the Spirit sounds as clear here today as it did up on Peter's rooftop in Joppa long ago: In Christ, we have been given a new vision. <singing> "We are fam-i-ly," all of us—lions and tigers and bears, oh my! And we are called to go, to get up out of our boxes and beyond our comfort zones, to put aside the lie of scarcity, of competition, that keeps us at one another's throats and finally make no distinction between them and us. May God give us the strength, the grace, and the great good humor to buck the trends and do just that.