Year C Easter 5 2022 Hindering God

 Year C Easter 5, 15 May 2022

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Hindering God”

Collect

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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 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."

Revelation 21:1-6

I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them as their God;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away."

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life."

John 13:31-35

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Good morning, friends. We are interesting creatures. We are creatures of habit and ritual. We get into rhythms and cycles, and it is so hard when they become too calcified or unresponsive to the world we are in we tend to defend our normal way of doing things instead of responding and growing in response to whatever new is happening.

Rock, what on earth are you talking about? 

Simply put, we tend to get stuck in our ways. And sometimes, it is not even our ways. We are simply upholding tradition.

A story is told about a young married couple who for the most part are happily married. Until one day, the wife decides to cook a ham. The husband, pleased with the aromas emerging from the kitchen, goes in and notices that his loving bride had cut off the end of the ham. It struck him as funny, but in their newly wedded bliss he said nothing. The next time they cooked a ham, the same thing happened. The third time he could not keep his mouth shut and asked, “Why on earth are you cutting the end off the ham before you cook it?”

The wife laughed and replied, “Why, that’s how you cook a ham, silly!”

He looked at her, incredulous. “I have never seen anyone cut the end off a ham to cook it,” he said. 

“Well that’s the way my mother always did it!” she responded, a little defensive.

The husband would not let it go, so at the next family gathering he asked his mother-in-law about why she taught her daughter to cut the end off a ham to cook it. 

“Why, that’s how you cook a ham, silly!” his mother-in-law replied. “That’s the way my mother always did it!” She looked at her son-in-law a little worried.

At Christmas that year, his wife’s grandmother joined in the festivities, and again, he would not let it go. With his wife and mother-in-law there, he asked his grandmother-in-law why she cooked a ham by cutting the end off. His wife and mother-in-law looked at each other knowingly, ready for the grandmother to straighten the young man out. 

“Tell him, mom, that’s the proper way to cook a ham.” 

The grandmother looked at her daughter questioningly. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Mom, whenever you cooked a ham you always cut the end off! I saw you! All those years growing up!”

“Dear,” said the grandmother, “we cut the end off the ham because the only pan I had deep enough wouldn’t fit a whole ham! I had to cut the end off, not for the ham, but because of my roasting pan!”

So often, our ways became ruts. And ruts are only long ramps into our graves.

If we always do what we have always done, we will only get what we have always got. And when conditions change, even more, we need to mend our ways.

In our reading from Acts, Peter is called to task for his baptizing Gentiles into the Way of Christ. He had a vision, as did the head of the house in Caesarea. The Holy Spirit brought them together. And thankfully, Peter heard the will of God, the third time through anyway.

He recognized that this was a departure from the way he was raised. He had kept kosher his whole life, but in his vision he was ordered to kill and eat things that he knew to be unclean. The proof for him was in the pudding. If God was not for it, nothing would have happened when he lay hands on the man and his household. His defense, “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?”

Who am I that I could hinder God?

How many times in the history of the Church have we gotten in God’s way? Or justified and rationalized going deliberately against God? Maybe even more close to home, how many times in my life have I tried to hinder God? Like Peter said, “Who am I to hinder God?” God’s way will win out, it always has and it always will.

Friends, we may not like it, but God believes in Crock-Pots. Or at least the “Crock-Pot approach” to things. God cooks things slow. As St. Paul put it, “in the fullness of time.”

You may have heard about the amazing discovery this week, they have finally been able to take a picture of the monster black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Kendra shared this week a story that Piper recounted on Facebook, that her very own father was one of the two astronomers who predicted that this existed back in 1974, and helped name it Sagittarius A, or Sgr A*. It took most of my lifetime for that sound they heard way back then to be visualized through the Event Horizon experiment. But science plays the long game, too. Knowledge is knowledge. Substantive change is substantive change. Slow cookers work best when you want the flavor to go all the way through. Transformation, true, deep, substantive change takes patience and faith.

There are so many ways we try to hinder God. We think that what we hold sacred is what God wants, always. John’s vision of heaven declares that God is about not the same-ol’ same-ol’. 

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

Not “See, I am making all things the way they are.” What a horrible waste of time and energy that would be!

Friends, be open to the prompting of the Spirit. Be open to new callings and new ways of doing things. Do not try to hinder God!

And how might we hinder God?

• We hinder God when we put our culture before metanoia, that renewing of our minds that we use the word “repentance” for. God’s call is for all of us to be transformed in all ways. God does not want us to remain comfortable and happy but to make rivers in the desert, and the dead to live again.

• We hinder God when we put our Status before our Mission. Thinking of how this might make us look, keeping up being proper or acceptable hinders our following of God. To change the world, cultural propriety is one of the first things to go.

• We hinder God when we hold onto our Fear over our Belovedness. We are asking today, how might I hinder God. But before even that question, ask this: “Which influences me more, my faith or my fears?”

• We hinder God when we put Certainty before Belief. The modern mind introduced in the Enlightenment took away our faith. Now it was needed to rid us of superstitions and silliness. What also went out was forgetting that faith is a matter of the heart long before it is of the mind. If you are entirely certain, how is that faith? Certainty, and our emotional need that drives us to that, hinders our following of God.

• We hinder God when we create cults of Purity instead of Righteousness. Peter was Pure when he let nothing unclean pass his lips. He was Righteous when he followed God’s call. DO NOT CONFUSE THE TWO.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus makes it clear. They will know we are Christians, followers of Jesus’ Way of loving God, not by our Certainty, not by our Purity, not by our Worries and Fears, our Status or Propriety, but by one thing and one thing only.

They will know who we are and whose we are by how we Love. The reason why this is so hard is because it is so simple. We make up these rules and exceptions when we forget this simple and eternal truth. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

What is our ham that we need to cook in a different way? Are we stuck in generational ruts of prejudice and superiority? Or are we listening to that new way this Holy Spirit is calling us to embrace?

Let us go forth, New and Improved. Let us follow the Call of God. Amen