St.
Hildegard's Community
Sermon for Easter 2007
by Judith Liro
Judith Liro is the
priest of the St. Hildegard's community, an innovative liturgical
community located at St. George's Episcopal Church.
The Acts of the Apostles is really Part Two of Luke. It
includes the stories of the early Christian communities, at least
the ones that Luke knows about. Of course in the beginning the
first Christians were all Jews. The story we heard from Acts today
tells about a turning point when non-Jews became Christians for
the first time. As we explore what it means to “practice
resurrection,” this story tells us that it involves being
open to God’s freedom to love and include. We should
expect surprise.
Peter has an amazing vision while he is praying that overturns
all that he has been taught about the practice of his faith. Purity
codes had been a saving grace to the Hebrew people during times
of exile. They had been instrumental in forming identity
and resisting assimilation into the dominant, conquering culture. And
now his vision directs Peter to abandon the prohibitions against
eating with Gentiles and the rules of approved foods and their
preparation. He protests and yet God persists. Peter
experiences this vision shortly before a deputation knocks on
his door, asking him to come to Cornelius, a Roman commander
of 100 soldiers who is stationed in Caesarea.
Can you imagine how Peter must have felt? It’s a
double whammy! He is going to non-Jews whom he has been
taught to avoid. He is also going to the oppressor, someone
whose job is to subdue his people. We don’t know
if Peter even knows that Cornelius is a wonderful soul, open
to God and caring of the Jewish people especially the poorest
ones. Peter goes and hears that Cornelius has also had
an amazing vision of an angel who told him to send for Peter.
So Peter tells them about Jesus and before he has finished the
Holy Spirit falls on the household so that the people begin praising
God and speaking in tongues. Then Peter offers them baptism,
the sign of inclusion.
Today’s story follows. When Peter goes to Jerusalem,
the Jewish believers take issue with him. Has he lost his
mind? What is he doing going against the fundamentals of
the faith? So Peter tells them the whole story—his
vision and his journey to Caesarea and all that happened in the
household of Cornelius, the experience of the Holy Spirit and
the baptism of the household. I find it amazing that Peter’s
story satisfies them and they rejoice that non-Jews are being
included in what God is doing. Would that it would be so
simple and easy!
This story is handed down to us and to the church today so that
we might be open to God’s all-encircling loving. Generation
after generation the church tries to tie God up into a neat package,
a bundle with no surprise but God always breaks free and calls
the church to follow. I can see parallels with the struggle
over human sexuality and ordaining women. Faithfulness
to the Scripture and Tradition is no lock-step with the past. To
the contrary I think that faithfulness has everything to do with
discerning how God is loving and including in our own time and
joining in that movement with our own lives.
Something like a big sheet is being let down from heaven. We
can see all kinds of peoples—different races and mixtures
of races, diversity of human sexualities, sacred traditions and
religious practices, diversity of economic practices and possibilities. Also
the Earth—the soil, the oceans and rivers, the air, the
trees and plant-life and all the various creatures. The
voice doesn’t tell us to eat (like Peter was told) but
asks us what it means to love in this context where nothing is
unclean. How can we further God’s dream of radical
inclusion today?
The same dynamic takes place on a personal level as well. God
surprises us with new possibilities and ways of living our lives.
Something that was life-saving at one stage of our life, can
become imprisoning at a later stage. What have we excluded that
now wants to be included? When a time of great change falls
upon us we can feel very afraid. This can be a time when
angels come into our own lives. It may be a dream or vision
or an awareness that emerges in the happenings of our lives. Resources
become available. An inner wisdom sends us to a certain
person or a book or into a process of making fundamental changes
in the way we live.
Listen to God’s freedom song in this poem by Edwina Gately:
Ah, I am God
because I am free
and all those who would be free
will find me,
roaming, wondering, singing.
Come, walk with me--
come, dance with me!
I created you to sing,--to dance,
to love...'
Freedom to love is scary. It often feels like “a
way where there is no way.” We are led step-by-step into
a new place where we can be fully alive in the flow of God’s
loving. Somehow we find bread for the journey, courage
for each day. Jesus’ resurrection was three days. Ours
may seem more like 40 years in the wilderness.
Something like a big sheet is being let down from heaven. What
is in your sheet? What is in my sheet? There may
be tears if we need to sorrow and grieve. There may be
feelings of all types if we usually ignore our own feelings. There
may be confidence and trust if we are normally insecure. There
may be self-giving if we tend to hold back, speaking out if we
are reticent. If we serve others tirelessly, there may
be self-love and care. Rest if we are normally busy. Forgiveness
if we have been holding on. What change is being offered to you
and to me that comes from God’s love? Like Peter
we are to pay attention and do what this wisdom tells us even
when it goes against our fundamental habits and history. Although
Peter didn’t seem to take much time for discernment, we definitely
need to discern whether a direction is God’s or not.
We are created to sing, to dance and to love—a holy trinity
of becoming. Singing songs—here and elsewhere—can
raise us up, help us to grow into our trueselves and have a singing
heart. Dancing—rhythmically moving our bodies as
we are able—changes us. It gets the juices flowing and
gets us into the flow. After awhile our lives are more flexible
and less rigid and our eyes dance with humor, compassion and
wonder.
Singing, dancing, loving, surprising—practicing resurrection
may sound like a piece of cake, easy and happy. It is rarely
so simple. Often there is struggle, risk vulnerability. We
may need to take a healing journey of months or years. Yet
we can trust the process and live in hope.
Psalm 126 describes this process which takes time and tending:
Those who sowed with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping, carrying
the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering
their sheaves.
Today’s gospel includes a command to love each other. Loving
as Jesus has loved us invites us into this journey together. We
are to keep each other honest and on the path, offer encouragement,
wisdom and affection.
Amen.
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