No Greater Love: Courageous Inclusion and Loving Friendship

``When Peter starts preaching to Cornelius and his household, the Holy Spirit cuts him off. Then for the first time in Acts, the Holy Spirit shows up and pours itself out on the Gentiles, a whole new set of people, not when they are baptized or after they are baptized, but before they are baptized, which is why Peter asks the rhetorical question. Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit? Clearly, the answer is no. [00:43:11] (34 seconds)  #HolySpiritPouredOut

Peter, by going to Cornelius' house, may not sound like such a big deal to us, but this is among the most significant encounters in all of Acts. Since Jews and Gentiles didn't interact socially, it would have been perfectly acceptable, even preferable according to the rules, for Peter to say to those men, I'm sorry. No. I can't go with you today. The laws and traditions about me interacting with you are clear. But that isn't what Peter says. Peter says, yes. [00:41:59] (36 seconds)  #CrossingCulturalBoundaries

This is about love leading to joy that is richer and deeper and sustainable during the darkest days, love that is undefeatable by circumstance. If it feels like pressure to feel this way, we've missed the point. It's a gift. What is the fruit of the spirit echoed in Jesus' words here? It's love. And there it is. It's joy. A gift you discover has happened in you when you were fixated on something else or rather on someone else. Not yourself, but Jesus. [00:47:32] (40 seconds)  #LoveProducesJoy

It is at this moment that we realize that Peter is really not the main character in Acts. No human being is. The main character of the book of Acts, the primary leader of the church then and now is the Holy Spirit. So the community expands. Who will want to be part of our community, and will we be open to including them? Will we be obedient to the commandment of love and expanding our community with the Holy Spirit with us? [00:43:46] (36 seconds)  #SpiritIsMainCharacter

Jesus knows our every weakness, inspiring us toward friendships here that know weakness and love. Friendship is encouragement. We should never be discouraged. The tenderest way Jesus, our friend, alleviates our discouragement is when a friend encourages us, and friendship is sacrifice. Jesus, the best friend ever, said, greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends. And then he went out into the night to be arrested, tried, and crucified for us, his friends. [00:52:55] (49 seconds)  #FriendshipAsSacrifice

From Saint Augustine to Kierkegaard, Christian thinkers thought of friends as those who help you love God and whom you help to love God. You become the people you befriend. It's formative. If Jesus is your friend, you become like him, touching untouchables, seeing through fake religiosity, prayerful, generous, ready to lose everything to do the will of your creator. [00:50:12] (34 seconds)  #FriendsFormYou

In today's story, we also discover that Peter has a gift for what we now call adaptive leadership, leadership that responds to emerging challenges that have no clear cut solutions. As much as the events in today's passage must have shocked Peter, first, the vision that overturned centuries old food laws and then the invitation to enter into the home of a Gentile, he nonetheless keeps going, trusting in the Holy Spirit to lead him into an unknown future. He is obedient to the spirit and to love. [00:39:23] (37 seconds)  #AdaptiveSpiritLeadership

For our gospel, we hear Jesus say, if you keep my commandments, you abide in my love. Love is commanded. It doesn't just happen or not happen. I often wonder what the disciples inferred from this because this is not merely some set of rules like no adultery, no lust, no anger. This is even deeper. Loving your enemy, finding the lost sheep, welcoming the prodigals, taking up a cross, even losing your life. It's all of these and more. [00:46:23] (35 seconds)  #LoveIsCommandment

This is not vague love or generalized goodness or niceness. This is something more radical, more startling, more full bodied. Jesus isn't just wagging a finger here urging us to behave ourselves. This commandment is given that your joy may be complete. The Greek means full, overflowing. It's not just do this and you'll be swimmingly happy and rich, or at least it'll be great fun. [00:46:58] (34 seconds)  #RadicalFullnessOfJoy

Courageous obedience to love is overcoming the deeply ingrained beliefs and notions that keep us separated from God's people who are different from us. We grow up learning to fear strangers. We are thoroughly trained to see difference as dangerous and different people as a threat. These deeply ingrained beliefs and notions are called racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, ableism, and so on. Through these, we consciously and unconsciously discriminate against those who are different from us. [00:44:27] (44 seconds)  #ObeyLoveAgainstPrejudice

What are the habits of friendship? They they eat together. We dine with Jesus at the Lord's Supper and, hopefully, at all our meals with friends. We dare to be vulnerable. Friendship never happens without the courageous risk of vulnerability, candor, I'm reminded of words from a hymn. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer, and what a privilege to carry everything to a friend down here over dinner. [00:52:22] (33 seconds)  #FriendshipThroughMeals

Those who are different in race, culture, language, class, religion, and gender are socially and systematically devalued and oppressed. Courageous obedience to fulfilling this commandment to love is countercultural. For Cornelius, a Roman officer inviting Peter, a Jew who is subject under Roman occupation to his house was countercultural. For Peter, a Jew going into a Gentile's house and dining together was also countercultural. It was against religious observance and against the unwritten rule of no mingling. [00:45:12] (40 seconds)  #CounterculturalLove

What would it be like if Christ, the third, were in your friendships? Whom are we called to befriend if Jesus, befriender of a scandalously diverse grab bag of people, is our friend? When Jesus is our friend, we celebrate differences with friends. Do you disagree? Instead of drifting away, we friends of Jesus labor toward reconciliation, knowing Jesus didn't run off when we were difficult or thought wrong or we're less than fruit faithful. [00:51:32] (35 seconds)  #BefriendDiverseOthers

Then he enters the home of a Gentile to share the good news of God's love revealed in Jesus, extending that love to a whole new group of people. Peter says, yes, before he knows how it will all turn out or what it will be, what it will mean. He follows the leading of the spirit. He had learned from his vision. This means and hear me now. This means that we must understand that what made the church the church and what makes the church the church is the Holy Spirit and the love that we are called to show. [00:42:35] (36 seconds)  #SpiritLedEvangelism

When we read these stories in acts about the formation of the early church, it's obvious to us just how close this moment came to never getting off the ground, much less to becoming a religion that would shape the world. But those who were there, those first Jesus followers probably had no idea the weight of the decisions they were making, whether to stay behind locked doors or go out among God's people, whether to share the gospel with the Jews only or with everyone, whether following Jesus was more important than following the rules. [00:37:51] (35 seconds)  #EarlyChurchRiskAndFaith

We need friends who care about and dare to cultivate wisdom and holiness, to hold one another accountable for progress toward Jesus, our shared friend. Jesus explained why he would be calling the disciples friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. Friends share God's knowledge. They are learners egging one another on to more expansive understandings of the heart of God. Of, a twelfth century cistercian, said to his friend, Ivo, here we are, you and I, and I hope a third Christ is in our midst. [00:50:47] (46 seconds)  #FriendsForHoliness

This utterly magnificent, inspiring, divine one now invites them to see him as friend. What could he mean? Well, for us, a friend might be someone you have fun with, might be someone you have fun with, Someone who likes what you like, someone like you, someone easy to be around. But such friendships can be thin. We often hold back from going very deep, not wanting to risk disagreement. So we stick to chatter about food, ball games, lifestyle nuggets. [00:48:57] (37 seconds)  #ChristAsFriend

Or we find our way into little enclaves of people who agree with us, who become echo chambers for our beliefs, our biases, even our narcissism. But isn't it true that if you only hang around with people like you, you become ignorant and arrogant? Ancient philosophers like Socrates defined friend as someone who helps you to become good and wise. Aristotle wrote that the opposite of a friend is a flatterer. [00:49:35] (37 seconds)  #BewareEchoChambers

Sometimes it seems as if our people are mostly joyless. Even even clergy fall into this trap. Perhaps the recovery of joy as a thing in church life, even in preaching, is a secret to Christianity not being so dull. Let's have some joy. Jesus calls them friends. At the last supper, Jesus tells the disciples, no longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends. Up to this moment, Jesus has given them good cause to think of him as lord, god, word, incarnate, light of the world, savior. [00:48:12] (45 seconds)  #RecoverJoyInChurch

Going against the status quo requires courageous obedience, and it thus creates a holy space. Courageous obedience to this commandment of love dares us to respond to God's call to overcome all the isms that keep us imprisoned, to tear down the walls of fear that keep us separated, and to embrace and love those who are different, for they are our sisters and brothers. [00:45:52] (31 seconds)  #CourageousObedience