Do I Know You

Text: Acts 11:1-18 Other texts: John 13:31-35

What God has made clean, you must not call profane. Three times God says it. Three times God warns Peter in a vision. Three times Peter shows his reluctance to trust in God’s judgment. Three times God overrules him. What God has made clean, you must not call profane. What I, God, have said is clean, you, Peter, must not deny. If God has made it clean, then who are we, as Peter asks, to hinder God? You must not—you are prohibited from—calling profane what God has announced to be good.

This is a command, not advice. God is not giving Peter permission to accept the gentiles into the ministry of Jesus (as we’ll talk about in a moment). The voice from heaven is not merely giving Peter an OK to minister to the gentiles. To Peter, these gentile people are strange and foreign. Those who heard about Peter eating with the gentiles would have been disgusted. It would have been viscerally disturbing. This is not advice. Rather, this is an order. Peter must minister to those whom he might fear and despise.

It is not our prerogative to choose whom to favor and whom to detest. It is God, not us, who decides. It is certainly not in our power or charter to constrain God. It is not for us to second-guess God’s blessings.

What God has made clean, you must not call profane.

We can interpret this story in Acts narrowly. We can see it as one of a series of episodes that document the discussions of the fledgling church with itself. Should the Jesus movement continue for Jews only—as it began—or for gentiles (non-Jews) also? And since gentiles were in fact already being included, did they have to become Jews first? So Peter tells of a vision that argues for the inclusion of gentiles as-is, without the need for their conversion. In the vision, Peter is instructed to eat the food that he, a Jew, would find hard to swallow, but God tells him: go ahead. God accepts the gentiles as they are; it is not up to Peter—and more to the point, the leaders in Jerusalem—to deny them. Peter closes his argument with the question: who was I (and by implication, who are you leaders) that could hinder God? The debate ends on that note. In Peter’s favor.

We could consider this story to be an historical tale, and interpret ourselves right out of it. Or, we could interpret it to be a story of the church’s first working out of the commandment that Jesus gave his disciples in the passage we just heard in John.

What God has made clean, you must not call profane.

In the passage from John, Jesus is preparing his disciples for life without him. “I am with you only a little longer,” he tells them, “where I am going, you cannot come.” They will remain here. But their ministry to the world will not stop. It has just begun. What shall they do? How shall they behave? Here is how: “I give you a new commandment,” he says. Love one another. Love one another just as I have loved you.

This is much more than a tip for living a good life. This is much more than a teaching by Jesus about how to behave. It is a blueprint for a Christian life. It is a requirement. Loving one another as Jesus has loved his disciples becomes a definition of a follower of Jesus. In this way, it is a criterion for making decisions, a gauge for judging actions. Are we serving others selflessly (which is what this kind of love is)?

This command of Jesus makes loving God and loving others identical. Subsets of each other. You cannot serve God and not serve others. When you serve others, you serve God. To serve God means to serve others even before you serve yourself. To love one another as Jesus loved us is to love others more even than we love ourselves.

Our beliefs, our theology, even our praise and worship promote this end. They are not ends in themselves. They remind us of our creator; we remember to be humble and not so proud. We are given courage in the face of fear. We are moved to see all people as our brothers and sisters. We are freed to love one another as Jesus loves us.

What God has made clean, you must not call profane.

This story in John appears between two predictions of betrayal by his followers. Just before, Jesus told his disciples that someone will hand him over to the authorities to be executed, and Judas—the one of whom he speaks—sneaks off to prepare to betray Jesus. And just after the passage, Jesus will tell Peter three times that Peter will disown him.

We are called to love not only the easy but also the difficult—those whom we like, our benefactors and admirers, but also our betrayers and disowners. It is not for us to choose whom to love. Jesus does not qualify his command, only except by the provision that if we want a model, we are instructed to use Jesus. This man who forgave his executioners.

On the one hand, we have plenty of reasons not to love all others. We are often inclined—more, we are often compelled—to hate others, to seek revenge, to act in fear. We are inclined to be indifferent to others whom we do not know—strangers on the street or in strange lands. To stand back.

On the other hand, we do know how to do this. We help neighbors whom we do not know. We feed people who are hungry. We visit prisoners. We rush into danger to save the wounded and offer grieving visitors our homes. We have a whole system of care-givers who try to protect and mend all who come in need.

What Jesus commands is not that we do something ridiculously hard. What he asks is that we distrust our preconceptions, our traditions, our instincts—and our notions of what is disgusting or abhorrent—when we act toward others in the world.

It does not particularly matter how we feel or what we believe. It does matter what we do. By this—by what you do—everyone will know you are disciples of Jesus. Loving one another is a hallmark of being Christian. Will the world know by your actions that you follow Jesus? Our actions indicate to the world what it means to follow Christ.

I give you a new commandment, Jesus says. Love one another. We are rarely changed by theological arguments—that’s why Peter tells a story instead—or sermons preached. We are changed by the doing of it. That’s why this is a command, not a teaching. It is as compelling as the command to “go and baptize” or the command to “do this in remembrance of me.”

It is a means of and a sign of grace. To follow it can change the world and it will change us.

The Sins of Any

Text: John 20:19-31

We live in a world governed by conditions that we create. Things have consequences that we wish to promote or avoid. If you do this, then that will happen. Do that so that this will happen. Do that so it will not. If you do this, we caution others, you will be sorry. If you do that, you will earn rewards.

You have to learn, we tell our children, that behavior has consequences. Grades, raises, special privileges exist to guide us into acting one way and not the other. Punishments and restrictions do the same. So do affection, approval, and respect, which we say you must earn. These are moral and behavioral transactions and contracts which depend on meeting certain conditions. To add a little necessary wiggle room, we sneak in some nepotism, corruption, and other forms of cheating. Or we acknowledge extenuating circumstances, and grant leniency.

At its best, this network of conditions keeps most of us safe and many of us prosperous. It makes systems like traffic, trade, and finance possible. Citizenship and communities. Marriage. But at its worst, it supports tyranny and exploitation, imprisons people for years (or forever) and treats them harshly. Destroys hope and dignity. Corrodes relationships.

So what? The notion that what happens to us should depend on what we do is so basic that it seems absurd to talk about it. If I do the right thing, people will grant me resources, affection, or liberty. Partly, moral conditions sound like physics. One thing follows another. But also, they sound true, right, and fair. A social and moral virtue. We should get what we deserve. Others should get what they deserve. That is how the world works, has worked, and should work.

When Jesus appears in a locked room in which the disciples are cringing in fear, it is clear that something different than usual has happened. Something new. The resurrection of Jesus is not just some personal victory, to be celebrated by his cronies, though it was that, too—they were thrilled. But more, it signifies a change in the world. His appearance not only confirmed his rising. After an initial friendly greeting—peace be with you, he says in the manner of the day—Jesus gets down to business. This is a meeting to equip his followers for the mission ahead. And the equipment he gives them are his life-giving breath, the Holy Spirit, and the power of forgiveness.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. These words, like similar ones in Matthew, give to all the disciples the power to forgive sins. It is this authority, we are taught, that allows pastors to say at the beginning of most Sundays: As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and by his authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins. And to say, on Maundy Thursday: In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins.

But the focus here is not on the one who is allowed to say “I forgive you.” Rather it is that the forgiveness of sins by human beings is central to the continuing work of Jesus in the world after his life with us here. Forgiveness of others is an essential part—it is of the essence—of the promised coming of God’s kingdom.

By tradition, this power of forgiving others has been interpreted as spiritual, residing in clergy, in priests and pastors. For example, it is one of the three things mentioned in the ordination rite, along with baptism and Holy Communion, that Lutheran pastors are entrusted with by their ordination. And in that rite, these words in John concerning forgiveness are recited.

But in these words, Jesus speaks to more than just a select few. Throughout this Gospel, when John speaks of the disciples in general (unlike when he speaks specifically of the twelve), he means all the assembled followers. These words of Jesus are delivered here not to some particular priestly ancestors but to spiritual ancestors of all Christians. This is not an attempt on the part of Jesus to grant special clerical privilege. Jesus is conveying a power here, but conveying it to all of us.

This charge to forgive is a hallmark of a new kind of world that God brings in Jesus. It is practical and technical advice. It may have wider and deeper implications, but in the words of this passage this charge is something that the disciples are to do as they live in the world as followers of Jesus. Something we are charged to do. To forgive others.

This is hard to do. Jesus is instructing us to act unconditionally. This goes against the normal ways of the world. Forgiveness breaks the inevitable link between our actions and their consequences. Sins might go unpunished. Wickedness might go without retaliation. Enemies might prevail. Mercy might release people from what they deserve. Someone will get a free pass. An underserved break. We are not sure we want to forgive others. Perhaps it is not a good idea. Perhaps we are not sure we can.

Jesus breathes on the disciples. John uses a word that is a synonym for the breath in Genesis that puts life into the first human. And in Ezekiel for the breath that puts life in those dry bones. It is the root of the word “enthusiasm.” It appears only here in all the New Testament. Jesus is re-animating his followers, giving them new life, as if they were being re-created. Re-born, if you prefer. With this breath they receive the Holy Spirit into them. They are thereby given both motivation and the power to forgive others without condition.

There is a kind of world—a world which we hardly know, but get a glimpse of from time to time when we are forgiven, when someone forgives us for no good reason. Or when we are able to release ourselves from a great burden by forgiving others. Or when we as a culture or nation act in mercy rather than retaining our fear and desire for retribution, or revenge. This is a glimpse of the way of Jesus. The way Jesus sent his disciples on to continue his ministry.

This is not a philosophical virtue but a practical one. May the Holy Spirit that has been breathed into you grant you the desire and power to forgive a particular someone for a particular something. When we forgive others in obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live in the changed world Jesus brings.

The story we just heard about Thomas appears is less about belief than it is about mission. As the Father sent me, Jesus instructs them, so I send you. It is our belief—trust—in Jesus that allows us to follow him confidently into the world, to argue for the forgiveness of sins against us, and to be adamant and courageous in mercy.