Far too often Christians miss this boat. We like to love the people we like to love, and we tend to not like the people we don’t love. Long story short, read history.
John 13:31-35; Revelation 21:1-6; Psalm 148; Acts 11:1-18
Our reading from Acts today is, for lack of a better term, cute. And I don’t mean cute in the good way, I mean cute in the highly sarcastic way. It’s yet another one of the kind of passages that show that all is not roses and happytimes with the early church. We read a few weeks ago that Peter went to the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion. This was after the vision Peter had where God said bacon was ok. (Have I mentioned that’s one of my favorite passages?) So Peter has the vision, then is summoned to Cornelius’ house where they have dinner and Peter preaches to them. As a result, the Holy Spirit comes on them and they start praising God. So Peter has them baptized and Peter spends a few days at Cornelius’ house.
Well, the apostles and other believes in Jerusalem and heard about this, and weren’t very happy with Peter. Apparently, the news that Jesus had died and rose again was only appropriate to be preached to Jews, the Gentiles lost out. At least that’s what the church in Jerusalem thought. They criticize Peter saying, essentially, “Peter. You really messed up here. Those people whose house you visited? And you even had the gall to eat with? Yea, we don’t like them very much. Actually we don’t like them much at all. What gives you the right to go and do that?”
So Peter basically started telling them what happened. He had a vision from God about a large sheet coming down from heaven. Inside the sheet were all kinds of animals, those both clean according to Jewish law and those unclean. He heard a voice saying, “Kill and eat”. Peter said, “But God, I’ve never eaten anything unclean in my life! I can’t do that!!” Peter then heard back, “Don’t call unclean what God has called clean.” This continued three times. Then when the vision ended, Peter encountered Cornelius’ messengers and went with them. As Peter preached to them, the received the Holy Spirit and saw no reason to, in his words, oppose God if God gave them the same gift as He gave the all the other believers.
Thankfully, at that point the people unhappy with Peter saw that God was doing a new thing and stopped rebuking Peter over it. Unfortunately, that attitude doesn’t really stick. Much of the New Testament is addressing one issue or another rising out of a conflict between Christians who were Jews first or Gentiles first. Eventually they sorted that issue out, but by then a new group had risen up who were causing division in the church.
When the Romans increased persecution of Christians, there were some who caved in to the Romans and denied Christ, and others who stood firm and were killed or maimed. After each round of persecution, those who stood firm weren’t very happy with the ones who denied Christ and a huge debate came up over how to deal with them. Eventually they came down on the side of letting them back into fellowship, but people were unhappy on each side.
This pattern continued throughout history. Christians always seem to have at least one group who isn’t worthy to hear God’s message of forgiveness and love. During the crusades it was the Muslims, who were heathens only deserving to be killed. The conquistadores brought priests with them to the Americas to “convert the savages” but more often than not that conversion was done at the point of a sword. Unfortunately this pattern extends even to today.
It seems as though Christians forget Christ’s “new commandment” given in John 13 – “Love one another. As I have loved you, you must love one another.” I think it’s important to pair that with Christ’s teaching in Matthew 5: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” If we are to love as Christ loved us, then we’re called to love all people – not just the ones we like.
In this day and age there are more “gentiles” in the world than believers. Non-Christians see Christians as hateful, insular, and closed-minded. Yet curiously enough, these same people who can’t stand Christians look highly on the one we claim to follow. It’s a painful thing to read “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” and realize that when “all men” look on Christians they don’t see Christ. They see a group of people who have forgotten the teachings of Jesus.
So what is it to love as Jesus loved? Put simply: Jesus loved those who put him to death. Jesus loved the people who by all human accounting he should have hated. Even more so, Christ loved the world enough that while we all were still his enemies, he died that we might have forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Who are we to decide who should or shouldn’t know about that?
That’s where the church in Jerusalem ended up in our reading from Acts. When they heard Peter’s testimony of God’s working, they had no further objections and praised God, saying “God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” They recognized what God was doing, even in a group of people they didn’t really like. Curiously enough, the very next passage in Acts talks about how Christians scattered by persecution starting telling the good news to Greeks in Antioch and “The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.” I want to be open enough to God’s love that I can be in that place, too, and love everyone as Christ has loved me.