Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 6, 2018
[sermon begins after three Bible readings. If you only have patience for one, read the Acts reading.]
Acts 10:44-48 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46 for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47 “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48 So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.
John 15:9-17 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
1 John 5:1-6 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
[sermon begins]
In a hilarious song called “Church,” there’s a preacher whose sermon is running waaayy long and
“…everyone was getting so hungry
that the old ones started feeling ill
and the weak ones started passing out
and the young ones they could not sit still.”[1]
Lyle Lovett sings from the viewpoint of a child whose stomach is growling for the potluck but the preacher keeps on preaching. At one point…
“…the preacher he stopped preaching
and a hush the church did fill
and then a great white dove from up above
landed on the window sill.”[2]
You’ll have to listen to the song to hear what happens next but suffice it say that everyone gets to go eat soon after getting disrupted by a great white dove and the preacher’s own hunger pangs. Apparently that preacher isn’t the only preacher ever disrupted by the Holy Spirit from saying more.
Peter’s sermon in the reading from Acts gets shut down too. Except he hasn’t been preaching all that long – maybe a minute or two by the word count. He had been summoned by a man named Cornelius who “had called together his relatives and close friends” to hear about God.[3] Cornelius is “a centurion of the Italian cohort,”[4] NOT a circumcised Jew like the disciples with Peter. Peter’s sermon starts in the verses before our reading today with these words, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality…”[5] He continues preaching BUT, “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.”[6] Confusion and chaos ensued. Into that disruption Peter asks the disciples with him, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So [Peter] ordered [Cornelius, his family, and his friends] to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.”[7] Wait a minute, did the Holy Spirit come on those people before baptism? Don’t we usually say the Holy Spirit is given in baptism? Which is it? Before? After? Both? You may wonder who the heck cares about such things but there are Christian denominations that were started on less vexing questions.
Let’s do a quick review to catch us up along with the disciples with Peter. Way, way, way back in Genesis 12, near the very beginning of the Bible, God makes promises to man named Abrahm, later re-named Abraham. God told Abraham that, “…in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”[8] God’s promises to Abraham are called the Abrahamic covenant.[9] Circumcision was given at that time as a sign of God’s covenant. Fast-forward through Moses and the 10 Commandments, through the prophets, and through Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, to the baptism of Cornelius and his Gentile family and friends. This is the moment that the larger Biblical story is careening toward. This is the moment that God’s life in Jesus disrupts into the wild abandon of the Holy Spirit. This is THE moment. It’s not the only moment though. We know that, of course. But this moment is easy to miss because we don’t hang around in the book of Acts very often.
Disruptive love sees other people as equally beloved. This can be tough because it reframes a lot of our interactions. Small example. I was in the middle of drafting this sermon about disruptive love during the last few days at the Rocky Mountain Synod Assembly. I was taking my suitcase to the car and trying to get to breakfast and, most importantly, to that first cup of coffee. As I was winging through the hotel door, a gentleman saw my tell-tale green name tag. He stopped me and asked me how I was enjoying the “conference.” He then went on to tell me his church history and asked me about the Lutheran church. Even in that moment, I found it ironic that I had just come from writing about the disruption of the Spirit and there I was, salivating at the thought of coffee, and obstructed in a doorway by someone who wanted to talk about faith and church. That wily Holy Spirit has some sense of humor.
But there are other times that are more frustrating than humorous. There are some of us who know disruptive love very well. Parents in the pews who are worshiping with their little kiddos, for the sake of their kiddos, while they themselves are only catching every 5th word of the liturgy. Others of us struggle to encounter other people with vulnerability and connection. The Gospel of John and the First John reading lead us into the even harder moments. Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”[10] Seems to me that death is the ultimate disruption – both for the dead and the living. Jesus commands us to love out of his own self-sacrificing love. Disruptive love is risk. Risking reputation, comfort, and safety for people besides ourselves.
Peter gets a taste of these side effects of disruptive love – risking his reputation, comfort, and safety on behalf of the newly baptized Gentiles. Peter and the disciples baptize Cornelius, his family, and friends and the newly baptized invite Peter “to stay for several days.” Then Peter heads back to Jerusalem. Criticism from his friends welcomes him. Apparently it’s all fun and games until you start baptizing Gentiles and eating with them. I invite you into a little homework for the week. Read the chapters of Acts 10 and 11. Go ahead and grab a pen from the pew pocket in front of you. Write it down – Acts chapters 10 and 11. Think about who you believe belongs in the church and who doesn’t. Also think about who you believe is worthy of attention by the church and who isn’t. The Holy Spirit not only disrupts our ideas about good order; the Spirit also disrupts our biases. While you’re reading Acts 10 and 11, think about what God is doing through faithful people to disrupt what other faithful people think and do.
It’s tough to know the difference between sheer human agenda with a hefty dose of ego versus what might be the God thing. Chances are good that the God thing of disruptive love is incredibly uncomfortable for the people doing the God thing. Remember, Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That’s a pretty hefty amount of personal discomfort if you’re the ones laying your lives down. Pick a word, any word, to describe the discomfort. Here’s a few…weird, nauseous, uncomfortable, scary, exposed, patronized, compromised, denied, betrayed, beaten, abandoned, assassinated… Quite a list. Because when you do the self-sacrificing thing and not the self-protective thing, it’s not often that cozy warm-fuzzies await you. That’s not the way it works. It’s not the way any of this works. Although, let’s remember that it’s also not simply disruption for disruption’s sake.
Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Jesus reminds us that this love shatters orthodoxy or creeds. Much blood has been spilled over the centuries as various groups of Christians go after each other about right teaching and good order. Jesus invites you into the love of the Father by loving you. This is anti-orthodoxy. It moves you beyond the attempt at right thinking and pulls you into the love of the God and love of Jesus, sending you to be what you’ve received by abiding in their love. Your flesh and bone born of water and blood embodies the faith of Jesus for the sake of the world.[11] You did not choose. You, beloved of God, have been chosen.[12] Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift. Amen.
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[1] Lyle Lovett. “Church” in Joshua Judges Ruth (MCA/Curb, 1992). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZI0zO2TS1Y
[2] Ibid.
[3] Acts 10:24
[4] Acts 10:1
[5] Acts 10:34
[6] Acts 10:44
[7] Acts 10:47-48
[8] Genesis 12:1-3
[9] Genesis 15 includes more promises and the ritual of the covenant.
[10] John 15:13
[11] 1 John 5:6
[12] John 15:16