Where the Spirit leads
Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35
This week I heard a cute story about one of the 5-year-olds in our congregation.
As she was hoping out of the bath this little girl called out – locating herself very definitely in the digital generation or ‘i-gen’ – "I’ve accidentally wrapped my towel around in portrait – instead of in landscape. Landscape goes much further!"
Towels do go further in landscape…some of us buy bath sheets to ensure this!
And it seems – in visions – sheets can hold as much as the National Capital Zoo!
God’s love, too, is best known in landscape. Stretching from the poorest to the most wealthy, from the youngest to the oldest, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. God’s love wraps itself around every nationality. It embraces enemies along with friends.
The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3:18, "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth…[of] the love of Christ."
Here in Acts we see the early church grappling with their dawning understanding of the lengths to which the love of Christ will go.
As Acts 11 opens, Peter, a leader in the early church, is called to account by members of the Jerusalem church for behaviour that discredits him and the rest of Jesus’ followers in the wider Jewish community. He has broken the purity laws; entering the house of a Gentile and eating with him.
We know that Peter, himself, struggled with this new way of thinking. (Galations 2 records that he wavered in his commitment to eating with Gentiles.) But he relates the vision he has seen three times of the sheet holding four footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles and birds – animals both clean and unclean according to Jewish law – and the voice of God saying, "What God has called clean, you must not call profane." (The repetition of this dream, first related in Acts 10, is the writer’s way of emphasising its importance for his listeners.)
The conversion of Gentiles is not the issue. Within Judaism there was provision for God-fearing Gentiles, and it seems that the early church felt comfortable about this – as long as Gentile converts, such as Cornelius and his household, remained a minority. But Peter’s vision hinted at a more radical form of inclusion; where dietary and social distinctions might break down, where God might show no partiality based along national lines.
It is hard for us – the fruit, the end-product of this new way of thinking to understand how radical it was.
I’m quite fond of QI – a kind of quiz show that airs on the ABC on Tuesday nights. A few weeks ago the host, Steven Fry, posed this question. What was it that Saint Augustine was so astonished to see the Bishop Ambrose of Milan doing?
Reading silently. At that time – and not really for another 6 centuries to come – reading was an activity done out loud – usually for the benefit of others who could not read. "When he [Ambrose] read," writes Augustine, "his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still." Ambrose read devotionally – a radical new practice.
It’s fascinating to think there was a time when reading in silence was new! Just the idea of God calling followers from every nation was new.
To see themselves as not simply a reforming movement in Judaism, but a new global organisation; to see all people as chosen by God; required the leaders of early church to have insight, faith, self-abnegation, generosity and a vision of God that knew the love of God in landscape – in breadth and length.
For the Dani people of the highlands of West Papua, who I grew up amongst, knowing God’s love required a different struggle to accept. For them it was almost too wonderful to be true.
Dani identity was shaped by a creation myth about a contest between a snake and a bird. The winner of this contest received the gift of life that would never end. The Dani believed that the snake had won this contest, condemning them to live a secondary existence, one that ended in death, because they were descendants of the bird.
The first missionaries that reached the highlands were believed to be children of snakes - snakes who could shed their skin and live eternally - because of their strange colour. And when they preached about ‘repentance that leads to life’ there were mass early conversions.
At that time there was a man called Yambonep who would go up to the mountains looking for Bok – the Creator being. When the first missionary came, he listened to the message eagerly, but found Charles Kingsley’s limited Dani hard to understand. They heard, however, that in Ilaga, 3 to 4 days walk away, there was another missionary and ‘good talk’. Yambonep set out with a small group, skirting the territory of known enemies, staying in the high country. This, however, came with its own threats for Dani men wear very little and the mountains go up to 15,000 feet. After a few days Yambonep knew they had to seek shelter or die and so they entered a small abandoned hut. To their astonishment they found a fire was still glowing there and there was enough sweet potato to fee all of them. Strengthened they ate and slept and went on to Ilaga where they heard Jordon Larsen preaching the gospel. Then they had to make the journey home. Once more – just by the side of a track, they found enough sweet potato for all of them.
There are significant parallels in these stories of the expansion of the gospel. There is the proclamation of God’s word; the ‘good talk’ and the verse Peter quotes in 11:16: "I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, "John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit."
Then there are these wonderful interventions of the Holy Spirit; visions and dreams and directions and sweet potato left by the fire.
And in both there is the coming of the Holy Spirit – that gift that shows us the incredible landscape of God’s love – it’s breadth and length and height and depth unfolding in our history from the beginning in Acts till this moment.
God’s love is seen in landscape.
But for this to happen, we must – finally - turn this formatting analogy the other way – for God’s love must also be seen in portrait. Christ is the image of the invisible God and we are to imitate Christ.
In our passage from John, Jesus says: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
When we love in truth and action – not just verbal declarations – meeting the needs of our brothers and sister here and wherever they are in need, loving those we dislike, we resemble Jesus. We are portraits of Jesus.
Yes, the Holy Spirit plays a part in the conversion of Cornelius, but it is in meeting Peter that Cornelius sees Jesus. The Spirit played a part in the conversion of Yambonep, but it was in meeting Charles Kingsley and Jordon Larsen that Yambonep saw Jesus. We must be the portrait of Jesus for those whom the Spirit of God will take us to this week – or lead to us.
I am just old enough to remember Mr Squiggle. But for those of you who don’t or weren;t in Australia when this cultural icon was around, he was a puppet with a pencil for a nose who came down in a rocket. Children would send in drawing – just a line or two – for him to finish and Mr Squiggle work away – and I could never make it out at age 3 or 4 – and then he would say, "Turn it on it’s side, Miss Jane. Turn it on its side." And there would be the picture.
Perhaps we look at our own lives and find it hard to imagine that we resemble Jesus, but if we look from the perspective of the Holy Spirit – yes, we do. And turn all these portraits – all these faithful renderings of Jesus - on their side and you see the landscape of God’s love reaching around our world.
There is another story about a little girl. You may know it. She is drawing a picture and is asked what she is drawing.
"God," she says.
"You can’t draw God," she is told, "Nobody knows what God looks like."
"They will when I’m finished, " she says.
As followers of Jesus, when we are finished, we want others to see God.
To see the God’s love in landscape – it’s breadth and depth – and its height and depth in the faithfulness of our portrait of Jesus.
Prayer
Gracious God, for your love for us
Sure as the dawn, transforming our darkness
We give you thanks.
For your love for us
Calling us to you, sending us out in love to others
We give you thanks.
For your love for us
Encouraging questions, open to doubts, making us vulnerable
We give you thanks.
Urge on us – in the power of your Spirit
to find wholeness in your love for us and our love for others.
Prayer for ourselves and our world
that we pray especially today for the people of Cambodia
Benediction – Ephesians 3:18-21