As we age we turn to the mirage of t. When we became a nation, voting was left to males with property. Blacks were able to vote after the Civil War but southern states made it impossible. Women only received the national right in 1920 after years of struggle. We had a program in schools of Americanization In the 1920s a state passed a law forbidding parochial schools-German street signs were removed in Cincinnati-Back when I was born we just ruled on Brown v. Bd; women were not ordained to pastorates in the church.
The notion of a congregation or a community is one of a big family, no insiders, nor outsiders.Our denomination has been struggling with the issues of homosexuality since I was in college. This passage pushed me to consider if I was holding on to prejudice. God’s way seems to be one of knocking down walls of division and separation.fair percentage of our citizens in 2015 wonder if Muslims are part of the national fabric.
.Acts 11,All of his life Peter knew that his people were God’s chosen people. He may have been vaguely aware that some of the bible mentioned an opening to the Gentiles, the other nations. To his shock he was realizing that prophecy was actual in his lifetime, in this particular place. It was less that he had been wrong but more that he saw things in a new way.Not only did he have a vision he is careful to catalog his experience with these new converts.Few images capture better the grand open space of salvation better than this image of the walls being torn down between people. I wonder why it was a vision. did he need to move beyond rational persuasion?In our time we are so taken with emphasizing the particular that we are leery of approaching general even universal themes, but does not the notion of all being children of god have real resonance? We place so many walls, so many barriers between us.Both the previous scene in Acts 10 and Peter’s present speech mention “acceptance.” In Acts 10 God “accepts” all who fear God and work justice; here the Gentiles’ receive or “accept” the word of God. The same Greek root is used in both instances. “who am I to hinder god? (In Gk. this is a done deal, I cannot stand in the way of a divine decision.(Is word-rhema=to promises here?)
Transformation continues in the apocalyptic reading. John loves this passage so much that is a repeat from our reading in chapter 7. We get to talk this morning about the destination of resurrection: heaven.I am among those who stress resurrection life in the present so much that I am in danger of pushing heaven to the side.We live in a time of credulity about near death experiences, but we do not examine biblical images of heaven with much care. In part it is the Bible’s reticence to give much information,but we do get a few here toward the end of this revelatory set of visions.direct quote from Isaiah water of life again-alpha and omega-see I am making all things new. It imagines an end to the tension between God’s order and natural disorder.It imagines a world where threat is gone. It imagines that the Lord’s prayer becomes fullness-on earth as it is in heaven-the barrier between and earth and heaven-the chasm between us and God is bridged and then filled.God pitches a tent with us, chooses to dwell with us in the big tent.This open-hearted God seems at cross purposes with the violence imagined earlier in the book.When we act as the good beloved community, we get a glimpse of the way god wants the world to look.
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