A Church-Transforming Breakthrough

 

by Rev. Josuah M. De Rosas

Scripture Text: Acts 11:1-18

I.                    Opening Prayer. Eternal God, with you there are no insiders nor outsiders for we are all one in Jesus Christ. Teach us, now what we need to learn and tell us what we need to do for us to be faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his name we pray. AMEN

 

II.                  When lockdown started in Silliman University campus due to COVID19 pandemic in April of last year 2020, perhaps like you, I was worried about the worst things that could happen; that is the scarcity of food. Plenty of what ifs; what if Negros Island will not produce that enough for food. What if we will starve to death? I know you think, I was just over-reacting! It’s true! I started researching on YouTube of possible sources of food, even foods I have not tried before. I learned that acacia seeds are edible, and many Dumaguetenos survived World War II eating acacia seeds. I said to myself, these 300 acacia trees in Silliman campus can supply us enough seeds to survive!

Anyway, I also came across an American vlogger named Sonny and his Best Ever Food Review channel. He travels around the world, and he features different countries, and the local native foods, especially the foods considered exotic. He tried eating raw meat with the Masai people in Kenya, sugarcane rat in Namibia, grasshopper, water bugs, and water centipedes in Vietnam, porcupine in Bali Indonesia, beetle larvae in Papua New Guinea, and even our papaitan, the goat’s small intestine and its content in soup, so popular in Luzon. I am so fascinated watching his vlogs. While watching him try eating those exotic foods, I also said to myself

      Oh yes, those grasshoppers and locusts look delicious, I can eat that too!

      Oh, those fried big ants I haven’t tried but I will try that one soon

      Or I will never eat that water centipede ever in life! And so on……

What is interesting is that these foods though exotic to other cultures including ours, yet for the natives, they are part of their daily diet, and even part of their lives and identity. To eat the food of another culture, even dining together is a gesture of acceptance, of full respect, of connecting with their humanity. Eating the same food together is affirming our common humanity and survival.

In all the videos of this vlogger, he has shown that he can be accepted into a community when he eats the food they offered. And he also embraced and accepted this culture as if it’s his own. Yet, I asked, further, what if food is connected to your faith, or is a faith-issue? Would you dare eat like what the vlogger is doing?

 

III.                Somehow, I remembered these videos when I considered the scripture reading for today was about food. It was about a food fellowship that opened a new vision, a reformation, and a new way of reaching out to the world, for the early Church in Jerusalem.

In our reading today, the apostle Peter was summoned by this disappointed Church Council of the Jerusalem Church. He was asked to explain what He did several days ago, for what He did was offensive based on the church standards. Several days ago, he met Cornelius, an officer of the Roman Army. Not only that Peter talked with Cornelius, but he also ate with him, and baptized Cornelius and his household. These events were unthinkable for the early Church in Jerusalem who still clings to the Jewish heritage and culture. Peter violated the Jewish law by eating foods that can be considered unclean based on Leviticus 11. He made friends with an uncircumcised Gentile, and to top it all, a Roman army officer, the army who crucified Jesus on the cross. For the Church in Jerusalem, what Peter did have the potential of dividing the newly organized Church and even ruining the reputation of the Church which was still struggling to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the Jewish people and the Roman government. For the Church Council of Jerusalem, Peter has lost his mind. He was supposed to convert Cornelius and not the other way around.

 

IV.                So, Peter remained calm in the midst of inquiry, and He told them what happened. He expressed that it was God who made it possible for the two of them to meet. Peter listened to Cornelius story. Cornelius told him that an angel appeared to him and affirmed that his good works have gone up to heaven like sweet-smelling sacrifice to God and then instructed him to meet a man named Simon Peter. Peter also saw a vision of a blanket full of different animals, he was told by a voice to eat. When he refused and said he has never violated the food restrictions of the Jewish faith, the voice replied, “You shall not call unclean what God has made clean. It’s okay to eat! Peter learned that God was with Cornelius although he was a Gentile. Cornelius is God-fearing, a seeker of God’s will. Peter then preached and declared to the family of Cornelius and those present, that God shows no favoritism, and that God is present to all people who fear God and do God’s works.

 

V.                  When Peter was done with his testimony before the Church Council of Jerusalem, he asked them this rhetorical question, “If God gave the same exact gift to them, how could I object God?” This was the breakthrough of the early Church in Jerusalem, reforming their identity, and reframing their scope of mission. It was a food fellowship that started all these. I remember in our Church Administration class, one of us asked, why is feeding not included and only three fold ministry of Jesus: Preaching, teaching and healing, why not Preaching, Teaching, Healing and Feeding! It has kept me thinking all these days, as we don’t get a chance to eat together as we used to before pandemic

 

VI.                In our context, we may not meet someone like Cornelius who is very different from us in faith and culture, since we live in an almost monoculture society, and yet this story tells us the truth about God. God is present and is actively working in every person, in every culture and faith traditions.

It is through our willingness to learn something new from others that can open the way for God’s vision and will to be realized among us.

 

This story gives us the kind of posture we should possess even in dealing with another human being. We don’t go to other people thinking that we are superior in spirituality, or possess more knowledge about God, or practice a better form of religion. Instead, we are given the model of active engagement. We relate with others, see differences in the eyes of faith to a God who is God of all, and together in listening to each other’s stories, putting ourselves in their situation, see where God is already actively working in our lives so that we can participate and recognize God’s presence.

Perhaps, we don’t need to always assume that the person we are dealing has a crisis of faith and that we are sent to fix him or her. Instead, like Peter and Cornelius story, we can affirm that God is present and is already actively working so that when we listen to each other we can affirm one Lord, one service, and one baptism.

This story tells us that God can break through people’s self-imposed limitations such as culture, race, and faith expressions.

 

VII.              In our UCCP Liturgical Calendar, the month of October has many important emphases. This month we celebrate Indigenous People’s Month with the whole world, we also celebrate this month as Outreach Program Month, Reformation Month and Pastors’ Appreciation Month.

In all these celebrations, the common thread is that God always offers us a new vision of doing ministry. There is always a new way of service, a new way of expanding God’s family, and even the call to repent of what the Church has done against the Indigenous communities in history. In USA and Canada, the Churches have issued letter of apology to the Indigenous communities for their sins especially to the children who suffered abuse, and some have died inside boarding schools when churches forcibly convert indigenous children to Christianity and adopt the white culture.

Here in the Philippines, the Church is actively involved in the plight and future of Lumad people, even facing persecutions and ridicule because of our commitment to the Lumad people. Our churches have been trying to recover indigenous spirituality which had been covered by Western colonization. We have a lot to learn from our own culture, traditions, spirituality of healing and sense of community.

As a church we have been true to our calling to be inclusive, to welcome those who are considered unclean and have not met the standards set by our society and by other religious groups. We declare, no more outsiders; all are insiders in God’s community.

The COVID19 pandemic has given us an opportunity to adjust to a new kind of ministry through technology and a different mode of connecting with each other. Because of the limitations in meeting each other physically, there needs to be an adjustment for us continue connecting with each other emotionally and spiritually. Maybe not the frequency of the online meetings but more on the quality and content of the virtual meetings.

What the story of Peter and Cornelius and the Church of Jerusalem can tell us is the importance of listening and engagement. You cannot care from a distance but through engagement even eating together physically or virtually. Consider every person you meet as a teacher, an event an opportunity to learn, and a new way of doing thing as God’s leading.

Just stop, look, and listen. As Paul Tillich the theologian says, “Listening is the first act of love.” It is through careful listening that we can recognize the need of our congregation and the individual member of the Church. It is through listening to the people’s voice that we can stand together and represent them.

Last Saturday, October 9, church leaders of the Roman Catholic Church Diocese of Dumaguete, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente of Negros and Siquijor and the Negros District Conference of UCCP all participated in a Sunrise Prayer Service in praising God for the gift of creation and for making a united stand against the 174-hectare reclamation project of Dumaguete which we believed will destroy the oceans and the life of the people. For me it was a vision to behold of Christians in unity.

 

Like Peter and Cornelius, we need to listen to and follow what the Spirit tells us to do and go where the Lord leads us to a new vision, a true reformation, and a genuine reaching out to others.

 

VIII.            Our passage today ended with these lines, “After hearing Peter’s testimony, the people quieted down. And then, as it sank in, they started praising God saying, “It has really happened. God has broken through to other people, God opened them up to Life”

 

What has been the latest breakthrough in your life and in the ministry you have been participating?

 

Friends, may we continue to listen to each other’s testimonies of new realities and visions, so we can continue praising God proclaiming, “God has broken through in you, and you, and me.