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A sermon preached by Mr Antony Weiss The Fifth Sunday of Easter 24th April, 2016 Acts 11:1-18, John 13:31-35

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (Ps 19:14). AMEN. Today’s reading from the Book of Acts is a prequel to Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) which we will celebrate on 15th May. From Acts 11, ‘And as I [Peter] began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.’ (Acts 11:15) If you were to share what marks out your identity, what would make you feel more ‘us’ than ‘them’? Your nation, your place of birth, the area in which you live, your family, your sexuality, footy team, the important institutions in your life; school, work, university, parish or church denomination? To what extent and at what cost will you hang on to the important markers of your identity?

How much prominence do you place on these in relation to your identity as a Christian, being ‘in Christ’?

Many of us would understandably place great importance on our family heritage and traditions. Interested in finding out more about my ethnic identity, I recently took a DNA test, spat in a bag and sent it off to the US. Well the results? 96% European Ashkenazi Jewish, and the remainder is Sephardic hailing from the Middle East, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula from where my Dutch born great-grandmother, Bethsheba Delvalle forebears came as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. So as Brian Cohen stresses to his mother in the 1979 Monty Python Film, The Life of Brian, ‘I’m not a Roman mum, I’m … a yid, a heebie…I’m kosher mum, I’m a Red Sea pedestrian, and proud of it!’

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As a boy, holding to Jewish tradition was part of my identity. It was about being set apart, being a member of the Covenant, something special and exclusive.

Disappointingly though, my Jewish exposure revealed little about what the Hebrew Bible taught and what it meant to be part of God’s covenantal elect race save for traditions, cultural practices, High Holy Days (with days off school) and loosely ascribed attention to Levitical dietary laws. As a youngster, being a descendant of Abraham was important as it is for me today, though it is so for very different reasons now that I am in Christ. Clinging to its traditions didn’t help in understanding the faith in any way.

Acts 11 challenges us to reflect on what we consider is important to our identities and traditions and to reflect on what it truly means to have our identity founded in Christ whether we are Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not. In Acts 11 we are again reminded that the Gospel is for all, for all nations, all people who are repentant of their sins and who place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

At the start of Chapter 11 Peter returns to Jerusalem after his conversion ministry amongst the Gentiles, most notably involving Cornelius in Caesarea.

Peter is called to account by his colleagues of the circumcision party, a group of stringent Jewish Christians, traditional adherers to the Law of Moses as had Peter been until recently. Initially they had real problems with the way Peter had engaged with Gentiles breaking the dietary laws by eating with them, ‘So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised [believers] criticized him, saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them? (Acts 11:2-3)’.

[Let’s keep in mind that there had been a great deal of tension brewing over whether or not Gentiles had to convert to Judaism (and be circumcised and adhere to Mosaic law) before becoming members of the fledgling church. This all comes to a head later in Acts Chapter 15 with the Jerusalem Council and that Council’s letter to Gentile believers.]

Back to Acts 11, Peter then gives to his critics a full account in verses 4 to 17 of a vision that he had whilst in Joppa, ‘As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed

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animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” But a second time the voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane (Acts 11:6-9).”

Peter was shocked by this exhortation to kill and eat unclean animals. Peter had held to Mosaic dietary laws for they formed an integral part of his Jewish identity and tradition. But God had other plans. Peter is told by ‘a voice’ to put aside the traditions and the law in order to carry out God’s purposes in making known to the uncircumcised, the Gentiles the New Covenant in Christ.

Despite the resistance he met from amongst his fellow members of the circumcision party, Peter defended his actions before them retelling the events of the Gentile conversions emphasising that he was following God’s lead, not placing his trust in himself. And in doing so he began the breaking down of the dividing barrier between Jew and Gentile. Had Peter resisted, by unquestioningly sticking to the traditions (such as the dietary laws), his Gospel ministry to the Gentiles would definitely have been restricted at this point.

So for Peter, he came to the realisation that who is he to stand in the way of God’s plan. To the members of the circumcision party they gained the revelation that God has granted repentance and life to the Gentiles. Peter says, “If then God gave them the same gift that He gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life (Acts 11:17-18).’”

So what do we take out of this passage? As believers, we are all called to have our identity firmly placed in Christ. We are not to allow transient worldly identities to be who we primarily are and for them to get in the way of serving God as agents for His plan for redemption and salvation. We are to be led by the Holy Spirit and to understand God’s revelation and purpose revealed in His Word.

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For us as a community of Gospel disciples in a diverse and inclusive parish in the heart of Sydney we must live and conduct our lives so that they reflect the love of Christ; to live with and love others according to the identity we have in Jesus, as Our Lord commanded us in this morning’s Gospel reading from St John, ‘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 (John 13:34-35).’

Finally, our true identity as Christians is to be in Christ alone; not by a birthright stemming from the Old Covenant nor by entitlement or by traditions or adherence to Church or cultural rituals. In fact to be declared righteous in Christ has nothing to do with our good works or any worldly identity for it is in Christ alone that we are made right before God. As St Paul writes to the Romans, ‘But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.’ (Romans 3:21-25a) Χριστός ἀνέστη! Ἁλληλούϊα Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη! Ἁλληλούϊα

Amen.