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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!’