Rob Kazee Sermon

A Lion and Lamb Community

Isaiah 11.6-9, Acts 11.1-9, John 4.7-15, 27-30

Two Stories

Let me tell you a story. We were living in Bucharest Romania, trying to serve Christ and His church in Eastern Europe. We decided to go to the park for the afternoon with our girls. As we were playing a young Romania child pointed her toy pistol at Lilly and began to pretend to shoot her. As she pulled the trigger on her toy gun she spit the word “Tsigana” over and over. “Tsigana” is the pejorative word for gypsy in Romanian. This poor little child had learned at a very young age that gypsies are to be feared and hated and she thought Lilly was a gypsy.

When we entered stores in Romania we had to make sure our girls were near us so that it was obvious that they were with us. They would have been stopped from entering the store. Very few Caucasians born in America have had the excruciating privilege of having their children judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. Jane and I have had this painful privilege. We learned a bit about what the kingdom of God is not.

Let me tell you another story. When I was attending Seminary, Jane and I attended Beacon Hill Church of the Nazarene. Reverend Preston Miller was our pastor, a good and godly man, a praying man. Beacon Hill CON is one of two African American Nazarene churches in Kansas City. Jane and I spent nearly three years of our lives in that faith community, serving the children, driving the van on Wednesday night. I even led the music on Sunday morning.

Our time at Beacon Hill shaped our lives significantly. It was at Beacon Hill that we heard about what it was like to get up in the morning and see a brown face staring back at you, what it was like to be forced to think of one’s race before anything else because of the subtle and not so subtle culture of racism that exists in our country. And yet we were, on the whole embraced, allowed inside, inside a Christian community inside homes, and inside lives. We were treated hospitably and received as brothers and sisters. Very seldom did we feel like outsiders. We learned a bit about what the kingdom of God is like.

Now not everyone understood why it was this young white couple was serving in a black congregation. The elderly piano player told me flat out that she didn’t get me, had trouble relating to me, but we got along anyway. We worked it out. Sure there was conflict. And sometimes the conflict was colored by race. As we served at Beacon Hill, other Seminary students began to gather there as well. I was sometimes, by default, the bridge between Seminary students and members of the community. It was a hard place to be, serving as a mediator when race was a factor.

Crisis in the Early Church

Peter is in hard place in Acts 11. The church is beginning to wonder about Peter. Peter is sharing meals with gentile people; presumably non-kosher meals. Peter is acting recklessly as he shares table service with the unclean and impure. And the church is in crisis.

According to Dr. Dennis Bratcher,

It is Peter’s acceptance of Gentiles into fellowship, and allowing himself to be accepted into their fellowship, that precipitated a crisis. It would be a mistake to think that this is simply a crisis related to Peter and a lone group of Gentile converts. It is by means of this incident that Luke recounts the tremendous struggle of identity and mission that is emerging in the fledging community that would soon be called Christians (11:26). This is the single most crucial crisis that the post-resurrection community would face, because its resolution would forever define the nature of the Christian community and the church.

The church is trying to discern their identity. Are they a sect of Judaism who claim Jesus is the Messiah? Or are they something different? And who do they include? Do Christ followers have to convert to Judaism, observe dietary laws, and receive circumcision in order to be included in this new Jesus community? Or, is Jesus for people outside of Judaism? The big questions the church was facing could be summed up simply: “Where is the Spirit leading us?” and “To whom is the Spirit leading us?”
Well the Spirit was leading them into uncomfortable places with the conversion of Cornelius. Cornelius, not a Jew, became a Christ-follower. And what’s more Peter affirmed Cornelius conversion in no uncertain terms. You see Peter was given a vision that would forever change him and the church. Peter keeps going back to that vision. He keeps sharing it and ruminating over it. The vision was breath-taking in its implications, stunning in its clarity, disconcerting in its message. This is how Eugene Peterson translates Peter’s description of His dream:

"Recently I was in the town of Joppa praying. I fell into a trance and saw a vision: Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in. Then I heard a voice: 'Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.' I said, 'Oh, no, Master. I've never so much as tasted food that wasn't kosher.' The voice spoke again: 'If God says it's okay, it's okay.' This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the sky” (The Message).

News of Cornelius’ conversion spread quickly. When Peter arrived back in Jerusalem he had some explaining to do. “Peter what were you doing hanging out with outsiders? What do you think you’re doing eating non-kosher meals with gentiles? What’s this we hear about Cornelius? Cornelius doesn’t sound like a Jewish name, Peter!”
Well, Peter tells them about his vision. He tells them about what God is teaching him, how God says that people are no longer clean and unclean. There are no longer insiders and outsiders. No more us and them. God is doing something much bigger than they could have imagined. In Christ divisions are demolished, ethnic boundaries are nuked, old enemies are reconciled, old lines of demarcation are forever rendered meaningless at the foot of the cross. Jesus, by his Spirit is re-creating things; new things, new people, a whole new humanity, a whole new economy, a whole new world, a whole new creation.

After Peter made his passionate plea to the brothers in Jerusalem, there was a least a moment of stunned silence and then one dear brother finally spoke up: “Well praise God! God has given even the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

Isaiah’s Vision

It’s going to take the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem some time to come to grips with this new reality. One has to wonder why it took them by surprise, though. Surely they had read their great and glorious prophet Isaiah. They must have memorized Isaiah’s vision:

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (NRSV).

The people of God had been anticipating a messianic age, a time when all of creation would be ordered around the Holy Mountain of God’s presence. When their prophet Isaiah looked into the future with prophetic imagination he saw a God-saturated, God-intoxicated future ordered by God. And when creation is renewed and reordered old categories, old dividing lines will be smashed. Old enemies will embrace. Oppressor and oppressed, predator and prey, weak and strong will be reconciled. That’s what Isaiah saw through inspired imagination. That’s what God’s people had memorized and recited and looked for. And now, right before their very eyes it was happening. One single man is the first drop in the ocean of God’s new economy. His name was
Cornelius.

What Will They Look Like?

I wonder what her name will be? I wonder what his name will be; that person or family who begins the re-creative and restorative journey for National Church of the Nazarene? Perhaps she is already on her way. Perhaps he is already sitting in this sanctuary; that one who will serve as a bridge to the other; that one who will embrace the outsider knowing full well there is no such thing as outsiders. What will his name be? Who will they be, this re-created National Church of the Nazarene?

What will they look like? Will they be brown or Caucasian? Will they be Asian or African or Latino? Will they be poor or will they have means? Will they be Republicans or Democrats? Will they be concerned about protecting the unborn or the environment? Will they be concerned for the very poor and the orphan or will racial reconciliation be their God-given passion?

What will they worship like? Will they prefer Beethoven or Brubeck, Mozart or Miles Davis, Fanny Crosby or Switch Foot, Amazing Grace or Shout to the North, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir?

Will they be children of the oppressed or children of the oppressors? Will they have cappuccino-colored skin or latte-colored skin? Will they be peachy like cream or brown like chocolate? What will the future of our church look like?

Or could it be that God has called us to somehow bring all of these people together in one big beautiful, colorful church; a church that continues to reach out to the Cornelius’ of this extraordinary city? Could it be that God is calling us to stop dividing ourselves by lesser things and be caught up on one great agenda called the kingdom of God? Could it be that God continues to call this church to bear witness to what the kingdom of God is like by the shear beauty of its diversity? I think perhaps He is.

The Idol of Homogeneity

In order to do this, though, we must name the idol that stands in the way. The idol is homogeneity. We are all tempted by the idol of homogeneity. Simply stated we all like to be with people who are like ourselves; people with the same experiences, education, skin color, story; people from the same generation. I understand very well this desire.

When my family and lived in Romania, we loved it when we spotted a couple of Mormon missionaries. Not only did we not go the other way when we saw them coming, we tried to engage them in conversation because chances were good that they would be Americans speaking American English. We love to be with people we are like.

But God has called us to work against the temptation of homogeneity. There is perhaps no other church in our tradition that bears the burden more heavily than we do to do everything in our power to embrace the stranger, the other; those not like ourselves. It’s already in our DNA. Look at us, our little diverse church! We are brown and we are Caucasian and we are Democrats and Republicans and we are wealthy and not so wealthy. We are of African descent. And some of us are from the beautiful Caribbean Islands. We worship in a facility shared by four language groups. We are already living out Isaiah’s vision. Cornelius is us! We’re just one big blanket full of outsiders gathered up in Christ! We’ve just got to find a way to get this really good news out into our city.

I think our message goes something like this: If you want a church in which everyone looks alike and acts alike and likes the same kind of music and has the same political preferences, go somewhere else! We are not that church. We do not want to be that church!

But if you desire to be a part of something that reflects the kingdom of God, a lion and lamb community like Isaiah dreamed about, a bit blanket full of outsiders like Peter dreamed about, a people who love each other because of Jesus, then come along and let’s try to do something great for the sake of Christ and his kingdom. You’re invited. Lay your personal preferences down at the door and gather around the feet of Jesus to learn from Him with the rest of us.

I know this doesn’t sound like much of a report; no facts and figures, no short term or long term goals. We are going to do the work of planning for the future. I will begin a conversation this month with a group of people from this church and others who are not a part of our church. Our conversation will be about the future of National Church of the Nazarene and how to lean into our future. I don’t know what changes that will entail. I don’t know exactly how we are going to get the news out about what God wants to do here. What I do know is that we have to figure out how to engage every Cornelius out there. We must let people know that God is creating a place where conversations about truth and beauty and love and grace will be welcomed with all sorts of people.

The Way of Jesus

Jesus is of course our model for this. He is the one that started this, not us. He’s the one who had that conversation with a Samaritan Woman about water. He wasn’t supposed to be talking to a woman and most certainly not a Samaritan woman. But he did it anyway. He walked right across that social boundary and engaged her in a conversation.

That’s why the early church let Cornelius in. They knew that Jesus was always sharing meals with and talking to people He wasn’t supposed to get near. They knew that if they were going to follow His Way then they had better get ready to move out of the comfortable confines of homogeneity. And they did. And so much we. Jesus gives us no other option. And that, by the way, is very good news for outsiders like us at National Church of the Nazarene. For what God call us to do he will empower us to do. It won’t be easy, but that’s OK following Jesus was never meant to be easy. Being a lion and lamb community is our God given vision. May God give us grace to lean into our future together, Amen.