Who Are We to Hinder God?

Sunday, May 19, 2019

A sermon on Acts 11:1-18 and Revelation 21:1-6

As many of you may know, I am currently in the process of becoming a postulant to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. I have been lucky enough to be sponsored for priesthood by this Gambier parish and by Rachel Kessler. The support of the Harcourt community has been invaluable to me thus far, especially because the road to postulancy – though important in aiding discernment – can at times feel lengthy, demanding, and stressful. Throughout the process, I’ve been asked to lay bare much of who I am for the Church to examine. I’ve been asked to tell my life story with honesty and transparency, and to include in that telling, not only my triumphs and the times I have felt closest to God, but also the parts of my story that are hardest to tell – the moments that inspire more embarrassment than pride; the setbacks, the failures, the mistakes, the painful periods, the parts I wish most to hide.

The most recent step of my process has been to undergo a psychological evaluation. The evaluation, which has been spaced out over several meetings, has involved a lot of discussion of these hard-to-talk-about topics. In our long meetings, my evaluator, a psychologist who specializes in working with clergy, has offered me a series of surprising and insightful pieces of feedback. Most recently, we spoke at length about my struggles with my mental health, and she told me this: most people who go into ministry are wounded in some way. It is through the experience of sustaining and healing from these wounds that many are able to do such good ministry — to understand others, to meet them in their pain and joy, and to help them see God in all that they experience.

I couldn’t help but think of these wise words as I prepared this sermon.

This morning, like many Sunday mornings in Easter, we read from the book of Acts, which tells the story of how that rag-tag group of disciples Jesus called together went out into the world, spread the Gospel, and built the church. It wasn’t an easy process, and like during Jesus’ ministry, the disciples – now apostles – messed up a lot. Missed the point. Tried stuff and realized it wasn’t right. But all around them, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, Christ’s gift to the world, lingered and burned, pushed and pulled them to follow God in this new thing God was doing.

This particular passage concerns one of the main questions the early apostles grappled with – the inclusion and assimilation of non-Jewish persons into the Church. It was a complicated issue, I gather, and I don’t pretend to understand all the specific cultural and religious elements at play when the Jesus movement considered whether and how to bring Gentiles into the fold. I am, however, struck by this reading because I believe it has a lot to say about God’s work and about the Holy Spirit.

Our story is about Peter – good intentioned, sweet, foolish Peter, who has been trying to figure out this Gentiles-joining-the-Church thing for a while. But God is tired of waiting around, and has, as God sometimes does, intervened by way of a dream. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” – God repeats this rebuke thrice to our favorite apostle, and it takes all three times for Peter to come around, and to understand that God isn’t just talking about food, but people, too: Gentiles, who some felt needed to become fully Jewish before joining the Church. Peter finally gets the picture, though, and immediately puts his lesson into practice, teaching six non-Jewish individuals about Jesus and watching as the Holy Spirit descends upon them. He tells his listeners, “Who was I, that I could hinder God?” Who was he, with his rituals and rules, to define and limit the work and presence of the Holy Spirit? God desired to make God’s self known within these men – so God did.

So what does this all have to do with mental health, brokenness, wounds, and ministry? Well, I found in my psychologist evaluator’s comments to me about the more shameful and difficult times in my life a similar assurance as Peter received in his mystical dream.

What God has made clean, you must not call profane.

Those things which had caused me to struggle – those things which made me question my goodness and belovedness – those hard moments and periods that have helped to form who I am – all these things which I considered most profane, most unclean, most clearly showing how broken I am, are in Christ absolutely holy, clean, and redeemed. Indeed, God’s spirit can live and work in them the same way God’s spirit lives and works in my proudest accomplishments. Should God desire to make God’s self known within them, God will do so. Who am I to hinder God?

“See, the home of God is among mortals,” John writes in Revelation. “He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.”

Yes, the Holy Spirit desires to be with us and among us. God is within each of us in the places we find most terrifying, most shameful, most painful, most profane, and in the parts of ourselves the world rejects. In the mental illness, the assault, the addiction, the mistakes, the broken relationships. In our gay or trans identities. In what makes us different from others. In what we hope to hide, the Holy Spirit is present already, healing and making holy space to do her work. And in these places, God is both pervasive and persistent. Like in Peter’s dream, God will not give up until God has made God’s presence known.

Of course, God’s Spirit is not only present in our own selves, but in all people and all communities. As a part of the Episcopal Service Corps, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to honor the work God is already doing in communities and places in need, and I believe what I’ve learned has a lot to do with Peter’s lesson as well.

In Acts, God tells Peter to recognize the inherent holiness of those not yet a part of the movement, and Peter learns to invite newcomers and outsiders in as they are – bringing what they have to join in the work of God.

In St. Louis, I’ve witnessed and been a part of the ways in which the Deaconess Anne House, my Episcopal Service Corps Program, both succeeds and fails in partnering with our neighborhood and our local nonprofits by joining their work rather than dictating what needs to be done from our perspective. It is a difficult and subtle challenge, to recognize and trust the Spirit’s work outside of one’s own self or one’s own context or institutions.

And to be honest, the Church and other institutions of the world don’t always have the best track record for recognizing and honoring God’s presence in outsiders. We often believe, I think, that our rules and rituals are able to define where and how God’s Spirit moves. But we have learned, again and again, that the Holy Spirit is acting through what we may call profane before we even recognize its presence there. The Holy Spirit was acting through women as pastors before they were ordained. Through same-sex relationships before they were blessed by the Church as marriages. Through people of color before they were permitted into the Church’s leadership and continually as their lives and witness are devalued and ignored by the Church.

God has shown God’s self in all these people through stories and challenges, dreams and testimonies. God has been making God’s self known in them since God’s spirit first dwelled on this earth.

Our challenge, then, is to follow in the steps of Peter. To call the parts of ourselves and the parts of our world some consider unworthy or profane holy, just as God does. To look for the work of the Spirit not only where we expect it but where we do not. Because God will work and dwell in those places regardless of whether we recognize God’s presence in them. After all, who are we to hinder God?

But if we do listen and watch for God’s work in and around us, we have the great opportunity to join that work. To be with God. We, like Peter, can help build a Church of diverse backgrounds and Spirit-filled people. We can come together in community as Christ’s own people, and when we do, God promises, he will make all things new.

Amen.

 

Image Credit: http://therocc.org/featured/behold-our-god-the-holy-spirit/