First written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on May 9, 2004… the 5th Sunday after Easter that year… and used today, after a Very Minor update, for the same reason! The verses are from the book of Acts, Chapter 11, verses 1-18…
I guess you could say that raising livestock was probably more of a hobby than a vocation with Grandpa and Sons… that is, Dad and my uncles. It seems as though there were always a few chickens and cows about, and hogs would come and go at different times of the year, but nobody ever seemed to get too excited about it…back then you could do that and still make enough money to justify doing it.
But I think the real reason behind it all probably stemmed from the family having lived through the depression years of the thirties… that is, the animals were there more for self-consumption than income! You see, I seem to recall there always being enough eggs to use for breakfast and baking, but never any extra to sell to anyone (though I’m also sure that any excess was gladly shared with neighbors and friends!). And while I was always excited about helping put the stock-racks on the old truck and load animals for a trip to East St. Louis, I have much stronger memories of all of the butchering we did during the winter months every year!
When I was little, I played a very peripheral part in all of this, mainly that of interested bystander, at least until the meat made it indoors. There, once I was big enough to turn the handle, I was responsible for grinding up the beef chunks into hamburger, or grinding the pork and filling these huge crocks where others would season and mix it with their hands, getting their arms covered with raw meat and seasoning in the process. At that point, some would be fried up for a ‘taste test’… mmmnnn!… and I would take the rest and run it through the grinder again to stuff into links.
This I didn’t mind! I enjoyed helping and doing and feeling like a part of the family! But as I got older… and I was the oldest grandchild, so all of this fell to me first… I was expected to help with the actual butchering process. I’m sorry, but that was a different story altogether. I resisted… I’d hide… I’d find other stuff to do… finally, I was told that if I was going to eat it, I had to help cut it up.
Now, keep in mind that our cattle were all free-range… and most of that ‘range’ was steep hills and hollers that they had to climb up and down any number of times everyday. As most of you know, all of that walking and climbing builds fine, strong muscles in humans, and the same holds true for cattle. But… fine strong muscles in a cow or steer only means that the meat is very, very tough… in fact, I think it would be safe to say that eating some of the steaks we cut and put away each winter caused those eating them to get a real workout as well… of their jaw muscles!!!
With that picture in my mind, when I was told that if I wanted to eat it I had to help cut it up, I quipped, “Alright… I won’t eat it!” It didn’t work. But to this day, I still get a negative image in my head about eating steak. Don’t get me wrong, I love the taste of a nice well-done piece of beef… But I first have to get past wondering if I’m going to have enough teeth to do it, or not!
Now, my little story deals with explaining, somewhat, why some might perceive me as having an aversion to eating steak… but whatever that might be, it is a personal issue… a personal preference, if you will. Not so in our story today about Peter’s aversion to eating these animals that God was showing him in his vision.
God had given the Israelites, through Moses, very specific instructions as to what they could and couldn’t eat. Let me read a small part of that from Leviticus, chapter 11…
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud.
“‘There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you. The coney, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.
There are three-or-four more paragraphs, each dealing with creatures of the sea, the air, and so-on. The point is that God had specifically forbidden the Jews to eat certain things, so when presented with many of these very things and told to kill and eat, I’m sure Peter felt very certain of himself in replying, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ After all, this had been their law for thousands of years! We might imagine him thinking, ‘Ha! This is a test, and I know the right answer!’ So, how shocked must he have been when God told him to, ‘…not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ And told him that not just once, but three times! Peter realized, then, what it meant… things were changing!
The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses… the God that had called all of their descendants His ‘Chosen People’… had just opened up the doors of heaven to all people! The old laws were no longer in effect… Jesus had fulfilled them, and now it was His teachings that were to be followed. For example, in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John, verses 34-35, He tells us; “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
I want to read part of an article that appeared in the Jacksonville ‘Journal-Courier’ in 2004, shortly after the Methodist General Conference that year and was written by Rachel Zoll for the Associated Press…
Conservatives in the United Methodist Church proposed splitting the denomination Thursday, the latest sign of decades of disagreement over homosexuality that continued at their General Conference this week.
The Rev. William Hinson, president of the Confessing Movement for conservative Methodists, said evangelicals were just beginning to explore the idea and that no break was imminent in the 8.3 million-member church.
But he said he and others were convinced that no compromise could be found after yet another bitter General Conference debate over what the Bible says about gay sex.
“We can’t bridge that divide,” said Hinson, former pastor of First United Methodist Church of Houston.
The Rev. Troy Plummer, executive director of the Reconciling Ministries Network, which advocates for gay and lesbian Methodists, rejected the idea. He accused evangelicals of plotting to harm the church.
“It disturbs me,” he said. “We can still be a family together.”
The announcement came after conservatives prevailed at the meeting in maintaining the church’s firm stand against homosexuality
Delegates affirmed that gay sex was “incompatible with Christian teaching” and made it a chargeable offense under church law for clergy to conduct same-sex marriages and for unmarried ministers to have sex.
Interesting, don’t you think? Let me read something else to you… “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
These words are from 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10. They are very clear. Homosexual offenders are listed specifically among those who will NOT inherit the Kingdom of God! There are other examples as well, but let’s just stick with this one for the moment. “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
And yet this newspaper article continues…
Evangelicals expect, however, that those who want a broader role for gays and lesbians in the church will continue to ignore church law and appoint sexually active homosexual clergy.
God’s message to Peter in today’s verses was that the Good News of the coming of the Messiah and of His sacrifice for our sins was to be open to ALL people… in the verses from John, Jesus tells us to love one another as He has loved us. We know that we are to be open and loving to all that walk through these doors in search of Christ. Yet in the rest of this article the case was being made for splitting the Methodist denomination into what amounts to ‘pro-gay’ and ‘anti-gay’ segments. And those who propose that we should be accepting of gays and allow them as equals usually use this statement of Jesus’ telling us to love one another as support for their stance… ‘Can’t we all just get along?’ And that strikes a note with some of us… why can’t we all just get along… why can’t we learn to accept gays and lesbians as children of God?
The answer to that is that we can… indeed, we must… but only on one condition! In the verses that follow those that I read from 1 Corinthians, Paul says that, “These things are what some of you were. But you were washed… you were sanctified… you were justified… in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
We are all of us sinners. And this church that Christ established by His death on the cross and ultimate resurrection was established for sinners! We are all of us welcome within these walls… we are all welcome in His open and loving arms! But… there is something that we must do… and I think it’s put most succinctly in Palms 32… “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD” — and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” That’s right… we must acknowledge our sin before God… and then we must endeavor to ‘sin no more’.
I won’t pretend to understand how anyone can read and understand the Bible and claim that homosexuality is not a sin… it’s right there in black-and-white… and I am happy to see that at least the majority of those at our General Conferences thus far see that as well. But it is disturbing to realize that it is far, far from being a large majority… the forces of Satan are gaining ground, even in our own community of leaders!
Jesus taught us… nay, commanded us… to love one another… and that, we try to do! But He also commanded us to repent of our sins and ‘sin no more’. And if there are those among us who refuse to live and abide by His ways, He has told us, in Mark 9, verses 43-47… “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell…”
God told Peter that the doors of heaven were now open to all. That’s a good thing… that’s why we… descendants of those very Gentiles… are free to assemble and worship Him here today! Jesus taught us to love all others as He loves us. That’s also a good thing, and we try to follow His example everyday! But… if there are those among us who claim to be believers and followers of Christ, but do not repent of their sins, then we must assume that they are, instead, minions of Satan and must put them away from us!
John says, in his first letter, that, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. But if we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
We must remain true to the message that Jesus died to bring to us… we must remain true to the instructions left by Him and His appointed apostles. There are NONE today who have the authority to declare that a sin is no longer a sin… and given that fact, we must deduce that any who propose to do so do so in the name of Satan in a move that is intended to drive us further from our God and His directives!
So… what it comes down to is this… do you intend to stand-up for the teachings of Christ… do you intend to insist on maintaining the integrity of His Word and of His Church? Or will you just sit back and let Satan have his way by destroying all that you know is right and true? And if that be your response… how will you explain and justify it when you’re standing in front of the Almighty on that final Day of Judgment?
scluebbert 