Acts 11:1-18
The Apprentice is a reality tv show where contestants are split into teams (“corporations”) to test their business skills: selling products, raising money for charity, creating an advertising campaign. Teams and individuals are judged by objective measures of success, and by the subjective opinions of the host. Episodes end with one contestant being told in no uncertain terms: “You're fired!”
Donald Trump hosted the first 14 seasons. In the world of The Apprentice, Trump knew best and Trump had a clear mandate to push his opinions and judgment onto everyone else. It didn’t really matter if he was wise or knowledgeable, rude or ridiculous. Those were the rules, and if you didn’t like them, you wouldn’t, presumably, apply to go on the show.
It’s comfortable and clear cut. Not just Trump confined to the world of celebrity entertainment, though that certainly appeals to me, but one person in charge of defining success and failure, setting up and holding the boundaries of business, while other lesser beings bring their creativity and hopes and efforts and experiments, but ultimately fall in line with verdicts from on high.
A question I find myself circling around and around at the moment is this:
Who gets to hold boundaries in place and who gets to push and break them?
This question applies at home where I have created and failed at many boundaries:
We do not watch Chuck Chicken
We don’t hurt people by hitting, kicking, shoving, strangling, pushing them off the edge of the trampoline
Children have a bedroom and a bed and stay there all night
Some of these boundaries I don’t have the energy to hold and it frustrates me (Chuck Chicken and other appaling shows), some I hold to despite many breaches (hurting), and some I have decided are merely modern western assumptions and don’t actually matter to me (sleeping arrangements).
But of course the question is pressing in the church too. It’s relevant within the life of our church; we’ve considered children joining communion, what kind of faith qualifies a person for membership, who can be married here. And it’s relevant in the wider Baptist church and global church; who is there space for, who has a voice, who has a place at the table, who needs to wait in the corner or on the doorstep while others discuss them.
Some of these boundary issues are specks in my rear view mirror. Should women preach and lead? Others are more current, but for me, resolved. Can LGBT+ people be complete and full participants in church life and God’s love? And then others don’t feel as easy, but I can see that I have boundaries and assumptions that will be challenged, deserve to be challenged, and I will have to listen and process and discern with my community. Polyamory and discipleship? Interfaith worship? Post faith leadership? Genetic modification. Euthanasia. Baptists becoming more aligned with our Baptist roots? Baptists becoming less aligned with our Baptist roots?
Who gets to hold boundaries and who gets to push and break them in the church?
The short answer is God.
But the long answer is a bit more complicated.
Chloe’s reading is the follow up from the text last week. Chapter 10 was the story as it unfolded, of Peter and Cornelius, receiving visions, swapping (illicit) hospitality, the Holy Spirit poured out on Gentiles who had always been “other”, and Peter concluding they could be baptised – they were full and complete participants, God had welcomed them; Jews and Gentiles alike were equal believers together.
Chapter 10 was a story about expansion, disruption, surprise; all God’s activity. Assumptions, patterns, mindsets and worldviews were challenged and changed – but everyone seemed to agree that this came from God – they were following God’s lead.
So Jewish Peter, Gentilic Cornelius, and their various comrades are satisfied and united. But the believers in Jerusalem, the centre, are shocked and dismayed. They demand an account of Peter’s actions: why did he go to uncircumcised men and eat with them? Never mind that the Spirit was poured out on them – what was Peter doing at close enough proximity to find out?!
The Jerusalem believers end up delighted. But if they hadn’t recognised God at work in Peter’s account, which let’s face it was a possibility, they could have made life very difficult for this new group and the stance of embrace.
Chapters 10 and 11 are repetitious, but as the events are told and retold, different elements are emphasized, and clarity and conviction seem to grow in the retelling. In the original account Peter is puzzling over the vision of the animal banquet from heaven when Cornelius’ men arrive, and the Spirit says to him “get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” When Peter retells it in chapter 11, he says “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.”
In the NRSV, Peter’s rhetorical question to the indignant Jewish believers in Jerusalem is “…who was I that I could hinder God”. James Boyce suggests that a more accurate translation would be: “…what powerdid I have to stand in the way of God?”
The answer to this is both; none – it is all God’s power and God’s activity, but also; plenty – you are a Jewish man in a fledgling faith community where maleness and Jewishness are privileged. I’m not saying that to criticise Peter, but to notice he uses the power he has to speak up for others.
Cornelius is also a man with plenty of power. Probably more social power than Peter, good standing, well respected even in Jewish circles, though not a full convert to Judaism. But he is the not the person giving an account of his faith, his experience of the God of Jesus Christ, the Spirit. At this stage he is so other and outer that he doesn’t have a platform to present his case.
All the more important that Peter uses the power he does have to give expression to the recent experience of this group of Gentiles. In time Gentiles can and will speak for themselves. But in the first instance, Peter uses his power to clear a path for their voices and experiences.
Because experience is critical to this story.
Peter is capable of arguing a theological case. But he doesn’t. He recounts his experience. “This is what happened. This is what I realised.”
Our B4NP podcast discussion group has noticed how often people discussing their unpacking of the bible and what it means in their faith talk about the importance of experience.
Richard Rohr, from a Catholic tradition, said we move forward on a tricycle of faith, and needing three sturdy wheels – tradition, scripture, and experience – and experience is the front wheel. The gift of faith comes through experience first.
And Rachel Held Evans, from an evangelical protestant tradition, commented: “None of us leave ourselves at the door when we come to read the bible.”
Like me, you might be more familiar with a faith background where absolute truth and subjective experience are pitted against each other, with truth being good and trustworthy and experience being flakey and unreliable (and often the domain of hysterical women). We’ve seen some horrific citing of bible and truth coming out of the states in the last week or so.
But Peter has no doubt that experience must be shared, heard, acknowledged.
So what I’m trying on for size, wondering about with my faith community, as a measure of who gets to hold boundaries and who gets to challenge them; who gets to demand to join the conversation and who gets to decide to allow or deny, is this:
Anyone is welcome to have a stance. To hold a boundary or to push it. But they have to own the experience that brings them to hold or push that boundary.
In this way we can be together, with different opinions, desiring different outcomes; with the equal footing of experience. If you want to oppress and repress you have to own that, not blame it on an external authority – how has your experience of God convinced you of this boundary? And if you want to shift and move, own that too. How has your experience of God convinced you this boundary must shift?
Mitzi Smith, a womanist biblical scholar comments regarding this text “God will disrupt and interrupt the boundaries humans construct.”
God, here at least, does so by giving people an experience, and then a witness to an experience, of another way of being.
The Apprentice is a reality tv show where contestants are split into teams (“corporations”) to test their business skills: selling products, raising money for charity, creating an advertising campaign. Teams and individuals are judged by objective measures of success, and by the subjective opinions of the host. Episodes end with one contestant being told in no uncertain terms: “You're fired!”
Donald Trump hosted the first 14 seasons. In the world of The Apprentice, Trump knew best and Trump had a clear mandate to push his opinions and judgment onto everyone else. It didn’t really matter if he was wise or knowledgeable, rude or ridiculous. Those were the rules, and if you didn’t like them, you wouldn’t, presumably, apply to go on the show.
It’s comfortable and clear cut. Not just Trump confined to the world of celebrity entertainment, though that certainly appeals to me, but one person in charge of defining success and failure, setting up and holding the boundaries of business, while other lesser beings bring their creativity and hopes and efforts and experiments, but ultimately fall in line with verdicts from on high.
A question I find myself circling around and around at the moment is this:
Who gets to hold boundaries in place and who gets to push and break them?
This question applies at home where I have created and failed at many boundaries:
We do not watch Chuck Chicken
We don’t hurt people by hitting, kicking, shoving, strangling, pushing them off the edge of the trampoline
Children have a bedroom and a bed and stay there all night
Some of these boundaries I don’t have the energy to hold and it frustrates me (Chuck Chicken and other appaling shows), some I hold to despite many breaches (hurting), and some I have decided are merely modern western assumptions and don’t actually matter to me (sleeping arrangements).
But of course the question is pressing in the church too. It’s relevant within the life of our church; we’ve considered children joining communion, what kind of faith qualifies a person for membership, who can be married here. And it’s relevant in the wider Baptist church and global church; who is there space for, who has a voice, who has a place at the table, who needs to wait in the corner or on the doorstep while others discuss them.
Some of these boundary issues are specks in my rear view mirror. Should women preach and lead? Others are more current, but for me, resolved. Can LGBT+ people be complete and full participants in church life and God’s love? And then others don’t feel as easy, but I can see that I have boundaries and assumptions that will be challenged, deserve to be challenged, and I will have to listen and process and discern with my community. Polyamory and discipleship? Interfaith worship? Post faith leadership? Genetic modification. Euthanasia. Baptists becoming more aligned with our Baptist roots? Baptists becoming less aligned with our Baptist roots?
Who gets to hold boundaries and who gets to push and break them in the church?
The short answer is God.
But the long answer is a bit more complicated.
Chloe’s reading is the follow up from the text last week. Chapter 10 was the story as it unfolded, of Peter and Cornelius, receiving visions, swapping (illicit) hospitality, the Holy Spirit poured out on Gentiles who had always been “other”, and Peter concluding they could be baptised – they were full and complete participants, God had welcomed them; Jews and Gentiles alike were equal believers together.
Chapter 10 was a story about expansion, disruption, surprise; all God’s activity. Assumptions, patterns, mindsets and worldviews were challenged and changed – but everyone seemed to agree that this came from God – they were following God’s lead.
So Jewish Peter, Gentilic Cornelius, and their various comrades are satisfied and united. But the believers in Jerusalem, the centre, are shocked and dismayed. They demand an account of Peter’s actions: why did he go to uncircumcised men and eat with them? Never mind that the Spirit was poured out on them – what was Peter doing at close enough proximity to find out?!
The Jerusalem believers end up delighted. But if they hadn’t recognised God at work in Peter’s account, which let’s face it was a possibility, they could have made life very difficult for this new group and the stance of embrace.
Chapters 10 and 11 are repetitious, but as the events are told and retold, different elements are emphasized, and clarity and conviction seem to grow in the retelling. In the original account Peter is puzzling over the vision of the animal banquet from heaven when Cornelius’ men arrive, and the Spirit says to him “get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” When Peter retells it in chapter 11, he says “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.”
In the NRSV, Peter’s rhetorical question to the indignant Jewish believers in Jerusalem is “…who was I that I could hinder God”. James Boyce suggests that a more accurate translation would be: “…what powerdid I have to stand in the way of God?”
The answer to this is both; none – it is all God’s power and God’s activity, but also; plenty – you are a Jewish man in a fledgling faith community where maleness and Jewishness are privileged. I’m not saying that to criticise Peter, but to notice he uses the power he has to speak up for others.
Cornelius is also a man with plenty of power. Probably more social power than Peter, good standing, well respected even in Jewish circles, though not a full convert to Judaism. But he is the not the person giving an account of his faith, his experience of the God of Jesus Christ, the Spirit. At this stage he is so other and outer that he doesn’t have a platform to present his case.
All the more important that Peter uses the power he does have to give expression to the recent experience of this group of Gentiles. In time Gentiles can and will speak for themselves. But in the first instance, Peter uses his power to clear a path for their voices and experiences.
Because experience is critical to this story.
Peter is capable of arguing a theological case. But he doesn’t. He recounts his experience. “This is what happened. This is what I realised.”
Our B4NP podcast discussion group has noticed how often people discussing their unpacking of the bible and what it means in their faith talk about the importance of experience.
Richard Rohr, from a Catholic tradition, said we move forward on a tricycle of faith, and needing three sturdy wheels – tradition, scripture, and experience – and experience is the front wheel. The gift of faith comes through experience first.
And Rachel Held Evans, from an evangelical protestant tradition, commented: “None of us leave ourselves at the door when we come to read the bible.”
Like me, you might be more familiar with a faith background where absolute truth and subjective experience are pitted against each other, with truth being good and trustworthy and experience being flakey and unreliable (and often the domain of hysterical women). We’ve seen some horrific citing of bible and truth coming out of the states in the last week or so.
But Peter has no doubt that experience must be shared, heard, acknowledged.
So what I’m trying on for size, wondering about with my faith community, as a measure of who gets to hold boundaries and who gets to challenge them; who gets to demand to join the conversation and who gets to decide to allow or deny, is this:
Anyone is welcome to have a stance. To hold a boundary or to push it. But they have to own the experience that brings them to hold or push that boundary.
In this way we can be together, with different opinions, desiring different outcomes; with the equal footing of experience. If you want to oppress and repress you have to own that, not blame it on an external authority – how has your experience of God convinced you of this boundary? And if you want to shift and move, own that too. How has your experience of God convinced you this boundary must shift?
Mitzi Smith, a womanist biblical scholar comments regarding this text “God will disrupt and interrupt the boundaries humans construct.”
God, here at least, does so by giving people an experience, and then a witness to an experience, of another way of being.
