"You can pick your friends, but..." You finish it. Well,
wait. I will finish it. No, it is not "You can pick your
friends, but you cannot pick your friend's nose." It is "You can
pick your friends, but you cannot pick your relatives."
Something that we certainly know on Mothers Day.
Most assuredly, that unsought relationship has likely been
incredibly influential in who and what you are. On the plane to
California, I read Cokie Roberts' new book, Founding Mothers, an
intriguing history of the women who were influential in the
establishment of our nation. John Adams, our second president is
quoted from a letter to his daughter, Nabby, "It is by the female
world that the greatest and best characters among men are formed.
I have long been of this opinion that when I hear of an
extraordinary man, good or bad, I naturally...inquire who was his
mother?"(1) George Washington is quoted as saying, "My mother was
the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my
mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral,
intellectual and physical education I received from her."(2)
We could wish that all mothers were as good as George's, but
we know such is not the case. Jacqueline Kennedy is not quoted
very often, but she had something to say on this: "If you bungle
raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well
matters very much."(3) And that explains why everyone is not of
the same mind about Mother's Day. For some it is a wonderful day
of celebration; for others, those whose family portrait could
never be mistaken for something by Norman Rockwell, this is a day
that is just as well ignored. In fact, even though Mothers Day
normally attracts church crowds that are surpassed only by
Christmas and Easter, some folks stay away on purpose - the
reminder is just too painful. But, as we say, you can pick your
friends, but... You know the rest.
In a not very subtle way, that is also the message from our
scripture lesson. As the passage opens we read, "The apostles
and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also
had received the word of God." Uh-oh. This is going to mean
trouble. Despite the fact that Jesus himself had dealings with
Gentiles, the early church was of a mind to keep Christianity
essentially Jewish. This report of Peter's ministry in Lydda and
Joppa was, to say the least, troubling. As the text has it, "So
when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers
criticized him and said, "You went into the house of
uncircumcised men and ate with them." How dare you???
Now Peter tells his curious story. He was having a rooftop
prayer time when he saw a vision - "something like a large sheet
being let down from heaven by its four corners, and in it a
veritable menagerie: "four-footed animals of the earth, wild
beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air." Then comes a voice:
"Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."
"No way, Lord," says Peter. Not this. These are not pure,
not kosher. They are unclean. And you know me, Lord, I am a
good Jew. I keep kosher."
The voice responds, "Do not call anything impure that God
has made clean."
Three times this happens, Peter says. Why three times?
Because it was important, that's why.
Now the rooftop reverie is interrupted. Three visitors have
arrived - Gentiles, as it turns out. They have come with an
invitation to visit a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Hmm - the
same rank as the one who supervised the crucifixion of Jesus.
Peter felt led of the Spirit to go with them, and shortly
thereafter, he was doing something no good Jew in his day would
normally do - he actually went into the home of a Gentile. Peter
reported on the conversation, the vision that Cornelius had had
that prompted the invitation, the sharing of the gospel and their
positive response. Finally, Peter had to conclude, "So if God
gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?" Good
question.
To be honest, the response of the church leaders in
Jerusalem was remarkably enlightened. Since the soil in which
the church had been planted was thoroughly Jewish, it would not
have been terribly surprising to have encountered significant
resistance. After all, the issue of separation from other races
and nationalities had been the focus of debate ever since the end
of the exile in the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. Ezra and
Nehemiah, for example, favored the complete expulsion of all
foreigners who had joined Israel and sought to settle with them
in the restored territory of Judah.(4) To them, the only way to
guarantee Israel's continued existence was to close the door on
all foreign influences and seek a higher standard of racial and
cultural purity.
But there was another camp, exemplified in writings such as
the books of Jonah and Ruth and the last section of the book of
Isaiah, which urged Israelites to consider throwing wide the
doors of Israel to any and all who would convert to the worship
of Israel's God. This mindset had Israel surviving by letting
the world in, by inviting everyone, regardless of race or
national origin, to see their "light to the nations" and turn to
the one true God.
To their credit, those early church leaders responded to
Peter's story in a remarkably enlightened way. As the lesson has
it, "When they heard [Peter's story], they had no further
objections and praised God, saying, 'So then, God has granted
even the Gentiles repentance unto life.'" One big, happy family.
Amazing.
In his book What's So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey
tells of a time he was asked to present the sermon in his church.
He started out with a children's sermon, and invited all the
youngsters in the congregation to "Come on down." He held up a
bag, from which he pulled a package of barbecued pork rinds for
them to munch on. Next he pulled out a fake snake and a large
rubber fly, which led to squeals from his young audience. Yancey
and a few of the children then sampled scallops.
"Finally, to the children's great delight," he writes, "I
reached cautiously into the bag and extracted a live lobster.
Larry the Lobster we called him, and Larry responded by waving
his claws in a most menacing fashion."
After the children departed, Yancey explained to the
congregation that Levitical laws specifically forbade everything
they had just eaten. No Orthodox Jew would touch any of the
contents of his shopping bag. This is why the message in Acts 11
is such radical news: "Do not call anything impure that God has
made clean."(5)
The struggle continues today. Not in the same form, of
course, but there is still a tension in the church as God
continues to move us. Some Christians are terribly distressed at
some of the changes they have seen in recent years and they long
for a return to a more stable, predictable age. They would be
more than happy to take some of those Old Testament laws and make
them normative for our world. Others are thrilled at the new
freedoms they enjoy and are willing to accept a broader range of
theological perspectives and cultural differences, even though
that means learning the occasionally uncomfortable lesson that
Peter and his friends did saying, "Do not call anything impure
that God has made clean." The result, of course, is that
disagreements are bound to arise. That is why the church
struggles over hot-button issues such as abortion, gay rights,
medical ethics, the ordination of women, the morality of war, and
so on. Those tensions are tricky because they do not simply
break down clearly into right and wrong, or good vs. evil,
whether we like it or not. But we remember that, even in the
midst of disagreements, we are family, and that old truism
continues to hold, "You can pick your friends, but..." We are in
this together.
To be honest, it is difficult for a minister to know how
much to change and how much to preserve - our life together is a
work in progress. The guidance Peter received is helpful. So
also is the direction we get from the example of Jesus, a
ministry that was willing to break established purity laws in
order to care for the outcasts of society. He healed on the
Sabbath, touched menstruating women, put the needs of children
before the needs of adults, and preferred the company of sinners
over saints. It was a new way, a better way.
Rita Snowden tells a story from World War II. In France
some soldiers brought the body of a dead comrade to a cemetery to
have him buried. The priest gently asked whether their friend
had been a baptized Catholic. The soldiers did not know. The
priest sadly informed them that in that case, he could not permit
burial in the church yard.
So the soldiers dug a grave just outside the cemetery fence.
And they laid their comrade to rest. The next day the soldiers
came back to add some flowers only to discover that the grave was
nowhere to be found.
Bewildered, they were about to leave when the priest came up
to speak to them. It seems that he could not sleep the night
before, so troubled was he by his refusal to bury the soldier in
the parish cemetery. So early in the morning he left his bed,
and with his own hands, he moved the fence in order to include
the body of the soldier who had died for France.(6)
He drew a circle that shut me out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!(7)
Yes, "You can pick your friends, but..." A good thing to
remember, not only on Mothers Day, but any day.
One more homáge to Mom. One day a little girl was sitting
and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She
suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white
hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head. She looked
at her mother and inquisitively asked, "Why are some of your
hairs white, Mom?"
Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do something
wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while
and then said, "Mama, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are
white?"(8)
Happy Mothers Day.
Amen!
1. Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers: the women who raised our nation, (New York:
William Morrow, 2004), pp. 174-175
2. http://www.twilightbridge.com/hobbies/festivals/mother/quotes.htm
3. http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa020506b.htm
4. See Ezra 9; 10:6-17; Nehemiah 13:23-31
5. "The Telephone Pole Problem," Homiletics, May/June, 2004
6. Susan Andrews, "Full of grace and truth: Demonstrating the divine," Sermon preached
January 24, 1999, at National Capital Presbytery, Covenantnetwork.org
7. Edwin Markham, "Outwitted"
8. Carlos Wilton on "The Immediate Word," an internet service for preaching at
http://www.csspub.com
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