Don't Judge to Quickly
Superbowl commercials have good and bad years. I didn't think 2007 was the best year with one notable exception, Ameriquest. A man comes home with arms full of groceries and starts preparing a romantic dinner. He chops vegetables with a large knife, while tomato sauce simmers on the stove. A white cat knocks the pan of sauce onto the floor and jumps down into the mess. Just as the man picks up his tomato-splattered cat, his wife opens the door. The camera moves to a long shot down the hall toward the kitchen where he is holding a cat in one hand, red sauce all over the floor and a large knife in the other. The scene appears to be unmistakably horrific. Ameriquest's tag line; "Don't judge too quickly."
Let me suggest this might have been appropriate for the meeting in Jerusalem we read about in Acts 11. Luke goes into a quite a bit of detail, beginning with the previous chapter. Actually, God starts to demonstrate how He was moving His people into new and different situations as early as chapter 8 when Philip is stoned and Greek-speaking believers are forced to move out of Jerusalem. Internationally the news of Jesus is spread to Ethiopia. In chapter nine, Paul is converted and the process of reaching vast numbers of Gentiles is set in motion. In ten, a Roman officer not only believes in Jesus but the same Holy Spirit that fell on the disciples, Pentecost, had fallen on these Gentiles. Now, in this chapter Peter is being asked what sparked such a thing?
Peter's great mistake wasn't in telling Cornelius about Jesus. It was in entering his house and eating with him. I've said it before but let me remind us that "eating" in Peter's day and age meant more than it does today. Today, we "grab a bite to eat". To invite someone to eat with you or to recline at table with someone in the ancient world was to accept that person and to approve of them. In 1 Corinthians when Paul speaks of disciplining a particular man he tells the church to not even eat with him. He doesn't want this guy getting the idea that what he did was okay.
When Peter went in and ate with Cornelius, he was approving of his gentile lifestyle that went against everything a good Jew believed. But what else was Peter to do after the Holy Spirit came on them the same way it had that first Pentecost?
This group who reviewed Peter's excursion to Joppa praised God because, "God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life." But since a similar, larger, group meeting takes place just a few chapters later, it is probably seen as a onetime event. And they'd be wrong. Because when Paul is set apart to, share Jesus with the towns around Antioch the number of non-Jewish believers grow far faster than the Jewish followers of Jesus.
God works in strange, and unlooked for places. In the first century, it was by drawing to Himself those who didn't share history with Israel. The 16th century God radically reoriented the way people looked at worship, their clergy and the rest. Today we call that time The Reformation. There have been other spurts and stops as well. I believe we'll find God behind many of the revolutions about which we've studied. Today, it seems God continues His pattern by involving His people into a whole bunch of radically and interesting places.
What is more, is that these places aren't only about how you and I are suppose to live for Jesus but how a congregation relates to other congregations. It is not only about organization but about the vision a group of followers of Jesus has for meeting the needs of a community for the sake of Jesus.
The word is Missional
It is not just about church doing things for others or to others it's about listening, caring and being with the others. Not paternalistic but empowering.
Examples "Family to Family";
Involves inviting these others to come and be a part of a group of people who are all "stumbling heavenward"