World Communion Sunday
October 1, 2006
“A Universal Spirit”
(Acts 5:27-39)
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

Luke tells a story about a critical juncture in the early church at the very beginning, when it came under persecution. After being energized by God’s universal Spirit on Pentecost, the disciples’ preaching became incendiary. The authorities were not amused. So they arrested the disciples and brought them before the council for questioning.

But in the midst of the explosive deliberations, a big-spirited rabbi named Gamaliel stood up to offer wise counsel: “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these guys. In this case it might be best to leave them be...” Fortunately for the Apostles, the Sanhedrin took the rabbi’s advice and released them; but not before giving them a good spanking and warning them not to preach like that anymore, which they promptly ignored. It takes guts to go against the prevailing mood of a majority after bloodshed. But God needs a voice of moderation in an intolerant atmosphere. It seems to be the case whenever religion is involved.

He got it in Gamaliel, who’s instincts were inclusive and progressive; who paved the way for the church like John paved the way for Jesus. So I can understand why Luke wants us to know about him. But don’t mistake Gamaliel’s lenience for a indulgence. Ancestor to Rabbi Hillel, his loyalty to Israel and his generosity toward the disciples was both practical and theological: “Don’t worry; if this is a human venture, nothing will come of it.” But, “If God is behind it, we can do nothing to stop it.” And the last thing religious people, who think God’s on their side wanta hear, is this little zinger:“Then, you’d be opposing God!”

This is a pivotal point in the gospel story. It was a serious situation where all the apostles could’ve been wasted. And Christianity would’ve ended before it began. But God always has some tolerant souls around with a universal outlook, who are magnanimous and cut others some slack. So the early church never forgot this rabbi. Neither should we. Because it teaches us about causes that appear to be lost, but in the end, succeed, and those that look so promising at first, but end up failing. When two men came after dark to bury Jesus, it looked like they’d bet on a lost cause. But on the third day God vindicated Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, secret disciples no longer.

From the heart of Dixie’s deepest segregation, Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a man on a bus one day just because he was white. She was so out-numbered. The traditions of “way down yonder in the land of cotton” stacked against her. It didn’t look like much at the time, but when that sister sat down, the world stood up! The universal spirit prevailed and the better side of the American conscience made overdue changes to correct ugly racial discrimination. Maybe its time for another dose of Gamaliel!

Conversely, some movements appear destined to win. Adolf Hitler was an ominous force in Europe in the ‘30’s, with an agenda to rule the world and the military to back it up. And it looked for a while there as if it would happen. Russia had its back to the wall. England was hanging by a thread. America thought it was isolated. But God had a Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman and Ike. Surely these were kin to Gamaliel. And that’s one reason the Axis powers went down.

But there’s always somebody, because movements come and go in our world. Nations totter. Empires fall. Administrations change. Churches grow and decline. Nothing stays the same. In his wisdom Gamaliel understood, “those things that are of God will last and those things that are not, won’t make it.” Be patient. God’s bigger than our sectarian concerns that seem so important at the time.

Life is not always the way it appears. You have to “winter and summer” with some things before you realize what they’re really like. There are important things about which people were very sure at one time, that aren’t so certain about anymore. What was formerly believed to be the will of God, after further developments ... well maybe not.

To his everlasting credit Gamaliel recognized that’s how God is. He advised: “Let’s move slowly here. Though it doesn’t look like it to us, God may be at work!” That’s why some things that are obvious now are the opposite of the way they seemed to yesterday’s people. What have you changed your mind about lately?

What do we make of that? For one thing, we don’t know everything. Churches are notorious places for know-it-alls. I know it pains some folks to hear that others might have a point different from theirs. But the way life is and the way churches are, it pays to wait on God to act with more clarity; for more events to unfold. So we can read more accurately the direction God is going, which we always know in retrospect.

When I arrived as your pastor I found a lot of good things already in place and I complement you. But I also brought some things that were not here. Primarily my motto: “We reserve the right to accept everybody.” Nothing deep about it. Just the simple but profound gospel of grace. And all you can do with grace is take it or leave it. Often though around church, grace is viewed more as rights or rewards. But rewards are earned. Grace is undeserved and unfair. Or else it wouldn’t be grace.

So if our church continues to dispense the grace, seen in the finer rabbinic tradition in Acts and keeps on being an oasis of universality and equanimity in an insular society, it is “of God,” and in spite of the bleak numerical externals, its gonna be around here for a mighty long time! To preach the scriptures; to welcome the stranger; to focus on people’s strengths, not their weaknesses; to try to see the good in others instead of only the bad; to embrace necessary change as a gift from God: that’s church at it’s best.

Gamaliel was saying: God is bigger than our own familiar denominationalism. Too many people have a God who’s too small; little more than mirrors of their own desires on the backdrop of the universe. But Luke included this story in Acts to show how the spirit of intolerance plagued the earliest church. And it has continued to do so to this day.

But we better come to terms with it, if we wanta have a church worth participating in. An intolerant spirit lies at the root of more conflicts, more broken marriages, more busted homes, more church splits, more “wars and rumors of wars” than anything else I can think of. So my word to you today is simple this: We need to be hopeful and very tender with one another.

Could Luke be contrasting Gamaliel the Jew with Peter, the Christian-Jew? Stand ‘em side by side and Peter was narrow-minded and intolerant. There wasn’t much Peter was uncertain about, except Jesus. But on most other things, he saw only one side, his. On the other hand, Gamaliel was open, accepting, accommodating. He saw the big picture of a situation because he could think in more than one dimension.

But the church needs both. Peter knew how to get things done. So he got the “keys to the kingdom.” But Gamaliel, saw to it that some things don’t get done…like destroying the disciples in Jerusalem. In the wider purposes of God in history, it fell to impulsive Peter to be the spiritual leader of the early Christian movement. But he would never have had the chance to do it without Gamaliel’s universal spirit.

I recall the volatile ministry of Carlyle Marney, who stayed in hot water in the southland because he was a universalist. The southern Baptists kicked him out, so he went back to his roots and died an American Baptist. But Marney upset the saints down home because he had Gamaliel’s universal spirit. Marney used to say, “Well, if God wants to save everybody, that’s fine with me. Why does it bother you?”

Even in the days of the ebullient early church, it bothered those in control to have to admit that there might be another way. It still does. I mean we gotta have somebody to go to hell! Not us, of course. I guess they’re just gonna have to build some walls in heaven, someday!

But today, we’re celebrating the ministry of Rabbi Gamaliel on World Communion Sunday. Could there be a more appropriate text? Because he reminds us that Christ has called us to a table that is universal, that encompasses all the ensconced variations of this ol’ world. A table that sees difference as a gift, not a burden. A table with no fences around it to keep somebody out. It’s time to gather around the table of God. People all over the world, in their various time zones are engaged in it even now. Its such a privilege to feel like we’re a part of that. In the spirit of Gamaliel of Jerusalem, who acted in the Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, I invite you to the universal table of God.

Pastoral Prayer (10/6/06)

Doubters, believers, disciples, deceivers...we’re all here Lord, gathered for worship celebrating the power of your Spirit to energize the church for its mission. So in love with life and so committed to all that enhances life, and yet we recognize how often the church gets at cross-purposes with your life-affirming intentions. You just want people to believe and we keep hassling ‘em about their doubts. You liberate us from all forms of bondage and we keep locking ‘em up because of our prejudice, shutting ‘em out with our orthodoxy. You expect us to lose ourselves in mission and we keep playing it close to the vest. You set us on edge with surprises and we work overtime on establishing routines that make life predictable.

Your Spirit is too universal for our hearts that are two sizes too small; always ahead of us, summoning us forward, while we hesitate to move much at all. Forgive us O God, for trying to narrow down what you have opened up. Forgive us for failing to pursue all that life can be, content to remain in our own little world. May this worship remind us to be patient with those who are different, for they might just be You! And we’d be hindrances to your purpose. Prod us beyond our closed doors. Give us the courage to reach out to —those who need a church family, who need healing and hope, forgiveness and confidence, and especially those coming to terms with their losses.

May this church faithfully keep scattering the seeds of the kingdom. For through the faithful planting of the seeds of the gospel of grace shall your church grow. And through dying and rising shall your people live. Be our “bridge over troubled waters.” Be ahead of us, and among us and underneath us till our journey’s end. In the name of your Son Jesus, and in the power of your Holy Spirit, we offer this and all of our prayers. Amen.