Sermon Text: Acts 10.34f Title: "No Partiality"

Preached: January 10, 1999

I got a call yesterday from Lyndon Larouche. Not really Lyndon himself, but from a campaign worker for a campaign old Lyndon is beginning -- and sure enough it is about the presidency. Lyndon is planning a meeting tomorrow evening at 7:00 at the Jack London Inn, in case anyone is interested, to begin building a grass-roots effort to combat the "de-facto coups" being attempted by big money interests in Washington. In other words, Lyndon wants to fight the attempt to toss Clinton from office -- an interesting notion from someone who ran against him twice.

Today, I don't want to get into the politics of the situation; I simply wish to talk about the language used by the campaign worker -- the rhetoric. He talked about getting to them before they get to us, for instance, and he described the outcome of the impeachment trial as a new civil war. We could not afford to lose, he said. It was clear to me that this emphasis on winning and losing was quite important.

Indeed, I have begun to wonder about competition in America, about our tendency to choose up sides and then battle all out. We DO emphasize sports, for instance, but we emphasize competition in other spheres as well. Coke sells against Pepsi, McDonald's battles Burger King, Ford and Chevy duke it out, Apple slings stones at Goliath IBM, and, of course, Levi's models can beat up their models, whoever they are. And in the House of Representatives, the Republicans and the Democrats need to toss as much mud as possible on each others faces, I guess in lieu of a real election campaign, shouting loudly the deficiencies of their foes, all in the hope of somehow coming out ahead. Oh, to be able to simply say: "We won... and they lost."

I wonder, then, where partiality ends. Or rather, I wonder IF partiality can end. For even in the church we take sides, we divide up into cliques, groups, teams... and we seek to help our side win over the other sides.

Caribbean immigrant churches, and I would count my last congregation as a Caribbean immigrant church, Caribbean churches tend to do a particular kind of annual fund raiser called a Rally. During a Rally, the congregation divides up into teams, four or five or so, who all go out and try to raise funds in any way they can, bringing the proceeds back to the team captains. On a set date, at the Rally, all the teams bring forward their cumulative donations. The ones that do very well are justifiably proud; the ones that do poorly are shamed. While it usually works to raise funds, it often causes unnecessary division in a congregation. Teams try to grab up the best fund-raisers. Old hands become valuable, and new members become last picks. The rich are valuable, the poor are not. Folks with lots of social connections are good for the team; shut-ins become toss-aways.

I began to wonder if the Rallies were not simply illustrative of the problem we see in our congregations -- we have taken the societal value of competition and elevated within our churches, competing with one another, and therefore choosing sides, and therefore, finding ourselves partial to one group of people or another. One current fad in church growth, for instance, finds itself partial to middle, and upper middle class folks -- and so chooses styles of expression which exclude the poor, neglect older people, and reject diversity. And I begin to wonder if our society's emphasis on choosing sides, competing, and, most importantly on winning, has increased our partiality. The Senators have sworn they would not be partial in the coming weeks. Yet many people are convinced that when the trial really kicks in, the partiality will return.

Let's hear a story of partiality. At the time the Church was born, the leaders saw themselves as a sect within Judaism -- even as the one truly righteous branch of Judaism. While they recognized Jesus as the Christ, they continued to try to live by all the strictures of the Old Testament law. They were no more eager to embrace Gentiles than the Jews who worshipped in the Jerusalem Temple or the Synagogues. But sometime in the first century a shift in the ideology of the "Church" began to take place. In the book of Acts, we hear Luke's version of how that shift began -- Simon Peter had a dream.

He had a dream in which God called upon him to eat a banquet of foods made up of unclean animals: pork and beans, Reuben sandwiches, shrimp scampi, bacon and eggs, vulture au gratin... The lesson was that all these animals were created by the same Creator and there was no distinction between them in God's eyes. The next day, Peter was called to visit a Gentile, indeed a Roman centurion named Cornelius. No self-respecting, levitical law abiding, first century Jew would go to the house of a Roman centurion; he would be defiled. But Peter went, for God shows no partiality.

Upon arrival, Peter went in and talked with Cornelius, the centurion. It became abundantly clear to Peter that Cornelius genuinely believed in Jesus, and was ready to be part of the Christian community. At that point Peter makes the speech we read today: if God shows no partiality, how can God's church be partial against Gentiles. Peter baptizes Cornelius and his household, and sets out for home, assured that he will enter a wasp's nest when he gets there. And then, indeed, he does face serious opposition, but successfully defends his position, and the church becomes a place for folks from many nations -- in Christ there is no east or west.

God shows no partiality. Peter is very clear about this. God shows no partiality. The great revelation for him, of course, was the dream about the different kinds of animals. All of them were acceptable in God's eyes. Suddenly, the distinction about kosher foods vanished, but also the distinctions about ethnicity. The Romans were no more unclean, before God, than the Jews. Greeks were okay. Parthians, too, and Ethiopians and Gauls and Britons. Even people from L.A., I suppose. Peter understood and the transformation had begun: the church would no longer be a team in opposition to the other people of the world, it would be a banquet table to which everyone was invited.

We need to claim the very basis of Peter's vision and speech. God does not take sides between people. And while God's commandment to love one another still stands as primary to belief, God is God who visits the people, who offers grace, who brings new life, who redeems, who loves everybody, without regard to the mascot of the team we've placed them on. We cannot expect God to divide people the same way we do, not theologically or racially, not by gender, age or sexual orientation, not even preferred worship style.

We especially cannot say: God would never choose to visit with this person, or to work through them, or to open their heart, or to grant them forgiveness and blessings and spiritual gifts. For God shows no partiality, and is God for all people.

Let's break this down in an example unique to OFBC. We are lacking demographic strength in the age category 20 - 55, maybe even in the category 12 - 70. We therefore are very keen on increasing our membership in the, oh, say 25 - 50 range. We could really use about thirty folks in that range, and are beginning to think we'll do almost anything to get them here. You might even say we're partial to that age group.

Yet, if God sends us thirty people under twelve, or thirty people over seventy, we must be equally ready to open our doors, and our hearts, and our minds, and our arms to receive them. For God shows no partiality; and as people of God, we cannot draw distinction where God refuses.

Then, let this be our prayer. Let us pray that God will send us the people we need to develop and grow the mission and ministry of First Baptist Church, whatever their age, race, or social class. And that God will give us the spirit, ability, and vision to weave those people into our fabric, building a cloth of many colors, strong and vital for the mission of our congregation, until the future is filled with the fulfillment of promise, and our children's children discover new hopes and dreams.