Tyson Conner is a lay preacher at St. Hilda St. Patrick and a licensed mental health counselor. The sermon for Sunday, May 15, was a response to the proper texts for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. The sermon was based on the manuscript below.
I was supposed to read a sermon by the Rev. Charles Hoffacker about three forms of time and the ways that God and humanity exist within those forms of time. It is a very good sermon and you all should read it. But, this morning I was re-reading that sermon, preparing to come and deliver it here, and I could not extricate myself from the moment of time we are in right now. I could not abstract away from the Topps grocery store in Buffalo, NY, where a white supremacist murdered 10 black people. The attack was planned on discord and live streamed over twitch. I could not extricate myself from the rhetoric this week around the shortage of baby formula. This has been a problem off and on for the past year, but it’s particularly bad now. There are many reasons to be upset and concerned about this, but the thing that sticks with me this morning is the realization by some that the US government provides formula to those families who are imprisoned for the crime of being refugees, and some of our brothers and sisters believe that we ought not provide formula to “illegal mothers.”
“Behold. I am making all things new.”
Simon Peter, “the rock on whom I will build my church,” the zealot, the denier, one of the patriarchs of the early church, enters a vision in a trance. Growing up I had a “Picture Bible” which I still believe is foundational to both my love of comic books, and the vividness with which I remember certain bible stories. This story presented the collected animals as a mound of snakes, birds, pigs, and lions, piled together and writhing on a massive white sheet like they have at hotels. Peter stood before the sheet, and held his hands out in dramatic refusal of that which was unclean. That which was illegal.
“Behold. I am making all things new.”
We, you and I, pagans and foreigners, are not a part of the messiah’s kingdom. At least, that’s what Peter would have said before this vision of profane jambalaya. The messiah is not for the whole of the world. The messiah is for God’s chosen! The messiah is of the lineage of David and will return Israel to it’s Davidic strength, glory and autonomy. The occupation of the oppressive, colonizing empire will end. They will no longer kill us with impunity and starve our babies. This is the promise of the messianic king to the first century faithful Hebrew. This is why we see this controversy throughout the book of Acts around whether or not to allow gentiles into the fold. The messiah is not for us. He is not our good news.
“Behold. I am making all things new.”
This is the gospel. This is the “good news” to you and me. “What God has made clean, do not call profane.” That means us, dearly beloved. That means gentiles and soldiers and tax collectors. That means sex workers and police and slaves. That means trans bodies, black bodies, illegal children’s bodies. That means qanon cospiracists, ecoterrorists, covid-deniers. That means poor people, union busters, trust fund babies. That means the unhoused, refugees, landlords, king’s, prisoners, protesters, atheists, evangelicals. That means us. That means them. That means there is no meaningful distinction between the two.
“Behold. I am making all things new.”
Peter, by consuming the flesh of the unclean animals makes himself unclean. Christ, by taking on the form of moral man makes himself mortal. Clean and unclean, mortal and divine, barrier and boundaries that would otherwise be so useful in understanding who is important, who matters, what matters, are obliterated by the divine act of Christ. Trampling down death by death these categories become purely illusory. There is no clean and unclean, divine and mortal, worthy and unworthy. The holy mystery of the resurrection does not erase individual identities. A lion does not become a lamb. The mystery does, however, erase the need for violence, separation, and fear. The lion will lay down with the lamb.
“Behold. I am making all things new.”
In the midst of this suffering that, were it happening somewhere outside of Europe or North America, the media would call “sectarian violence.” When, let’s be real, most violence is inherently sectarian. What is the role of a Christian? What is the hope of a Christian? We have already come through Holy Saturday. We are meant to be living in the resurrection. By the writing of John’s gospel, the young christian church has started to figure out that this was gonna be a long haul. Christ’s return, like the Davidic messiah, might not be quite what they expected. I think it is light of this reality that Christ, through John, give us this commandment: “love one another. Just as I have loved you… by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
“See, The home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples and Godself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away… Behold, I am making all things new.”