I am intrigued by the way the early Christian church discovered an expansive vision. I think there is a key phrase here in the Acts when it says that Peter began to explain it to them “step by step.” “Step by step” is a leitmotif for the way the church began, and continues to this day, to discover the broadness of God’s love for all.
It has been commented that in the New Testament you can see a revelation—a new seeing—and then a halting attempts to put the revelation into practice. In the first century, first Peter and later Paul began to see differently. We find it encapsulated in Paul’s phrase, “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.” The love of God in Christ embraced all. There was no difference. Those who had claimed privilege (the Jewish folk, the males, the free, the rich) needed to realize that in Christ all are privileged.
Paul worked very hard in his day on the ethnicity/race question between Jews and non-Jews and the very tricky question of circumcision. Also, Paul was quite decisive at first in allowing women to work alongside men as leaders in the churches he formed. Yet, his communities did not continue with the liberated position. By the time of the deutero-Pauline letters, the Pastoral Epistles, the door had begun to close for women. By the time of the didache in the second century, male only leadership was reasserted and framed most of the church for the best part of 2,000 years, with a few notable exceptions. Paul and the early church worked less hard on the privilege of the free and the enslavement of many. It may well be that both entrenched patriarchy and the economics of slavery were just too big to deal with. The Jewish religion was then as now, a very small affair. The debate between Jews and non-Jews was not as widespread a social phenomenon as patriarchy and slavery.
So the early Christians moved “step by step.” And, it has to be said, took a few steps backward as well! No blame needs to be cast. Step by step has been quite painful at times. It was not for some 1,800 years that slavery was abolished in lands dominated by Christian sensibilities. It was even later than that when women began to receive somewhat equal treatment in society. Of course, even today neither patriarchy nor slavery has been abolished from the planet. There are estimated to be 27 million slaves through human trafficking worldwide. Patriarchy still holds a grip in many countries overtly (Saudi Arabia, for example) and covertly (the USA, the glass ceiling etc.).
Still the new way of seeing remains: God’s love is comprehensive. It excludes none and includes all.
Moving from the global and historical to our little faith community of Lindisfarne we, too, have been moving step by step in our own attempts to make sense of the new way of seeing. What would it mean for us to be as embracing as God’s love in Christ is embracing?
We have taken baby steps in the four areas of Paul’s revelation:
a) The religious “in and out groups.” In Paul’s time Jewish and non-Jewish religions. In our time, openness to other faith traditions and understandings, refusing to call any “unclean.” We are trying to be ecumenical in its broadest sense.
b) The ambiguities of economics. In Paul’s day slavery, on which Roman economics was based. In ours the disparities between rich and poor. In Lindisfarne we are working with the marginalized in a number of different ways (with the poor and hungry, with abused children, with the elderly, with those in prison).
c) The inequalities of gender. In Paul’s day it was women and men. In our day we are continuing to wrestle with patriarchy, but now also with the injustices of prejudice against gays, lesbians and trans-gendered folk. This has meant, and will mean in the future, receiving all, without prejudice or judgment, as fully a part of Lindisfarne.
d) The non-human world. The new way of seeing is broader than the merely human. What would it mean to include all sentient beings in the scope of God's inclusive love? What of the whole world? Step by step.
All of this is challenging and, to be truthful, each step has been painful in different ways, with some misunderstandings and at each step there are some who cannot follow.
Yet, like Peter who saw the vision of the sheet and tried to work it out in practice, and then explained “step by step,” so must we. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” And in Christ, God has made all clean, reconciling the whole world to Godself. A new way of seeing indeed!
+Ab. Andy