Nevertheless, Peter was called to discover that an essential Christian faith could be practised without adherence to Jewish food regulations. I have intentionally used the word “discover” here. The never-ending series of learnings that we experience in our faith journeys are indeed discoveries; and furthermore, when we sense that these discoveries are very important, we call them “revelations.” The words “discovery” and “revelation” mean pretty well the same thing. To discover is to have the cover removed so that you can see something clearly. And similarly, to reveal is to have the veil removed; again so you can see what was previously behind the veil. Peter’s dream which told him it was permitted to eat all kinds of food was a new faith discovery for him and it became a revelation for the Christian community which eventually based its dietary practice on this discovery of Peter. That is, of course, why the story was included in the Christian scriptures, it became one of those formative building blocks that helped define Christianity as a separate faith tradition.

As I said earlier, the bible is full of such stories and moreover, our entire faith tradition is full of such stories; they don’t stop with the last page of the bible. Now I know that there are people who insist that revelation does stop with the last page of the bible. But such a view rather undermines the real experience of people like ourselves who have lived since the time of the bible and discovered many essential aspects of the faith in our own experience of a life full of challenges that the bible does not mention. Since the time of the bible, faithful Christians have discovered God’s will in such issues as slavery (the bible takes it for granted, but we know that it is wrong). We have also discovered God’s will for gender equity, something which was foreign to God’s people in bible times, but understood by us as an important aspect of God’s will for human beings. Note that on this issue the official positions of Christian groups still vary from place to place, and the largest church in the world, the Roman Catholic Church, still considers women ineligible for the priesthood. So it is clear that there are major differences of opinion even within the Christian family about that which we have discovered (that which has been revealed to us) about the will of God.

That leads me then to an issue which is particularly contentious these days, but is an issue on which we as a United Church have taken a stand and we want to honour the position we have taken. In a way, that which we face in this issue is not dissimilar from what Peter faced in allowing himself to move outside of the faith box of his time. As you may have guessed by now, the issue I am talking about is same-sex marriage. Some of our governments in Canada are now allowing same-sex couples to be legally married. The United Church of Canada has officially condoned and commended our governments in taking this step. Erin Mills United Church has a community covenant which clearly states that all persons are welcome to participate in all of our activities regardless of age, race, religious background, economic condition, mental or physical ability, sex, as well as sexual orientation. Therefore our response to the issue of same-sex marriage is a “no-brainer.” When a same-sex couple comes to Erin Mills United Church with a valid marriage license, and they meet our expectations of being in a life-long, loving, committed relationship (the same expectations we have of a heterosexual couple) then we will be honoured to celebrate their wedding, here in this sanctuary.

There will be people, maybe even some of you, who will have the same reaction to this as Peter had in our scripture reading today. When Peter saw the food spread out before him he did not want to eat. He said, “By no means, for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” (An interesting choice of words: profane and unclean. That’s more or less the same language I hear many traditional Christians using about same-sex relationships.) Peter meant what he said when he used that language; no doubt he felt his conviction deeply. He was being asked to accept what in his mind was profane and unclean, and we know that ultimately he did accept that it was OK for non-Jewish Christians to carry on with their non-kosher life-style, although you can bet your bottom dollar that Peter himself never touched those foods; which was just fine, of course, that life-style simply was not for him.

Although, I should say, there was a bit more to it than just accepting those folk with that other life-style. Because we read in our scripture passage that the voice from heaven has a reply for Peter regarding what Peter considered to be unclean and profane. The voice said: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” What God has made clean... The Jewish Christians of Peter’s time had to acknowledge that their God sanctified a non-Jewish life-style within the community of followers of Jesus Christ. That must have been incredibly difficult for them and yet it was required of them; it was a new revelation that they had to embrace. And again, I believe that the analogy applies to our acceptance of same-sex relationships. This is not just something that we are asked to accept and live with grudgingly; this is something we are asked to acknowledge as being sanctified by God. There is a voice speaking to us as well, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” As a matter of fact, of course, when we conduct a same-sex wedding in our church, we are affirming God’s sanctification of that relationship – that’s what a Christian wedding is all about!

Ultimately, we come to understand this sanctification as something much more fundamental than simply our acquiescence to another crazy development in the evolution of revelation. Ultimately we see that of course this is sanctified by God, of course this is holy matrimony, because the two persons being married were created by God for each other. They were created who they are, sexual orientation and all, with a longing for a life-partner and a relationship in which their God-given humanity might be lived out to its full potential. Christian marriage is designed for that purpose, and human beings who choose to pursue their God-given destiny in a married relationship with a partner of their mutual choice, should be offered the God-given privilege to do so.