What is Holy? - Fifth Sunday of Easter

What is Holy? - Fifth Sunday of Easter

Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
May 18, 2025

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

We are still practicing resurrection!

One of the most seemingly harmless innovations has in our modern time become one of the most harmful. The internet wouldn’t be the same without the “Like” button on Facebook and other media. The “Like” button says ‘I like you, I like your content, I like you because I am like you, I am a part of your tribe.” Its origins date all the way back to the Roman Empire gladiator days where a thumb gesture indicated either spare or slay combatants in the arena. Today this little feature and the whole emerging culture of feast or famine in our relationships has created a virtual epidemic of emotional problems. It seemed like a simple way to engage people but has spawned emojis that convey both “care” but also “anger” “Sadness” and “Surprise.” And a whole host of ways to market these emotions to us. So much of how anyone sees the world in all the media we consume and are surrounded by comes down to “like” or “not like.” 

We in 2025 have very little capacity to understand what Peter is getting at with the “clean” and “unclean” animals or people. Religious purity laws originated to engage people in holy and safe practices. By the time hundreds of laws emerged, they had become a vehicle for judging/excluding, like “spare or slay”; “like” or unlike.” People moved from being bound as God’s people to wielding words like weapons that tore people apart from creation and each other. “I have never broken those laws” becomes not so much about devotion as it is pride. Because of course it said with the added (not like THOSE people.) We have the same patterns of bragging and shaming. 

We’ve moved far beyond laws about foods and animals but have hung onto the pattern of sorting ourselves and judging, both in the name of God and beyond. Fundamentally life is messy, and categories can help us navigate, but consulting ourselves alone leaves us with a system that fails to grasp the dignity of one another as God sees it. Then we choose communities and even churches because we want God to affirm our hurts, grievances and complaints and tell us we are right. Thumbs up!

We are not called to replicate the world’s point of view.

There are two words in the English language that are spelled the same, but when they are pronounced, they mean two very different things. “Tear” as in to rip apart and “tear” as in to cry. 

Though they mean two different things both are best mended with the same thing, the very thing Jesus is telling his disciples to be about- LOVE. This love is made known when we respond to Jesus’ call to practice resurrection life- new life, not the same old things amidst the reality of “tears” and “tears.” Not as easy as judging as Peter learns in Acts.

God’s guidance helps us mend tears in social fabric even if in the midst we are skeptical. 

Last week Peter was called to Tabitha, the woman leading a house church in Joppa who had died. He raises her from the dead, leading many to follow Jesus. Tabitha is also Dorcas- she has both a Jewish and Greek name because she served old and new communities, emblematic of women who once converted began building new faith community among those of Greek language and culture, though the Greeks were seen as hedonists, worshipping all sorts of things and people. This transition points to Jesus’ command to be witnesses in Jerusalem, and Judea but also to the ends of the earth (aka “not your tribe”). God is teaching Peter to practice resurrection life- new life where tears and divisions cease. 

To Peter’s tribe, Greeks are unholy. Not close to God. To Tabitha, they were objects of God’s love. Because she led, tears in the social fabric were mended by seeing the humanity of others. 

Peter couldn’t stay with Tabitha and ends up with Simon the Tanner. Tanning animal skins was work with dead animals. Smelly and unable to be physically clean, tanners were unable to worship with the holy others even if they wanted to. Unholy. Unwelcome. Peter has good reasons to not accept Simon’s welcome, but a tear in the social fabric is being mended. While praying, something like a dream shows him a large linen cloth comes down out of heaven full of all kinds of animals and he is told to eat them. In Peter’s day, some of these animals are off limits, unclean. Mixing them is a horrible mess because the unclean ruins the clean. Peter argues with God saying,

“No way! I follow the rules!” 

Isn’t it kind of funny that Peter is arguing with God about the rules?

He hears, “What God has made clean, you must not say is unclean.” In social media speak, what God “LIKES” you should not “UNLIKE.”
While Peter is puzzling, he learns three men are coming from Cornelius, a Roman military leader and that he should go with them because Cornelius had a dream where an angel said, “Send for a man named Peter staying at the tanner Simon and he has a message that will save you all.” Roman military leaders are not friends, more likely enemies. 

What to do? God has shown him not to call anyone unclean or untouchable or unapproachable. The vision about the animals was about people. So he goes, and someone not a believer received the word and the Holy Spirit fell upon everyone there and they were baptized.

The tear in the social fabric was mended, humanity restored. This went “viral” to use our language.

SO, of course word got back to Peter’s colleagues and friends back home who criticized him: Why did you do this with THEM?! For THEM?!

If there was a social media post you can imagine the sea of “Unlikes” and “Angry faces” and “Sad faces” and “Shock faces” and if there was a media report, the talking heads would be dissecting him, and X or Twitter would be wild. 

Peter tells them about the dream and God’s voice and how he was told not to make any distinction between himself and others. Instead of tearing the social fabric, see it as whole and as holy because God does. Faith and morality were being resurrected.

All of this happened in real time, and yet today we can tear apart the humanity of others, now aided by artificial intelligence. Lives and livelihoods can be lost. Divisiveness sells in all media, but its like we tear that large linen cloth in two. Good/bad; holy/sinner; clean/unclean.

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end you know the tears. 

Who indeed are we to say who or what can be holy or worthy in God’s eyes? In Revelation we hear about how God’s vision of fullness means there will be no more tears, they will all be wiped away. 

If Revelation speaks of such a day, why wouldn’t we who also are called to practice resurrection, start by how we live now? The source of vitality in the early church was “see how much they love each other.” How are we doing today?

To be fair we like Peter will often fall back upon old laws and ways and need to be called to account to practice resurrection by being more expansive in love. This is our ongoing call as God is still transforming today.

The late Pope Francis wrote, “How much wrong we do to God’s grace when we affirm that sins are punishable by God’s judgment before putting first that they are forgiven by God’s mercy. We cannot conceive of God without mercy.” We cannot conceive of God’s mercy without love.

But remember we receive the Holy Spirit to continue to move us from “I can’t see” to “Now I see.” From old life to new. A little at a time, healing and transforming ourselves and our world that God calls holy. 

If a little thing like a “LIKE” symbol has such effect on how we perceive our holy world, imagine how much more our embodying love can do. 

So let us pray for this Spirit to guide us:

Transform us, O Holy Spirit to see all of creation as holy. 
Breathe in us, O Holy Spirit that our thoughts may be holy. 
Draw our hearts O Holy Spirit to love what is holy. 
Strengthen us, O Holy Spirit to defend all that is holy. ^[1]

AMEN.

^[1] Adapted from a prayer of St. Augustine

Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2025 All rights reserved.  May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

Acts 11:1-18
¹ Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, ³ saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” ⁴ Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. ⁶ As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. ⁷ I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ ⁸ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ ⁹ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. ¹¹ At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. ¹² The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³ He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; ¹⁴ he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ ¹⁵ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. ¹⁶ And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” ¹⁸ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

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