By Reverend Laurie DeMott

The reason I'm discussing Chihuahuas and St. Bernards is that the huge diversity of dog breeds begs the question of "What makes a dog a dog?" A biologist might answer that question with a discussion of genetics and phylogeny but even those of us who don't know what the word phylogeny means can still recognize that a Chihuahua is a dog and not some sort of naked cat. Whether we are looking at a golden retriever or a toy poodle or an English Cocker Spaniel, there is something that calls out "dog" when we see it. How do we know? What gives a dog its dogness?

Dogs recognize the dogness in each other because they smell like dogs which is why the first thing they do is sniff one another's butt but most of us are unwilling to use that particular method of identification. I'd argue that we know a dog is a dog because it behaves like a dog. All dogs share certain characteristics. They all chew holes in your slippers when they are puppies. They growl when they are angry. They eat all manner of strange things and throw them back up. And they all enjoy a little scratch behind the ears. We recognize a dog is a dog because, well, it behaves like a dog.

Hold onto your seats while I now make the leap from dogs to the Bible passage for today! The reason I wanted you to think about dogs is because they are a good analogy for what is going on in the 11th chapter of the book of Acts. The book of Acts tells about the emergence of the new church after Jesus' ministry: after Pentecost, the disciples go out into the world to bring the gospel to all of the people, except that, in the beginning at least, they aren't really taking the gospel to all of the people. They are taking it to just some of the people, namely fellow Jews. Peter and the other disciples travel from city to city visiting the local synagogues where they argue that Jesus is the Messiah that the Jewish people have been waiting for for centuries. Some of the other Jews accept their arguments and join them, and others say, "Leave me alone with your crazy ideas" but one thing that everyone agrees on is that whether you believe in Jesus or not, you're still going to be a Jew. But then one day, God says to Peter, "Peter, go and invite that Cornelius fellow to become a follower of Jesus," and Peter says, "Umm, God, Cornelius isn't Jewish." God says, "And your point is?" Peter backs down and says, "OK, I'll get right on that, God" and he goes to Cornelius' house where the Holy Spirit descends on the household and Peter baptizes the entire family. And the next thing you know poor Peter is being chewed out by the other apostles for telling Cornelius that he can be a Christian without following the Jewish law and the entire young church becomes embroiled in a debate over what makes a Christian a Christian if a Christian isn't first a Jew.

And frankly, even though the specific question that Peter confronted in his mission to Cornelius has long since been resolved, the general debate of what makes a Christian a Christian has continued throughout history. In the 300s, church people fought over whether you had to believe in the Trinity to be a Christian . In the 1500s, Luther challenged the church's belief in salvation through works. And today we argue about whether a person can be a Christian if they believe in gay rights, or accept the authority of women clergy, or believe that we share a common ancestory with other primates. But to insist that you can only claim the name of Christ if you conform to a certain set of beliefs is like the Chihuahua telling the St. Bernard, "You can't be a dog because you are too big."

Peter protested, "God, Cornelius isn't even circumsized. How can he be a Christian?" and God said to him, "What does that have to do with following Jesus?" And Peter sputtered and stalled but couldn't come up with a good argument against God, and so he went and welcomed this strange looking beast into the fold, and the church was forced to figure out what exactly it does mean to be a Christian. And we've been trying to figure it out ever since.

So let me be bold enough to attempt to answer 2000 years of debate and suggest that we can tell a Christian not by how they look or how they dress or what they eat or who they marry but by how they behave, especially toward others. To be a Christian is to follow Jesus -- to be a Christian is to follow Jesus -- and to follow Jesus means to live our lives in the same fullness of love toward God and love toward others that Jesus demonstrated.

To follow Jesus means to believe, as Jesus believed, that there is a God who is greater than anything we can imagine, whose strength will lift us when we are weary, whose mercy will forgive us when we falter, whose healing touch will mend our wounded hearts, and whose light will transform our despair into hope. To follow Jesus means to anchor our lives in this God because we know that with God we can be more than we could ever possibly be without God.

And to follow Jesus is to love others even to the point of giving up our own needs for the sake of others if that is what is necessary to ensure their wholeness. To follow Jesus is to stop acting like the world is all about you and start accepting that the world is all about us, that we cannot be whole healthy people unless we learn to listen to others, and to give of ourselves to others, and to love unselfishly.

Jesus promised that the person who is willing to lose his or her life for others for Christ's will ending up save their own lives and he went all the way to the cross to demonstrate the truth of his promise. And so to follow Jesus means to understand that the only true path to happiness and joy is to give of ourselves to others because it leads not only to their salvation but to ours.

There is a commercial on my local Buffalo television station for Hillside Children's Home. In this commercial, a woman talks about her experience in taking in foster children from Hillside. She explains that after her husband died, she realized that she had an awful large house for just one person so she decided to open her home to some of the kids from Hillside Children's Center and eventually, she ended up adopting the children. At the end of the commercial she says, "I thought I would change their lives and they ended up transforming mine." Every time I hear that commercial, I want to add, "Luke 9:24"

"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it."

To follow Jesus is to understand that our salvation lies in embracing his love of God and his love of others even to the point of the cross because on the other side of the cross Christ promises we will find resurrection, new life, and unexpected joy.

God said to Peter, "Go to Cornelius. I don't care if he's a Jew or a Gentile. I don't care if he's tall or short. I don't care whether he is white or black or polka dots with stripes. I don't care if he eats meat or is a vegetarian, if he reads the King James Version or the New Revised Standard Bible, if he takes the wine from the chalice or the juice from the cup. I don't actually care about all of those things that get you people all so hepped up. All I care about is whether he will follow Jesus, and I think he will, so welcome him into the fold."

And Peter swallowed his protests and his fears, and swung open the door of the church.