Sunday 18th May – Breaking Down Barriers – Pastor Rob Schubert

18-05-2025, 5C, Acts 11:1-18, Pastor Rob Schubert

The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticised him ³and said, ‘You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.’

⁴Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: ⁵‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. ⁶I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. ⁷Then I heard a voice telling me, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

⁸‘I replied, “Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”

⁹‘The voice spoke from heaven a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” ¹⁰This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

¹¹‘Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. ¹²The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, “Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. ¹⁴He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.”

¹⁵‘As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. ¹⁶Then I remembered what the Lord had said: “John baptised with^a]”>[a] water, but you will be baptised with^b]”>[b] the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁷So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?’

¹⁸When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.’

The work of Missionaries Clamor Schürmann and Christian Teichelmann intrigues and inspires me.

You can find out about them and the Kaurna people they served on the banks of the Torrens, near the 9 hole golf course on War Memorial Drive in Adelaide. The place is called Piltawodli – the place of the possum. It’s a good place to visit if you haven’t already done so.

Clamor Schürmann and Christian Teichelmann arrived on the same ship as Governor Gawler in 1838 and immediately set about learning and describing the Kaurna language. Within 18 months of their arrival, they published a sketch grammar, vocabulary of about 2,000 words and about 200 translated sentences.

On 23 December 1839, they opened a school at Piltawodli (place of the possum) which Schürmann together with Teichelmann and later Missionary Klose they taught in the Kaurna language for five and a half years. At the school at Piltawodli, Kaurna children were taught to read and write in Kaurna and several letters written by Kaurna children survive. The missionaries translated the Ten Commandments, six German hymns, a school prayer and some biblical truths into Kaurna. Schürmann left to take up a government position in Port Lincoln late in 1840.

Governor Gawler was supportive of their work, but when he was replaced by Governor Grey, there were some problems. In 1845, the school was closed down by Governor Grey, and the children forced to go to school in English speaking schools in the city. The settlement at Piltawodli was dismantled by soldiers, and the people dispersed. In fact, Governor Grey actually forbade the German missionaries from preaching in Kaurna as they were accustomed to doing. The colonists insisted on imposing English to the exclusion of all other languages. The Kaurna language was probably last spoken on a daily basis as early as the 1860s. Ivaritji is often said to have been the “last speaker” of the Kaurna language and she died in 1929.

Only recently through a project through Adelaide Uni and Kaurna elders has the Kaurna language been reclaimed

From Adelaide, Schürmann went to Port Lincoln to take up a government position in Pt Lincoln in September 1840. He met and befriended many of the local indigenous people – Barngarla Nauo people. He had much more to do with Barngarla people. By the end of the year, he has a vocabulary of 500 words, and continued developing and writing a working grammar and vocabulary of 2,000 words that was published in 1844, and operating a school for a while. And again, Schürmann’s work is being used in Pt Lincoln in the current project of reclaiming of the Barngarla language. Project directed by Prof Ghil’ard Zuckermann of Adelaide Uni. involving many local people.

Later he moved to Encounter Bay to work with Missionary Meyer. He bought land, and on 11 February 1847 Schürmann married with Lutheran rites Wilhelmine Charlotte Maschmedt, who came from his home town in Germany, Osnabrück. Must have been a huge decision for her to come from Germany to marry a man who had been in Australia for 9 years.

The mission in Encounter Bay failed, and Schürmann returned to Pt Lincoln in 1848. He took up a government position but also bought some land to farm and support himself. Clamor and Minnie lived and worked near North Shields and operated a school for local indigenous children.

Theirs is an amazing story – an inspiring story – A story of response to God’s call – coming to a country halfway across the world.

Clamor had amazing skills in linguistics – to learn three Australian languages so quickly is astounding – and equal skills in survival – at times with no financial support from Germany, they took government jobs or lived off the land to continue their work.

But it’s also a story about the boundaries that we human beings love to erect. In those days, there were boundaries and barriers – Germans, English, Aboriginal, Church denominations – even boundaries within denominations that were prohibitive.

Sadly, sometimes those barriers rear their heads, and we see people as Indigenous or non- indigenous, we make distinctions between those who have been in Australia for many generations and recent arrivals and asylum seekers; we even make distinctions between Liberal voters or Labor voters.

Yet it seems to me that often in the story of these early missionaries, God has his way when these human made barriers are broken and we meet as people, respecting one another and letting God do his work. And it seems to me that when we as human beings erect our own barriers and divisions, we get in the way of what God wants to do.

It’s ironic that the mythology around Missionaries is that they were responsible for taking away the culture of indigenous peoples. The reality of this story is that Schürmann was an active preserver of the language, and encouraged an active usage of language among the people – who wanted the people to meet Jesus in their own language and within their own culture without erecting barriers to meeting Jesus. It was, in fact, the colonial authorities under Governor Grey who were responsible for the somewhat less enlightened policy of removing language – of trying to make “them” like “us”.

This world of barriers and boundaries was very much a part of the world that the Apostles found themselves in.

They were a part of the Jewish nation. A small group of people in world population terms, who had survived captivity in Babylon, endured the conquering of their lands by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and now the Romans. Throughout these years they had remained faithful by carefully distinguishing between those who were part of the covenant with God and those who were not. The embattled Jewish minority only survived through the faithful honouring of boundaries and barriers between Jews and Gentiles.

So you can imagine the scene when Peter returns from his travels. He meets with the leaders, and they have concerns about boundaries. “You mean you went into Gentiles houses. You ate with them. You baptized them!! But they need to become one of us. They need to be circumcised to enter the covenant”

So Peter told them a story – the story of what God had showed him. He told them the story of a vision of a sheet with all sorts of unclean animals and a voice that says, “Kill and eat”.

Peter, a good Jewish man, could not eat an unclean animal. It’s against the Jewish law. It’s a barrier that dare not be crossed. But the voice replied “Do not consider anything unclean that that God has declared clean.”

Peter was obviously a slow learner, because this happened three times, and then the vision was gone. As soon as it was gone, there’s a knock on the front door, and three men who had been sent to him were there.

Peter recounts how the Spirit told him to go with them, and they all went to Cornelius’ place. Peter shared the Gospel with them, and they received the Holy Spirit. It was pretty clear that God was with them, so they were baptized. Peter says, “Who am I to try to stop God?”

The vision was not really about food at all. It was about people.

The Gentiles, who good Jewish people saw as unclean were really part of the people of God.

They don’t need to go through the Jewish rituals to become God’s people. God includes them, involves them, invites them.

And the leaders in the church rejoiced. They stopped criticizing Peter and said, “God has given to the Gentiles also the opportunity to repent and believe.”

Paul reflected this in 2 Corinthians 5:18

“God has done it all! He sent Christ to make peace between himself and us, and he has given us the work of making peace between himself and others.”

That was certainly the motivation for Schürmann in those early days of SA; that the people have the opportunity to get to know Jesus and experience the grace of God. Strange, isn’t it, that in an English dominated colony, we find a German man teaching children in language. And yet this is something of a parable for the church.

Whenever barriers are broken down; wherever the “other” is embraced in Christ, someone has caught the vision. Grace happens. And it’s an act of God reflecting the will of God.

Are there boundaries that have been erected by us? Are there times when we seek to have control?

The beauty of the church is that it is a gift from God. When we seek to create it in our own image, we limit God.

I read of a congregation that was a collection of people of many skin colours, languages and cultures.

A visiting pastor asked the local pastor,

“How did this happen”

The pastor replied, “God only knows”

The first pastor responded “No, I’m serious – How did this happen?”

He really wanted to know that programs, what techniques what leadership produced such a church.

The local pastor replied, “I’m serious too – God only knows. This congregation is not something I produced – it’s what God miraculously gave.”

What a great vision for the church – not something we produce – but something God has given.

God is in the business of breaking down barriers. That’s why Jesus came. Paul unpacks this in Eph 2:14 ff

“Christ has made peace between Jews and Gentiles, and he has united us by breaking down the wall of hatred that separated us. Christ gave his own body to destroy the Law of Moses with all its rules and commands. He even brought Jews and Gentiles together as though we were only one person, when he united us in peace.

On the cross Christ did away with our hatred for each other. He also made peace between us and God by uniting Jews and Gentiles in one body.

Christ came and preached peace to you Gentiles, who were far from God, and peace to us Jews, who were near God.

And because of Christ, all of us can come to the Father by the same Spirit.”

When that dividing wall of hostility comes down between us and God, it’s a taste of heaven.

And when our human made barriers are broken down, God works his miracle of gathering his people. A people who are living in the grace of God, loved and loving, forgiven and forgiving.

This is God’s design. What a difference it makes when we see the church as God’s design and gift rather than something we make.

Amen

Jesus, give us grace to reflect your design for your church. Where we have erected barriers between people, remind us that you have come to break down barriers between us and God and between people.

Give us grace to see and embrace your vision for all people

Pastor Rob Schubert