Widening the Welcome, Shining the Light – sermon on January 8, 2017
Acts 10 In Caesarea there lived a Roman army officer named Cornelius, who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. He was a devout, God-fearing man, as was everyone in his household. He gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God. One afternoon about three o’clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him. “Cornelius!” the angel said. Cornelius stared at him in terror. “What is it, sir?” he asked the angel.
And the angel replied, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! Now send some men to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is staying with Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.” As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier, a personal attendant. He told them what had happened and sent them off to Joppa.
The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry. But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.” “No, Lord,” Peter declared. “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.” But the voice spoke again: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” The same vision was repeated three times. Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.
Peter was very perplexed. What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent by Cornelius found Simon’s house. Standing outside the gate, they asked if a man named Simon Peter was staying there. Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you. Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.” So Peter went down and said, “I’m the man you are looking for. Why have you come?”
They said, “We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so that he can hear your message.” So Peter invited the men to stay for the night. The next day he went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa.
They arrived in Caesarea the following day. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. As Peter entered his home, Cornelius fell at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter pulled him up and said, “Stand up! I’m a human being just like you!” So they talked together and went inside, where many others were assembled.
Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean. So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. Now tell me why you sent for me.”
Cornelius replied, “Four days ago I was praying in my house about this same time, three o’clock in the afternoon. Suddenly, a man in dazzling clothes was standing in front of me. He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been noticed by God! 32 Now send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.”
Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who revere him and do what is right. This is the message of Good News for the people of Israel – that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after John began preaching his message of baptism. And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.
And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all – the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”
Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. For they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.
Then Peter asked, “Can anyone object to their being baptized, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” So he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterward Cornelius asked him to stay with them for several days.
Widening the Welcome, Shining the Light by Rev. Doreen Oughton
So, Peter. You remember Peter – Simon Peter, one of the first disciples called by Jesus. He has been on quite the roller coaster ride since he left his nets to follow the one he soon came to see was the Messiah, the son of God. Peter has mostly been all in – often getting ahead of himself. He stepped out of the boat eagerly to walk w/ Jesus on water, then started to go under when he saw where he was. He was one of the first to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah, which pleased Jesus so much he said he would build his church upon this man of rock-solid faith. And he irritated Jesus – with his arguments with the others about who was greater among them, who would be at the right hand of Jesus in the kingdom; with his adamant resistance to Jesus’ plan to go to Jerusalem to face his persecution and death. Right after declaring his love and allegiance to Jesus, he denied him – 3 times. And three times after the resurrection Jesus asked him, Peter, do you love me? Yes Lord. Feed my sheep. Peter was there when the fire of the holy spirit anointed all the disciples, and he step up as a leader, explaining what it all meant and baptizing thousands of people who were moved by what they saw, and by what Peter said. Jesus did a lot of work on Peter. I can’t think of another disciple who got so much print – who was so eager, sometimes so misguided, and so willing to move forward.
There is a saying: God loves you just the way you are, and loves you too much to let you stay that way. It was true for Peter, and it is true for us, each of us as individuals, and for us as a church. I believe that God does not want us to get too comfortable with what we know, or think we know, or what we do, or how we do it. And I love that we have Peter as our example. He is not afraid to start where he is, to say “no” to Jesus, to talk about his understanding of things. But he is also willing to be moved – to hear a new word, to pay attention to a new vision, to go places he might be uncomfortable going. He is willing to set all this aside because of his commitment to his call to share the good news. He thought there were boundaries for who ought to hear it, but here those walls were shattered. He came to see that the limits were not of God, but of humans. He came to see that God’s love and mercy are prodigious – plenty enough to go around to Jews and gentiles, men & women, slave & free, Israelites and Romans.
What about us? Has our scope of ministry been more narrow than God would have? Have we gotten too comfortable with our discipleship – with who we serve and how we serve them? I think we have. Are there ways we can widen our welcome, do more to share the good news? Quite some time ago there was talk of entering into a process of discussion about what it would mean to widen our welcome to the LBGQT community, but nothing has happened. We had a consultant come in and recommend that we share and support each other in fulfilling the call to be good neighbors, but nothing has happened. We had one conversation about the problem of racism, and it seems people felt that was quite enough. Do we believe, as Peter did, that we have been called, that we are disciples of Jesus Christ, that God will guard and guide us in our work to bring and be the good news of love and mercy? Perhaps you are doing well with this in your personal walk, and that is great. But do we also see ourselves as members of this one body, and are we willing to make a commitment to work in and through this body? There are so many possibilities, so many dreams to dream, so many barriers to be lifted away. Our primary task is not to maintain this building or to have beautiful worship. Those things are meant to be tools or sustenance for our primary purpose – to carry the message of God’s love and mercy.
In 2019 this church will celebrate its 300-year anniversary. Such a history is to be cherished, and I’m sure we will spend time looking back at milestones, the ups and downs, the changes. Some may mourn or long for the past, but as disciples we are called to look forward more than back, to be open to new visions rather than trying to cling to or recreate old ones. I confess I am not sure how to help with this, how to increase your sense of call to discipleship, how to create fertile ground for new visions. Perhaps that is my shortcoming, but my hope and prayer is that it is holy ground to be on. For uncertainty is where the Spirit can really go to work. I just pray, pray, pray for the willingness to follow, and I pray you will follow as well. Our future has been foretold. May it be so.
