Peter does a hospitable thing and invites the Gentile men to lodge with him before they set out on their journey.

Transcription

1 Acts While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days. This is a remarkable story that we often fail to recognize for its impact on the early church and for what it means to us today. This is just the final snapshot of a much longer story and series of events. Peter before this point has had a vision the one of the sheet and the whole array of animals, including those forbidden to Jews to eat. And God tells him to get up and kill and eat. Peter refuses and tells God that he has never eaten anything profane or unclean. The response? What God has made clean, you must not call profane. Peter is puzzling over this vision when suddenly he is confronted by Gentile men, sent by the Roman Centurion Cornelius who is also a Gentile. The men tell him that an angel has told Cornelius to fetch Peter and they are here to invite him to go with them to the house of Cornelius. Peter does a hospitable thing and invites the Gentile men to lodge with him before they set out on their journey. Why is that so remarkable? Peter is puzzled by a vision and the appearance of the men and their surprising invitation. He hasn t quite grasped but is beginning to understand that the mission the disciples were commissioned for by Jesus, included the very people considered unclean by the Jewish faith. He is beginning to embody this new gospel of inclusion by offering hospitality to those who are on the fringes and outside the establishment. And then follows the event at Cornelius s house that we read of in today s text which tells us that the impetuosity of the Holy Spirit interrupts Peter s speech and falls upon all who are listening. Perhaps this is the Gentile version of Pentecost? The Jewish and circumcised believers present were astounded at this outpouring of the Holy Spirit even on Gentiles! Did you hear that little, slightly outraged nuance in the story as if they still can t quite get their heads around it. This is a story that erases the barriers between who s in and who s out. Artificial delineations between people define and reinforce identity. We continue to put people in boxes and categorize them as in or out, depending on where we come from and who we are. God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, demonstrates in this small but significant

2 story, that there are no barriers to inclusion in the kingdom that Jesus death and resurrection ushered in. For all things God created are clean and you must not call them profane. This is what love is: the ability to welcome and invite and offer hospitality to those on the fringes or from the other side, those who we don t identify with, those who look or sound different or whose beliefs don t quite match ours. Peter, though lacking understanding, stepped out in faith to follow God s call. Peter was obedient to the call of God and the Holy Spirit and witnessed the incredible outpouring of God s grace and love on an unexpected people. Peter trusted God to honour his step of faith and obedience. Peter began to erase the boundaries that existed between Jew and Gentile and subsequently blurred the lines between clean and profane until all was refined by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

3 1 John Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ* has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. John explores the interweaving of faith, love and obedience, centred in Jesus Christ in this section from his first epistle. A perfect segue from the first reading from Acts. Faith sometimes without understanding persuades us to be obedient to our God who loves us and calls us to love others. Our belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God draws us into this intricacy of the Love triangle. As disciples of Christ we know we are loved as beloved children, just as Christ is loved, and as a beloved child, we love God who calls us to love all his children no matter the boundaries and barriers and artificial delineations society creates.

4 John As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one s life for one s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants* any longer, because the servant* does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. It s easy! All you need is love! Play All You Need is Love by the Beatles It isn t always easy. It isn t easy to love those that everybody tells you to be frightened of. It isn t easy to love someone you don t understand. It isn t easy to love someone whose story doesn t intersect with yours. It isn t easy to love those who are different; whose language, beliefs, way of life and world views are not ours. But if we are obedient to the commission from Jesus Christ to love one another as we are loved, then we must find a way. For we are chosen. We are first invited and then sent, chosen and challenged to obedience, loved and called to love. So, like Peter, what dearly held habits of belief do we need to question and puzzle over in order to erase the barriers and boundaries that contain not just others but also ourselves? What boxes of our own construction do we need to break open in order to be surprised by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? How do we erase those artificial delineations so we can freely traverse into those foreign lands of others? Stepping in faith without understanding and trusting in God to do a new thing in us as we love others as we have been commanded. In obedience we trust that God calls us to usher in the kingdom that Jesus heralded. As that great philosopher Winnie the Pooh said:

5 Love is taking a few steps backward, maybe even more.. to give way to the happiness of the person you love. For there s nothing that can be done that can t be done. We can do all things in the strength of God and in the presence of the impetuous Holy Spirit who pours out blessing in the most surprising places and situations. Even here? Even those? Even now? Whenever I visit Bandyup prison, the Holy Spirit is there in abundance. This is a place of all types of barriers. Women, constrained and contained within the physical barriers of our construction, and further contained and constrained by the invisible barriers of who they are and what their stories are. Women, remote from our experience of life, whose stories do not intersect with ours. They may as well speak a different language for they walk a vastly different trajectory than ours. We may, like the circumcised companions in Acts, well be astounded that the Holy Spirit would fall abundantly on even these outcasts of society. But the Holy Spirit is not constrained by the barriers we erect and like Peter, we may also ask what is to stop us from welcoming them into the fullness of God s kingdom? In faith, we step into their world, not understanding what or why God has called us to but trusting that we will be surprised by the Holy Spirit. In obedience, we step into their world, carrying the love God has for them in our hearts and trusting that God will show us how to love. And, as we are invited to participate in the feast, so we in turn invite them to hear the good news God has for them and for all of us. Is it easy? Not always. But in faith, trust and obedience, our acts of love will bear fruit in the fulfillment of God s kingdom. The Lord be with you.

6 A poem by George Herbert (not included in the sermon) sums this up: Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked anything. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth, Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, says Love and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.