Sermon for May 9, 2021 Easter 6 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Acts 10:44-48, 11:1-4, 15-18 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
About 15 years ago, my wife Beth Ann and I went on a trip to Germany. This was a church trip, mostly with other pastors. We visited lots of different ministries over there, and along the way were treated to some great hospitality, which began right from the start. We landed, and our hosts drove us to our first destination--a church fellowship hall. So after a full day of driving, shuffling through airports, flying, and more driving, what did the first church we arrived at have for us weary travelers? Brats and beer! (This is Germany, remember.)
Oh, boy, did that look good for a little jolt of energy! I picked up a glass and bottle and began to pour, not thinking anything of it. One of the local German pastors hurried over and tried to stop me, but it was too late. My glass was too short, and I didn’t realize that this beer was the local “Hefeweizen”. As I poured, it quickly foamed up over the top and ran down the side of the glass. In order to successfully pour a hefeweizen, I learned that you had to very slowly pour it into a very tall glass held very carefully at a 45 degree angle. I had to unlearn my preconceived notions of pouring beer into a glass in order to adapt to a new situation.
Have you ever been in a situation like that? Where something that you knew for certain, just wasn’t so anymore? Well, that’s what happened to St. Peter in today’s reading from the Book of Acts, where we catch the tail end of the story. Earlier in the chapter, Peter has had the most amazing encounter with Cornelius, a Roman army officer. If you have a few minutes, I encourage you to read all of Acts 10, and you’ll see how the Holy Spirit led these two men to a life-changing conversation for both of them, in a town along the Mediterranean coast. But before that conversation happened, God was preparing the way by speaking to Cornelius in a vision, telling him to look for a man named Peter.
The next day, God spoke to Peter in his dreams. In the dream, Peter saw the heavens opened and something like a large sheet being lowered to the ground. A voice says, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” Peter replies, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything unclean.” Peter thinks he is being tested or tempted to violate the kosher laws. This happens three times until Peter wakes up feeling “greatly puzzled” about the meaning of this dream. (We’ve all probably had dreams that leave us feeling that way.) This is the moment when the people Cornelius had sent to find Peter, find him, and the Holy Spirit nudges Peter to go with them to meet Cornelius. When Cornelius greets Peter he says, “You have been kind enough to come. So please, tell all of us here what God has for you to say.”
By his openness to go and meet people where they’re at, Peter has just earned from them the invitation to tell the story of Jesus. So what does Peter tell them? That Jesus preached a message of peace for all. Jesus went about doing good, and healing, and caring for the oppressed. About how Jesus’ grace and mercy upset the status quo, so the religious and political leaders conspired to crucify him--but on the third day after his death and burial, God raised him from the dead to put an exclamation point on the good news that the way of Jesus had been the right way all along.
Then Peter started talking about the responsibility of Jesus’ followers to “tell the story”, and to let everyone know that whoever believes in Jesus has the forgiveness of sins. And this is when Peter gets the hint that he’s done enough talking, as the Holy Spirit falls upon all who were listening. The Holy Spirit is basically saying, “Hey, Peter, these Gentiles (who you wouldn’t have much to do with before) already believe--even if, in your eyes previous to this point, they did not belong. Well, guess what? They do belong! Just as much as you do!” Here God was at work, tearing down the boundaries; making one new humanity from all the ways we’ve tried to create divisions among each other.
With the Holy Spirit’s nudging, Peter was unlearning his preconceived notions. FIrst he was unlearning the rules of what kind of meat he was allowed to eat. Next he was unlearning his preconceived notions of who was part of the family of God. The Holy Spirit is always way ahead of us in inspiring people to have God as part of their lives. The question for Peter back then--and for us today--is, can we catch up to where the Holy Spirit was already been? Can we open our hearts and minds to see who else, besides ourselves, that God is already at work in?
By taking a leap of faith, Peter did catch up with the Holy Spirit. He stopped talking and started baptizing. He built a new partnership between himself (a Jewish believer) and Cornelius (a Gentile believer), where previously they wouldn’t have had much to do with each other. And this happy news of the power of God at work traveled fast, all the way to Jerusalem where the apostles were. So when Peter gets back there to visit his fellow apostles, how do they react? They get mad at him! They criticize him! “Why did you eat with those people? You know you’re not supposed to have anything to do with them!”
So Peter explained it to the apostles: How telling the story of Jesus isn’t about expecting other people to become like us, or to come to us first. It’s about us going to meet them where they’re at, just as God meets us where we’re at, so that God can transform all of us together into the people God needs us to be.
Peter knew that Cornelius along with his household and fellow soldiers needed God in their lives. That’s why Peter told them the story of Jesus. What Peter didn’t yet realize was that they already had God as part of their lives--all they needed was the chance to become full partners in the community of Christ. For this to happen, Peter had to unlearn his previous assumptions, so that God could do something new through him, and help Peter see the good in people that maybe he had never really looked for before. Peter explained that the Holy Spirit had fallen upon the Gentiles just as it had once fallen upon Peter and his fellow apostles.
Well, at this point, the apostles were silent. Can you imagine what Peter was feeling right then? Like, “uh-oh, what are they gonna say now.” But what their silence meant was that it finally dawned on them what they’d been missing. God had just helped them unlearn their preconceived notions, and opened their eyes to something they had never considered before. So--they praised God! This was another Easter experience for the apostles, because they witnessed how the Holy Spirit had raised up new life in Christ, and they saw for themselves what it looks like when Christ’s love and grace overflow into all kinds of people.
Ya know, to go back to my experience of pouring the hefeweizen beer in Germany, maybe that wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe that foam overflowing from my glass is a good analogy to help us see how God’s love and grace overflows for all people. It overflows and can’t be contained! Amen.