The Book of Acts is the Holy Spirit’s story. From
beginning to end, God—through the Spirit—drives
disciples to deeper devotion and to wider welcome.
In Acts, the story starts with the ascension of Jesus
and moves quickly to Pentecost, that day when the
unrestrained, untamed Spirit of God blew through a
gathering of believers bringing unity of faith and giving
birth to the Church. From there, Acts tells us how God
shapes this community and how the church struggles to
keep pace with God’s expansive and expanding vision.
Peter is the posterchild for this struggle, this tension.
Peter, that sturdy stone singled out by Jesus to lead
the emerging movement. Peter was an adaptive leader
before there were business school courses on the
topic or popular podcasts. Repeatedly, Peter must
respond to the ceaseless stirring of the Spirit. His firmly
entrenched, most deeply held convictions are shaken
to the core. He is a witness to the disruptive, chaotic,
life-changing, freeing, unencumbered power of the
Holy Spirit, and he must decide how to respond to the
Spirit’s movement. In time, he learns to trust, to trust the
promise that God is bigger than he had ever imagined.
Here is how it happened for Peter. On the day of
Pentecost, his transformation begins. There, in the
middle of the city, the Spirit of God descends on a
diverse gathering of people, people from all nations, all
languages, all perspectives. And Peter recognizes the
moment for what it is. He finds the words he needs in
the prophet Joel that fit the occasion: “In those days
it will be, God declares, that I shall pour out my Spirit
upon all flesh…and everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved.” Peter preaches those
words, and then he gets to work, proclaiming and
teaching, caring for the poor and the sick, serving the
community, preaching the gospel with his words and
in his deeds. His ministry is to his own people, faithful
fellow Jews who know the law and the prophets,
who keep the commandments, who are rooted in the
traditions of the faith.
But this all changes in chapter ten, when a messenger
of God visits a man named Cornelius, a Roman military
commander living in Caesarea—and most importantly,
a Gentile. The messenger tells Cornelius to search for a
man called Peter. And meanwhile, on the other side of
town, Peter is praying, and he too has a vision, a vision
of God breaking down the boundaries that separated
Jews from Gentiles. To his shock and surprise, Peter is
commanded to eat food that he had been taught was
unclean. When he protests, the voice of God responds
with words that I believe were about far more than food.
“What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
Now, those words are so shocking that they are
repeated three times in this chapter. Peter is told to
search for Cornelius and, when the two finally meet,
Peter describes the transformation he has experienced.
He says to Cornelius, “You yourself know that it is
unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but
God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane
or unclean.” Now just imagine the headlines the next
day! Christian-Jewish leader breaks the commands of
God, associates with a Gentile in public!
In public is where Peter speaks the words you just heard.
It is a proclamation of the gospel, a personal testimony to
transformation. Peter declares, “God shows no partiality.”
Now I don’t want you to miss this because what Peter
describes is a previously unimaginable shift. You
see, Peter has spent his entire life believing in a God
who shows partiality. Partiality to the chosen, to the
inner circle, to those born under the promises of God,
given the law and the covenant. Peter’s most deeply
held conviction was of a God who was partial to a
particular people…until he is given a new picture of
God’s expansive grace. In other words, Peter has come
to believe more in the Holy Spirit than in his carefully
constructed ideology. He becomes convinced that God
is bigger than he had previously imagined.
And what if it is true? What if all the boundaries and
boxes and barriers we build are no match for the
expanding reach of God’s grace? Could this gospel
good news also be the vision we need most now?
Could being confronted by the reality of a frustratingly
impartial God crush our tribal loyalties and our selfish
certainties? And might that destruction be a deeper
form of freedom?
I just love what happens next in the story. While Peter
is preaching, the Spirit of God falls on all who are
listening, and I mean all. Jew and Gentile, men and
women, insiders and outsiders, believers and skeptics,
clean and unclean, sophisticated and simple. All
people. Those insiders who had come with Peter from
Jerusalem are astounded, shocked, scandalized by
the Spirit of God given to the Gentiles. But Peter has
been prepared, and he knows just what to do. He stops
the sermon. Imagine that. In the middle of making his
point, in the middle of laying out his argument, Peter
just stops. In fact, this half-finished homily is the last
speech Peter will give. Instead of preaching, he asks
the question on all their minds: can we withhold the
water of baptism from those whom God has claimed?
For Peter, the answer is obvious. All his protective
barriers and exclusive restrictions are no match for
the Spirit’s radical acceptance. These outsiders are
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and the Church
is set on a new course. All because Peter, our adaptive
leader, dared to believe more in the Spirit than his
formerly made-up mind.
Isn’t it a powerful story? All week long I’ve been
wondering if it could happen again, if somehow this
account from the Book of Acts could be more than
a chapter in Church History. All week long I’ve been
wondering if the stirring of the Spirit could once again
open our hearts that have been shut tight, or reverse
the process that has turned our neighbors into enemies
and our disagreements into divorces. The conviction
that we call faith would tell us that these stories are
not restricted to the past. Our faith would tell us
that there is nothing inevitable about the alarming
disharmony we all experience in this moment. There
is nothing inevitable about it. Our faith would tell us
that the same Spirit of God still speaks, if we have the
ears to listen and the will to answer. All week long I’ve
been contemplating our desperate need for a vision
of something bigger, something more significant and
meaningful and sacred than our tight-fisted ideologies
and our small-minded tribal identities. What if God is
bigger than we had ever imagined? And I mean bigger
than your fears. I mean bigger than your judgment. I
mean bigger than your politics. I mean bigger than our
impulse to divide and sort and criticize and condemn.
I mean big enough for all. And listen to this: especially
for the very one you are mostly likely to exclude. Bigger.
Now you see, we would never do it this way. Thank
God we are not in control here.
There was a birthday this week. It passed with almost
no acknowledgment at all, and the birthday boy
would have been so pleased by that. It was the 515th
anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the founder
of what we now call Presbyterianism. I had a quiet
celebration, personal, private. I listened again to an
interview with our most distinguished living Calvinist
theologian, the writer Marilynne Robinson. And in
response to a question about Calvin’s legacy, here is
what she said. “Calvinism was made to evolve. But
Calvin was making some very valuable suggestions
to us, and one of them was certainly this: that any
encounter with another human being is an encounter
with God. And there is always a question, and the
question is always this: what would God want from
this encounter?”
All week long I’ve been wondering how this insight
could change the way we practice our faith. If you want
a Christian message for our nation, could we start with
this one? That every encounter with another human
being is an encounter with God.
It’s what Peter came finally to recognize, to celebrate,
to preach, to stake his life on. It is what we must
appreciate as well. If God shows no partiality, if the
Spirit of God has come to all, then every human
encounter is a vision of the divine.
My friends, you will never meet another person whom
God does not love with the same passion and the same
determination that has been poured out for you. Every
face created in the image of God. Every child precious
in her Creator’s sight. Each moment a question—what
does God want from this encounter?
So, what of us, this community of disciples we call
Second Presbyterian Church in the city of Indianapolis?
Might we erase the dividing lines between us? Could
we engage our literal neighbors who have been
strangers to us? Could we climb down from our
platforms of self-righteousness and separateness to
stand with those who suffer? Could we draw a wider
circle? Could we believe in a bigger God?
I’m convinced that the church the Spirit is pleading with
us to become is the bold vision the world needs most
right now. These days it is so easy to think small. It is so
easy to close the ranks, hunker down, lash out, restrict
access, plug our ears, and shout our truth.
So easy. But not faithful.
Every encounter with each human being, a vision of God.
The question is this: Can we withhold the blessing of
God from those who need it most? You already know
the answer.