This Changes Everything (Kerry Border)

Acts 10:44-48

10:44 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.

10:45 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,

10:46 for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said,

10:47 "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"

10:48 So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

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I was in a doctor’s office this week, waiting for my name to come up, and I couldn’t help noticing how much the place had changed since I last was there.   (I don’t see doctors very often – it had been about 8 years since I had seen this particular doctor.)  Oh yes, the furniture was the same, in the same places, the fireplace was still there with the fake flames flickering behind the glass.  And the flat screen TV was on the wall serving up the daily dose of talk shows.  But what was missing were the magazines – those things used to be the best business maker for doctors – just imagine all those sick people passing their germs around so repeat visits were guaranteed.   I had to go to a separate area to find a meager stack of reading material.

I looked around and I saw that virtually everyone in the office was intently focused on one of these things (hold up cell phone).  Yes, there would be an occasional glance at the TV, but for the most part, those present were engaged in electronic isolation from their surroundings.  A streaker could have run through the room and there would have been no witnesses.

Years ago, far too many years when I lived in rural Ohio, a trip to town was a social event.  You would see people you knew on the streets on in the stores and you would stop and chat with them to catch up with what was going on in their lives.  That rarely happens in the hurry-up world of today.  Times certainly have changed.

When I read today’s Gospel passage, it caused me to reflect about how things have changed so much and how they were changing during the times of the Early Church. 

The lesson is only five verses long and only says that Peter had spoken, the Holy Spirit filled those listening, they praised God, and Peter baptized them and stayed with them a few days.  Not a lot of information – kind of like tuning in the end of a movie and wondering what it was all about.  We don’t even know who was baptized!

You have to read the entire chapter 10 of Acts to get the full impact of what was going on here.  I’m not going to read all of it to you, but here is the summary:

We are introduced to Cornelius – Roman Centurion, powerful, wealthy, but God-fearing, a good man with a good family who cared for the poor and did good things.

An angel appeared to him saying that his right living had been seen by God and he needed to hear a message from a man named Peter who was in the nearby city, Joppa.  The angel told him to send 3 men to bring Peter to him.

Meanwhile in Joppa, Peter had been staying with a tanner named Simon.  While on a rooftop praying, Peter had a vision:

¹¹ He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. ¹² It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. ¹³ Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”

¹⁴ “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”

¹⁵ The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

¹⁶ This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

While Peter was still thinking about this, the three guys from Caesarea showed up to take him away to Cornelius’ house.  The Spirit told Peter that these men were OK and Cornelius was a good man, respected by all Jewish people in the community – so he went.

When Peter got to Cornelius’ house, Cornelius told him about the angel appearing and saying that a man named Peter had a message for him.

How many times in Peter’s life do you think he’s been invited into the home of a Gentile? Never happened before. That’s to be unclean—that’s to embrace someone you don’t want to embrace—that’s scary.

Peter, if you walk over that threshold, you will never be the same again.

But God says, “Go.” There’s a person with an eternal destiny that turns out to be sort of like Peter.

…Peter enters the house. (Acts 10: 25)

He goes through the open door, and the world is never the same again. He tells Cornelius,

Here’s good news.  A man named Jesus came, sent by God.  He went around doing good and healing people, but He was crucified on a cross one day.  Then He rose again, and I was there, and I saw Him.  Now He’s alive, and forgiveness of sins and newness of life are available to anybody who wants it.  We all thought it was just for us, but now I’m starting to find out that it was for everybody.

These were big changes in thinking for Peter to accept. 

First of all, in the time of the Disciples there were no second generation believers.  Everyone was a convert – Jewish people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah who died for the forgiveness of all sins and rose again from the dead.  But they stubbornly held on to many of their old Jewish beliefs as well – the necessity for circumcision, not eating “unclean” animals, avoiding contact with Gentiles, observing Jewish high holy days.  These were still strict rules from the Old Covenant. 

Peter was no exception – he believed these things, too.  But he had also seen Jesus speak with and even heal Gentiles, he had seen Jesus heal on the Sabbath, he had heard Jesus speak about having “other sheep” besides the Jewish believers.  I’m sure these things helped Peter realize that the Good News of the Gospel wasn’t just for Jewish people.

Last week, Pastor Jill used the scripture story about a Jewish proselyte – the Ethiopian eunuch given understanding of the Gospel by the Apostle Phillip and immediately baptized. 

Today’s message takes it one step further, Cornelius and his household were not converted to Judaism before being baptized – no circumcision, no sacrificial rituals, no special diets, no social restrictions – simply a belief that Jesus died for them so they could have eternal life and for that expression of belief and faith, the Holy Spirit entered them.  Jesus preached inclusiveness, not exclusiveness.

When we study the life of Peter as the Bible tells it, we see a person who has all the frailties and imperfections we all have.  He came from the wrong side of the tracks – he was a fisherman, pretty much a subsistence way of living, not highly regarded by the Jewish community.  He probably didn’t visit the synagogue frequently or get to Jerusalem very often.  Yet, he was called by Jesus to give up his occupation and be His disciple – big change.

Peter had to learn to live by faith instead of the strength of his own hands and instincts –  another big change.

Peter often learned that things he said in haste would come back to haunt him – as much as I like fishing, too, I share the same experiences as that old fisherman, Peter.

In today’s message we find Peter abandoning those pillars of Jewish law – diet, circumcision, rejecting outsiders.  Huge changes.

If you read on through the Book of Acts, you will find Peter explaining all these things to the other Apostles in Jerusalem.  And if you read his letters written later in life, you will see a changed man, far different than the fisherman of Galilee, or even the one who stood at the side of Jesus on the mountain at the transfiguration.

I think the message here today is that when we follow Jesus we, as individuals, must keep our minds open to change.  But we should not do it blindly.  Just like Peter, we must confirm what Spirit is speaking to us.  Even though change causes us to move from our comfort zone, Peter was comfortable with accompanying strangers to a Gentile’s house because the Spirit said it was OK and the circumstances matched up with what all sources of information were telling him.  Likewise we must be discerning in our approach to changes in our lives.

As a church, we also must embrace change.  I spoke of the cell phone users in my opening.  We must learn how to adapt to that change and use that medium to help spread the Good News to a world that needs it.  To do that, we will have to do things differently, otherwise we will become just as isolated as the Jewish community was in Biblical times.

In just the past few years I have seen this church make major changes from being two congregations worshipping separately, to becoming two congregations yoked together under a common leadership, then to a single combined congregation worshipping in one location.  Through all those changes we were known as being a welcoming church and we still are.  I often said that the old Peace Church was one of the best kept secrets in Macomb County, but once you got around the people in fellowship, you would keep coming back.  I think the Utica Church and now the New Life Church share that same distinction.

But now is the time when we must face change again.  I’m not talking about people coming and going from our fellowship – I think that’s a healthy part of a Church family – the seed must fall from the plant and grow elsewhere for the Gospel to spread.  I think we need transform from a welcoming church to being an inviting church. 

There are folks all around us that need to hear the message of Jesus’ love for them and that love is best expressed through each and every one of us.  Perhaps the question is how much do we have to dislike someone else to not invite them to our church?  When you think about that, it’s not about like or dislike – it’s about indifference, that same indifference I was observing the cell phones in the doctor’s office.  Indifference on our part does not immediately affect our present situation, but we don’t know what might be going on with the person next to us.  We won’t find out if we don’t ask.  And we won’t ask if we don’t care – that’s indifference.

In the past year, I’ve probably seen more doctors than I have in the past ten years.  All of the doctors produced a list of medical conditions and asked whether any pertain to me.  The one they seem to emphasize the most is “are you depressed or have been depressed in the past year”.   What I tell them is “I don’t have time to be depressed!”  But the truth is depression is far more prevalent today than ever before.  Why - because the world has stopped caring.  Depressed people are disconnected with the people and the community around them – they feel lost and don’t see any way to recover from their despair.

Jesus observed, “The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few”. 

Who, out there, is waiting for your invitation?  Who has God sent or will send to you today who needs to belong to a community that cares enough to connect with them and make a difference in their life?

And here’s the secret, my friends, not only will that person’s life be changed – your life will be changed, too.

I think the most important part of this story of Peter and Cornelius is in verse 34:

Then Peter began to speak. “Now I realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts people from every nation.”  

What a marvelous insight!  Who was converted here - Cornelius or Peter?

God does not show favoritism, but it is entirely human to do so.

Do we have any school teachers here today?  We’ve all heard about “teacher’s pets” and most teachers will say they don’t have favorites, but that’s shading the truth a bit.

I read a story a while back by Dale Galloway about a teacher named Jean Thompson and one of her students, Teddy Stollard, who was disinterested in school, who wore wrinkled clothes, whose hair was never combed, unattractive, unmotivated, distant, just plain hard to like.  

Even though his teacher said she loved everybody in her class the same, inside she wasn’t really being truthful. Every time she marked Teddy’s papers, she got a certain perverse pleasure out of putting XXX’s next to the wrong answers, and when she put the F’s at the top of the paper, she always did it with a flair.

She should have known better. She had Teddy’s records. She knew more about him than she wanted to admit. The records read:

First Grade: Teddy shows promise with his work and attitude, but a poor home situation.

Second Grade: Teddy could do better. His mother is seriously ill, and he receives little help at home.

Third Grade: Teddy is a good boy, but too serious. He’s a slow learner. His mother died this year.

Fourth Grade: Teddy is very slow, but well-behaved. His father shows no interest.

Christmas came, and the boys and girls in Miss Thompson’s class brought her Christmas presents on her desk and crowded around to watch her open them. Among them was one from Teddy Stollard. She was surprised that he had brought her a gift, but he had. It was wrapped in brown paper, held together with Scotch tape. On the paper were the simple words,

For Miss Thompson from Teddy.

When she opened Teddy’s present, out fell a gaudy rhinestone bracelet with half the stones missing and a bottle of cheap perfume. Other boys and girls began to giggle and smirk over Teddy’s gifts, but Miss Thompson at least had enough sense to silence them by putting on the bracelet, putting some of the perfume on her wrist and holding it up for some of the other children to smell. She said,

Doesn’t this smell lovely?

And the children, taking their cue from the teacher, readily agreed.

At the end of the day, when school was over and the other children had left, Teddy lingered. He slowly came over to her desk and said softly,

Miss Thompson, Miss Thompson. You smell just like my mother, and her bracelet looks real pretty on you too. I’m glad you like my presents.

When Teddy left, Miss Thompson got down on her knees and asked God to forgive her. Next day when the children came to school, they were welcomed by a new teacher. Miss Thompson had become a different person. She was now a person committed to loving her children and doing things for them that would live on after her. She helped all the children, but especially the slow ones, and especially Teddy Stollard. By the end of that school year, Teddy showed dramatic improvement. He had caught up with most of the students and was even ahead of some.

She didn’t hear from Teddy for a long time, and then one day, she received a note.

Dear Miss Thompson, I wanted you to be the first to know. I will be graduating second in my class. Love, Teddy Stollard.

Four years later, another note came:

Dear Miss Thompson. They just told me I’ll be graduating first in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know that the university hasn’t been easy, but I liked it. Love, Teddy Stollard.

Four years later,

Dear Miss Thompson, As of today, I am Theodore Stollard, MD. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am getting married next month, the 27th to be exact. I want you to come and sit where my mother would sit if she were alive. You are the only family I have now. Dad died last year. Love, Teddy Stollard.

What would have become of Teddy in another time, another place?

In the Kingdom, people make space for those they do not have to make space for.  One day, God did that for you.

God asks you,

Will you do that for the people I send into your life?

Will you do that?

Amen