ALL SOULS’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH, STONY BROOK, NEW YORK

Acts 10:34-38 Epiphany 1A
January 13, 2008
All Souls’, Stony Brook

“God shows no partiality, but in every nation
anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

The lesson this morning from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is a record of one of the earliest sermons preached by an apostle. But what we heard this morning are the words of Peter after an experience that changed his understanding of the Good News of Jesus Christ. I’d like to tell you that rather long story (Acts10:1 ff.).

Christianity at this time is very new. Paul had been brought on board and was preaching to the Gentiles, but Peter and James and the other original apostles were still evangelizing only to the Jews. Now, in Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort. He is described as a devout man, who prayed constantly and gave liberally to the poor. One day he saw a vision of an angel of God, who said to him: “Send men to Joppa for a certain Simon, who is called Peter. He is lodging with … a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” And so he did.

The next day, Peter went up to the rooftop of the house to pray, and he became hungry. While he was waiting for his food, he fell into a trance and “saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.” And a voice came to him, saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” Peter was horrified and answered, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times, and then the sheet returned to heaven.

While Peter was still puzzling over this vision, the three men sent by Cornelius arrived. The Spirit told Peter to go with them as God had sent them. So Peter went. When he arrived at Cornelius’ home, he found a large crowd of Cornelius’ family, kinsmen and friends. To them, Peter said, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” Cornelius asks Peter to tell them what the Lord has commanded.

And that is where we come in. Peter told them, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” He continued to tell them about Jesus, and as he did, the Holy Spirit fell upon them all. “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.” And because Cornelius and his family and friends had received the Holy Spirit, Peter baptized them all.

Peter had done something quite remarkable. Here was a devout son of Israel, who had kept all the commandments of God, particularly the commandments about keeping kosher and not consorting with Gentiles, who went to the home of a Gentile, a Gentile army officer, head of the occupation forces in Jerusalem. He had not only gone to his home, he had eaten there and he had baptized him as a Christian. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Peter to stand before his own congregation and explain himself? He probably had difficulty explaining to himself, much less to the whole church, what had happened.

The church must learn Peter’s lesson over and over, again and again. Jesus was criticized for eating and consorting with sinners. Now the church was learning just how far God intends us to reach – even to the Gentiles. Again and again the church must learn where God is calling us to reach next. In our Anglican part of the church, we reached first geographically, outside our borders, “to the ends of the earth,” to Africa and the Far East. Our American branch of Anglicanism sent us to Central and South America.

Then we began a different kind of reach, to women, first, as we allowed them to become acolytes, then lectors, then Eucharistic ministers, then Deacons, and finally, in the late 1970s to become Priests. Parts of our Anglican Communion are still in denial that women are not, as Peter put it, “profane or unclean.” And now we are causing even more strife in our Communion by insisting that homosexuals are not “profaneb or unclean.” And we are finding that it is not easy to stand before our brothers and sisters in the faith and explain to them why we think this way. After all, to many of them, we are consorting with sinners. Because of our stance, the Anglican Communion may never be the same. Because of our stance, the Episcopal Church may never be the same. But how can we do otherwise, when God shows no partiality?

Let me leave you with another story – a short one this time. The Contemporary Christian singer, Ken Medema, said during a concert, “My little Baptist church in San Francisco is in big trouble. We’re Baptists, so we get all excited about baptizing anybody we can get our hands on. Well, these people showed up for baptism. We were so excited to receive them. They may have mentioned that they were different from most of the others of us. They may have said that they had a different “orientation” than ours. I don’t remember. So anyway, we did what Baptists do: we baptized them.

“Well, some other Baptists from other congregations asked, ‘What are you doing baptizing them? Don’t you know they are sinners? Don’t you know that our church doesn’t approve of their life-styles?’

“We replied that all of us are sinners too and that the church doesn’t approve of our lifestyles either! We’re Baptists. We baptize everybody that Jesus gets his hands on.”

Thanks be to God.

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