God Shows No Partiality

Our summer journey through Acts brings us this week to a story where two people from two different backgrounds are being convinced, converted, to trust a larger life in God. Acts 10 gives us Cornelius, a Roman centurion who prays and gives generously though he stands outside the covenant people of Israel. It also gives us Peter, who needs a vision of a sheet full of unclean animals, repeated three times, before he's willing to walk through Cornelius's door at all.

Similar to last week’s pattern with Saul and Ananias, we find a second conversion just as remarkable as the first. Peter isn't the villain of this story, but he does need converting too. He carries categories about who is in and who is out, categories he'd never thought to question, until the Spirit insists otherwise. "God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean," he tells Cornelius's household. That's not a small adjustment. It's a complete rearrangement of who belongs at the table.

And then something happens that neither Peter nor Cornelius planned. While Peter is still speaking the Word, the Holy Spirit falls on everyone listening. Not after baptism, and certainly not at the invitation of anyone even asking. The Spirit simply falls, and is always paired with the Word of resurrection life in Jesus, and where a Gentile and Jew alike now themselves immersed in a communion created from the same grace.

This is what the Spirit continues to do throughout Acts, bear witness to the power of Jesus’ resurrection by animating the Promise among us. She still does this today when the Word is being proclaimed and heard, forming community among people we did not expect to belong to one another, and before we have finished deciding who deserves it. Our calling is to anticipate new possibilities, immerse ourselves in God’s Word, remain open to new forms of community, and allow our assumptions and prejudices about how God moves in the world to be challenged.

See you Sunday,
Pastor David