If you have to choose between principles and people, choose people! Do you agree?
If it comes down to deciding whether to adhere to certain principles and thereby injure people; if it comes down to violating your beliefs or violating another person, what will you choose? The principle or the person? The belief or the feelings of another person?
Some would say, if you have to choose between principles and people, choose people. Some would insist that nothing’ is more important than loving people, caring for people, giving people what they need. They would say that rules are meant to be broken, principles are meant to be bent, so that human needs can be met. If you are one of these folks, if you had answered the phone as I did this week, and heard someone on the other end asking for food money ... asking for it even though we had already given money and had given a Christmas basket, and even though I had explained on a previous occasion that our policy ... our policy, our principle … was to channel our assistance through another agency -- if you are one of the people over principle folks, you would have said, "Sure, I’ll find you some money." Some will say, if you have to choose between principles and people, choose people.
But others would argue that principles are more important than any individual. They would argue that no one person is above the law, no individual should expect to get whatever he or she wants. If you choose principles above people, you argue that everyone gets helped on an equal basis and that decisions are made rationally, carefully. If you argue this way, you say that everyone is subject to the law and that everyone is treated fairly if we stick to our principles.
If you have to choose between following principles and helping people, which will you choose?
One day the Apostle Peter found out that these two things ran smack into each other, and that he had to decide between them. Peter had been operating out of a set of rules; he had been following all the right regulations. But he found out one day that his heart told him to go beyond what his head thought was right. Peter found out that there are times when people do take precedence over the pronouncements and principles of the past.
Picture the scene: Peter is at prayer. He’s doing his daily devotions up on the roof. I guess that’s what they had to do to get messages before the invention of Dial-A-Prayer!
But Peter, like a lot of us, doesn’t keep his mind totally centered on prayer. While he is praying, he gets hungry, and asks the folks down in the kitchen to fix him something to eat. And then, while he continues to pray, he falls into a sleep, or a trance, and has a dream. In his dream, coming down from heaven, there is a large sheet. And in that sheet is some kind of a zoo. Animals and birds and snakes and all kinds of creepy-crawly things.
Now this is interesting, because this is the kind of dream most of us would have after we eat! But Peter has his before he eats! And in this dream, there is a voice, inviting him to take his fill from this menagerie that is floating down in a sheet. "Get up, Peter, kill and eat."
And immediately, instinctively, without thinking about it at all, old Peter, the same impulsive, quick-tongued Peter we got used to seeing all through the Gospels, Peter snaps, "By no means, lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean." You will remember that certain classes of animals were considered unclean, off-limits, to the Jews. There were the kosher taws, the ritual laws, of the Old Covenant. And that’s what Peter is responding to. Never. Never have I eaten anything that was profane or unclean. Lord, I won’t. I can’t. No way. Not me.
But the voice persisted, and said, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." And the text says this happened three times. Three times Peter was invited to satisfy his hunger; and three times Peter refused, out of principle. Out of the pronouncements of the past.
Little did Peter know that just downstairs, right at the door of the house where he was praying, messengers were arriving to ask him to come to the home of the Roman centurion Cornelius. Little did Peter understand, during his trance, that he was about to be confronted with a person in need, not just a pronouncement from the past.
I
You see, there is a disease we call prejudice. The disease called prejudice exists because we human beings find it more comfortable, sometimes, to live out of unexamined feelings rather than out of compassion for people. Prejudice is an unexamined feeling with a misunderstood basis. Let me repeat that. Prejudice is an unexamined feeling with a misunderstood basis.
Prejudice means that we think in principles, categories, rather than truly meeting people. Prejudice means putting labels on things and living out of our feelings rather than truly examining the human need involved.
Think for a minute about how we use labels. We use labels to try to understand one another. We think if we put the right label on somebody, we will have a grasp on who they are. And so we think we can peg each other down if we put the labels on: black, white; male, female; old, young; liberal, conservative; married, single. With every one of those labels is associated a whole cluster of images. We think we have understood somebody just because we have labeled them.
And if those labels are not provocative enough, just think of some of the other labels we use: democrat, republican; heterosexual, homosexual; educated, uneducated; clergy, laity. Oh, how that one grabs me! I am tired of having to answer for all the cranks and crazies in the ministry, and somebody thinks that just because I am ordained, I am as off-the-wall as the last scandal you heard about! No, I am who I am, person; unique; and am more than the labels.
But prejudice is a kind of laziness that wants to put people in pigeonholes, put people on pegs, so that we don’t have to deal with them personally. Prejudice is treating others as if they were a category and not persons. Prejudice means that we see each other as types and not so much as individuals.
Think about some of our experiences in an Amer1ca that is trying to deal with diversity.
Were you ever asked to be a spokesman for your race? To represent what everybody who looks like you thinks? I know that I have been in any number of groups where there were only one or two black persons, and inevitably someone would turn and say, "What do black people think about this?" Well, nice to be asked, but there is a subtle prejudice going on there, isn’t there? Because we are treating people as categories and not as persons. And lest you think that only goes one way, I can tell you that I am in one group where I am the only white pastor, and they keep asking me what "we" think! If only they knew that I don’t think like a whole of "we"!
Operating out of labels instead of seeing persons, individuals. Or again, I’m sure we all know that old joke about how people of other races "all look alike". I would suspect that a good many here today have been confused with someone else, just because of your racial identity. It really is a strange phenomenon, how that happens, and I will confess that when I first came here, it happened with me too. Maybe some of you even recall being called by the wrong name once or twice. Again, it is a kind of prejudice brought on by the fact that we are seeing groups, we are seeing labels, rather than seeing persons.
I thought this one went only one direction, by the way, until at a pastors’ meeting someone kept asking me about what it was like to preach to President Clinton and whether I could reach him on the telephone ... and I thought, "what is going on I here?" Until I finally figured out that he thought I was Dr. Goodwin, then the pastor of First Baptist Church! All of us white people look alike, you know!
Let me not belabor this point. The real issue I am trying to raise is this: that when we choose to deal with others on the basis of pronouncements, on the basis of what we think people in their "category", their label, are like, we have succumbed to prejudice. And just as Peter was prepared to reject Cornelius and to avoid fellowship with this Roman, simply because the Jewish law forbade it, so also we do each other a disservice when we see only labels and not persons.
II
But now, notice that when Peter got up from his dream and went and met Cornelius’ messengers, what Peter learned to do was to give what he had to someone who needed it. Peter discovered that he had something a person of another race and culture needed, and he gladly went and shared it.
Here is a great lesson in multiculturalism. That differing peoples have differing gifts, and that we do have something to share with one another. God calls us both to share and to receive from one another.
Notice several things in this story. Notice, first, that Cornelius was not too proud to acknowledge that he had a need. Cornelius knew, down in his spirit, that there was something he needed to know, and, despite his being a Roman and an army officer, he was not too proud to ask for it. There is a great lesson there. Sometimes we get up on our independent high horses and will not ask for help; my wife would say that she knows somebody very well who is like that!
If America is to succeed in being a diverse nation, then the groups and races who live here must come to the place where we can value and learn from each other. We can no longer demand that others do what we do, think what we think, or feel what we feel. All of us have shortcomings. All of our cultures are incomplete. God’s riches are vaster far than anyone group has been able to understand.
And so breaking down the walls of prejudice may begin when someone, on whichever side of the divide he may be, recognizes that he has a need and that someone who is different, someone else may be able to fill that need. That’s one angle on this story.
Another angle is to look at Peter and notice that Peter was not going to buy in to an over-under relationship. Peter was not going to reinforce Cornelius’ inappropriate feelings. Cornelius, when he meets Peter, falls at his feet and worships him! Cornelius is so everlastingly grateful that he almost makes a fool of himself, so thankful to Peter. But Peter recognizes that that isn’t healthy. That isn’t good for Cornelius and it isn’t good for Peter. "Stand up; I am only a mortal." Peter realized that if he allowed Cornelius to shuck and jive and shuffle, he would be doing Cornelius a grave disservice, as well as doing damage to his own spirit. So, no, Cornelius, don’t worship me. Don’t idolize me. Just talk to me. Just deal with me, eyeball to eyeball, human heart to human heart.
The great lesson to be learned as we watch Peter and Cornelius is that as human beings, we have things to give each other across the cultural divide. And we should give them, gladly and proudly. And receive them, gladly and proudly.
When I first came to Takoma, one of the things I quickly discovered was that there were certain customs and practices around funerals that were different from what I had grown up with. And I found I needed to learn some things. People talked about holding a "wake". For me, a wake was something Irish people did, sitting by a deathbed and drinking gallons of liquor. The first time I came and observed people sitting around a church building, I didn’t know what to do. We have visitations, where we go and stand around in a funeral home! Different. And there seemed to be a number of things like that.
So, riding to the cemetery with Mr. McGuire of the local funeral establishment, I asked him to teach me just what these differences are. His first reply was, there aren’t any differences. And if there are, I’m sure you as a pastor would: know about them. But as we talked a little more, and he got to know me and I began to hear him, sure enough, he did teach me a few things, and we both grew. We both profited.
God calls us both to share and to receive across the cultural divide and to do so both with an eye to what others need and to what we need.
III
But most important of all, most critical of all for us in this fellowship, is this unchanging message, this unassailable truth: that all of us, all of us, whatever label we wear, whatever racial and cultural identity we may have … all of us have the same basic need and all of us may have that need met in the same way.
I am talking about the need for forgiveness and about God’s provision of a savior. I am talking about the fundamental human need to be received of God and about the universal savior, Jesus Christ.
You see, what Cornelius needed most of all, besides being accepted, was forgiveness. That is why he sent for Peter. To learn the way to be saved.
And what Peter needed most of all, besides learning to accept others, was to experience and to share the good news of forgiveness. That is why he went to Cornelius. To share the way to be saved.
Peter said, "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. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ – he is lord of all – all of the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." Everyone receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
Men and women, at rock bottom all of us are the same in this regard -- that we need to be forgiven. And at rock bottom, God has provided for all of us one way, and that is trust in Christ Jesus.
We may sin in different ways, but we sin.
We may worship in differing ways, but we worship.
We may express it in different ways, but fundamentally, all come to the judgment seat, all need a savior, and all receive forgiveness on the same basis.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest force I know of for breaking down the walls that separate peoples. For at the cross, who can be proud of his race? Who can plead his culture? No, we can plead nothing but the blood of Jesus.
At the cross, who can be proud of his accomplishments? Who can point to his ethnic background or his social standing? No, at the cross the ground is level; at the cross the only one who is received is a repentant thief.
At the cross, who can name his ancestors or boast in his history? At the cross, who can focus on his skin color or trot out his college degrees? No, at the cross we all receive grace upon grace. At the cross, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
From pronouncements to people. From depending on our proud principles and our past pronouncements, to seeing ourselves as persons. Persons who need to be saved, persons who need to save. We have this dream today.
