“The Gentile Pentecost”
Acts 10:1-11:4
Last week we celebrated Pentecost.
It was the Promised Day when God sent the Holy Spirit to come and reside in the hearts of believers.
It was the beginning of the Christian Church.
But, on the day of Pentecost the only people on whom the Spirit descended were Jewish.
The 3,000 people who joined the church that day were all Jews.
They believed Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah.
And so, they continued to consider themselves Jews, just Jews who believed that Christ was the Savior of the world.
They still followed the Jewish dietary laws and all the other customs and traditions they had always held dear, including circumcision.
Just because they had been filled with the Holy Spirit didn’t mean they suddenly understood everything about Jesus and God.
It was just the beginning of the journey…
…just like you and I are on the Christian journey and we learn more and more about God’s grace and love as we seek “To love God and our neighbor.”
It takes a lifetime does it not?
It takes following the leading of the Holy Spirit day by day by day by day.
The Jews who believed in Jesus on Pentecost started to be persecuted and eventually had to flee from Jerusalem.
Simon Peter traveled West to the city of Lydda where he healed a paralyzed man, and then to Joppa in the Mediterranean coast where he brought a female Christ follower named Tabitha back to life, and then Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.
A tanner was a person who treated the skins of dead animals.
This would have made Simon the tanner unclean according to Jewish Law.
Peter’s decision to stay with him shows a willingness on Peter’s part to choose grace over the letter of the Law and helps prepare the way for his upcoming vision and mission to the Gentiles.
What do I mean by this?
Call it what you will, but the vision Peter has in Acts Chapter 10 of heaven opening and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners…
…containing all kinds of four-footed animals, as well was reptiles and birds…
…these dirty, unclean animals that Jewish Law prohibited any Jew from eating…
…and yet, the Lord tells Peter to “Get up. Kill and eat”…
…is a radical re-defining of what is understood in the Old Testament.
It’s almost as if God is changing God’s mind.
Or, more accurately, you could call it the Holy Spirit at work in the church.
The Holy Spirit that constantly surprises, inspires, and guides people toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Notice that Peter says to God, “Surely not, Lord!
I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
And the Lord spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
We are told that this happened three times.
Why three times?
Is it coincidence?
I don’t think so.
How many times did Peter deny Christ on the night of Jesus’ arrest?
Three times.
How many times did Jesus tell Peter that he has been restored, forgiven, given a new vocation when the Risen Lord meets him and the other disciples on the beach?
Three times.
“Peter feed my lambs.”
“Take care of my sheep.”
“Feed my sheep.”
Peter, broken and lost after having denied his Lord experienced immense grace from Jesus.
And now, this very same man will learn to extend immense grace to others.
He will see more of what God is about than anyone ever has.
You see, as a Jew, Peter was a product of his times and of his culture.
He had been indoctrinated with the belief that Gentiles were dogs.
And Gentiles were any persons who were NOT Jewish.
He had been raised with the prejudice that, when leaving Gentile territory, a faithful Jew must shake the dust from his feet.
A faithful Jew would not eat with a Gentile or have a Gentile over to their home.
A faithful Jew would not even eat with utensils made by Gentiles unless they were first cleaned.
The only way Gentiles could be accepted into Jewish life was if they first converted to Judaism otherwise they were unrepentant and unsaved.
That’s hard stuff to let go of.
And so, with this vision still haunting him, along with the words: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” the Holy Spirit speaks to Peter telling him that three men are looking for him.
You see, at the same time Peter had been having his vision of the sheet coming down from heaven, a Gentile named Cornelius was having his own vision.
And his vision came in the form of an angel telling Cornelius to: “Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter…”
And Cornelius does this by sending three men to Peter, inviting him to be a guest in Cornelius’ house.
When Peter gets to Cornelius’ house he launches into a sermon—it’s the story of Jesus Christ’s life, death and Resurrection.
Peter ends his sermon with: “everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Low and behold, while Peter is still speaking, the Holy Spirit comes upon these unconverted Gentiles and they start speaking in tongues!!!
Peter is astonished.
Peter and the other apostles had heard Jesus give them the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations more than once.
Yet up to this time they were still just reaching out to other Jews.
They probably thought that reaching those in the uttermost parts of the earth referred to Jewish families who were scattered abroad.
But to reach pagan Gentiles was simply unthinkable.
They could quote chapter and verse out of the Old Testament to back up their views.
But Peter sees God doing something different…something he never imagined before…even though Jesus had taught His disciples that the Jewish Laws of ceremonial defilement were fulfilled in Him…
…and that it is not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but rather that which comes out of a person’s heart.
But they didn’t get it until after Peter’s vision and Peter’s experience with the Gentiles at Cornelius’ house.
The Book of Acts is often referred to as the story of the Gentile mission, and in our Scripture Lesson for this morning we are witnessing what could fairly be called “The Gentile Pentecost”!!!
What Peter did in Acts Chapter 10…what the Holy Spirit did through Peter…
…changed the course of Christianity forever.
Christianity was opened to the whole world—to you and me, who would never have been welcome if this vision of God’s impartiality had not worked its way through Peter’s—and Cornelius’ hearts.
When Peter declared in verse 34 that “God does not show favoritism” it opened the possibility that anyone—everyone—is welcome in the family of God.
But over 2,000 years later, do we get it?
I mean, what kind of prejudices do I hold on to, do you?
How much un-grace do I hand out to others when I have received and continue to receive grace upon grace, upon grace every minute of every day?
By fallen nature, we are all prone to justify ourselves and to condemn those who are different than we are.
We are all prone to judge others, rather than accept them as they are—the way God accepts us.
The continuing fight within the Christian Church for the entire New Testament from this moment on is whether or not Gentile believers have to be circumcised, follow the Jewish dietary laws and so forth—be converted to Judaism before they can become Christians.
I mean it’s crazy, but to adapt from Jewish to non-Jewish cultures required excruciating growing pains on the part of the Christian Church.
They had to be taught over and over and over again that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works.
And good church folks have been fighting with one another ever since.
Who is allowed in?
Who can be saved?
Do you have to become circumcised, follow all the laws, repent of your Gentile-ness—so to speak—before you can be considered saved, a Christian, a member in good standing…even be called to the ministry?
Why are we like this???
People of faith have always disagreed about non-essentials…
…or have often made non-essentials THE ESSENTIALS!!!
We do it today.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that one out!
By not accepting uncircumcised Gentiles into the full life of the Church, Jewish Christians were hurting the message of God’s saving grace through faith in Christ alone.
By not allowing some people in without preconditions they were building walls between people and the Kingdom of God.
In other words, they were doing Satan’s work.
There was a time, not too long ago, when good Bible believing Christians thought God meant for people to own slaves.
And then, there was a time when black people were not allowed to worship God with white people—the so-called God-ordained superior race.
We could go on and on and on and on.
But Peter says in our Lesson for today, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism.”
Do we believe this to be true?
If so, are we living it?
In Acts 10:47 Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?
The Church has been faced with the same question in every generation.
Social boundaries, class boundaries, racial boundaries…from the early Church to today, we still have so very much to overcome.
It’s been said that “many churches are estranged from people that they consider ‘unclean.’”
Peter and Cornelius both had to decide if they would obediently follow God’s leading and overcome the barriers or sit at home and refuse to cross the lines.
You and I are still tasked with making the same decisions.
Just think, if the rules were changed for you and me, so that we could come in—who are we, then, to prevent God from blessing the whole human family?
Who are we to stand in the way of God’s love?
The Spirit is still here.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Everyone.
What does that mean for you, for me, for Red Bank United Methodist Church and our community in the year 2022?
What are we going to do about it?
Let’s allow it to be exciting…
…not scary and intimidating.
Lord, may we, like Peter and Cornelius follow The Holy Spirit’s leading and lean not on our own fallen human understanding.
In Jesus’ name and for His sake.
Amen.
