The Gospel on the Move: Spirit
God Shows No Partiality
Acts 10:44-48
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. May 9th, 2021
When I was in seminary I was involved with a hospitality house. The house was run by both current and former seminarians. The doors were open to absolutely everyone. That, of course, led to a real rag tag group of people across racial, class, and religious lines. And I don’t mean to paint too rosy a picture, there is of course always conflict in any such group of people. But any rag tag group of people that stays together for a halfway decent amount of time is a witness to the power of the Spirit and our hope in the Kingdom.
I remember one summer a group of us decided we wanted to a watering hole to go swimming. This is North Carolina, most of the lakes are manmade. What they call rivers I’d call a creek. But one of the nearby rivers settled briefly into a pond. The current was just strong enough to prevent any algae growth. And the water was deep enough to make swimming worth it. The trek was maybe ten or fifteen minutes down a wooded path, after maybe ten minutes on the road. As we were rounding up people one of the guys who came to our breakfasts agreed to go.
He was one of the scarier people I’ve met. Though he didn’t frighten me. He did not have a home, to my knowledge. He would disappear for months at a time, and I was led to believe he was probably in jail. There were stories about his anger issues, though I never saw it. More likely he skipped town. But he claimed to spend most of his time working out at a mixed martial arts gym, and certainly looked like it. But he was mostly a quiet guy. Which was really what made him seem so frightening. I was surprised he agreed to come with, especially since he was nursing an arm injury. I think he was surprised too. Because by the time we got to the watering hole he did not look very pleased. As we were swimming and jumping off limbs, he stood there rather awkwardly and silently. And when we were done he came home with us and we all had dinner.
The hospitality house led to all sorts of strange moments of joining like this. When people who otherwise would have never crossed paths, cooked and ate together, took trips together, hung out together. And that is, as we see in our New Testament reading, the gospel in action. If the gospel is on the move, we should expect to see strange encounters. We should anticipate peculiar joinings. The communion formed in the Spirit is not a communion of the same. But it is a communion of all sorts of people, the respectable and the odd, the insider and the outcast.
Perhaps I ought to flesh out the full account. We are told there was a centurion in Caesarea named Cornelius. He was what they called back in the day a God fearer. That is, he was a gentile who worshiped the God of Israel. He was known for his generosity to the synagogue in Caesarea and kept good relationships with the Jews. At about three in the afternoon he saw an angel in a vision. The angel told him to seek out Simon Peter, at the house of Simon the Tanner near the seacoast.
At noon the following day Peter had a vision as he went up on the roof to pray. He saw heaven opened up and something like a large linen sheet being lowered to the earth by its four corners. Inside the sheet were all kinds of animals, both clean and unclean. Peter heard a voice, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!” Peter refused, “I have never eaten anything pure or unclean!” Again, the voice said, “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.” This happened three times until the linen sheet was brought back up to heaven, and Peter pondered the meaning of the vision.
But as he was pondering the meaning of the vision the Holy Spirit told Peter to go downstairs because three people were looking for him, and that God had sent them. They were messengers sent by Cornelius arranging a visit. They arranged to meet the next day.
And then the unthinkable happened. In one house a faithful Jew met with an unclean Gentile. Cornelius explained his vision of the angel. And Peter preached the gospel. Indeed, he came to recognize, “God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” And as Peter preached the gospel the Spirit descended on Cornelius and his people. What could Peter do but baptize?
And then, the most remarkable thing, “they invited him to stay for several days.” They were joined in one communion. They stayed together. The Spirit made them one in Christ.
We must never forget that the gospel is for the Jews first, and then the gentiles. That salvation comes from the Jews. We come in from the outside. We are the outcast, the disreputable. But God’s love is such to draw us all in to his embrace. Even the unclean gentiles may receive the Spirit. Because God desires such a rag tag group of people as his witnesses.
White and black. Hispanic and asian. Rich and poor. Republican and Democrat. In our communion we witness to the power of the Gospel. The gospel that proclaims one Lord over all the earth who gave his life that we might have life. Who binds us together in his Spirit. Who seals us in one common baptism. The strangeness of our communion is just another way we witness to the world.