Derecho Sermon - "Count it Joy" - August 16, 2020

Text: James 1:1-4

Video

It would be an understatement to say that this has not been a typical week.  On Monday morning I picked up all the sticks in the yard and mowed the lawn.  And it looked really nice.  It was getting darker in the west and I was glad to get it done before it rained.  Then we heard about a strong storm coming, and it got really dark.  We checked the weather on TV but the satellite went out, and the sirens went off, and we went downstairs.  And the winds blew and the power went off.  

I went upstairs briefly to check on things and saw that there was definitely something down in the neighbors’ backyard.  But the winds were still pretty strong and it was hard to see - everything was a kind of grayish green - so I went back downstairs.  When we finally came back up to check things out, we had a good bit of tree damage and I could see that what was down in the neighbors’ backyard was the roof of our shed, with various other pieces here and there.  There was also a massive limb from our next door neighbor’s tree down on the power lines that run at the back of our yard.

Other than those of you who are joining us from out of town, most of you probably had similar experiences.  In fact, even some of you from out of town had this kind of experience.  Just when you thought 2020 could not get any worse or any weirder, a derecho comes along.  At least we learned a new word this week.  

I haven’t had a chance to check, but I expect that we have fewer people with us this morning because I know that there are folks who still do not have power and there are more who don’t have internet service.  Such things did not used to be necessary for worship but in this strange time in which we live, at this point they are.

We have been making our way through Acts but given the week we have had, I thought we might switch things up this morning.  I’m mostly going to be reflecting on this past week.  Our scripture is from the letter of James, traditionally attributed to James the brother of Jesus.

We actually came across James a few weeks ago in Acts 15 – James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem and it was James who, speaking for the sense of those gathered, said that Gentiles coming to Christ should not be burdened, as he put it, with Jewish law.

As he begins this letter, James says “Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy.”

Well, there’s a contrarian viewpoint for you.  And we have certainly faced trials over these past months.  In what way can trials be reason for joy?  And if trials make for joy, does that make 2020 the most joyful year ever?

Well, let me tell you about my experience this week.  Monday afternoon, people starting assessing the damage and cleaning up.  I looked at our backyard and wondered how I would ever manage the mess.  Tree limbs down and besides the bigger stuff, sticks just covered the ground.  Instead of a snowstorm it was a stickstorm.

I had an electric chainsaw, which was pretty useless at that point, and a hand saw that was not in good shape, but I had some good loppers and I started cutting limbs down to size as I could and dragging them out to the street.  And a bunch of neighbors just appeared to help, including a couple of friends visiting the high school kid next door and a guy who had spent the night visiting the new neighbors who had moved in behind us – I actually met them when we were all out surveying the damage.  We waved and I said, “Well, welcome to the neighborhood.”  With 8 or 10 people working, we pretty well cleared two yards.  Then the new neighbors behind us helped me carry pieces of our shed from their yard back to our yard.  

A shared crisis brings out the best in many people.  There was a community spirit that afternoon that we rarely experience.  We were in it together.  There was actually some joy in it.  

Without air conditioning, we ate outside and hung out outside more this past week.  For me it was a reminder of a time when folks sat outside on the front porch to escape the heat, and people would visit.  I remember front porch swings like my grandma had at her house.  We had a little bit of that vibe this week, as folks were outside and neighbors had a chance to visit.  I’ve talked to some neighbors more this week than I had in 6 months or a maybe a year, I’m embarrassed to say.

This week also reminded me of mission trips.  I thought of our trip to Puerto Rico last summer.  We worked in the heat there, and somehow you get used to it.  There was no hot water for the showers, and you manage.  And it occurred to me that we were without power for a few days, but there are lots of places where power outages happen almost every day.  And then, while this week has not necessarily been easy, I think about the community we worked in and that church in Luquillo – they were without power for 6 months.  Can you imagine?

And that Puerto Rican church, despite the difficulties it faced, took a mission team to assist in a community harder hit than they were.

This week has been a reminder, perhaps, not to take things like dependable electricity and good clean water for granted and to remember those who face the kind of conditions we dealt with this week all the time.  It was also a reminder to be thankful for utility workers and all those who make our electrical grid work and all of the conveniences we enjoy possible.  There was gratitude and with that, joy.

And then there is technology.  Never mind not having air conditioning: we had to suffer without internet!  It was actually a good thing, maybe, to give up TV for a few days, to spend less time on our screens and devices.  

When we are all facing storms, our impulse as followers of Jesus is to think of others.  The neighbor who needs help cleaning up.  The friend who could use a cooler of ice.  We were touched when a friend and colleague offered us the use of their generator after they had regained power.  It was too late to save the food in our refrigerator, but we appreciated them thinking of us as much as the generator itself.  (Or close to as much, at least.)  In that sharing and caring for one another, there is joy.

After the storm we thought about college students.  Imagine that you were a freshman - I suppose some of you may not have to imagine - and that Monday was your move in day.  It it is exciting, but still, there is anxiety as you get ready to move in to college.  And at least as much anxiety for the parents.  You have to go to Lied to get a COVID test before getting your room key, and then in the middle of everything there is a torrential storm, hurricane force winds, and a massive power outage.  What a way to begin at Iowa State.

It’s been a tough week.  But again, James says, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because these trials lead to growth.

It is tempting to see this as simply a pious platitude.  And it would make more sense to say, whenever life is super easy, consider it all joy.

But then it occurred to me: when has life ever been super easy?  Even pre-2020 life had its share of storms.  We don’t have to be in a global pandemic or experience a Midwestern hurricane to experience trials.  If we are honest, there are derechos all around, and there always have been.  There are health derechos that can come suddenly.  Many are facing a formidable economic derecho.  There are family derechos and certainly school derechos.  There are derechos of injustice and derechos of need.  And all of these can be tests of our faith.

So how can we say, when you face these derechos, consider it all joy?  Well, it’s been a tough week and I am not going to answer that for you.  Partly because I’m not sure I can, at least not very well, and partly because this is perhaps worth our reflecting on for all of us.  But it does seem to me if we are unable to find joy in the midst of storms, we may have a hard time finding joy, period, because we are all the time facing storms of some kind.  So maybe joy is not entirely dependent on the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Frederick Buechner wrote words that speak to the storms we face, from God’s perspective:
Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It’s for you I created the universe.  I love you.

It has been a hard week, and it may be a hard week ahead, but I pray that you are able to find joy and glimpses of God in the midst of it.  Amen.

Worship in the (Virtual) Park - August 2, 2020

Text: Numbers 22 – Balaam story

Video

(This is my "mini-homily for our shared service with First Christian and Ames UCC - each pastor shared a short message on "What I Have Learned During the Pandemic).

 

I want to begin by going on record as saying that this scripture text, the story of Balaam’s Ass, was not my idea.  And in all fairness to Eileen, it was not her idea either.  I’m not pointing a finger at anyone, but it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Eileen.

But in retrospect, this is actually a perfect scripture for this morning.  The real point of this crazy story is about listening and paying attention and having eyes to see what is right in front of you.

The pandemic has given us a chance to slow down, to listen.  And if like Balaam’s donkey we are paying attention, we can learn from it.

I have learned a lot of things.  I have learned that that I like curbside pickup.

I have learned that most of the meetings we have can work pretty well via Zoom.

I have learned how to make a face mask from a bandana.

And not insignificantly for me, I have learned that I don’t miss sports as much as I thought I would.  That surprised me, and it actually pains me to say that, but it’s true.  When people are losing their livelihoods, when health care workers are placed in danger, when people are dying, you gain a perspective on what really matters.

One of the things that has struck me is how contemporary our scriptures are in such times.  Week after week, ancient words seem to speak to the moment we are in.  We recently read from Acts about the establishment of the office of deacon.  You may recall that Greek widows were not being cared for as the Hebrew widows were, and deacons were appointed essentially as a response to structural racism.  Pretty contemporary.  And I think it was the second Sunday of online worship that we read from Mark 13 of a coming apocalypse.  That has never been a favorite text for me, but reading about an apocalypse while we were living in an apocalypse, it had new meaning.

We are living in an apocalyptic time.   The word apocalypse means revealing, and things are being revealed to us - if, like Balaam’s donkey, we will pay attention.  

This time has revealed the inequalities of our society.  Many workers deemed “essential” are paid minimum wage and have no health insurance, while those with the most, like Iowa’s wealthiest person, have received millions in stimulus payments.  I talked with pastors at two of our immigrant churches.  They have had many members test positive for the virus, including one of these pastors.  A healthy 34 year old man in his church has died.  It’s no coincidence that our immigrant churches have suffered the most.

This time has revealed glaring racial disparities.  Following the death of George Floyd, I have learned a lot about our racial history that I was embarrassed not to have known.  And now I am embarrassed for our country because I do know it.  

This pandemic has revealed the depth of division in our nation as basic science and public health practices are viewed with suspicion.

At the same time, the pandemic has revealed much that is positive.  In the early days of near-lockdown, I noticed birds singing more than I had before.  I appreciated the quiet in the neighborhood.  I have since noticed bumblebees visiting our hostas.  There is a lot to be said for a slower pace.

The pandemic has revealed how important communities of faith are to so many people.  Over the last 4 ½ months, worshiping with Zoom, we have had, improbably, our best attendance in years.  Part of that is that there’s not much else to do, but the bigger thing is that this time has revealed a hunger for community, a hunger for connection that we may have taken for granted in the past.  

I have been struck by the way people are reaching out to care for one another.  I have appreciated the way people have reached out to care for me.

We talk about wanting to get back to normal, but one of the things I have learned is that normal is way overrated.  There is a lot of normal I’d rather not go back to, and there are parts of pandemic life I hope we can hold on to.   

Arundhati Roy, writing back in early April, said,

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.  This one is no different.  It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.  We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas and … smoky skies behind us.  Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.  And ready to fight for it.

One of the things I have learned is that things can be different, and by God’s grace I pray they will be.  Amen.

“How to Have a Church Fight” - July 19, 2020

Text: Acts 15:1-21

Video

I kind of grew up on church fights.  The fighting was not so much within our church, though we had our disagreements like most congregations.  The conflict was mostly between churches.  I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in southern Indiana.  Looking back, we were a typical, conservative but not overly rigid congregation, a generally warm-hearted church, but in the culture of Southern Baptists in that area, we were considered freakishly liberal.

I have shared the story before of how our church was booted out of our local association.  We were dismissed for two official reasons and at least one unofficial reason.  Officially, we were voted out for not conforming with the official doctrine of the association.  First, we were practicing open communion.  We welcomed any Christian to share in the Lord’s Supper, while the official party line was extremely restrictive.  And then we were condemned for accepting what was called “alien immersion.”  That is one of the craziest expressions I have come across in church life – it sounds like we were baptizing extraterrestrials.  What it meant was that we accepted the baptism by immersion of churches whose beliefs were not completely 100% like ours.  It doesn’t sound that radical, does it?  American Baptists were suspect but considered marginally OK, but Disicples of Christ or Church of Christ people definitely needed to be rebaptized.  We were way too lax on this sort of thing.

Those were the official reasons.  Among the unofficial reasons was the fact that our pastor appeared on a 5 minute devotion on TV sponsored by the local Council of Churches and we were much too friendly with the Presbyterians down the road.  Looking back it seems ridiculous, but we were just too cosmopolitan and too integrated into the community for some of the other pastors’ tastes.  And it probably didn’t help that our relatively small church had won the Baptist Association softball league that year.

Over the years, I have seen serious church fighting – again, more often between churches, but within churches as well, which is especially painful.  So I come to our scripture today with this history, with this background, and maybe some of you have had similar journeys.

What we read about today is the first big dispute in the early church.  Paul had been converted on the road to Damascus, and he was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles.  In the ensuing chapters in Acts, we read about Barnabas taking on Paul as a kind of sponsor, and the two engage in a missionary journey, traveling to the island of Cypress and then through parts of what is now Turkey, winding up at Antioch in Syria.  It is quite an adventure.  There is success, both in leading Jews to become followers of Jesus and in leading Gentiles to Christ.  There is also opposition; at one point, Paul is stoned and left for dead, but he gets up and moves on to preach in another city the next day.  Paul and Baranabas return to Antioch and they give a report on how God is working, especially among the Gentiles.

Not everybody is happy about this.  There are those who have come to Antioch from Judea who believed that yes, the gospel was for everyone, but following Jewish law and especially circumcision, which was a sign of the covenant with God, was a part of that.  It was a requirement in order to be saved.  

It is very interesting what happens.  The Antioch church doesn’t go rogue.  They could have said, “Forget those people in Jerusalem,” but they don’t.   They respect the apostolic community.  They understand that they would have never even heard the Gospel had it not been for them.
So the Antioch church sends a delegation to Jerusalem.  And notice what happens when they arrive.  They are warmly welcomed by the apostles and the elders.  There’s a mutual respect.  The mother church doesn’t say, “Here come those renegades.  Here come those radicals.”  They are embraced as brothers and sisters.

This meeting is known as the Jerusalem Council.  And it is a wonderful model for working through differences.  Everyone has a voice, and the church takes time to listen.  The Spirit, of course, turned the tide of the meeting when Simon Peter spoke and said, “We believe we will be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Finally James spoke.  This was James the brother of Jesus, who had become the leader of the church in Jerusalem.  The Jerusalem church is nearly all Jewish in background and is the old-school center of the Jesus movement.

James puts what is happening in context, saying that the prophets spoke of Gentiles coming to God, and it was now happening.  They don’t actually take a vote, but there is a consensus, and James speaks as the Spirit has led the community.  He said that the church should not impose further burden on Gentiles who were coming to God.

The decision was no needless rules.  No stiff requirements on that which is not essential.  But then he goes on to say, let’s simply tell them, don’t behave immorally and don’t eat food that is going to especially offend Jewish brothers and sisters.  It sounds like a bone thrown out to those on the other side of the issue, and it almost sounds a little bit patronizing, like Gentiles are really into fornicating and they need to keep that in check if they are going to be in the church.

But I think what he is saying is, we have freedom, and we live in grace, but we need to think about the way our freedom affects others.  We need to use our freedom in a way that builds others up and be sensitive to other believers.

I know that God was in this decision, because in most every Jerusalem Council–like moment I have been a part of, there is no agreement in the end and the sides often go their separate ways.  Churches split, denominations split, people get mad and leave.  Here, they continue and they move forward.

There are two things worth thinking about: the process and the outcome.  I like that everyone seems to have their say.  Those who felt like Gentiles should follow the Law had their say.  Peter spoke, Paul spoke, Barnabas spoke, James spoke.  Everyone listened to each other, which we don’t always see in our discussions and debates.  It was a thoughtful and respectful process.  This kind of listening and deliberation and prayer and waiting for the Spirit to lead is extremely difficult, even when you are being intentional about it.

Several years ago, there was a great deal of conflict in our denomination over acceptance of LGBTQ persons.  This was and is true within churches to some extent, but the conflict was especially in associations and regions and at the national level.  It’s not like we are all in agreement now, but there isn’t the same level of conflict.  Our more decentralized structure has a lot to do with that, especially when compared to the Methodists, who are about to split over the issue.

Back when this was coming to a head among American Baptists, our Ministers Council, the professional organization for ABC clergy, decided that instead of being reactive about it or avoiding the issue, instead of sniping and fighting, that we would have a respectful conversation and listen for God’s Spirit to speak.  We called these gatherings, one held in each region, Jerusalem Councils, based on this story.  We were not trying to solve the issue for the whole denomination; we were going to talk about how our organization would approach it,

Some were immediately upset that we were even going to try to have a conversation.  Our national director took a lot of flak.  Dealing with differences in a straightforward way was very threatening, but we did it.

In our region, we had a very good turnout of clergy at Grand View University.  They had a nice meeting room and it was a neutral site.  There were some heartfelt stories shared.  I remember one person in particular saying that he wasn’t sure where he stood on this, exactly, and his background was more conservative, but that he had himself been a victim of discrimination and he could empathize with those who felt marginalized.  He said that he could not be judgmental toward those who were serving in good faith.  I appreciated those honest comments.

I would like to say that it all went well, but the fact was it did not go well at all.  A lot of folks had no intention of listening to others.  And I heard stories from other regions where it went far worse than it did for us.

That was 15 years ago, and the notion of people who significantly disagree getting together to have a respectful conversation seems more difficult now than it did then.  We are used to listening to people who believe just like we do.  We are not accustomed, and we are mostly not willing to sit down and have conversations with people with whom we may strongly disagree.

Beyond the process of respectful listening, it would be hard to overstate how crucial this decision was.  To be honest, the side that carried the argument should not have won.  Tradition and power, not to mention inertia, were on the side of those who wanted conformity to the Law.  But in reality, what happened was simply an extension of the narrative we have been following in the book of Acts.

There was concern that Greek widows were not being cared for appropriately, so deacons are appointed and the church expands.  The church was for those from a Greek culture as well as a Hebrew culture.  There was Philip, sent to explain the scriptures to the Ethiopian eunuch.  Barriers are broken and the gospel is taken to Ethiopia.

There is Ananias, sent by God to Damascus to meet Saul of Tarsus and help him regain his sight,  Saul, better known as Paul, is joined by Barnabas and they take the gospel to new places.  And now the doors of the church are flung wide open as Gentiles are fully welcomed into the church.

The process is to listen, to share, to be open, to allow everyone to be heard, and to listen for God’s Spirit.  The decision is: we are all saved by God’s grace, every one of us.  So let grace abound.  

There is an old saying: in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things, charity.  May it be so.  Amen.

 
 

“On Not Hindering God” - July 12, 2020

Text: Acts 11:1-18

Video

Simon Peter had a history, a track record, and a personality that just filled the room.  If the early church published something like a People magazine, he would have frequently been featured on the cover.

It was Peter who made the big, sweeping confession, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” but it wasn’t five minutes before Jesus was saying to him, “Get behind me, Satan.”  Peter swore he would never abandon Jesus, never fall away, and that same night he denied Jesus three times.  Peter could be impulsive, he could be dense, but he threw himself into following Jesus.  Jesus had called Peter “Rock,” and said “on this Rock I will build my church.”

Peter was quotable, he was never shy, but I imagine that he could rub some the wrong way.  And now, his latest stunt had clearly crossed the line.

Gentiles were becoming followers of Christ and accepted on an equal basis with Jewish Christians - without following the Law of Moses.  Remember, at this point the Christians were thought of as a movement within Judaism.  To just welcome Gentiles as followers of Christ without requiring them to follow Jewish law was scandalous for some.  The fact that Peter was promoting this idea did not sit well.  There was an uproar.  Like angry sports fans who want the coach to be fired, people were saying that Peter had to go.

So Peter was called in to explain his actions.  Peter explained that he had seen a vision.  A sheet came down from heaven with all kinds of animals – unclean animals.  A voice said to Peter, “Kill and eat,” but Peter said no, he did not eat anything profane or unclean.  And then the voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  This happened three times.  (I don’t know if you have noticed but there is a lot of this “three times for emphasis” thing going on in scripture – when you see something repeated three times, it means that it is pretty important.)

At that exact moment, three Gentiles from Caesarea showed up at the door.  It was more than mere coincidence.  They had been sent by a man who had been visited by an angel telling him to send for Peter, who would bring a message of salvation.  (The previous chapter tells the details; the man who had sent them was Cornelius, a Roman centurion.)  
Peter is convinced that this is the work of the Spirit.  He went with 6 friends, along with the three who had shown up at his door, back to Caesarea.  (I don’t know why we get the exact numbers here, but if there was an executive order due to a pandemic, they did keep their groups at 10 people or less.)

When Peter arrived, he began to speak and the Holy Spirit fell on everyone, just as at Pentecost.  Peter’s conclusion was that the salvation of Jesus was available even to Gentiles.  “Who was I to hinder God?” he said.  

Welcoming Gentiles into the church was a completely new thing.  This is a story about breaking boundaries.  This is a story about building bridges and tearing down walls and welcoming all into God’s family.

Commenting on this passage, William Willimon said, “The church is meant to be the instrument of God’s great reach into all the world.” (Pulpit Digest, Vol. 32, No. 2, 29)

I want to think about that statement this morning.  “The church is to be the instrument of God’s great reach into all the world.”  At a conceptual level, we can agree with this statement.  A little ambitious, perhaps, but it’s a lovely sentiment.  But if we are honest, at a deeper level we may have misgivings.  Upon reflection, I think there are 3 problems we have with this statement.

First, we have misgivings about the church.  Hopefully not our church so much, but we know of churches that seem to care more about their own survival than they do about ministering to others.  There are churches that function more like social clubs and churches that function more like political committees.  Churches that are very narrow-minded and inward-looking.  Churches that just plain treat people poorly.  We all know folks who have been hurt by the church – I’m sure that is the case for many of us.  

For some time, the fastest growing group in the country in terms of religious affiliation has been the “Nones,” as in no religious affiliation.  But the fact is, many of the so-called Nones could more properly be called “Dones,” as in they are done with the church.  They may consider themselves spiritual, they may have no issue with God, they may find Jesus appealing, but they have been burned or turned off by the church.  

The church is clearly far from perfect.  But if you think about it, we shouldn’t expect anything else: it is a human institution.  But the church is more than a collection of imperfect people, the church is also the Body of Christ.  American Baptists sometimes use the tag line: “serving as the hands and feet of Christ.”

While the church is clearly less than perfect, it can be helpful to think about what is right with the church.  For a lot of people, the church is the only group they are a part of in which:

• They are asked to ponder matters that are deep, important, and demanding.
• They are encouraged to take responsibility for someone beyond their immediate family.
• They are known by their first name and they are missed when they are absent.
• They participate in beautiful music in a beautiful setting.  The church is one of the only places where people sing together.
• There is talk about individual and social failures, our culture’s weaknesses, and sin.
• They are treated as valuable human beings, regardless of who they are.

Imperfect as it is, the Church was created to be a life-giving institution where people connect to God and one another.  Even in the midst of a pandemic, I see this happening every day.  

In this fellowship, I see people who genuinely care for one another and who take responsibility for each other.  Our gathering is not based on age or gender or race or social class or education or politics.  Where else does that happen?  We may not give the church enough credit.  We have a great gift that needs to be shared.

“The church is to be the instrument of God’s great reach into all the world.”  We have some trouble with this statement because we have doubts about the church - but we also have doubts about the world.

This is really the problem for the church leaders in Jerusalem had.  There was a sinful world out there that they were trying hard to steer clear of.  They believed in Jesus and they believed in sharing the Good News -- as long as it was with people just like them.  

Rita Snowden tells a story from World War II.  In France, some soldiers brought the body of a dead comrade to a cemetery to have him buried.  The priest gently asked whether their friend had been a baptized Catholic.  The soldiers did not know.  The priest sadly informed them that in that case, he could not permit burial in the church yard.  So the soldiers dug a grave just outside the cemetery fence and buried their comrade.  The next day the soldiers came back to add some flowers only to discover that the grave was nowhere to be found.

Bewildered, they were about to leave when the priest came up to speak to them.  It seems that he was so troubled by his refusal to bury the soldier in the parish cemetery that he could not sleep the night before.  Early in the morning he got up and moved the fence in order to include the body of this soldier.

Whom do we try to exclude?  If we were to see a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven, with people who are different from us, people whom some might consider “unclean,” whom might they be?  Poor people?  Or maybe rich people?  Those from certain ethnic groups?  Fundamentalists?  LGBTQ folks?  Liberal arts types?  Engineers?  Those of different political persuasions?      

God has created all of the world, all of the people of the world, and God’s creation is good.

We have gifts to share with our world.  We have a story to share.  We have Good News.  “The church is to be the instrument of God’s great reach into all the world.”  

Which brings us to the third problem.  We have doubts about the church and we have doubts about the world.  But maybe even more than that, we’re not sure about this business of reaching out.  

Because now we are talking about evangelism.  And for some of us, evangelism is a dirty word.  We’ve seen it done poorly.  We’ve seen it done manipulatively.  Evangelism may bring to mind a shouting, sweating, judgmental preacher, or a narrow-minded, condescending, holier-than-thou acquaintance, and you’d just as soon not have anything to do with that.

Well, I’m with you.  I don’t want to have anything to do with that either.  But evangelism is not about putting others down.  It is not about one-upping somebody else.  It’s not about trying to prove our position, as if we could “prove” God anyway.  It is not about trying to talk somebody into something they don’t want to do.  

Peter had to overcome deeply ingrained attitudes in order to go to a Gentile home in Joppa.  But he did.  And when he arrived, he didn’t put anyone down, wasn’t condescending, didn’t try to change anybody.  He simply shared his story and left it up to the Holy Spirit, which was at work in the Gentiles in Caesarea just as it had been at work in him.

That same Spirit is alive and at work right now, among us, calling us to be the hands and feet of Christ, instruments of God’s reach into the world.  And as Peter put it, “who are we to hinder God?”  Amen.