Acts 1:1-18 – Peter explains what the Spirit did.

Well, truth be told, I’m not giving the sermon this morning. It turns out we’ve got a special guest speaker. His name is Peter, and he’s offered to talk about his story with you this morning. So that reading we’ve just heard from Acts 11, that was the summary of what he told the other disciples in Jerusalem, he’s agreed to fill out some more of the story for us.

Which is very generous of him, but he’s feeling a little bit out of time and place this morning. He’s just waiting out in the Chapel. Give me a moment, I’ll go and get him.

[exit – wardrobe change – re-enter as Peter]

Greetings,

Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.

I am Peter, son of Jonah, and a servant and Apostle of Jesus Christ.

I’m sure you’ve heard a bit about me in your time, perhaps heard a few of the stories about me. I was with Jesus from near the beginning of his ministry. I was excited, full of anticipation. I can’t explain how, but I knew he was the Lord’s chosen messiah—the Christ.

I followed Jesus everywhere, from Capernaum, all around the Judean Countryside. I sailed him around and across Galilee many times. Jesus was always keen for a sail and a fishing trip.

We often seemed to catch a surprising number of fish when Jesus came along.

But it’s always been a mystery to me why Jesus chose to call me as a disciple and draw me so close. I’m the first to admit that not all of the stories make me look good.

There was the time I nearly drowned when Jesus called me to walk out on the lake. That was interesting.

Then there was the time… the time… the time… When I abandoned him.

But I’ll never forget how gently who called me back into the fold. Three denials, overwritten with the chance to declare my love for him three times.

I’ve been transformed by this Jesus.

And I’m here to tell you that it is this Jesus, who now sits at God’s right hand, who is still transforming people.

Expect God to surprise you. (Looking for God)

It’s funny, you know. Even after those years of ministry with Jesus. The fish, the healings, the incredible things he would teach us. Even after God raised him from the dead, Jesus still takes me by surprise.

I’m staying with this guy, also called Simon, who’s a tanner. The midday meal is almost ready, and I’m up on the roof, which, where I’m from, is like another room in the house. A favourite place of mine to pray.

I sat there and breathed in the salty sea air. The sky was particularly deep blue that day. As I looked out over the sea, it was hard to tell where the edge of the heavens met the water. It was sort of mesmerising. This joining of two expanses of blue.

Then, like one falls into a dream in your sleep, I saw the vision of this sheet, like a sail containing every kind of creature that God had made. Big and small, flying, walking, crawling, and slithering.

And the voice saying, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat”

You need to know that for me, as a Jew, a descendant of Abraham, there are things we don’t eat and things we don’t do, things that set us apart from the world around us. I’ve heard that in your society, so much energy is spent trying to fit in with the world around, but for us, our scriptures, the Torah, tell us that God’s promise to Abraham means we are to stand apart.

Our way of life is a sign to all around of God’s promises. The way we rest one day a week, when everyone keeps working. The covenant of circumcision. The food we eat. These things are for no other reason than to distinguish us from the people around us. To show people that God has not forgotten the world. That God is working 

So, I cannot eat what is on the sheet. We don’t do ‘cheat’ meals. To eat something from this sheet is impossible for me is impossible. It goes against my identity. This sounds like the Lord, but this goes against God’s teaching to us!

But then I hear it again. “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

Three times, this happened. Then, as I was pondering this, the three visitors arrived. The voice came again, commanding me to go with them. I could see things coming together. I knew it was the Lord. But I was still puzzled. What mystery was this?

If I’d ignored that voice, that vision, put it down to my hunger pains. I would have missed something profound. I would have missed God at work in the world.

I’m told your society likes to explain things, that you’ve discovered amazing things about how the world works.

But, do you have stories? Stories of mystery and awe. Things you couldn’t explain?

Moments where you just knew you had felt or experienced something… other, something… divine? A presence. A peace. A joy. A sadness. A hope. A knowing.

God is working, moving, transforming, and renewing the world and human hearts. Expect to be surprised by your God.

Be careful what or who you rule out.

That day, when I set foot in Cornelius’s house, I knew there would be questions, an investigation, from some in the faith. I still had questions. This was new to me!

I saw that he and his family, friends, and his whole household, something was happening. You need to understand that for a figure like Cornelius, his household is not just his family, it’s people from his community, his family does business with, who he is the patron and supporter of. So when I walk into his house, I’m not just meeting his family and servants. I’m looking at a cross-section, a smaller version of our non-Jewish society.

People that I don’t normally associate with. People I don’t eat with, because for us, to eat together means trust, it means relationship, that on some level, that’s your ‘family’.

That might seem strange, but do you just invite anyone to tea? Strangers? People who believe different things from you? Who sees the world differently?

It was just as strange for Cornelius to invite me as it was for me to go to him.

But here’s the interesting thing. Cornelius was what we call a God-Fearer. A person who wasn’t a Jew, wasn’t part of God’s family, had all the Roman and Greek deities to venerate, but something about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob resonated with him. Something about this God’s presence of love, presence, mercy, and justice that he began ordering his life around.

I didn’t think that our traditions were exclusive; Cornelius and his household can worship God by setting themselves apart. There would be rituals, of course, circumcision being one, and they would join us in following our traditions, setting them apart, joining God’s family. Being a light to the world.

So I told them about God’s good news of peace between God and humanity that God brought about through Jesus.

I’d barely finished speaking when it started in one corner, and spread throughout the room, as quickly as a fire in a grain field, as quickly as it did for us that day in Jerusalem. Different and strange languages filled the room, praising God. The Spirit of Jesus.

Another surprise!

I tried to take it in. My concept of God’s family, who could be in and who was out, had just been blown away like the chaff when rubbing heads of grain together. I thought I understood God’s family, it was like I came to the winepress with the biggest jar I could find, confident that it would be big enough. But then, as the vintner poured out the wine into my jar, it overflowed,d and they wouldn’t stop pouring. Their measure was so abundant, so extravagant.

My friends, we need to be mindful of how we determine who God’s people are and who is not God’s people. Who is in, who is out? Our boundary markers.

Let us not call anything impure that God has made clean.

So often we look around, as I did in that room, and think that someone, those people, are far from God.

Look for God, let the Spirit surprise you. Look for God’s character, God’s goodness, for surely they are evidence of God at work, enlarging God’s family.

The Spirit moves first we respond

When I saw all of this, the way the Spirit had thrown God’s lot in with these Gentiles, I remember how Jesus had thrown his lot in with us. Living with the most unlikely people in our world and standing in solidarity with us, broken and rebellious people, dying a rebel’s death. God’s presence and mercy, this saving Grace, is gifted to us.

“If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

So those with me baptised them all. Old and young, free person and servant. All, Cornelius’ wife, sons, daughters, slaves, relations, friends, and patronages.

Why would we do that?

Perhaps that sounds to you like another boundary marker. In a way, it is.

But not in an in-and-out way. For in this action of the Spirit, we saw a deeper truth.  Their Baptism was a sign.

A sign acknowledging the true reality of things. A response to the grace already received. Our God is the First and The Last. I’ve learned that our God always acts first, makes the first move before we do anything. If we could even do anything! God has done it all. In baptism, we wade into the waters of Christ’s death and die with him in the sure hope that the God, who raised Jesus from the dead, will give us the same life.

It is a sign of the promise that God will finish what God started.

“The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus’ resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone,” (1 Pet 3:21)

When those investigating what happened heard all this, they pondered it deeply as I had done. But they came to the same conclusion as I had.

To not baptise them would be to turn our backs on what God had already done. To ignore the renewal of life the Spirit had brought. It would be for us to say we knew better than our Lord and Master. It would be to take up again the way of the Spiritual rebel.

We understood that Baptism is not an arrival at an endpoint. But a place of trust and beginning.

After it sank in, they praised God who has broken through to the Nations and opened them up to Life.

Closing

My friends, I am here to tell you that this same Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus that moved among the house of Cornelius, is here today in the same power as it was in my time and place.

It is here. In this very room. Out there hovering, moving, renewing, transforming… baptising.

Searing hearts and minds with holy fire. Surprising people.

Just think, out there, people are encountering the Living God today. They want to build their lives around God’s divine character of love, compassion, mercy, patience, and justice.

Expect God to surprise you,

Even in the last place, you would dare to look

Because God has gone ahead of us

Making clean, making free, making all things New.

I am Peter, son of Jonah, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace, I and you are precious children in the family of God, always with a place at the table.

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory now and forever!” (2 Peter 3:18)

Amen.