Well, Isn’t That Special

By

Reverend Litton Logan

May 21, 2006

Scriptures:

¹In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. ²He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. ³One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” ⁴He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. ⁵Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; ⁶he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” ⁷When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, ⁸and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ¹⁰He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. ¹²In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. ¹³Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” ¹⁴But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” ¹⁵The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” ¹⁶This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

¹⁷Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. ¹⁸They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. ¹⁹While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you. ²⁰Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.” ²¹So Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” ²²They answered, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.” ²³So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging.

The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him. ²⁴The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. ²⁵On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him. ²⁶But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.” ²⁷And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; ²⁸and he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. ²⁹So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

³⁰Cornelius replied, “Four days ago at this very hour, at three o’clock, I was praying in my house when suddenly a man in dazzling clothes stood before me. ³¹He said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. ³²Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’ ³³Therefore I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. So now all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say.”

Gentiles Hear the Good News

³⁴Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, ³⁵but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ³⁶You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. ³⁷That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: ³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. ³⁹We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; ⁴⁰but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, ⁴¹not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. ⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Gentiles Receive the Holy Spirit

⁴⁴While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. ⁴⁵The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, ⁴⁶for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ⁴⁷“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” ⁴⁸So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days. (Acts 10, NRSV)

Sermon:

          I am sure that many of you have watched the Saturday Night Live skits featuring Dana Carvey as the Church Lady.  The Church Lady character on SNL was a religious talk-show host, who was one of these uptight, religious people, who worked overtime as a pious Church Lady to keep her own base impulses under control.  When one of her featured guest would say something she disagreed with or proved some point of sin for her, she would say, “Well, isn’t that special?”  She said this with one of those we-all-know-what’s-wrong-with-this-statement look on her face.  Being special for the Church Lady was not a commendation but a condemnation.

        Imagine if you will, that all your life you were taught to believe that you and your people were to be defined in opposition to everyone else.  Whatever other people did you couldn’t do.  If other people ate pork, shrimp, crab, chitterlings, squirrel, collard greens, and rabbit you didn’t because you were different and special. Well, maybe you could eat collard greens.

In fact, your differences and special-ness was a divine mandate from your god.  You and your people were to be separated, distinct, come out from all other peoples because you and your people were the only people of your god, who just happened to be the only true god and creator and sustainer of the universe.  All other gods were just empty stone or metal idols.  All other religions were false. All other peoples were to be avoided.

Your god was going to make you and your people the most important people in all the world.  Every nation would come to your people, pay homage, defend, and support you for the blessings of your god and his laws and power.

This sense of distinction is your life; it is who you are.  This is reality for you.  Now imagine further, that one day you encounter one of your own people who tells you that you and your people’s sense of special-ness has become a divine condemnation instead of a divine commendation.   

This Special One of your people tells you that the special-ness of your people lay in being the people who had been called out from among all the people of the world to receive from your god the absolute truths and good ways of life for all people.  You and your people were to be in the world but not of its ways. You were to be among the people but separated from their self-destructive ways.

This special person not only taught these radical ideas but also backed up his understandings with powerful miracles—even raising the dead.  None of your Elders and leaders could do such a think.  All they could do was make your business and spiritual life a burden with all these laws and statues that reinforced your special-ness by separation and denial.  All your leaders could do is lay a law-trip on you about how to avoid offending your god by becoming contaminated by non-special people and unclean things and practices.

Imagine the freedom this new teaching offered.  Imagine how it would simplify your life.  Not only that, but you learn that your god is not some egotistical god who is spring-loaded to take offense, but rather is in truth a loving and caring heavenly father.

Imagine also that if you embraced this new understanding of yourself and your god you will have to abandon your old sense of inherited special-ness with its divine merit. According to this Special One from your god, you are no longer just a special person, God’s elect, but rather a special person with a special calling and special work to perform for your god among all the people of the world.

This if you will, albeit overly simplified, is the ethnic mentality at work in the background of our scriptures in Acts. The author is interpreting and granting theological significance to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for gentiles and Jewish Christians alike. The author of Acts was most likely a gentile who converted to Judaism at sometime earlier in his life and is now a Jewish Christian convert.

Luke wants to stress the importance of Christianity’s Jewish roots for theological and political reasons.  He hoped that Rome would allow Christians as a Jewish sect the same freedom it accorded Judaism.  Furthermore, it was important that Christians should retain their Jewish Scriptures and many of its practices as Jesus did in order to be fully Christian. Luke and Jesus may have condemned the Purity Codes of the Pharisees but not the Mosaic Laws at the heart of Judaism.  Therefore, in chapter 10 we see a story that involves gentiles, Jews, Rome, and the Jewish scriptures or the Old Testament.

* * * *

          Cornelius, a captain in the Roman army, stationed at Caesarea, was a good and righteous man, who believed in and possibly practiced the ethical and moral teachings of Judaism.  He would have been known as a God-fearer among the Jews.

One day at the time most devote Jewish people would have devoted to religious prayers and contemplations, Cornelius was deep in religious thought and prayer when he had a vision. In this vision, a messenger from God came and told Cornelius his prayers and charitable acts had found favor with God. 

Did you catch that?  Who would have thought that God would listen to their prayers or acknowledge the good and noble works of the gentiles? Hum, this is really a radical idea—God cares about the people other than Jews and Christians.

This messenger from God instructs Cornelius to send men to Joppa and to find a fellow named Simon, the one who is called Peter, who is staying at a tanner’s house named Simon. Too many Simons in this story, it is confusing. It is confusion with a purpose. These servants of Cornelius are to fetch Peter and bring him from Joppa to Caesarea.

I hasten to point out that Peter is staying with a man and his family who were tanners.  The business of tanning animal hides to make leather was one of the Jewish vocations that rendered a person and all he encountered ceremonially unclean because of its connection to dead animals.  Well, at least Peter didn’t have to far to fall in his impurity from a tanner to a Roman soldier. 

Have you ever asked yourself, why the angel just didn’t tell Cornelius what he needed to know and skip all this running up and down the road fetching Peter?  Another question, did it cross your mind why Cornelius didn’t go to Joppa himself?  Well these questions make up another sermon.

Any way, Cornelius’ servants and a trusted military aide go to Joppa in search of Peter.

The next day about lunchtime as Peter, who evidently is coming off a fast, waits for lunch to be prepared; he goes out on the balcony of the house where he was staying for a time of prayer and reflection.  Evidently, Peter is so hungry that he falls into some kind of trance and has a vision.  In this vision, a big blanket containing all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds is lowered from heaven.  From the description, we can also infer that some of these creatures were forbidden foods for Jewish people.  The clue--animals of all kinds, reptiles, and all kinds of birds. The Jews could eat only specific, not all, animals.  No reptile was on the approved foods list—no frog legs, no rattlesnake stew, or lizard pie. Nor, did one serve roasted buzzard, falcon, or owl—birds of the air--under glass to one’s guests. 

Three times Peter is commanded by a voice from heaven, which he assumes is the Lord, to kill and eat.  Three times Peter refuses the Lord’s call to kill and eat.  Catch that?  Peter thinks that he is hearing the voice of the Lord from heaven, telling him to do something and three times he refuses on the grounds he doesn’t want to violate the laws concerning killing and eating kosher. (Many of you women would say it had nothing to do with kosher food, it was a typical man thing.  Why do it for himself when some woman was already preparing his lunch.)

Wouldn’t you think that Peter after all the humiliation and hard lessons he had learned recently about his false expectations he would have just shut his mouth and done what the Lord told him to do.  No, Peter, true to himself, argues with and refuses the Lord.  Not only that, but he walks away from this encounter scratching his head and wondering what it all meant.  

Peter, who cares, the Lord, told you to do something—plain and simple—kill and eat—and now you want to turn it into some big theological contemplation.  I can just see Peter, scratching his head, coming down the stairs, saying, “Hum, I wonder what that was all about?”  Duh, Peter, get a brain!

If it had been me and I had just heard the Lord tell me to kill and eat, I would have crabbed the first critter at hand rung its neck and en route to the kitchen to skin and cook it I would have asked the Lord if he was staying for dinner.

It is important to note that Peter did not kill and eat because he was Jewish to his core, just as Jesus was. Peter makes Luke’s point about keeping the Jewish roots of Christianity.  We have no indications that Jesus ever rejected or violated any of the Mosaic laws, even the dietary laws.  He didn’t buy into the human crafted purity codes, which unnecessarily alienated people, but he was kosher to the core of his being.  Peter didn’t not violate the Mosaic laws of the Old Testament; he was a Jew and stayed a Jew through out his encounter with Cornelius. He, however, became a Jew with an enlighten understanding of what had been taught and misunderstood in the Old Testament for centuries about God’s eternal care and concern for all people, but he remained a Jew none the less.

The three from Cornelius arrive at Simon the tanner’s seeking Peter. The three are presented to Peter and they began to tell Peter that their master was commanded by a holy messenger to come and get Peter and to bring him back to Caesarea. 

Surprise, Surprise, Peter decides to go with them.  Well after all he was staying a tanner’s house with all its awful odors so an all expense trip to Caesarea might be welcomed. Notice, that Peter invites these non-special people in to Simon’s house and offers them lodging.  I have often wondered if he would have taken such liberties with another man’s religion if he were staying at one of the Pharisee’s house.  Maybe Simon the tanner didn’t want to be contaminated any further than he was by hosting several gentiles, one a Roman soldier.

On his first encounter with Peter, Cornelius assumes that Peter is some kind of super holy man and falls down on his face to worship him.  Whew! I don’t know what that messenger from God did or said to Cornelius but he sure put the fear of God into this Roman Captain because he hit the floor, face down in an act of obeisance to Peter.  Peter tells him to stand up; he is just a mortal, no different from Cornelius. Peter is not the source of this man’s salvation but rather the one who is to proclaim salvation.

After Cornelius introduces Peter to all those in his non-special—gentile--household, Peter begins to speak to those gathered.  He shares his most recent insights:

God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.  Peter finally understands century old scriptures, which indicate that a person’s nationality or race does not disqualify them from God’s care and concern nor render them unworthy of God’s salvation. If they are true seekers of God, then God wants them in the fold.  Peter goes on to say that he is further enlighten to the meaning of all those Old Testament scriptures that teach that God is the God of all people and is not partial in God’s love or justice. 

Peter says, “I now realize how true it is that God shows no partiality between Jew and Gentile.”  (v. 34)

However, God does single out those “in every nation …who fear him and do what is right.”  Like Cornelius.

Next Peter tells the household the story of how God through the Jews in times past and now through Jesus in this time has brought the message of peace, shalom, salvation, and the fulfillment of God’s blessing to the whole world.  While Peter is speaking, the Holy Spirit comes upon those who were hearing and believing. 

I hope you caught the part in the scriptures where the Christian Jews couldn’t believe their eyes.  The Holy Spirit, the same spirit that had fallen on them and empowered them to give witness to Jesus had just fallen on these non-special people.  Now through the power of the Holy Spirit they were special people too. 

There was given no reason why these gentiles shouldn’t receive baptism in to the fullness of God’s fold, so they were baptized.

          Those who are seekers of God’s truths are never turned away.  The seekers of God’s truths in Jesus Christ are not only not turned away but they are sanctified, set a sided, called out and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit to proclaim God’s truths for the whole world and to become the blessings of the world. Contrary to popular thought and theology, a person who encounters the truths of God as made known in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and opens themselves up to the power of that truth is transformed and empowered immediately to proclaim the good news of what God has done in their lives.  They are not necessarily empowered to speak beyond that point, that is to hold forth on matters of doctrine, theology, etc. without proper training and education; but, they can and they should speak forth the truth of God’s transforming and saving presence in their lives.

Those who have experienced the freedom from the debilitating anxieties inherent in life and death through the Gospel of Jesus Christ should speak out; tell all they meet about the peace that surpasses all understanding, which pervades their minds and spirits.

Well, isn’t that special? 

The point of these scriptures seems obvious to us today—the power of salvation is available to all people regardless of ethnicity, socio-economic status, or vocation.  However, there is another lesson here too.  Let us, as Christians not think our selves so special that, we begin to think of others as non-special and exclude them as divine and holy possibilities for our lives and from the kingdom of God.  Let us strive in faith and truth to make our special-ness in Christ a divine commendation and not let it become a divine condemnation.

Well, isn’t that special?