PETER’S LESSON

September 10, 2023
Rev. Tim Mitchell

Jesus was a Jew, and all his first disciples and followers were Jews. This is the first time the Gospel is offered to a non-Jew. Most sermons will focus, and rightly so, on revealing that all humans are equal before God. Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This is a beautiful message to preach! But I want us to note Peter’s radical change—moving from the belief that all non-Jews are ‘unclean’ or unacceptable to God to all being acceptable and loved by God.

How did Peter—a person so misguided in his thinking find his way to what is good and acceptable? That’s the question I want to put before you this morning. It is an important question for each of us because we are all on a journey of discovery, are we not? Not one of us here has all the questions answered or has perfectly discerned the will of God. If we use the metaphor of a garden, plants need tending. Maybe they need pruning—maybe some ideas we previously held need to be removed and replaced.

Someone has written these humorous observations about growing wiser with age.

Now that I’m “older” (but refuse to grow up), here’s what I’ve discovered:

I started with nothing, and I still have most of it.

My wild oats have turned into prunes and All-bran.

I finally got my head together, and now my body is falling apart.

Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.

The only time the world beats a path to your door is when you’re in the bathroom.

If all is lost, where is it?

It’s easier to get older than it is to get wiser.

I wish the buck stopped here. I could use a few.

When a person gets to greener pastures, she can’t climb the fence!

It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.

If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.

When I finally hold all the cards, why does everyone decide to play chess?

I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter. I go somewhere to get something and then wonder what I’m here after.

Peter made a journey from no acceptance of Gentiles to complete approval. This sermon is drawn from from Rachel Held Evan’s book, “Wholehearted Faith, and Rachel’s description of Peter helps us understand the large chasm he crossed. “When law-abiding, kosher-eating, Roman-hating Peter encountered a centurion who feared God and gave to the poor, Peter, to his own astonishment, said, “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”3 Then Peter even went so far as to share a meal, as Jesus might have, with his new friend. “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile,” he said to Cornelius. “But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.” Not anyone.” (Evans, Rachel Held; Chu, Jeff. Wholehearted Faith (p. 115). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.)

Wholehearted faith is the kind of faith that is courageous and willing to take spiritual journeys of discovery. The first step on this journey is acknowledging that we don’t know everything. Humility will be a requisite, for without it, you and I will never make the journey Peter made. Humility is often being willing to learn from another, as Peter learns from Cornelius.

Robert Coles, a Harvard emeritus professor of Psychiatry and author, wrote a book about Dorothy Day. In the book, there is this anecdote that reveals his humility. Dorothy Day is a famous Catholic social worker who founded the Catholic Worker. When Coles began his career as a medical student at Harvard, he volunteered to work at the Catholic Worker. He was a Harvard graduate. He was in medical school. He was going to be a psychiatrist. In this society, that is about as high a status as possible. He knew that. He was proud of it. He was also proud that as this person with all these credentials, he was volunteering to help people experiencing poverty. It was the kind of thing people would sit up and take notice of.

He arrived at the premises of the Catholic Worker. He asked to see Dorothy Day. He went right to the top. The person said that she was in the kitchen. He entered the kitchen and saw her sitting at a table, talking to someone. He had enough medical training to recognize that the man she was talking to may be an addict. Cole deduced from the man’s withdrawn face, skeletal frame, and disheveled appearance that he was a homeless street person. She was sitting at a table with him, listening intently to what he had to say.

She is at the table with this street person, giving him her full attention. So, she didn’t notice Coles come into the room. He stood beside the door and waited for her to finish. When she finished the conversation, she stood up. That is when she noticed Coles. She asked, “Do you want to speak to one of us?”

He was astounded. Dorothy Day was famous. This man with her was a nobody. He’s a derelict. “You wanted to speak to one of us?” Coles had never seen anything like this before. Humility that can identify with another person so wholly as to remove all distinctions between them. It cuts through all of the boundaries and categories that society sets up to separate us from one another. There were two people, a brother, and a sister; the sister was concerned about the brother.

It changed his life. He said he learned more in one moment than in four years at Harvard. He saw in one moment what it means to humble yourself. Learning from another will require listening to God and the other.

Peter initially had difficulty listening to God when the sheet was lowered. He had been taught from scripture what was acceptable to eat—what is clean and what is unclean. How could he now accept this vision? It is always difficult to admit we might be mistaken when our teaching has come from our religion. But Peter first listens to God and then to Cornelius. I am impressed with Rachel’s humility and ability to listen and learn from others—even when they disagree. Don’t ever call anyone unclean, she writes!

In the Peanuts cartoon, Lucy is chasing Charlie Brown. She is shaking her fist at him and screaming:

“I’ll get you, Charlie Brown. I’ll get you. And when I get you, I will knock your block off!”

Suddenly, Charlie Brown screeches to a halt. He turns and, in a very mature way, says:

“Wait a minute, Lucy. You and I are relatively small children with relatively small problems, and if we can’t sit down and talk through our problems with love, respect, and understanding, how can we expect the world’s great nations to sit down and talk things through?” And then, “Pow!” Lucy slugs him, saying, “I had to hit him quick; he was beginning to make sense!!!”

That’s what closed-minded people do. They don’t want to listen to another person’s point of view. So, they hit them quickly. They think that anybody who disagrees with them is the enemy who must be silenced. And some, sadly, even go so far as to believe that anybody who disagrees with them is the enemy of God.

Peter changed his theology and understanding of the other by being humble enough to accept that he needed to grow by listening to God and the other. Let me close with Rachel’s account of her growth. “But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”4. Not anyone.

She writes, “Only recently have I understood the remarkable sweep of that statement—and the sobering reality that I am still not done yet. When I was a Bible-thumping, churchgoing, know-it-all Republican, God used bleeding-heart, politically correct, question-everything liberals to teach me a little bit more about how to be human and to toy with my concretized notions of who my enemies were.

And now that I’m a bleeding-heart, politically correct, question-everything liberal, God still insists on using Bible-thumping, churchgoing, know-it-all Republicans to teach me a little bit more about how to be human and to toy with my concretized notions of who my enemies are.

I have been Peter, and I have been Cornelius. I am still Peter, and I am still Cornelius. And God is still God. That same patient, long-suffering, often annoying God seems rather adamantly committed to putting to death my notion that this life is all about being right—and especially that my life is all about me being right.

Even as I still believe that God calls us to help change the world, to make it more just, to make it more equitable, to make it more loving, I also believe that God empowers the world to help change us, to make us more just, to make us more equitable, to make us more loving.

(Evans, Rachel Held; Chu, Jeff. Wholehearted Faith (pp. 115-116). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.)

© Rev. Tim Mitchell, 2023, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org | 309.673.8501

“Throughout the week, there are many worldly things pulling me away from my commitment to God.  I come to church on Sunday at Westminster to reconnect and renew my relationship with Him.  Part of my worship is to ask him for forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness.  I leave, reminded that he loves me, forgives me, and walks beside me every day.  What a profound blessing that is!”