Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship ·January 9, 2005

Prayer of the Day

Inclusive God, we pray that we might be receptive to your Living Spirit in this place and in our hearts this hour.  Help us to come close to you.  Remind us of our calling, that we may be your people.  Amen.

Scripture
Acts 10:34-43

Then Peter said:

Now I am certain that God treats all people alike.  God is pleased with everyone who worships him and does right, no matter what nation they come from.  This is the same message that God gave to the people of Israel, when he sent Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, to offer peace to them.

You surely know what happened everywhere in Judea.  It all began in Galileeafter John had told everyone to be baptized.  God gave the Holy Spirit and power to Jesus from Nazareth.  He was with Jesus, as he went around doing good and healing everyone who was under the power of the devil.  We all saw what Jesus did both in Israeland in the city of Jerusalem.

Jesus was put to death on a cross.  But three days later, God raised him to life and let him be seen.  Not everyone saw him.  He was seen only by us, who ate and drank with him after he was raised from death.  We were the ones God chose to tell others about him.

God told us to announce clearly to the people that Jesus is the one God has chosen to judge the living and the dead.  Every one of the prophets has said that all who have faith in Jesus will have their sins forgiven in his name.

Message
Open to Everybody Jesus Can Get His Hands On!
Rick Frost

In view of what is happening in the world right now, and the fact that we have some folks just returning from halfway around the globe, this text seems more than appropriate.  It’s amazing how those things work.  I think it’s a fascinating text, one of the most important stories in all of Scripture.  In order to help us get into it today, I want to tell you, not one, but three stories.

Story Number 1

Bob was a country boy.  He grew up on a small farm in Iowa.  His mother raised five children, and like most women in her environment, it was her job to take care of the home, wash, clean, manage the children’s lives, do the chores around the house, and wait on the men folk.  Bob’s father worked the land from dawn to dusk, mending fences and repairing equipment as was needed.  He was generally a man of few words, but when he did speak around the house, it was clear that his word was law.

Bob and his family went to Sunday School and church almost every Sunday.  It was there Bob and his siblings learned the stories of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus.

After high school, Bob’s plan was to farm, just like his father and his grandfather before him.  But times had changed, and the farm was no longer large enough to support an ever-expanding family.  And so, new plans had to be developed and put into place.

Bob married his high-school sweetheart, Janine, and together they set out for a new life in a new place.  As it turned out, that new place, of all places, was Boulder, Colorado – a sleepy little college town in the mid-1950s.  They had saved enough money somehow to rent just one single room in a boarding house there.  Janine took on washing and ironing and cooking for the landlady to defray part of the rent.  Bob, fortunately, got a job as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service.

They joined First Christian Church in Boulder, and they became involved in a Sunday School class with young people their own age.  Bob was invited to join the Masonic Order, and Janine became a member of the Eastern Star.  They made friends.  They had dreams.  They were frugal with their money.  They were able, in time, to put a little down payment on a little, tiny house, and they started their family.

Life was good, and they lived happily ever after.  Well, not exactly.

You see… life in Boulder changed during the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.  It changed a lot.  In fact, it changed so much that even the people of First Christian Church, much to their dismay, were unable to live in peace and harmony with one another.  And so, under Bob’s leadership, a small band of like-minded members went out to the north edge of town and started their own little church the way Bob believed a church was supposed to be – the way it had been back in Iowa, the way it had been back on the farm.  It was a way of life that went to the very heart of his and their identity as a community.

For a while, it really worked.  They built a little building.  They had 70 or 80 people in worship on their best days.  There were 15 or 20 in Sunday School.  They bought a little parsonage up on Fourth Street near the hills.  Preachers came and went, but Bob was the mainstay.  He ran the church.

And they lived happily ever after.  Well, not exactly.

This was Boulder, Colorado.  This was not an Iowa farm community.  It was a vital, dynamic, growing, progressive, university community, and it seemed as if the Spirit of the Living God was calling God’s people to reach out to new people with new need-meeting ministries, and in new ways.  They were reaching out in ways that welcomed and embraced all people, and, as it turned out in that community, there were some very, very diverse kinds of people.

But Bob and his little church (bless their hearts) just didn’t see it that way.  They had their ways.  They had things they believed to be true.  There were ways that worked for them, and they were amazingly content to separate themselves from most of the rest of the community.  And after some reflection on it all, it came to be that their identity of who they were and what they were really depended on them separating themselves from others.

As a result, that little church, instead of growing larger and larger, actually grew smaller and smaller as the faithful few grew older and older.  Some of the younger ones, as happens in every community, got job offers elsewhere, and they just moved away.  And some of them got tired of Bob, and they just joined another church.

It took maybe three or four years for it to happen, but the day actually came when Bob, with tears in his eyes, had to close the doors.  He had to sign the papers selling that little church to a private concern.  It literally broke his heart.  For the life of him, this now-retired letter carrier couldn’t understand why in the world God could allow such a thing to happen.  They had five acres of prime property in Boulder, one of the fastest-growing, most-desirable communities in which to live in all of North America. But now, and to this very day, it’s a private school for preppies.

Bob died as an old man wondering where in the world had he gone wrong?  What in the world had he done in his life?  After all, he was a good man.  What in the world had he done to deserve this?

Story Number 2

Once upon a time there was a Gentile Roman army officer named Cornelius.  He made his living in the military occupation of another country.  Now, Cornelius was a devout man, a believer in God, a man who gave to the poor, and who prayed regularly and religiously.

One day Cornelius was praying, and while he was praying, he received a vision.  In this vision, an angel of the Lord came to Cornelius and told him to send for a man who was in Joppa.  The man’s name was Peter.  Now, that’s all there was to the vision.  That’s all that was given, but Cornelius, being a man of faith, did what the Spirit prompted him to do.

Meanwhile, Peter, a Jewish fisherman who had become a disciple of Jesus, interestingly enough, at the same time, was in Joppa.  Guess what he was doing?  He, too, was praying.  He, too, was intentionally placing himself in the presence of God to listen, to connect with, to receive the will of the Holy.  That’s what prayer is at its best.  Isn’t it?  It is listening to what God would have us do.  As he prayed, according to the story, he fell into a trance.  While in that trance, he saw the heavens open up and something like a large sheet came down from heaven.  On this sheet were all kinds of animals.  All kinds.  And the Spirit of the Living God said, “Get up, Peter.  You’re hungry.  Prepare these animals and eat.”

“Surely not, Lord,” Peter said.  “I’ve never eaten anything in all my life that’s impure or unclean.  It’s against our religion.  Remember?  I mean, you know.  We don’t intermarry.  We don’t bow down to idols or people in power.  And we certainly don’t eat pork.  Not now.  Not ever.  That’s who we are.  That’s how we do things.  That’s our very identity.  It’s a matter of survival for us.  It has been for centuries.”

Don’t you just love it when people have conversations with God?  It’s amazing how it works.

Meanwhile, Cornelius’ messengers show up at Peter’s house, and together with Peter, they go back to Caesarea.  That’s where Peter does something he’s never, ever done before in his entire life.  He enters the home of a Gentile.  Have you ever gone into a place where you felt like you just didn’t belong?  It’s a scary thing.

Well… Captain Cornelius was thrilled that Peter had arrived.  He took him inside to meet all of his friends and family who had gathered there in the house.  Peter was more than a little uncomfortable explaining to the crowd how he was sure they understood how irregular this was.  After all, Gentiles and Jews were mixing together, and that was very irregular.  But he believed the Spirit of the Living God had shown him not to call any person unclean, or unacceptable, or an outsider.

“So,” said Peter, “what can I do for you?”

Well… Cornelius told him how God had also spoken to him in his prayers.  Do you see who the main player is in this story?  He told Peter how God had instructed him to send for him.  He thanked Peter for coming.  They were really looking forward – all of them, his family, his friends – to what Peter had to say to them.  “What is it that God wants you to say to us?”  That’s a preacher’s dream, folks.  Peter stepped up to the plate and gave probably one of the best speeches of his life.

He said these words:  “I now realize how true it is that God, the Creator of all, is impartial, not biased, shows no favoritism, but rather God accepts anybody who believes, fears, reverences God and does what is right.  You’ve heard about the message the Creator has sent telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ who is Lord of all.  You know how he was baptized, empowered by the Spirit to do good and to heal.  We saw the whole thing.  Yea, they crucified him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead.  Some of us actually saw him.  We really did.  We ate and drank with him.  On top of that, he sent us out to tell people about what we saw – that he’s the one who the Creator has appointed to be the judge, the ruler, the sustainer of the living and the dead.  And everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of their sins.”

Peter’s a good preacher.  He did a good job.

Well… while Peter was speaking, the Spirit of the Living God actually came upon all those who heard that message.  Peter had never seen anything like it.  It was incredible.  The Holy Spirit poured out on Gentiles, and here they were all together, worshipping and praising God.  I guess everybody got converted that day, even Peter.

And so Peter said, “It seems like you’ve already been baptized with the Holy Spirit, what’s to keep you from being baptized with water?”  And that’s what he did.  He baptized the whole bunch of them.  It was a grand celebration.  It was a great day.  Indeed, they asked Peter if he would be willing to stay for a couple of days and just have a celebration with them.

Story Number 3

Christian recording artist Ken Medema, during a concert, told his audience this story.  And I quote:

“My little church where I am a member likes to baptize folks.  You see, we’re Baptists, so we get pretty excited about baptizing anybody we can get our hands on.

“Well, one day these people showed up at our church.  They said they believed.  They said they wanted to be baptized.  They said they wanted to be part of our community of faith.  And we said, ‘Hey, that’s fantastic!  Great!’  We were thrilled to receive them.

“Now, they may have mentioned somewhere along the line that they were, in fact, different from most of the rest of us.  Maybe they said that out loud.  I really don’t remember.  But what I do remember is this.  We did what Baptists do.  We baptized them.

“Well, some other Baptists across town evidently heard about that.  They came over and said, ‘What in the world are you baptizing these folks for?  Don’t you know that they’re sinners?  Don’t you know that our church doesn’t approve of their lifestyle?’

“And we said, ‘Well, I guess the truth of the matter is we’re pretty much all sinners, and the church really doesn’t approve of all of our lifestyles either, but we are Baptists, and we baptize everybody Jesus can get his hands on.’”

So do we, folks.  So do we.  For it seems that, according to the text we shared today, if indeed God is impartial, if Jesus is Lord of all, if he is ruling with the Creator in heaven and on earth, then inclusiveness, not exclusiveness, is the name of the game.

It’s a huge issue right now.  You already know that.  Not only do you know it, but also everybody in this room has been through it.  I have.  So have you.  Those of us who are trying to be faithful in every age, in every place, and in every time have to rediscover the truth of Acts 10.  And we, in the church, have to constantly keep asking ourselves, “What on earth is God doing now?  What would God want us to do?”  Then we have to go into some uncharted territory just trying to keep up with the redemptive activity of the Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Redeemer of all that is.

Now, I know that’s not for everyone.  It’s just for everyone Jesus can get his hands on.  And I think that is going to keep most of us busy for a long, long time.

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

God of all, your kingdom is open to all ages, nations, and races.  May our hearts claim this truth as we open our arms to love all the earth and its peoples.  Let us be the hands of Jesus, inviting, welcoming, and embracing.  Amen.