Acts 10:44-48
While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.
John 15:9-17
[Jesus said:] “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
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Today’s few short verses from Acts take place at the end of my favorite story in the book of Acts, and, if I’m being honest, the one story in the Bible that has influenced my theology more deeply than any other.
This is the story of Peter and Cornelius. Peter, who is up on a rooftop praying, and hungry, who sees a vision of a sheet being lowered from heaven full of unclean animals, and a voice from heaven saying, “take and eat.” Three times the sheet comes down, three times Peter says “no thank you,” adhering to the food rules outlined in the law. Three times the voice of God says, “what I have made clean, you must no longer call profane,” which isn’t just a statement about food rules. It is a sign to Peter that the law itself is no longer the boundary around who gets to be part of God’s in-crowd.
Peter is brought to the home of Cornelius, who summoned Peter because of his own vision of an angel of God, and tells Peter that he will listen to anything he has to say. So Peter, as he is wont to do in Acts, launches into a sermon about Jesus, and while he is still speaking, the Holy Spirit shows up, and falls upon Cornelius and other Gentiles in his house.
The men who had come with Peter - the “circumcised believers,” that is, fellow Jews - were astounded that the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon Gentiles, outsiders, and that folks outside the current boundaries would be given, by God, the gifts of the Spirit.
And then Peter, jumps in with the rhetorical question that is the heart of the passage and the heart of the matter: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”
This question should sound an awful lot like the Ethiopian’s question last week, “Here is water; what is to prevent me from being baptized?” and these questions should drive us right back to our gospel reading today, to Jesus who says, “You did not choose me but I chose you,” and to Jesus who, just a few weeks ago said, “I have other sheep who are not from this fold; I must bring them also.”
This story from Acts today is, first and foremost, a story of inclusion. The Holy Spirit crashes through human boundaries; the gifts of the Spirit do not depend upon old categories of “in” and “out.” God is always doing a new thing. God is still active. God is not a closed book. God’s dreams and plans to give us a future with hope are mysterious and open-ended. God is always widening the embrace for the sake bringing new life to all people and all creation.
But this story from Acts is not only a story of welcome and boundary-crossing. It is also a story of justice.
Those of us who run in theological circles mourn this week the death of James Cone, the father of modern liberation theology and an essential voice leading the conversation about faith, race, and politics; especially the necessity of Christianity to understand itself as a religion for the oppressed and against the oppressor.
Liberation theology pushes us beyond a place of welcome. Cone and others would say that it is not enough just to embrace or love or welcome oppressed or marginalized people, those whose voices have routinely been pushed to the outside; faith demands a new willingness to be led by them, to give up our own power and voice so that they can take up their own power and voice.
If you notice, this is exactly what happens in Acts. Those on the margins, on the outside, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In full. They receive the same manner and measure of the Spirit as Paul and his companions, and, there’s that key details, that they, too are speaking in tongues, which is not just a confirmation for the bystanders that they have, indeed, received the Spirit of God, but it also means that they are speaking and preaching and leading.
The most radical part of this story is the fact that the Holy Spirit and all of the Spirit’s gifts are given to those who have been on the outside in order that they claim a voice, a vision, and a place of both honor and leadership in the community. The “outsiders” are not just included in some provisional way. Their voices, which previously did not matter, now matter. And it matters that their voices are heard. It matters that they are equipped to be leaders in this Jesus-movement.
If we were to look around our faith community and our community-at-large, who are those in our own context whose voices are not being heard? Who are those who are routinely cast aside or overlooked?
For starters, at least: People of color, people living below the poverty line, people of diverse gender expressions and sexual orientations. Survivors of abuse. Survivors of addiction. Those living with invisible physical illnesses and those coping with mental illness. We could keep adding to this list.
Perhaps one of the greatest gifts and callings of our faith, my friends, is the call to make space; to notice where the Holy Spirit is moving and to get out of the way; to celebrate the gifts of the Spirit as they fall on people who are not us; to give up a little bit of the control that we love so much, in order that new voices and new ideas can emerge.
The Holy Spirit in Acts today confronts us with the truth that he gospel message, at its very heart, is about giving up. It is a story of God in Christ, giving up divinity, giving up power, giving over his very life for the sake of the world. And every time people get angry with Jesus in the gospels, it is because he has taken everything they thought was secure in their lives and asked them to give it up. Sometimes it is wealth. Sometimes it is prestige. Sometimes it is family. Sometimes it is power. Sometimes it is basic needs like food or clothing or shelter. Sometimes it is the idea that God likes us best. But whatever it is, Jesus manages in the gospel to find the thing that people cling to the most, and challenges them to give it up, and to recognize that a suffering world doesn’t need our privilege nearly as much as it needs our vulnerability and our love.
And Jesus is very clear: our primary work is love. This is what he calls me to do. This is what he calls you to do. This is what he chooses us to do.
But make no mistake - the power to choose in this relationship is Christ’s power. Not ours. We do not choose Christ. And, more importantly, we do we get to choose upon whom Christ’s love falls.
Christ chooses us - all of us - and we abide together in his love. Our worth, our affirmation, or sense of self rests squarely in the arms of a God who embraces us - all of us - freely and unconditionally, for the sake of sharing the love that has first embraced us.
Love is our work. It is our command. It is our joy.
Love is a verb. Love manifests itself in compassion, forgiveness, and grace...and love as it manifests itself in truth, justice, and sacrifice. Sometimes love looks like what we give to others or do for others. And sometimes love looks like making space for others to flourish.
This, my siblings in Christ, is the work of reconciliation to which you are called, like it or not. To heal our world through listening and through love.
And as we abide in Christ’s love, we are made free to give everything else up. We are free to celebrate the successes of our neighbors. We are free to cross boundaries. We are free to welcome others without fear. We are free to listen instead of always to speak. We are free to lift up unheard voices. We are free to follow instead of to lead. We are free to set aside our privilege so that others can show us the Holy Spirit. We are free to include all of God’s beloved children in the work of expanding God’s vision of hope and grace and renewal for all people and all creation.
“This is my commandment,” Jesus says to us, “that you love one another. Abide in my love. And your joy will be made complete.”
May the love of Christ dwell in you richly.
And may this love bring you great joy, now and always.
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