Acts 11:1-18
Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”
Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.
At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’
And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 18When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
Revelation 21:1-6
I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”
John 13:31-35
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
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There is a distinct theme of newness in our readings this morning. In our reading from Revelation, a vision of a new heaven and a new earth and a new creation. In our gospel reading, a new commandment to love one another as Jesus loves us. In our first reading from Acts, a new mission and a new openness to the reaches of God’s salvation.
All of this newness sparks in my head a question that God asks through the prophet Isaiah: “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
I love this question, the way it is asked. The way that God talks about creating newness now and next and always. The way that the question isn’t, “can you see it?” but rather, “look around, how can you not see it?”
Except, of course, sometimes we really can’t see it, can we?
Does anyone remember those Magic Eye illusions from a few decades ago? A picture that, on first glance, is just a page of dizzying dots and squiggles, just static. It was only when you looked at it differently, relaxing your eyes in a certain way, crossing them a little, staring at the page as though you were trying to see through the paper that, in an instant, everything would snap into focus, and you’d see a shape would pop up from the page, an oddly three-dimensional rendering of a person’s face or a truck or Mount Rushmore or whatever.
Sometimes, I think, seeing the new thing God is doing in this world is sort of like that. We can look and we can look, and yet we cannot see, because of despair or fear, cynicism or old habits, exhaustion or doubt. Our view is blocked, our eyes focus on the wrong things, and God’s new thing might be right there in front of our sight, but we cannot perceive it. Not without someone or something to change our perspective.
This is why I want to dig into our reading from Acts this morning, which is the end of a story that actually spans two chapters, beginning back in Acts chapter 10.
This story in Acts 10 and 11 tells the story of Peter and Cornelius and the Holy Spirit.
The story starts with a God-fearing and well-respected Gentile centurion named Cornelius. He has a vision of an angel from God. The angel gives him instructions: to send men to Joppa to fetch a man, yet unknown to him, named Peter, and, for a yet unknown reason, to welcome him into his house at Caesarea.
Peter, meanwhile, is in Joppa, praying up on a rooftop, and he also has a vision. He sees a sheet, being lowered from heaven, three times, filled with unclean animals (that is, animals that the purity laws forbid Jews to eat). Peter is hungry, and a voice from heaven encourages him, “kill and eat.” Peter protests, but the voice of from heaven persists, saying “What God has made clean, you shall not call profane.”
Often, this story of Peter’s vision has been interpreted as God, opening up the covenant to Gentiles; it has often been a story told about God having a change of heart. I’ve preached that sermon, more than once.
But I would like to propose today that this story might not be about God’s change of heart; rather it is a story about Peter’s change of heart. And perhaps this is not a story about God doing a new thing by opening up the offer of salvation to the Gentiles, but rather about Peter recognizing that God has been doing this new thing all along, and only now is he able to perceive it and be a part of it.
When Peter and Cornelius meet, brought together by a meddling Spirit, Peter does what he always does when the Spirit does weird stuff in Acts: he starts preaching a sermon. He use can’ help himself. He begins, "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
And I wonder if Peter does indeed “truly understand” this. I think that he wants to believe it. I think he thinks he believes it. I think that his vision on the rooftop has planed this new-old idea in his head, that God’s favor is upon all, and not just upon a few.
It is an idea that he must have already had in his head somewhere, from following Jesus and watching Jesus reach out beyond Jewish/Gentile boundaries to heal and to teach. The old boundaries and distinctions have already been crumbling away.
Moreover, on the day of Pentecost, back in Acts 2, when the tongues of fire and multi-lingual babbling of the crowd raise the question of whether this is the Spirit moving or just too much wine talking, Peter gives a sermon, acknowledging the gift of the Spirit revealing God’s promise for his Jewish audience and their children, but also for “all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”
But up until now, this lovely idea that God’s promise is a universal promise is just an idea for Peter. It hasn’t asked anything of him. He hasn’t been asked to risk anything yet. This new idea in his head and heart has not yet been tested.
Let’s be honest here. Peter doesn’t always do well when he is tested. Peter is a man who gets nervous. He is bold in proclamation, feeble in action. Under pressure, Peter sinks into the sea. He takes a sword to the ear of a guard. He denies knowing Jesus when the stakes are too high there by the fire in the courtyard of the high priest.
As Peter is preaching to Cornelius and his household, the Spirit descends upon these Gentiles. She gives them the same gifts of tongues and praise that had been bestowed upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost.
Peter and his companions are astounded, we read, that the Holy Spirit is here poured out, “even on the Gentiles.”
And suddenly, all eyes are on Peter. His is the next move. What will he do?
It is test time. Peter doesn’t get to confer with all of the other disciples. He doesn’t get to go to the synagogue and do some extra research. He doesn’t get to run anything through the evangelism committee or the church council. He is here being called to take the faith that is in him, the love of God that has been revealed to his heart by the Holy Spirit, and to take a risk.
Peter asks out loud, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”
And in the asking, he already knows the answer: What God has made clean, you shall not call profane.
Peter baptizes Cornelius. And all those who were with him. And when Peter is called into account in today’s reading by the other apostles and believers in Jerusalem, Peter says, “If God gave them the gift, who was I that I could hinder God?”
It was not enough that God set a vision before Peter’s eyes of the new reaches of Peter’s mission. Peter needed Cornelius to see it. He needed someone outside of himself - someone different from himself - to be able to look differently at the picture of the world around him. He needed a critical incident, the pressure of do-or-die moment of decision, to truly, honestly see and embody the newness God had begun in his own heart, and the new work that God was doing through him and around him and because of him.
“I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?”
The catch for Peter, and for us, is that we like to look in all the old places for where God is at work. Whether we look in the tried-and-true ministries of our tried-and-true congregation in a tried-and-true building, or whether we look for God’s gifts in the people who look like us, think like us, act like us, and believe like us. The truth is that we, like Peter, are always being challenged to recognize God working in and being for those whom we might have otherwise counted out or ignored.
Who or what is your Cornelius? Through whom is God reaching out to you to change your heart?
Is your Cornelius named Andrew or Ellis? Has a change in heart begun in you from receiving their sacred stories of coming out last week in worship?
Is your Cornelius named Betty Rondón? Is the story of this ELCA ordination candidate and doctoral student, who, with her family, were rounded up from their home at gunpoint during an ICE raid last week beginning a change in heart for you, and a change in perspective about a Holy Spirit that is, in fact, always bursting through borders?
Is your Cornelius the name of every scientist and reporter right now publishing increasingly grave reports about the future of our planet earth? Has a change in heart begun in you, by fear or despair or grief, to redouble your efforts to preserve and advocate for and rebuild this creation?
I am doing a new thing, God says. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?
The Spirit of God sends Corneliuses to us. The Spirit of God changes hearts. The Spirit of God gives new eyes to see the world as God sees it and to see others as God sees them; to love one another as God loves us.
This is what is so “new” about the “new commandment” Jesus gives to his disciples. Not that he commands them to love. Because love has been a part of the vocabulary for Jesus and well before Jesus. The commandments to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself go alllll the way back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
But Jesus, in a new way, calls us not just to love, but to love as Jesus has loved us. Not just to see one another as neighbors, but to see one another through the eyes of God, the creator, in whose image each of us is formed. Not just to love with our feelings, but to love as Jesus loves, by serving and sacrificing and humbling ourselves at the feet of another.
Because the work of the Spirit in us is to change our hearts.
To bend our eyes toward a new vision of God’s expansive love for us and for all creation. To bend our understanding of love toward an understanding of justice and compassion.
God is doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?
What is the new thing that God is doing in your heart and mine? In the heart of this community and this nation and this world?
What is the vision of a new heaven and new earth and new creation that the Spirit is placing before your eyes?
What is the new work of love that Christ has revealed to you and begun in you, leading you outside yourself, beyond all the boundaries, beyond all expectations?
God is pouring into you a new heart, and a new spirit, and a new vision. Can you see it?