ACTS 10:1-8; 9-18,22-28,34
“FREE OF FAVORITISM”
The company's personnel director looked over Fred Fernstrom's resume. Then handing it back to Fred, he said, “You made an excellent first impression, Fernstrom, but in the second and third impressions – not so much! Don't call us, we'll call you – or not.”
Sociologists have conducted studies on the significance of first impressions. They've asked questions like: How accurate are first impressions? How do they effect social behavior? What factors are most important in forming a first impression of someone, including race, gender, apparel, etc?
I knew a woman years ago who received a visit from the new pastor. Her best friend attended his church so she wanted to make a good first impression. She welcomed him in to her home, offered him coffee and cookies and then sat down to visit. After a few minutes there was a lull in the conver-sation so, smiling at the pastor, she said to her daughter, “Honey, bring me the good book that I read all the time.” Without looking up the girl reached over and handed her mother the T V Guide.
First impressions can be tricky business! Have you ever entrusted someone to make a first
impression on your behalf...? “He's not a bad kid. His mother loves him, but what a mess!”
Our readings this morning introduce us to a Roman centurion who has left it up to his staff to make a good impression on Simon Peter, who he's been told by an angel he should invite to his home. The preceding story in Acts 9 tells how Peter raised a woman from the dead in nearby Joppa, just a few miles south down the coast of the Mediteranean Sea. Many folks there had come to faith as a result and word no doubt had reached Cornelius up in Caesarea. So he sent some of his staff to invite this Peter fellow to his home, and when Peter answers the door to his residence in Joppa, they tell him...:
“We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He's a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews. An angel told him to summon you to his house to hear your message.”
(Acts 10:22)
Peter's first impression echoes that which Luke has provided us with earlier in the chapter: “A Roman centurion named Cornelius lived in Caesarea who was captain of the Italian regiment. He was a devout, God -fearing man, as was everyone in his household. He gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God, and was doing so when he had a vision of an angel who spoke to him.”
(Acts 10:1-3)
It's quite the positive first impression! Peter's thinking, “I've never met this guy, but I like him already. I mean what's not to like? He believes in God, gives generously to those in need and what's more, he's invited me over to be his guest of honor. What's not to like - other than his being a Roman?”
Those guys at the door must've made quite the first impression because the next thing we know, Peter invites them in and leaves with them the next day for Caesarea, (named for Caesar Augustus).
'Whatever has gotten into Peter?' his friends must've wondered. Whatever it was, it was a process more than an event, a divine intervention more than just a first impression.
Luke tells us is that God has mysteriously, supernaturally, connected these two men and their 'people'. The chapter opens with Cornelius' vision of an angel who tells him to send some of his staff to Joppa in order to invite Peter to his home so that he and his entire tribe/people can hear the gospel.
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As they're in route to Joppa, Peter also has a vision, one that leaves him scratching his head. He's shown a spread of animals, some clean and others unclean from a Jewish perspective, and is told to prepare a meal from a sampling of both types of animals. Peter assumes he's being tested and refuses, Luke deftly notes, three times. It's reminiscent of Peter's threefold denial of knowing Jesus.
It would seem he, once again, is in need of correction. “Peter was perplexed”, we're told. That is to say, the vision pushes his buttons. He's all stirred up. It's right then that the Holy Spirit whispers in his ear. “Three men have come looking for you. Go with them. Don't worry; I sent them!”
(Acts 10:17, 19-20)
Everything is happening in groups of three! Peter doesn't quite grasp what God is up to but it quickly becomes clear that God is causing his and Cornelius' path to intersect just as he did with Phillip and Ethopian eunuch. There, too, an angel and the Holy Spirit teamed up to make it so.
Peter assumes that if a person was not a Jew he was to keep his distance from them. Jews were not to eat or enter the homes of Gentiles, that is, non-Jews, who were seen as spiritually unclean. But as the days proceed, it begins to dawn on him, the vision was not so much about eating what was unclean, but rather eating with, befriending and loving on those he'd always considered unworthy and unclean. Sadly Peter wouldn't be the last person to size someone up based on their ethnic group!
Peter’s mindset reminds me of Harry. Harry had applied for a job at the city zoo. During his interview he was told that the zoo had just lost it’s prize attraction – Samson the Gorilla. Harry was
given two weeks to master the nuances of an ape, so Harry went into training. He exercised to get in shape. He watched video clips of Samson and began to imitate his movements. He learned to swing in a cage like a gorilla. One day he was swinging in the cage and feeling good about his progress. Back and forth he went, higher and higher until all of sudden he lost his grip, soared into the air, and flew over the top of his cage into the one next door – which happened to be inhabited by a ferocious lion.
The lion hungrily sized him up. It was a good first impression, but probably not the kind Harry was eager to make. The lion began walking towards Harry who tried to call out for help but his gorilla suit muffled his voice: 'help!' Finally he lost all composure and started crying: 'I'm gonna die!' The lion growled, looked Harry in the eye and said, “Pipe down, you idiot, or we’ll both lose our jobs!”
Here's the point: Anyone can pretend to be a gorilla. You can don a suit and look like an ape, but fact is, it’s what’s on the inside that really matters. Only God sees what's inside and scripture reveals that though we have all fallen short of the glory of God...God so loves the world that He gave His only Son so that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
(Romans 3:23/John 3:16)
In Acts 10 we read how God sent one of his angels and spoke thru the Spirit in order to inter-vene in human history, intersecting the paths of different people groups in order to set us free of our favoritism. As Peter is told: “If God says something is acceptable, don’t say it isn’t.” (Acts 10:15)
Later, standing in Cornelius’ home, Peter tells the Roman what he has learned from his vision and God's threefold correction: “God has shown me that I should never think of anyone as impure or unclean... I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:28, 34-5) What makes a person right with God is not what's visible on the outside but what's on the inside, and determining that is way out ot our pay grade. The Good News of salvation is not based on good deeds or good looks or good genes, but on the grace of God. Two thousand years later and we still have a hard time wrapping ourselves around that.
-3-
Meet Penny and Nadine. Nadine descended from Scottish royalty and was raised in a climate of prestige and privilege, whereas Penny was born in a green army tent on a hippie commune here in the northwest. Later, as foreign exchange students in France, the two wound up as college roommates. Talk about awkward first impressions! It was as if they're exchanging notes from different planets.
Whereas Nadine grew up being expected to toe the line, Penny grew up in an environment where there was no line. It was anything goes. Worse yet, when Penny was a child her mother was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. Her delusions included being convinced that JFK was her lover and that she was being hunted by the FBI. She eventually wound up on the streets of Seattle.
It was comforting for Penny that Nadine cared so much about her story. It helped her to listen to Nadine’s. One night, Nadine explained to Penny why she was a Christian. She said that she saw how Christ was a loving revolutionary sent from God to heal a world that had broken itself. Penny was stunned. She couldn’t believe that a girl this kind and accepting could subscribe to the same religion that generated the crusades or given birth to TV evangelists. Still, her curiosity was aroused.
“The thing I loved about Nadine,” Penny explains, “was that I never felt like she was trying to sell me anything. She'd talk about God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to him on the phone that day. Other Christians I'd met tried to sell God to me, as if He were soap or a vacuum cleaner. They weren't really interested in me; they just wanted me to buy their product,but Nadine was different. To her, God was a being with which she interacted, and even more, Nadine believed God liked her. I thought that was beautiful. As a result, I decided to see if this whole Jesus thing was for real.
“So we began to read the Bible together. We’d eat chocolate and just read. Did you know that the Bible is good with chocolate? I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, but it isn’t. It’s a chocolate thing. As we began to read I found Jesus to be very engaging and personal. I felt like if I met him, he'd actually like me. I saw how he identified with hurting people, broken people, desperate people – people like me. He didn’t play favorites at all, which is miraculous in itself. That fact alone may've been the most supernatural thing He did. He didn’t show partiality - and neither should we.”
(from John Burke's book, No Perfect People Allowed)
Penny noted how supernatural this all is and Luke confirms that by reporting to us that God sent one of his secret agents to both Phillip and Cornelius. Angels appear in the N.T. as God is about to launch a new thing. They announce the birth of God's Son, and later of his victory over death, and now they appear again as Christ launches his church on its global mission, a mission not only to save us from our sins, but to set us free from the conflict caused by favoritism.
When I was one year old, the Holy Spirit inspired yet another next generation Christian, an American pastor as it were, with a fresh expression of this freedom from favoritism. His message is one of the most quoted from the 20thcentury. In his message he shared a Christ centered dream:
“My friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up to live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal.' I have a dream that one day we'll be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation that will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
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When we allow freedom (from favoritism) to ring – when we ring it from every city and hamlet, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty, we are free at last.'”
(from MLK's 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech)
May we each live out that dream, a dream that was inspired by Peter's waking dream, by which his heart was changed and he came to see “very clearly that God shows no favoritism, for in every nation (and people group) he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.” (Acts 10:34-35)