Baptism of the Lord

Image: Baptism of Christ, 
Cappella Palatina di Palermo,
mid 12th century, from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

January 11, 2015

Click here for scripture readings.

Have you ever seen the struggle of will between a small child and his mother at the dinner table?

The child wants to eat only macaroni and cheese.

The mother insists that the child must also eat vegetables, fruits, bread, and meat.

The child balks stubbornly.

The mother knows what is best for the child, but getting him or her to do what is best is no small task.

It takes great patience, doesn't it parents?

How do you get someone to do what is best for them when they do not want to do it?

Our text today is another such struggle of wills.

This time it is Simon Peter who is struggling against God.

You know, the man who was made head of the church!

Is there a more stubborn disciple than Peter in the gospel story?

If so, I do not know him.

Fortunately God reacts to stubborn disciples the way a good parent reacts to stubborn children-

God corrects without rejection.

God is patient.

God strives to mold the will, using that strength for good, rather than to break the spirit.

What can we learn from Peter in this story?

I. To embrace the wideness of God's mercy, we must release our fantasy that God loves us better than other people.

In the book of Acts, Peter is about to be placed at the forefront of a radical breakthrough of the Church-

the acceptance of Gentiles into Christian faith.

But Peter is an unwilling leader in this movement at first.

He wants to cling to exclusive theology, the way a child clings to a diet of macaroni and cheese.

Peter was raised to believe that Jews, and Jews alone, were God's people.

Just as some present day Christians claim that only their brand of Christianity is kosher.

Yet God challenged Peter to move beyond the narrowness of this sense of privilege.

God chose the Jews, yes.

But God chose the Jews as a sign that God had chosen all people.

It was never meant to be a sign of exclusive love.

Rather, God's election and grace are the first signs of the inclusiveness of love.

Children learn the song, which is not quite politically correct these days:

Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.

This was a difficult lesson for Peter to learn.

And truthfully, many of us who know the words of that children's song have not learned to believe its message in our hearts.

Right?

II. The wideness of God's mercy can be learned, and it makes all the difference in the way we see the world and live our lives.

Even Peter could be taught.

that should give us all hope

God repeated his vision three times to Peter before Peter began to catch on.

But that's all right.

God is patient.

You should know that God has not given up on you and me yet, either.

And when Peter finally learns his lesson, he is a new man.

Suddenly he discovered sisters and brothers where he had previously seen only foreigners.

He found companions where he had only found competitors before.

This chapter of Acts tells not just the conversion of the gentile Cornelius to Christianity.

It also tells the continued conversion of Peter into the Christian God always knew he could be.

What would happen if you and I learned to see our world as God sees it?

What if boundaries between countries, and barriers of language, and invisible walls of zoning and economic class became meaningless-

or better, if they became offensive to us?

What if color of skin, and political persuasion, sexual orientation and type of occupation became less important than character and potential?

Imagine a place where everyone, and I mean everyone, felt valued and loved on an equal basis?

There is a name for such a fantasy place.

A place where the vision is – even if it’s not sometimes the reality – but the vision is that all people are accepted equally.

Let me name it for you.

It is called the Church.