Fifth Sunday in Lent
April 6, 2025

Who Knew You Would Be Important?

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Deuteronomy 7:1–6
Acts 10:23–33

Last spring my friend Mark Hurley called me and said, “The Kansas City Royals are playing the White Sox. How about a game?” I said, “Great.” Taking in a game is always fun, and the promotion for the Sox that day was if you came to the game in person someone from the Sox would write you a thank-you note! Too soon?

We were on the Red Line, and a man got on the train and asked if had a dollar to spare. I had no cash. I told him so. He sat down and went to sleep on the bench. I was regretting that I could not help him and pondered telling him about our Social Service Center, but we were quite a distance from the church. About five minutes later he lifted his head, tapped me on the arm, and said, “Hold on!” OK, I said, but I wasn’t sure what he meant, I had a hold of a grab bar there. Fifteen seconds later the train shook hard left, then right. Had I not been holding on, I would have been on the floor. He looked up again, winked, and went back to sleep.

I had been regretful that I could not help him, but it never crossed my mind that he was the one guy on the train who would help me.

We do better when we remember we need each other.

This story of Peter and Cornelius may be Peter’s best moment. He was a complicated disciple.

In recent weeks we have remembered Peter dropping his nets by the sea to follow and Peter stepping out of the boat to follow on the sea. It was also Peter who said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and equally it was Peter who said, “I do not know him.”

His story is a complicated but remarkable one, but this may have been Peter’s best moment.

Peter had a vision. A sheet comes down from heaven, and it is filled with all kinds of animals, including animals that a faithful Jew, practicing kosher, would never eat. They didn’t eat meat that was deemed unclean. Eating is a spiritual practice.

So this vision is confusing, because it encourages Peter to do what Peter’s faith had taught him not to do.

And then things get more confusing.

Peter is summoned by Cornelius. There are two things you need to know about Cornelius. The first is that he was visited by an angel. The second is that Cornelius was Gentile, which means Cornelius is one not included among the people of God, not among the chosen ones. So it had to be confusing when Peter is asked to visit a Gentile’s home.

I apologized earlier to Pastor Joe for asking him to read that text from Deuteronomy. For it, in the most dramatic terms, asserts the faithful Jew will have nothing to do with Gentiles. You must utterly destroy them, the text says.

But something is happening here. When Peter arrives, the story becomes almost comical. It becomes clear that neither of these men know what they are doing there. This is interesting to me. Peter has had a vision. That’s a pretty significant spiritual experience. He’s had a vision. And Cornelius has been visited by an angel, also a pretty significant spiritual experience; it doesn’t happen every day. And yet neither one of them knows what God is doing — that is until they talk with one another.

Peter asks, “Why did you send for me?”

Cornelius says, “I don’t know. The angel of God told us to listen to what you have to say.”

Peter says, “Well, you know it is not right for me to be with you. It is not lawful, according to my faith, for Jews to visit with or associate with Gentiles.”

“But I will tell you about Jesus.”

And he does. And the Spirit comes, and Peter’s eyes are opened to see something he had never seen before.

He realizes this is what that vision was about. It wasn’t just about food, but about people. God has claimed the very people that Peter’s faith had taught him were outsiders. So Peter baptizes Cornelius and his family.

And Peter is as shocked by it as any.

This is his best moment, I think. Because what he learns is that if he is going to understand what God is up to, they need each other. Cornelius is the last person Peter thought he would need, but there Peter is standing on the Red Line and Cornelius says, “Hold on.” And Peter realizes his understanding of God had been too small.

Peter begins, “It is not lawful for me to associate with you. This is what I know of God. God wants us to be separated. That’s what he says.”

But when Peter opens himself to the last person in the world he thought could teach him anything about God, Peter discovers how limited his understanding of God has been. Christ reveals God shows no partiality; there are no people more important than another people. We are all God’s people.

I think there is something really valuable for us in these days of deep division. Sometimes it appears that we feel most righteous when we can speak most clearly about those who lack righteousness. There is a risk here.

As you know, for most of my ministry our denomination engaged in a battle over the inclusion of the LBGTQIA+ community in the church. There were many in the church who said, “Our faith says they are Gentiles and don’t belong.” After decades of debate, everyone knew the teams. We would show up at General Assembly and everyone knew who was enlightened and inclusive. We knew who was backward and exclusive. And almost without recognizing it, we began to become two churches. What I mean is over time our friendships began to be shaped by our position on the issues. We knew the people who thought like us, and we loved them. We also knew the people on the other side, and we agreed how crazy they were. We had our teams.

But then something happened. The General Assembly was called to focus on the issues of life and death in the Middle East. As debate began, shock filled the Assembly. We began to line up to speak for and against, and the strangest thing happened. It was like the Spirit of God had entered the General Assembly locker rooms and mixed up all the team jerseys. All of a sudden some of my friends, with whom I had journeyed, were speaking on the wrong side. And some folks who had for decades been on the wrong side, and mostly talked crazy, were all of a sudden agreeing with me.

And then it hit me, we had allowed the issues to determine who our friends were. But at that Assembly it became clear to me God was bigger than my understanding of the issues.

I watched Elon Musk dance with a chainsaw and the lack of compassion nauseated me. We can debate the size of government, that is the faithful work of democracy, but we become small and frankly immature when compassion is deemed expendable.

But then I watched as Teslas were destroyed and firebombed. I thought, you think you are filled with righteous anger, but you are becoming what you hate. Being enraged does not mean you no longer have limits on your behavior.

In our culture, there is too much of political affiliation determining who our friends are, and those on the other side, well, to quote Deuteronomy, must be utterly destroyed.

Too many have embraced this ethic. In the Middle East that kind of small-mindedness has governed the extremist voices on both sides, and today those extremist voices have all the power. Such extremes are increasingly the culture of American politics as well.

We may not be able to change that anytime soon.

But in the meantime, we should endeavor to make sure that that political thinking does not change us. That may be the good that is ours to do.

For our faith has taught us we belong to one another.

I learned this at a General Assembly that showed me how small my faith had become.

So I ask you, what would happen if rather than the issues determining who our friends are, we let friendship, even with those with whom we disagree from time to time, guide us as we navigate the issues? What would happen if rather than the issues determining our friendships, instead a commitment to friendship guided us in facing the issues?

It has not often been tried, but perhaps it should, because God shows no partiality, so we belong to one another.

Such a practice in these fractured times, who knows, it could end up being our best moment.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church