Who was I?

Our reading from the Book of Acts this morning centers on a new community of God's people who are living beyond the resurrection. With the discovery of the empty tomb, a new chapter of life, a new way of life, was opened to any and all who believed in this man, Jesus of Nazareth. In order to understand what we've read this morning, I think it's important to place it in some reasonable context.

First of all, in terms of the setting of our reading, we are beyond the day of Pentecost, that startling and empowering event wherein the first disciples were given the energy and inspiration to continue Jesus’ ministry. In this new power, they have been going out to share the good news of Jesus Christ. New converts were being brought into this new faith community on a fairly regular basis because word was spreading about some of the wondrous things these people were doing in the name of Jesus. One such person was a man named Cornelius.

Although Cornelius was a member of the Roman Guard and, therefore, part of the oppression of God's people, he was, in fact, a good man, a devout man, a man who prayed regularly to God. It is to this man that Simon Peter is directed in a vision. It is Cornelius' conversion that sets the stage for what we have read today. Remember, Cornelius was not only a Roman, he was a Gentile, a non-Jew. Prior to this, the message of Jesus Christ had found root in the Jewish community. Bringing Cornelius into the flock was a major step of unexpected inclusion. And that's where our reading begins.

It was generally assumed that ministry to the gentiles would be Paul’s mission, but here Peter had reached out in that direction, even if only to one man. The powers-that-be in Jerusalem, such as they were, called Peter on the carpet to explain his actions. Our reading lays it all out. While he was in Joppa praying, Peter received a very specific vision from God that he was to go to Cornelius. The seemingly objectionable parts of the vision, the uncleanliness of the animals in the vision, for instance, were not nearly as important as the inclusive nature of God's directive. "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean," God says to Peter. After the Holy Spirit came upon him, Peter remembered what Jesus had said. "John baptized with water. You will be baptized with the holy spirit." "If God gave them, (meaning the gentiles) the same gift he gave us who believed in Lord Jesus Christ," Peter says to his interrogators, "who was I to think I could oppose God?"

It was Peter’s rather intriguing question that captured my attention for this morning. That's why I chose it for the title of the message. If God gave even the Gentiles, these personally and ritually unclean people, the same gifts as the Christians enjoyed, Peter says, who was he to refuse them the good news of Jesus Christ, or the love and inclusion and the hospitality which are the foundation of that message? This is the kind of message that resonates with me because, as advanced and as sophisticated as we believe ourselves to be as a nation, I happen to believe that racism and prejudice are still very much alive and kicking, and that they are acted out on an all-too-regular basis. This country observes Martin Luther King's birthday in January to honor his efforts to end segregation and to bring about some unity and reconciliation between the races. Yet we still have news story like the one I saw the other evening about the resurgence of the o.k. and their rallies and cross-burnings against the new minorities in our country. A news story like that just confirms for me that the evil prejudices that king confronted have not gone away.

A true story, in two parts:

First, about ten or twelve years ago, Joanne and I attended General Synod, the national meeting of the United Church of Christ, in Oakland California. Although delegates and visitors were encouraged to take the shuttles between their motel and the convention center, one evening we decided to walk back to our room. The weather was warm, and our motel was just a few blocks away. What was the harm?

As we made our way across the street toward our motel, a man coming in the opposite direction in the crosswalk just hauled off and hit me in the side of the head as he passed by. "how're you doin'" he said as he went by. He didn't look left or right, and never broke stride. The force of the blow pushed me onto the hood of a waiting car. Since I wasn't seriously injured, I got to my feet, we continued across the street and went straight to a police substation nearby. When we finally found an officer, his first words were, "was it a black man?" Well, yes it was. But so what?

Was he merely trying to clarify who my assailant might have been, or was there some more subtle message? In all honesty, I can't say for sure. He took off on his motorcycle, and we went to our room.

Now move ahead two years. We are attending the next General Synod, this time in Columbus, Ohio. At one of the sessions, delegates and visitors listened to an Asian man who had produced a film about fear and hate. He had gathered eight men of differing nationalities in the same room and gotten them talking about how they viewed each other. It was shocking, it was profane, and it was entirely engrossing because, at heart, none of them really trusted the others. Ordinarily, they wouldn't have given each other the time of day, yet here they were, thrust together.

At the end of the video, we were asked to seek out someone whom we would be inclined to avoid. The memory of my encounter in Oakland was still strong in my memory at that time, so I sought out a black man.

I met a man named Raymond. I told him about Oakland, and I told him that, although I thought that I was sensitive to race and culture, there was something about the sight of a black man out of the street that put me on edge.

Raymond and I ended up talking for almost a half hour. In that time I discovered that he was an ordained U.C.C. minister and the dean of admissions at a prominent black college in the south. The remarkable thing is that, at the end of our conversation, he seemed not to have taken offense at what I told him. Here was someone whom I might have subtly held at a distance if I met him on the street. I might even have insulted him that evening just by any implicit connection I may have made between him and that man in Oakland. I am happy to say that, while I had been physically assaulted, it didn't leave any permanent marks, and it happened just that one time. But in retrospect, I might wonder how many times Raymond might have been physically or emotionally or psychologically assaulted as he grew up on the south, simply because of the color of his skin?

The question I want to raise today is quite simply, in implicit and explicit ways, do we categorize and classify others on the basis of certain perceived characteristics? People with black or brown skin, different genders, different lifestyles, different practices. In the context of our reading from the book of Acts, are they our gentiles? Despite the distinct possibility that God offers even them the same gifts of grace and mercy, the gifts we so dearly cherish and celebrate for ourselves, do we somehow see them as different or objectionable?

This morning we are once again invited to the Lord's Table to eat the bread and drink the cup in memory and honor of a man who was decidedly gender blind and color blind and class blind. There were no distinctions about the people with whom he was willing to associate, or for whom he was willing to die. There were no "in" groups, no one first in line at the fount of God's grace. He gave fully of himself for those who sought and needed forgiveness of their sins and fullness of life. Even, we might dare to say, those who promoted and practiced prejudice and hate in the first century, as well as those who continue to do so the twenty-first century.

The world is filled with all kinds of people – people we may not know or understand, people who are different from us and who may even appear to be objectionable to us. To my mind and heart, they are as much God's beloved children as you or me. So, to paraphrase Peter's words to the Jerusalem council, "who are we to oppose them or reject them in the name of God?"

It's just something for us to ponder as we come to our time of prayer and as we prepare to receive the simple gifts that have been prepared for us on this table.