First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Acts 10:1-33
January 17, 1999
As dreams go, I am not one of those people who regularly records them….or even remembers them. Those of you who have made a wintertime visit to the parsonage (necessitating a need to take your coats to the second floor), know that there is no notepad on my nightstand. So when I suddenly wake from my bed, I write none of the things in my head. Which might be informing. But much too demanding.
Still, I do dream. And I believe in the importance of dreams. Probably more than you do. For while I believe that dreams are clues to my inner life, I also believe that dreams can be clues to divine life. Meaning that while there are some things I cannot tell myself, unless I dream them…. there may also be things that God cannot tell me, unless I dream them. Which means that the old song lyric, “You tell me your dreams, I’ll tell you mine,” may not only be romantic discourse….or therapeutic discourse….but theological discourse. This may be especially true of the way God speaks to males, given that (in matters godly) we men may be more deaf and dense than our female counterparts. For we have just come through the nativity narratives where, on three separate occasions, God speaks a life-changing word to Joseph….with each word coming in the context of a dream.
So, on this day, I would give you two men….and two dreams. Listen to them, as you will. Make of them, what you will.
The first man is Cornelius. He is an Italian in charge of a battalion. More to the point, he is a Roman citizen and a leader of Roman soldiers, stationed at Caesarea (a Roman town which, today, is about 40 miles up the Mediterranean coast from Tel Aviv). But this is not today. This is yesterday….first century A.D….15 to 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Cornelius is an important man (the equivalent of a company commander). He is not the head of a legion. But he is certainly not the foot of one, either. As military men go, color him big.
Then color him good. For, while he is not a Jew (making him a Gentile….a pagan….a Roman…. an Italian….choose whichever non-Jewish noun you like), he is a Gentile who is familiar with the inside of a synagogue, and with what goes on inside a synagogue. In short, he has one foot in the Jewish door….along with a bit of his head and heart, as well. True, he has entered Israel as an occupation officer. But there was a period in the first century….between the mid-thirties and the early-fifties….when not every relationship between Jew and Roman was ugly, and when a Roman might actually have entered a synagogue for reasons other than destruction.
Which is why our text says that Cornelius honors God….prays to God….and gives no small amount of his money to the neediest of God. And which also explains why Cornelius (in his present spiritual state) may be primed to learn more of God. So along about 3:00 in the afternoon, an angel comes to him in a dream and says:
Cornelius, I know who you are. I know what you’ve done. And I sense that you are ripe for more. So here’s what you do. Send three of your men to Joppa. Have them find the house of a tanner named Simon. Then have them intercede (on your behalf) with Simon’s current houseguest….a man called Peter.
So Cornelius does everything the angel says, sending three of his guys (two servants and buck private) down the coast to Joppa.
Cut now to Joppa (which, today, is called Jaffa….and, as a southern suburb of Tel Aviv, is one of the more charming places on the face of God’s green earth). But I digress. Peter is in Joppa. And Peter, we already know. Peter is a close friend of Jesus and an emerging “player” in the early Christian movement. Peter is no small-potatoes kind of guy. Peter’s story and Christianity’s story are (to an over-lapping degree) one and the same story. Except for one little thing. At this time in history, Christianity isn’t. It doesn’t exist (in any pure and independent form). Especially in Israel. To be sure, Israel does not lack for friends of Jesus….believers in Jesus….and advocates for Jesus. But where are they? In the synagogues, that’s where they are. The “friends of Jesus” are still keeping Jewish laws….still obeying Jewish commands….still following Jewish calendars….still eating Jewish diets….and still observing Jewish rituals (like circumcising male foreskins, and not fraternizing with Gentile pagans). Which means that Peter is still straddling two cultures, religiously speaking….even though history (and God) is soon going to deny him that luxury.
It is interesting that Peter is staying in the house of Simon, the tanner. For a tanner, by trade, works with the hides of dead animals….some of which may be ritually unclean (like pigs). But to a tanner, a hide is a hide….a way of making a living. Which is why Jews were not supposed to associate with tanners (see Numbers, chapter 19). But here is Peter, bunking down in the tanner’s house.
Which is how it comes to pass that, just as the emissaries of Cornelius are bearing down on Joppa, Peter is on the roof of Simon’s house….praying. Which is not all that strange a place for prayer. Roofs were flat, making praying on them possible. And roofs were private, making praying on them desirable. Anyway, here’s Peter….up on the roof….at noon. Which explains why he becomes hungry, to the point of sending out for something to eat. But before his carry-out gets carried up, Peter has a dream of his own. And Peter’s dream is stranger than that of Cornelius. For, in Peter’s dream, heaven opens and a very large sheet is lowered to earth, suspended by its four corners. This sheet looks, for all the world, like a sail. And may well have been a sail, given that the wordfor “sheet” and the word for “sail” are one and same word.
When Peter looks inside the sheet, he sees every kind of forbidden creature. He sees badgers, buzzards and bats. He sees camels, crocodiles and lizards. And he sees pigs. He sees all the things on the “don’t eat” list of Leviticus 11. It’s enough to make a good Jewish man lose his appetite.…or his breakfast.
Now I know that this is pretty much lost on you….this thing about refraining from certain foods as a matter of faith. Because you don’t. Never have. Probably never will. You don’t even understand the “fish thing,” which was so important to Roman Catholics, forty years ago. You might refrain from certain foods because of health….your doctor says to. You might refrain from certain foods because of taste….your appetite says to. But you have never refrained from certain foods because of faith….your preacher says to. You don’t care if somebody slips a little pork in with the beans. You don’t care if somebody slips a little bacon into the eggs. You don’t even care if somebody slips a little sour cream into the stroganoff. Food is food. What’s the big deal? To be sure, some of you might recoil at the thought of Holy Communion being celebrated with single malt and pizza squares. But, even there, some of you might not.
So if you can’t understand the dietary issue as being such a big deal, try thinking of it this way. Try to imagine anything that is, for you, the dividing line between Christians and other people. Call to mind the one thing that makes us who we are and who we are not….the one thing you are certain is non-negotiable….the one thing we cannot let slide without compromising our whole identity as people of God. And when you have figured out where that line is, imagine having a dream wherein God asks you to cross it. And if you can get in touch with that, I think you can get in touch with Peter “up on the roof.”
For there he is….looking at this sheet….filled with all these forbidden foods….even as a voice (The Voice) says: “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” To which Peter says: “No way, Jose” (even though Peter knows that God’s name is not “Jose”). Then Peter adds: “God, you know that I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” To which God answers (three times, no less…. Peter, like most teenagers, needs to hear everything three times): “What I have cleansed, you must never call common or unclean.” Whereupon the sheet is hauled back up to heaven.
So when Peter comes down from the roof (no doubt to meet the emissaries of Cornelius who are ringing the daylights out of the doorbell), he begins to put two and two together. Two dreams: his and Cornelius’. Two messages: “go find Peter” and “prepare to meet Cornelius.” And two religious cultures….Jew and Gentile….which are about to move closer toward one another than either has ever moved before.
The rest is history (although it takes 49 more verses to finish the story). So let me summarize. Peter leaves Joppa and journeys (with the three emissaries) to Caesarea. Upon arriving, Cornelius greets him and invites him in. Peter enters (not just into the vestibule, but all the way in….living room….family room….kitchen….we’re talking another really big “no-no” here). And Cornelius has all his friends and relatives waiting. For God’s sake, it’s a bloomin’ house party. Peter has prepared himself to meet one Gentile. But Peter has not prepared himself to meet wall-to-wall Gentiles.
So Peter says to everybody: “I’m not really supposed to be here, don’t you know.” Which must have punctured all the balloons in the room. For Peter is the guy that Cornelius has told everybody to come and see….the guy God has sent….the guy who knows the Lord and serves the Lord. But when this guy comes, he’s like all the rest of them. For in saying, “I don’t belong in this house,” he is sending the not-so-subtle message that Gentiles don’t belong in the Father’s house. For there Peter is, looking as if he is about to catch a disease, merely by being there.
But the next word out of Peter’s mouth is just that….“but.” And, somehow, the whole Gospel seems to swing on that word. “But,” says Peter, “God has shown me (on the roof….in a dream….at high noon….and isn’t it always “high noon” when you learn that things can change, that you can change, and that God can be an instrument of change) that I can no longer call anything (or anyone) unclean, whom He has cleansed. So when you called, I came. Meaning, let’s get on with it….whatever ‘it’ is.”
And if a single person in that room breathed for one full minute after he said that, I’d be surprised. Because Peter had just said something that no synagogue had authorized him to say…. that no Council of Elders in Jerusalem had authorized him to say….that not even God’s holy word (as it then existed) had authorized him to say. Meaning that what Peter said had no basis other than what he received in a fresh revelation from God, coupled with his own personal experience of Jesus Christ, which suggested to him that Jesus would rather be Lord of all than Lord of some.
And while Peter was speaking, the Spirit began to move. Then the water began to flow. And a whole of people that Peter had no business baptizing, got baptized. For which Peter caught “holy hell” back in Jerusalem….from the elders….representing the synagogue tradition, who said:
This isn’t the way things get done around here. And you know it. But you went ahead and did it anyway. You ate unclean food. You entered an unclean house. You baptized unclean people….which might have been all right, had you circumcised them first. Which you didn’t. What in the world got into you?
And, as gently as he could, Peter tried to tell them what in the world had gotten into him….or, more to the point, Who in the world had gotten into him. Then he added: “If you had been there to see what I saw….and to feel what I felt….we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.” Then, capping his own defense, he offered a marvelous turn of phrase: “When I saw what I saw….that the people in that house had as much of God’s Spirit in them as I had in me….who was I to hinder God?” Which is a wonderful question for us all: “Who are we to hinder God?”
* * * * *
Sometimes I worry that in the midst of doing God’s work, I will get in God’s way. I think that everybody who does what I do should ask that of themselves from time to time. Are we doing God’s work? Or are we getting in God’s way? For just when we think we have it all, know it all, can do, be and deliver it all, we wind up learning that we don’t, aren’t, haven’t and can’t. Which doesn’t mean we should preach less. But which might mean we should dream more. For that may be how God gets underneath us, the better to get within us. Or that may be how God gets to us, the better to get through us.
Five….maybe six….times in my ministry, people have called me up to dress me down….being blunt enough to tell me that “no way” was I (personally) ever going to get into heaven. One caller was even so bold as to suggest my “rotting in hell”….because I had misread the Bible….misrepresented some belief in the Bible….and had, knowingly, misled my flock (the flock that God had entrusted to my care). And, said the one who was talking about “rotting:” “There is nothing worse a preacher can do than mislead the sheep. You will surely have to pay for that.”
Which I suppose is possible….all things being possible. But as one who has long believed that, at the end of the day, there will be more mercy in God than sin in me, I go on preaching and repenting….preaching and repenting. And I leave the question of ultimate outcomes to the one whose judgment will be fairer than that of my phone caller. But I quietly expect that when (and if) I am called on the eternal carpet for anything, it will not be for my failure to love the Lord….my failure to feed the flock….my failure to build the church….or my failure to preach the faith. If, and when, I am called on the eternal carpet, it will probably be for my failure to widen the circle.
For I have been to Calvary, don’t you see? Time and again, I have been to Calvary. I have cherished the old rugged cross. In fact, I have been hangin’ ‘roun’ Calvary since I was a teenager. So my problem….and (to some degree) yours….is not how often I’ve been to Calvary, but how seldom I’ve gone to Caesarea.
Note: The story of Peter and Cornelius takes up more space (in terms of words and verses) than any other New Testament narrative except the Passion of Jesus Christ. Obviously, the early church viewed it as pivotal. It is somewhat controversial, given references in the second chapter of Galatians, wherein Peter is portrayed as representing the more conservative faction in Jerusalem, speaking in opposition to the acceptance of Gentiles without first circumcising them. I side with G. H. C. Macgregor who summarizes: “However we may question certain details in Luke’s story (Acts 10:1-11:17), there is no reason to doubt that, in the person of Cornelius, Peter admitted the first Gentile, and that the legitimacy of his action was acknowledged by the Jerusalem church.”
In addition to numerous textual commentaries, I am also indebted to Barbara Brown Taylor and her treatment of similar themes under the title “How Not to Hinder God.”
A final word of thanks goes to Gary Kulak for his wonderful post-sermon quote from William Blake, to wit: “Dreams are the seedlings of reality.”
