I recommend reading Acts 10 and 11 for the story of Peter and Cornelius. Our focus in our reflection this week. In the service we also explore building up through marshmallows and cocktail sticks, and fischy music song Build Up. We also touched on baptism and listened to Carrie Underwood’s song - There must have been something in the water. A very full service!
Do you remember the 5 Rs from last week? (Those brave enough to share out loud gave us a score of 3/5. Going for full marks this week!)
Relationship
Readiness
Responsive
Responsible
Reveal
Well we are going to stick with them today again. They were hard work to pull together but I think they are key to helping us grow in this series. And they are challenging me in my journey and I hope they challenge you.
God has a way of undermining that which we hold dear and laying bare our flaws. Not in such a way as to destroy you but in order to build you up. Planting my feet firm in the mire of ministry is God. Everything that I thought I knew is being challenged and like Peter I am, like Lord, where are you going with this?
I deliberately put relationship at the top of the list of Rs and if I were to encourage you to work on any of the Rs I’d tell you to start here. Your relationship with God is key to everything and in reality the other Rs are totally reliant on that first R of relationship.
And I don’t mean a one sided relationship, but the two way relationship we should all have with God. He is not a silent partner. He took the time to help Peter understand that Jesus came for the whole world, not the Jewish people. It had always been part of the plan and you see it in the story Abraham - father of many nations, in the psalms, the prophets and the gospels. But Jews and Gentiles - the most effective way of understanding it is looking at the black/white divide of previous generations, where people with coloured skin were seen as sub-human in some way. For many of us today we can’t really imagine that but it we know it was a reality and is still a reality in some places.
Gentiles were ‘dogs’, sub human, and the Jewish people were the entitled, privileged race. It was racism that had grown and hardened over generations, and therefore they couldn’t interact. Heaven help any Romeo and Juliet situations there!
What God did through Peter and Cornelius shook the Christian Church to its core. Similar to Rosa Parks sitting on that bus...shock waves went through the community. Both Peter and Cornelius had a relationship with God that was two sided. They were able to hear God and respond to God. Cornelius is not the focus of my thinking today but what I will say is that God is working through all types of people, and Cornelius was the first significant Gentile convert, yet the unlikeliest if you were to write this story. Be careful that your prejudices, especially the ones that you skirt around, don’t colour you ability to see God at work in the life of others. The Church is bad for this when it comes to young people and very old people....
How many of us can honestly say that we listen for God? We pray, we read Scripture, we come to worship. Our hearts are genuine. Our desire to be faithful is true. But do we truly believe that God is directing our lives, challenging our perspective, opening up new possibilities? Do we even give him space to do that? Do we fear where he might take us?
Reading the story of Peter it is no wonder we fear it. Peter didn’t just bend the rules - he broke them. Would we break the rules?
Cornelius is baptised and the Holy Spirit comes upon him. For Peter and ultimately the Jewish Council they can’t argue with that. Peter was ready for anything because God helped him to understand how deep and wide his love is for all people. God is not limited by our prejudice or barriers. What was true perhaps and had been corrupted by human interpretation, God resets. It meant that Peter was ready to step into that Gentile home, and to face the Council.
He responded to God’s call - he could have refused. It would have been hard I’m sure, but you need to understand that Peter had to overcome his embedded culture, his way of life was wiped out in a vision. Everything he thought was true, every practice he had faithfully kept was shown to be false. Talk about being outside his comfort zone...he was so far outside it he faced losing everything. His status, the respect of the wider Jewish community, his reputation.
He was responsible with the mission. He took brothers in Christ with him, who witnessed all that happened. And he revealed Christ to Cornelius not himself. Cornelius tried to worship Peter and Peter refused it, making him stand and owning his humanity. Peter preached Christ, and in the process had Christ revealed to himself. Peter recognised that God doesn’t show favouritism. Peter is continuing to learn more and more about his God.
As our relationship with God develops, we are more able to be ready for anything, responding to his call, his leadership, his vision. We have to be responsible with it, accepting the consequences and dealing with them, rather than doing a runner. And as we continue on this journey, as we reveal Christ to others, he is revealed to us.
And that which we believed to be true, might be challenged and changed, even a full 180 turn, but we will be built stronger and more able to stand up to those who don’t get it. Notice who struggled the most with what happened - the religious people. The Jewish Council - who continued to be awkward over the years.
Our primary relationship is not with the Church, not even with the Church of Scotland. Our primary relationship is with God and one day that might call us to challenge the Church. Hopefully, should that day arise, it will be obvious that God was there. And that we were faithful to God and didn’t run in the opposite direction. How is God moving in your life? Or how might you connect with God in a real and deep way? We will consider some ways during our Lent series.
Next week we do the last set of ‘C’ - Commitment and Calling.
Blessings
Sarah
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