When the infant Church began to spread it’s life changing, power driven message outside of the small Jewish communities, inevitably non-Jewish people began to ask questions, to investigate and to accept the good news preached by the early missionaries of the Church. As a result, a new generation of believers began to rise up who had very few connections to the Mother Faith of Israel. To the Jews, there was this attitude that had developed through it’s long history that the world was divided into two camps, Jews and everyone else. First century Palestine was no different. Either you were a Jew or you were a Greek. Social and economic distinctive were protected at all costs and to associate with those who were “other” was prohibited and carried the potential consequences of temporary ex-communication from Temple worship during the “cleansing” period that followed such contact. So as Peter began the long process of building the Church, he was faced with the daunting task of dealing with these “others” and their place in the church. At one point in Acts, the apostle Paul rebukes Peter for being hypocritical when dealing with powerful Jewish leaders who didn’t like it when Peter associated with “Gentiles”.

It isn’t easy to change the way you think about people. From the time we are born we are inundated with stimuli in the form of the language, attitudes, behaviors and reactions of our families in regard to dealing with “others” in society. Those stimuli form in us the bases for our own language, attitudes, behaviors and reactions to the people we encounter. These stimuli are powerful and carry with them certain emotional connotations that either make us adhere to them sharply or to fear the unfamiliarity of their demise. So to expect Peter, an uneducated fisherman with a reactive personality to just turn off those old ways of thinking is naivety in its fullest definition. But Peter’s post resurrection experiences give him an advantage over those who were not afforded the opportunity to eat breakfast on the beach or to sit by the fire with Jesus just days after his death. One would think this experience would be enough to convince Peter that a new way of life was on the brink of fruition. But as stubborn as any other preaching I’ve ever known, Peter needs a little convincing, a little divine encouragement before he sees that there could be even a slight possibility that ministry can be done differently than he’s always known it to be done.

It takes a vision and finally a brotherly rebuke from his co-laborers before Peter actually accepts that these “others” have a place in the Kingdom. Peter’s vision and his obedience to the Holy Spirits movement to go to a Gentile town and speak hope to those in Cornelius’ home is evidence that God is a God of shock and awe. The response of the Jewish leadership is evidence that they had not fully given up their prejudiced attitudes toward “those people” with whom Peter had gone to share the “Good News”. The text says they were “astounded” that they were given the same spiritual gifts they had previously thought reserved only for themselves.

Today, as a people called to be bearers of hope to an overwhelmed and disillusioned world, we need to examine the stimuli in our own lives. We must take a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves and look for the limitations we place on God’s ability to rescue certain types of people. Where do we have physical, spiritual and emotional prejudices. Where do we need to be astounded by seeing the Holy Spirit work in even those people’s lives.

The church today has become dull and listless. Martin Luther King Jr. is quoted as saying “The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society“. Today, most churches are barely even getting a pulse, let alone measuring a temperature remotely similar to society. I believe God has created the church as tool bring hope to a broken down world that is dying for a satisfying drink of water, a warm place to rest and the resources needed to live full and abundant lives. However, we have forgotten that we possess in us the same power used to accomplish the resurrection of Jesus and we have forgotten that the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts to accomplish the most shocking and awe inspiring things in the lives of the people who surround us. Jesus did not say “I’ve come so that you may sit listlessly in a padded pew, listen to the choir sing and endure a methodically and grammatically well written sermon and go home and enjoy your mediocrity with people whom you can barely tolerate but would rather stay with than deal with the hassle of change”….No! Jesus said “I have come that you may have life…and have it in it’s best and fullest measures!”

Today the Church stands at a cross roads where it must choose to embrace the stimuli of the past, those ancient ways of thinking that have dulled it’s power and dimmed it’s bright and shinning beacon to the world or embrace the shocking and awe inspiring power of the Holy Spirit! Today we must embrace the stimuli of the Holy Spirit as she teaches us that even “those people” can be valued members of the Kingdom. Hope is about being able to see a future that has meaning. We have to give “those people” hope, whomever they may be! Equality isn’t making sure every one gets a turn at being judged, but a turn at being loved! We have hope, we have the power to change the world, we have access to the thermostat that can change even the staunchest of social mores and shock and awe the world once again as we embrace the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.

Amen!