I change my mind all the time.
I like variety. I learn. I grow. I experience new things. I’m in a different mood.
And my understanding and beliefs change as a result.
All. The. Time.
Most recently, we have been doing some work on our backyard.
Early this spring, we removed a few trees. And the morning the workers came to take the trees down, I thought I wanted the pile in one place.
Today, I want it somewhere else.
I changed my mind.
My initial decision was one that had to be made in the moment.
And at the time, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted.
I also thought I understood how much wood there would be.
Now, I’m the first to admit, I was completely and utterly mistaken.
What we were left with when the tree company left was an enormous wood pile.
I didn’t have all the information.
I didn’t understand the scope and breadth and depth of what this pile would be. Or how it would block the view of my barberries and take up the entire first level of our retaining wall.
I hadn’t thought about the best way to store said wood in order to help it cure.
I couldn’t see in that moment the bigger picture.
And now, I’m going to build some muscles moving all of those logs… because now, with more information and some experience, my mind was changed.
In our reading from Acts today, Peter changed his mind, too.
Or rather God changed Peter’s mind.
Like me, Peter couldn’t see the big picture.
He was living his life as a faithful Jewish man and thought he knew exactly what God was about and what God wants from the people. He presumed to understood the rules of faith.
But his knowledge was limited.
He didn’t see the scope and the breadth and the depth of God’s love for all people.
In the prelude to our scripture reading from Acts this morning, Peter has been sent on a missionary journey to the home of Cornelius… a gentile.
A Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish, someone who was not a part of the family of Israel, someone who was an outsider as far as the faith was concerned.
While the scripture describes Cornelius as a God-worshipper, Gentiles had limits on their participation in the Jewish temple.
The temple had many different courts, and the requirements to move further and further into the temple, towards the holy of holies, left many out. The big open area you see in the photo is called the Court of the Gentiles. That was the only part of the temple Gentiles could enter.
They were excluded from the rest because they were unclean. They were different. They were not welcome.
But many faithful god-fearing folks like Cornelius continued to show up. They continued worshipping God from those outer courts. In spite of the exclusion, they wanted a relationship with God.
And God wanted a relationship with them. So God prepares Peter’s heart for a transformation in thinking. Before God sends Peter to Caesarea and the home of Cornelius, he gives him a vision of the clean and unclean joining together. Peter receives a vision of a new sort of body of Christ.
Then he is summoned to the home of Cornelius, and although he was not allowed by Jewish custom to enter, he did. He went in and ate with the family and he shared with them the good news of Jesus Christ. And as he preached to Cornelius and his family, the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they receive the gift of faith.
Peter’s world has just been turned upside down. Those he thought were outside of God’s love and power have just had it poured upon them. And exclaims: “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”
No one could deny their gifts. Water was brought and Cornelius and his whole family were baptized on the spot… they were part of the family of God.
When my husband and I decided to take down some trees at our house, we thought we understood the parameters of the proposal. They take down the trees. We keep the mulch and the wood. End of story.
But what exactly are we going to do with all of that wood?
How are we going to store it?
What do we do with the plants that were once in a shady area that now need to be moved?
And what happens to the family of bunnies that has now made their home in the wood pile in its current location?
As soon as a new, unexpected element enters the equation, it is natural that there is some anxiety, some wheel spinning, and chaos.
And that is precisely what happened in the aftermath of Peter and Cornelius.
You can take down a tree or two. You can baptize a Gentile family.
But there are going to be repercussions.
Things just won’t be the same.
Peter is summoned back to Jerusalem. He is called back to the apostles who heard about what happened and who aren’t so sure they like what has happened.
They start with criticism. They launch into accusations. They read off the rules. I can imagine their frustration growing as they start to wrestle with the implications of what has just happened.
The leaders of the early church, like Peter, believed that faith meant one thing, and God was trying to show them it meant something else. But we cling to our traditions, to our rules, to what we know and understand.
I think the number one way God changes our hearts and minds is by helping us experience the world in a different way.
That’s what happened with Peter. God moved him to the right time and place and put Cornelius in his life to give him an undeniable experience of grace and power and Holy Spirit led transformation.
But the number two way God changes hearts and minds is by calling those who have had these life-altering experiences to tell their story.
The apostles were furious and demanded an explanation.
And Peter gave them one.
He told them about his vision.
He told them about how God led him to the house of Cornelius.
He connected what he had experienced of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with what he witnessed first-hand in Caesarea.
In chapter 11, verse 16-17 he testifies: “I remembered the Lord’s words: ‘John will baptize with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If God gave them the same give he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?”.
Seventy five years ago, I probably would not have been welcomed in this pulpit. As a woman, ordination was out of the question. A combination of tradition and a patriarchal society and a way of reading the scriptures precluded the church from welcoming women as preachers and pastors.
But here I stand… robed, ordained, my calling from the Holy Spirit confirmed by the church.
At various points throughout our history, faithful folk stood up and exclaimed about women: These people have received the Holy Spirit… just like we did – How can we stop them from being baptized? How can we deny them a place at the table? How can we stop them from being ordained when God has so clearly spoken in their lives?
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was against women preaching in principle… until he witnessed the Holy Spirit working through the lives of women like Sarah Crosby, Grace Murry, and Hannah Ball. He relented and licensed them for preaching in the circuits across England.
God changed his mind.
God changed the mind of our church.
God helped us to see a different vision of what the church and our community could be, just as God had done for Peter.
As a young woman, I have always lived in a church that ordained women. I have always been a part of a church that valued the contributions women made in ministry, in leadership, and in the world. It has been a given.
But I often wonder where God is going to change our minds next.
“I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another,” Peter says.
When I was in Washington, D.C. last week for a leadership fellows training, the church we spent our days at had welcome signs plastered throughout the building.
“We love single people, divorced people, widowed and married people,” it says.
“We love people who have not been to church in ages and those who never miss a Sunday.”
“We love people who are in recovery and those who are still addicted.”
The list went on and on, but it reminded me that God shows no partiality to one group of people or another.
God wants to be in relationship with all of us.
With the whole of creation.
With you and me.
With black and white and brown.
With young and old, and gay and straight,
with those struggling with mental health and those who love them.
With life-long Americans and with people who have just arrived in our country.
When you start to make a list, all of a sudden the people we are supposed to love and share the good news with starts to overwhelm us.
Like the woodpile in my yard, it truly seems incredible and awesome.
The question that’s before us is: what are we going to do about it?
How will this knowledge change our practice?
And if we are going to let God change our hearts and minds and church, where do we need to start moving around the woodpile to make room for everyone to thrive and find a place here?
