Sermon Text

May 2, 2010
The Fifth Sunday of Easter

A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN
Acts 11:1-18

Some of us here remember “I Love Lucy.” Lucille Ball, or Lucy Arnaz, or Lucy Ricardo, as she was known on the TV program, was quite the character. She was always getting into trouble of one kind or another, trying some hare-brained idea, some half-baked scheme, and dragging her husband, Ricky, and their friends, the Mertzes, into it along with her.

There was often a point in the program when Ricky would finally notice that something strange was going on, and he would turn to Lucy and say, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”

Well, when Peter got back to Jerusalem from his trip up to Caesarea, where he baptized the Roman centurion Cornelius and all his household, he had “some ‘splainin’ to do,” and this was no comedy!

The leaders of the Jerusalem community called Peter on the carpet, and confronted him with the tremendous breach of social practice and religious conviction he had committed. “You ate with them!” they cried. “You had the nerve to baptize them! How dare you violate the boundaries created by our holy Scriptures?” All of a sudden these complaints begin to take on a more contemporary sound.

And what was Peter’s response? He recounted for them a vision that he had had, which we are first told about in the preceding chapter in Acts. In a dream, he saw a large sheet or table cloth let down from heaven, a sheet full of all kinds of animals, both those approved by the Jewish dietary laws and those that were considered “unclean.” A voice said, “Rise up, Peter, and prepare a meal for yourself.”

Peter replied, “Lord, I have never violated the sacred dietary laws.”

And God said: “NOTHING I HAVE MADE IS UNCLEAN.” Maybe I should repeat that – God said, “NOTHING I HAVE MADE IS UNCLEAN.”

The vision was repeated for Peter three times, just to be sure that he got the point. Then the sheet was pulled back up into heaven. But, true to the picture we get of him in the Gospels, Peter still didn’t get it. What was all this fuss about dietary restrictions, about clean and unclean animals? This wasn’t really an issue for him. Why did God seem to be making such as issue of it?

And then, immediately we’re told, Peter was called to go to the house of a Gentile, a Roman centurion, a powerful man in his community. And it was in that encounter that something finally “clicked” for Peter. Peter figured out that the vision from heaven was not really about clean and unclean food. It was about “clean” and “unclean” people! Nothing God has made is unclean! Even the Gentiles, with their strange religious ideas, those pagan oppressors who executed Jesus, and who had no part in the promises entrusted to Israel, even the Gentiles were being received into Jesus’ community!

“And,” we’re told, “the whole church in Jerusalem marveled. “ Yes, I’ll bet they did!

I think this story is a kind of a parable addressed to the Church. Whenever boundaries are broken, whenever the “stranger” or the “other” is embraced by the Church, then that is “a glimpse of heaven.” Someone has followed through on the vision. It is an act of God, and therefore miraculous.

You know, actually the Church itself is a miracle, a kind of counter movement to the way the world usually gathers people. In the world, as you and I are well aware, “like attracts like.” But the Church is made up of people whom Jesus has invited. In the world, we gather mainly on the basis of affinity, or on the basis of similar racial, economic, educational, political, or other worldly characteristics. The Church, on the other hand, is a miracle, an act of God.

It’s hard for us fully to appreciate the tremendous shock of this story in Acts, just as it is hard for us really to appreciate just what a miraculous thing the Church is supposed to be. I say, “supposed to be,” because we often have a hard time living up to what God intends for us. But in a few minutes, when we gather around the table that Christ has set for us, and to which Christ himself invites us, we’ll get a glimpse of it.

Here around Christ’s table, at Christ’s invitation, will gather people of different races, different political philosophies, different sexual orientations, different economic levels, even different thoughts and feelings about who this Jesus is and what he means for us. We will all gather here, and Christ himself will be the host.

I’m saying all this to you, because I don’t want you to let the moment pass without appreciating it. It will be a little glimpse of heaven.