Readings: Psalm 98, 1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17, Acts 10:30-48
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, May 5, 2024
I want to talk to you today about ‘God’s Big Umbrella’. When the rain comes down or the sun shines so bright that it may burn us, we are glad to have a big umbrella to shelter beneath. If we are the sorts of people who ‘share’ in the way God wants us to, we may also shelter others beneath our umbrellas, so they don’t become soaked or burnt.
Our story from Acts reveals that God has a big umbrella. Big enough to provide shelter for all who come to Him. In our short reading we heard Luke’s account of Peter sharing the gospel message with Cornelius, a Roman Soldier and a Gentile. Just as on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit filled the lives of Jewish believers gathered in Jerusalem, so that day the Holy Spirit fell upon Gentile believers gathered at Cornelius house.
As a result, not only do the Gentile believers have their experience and vision of God magnified, but also the Jewish believers are challenged to magnify their vision of whom the umbrella of the gospel covered, and whom they should invite to be under its protection.
Let’s back up a little! Our little reading didn’t give us the full story. Peter has been having a time of things. Preaching in the synagogues, healing, teaching, telling the Jewish folk that their Messiah had come, in the person of Jesus, and that though they had rejected Him, God had raised Him from death and now their lives could be renewed through the Holy Spirit.
Peter knew in theory that the gospel wasn’t just for the Jews. He had after all heard Jesus commanding him to ‘Go into all the world’ and make other people Christ’s disciples. However, knowing it and doing are not the same thing. After all, he had his hands full just going to the Jewish folk. It was a good plan. Go to the synagogue, preach, talk about scriptures the folk could relate to, these were his sort of people. But Gentiles? How did they fit into the picture?
Pop Quiz. What was Peter’s name before Jesus called him “Peter, the Rock”? Answer: Simon. Or actually… ‘Simon Bar Jonah’. Jonah was of course Peter’s dad, but there is another Jonah in Scripture, the prophet who went to Nineveh City . To summarize Jonah’s story…
“Nineveh City was a city of sin, The jazzin’ and a jiving made a terrible din,
Jonah got there after a whale of a time, he preached the Word,
They repented, everything was fine!
Except for Jonah
Who sulked and sulked under an umbrella like tree
And told everybody ‘God’s got it in for me”.
God rebuked him and said “My love is not for you alone,
Jonah, get with my program, and catch the next boat home”
Absolute bonus point, if you can tell me; on the basis of Jonah 1:3; ‘Where was it that Jonah set sail from when he tried to flee to Tarshish so that he didn’t have to go and preach to the nasty Ninevites?’ Answer: Joppa. Now, just one more. Find Acts 9:43. ‘Where is Peter just before he has his encounter with the Gentile Cornelius?’ Answer: Joppa!
It was in Joppa that Jonah justified his escape from cajoling naughty Ninevites, and also in Joppa that Peter pondered profusely in prayer precisely where the Spirit may be leading him. The answer came in the form of a dream. He dreams that a sheet, almost like a huge, upturned umbrella, containing all kinds of animals that the Jewish faith designated as unclean, descended from the heavens. And he heard the voice of God saying, “Up, Pete, Eat”.
But Pete wouldn’t eat. “I can’t do that Lord; these are unclean animals!” And the voice said, “What God has made clean, no longer call unclean.” Just like Jonah is in the belly of the whale for three days, three times Peter has the same vision. As Pete ponders what the eat meat dream might mean, there comes a knock on the door, and three men telling him he needs to go with them to the house of Cornelius. Providentially, having also just had a premonition that three men would come looking for him and that he was to follow them, they set off.
Who was Cornelius? The visitors tell us that he was a centurion, a God fearing and righteous man, well spoken of by Jewish folk, and that he had just had a vision to send for a person called Peter staying at the house of Simon the Tanner in Joppa. Everything’s working together. Just like last week, with the account of Philip and the Ethiopian Official, the Holy Spirit is setting everything up!
Just as an aside point I want to say that, once we reach a point where we truly ask Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, God has a habit of working in our lives in unexpected ways. As I look back over my own experience, it astounds me how often God has just ordered seemingly irrelevant and unrelated circumstances to guide me and direct my life. It makes no earthly sense. It goes far beyond co-incidence.
And what constantly floors me, is that usually I’m unaware of what’s going on. I am the one, stumbling through like Peter and Cornelius, the one with more questions than answers, the one trying to be faithful to a pattern only discerned ‘through a glass darkly’.
The only way you can find out the truth of this is by placing your life unreservedly and unconditionally in God’s hands and seeking to do God’s will. That’s the bottom line when it comes to faith and discipleship. Giving God what you are, the mess, the confusion, time, talents and treasure, giving it up, so God can work. But that’s not where the sermon is headed this morning. Back to Cornelius and Peter. And the Old Testament prophet Jonah
Jonah had every reason not to like Ninevites. They were the enemy. He was hopeful that after he had harangued them with the word of God, that God would blast those Gentile heathens to Hades and back. That’s why the story ends with Jonah sulking under a tree. God had let him down. God had made the umbrella of acceptance so big that it welcomed repentant heathens under its shade.
Peter has a whole lot of reasons to despise Cornelius. First, he was a Roman centurion. The Romans were the enemy. They were the occupying force in Jerusalem. It was under Roman law that Jesus had been executed. Cornelius was also an uncircumcised heathen Gentile. He had spent all his life being ‘unclean’. He ate ‘unclean’ foods. Wore the wrong clothes. Didn’t observe the Sabbath. Didn’t involve him self in all those ceremonies and rituals that were so essential to a Jewish person’s relationship with God.
But what was it God told Peter on the rooftop? Oh yes. “What God has made clean, no longer call unclean”. So, he goes to Cornelius and preaches the gospel, just as he had to the Jews. And then and there, witnessed by others of Peter’s Jewish friends who had come along for the ride, the Holy Spirit came down upon the Gentiles, just as the Holy Spirit had come upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost. There was speaking in tongues and the believers experience of God was magnified.
Peter is astonished. He recognized that the umbrella of God’s acceptance was a lot larger than he had ever imagined. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Nobody even hints at the possibility of un-acceptance. The Gentiles are baptized into the household of God and Peter decides to stay a while and teach them some more.
Occasionally I get the chance to meet with ministers of other denominations at conferences or events of an ecumenical nature. “How many do you have in your church?” is a question that somebody usually raises. “Oh”, I say, “about 1.5 million, at least nationally, if you include other countries, you can multiply that figure maybe ten times over!” To be Presbyterian is not just to belong to a local church, but you are part of a nationwide denomination called the P.C.(USA) and a worldwide communion of Reformed churches that spans the globe.
That’s a big umbrella! And under that umbrella you will discover that are some folks whose theology you don’t agree with, or whose lifestyle seems peculiar, or don’t believe precisely the same as you, but they still insist they are also ‘Presbyterian’, and that they are standing under the same umbrella.
But that’s not the whole umbrella story. By virtue of faith in Jesus Christ we are all, regardless of denominational barriers, part of this global multi-faceted two-billion-member organization known as “The Christian Church”. As one of our hymns declares, “One Church, One Faith, One Lord”.
One thing, that doesn’t always reflect so well in community like ours, or even a Presbytery like Long Island, is that Presbyterian polity is biased towards inclusion of those whom life often excludes. We want to try and include everybody under our umbrella.
Part of our polity, reviewed by what are known as “Committees on Representation” has to do with the extent that racial minorities, those with disabilities, those from different ethnic backgrounds are included in the life of our churches. We want our umbrella to be inclusive. We don’t want to leave people out in the rain! Just like Cornelius and Peter and all the visitors at the Gentile house, we need our vision of God magnified.
It could be we need our vision magnified as to what God can do through this little corner of His church here in this community of Bridgehampton, New York. Maybe we have forgotten that we are the people of God through whom God seeks to build the Kingdom.
It could be we are facing some problem that seems too big to handle. Like young David who faced the giant Goliath and saw the big guy from God’s perspective, “Who does that Philistine think he is, doesn’t he realize God is with me?” we need to see God’s perspective regarding the things that trouble us.
It could be that there are those we seek to exclude or can’t imagine that they too may be recipients of God’s Grace. We need, in the name of Jesus Christ, to invite them to come and stand under the umbrella of God’s love alongside us. Who knows? It could be argued from this story in Acts that they are the ones already enjoying the shade and it is we who need to join them!
God’s umbrella is a big umbrella. When we gather around the communion table, we sometimes include words of invitation from Luke 13:29 “They will come from east and west, and from north and south, and take their places at the banquet table in the kingdom of God”
All are welcome here. Jonah thought Ninevites were not welcome. Peter struggled to see that Gentiles were welcome. Scripture declares “What God has made clean, no longer call unclean.” I declare that through the grace of Jesus Christ, all barriers are broken down, all sins forgiven and here at the table, the broken are put back together, the outcast becomes part of the family, and the stranger finds a home.
Like those earliest believers who gathered at the house of Cornelius, now is a time to seek the anointing of God’s Holy Spirit to fall upon our lives, that we may be filled with the love of God who sends us out into the world to serve, in Jesus name.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.
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