Pentecost 7 (NL4) John B. Valentine
Acts 10:34-48 July 24, 2022

“GOD’S EXPANSIVE GOODNESS”

Okay .... folks.

We’re officially MORE than halfway through our walk through the New Testament book of Acts this summer.

And so I thought it might be good to review ... for just a minute or two ...

• WHY we are walking through the Book of Acts this summer and ...

• WHAT we’ve learned thus far ...

before we get on with the lesson which Jerry read for us we heard read a little bit ago by our reader.

First off ... the “WHY are we walking through the Book of Acts?” question.

The answer ...

Because Acts is the Book of the Bible wherein the earliest Christian discover for the first time something of what it means to be the church.

They’re not called to be a social club ...

They’re not called to be a service organization ...

They’re not called just to be a worshipping community ... or an education place ... or a political lobbying organization .

They are called to be “church” ... and in the Book of Acts ... no less an authority than the Holy Spirit is guiding them to discover just what “being a church”might mean.

And if we who call ourselves Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church are going to take seriously our calling to be “church” in THIS community ... in THIS century ... amid the particular challenges and pressures that WE face ...

And not “just” be a worshipping community or a social center or a service organization or whatever else ... but truly be “church” ... as it were ...

Then it would seem wise for us to take the stories that are found in this particular book of the Bible to heart.

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Then again ... WHAT IT IS ... if anything ... THAT WE’VE SEEN SO FAR ABOUT “BEING THE CHURCH” IN THE FIRST ... AND MAYBE AGAIN IN THE TWENTY-FIRST ... CENTURY?

• That the Spirit calls us to be about bearing witness to the goodness and greatness of God in word and deed ... here, there and everywhere.

• That the Spirit calls us to speak the language of those to whom we would bear witness ... to meet people where they are at in life rather than just expecting them to come to us in ours.

• That the Spirit calls us to be a part of the solution rather than just behaving like part of the problem ... and do “whatever it takes” to help people experience the love of Jesus and the grace and truth of God.

• And that the Spirit transforms the world by transforming people like us ... and that we may find ourselves

Thus far ... the Book of Acts has been assertive that “being church” means being people who ... in partnership with the Spirit of the Living God ... work together:

• to experience God’s goodness and ...
• appreciate God’s goodness and ...
• attest to God’s goodness and ...
• extend God’s goodness ...

further and further and further out into the world.

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So now ... today ... where are we at? Acts 10.

We’ve been dropped ... rather unceremoniously ... right smack dab into the middle of a story that is the single longest account in the whole of the book.

It’s this story about how Saint Peter ... rather inadvertently ... gets involved in the conversion ... the transformation even ... of a most unlikely fellow.

You see ... though we didn’t ask Jerry to read the run-up ...

Acts 10 begins with a description of a fellow named Cornelius ... who is ... among other things:

• A Gentile ... i.e. a somebody not affiliated in any way with those folks who heretofore in the Bible have been known as “the people of God.”

• A Roman ... i.e. a somebody affiliated with the not-very-well-regarded group of outsiders that currently occupied Israel.

• And a Centurion ... i.e. a military somebody relatively high-up the chain of command and responsible for asserting the rulership of Rome.

Now ... granted ... Luke acknowledges that Cornelius had a couple of things going for him ... he’s apparently a “nice enough” sort of guy whose respectful of the community in which he lives ....

But nonetheless ... Cornelius was the kind of fellow whom Peter would naturally have turned his nose up at ... at least behind his back ... and said “dog”!!

The story STARTS with the introduction of this fellow who ... to Peter’s way of thinking ... has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Kingdom of God.

But let’s be clear that that’s where the story starts ... but that’s NOT where the story ends.

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No ... the Holy Spirit orchestrates this encounter ...

Whereby Cornelius ... guided by a vision ... starts “staggering in the dark” toward Peter ...

And Peter ... guided by his own vision ... starts “staggering in the dark” toward Cornelius.

And then ... having found one another ... the two of them begin this verbal volley ...

Whereby Cornelius tries to make a sense of what God is doing through Peter ...

And Peter tries to make sense of what god is doing through Cornelius ..

The long and short of which ...

God TRANSFORMS ... there’s that word again ... an outsider like Cornelius into an insider in the community ....

AND God transforms Peter into seeing new ... and heretofore unimaginable ... possibilities for mission.

At which point we get this amazing declaration which Peter makes here in the part of the story that we read ...

“THAT GOD SHOWS NO PARTIALITY” ...

That God’s vision for the kingdom is far FAR bigger than Peter had ever previously imagined!

And that those who would be about the “kingdom protecting” and/or “kingdom restricting” business had better get over it.

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This is the way it sometimes is with being “church” ... folks.

That God is stretching us to see bigger possibilities and broader opportunities than we could ever either want or imagine.

That OUR qualifiers ... and our qualifications ... for participating in the amazing grace and goodness of God are not God’s qualifiers and God’s qualifications.

You know the sort of qualifiers we hang out there:

• No fanatics ... no gays ... no trans-folks ...

• No Republicans ... no Democrats ... no R.I.N.O.s ...

• No lazy people ... no demanding people ... no domineering people ...

• No reactionaries ... no liberals ... no bigots ...

• Nobody over the age of seventy ... no body under the age of sixty ...

• No Pharisees ... no Sadducees ... no Essenes ...

After all ...

• We have fences to maintain ....

• We have litmus texts to administer ....

• We have standards to uphold ....

But Peter here discovers that there is only ONE standard ... ONE limit ... ONE litmus test ... as it were.

That God is better to us than we are to ourselves ... and that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ “receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

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You know ... as I’ve sat with this text all week ...

Thinking about what Peter says here ... and about how God brought Peter to a new perspective on things ... and about how Peter discovered that God’s goodness was broader than Peter had ever previously imagined ...

My mind kept harkening back to a fellow named Frank Gould.

Maybe some of you remember Frank ...

He was a fellow who ... along with his wife June were members of our congregation before they passed away ... but Frank was a fellow who spent the last 16 years of his life basically bed-ridden ... at home ... as the result of a series of debilitating ... mobility-murdering ... strokes.

Frank was the fellow who I’d take youth group kids to go carol for every Christmas ... and he would just sit in his chair and smile the biggest smile ... and flap his arms as best he could ... so as to direct our singing ... and he always tried to get us to sing “Jingle Bell Rock”.

Now I’m not one who would say that God “caused” those strokes which ravaged Frank’s body ...

I would never say that the God has given us the very best of himself would ever want anything except the very best for his children ...

But I would say that God worked ... in the face of something awful ... to do something amazingly good.

To the extent that Frank became something of a prophet to me ....

Someone who saw things more clearly than most ...

Someone who spoke things more truthful than most ...

Even though his speaking was limited ... for the most part ... to writing things down on little spiral-bound pads of paper in shaky scribbly cursive.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I’d go over to visit Frank and he’d take out a pen ... and fumbling with one of those little pads of paper ...

And scribble something down about our nation’s politics ... or his frustrations with his health ... or how he didn’t think he had the strength to keep going ....

But almost always ... even amid his notes that were words of frustrations ... he would write these three simple words ...

God is good.

Frank KNEW ... in the very core of his being ... that God was and still is good ....

• Good amid the pain ...
• Good in the face of the hardships ...
• Good in spite of the frustrations ...

• That God offers forgiveness to all who would trust God ...
• That God is better to us than we are to ourselves ....
• That God calls us all to respect God and embody God's love to our neighbors.

And so ... my prayer for you today ... is that like Peter ... and like Frank ... that each of us ... in our own ways ... might more fully come to confess.

That God IS good ... GOOD TO ALL .....

And that a life lived apart from the awareness of that goodness is somehow a life that is squandered.