Preston County Journal - Faith & Hope - If not for Peter's vision few would be Christians today

If Peter had not had this vision, few of us would have been Christians today. Only Jews would have been accepted as followers of Jesus. All of us non-Jews would have been considered unclean and unwelcome. It would have been a very different church.

Peter’s vision that what God called clean should not be called unclean was a very important event in the early church. And the immediate arrival of messengers who had come to invite Peter to go with them to Caesarea to the home of a Gentile emphasized the meaning of the dream. When Peter and the others had arrived they were told that the householder had had a vision from an angel who had told him to invite Peter to visit him. Peter told the man and his family all that he knew about Jesus and they immediately believed and Peter could see that the very spirit of God had fallen on this family just as it had on the disciples.

Those who were praised God and said, “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance which leads to life.”

What a difficult decision this was.

In the last 50 years we have found ourselves on an equally profound journey of inclusion as well. Our society as a whole has had to ponder these questions of inclusion. And of course, our churches have also had to rethink what we as Christians should do. Are blacks really equal to whites? Should they be able to worship together? Should women receive equal pay for equal work? Should women have leadership roles in churches? Should gays and lesbians be accepted in jobs, in housing, in churches? And in recent days bisexuals and transponders have been added to the question. None of these have been easy questions, easy transitions. Always, as some have been willing to say yes to questions of inclusion, others have disagreed. Often, they have disagreed in the name of God. The Bible is a rich collection of material written over a number of centuries. We can almost always find something in the Bible to support our own views. The scripture from Acts we read today, of course, encourages us to change-to include people we have ignored before-to look for reasons to include, rather than reasons to exclude. But there are also verses that support other views, so we always have to decide which are the verses we should take most seriously. We always have to decide how we see God, how we see Jesus-what we think they would say.

In the Gospel from John 13, Jesus tells us, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Who are we to love? Are we to love those who are just like us or are we to love all those thee as well? Does God love all people or are there people that God has given up on?

Are there people beyond the pale-People we should exclude because they are outside of God’s love? That’s the real question we face. If we think God loves all people, then we find ourselves constantly being forced to see people who were invisible to us before. We find ourselves having to learn new things about new people and begin to find ways to include them into our groups and allow them to include us into their groups. If we think that God has very strict rules that exclude all kinds of people, then we have to constantly evaluate ourselves-we are living up to God’s standards? Are we supporting only others who are living up to God’s standards? Are we drawing the right lines in the sand between those who are acceptable to God and those who are not?

The American Episcopal Church has decided that blacks are welcome as members and as leaders. It has decided that women are welcome as members and as leaders. It has decided that gays and lesbians are welcome as members and as leaders. individual churches and individual members are often still struggling with these decisions. I expect that the only thing that ever really speaks to our hearts is to experience these decisions in a real and physical way. If we worship together with all kinds of people, led by all kinds of people, it just becomes obvious that we are all equally the children of God. If we create places of exclusion so that we never have to see others eye to eye, then it is easy to believe that exclusion is God’s will.

As hard as it is, I think we really profit form including all kinds of people. It puts us in a place where we can learn from others whom we might have ignored in the past — people we just wouldn’t have seen, perhaps. And as we worship together, Sunday after Sunday our hearts and souls are moved to love a whole lot of people who bring new gifts into our lives. if we choose to worship in places that exclude many others, we never have the chance to receive those gifts.