The Book of Acts is the Holy Spirit’s story. From

beginning to end, God—through the Spirit—drives

disciples to deeper devotion and to wider welcome.

In Acts, the story starts with the ascension of Jesus

and moves quickly to Pentecost, that day when the

unrestrained, untamed Spirit of God blew through a

gathering of believers bringing unity of faith and giving

birth to the Church. From there, Acts tells us how God

shapes this community and how the church struggles to

keep pace with God’s expansive and expanding vision.

Peter is the posterchild for this struggle, this tension.

Peter, that sturdy stone singled out by Jesus to lead

the emerging movement. Peter was an adaptive leader

before there were business school courses on the

topic or popular podcasts. Repeatedly, Peter must

respond to the ceaseless stirring of the Spirit. His firmly

entrenched, most deeply held convictions are shaken

to the core. He is a witness to the disruptive, chaotic,

life-changing, freeing, unencumbered power of the

Holy Spirit, and he must decide how to respond to the

Spirit’s movement. In time, he learns to trust, to trust the

promise that God is bigger than he had ever imagined.

Here is how it happened for Peter. On the day of

Pentecost, his transformation begins. There, in the

middle of the city, the Spirit of God descends on a

diverse gathering of people, people from all nations, all

languages, all perspectives. And Peter recognizes the

moment for what it is. He finds the words he needs in

the prophet Joel that fit the occasion: “In those days

it will be, God declares, that I shall pour out my Spirit

upon all flesh…and everyone who calls on the name

of the Lord shall be saved.” Peter preaches those

words, and then he gets to work, proclaiming and

teaching, caring for the poor and the sick, serving the

community, preaching the gospel with his words and

in his deeds. His ministry is to his own people, faithful

fellow Jews who know the law and the prophets,

who keep the commandments, who are rooted in the

traditions of the faith.

But this all changes in chapter ten, when a messenger

of God visits a man named Cornelius, a Roman military

commander living in Caesarea—and most importantly,

a Gentile. The messenger tells Cornelius to search for a

man called Peter. And meanwhile, on the other side of

town, Peter is praying, and he too has a vision, a vision

of God breaking down the boundaries that separated

Jews from Gentiles. To his shock and surprise, Peter is

commanded to eat food that he had been taught was

unclean. When he protests, the voice of God responds

with words that I believe were about far more than food.

“What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

Now, those words are so shocking that they are

repeated three times in this chapter. Peter is told to

search for Cornelius and, when the two finally meet,

Peter describes the transformation he has experienced.

He says to Cornelius, “You yourself know that it is

unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but

God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane

or unclean.” Now just imagine the headlines the next

day! Christian-Jewish leader breaks the commands of

God, associates with a Gentile in public!

In public is where Peter speaks the words you just heard.

It is a proclamation of the gospel, a personal testimony to

transformation. Peter declares, “God shows no partiality.”

Now I don’t want you to miss this because what Peter

describes is a previously unimaginable shift. You

see, Peter has spent his entire life believing in a God

who shows partiality. Partiality to the chosen, to the

inner circle, to those born under the promises of God,

given the law and the covenant. Peter’s most deeply

held conviction was of a God who was partial to a

particular people…until he is given a new picture of

God’s expansive grace. In other words, Peter has come

to believe more in the Holy Spirit than in his carefully

constructed ideology. He becomes convinced that God

is bigger than he had previously imagined.

And what if it is true? What if all the boundaries and

boxes and barriers we build are no match for the

expanding reach of God’s grace? Could this gospel

good news also be the vision we need most now?

Could being confronted by the reality of a frustratingly

impartial God crush our tribal loyalties and our selfish

certainties? And might that destruction be a deeper

form of freedom?

I just love what happens next in the story. While Peter

is preaching, the Spirit of God falls on all who are

listening, and I mean all. Jew and Gentile, men and

women, insiders and outsiders, believers and skeptics,

clean and unclean, sophisticated and simple. All

people. Those insiders who had come with Peter from

Jerusalem are astounded, shocked, scandalized by

the Spirit of God given to the Gentiles. But Peter has

been prepared, and he knows just what to do. He stops

the sermon. Imagine that. In the middle of making his

point, in the middle of laying out his argument, Peter

just stops. In fact, this half-finished homily is the last

speech Peter will give. Instead of preaching, he asks

the question on all their minds: can we withhold the

water of baptism from those whom God has claimed?

For Peter, the answer is obvious. All his protective

barriers and exclusive restrictions are no match for

the Spirit’s radical acceptance. These outsiders are

baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and the Church

is set on a new course. All because Peter, our adaptive

leader, dared to believe more in the Spirit than his

formerly made-up mind.

Isn’t it a powerful story? All week long I’ve been

wondering if it could happen again, if somehow this

account from the Book of Acts could be more than

a chapter in Church History. All week long I’ve been

wondering if the stirring of the Spirit could once again

open our hearts that have been shut tight, or reverse

the process that has turned our neighbors into enemies

and our disagreements into divorces. The conviction

that we call faith would tell us that these stories are

not restricted to the past. Our faith would tell us

that there is nothing inevitable about the alarming

disharmony we all experience in this moment. There

is nothing inevitable about it. Our faith would tell us

that the same Spirit of God still speaks, if we have the

ears to listen and the will to answer. All week long I’ve

been contemplating our desperate need for a vision

of something bigger, something more significant and

meaningful and sacred than our tight-fisted ideologies

and our small-minded tribal identities. What if God is

bigger than we had ever imagined? And I mean bigger

than your fears. I mean bigger than your judgment. I

mean bigger than your politics. I mean bigger than our

impulse to divide and sort and criticize and condemn.

I mean big enough for all. And listen to this: especially

for the very one you are mostly likely to exclude. Bigger.

Now you see, we would never do it this way. Thank

God we are not in control here.

There was a birthday this week. It passed with almost

no acknowledgment at all, and the birthday boy

would have been so pleased by that. It was the 515th

anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the founder

of what we now call Presbyterianism. I had a quiet

celebration, personal, private. I listened again to an

interview with our most distinguished living Calvinist

theologian, the writer Marilynne Robinson. And in

response to a question about Calvin’s legacy, here is

what she said. “Calvinism was made to evolve. But

Calvin was making some very valuable suggestions

to us, and one of them was certainly this: that any

encounter with another human being is an encounter

with God. And there is always a question, and the

question is always this: what would God want from

this encounter?”

All week long I’ve been wondering how this insight

could change the way we practice our faith. If you want

a Christian message for our nation, could we start with

this one? That every encounter with another human

being is an encounter with God.

It’s what Peter came finally to recognize, to celebrate,

to preach, to stake his life on. It is what we must

appreciate as well. If God shows no partiality, if the

Spirit of God has come to all, then every human

encounter is a vision of the divine.

My friends, you will never meet another person whom

God does not love with the same passion and the same

determination that has been poured out for you. Every

face created in the image of God. Every child precious

in her Creator’s sight. Each moment a question—what

does God want from this encounter?

So, what of us, this community of disciples we call

Second Presbyterian Church in the city of Indianapolis?

Might we erase the dividing lines between us? Could

we engage our literal neighbors who have been

strangers to us? Could we climb down from our

platforms of self-righteousness and separateness to

stand with those who suffer? Could we draw a wider

circle? Could we believe in a bigger God?

I’m convinced that the church the Spirit is pleading with

us to become is the bold vision the world needs most

right now. These days it is so easy to think small. It is so

easy to close the ranks, hunker down, lash out, restrict

access, plug our ears, and shout our truth.

So easy. But not faithful.

Every encounter with each human being, a vision of God.

The question is this: Can we withhold the blessing of

God from those who need it most? You already know

the answer.