Acts 11:1-18 Who is In, Who is Out

Have you ever met someone really different from you and thought there’s no way you could ever have anything in common and then later discovered how wrong you were? We were in downtown Boston on a multi-church mission trip, walking through the parks and alleys offering food, personal hygiene products for the women, clean socks and underwear to the people living on the streets. The youth were encouraged to talk to the people they gave stuff to, introduce themselves, and ask them a few questions. We did this so the youth would recognize that these are real people, not just a project to get done, to see that homeless people have names and lives and families, and people who love them and are likely praying for them.

Suddenly one of the young men from another church came running up to me. I felt the adrenaline start pumping and I immediately looked where he had come from to see if I could see what the problem was. The young man excitedly called out, “Hey Pastor Jake, there’s a Christian here who’s on the street and he wants to meet you.” He led me to a young couple and their dog. It was pretty obvious that they’d been on the street for a while. What you first noticed was the tats that covered them, and that the man had been drinking or doing drugs. As we came up to them, the man got to his feet and grabbed me in a big smelly bear hug. Then he completely surprised me by praying a blessing over me for bringing our youth downtown and teaching them that the homeless people are real people and not just a good deed waiting to happen.

The couple believed in Jesus, but hadn’t been to church for a while. They mentioned the dirty looks they got when they went and never felt accepted or wanted. The young lady pulled out a small Bible from her backpack and said they read from it everyday and loved the stories about Jesus the most. They prayed for their friends on the street everyday. Later that evening, the mission team were all surprised that Christians could live on the streets and have drug or alcohol problems.

This is the same surprise the early Jewish believers experienced when they heard about Peter going into a Gentile’s house, eating with him and then baptizing him and his whole household! He’s not a Jew! How can Gentles be believers, it just can’t be, they’re not God’s chosen people. This is actually pretty common; it comes down to ‘them and us’ ways of thinking. Ever since Adam and Eve hid from God and put on clothes to hide their bodies from each other, we have created barriers between ourselves and others. Even Jesus faced this kind of thinking from Jewish leaders in Luke 5, “But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Are there people in our city and area that deep down you think don’t really belong in church, that they can’t really become followers of Jesus because of how they live or because their values are different? We don’t want to say these things out loud, but these thoughts often float around in our heads.

Peter shares with them the story on how it all happened, how he had a vision from the Lord where a sheet came down from heaven filled with all kinds of animals, clean and unclean, meaning that the animals were now all unclean and unfit to eat. Peter’s horrified to hear a voice tell him to kill and eat and Peter replies in shock, “Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” This is a horrifying thought because this will make him unclean to God. The voice then tells Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This vision happens 2 more times. Then three men show up and Peter is told to go with them and they all end up in the house of a Gentile. Gentiles ate unclean food and while they might believe in Israel’s God, they were always kept at an arm’s length because they didn’t really belong because they weren’t one of God’s chosen special people. At best, they were second class followers of God.

The Lord’s words echo back to creation where God looks at everything he has made and it’s ‘good’ and even ‘very good.’ When we look at people with ‘them and us’ eyes, we stop seeing them as beloved of God, we stop seeing them as created in God’s image and it makes it harder to accept them with love because they’re not ‘us.’ Think about this a moment, God creates a creature in his own image, that reflects him, that gives creation a glimpse of who he is. There’s no human being on earth whom God doesn’t care for, whom God hasn’t invested himself in. What shocks the circumcised believers is not only that Peter ate with these Gentiles, but that Peter baptizes them. This means that they’re now ‘us’ and this isn’t the way things work. The Lord’s words, “Don’t call anything impure that God has made clean,” is how to look at people. Jesus cares so much for people, he dies for everyone, even though not everyone accepts his gift of grace, but Jesus still loves them deeply, as should we. That’s what drives us to invite others to join us in following Jesus and see people through the eyes of Jesus and the lens of grace.

The Lord’s words point to the cross and what Jesus has done for people everywhere. Jesus’ death was not just for the Jewish people, his shed blood washes all those who believe in him clean from their sins, bringing life transformation to all of us. John 3:16 is not just about Jewish people, but the invitation is to people from all nations. Paul reminds us in his first letter to Timothy that “the Lord desires that no one is lost and for all to be saved.” We see this is the life of Jesus. Jesus is all about people over status and issues. Think of the people Jesus reached out to, a Samaritan woman on the fringes of her village’s life, touching an unclean leper everyone else ran from, a woman caught in adultery, a thieving tax collector, among others. Let’s take a look at a video called The Mission of the Church.

When I was getting to know Bethel through the search process, I was touched by how you have embraced serving the people of Lacombe. I listened to many of you talk about those who come to Circle of Friends, your love for the youth and how our youth ministry reaches out to so many young people, I heard a desire to go deeper but were uncertain on how to take the next steps. Your hearts for people drew me and my family here, and I believe this is Jesus’ heart in you. Before the service began, we saw a video by Casting Crowns of a girl searching for belonging, for hope, after the service there will be a video by Tenille Townes called Somebody’s Daughter, encouraging us to see the people around us.

Tenille Townes wrote, “This song was inspired by a drive I took with my mom in Nashville. As we exited off the interstate, we saw a young girl holding a cardboard sign with shaky hands. We started having a conversation about her, about what her story might have looked like and all the steps and disappointing turns that could have led her to standing right there looking for change. I think there's a lot we can learn from a kid at a lemonade stand... and from thinking about the beginning of what everybody's story looks like. I don't know that we take time often enough to think about what could be going on in the people's lives around us or what their past might have looked like, but when we do, we realize we are all more alike than we know.”

Jesus’ mission is all about people, about going deeper in us, helping us through the Holy Spirit to become more and more who we’re created to be, but also to bring hope, compassion, forgiveness, grace, acceptance and hope into a world that desperately needs Jesus, even though many don’t even realize this. It begins by praying for people in your life right now who need Jesus and his family, who need us; asking for eyes to see them and ears to hear their needs, and hearts of compassion, putting aside our own wants and looking at them through the eyes of Jesus. Pray for opportunities to bless them, to get to know them and opportunities to invite them to join us in our own journey of following Jesus, remembering that they don’t have to do it alone, we do it together.