Our Sunday Message

The Audacious Actions of the Holy Spirit: Acts 10:44-48
Rev. Dr. Kenneth A. Corr
May 21, 2006
Sixth Sunday of Eastertide

  Today is senior recognition Sunday and this sermon is for our seniors. Will and Rachel, you will be leaving us in the next few weeks. We have told you already how proud we are of you. Now, I want to give you some last words of pastoral guidance, which is simply a euphemism for, “I’m not telling you what to do, but. . .”
  I am speaking for all of your parents when I say that when you leave us, we hope that you will stay connected to the church, not just because of our commitment, but because it is in community that we grow. Spirituality is not a solitary exercise.
  It may not be easy to find a place that feels just right. You will not likely find a church that sings O Coming Lord at Advent and Our Lenten Journey during Lent. You will not likely find a church with an eighty-five rank organ with a Trompette en Chamade. You will not likely find a church whose family minister uses power tools in the children’s sermon. The church that I hope that you will find may be liturgical and rely on rituals to guide the worship of God, or it may be a free church that relies on spontaneity in worship. The church that I hope you will find may be an urban church, or it may be a suburban church. The church that I hope you will find may enjoy choral music, or it may have a praise band. The church that I hope you will find may be moderate in theology, or it may be conservative. The church that I hope that you will find is not defined by its location, or worship style, or music preferences, or theological identity. The church that I hope that you will find will be . . . well, let me tell you a story.
The story begins after Easter. The early disciples were still reeling from all that they had seen and experienced.
  • They had been with the resurrected Lord and had seen him physically ascend into heaven;
  • They had been together on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was manifest in a new and different way and three thousand persons were converted;
  • They had seen the lame man healed outside the gate of the temple called “Beautiful.”
  These were amazing things. But it was after Easter and the story after Easter is called Acts because God was acting actively creating God’s church.
  The story that I want to tell begins when Peter and a group of circumcised believers were summoned to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. It was an awkward position to be in. To put this into context, you must remember that Peter thought of Gentiles as hopeless and godless people, outside the boundaries of God’s covenants, God’s promises, and God’s care.1 It’s what their faith tradition had taught them to think about these Gentile people. This may be hard for you to imagine because that is not how you have been raised. But there are still people today who are taught by their faith traditions to think that some are outside the boundaries of God’s care.
  That is exactly how this story begins. Peter and his friends didn’t really understand why they were there. They weren’t sure what to expect. Peter admits how awkward he felt when he said, “You know that it is not lawful for a Jew to associate or visit with a Gentile.” It was unlawful because Gentiles were spiritually “unclean.” Simply being in the doorway, having this conversation, Peter felt dirty. Then he adds, “Now may I ask, why you sent for me?” In other words, “What is it that you want?”
  It is clear that Peter was totally unprepared for what was coming. “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard. . . . The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded.”
  In her commentary on this text, Beverly Gaventa says, “Even Peter’s closest associates are astounded at the audacity and freshness of the Spirit’s work.”2 The word audacity refers to “a bold and arrogant disregard for law, religion, decorum, and normal restraints.” The Holy Spirit was audaciously throwing off the social, ethnic, racial, religious, and economic restraints that held their society together. The Holy Spirit was actively creating a new society. We call it the church.
The conversion of Cornelius and his household was a profound and paradigmatic statement that God’s church will have open doors for all people.
  Before I leave this story, look at how it ends. v. 48, “Then they (the Gentile believers) invited him (Peter and the circumcised believers) to stay for several days.” How different this ending is from the beginning! In the beginning, Peter is standing just inside the doorway, unsure why he is here, biting his tongue and trying his best not to say, “Unclean, unclean.” Now, they are staying several days together. When racial, ethnic, and social barriers are set aside, when personal and religious prejudices are overcome, when people find commonality in Jesus Christ, then you will find the church that God was creating after Easter. It was a church with open doors.
  We have talked for years about finding a way to open those back doors on Sunday morning as a symbol that our doors are open to all. We haven’t quite found an economical way to keep the squirrels out and the A/C in. But we have tried to model for you and your siblings a church with open doors. That is what we intended when we invited the Interfaith Hospitality Network to use our church facility as a day site for homeless families; and when we ordained Carol Richardson and invited her to join our staff, recognizing her full status as a minister of the gospel; and when we partnered with Friends for Life to memorialize those in Shelby County who have died with AIDS; and when we opened our chapel to the Word of the Kingdom ministries, an African-American congregation; and when we embraced the ancient practice of healing prayer as a part of our worship liturgy; and when we opened our building to Idlewild school, a Memphis city school, while their building was being repaired, and when we invited Dr. Darren Middleton to teach us about the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code and we agreed that we would eagerly engage our culture.
Beverly Gaventa continues, “Although we may not be prepared for the Spirit’s every expression, we may count on the Spirit to be motivated by no other concern than love for that humankind for which Christ died.”3
  Will and Rachel, that is the kind of church that I hope you will find when you leave here. It will be a church that is so motivated by God’s love that both doors and arms are open.
  When Heidi Neumark was a little girl, maybe seven or eight, there was a stream that ran in the woods behind her house. There was a rock ledge that ran out across the stream to the field on the other side. She had been often warned not to try and cross that rock ledge because it was slippery and she might fall.
  “One spring day when the woods were full of fiddlehead ferns, wild violets and may apples, I found myself at the stream, wanting to cross over to the field beyond. Climbing down one bank and up the other side was too much trouble. It was better to walk across the ledge. I got half way across and—it was slippery after all, and I fell, hard, onto the rock bed of the stream below. I wasn’t badly inured, but I hurt and had to climb and slipped and finally emerged, covered with mud, blood, and tears.
  “My mother had just gotten dressed for a women’s luncheon at the church. She was wearing a dress that my father considered impractical. It was the palest shade of yellow, would soil easily, and had to be drycleaned after each wearing. As I remember, it was questionable whether it could be cleaned properly at all. When I came from the woods, my mother was standing at the back door, waiting for me to come home so that she could go to church in her beautiful, pale-yellow dress.
  “When she saw me, she never hesitated, but came and hugged me to herself—mud, blood and all. She never made it to the women’s luncheon that day. I don’t know what happened to the dress. There were no conversations about fault or disobedience to belabor the obvious. Never releasing her loving touch, she took me upstairs to wash. . . . The bath water was my Pool of Siloam. The mud went down the drain and my child’s eyes adjusted to recognize the gift of grace.”4
  Will and Rachel, that was the lesson that Peter had to learn and that we are still trying to learn. Never call anyone “unclean.” The church that I hope that you will find will be a church that has already learned that lesson and is living it.

1 Ephesians 2:12.
2 Beverly Gaventa, Texts for Preaching: Year B, p. 317.
3 Ibid., p. 320.
4 Heidi Neumark, Breathing Space, p. 89f.