The Spirit Breaks In

In college, I sang Edward Bainton’s choral piece “And I Saw A New Heaven”, based on the first few verses of this morning’s passage from Revelation. Since that time, those verses from Revelation have become a favorite. It reveals a vision of God ultimately in control; of a new heaven and a new earth. A time without sorrow or pain, where the former things have passed away and God declares, “I am making all things new.” 

And then there’s the passage from Acts where the Spirit is doing an entirely new thing as well- breaking in to do something that others had never considered with Peter at the center. A few months ago, we heard about Peter gathering up the courage to walk out to Jesus on the water, even as the wind and waves surged around him. Yes, he sank like a stone, but two chapters later Jesus declared he would build his church on the Rock of Peter… the sinking rock. In his book Gifts of the Dark Wood, Rev. Eric Elnes notes, “If Peter’s attempt to walk on water signals the character of the community Jesus sought to build, then it [would] be adventurous, daring, responsive to Jesus’ call… and somewhat prone to failure.” 

Which sums up Peter quite well. Even towards the end, Peter fails to keep his promise to his beloved Jesus; he denies Jesus three times, and is devastated when he realizes what he has done. But we see in Acts just how far Peter has come. Through those unexpected gifts of uncertainty and lostness among others, Peter learned “something about following a God who … takes us on a journey that is anything but linear [and] challenges us to live into the highest vision of ourselves.”

And so we come to this morning’s passage. Peter’s vision was an incredibly difficult one to take in. Like all of Jesus’ other followers as well as Jesus himself, Peter had kept kosher since birth because he believed that God declared it must be. Scripture commanded it. And just as fervently he believed that Gentiles were not to be accepted into full communion without full conversion, which meant circumcision and following all dietary laws. So when he encountered that vision, Peter needed to take a moment. Like Rev. Elnes says, “When we are being called to take a significant risk, we are also called to apply a higher degree of skepticism and discernment. We must test the vision more fully before running with it.” 

But in testing the vision, we see sparks of Peter’s character that has been throughout. Even though Peter has changed and become more attuned to the Spirit, Peter is still Peter. He doesn’t say “are you sure, God?” He argues with God! “I’m not gonna eat THAT! I’ve kept kosher all of my life- you told us not to eat this stuff, and I’ve abided by that. No way!” Peter has changed… and yet, he’s still good ol’ Peter. That it happens three times suggests that Peter told God “No way” three times. Reminds me of the Peter who denied Jesus three times. And the Peter who said “Let’s build booths for you, Moses, and Elijah” at the transfiguration.

Peter hasn’t changed. And I think that’s important. The stubborn, passionate core of Peter remains. He needs reminding. He needs intervention sometimes. He needs things to be blatantly obvious. Yet Peter is also changing. It seems like he has to be knocked over the head, but that knock works. He does recognize that the Spirit is speaking. He realizes that Gentiles don’t have to fully convert to Judaism first. That the God-fearing Gentiles can be ready to hear the Good News of Christ as they are- and the Spirit won’t differentiate between them and the good Jews who come to believe.

This still happens to us. The Spirit continues to speak to us, to change us and reveal that all of those ways that excluded people before… aren’t in God’s plan.We might wonder why it took three times for Peter to get it. But the Holy Spirit works like that, giving those “aha” moments of epiphany. After the third vision, as he puzzled over its meaning, the three Gentiles appeared. He connected the dots and went to Cornelius and his household. He proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ and before he finished the Holy Spirit fell on all present, “moving Peter to baptize them all into full faith and fellowship in the Christian community, forever altering the course of Christianity.”

This is an example of how the Holy Spirit works. But sometimes, we don’t heed those moments, or we recognize them and still mess things up. There was one story Elnes told about his own life that really hit home for me. When he was looking for a church to pastor early in his ministry, Elnes got a feeling about a large church in Omaha. He got excited about it, and it kept popping up and feeling right- what Elnes describes as “an electrical storm.” So, recognizing this as the Spirit’s call, Elnes eagerly said yes to an official interview and prepared. He was confident, had foreseen the committee’s questions and practiced his answers, and incredibly sure of himself. After the interview, Elnes was essentially told that the search committee was going in a different direction. When he called to ask the committee chair “if she might share why [he] wasn’t offered the position” she thought about the question and then answered “‘Well, I think you could have been less sure of yourself.’” Elnes comments that this was absolutely true. He had been called, and he had messed it up.

And here’s why I love this story- God didn’t stop there. Elnes continued looking, and that “electrical storm” happened again with a congregation in Arizona. And it was also absolutely where he was called. God gives us second chances. That doesn’t mean that things work out the way we expect, but we do get another opportunity to be called, to do what God wants us to do. Even when we mess up.

And even when we get it right, it can be hard. In this morning’s scripture, Peter recounts what happened because he has been called before fellow apostles and questioned why he went to this Gentile’s house. So Peter stands up for what he has witnessed and what the Spirit has been saying through nudges and thunderstruck moments. Having denied Christ before, “Peter knew what it was like to live with bitter regret over failing to bear witness to what his heart knew to be true. He wasn’t going to relive the experience.” So Peter stood up and gave his testimony about all he had experienced. “While it would be decades before the Christian church would fully accept Gentiles into their community, the door opened for the first time here at this council.”

The Spirit broke in and did something new. And the Spirit continues to call. Maybe you’ve noticed a barrier that we’re not seeing anymore, and can help us tear down that barrier. You see a way to extend welcome, or to reach out to the community, or to connect to some members of our church family who don’t feel connected anymore. The Spirit is doing a new thing, right here at First Pres, right here in Parkersburg. Sometimes it’s easy to see. Other times it takes a few times. And at other times, we might miss it entirely. But God continues to call, even if we miss it. For God is at work here as God has been at work throughout the millennia. Open your ears, open your eyes, open your hearts. The Spirit continues to break in and call us to a new thing. Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Amen.

Resources for this sermon include:

Eric Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Wood: Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics (and Other Wanderers), (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2015), Chapter 7: The Gift of Disappearing & Chapter 9: Where We Go from Here

“Bainton: And I saw a new heaven” Easter from King's Choir College 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyy7RWXAV9Q&list=PLL2oKCv4776Prz8-Izxmqde3mIvYd0mnC

Research and sermon from August 11, 2019.