By Debra Detwiler Brubaker, professor of music
Scripture: Acts 10:34-43 (NRSV)
Have you ever been somewhere that you didn’t want to be? I remember once, during my college days, going with a friend to visit a social work client of his. The man lived in a one-room house that was slightly run down and didn’t smell very good. During our time there, I perched gingerly on the edge of the bed, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, and nervously endured the visit.
As today’s scripture passage unfolds, Peter is visiting the home of Cornelius, a Gentile. Peter openly states that it is against the law for him to be there. Yet Jesus’s message to and through Peter includes the Gentiles in God’s plan for salvation, and overrules any law. God’s blanket of inclusion covers all, even those considered unclean.
To these formerly unwanted people, Peter recounts the amazing deeds of Jesus’s life – his empowerment by the Holy Spirit, his ability to heal those who were struggling against evil, his resurrection from the dead, his placement as judge over the living and the dead. Jesus’s divinity did not cancel out his humanity, and his death did not end his life and ministry.
Jesus commanded his followers to continue to tell the stories of his love and life, including especially those formerly considered undeserving of those stories. It is a profound act of caring to look in someone’s eyes and listen, to perch on their furniture and share their space. I give thanks that over the years, I’m finally learning that.
Scripture: Acts 10:34-43 (NRSV)
Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”