The girl would daydream from time to time about who this child, her brother might really be. “Maybe he is a gypsy, left on our doorstep” she would say, “and his real family will come back for him soon”. Or, “perhaps he belongs in a circus, and it is my job to train him to do tricks so he can go back to the big top!” But no, her mother and father insisted that the boy really did belong to them and whether she liked him or not she was his sister and was responsible for him!
That morning in church the girl heard words like “Jesus” and “baptism” and “water” and in her 8 year old heart she really wanted to love her brother as herself. But she struggled, mightily. So on that clear spring Sunday afternoon the girl and the boy held each other’s hand and walked down to the stream behind the house together. They stood on a river rock and the girl bent down and cupped her hands full of icy cold water. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spigot – Amen” and with a dramatic flourish she dumped the water on his head and turned her face to the sky, waiting for a dove to land on his shoulder like it showed in her children’s Bible. But the dove never came.
What did come was a big cold splash to her face, and a squeal of giggles as the boy returned the favor. Many, many more splashes came from that first volley and soon they were both trudging towards home, fully dressed, covered in mud, wet and happy.
I think that Peter and his community held that same kind of joy with one another in the story we just read. They were just beginning to “get it”. After the baptism of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius, the movement continued to struggle a little bit with the idea of who was in and who was out.
But the apostle Peter, like the little girl at the stream, understood that nothing could get in the way of God’s abundant love through the waters of baptism. God’s grace, like water, is free-flowing and abundant and no one – not me, not you, not anyone, can get in the way of that. The problem is that people try to get in the way of that all the time.
We live in a world of boundaries which can mean different things to different people. Boundaries can be helpful, like when they keep the Huns from invading China (think of the Great Wall). But there is also an ugly wall dividing Palestine and Israel. Israelis argue this wall is to keep people safe. Palestinians argue that this wall keeps them from their jobs, their ancestral lands, their families.
Some boundaries are more subtle. They are a part of our identity and help us know who we are in relation to other people. If you see someone wearing a Red Sox shirt, you’ll know that they are not a Yankee fan, and vice versa. For Peter and that earliest community, boundaries protected them and helped them understand their world. The Jews and Gentiles who were joining the movement each came from cultures with clearly defined boundaries and expectations. The earliest practices of the Jesus movement was to keep the boundaries, the distinctions in place. If you were a Jew who followed Christ, you hung out with other Jews who followed Christ. If you were a gentile, you hung out with other gentile converts.
Are we that different today? We tend to gather with people with whom we can identify. So, when we think of this story, don’t just think of it as history. Think of this story as here and now. Our text has Peter preaching, and the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. Then, (catch the prejudice embedded in the text). "The circumcised believers (translation: Jewish Jesus followers) who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles."
How often do we do that? Invite people to join us, but then assume that we are still the only ones with the gifts? They believed Jesus when he said to take his gospel to the whole world. But they seemed to operate as if those new converts had to act exactly like them to belong.
Back at the turn of the 20th century there was a church in Tucson, Arizona that sent money to many Native American Reservations in their area. The gospel told them to take care of the poor. So they did. They sent money, clothing, and food. But then, people started leaving the Reservation and came to the cities, including Tucson. Where did they go? They went to the church that had so faithfully supported them.
But the white congregation in Tucson wasn’t quite ready for integration. Sending money and support to the Reservation was one thing but having those people show up to worship was something else entirely. So the Tucson congregation started a new congregation so the Native Americans would have their own place to worship. While that story makes me sad on many levels, it is not all bad news.
The Holy Spirit was not to be deterred. This new congregation became a beacon for social justice, a place where all are welcomed and a reminder that God’s ways are not in our control. Nor will they be held back by our boundaries and walls.
The Spirit challenges our assumptions. She keeps putting us in situations where we are not comfortable. Listening to the voice of the Spirit is not without risks. It will certainly put you in uncomfortable situations. It will cause you to reconsider, maybe even get you in trouble. But it will also help you break down the boundaries that either you have built for yourself or your society has built for you.
The question for you is this: where is the Holy Spirit calling you to break down your boundaries? Who is out there in the community, or in this very congregation, that might be waiting for an invitation from you before they can cross their own borders and live into what God is dreaming for them?
How do we listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit and live into the future God is dreaming for us? Because if we listen to the voice of the Spirit, we need to be ready to be disrupted. We need to be ready to give up control of the outcome. We need to be ready for things to change and to be different.
When boundaries seem too hard to overcome, when the walls that divide seem to be too great for us to break down, take heart! God’s Spirit will not be limited by them as we are. Lizards can scale a wall without a thought. Butterflies will float right over the top, riding on the wind currents. These walls that seem so insurmountable to us are not so to the Holy Spirit.
In the final verses of our text this morning, the narrator makes an interesting comment. "Then they invited Peter to stay for several more days". The Spirit brings people together for relationship, where healing and grace can happen.
Even in the lives of two children like my brother Mike and myself. I know deep in my heart that it was the Spirit that led the two of us to the stream that day. As adults, the road hasn’t always been smooth for us, but at least we are still on it together. I am thankful that the voice of the Spirit brought us together here today. May we continue to be surprised by the directions she would have us go. Amen.
