05-15-2022 Two Kinds of People

Thomas J Parlette
“Two Kinds of People”
Acts 11: 1-18
5/15/22

            If I were to start a sentence with the words, “There are two kinds of people in the world…” how would you finish that sentence?
            There will be some quick witted people out there who would say, “The two kinds of people in the world are those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who do not.”
            To that I would say – good one!
            I think if I were to divide people into two groups, I would say there are rule keepers and rule breakers. Some people just have an internal compulsion to follow the rules, even if those rules might be questionable. There are others who don’t seem content unless they are breaking the rules. I have to admit, I’m probably more of a rule keeper than a breaker.
            There’s an old joke about a little boy named Johnny whose mother had just returned from the grocery store. Johnny pulled a box of animal crackers out of the grocery bag and spread all the crackers out all over the table.
            Mom asked, “What are you doing?”
            And Johnny said, “I’m looking for the seal – it says right here not to eat them if the seal is broken.”(1)
            I’ll give you a second…
            I would say Johnny is a rule keeper. I can respect that. People like him keep society from descending into chaos. But sometimes we follow rules that no longer serve any real purpose. Sometimes our rules only serve to put up walls between ourselves and others. For instance, how many of us – consciously or unconsciously – have rules to decide who is, and who is not acceptable to God?
            Pastor Joe McKeever once shared an experience from his early days in the ministry, back in the late 1970’s. A visitor to one of his church services had said to one of the ushers, “Your Pastor is going to hell.”
            He is? What makes you say that?
            His hair is too long.”
            The usher thought for a moment and asked a follow-up question, “And how long should his hair be?”
            The visitor said, “Ohhh, about like mine.” (2)
            I see – well I guess that figures.
            I suspect that all of us are guilty at times of passing judgment on people who are different from us. We even go as far as to create rules in our heads about who is, and who is not acceptable to God, as if we are God’s bouncers at the church door. We decide who comes in and who gets turned away. We decide who’s on the list – and who isn’t.
            And, to be honest, it’s not a new problem. Our scripture passage today is about the new and growing community of Jesus-followers that sprang up after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ apostles were leaders in this young community of faith. They were doing exactly what they thought Jesus called them to do – spread the good news of Jesus as the Savior, beginning with the nation of Israel first. But then somebody broke the rules. Peter, of course, the leader of the Apostles. Peter was guilty of a big no-no. He actually went into a non-Jewish home, ate a meal with those uncircumcised heathens, and shared the message of Jesus with them. What was he thinking?  So when Peter got back to Jerusalem, he faced a mountain of criticism from the Jewish believers.
            It reminds me of a time the famous British pastor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, once had a woman from his church corner him and just spew out a long list of criticisms at him. Spurgeon just stood there and smiled at her.
            When she paused to take a breath, he responded, “Yes, thank you, I’m quite well. I hope you are the same.”
            The confused woman started over with her long list of criticisms, so Spurgeon responded, “Yes, it does look like it’s going to rain. I think I had better be getting on.”
            At this point, the woman just gave up. As she turned to walk away, she said, “Bless the man, he’s deaf as a post. What’s the use of storming at him.”(3)
            I wish I had the wherewithal to react like Spurgeon when I’m facing criticism. Fortunately, Peter didn’t need to pretend he was deaf when the circumcised believers criticized him. He just told them about the vision he had had.
            Peter had a vision of a large sheet that came down from heaven. In that sheet were all kinds of animals, reptiles and birds, both clean and unclean. In Leviticus 11, we read that God commanded the Hebrew people not to eat certain animals, birds and reptiles as a sign of the holy relationship with God. Peter and the other circumcised believers would never consider breaking this rule. But in Peter’s vision, a voice from heaven commanded him, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat.”
            Peter protested. “Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” The voice spoke again, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This happened three times, and then everything was pulled back up into heaven. Then, as soon as Peter saw this vision, he was approached by men from Caesarea and was asked to come and share the message of Jesus with a Gentile family. What was he to do? When Peter began preaching to the Gentile family, they received the Holy Spirit. Gentiles – received the Holy Spirit! And suddenly the walls that kept Gentiles out of the early church started tumbling down.
            So, Peter shifted from being a bouncer at the doors of the church to being an ambassador instead. Peter ends his story by saying, “So if God gave them the same gift He gave us, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” He was referring, of course, to the gift of the Holy Spirit. If God gave Gentiles the gift of the Holy Spirit, Peter is saying, how could they be excluded from the church?
            This story calls us to consider: Are we withholding the love and truth of Jesus Christ from certain people or certain groups because we think they are unacceptable to God? Are we standing in God’s way, or standing in God’s will? How big is your spiritual family?
            That is what Jesus came to do, after all – to enlarge our spiritual family, to make the circle of the church bigger.
            In the recent movie Belfast, set in Northern Ireland in 1969, Buddy is a nine-year-old Protestant boy who has a crush on a Catholic classmate. This disturbs him, because he knows that is widely frowned on. So he asks his father if he could ever have a future with this girl, and his father gives an inspired answer. He says, “That wee girl can be a practicing Hindu, or a Southern Baptist, or a vegetarian Antichrist. But if she’s kind, and fair, and you two respect each other, she and her people are welcome in our house.”(4)
            A very Christian response, I think – one that lines up well with this story today. The circle just gets bigger.
            Dr. James Forbes, a pastor in New York City, came from a family of 10 children. He grew up in South Carolina, and he tells the story of how his mother would call the Forbes clan to the dinner table each night. Every evening, Mrs. Forbes would stand on the front porch and yell, “Are all the children in? Are all the children in?”
            The meal couldn’t be blessed or eaten until all 10 of the Forbes children had taken their place at the table. As Dr Forbes says, “That is how God calls each and every one of us in the church. “Are all the children in? Are all the children in?”(5)
            That’s the whole reason Jesus came into the world, shared the message of God, and died on the cross – it was to gather all God’s children into the Kingdom of God. And that’s what we are called to do as well.
            This story also calls us to consider how great is God’s grace? Remember, in our passage when Peter first had the vision of the sheet filled with animals, he backed away because some were designated as unclean for God’s people. Then the voice spoke from heaven and said, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
            We don’t have the power to make anything clean. We can’t even clean ourselves up enough to qualify for God’s approval. Only the sacrificial death of Jesus is enough to make us clean in God’s eyes. So who are we to stand in judgment of others? Read though the book of Acts and one message is abundantly clear. God’s love and grace is greater than our limitations. God’s plan is greater than our pre-conceived notions.
            The only reasonable response to grace – the unearned, undeserved love of God – is gratitude. Thank God for sending Jesus to defeat the power of death and open the way for us to eternal life. And then, make sure to tell that story as often as we can, in whatever way we can.
            There’s a great old story that you may have heard before about a missionary physician working in the interior regions of mainland China. One day, he performed cataract surgery on a blind man. For the first time in years, the man could see clearly, and he was overjoyed.
            A few weeks later, the previously blind man returned to the missionary compound. But this time, he was not alone. He came dragging a long rope and holding on to this long rope were more than 50 men, women and children – all of them blind. Some had come from as far as 250 miles away, journeying through the wilderness, holding on to the rope for guidance. The healed man wasn’t just grateful for his own healing; he was determined to lead as many people out of the darkness as he could.(6)
            And that’s exactly what Peter and the apostles were called to do when they shared the message of God with the Gentiles – make the circle bigger and lead as many people out of darkness as possible.
            And that’s what we are called to do as well – share the good news of God’s love, grace and forgiveness – whatever way we can.
            In southern California, there is a desert region called Imperial Valley. Sometime in the 1980’s, a man named Leonard Knight moved to Imperial Valley. Leonard was a welder and handyman from Vermont. He was also a Korean War vet. Sometime in his life, he became a follower of Jesus. His philosophy in life became, “Love Jesus and keep it simple.” So Leonard packed up a few belongings in his old truck and moved out into the California desert to fulfill a calling he felt was from God.
            Leonard didn’t have many resources, but he had a dream to share God’s love with the world. So he began gathering adobe clay and paint and various other items. And he slowly began building a monument to God’s love. Over a thirty-year period, Leonard added more clay and straw and other items to the monument, until it took the shape of a man-made mountain 50 feet tall and 150 feet wide. Leonard named his monument “Salvation Mountain.” On it, he painted Bible verses and prayers and birds and flowers and stars. On top of Salvation Mountain is a large white cross, and underneath the cross, in huge red and pink letters, are the words “God is Love.” In fact, the word “love” is prominently displayed all over the mountain. And just as Leonard had hoped, thousands of people have come from all over the country to visit Salvation Mountain.(7)
            In 2002, Senator Barbara Boxer entered Salvation Mountain into the Congressional Record as a national treasure.
            Leonard Knight understood that God’s family is huge and God’s grace is great, and he wanted to invite everyone to God’s party. So he created a giant, man-made mountain with the sole purpose of telling people about God’s love.
            So it seems that for Peter, the two kinds of people in the world are bouncers, who look for ways to keep people out of God’s kingdom, and ambassadors, who seek to make the circle bigger and invite more people into the kingdom.
            May we all be known as welcoming ambassadors for the Kingdom of God. May God be praised. Amen.

1.      Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No, 2, p13.
2.      Ibid… p13.
3.      Ibid… p14.
4.      Sarah Scherschlight, Christian Century, May 4th, 2022, p22.
5.      Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVIII, No.2, p15
6.      Ibid… p16.
7.      Ibid… p16.