God of heaven and earth, bless the life of this dear reader in all that she or he may need. In Jesus' Name, amen.
Yoked with God, we can be scrambled eggs. We find that in Acts 10. On Sunday I shared with the congregation that during my first year at seminary I had to take a year-long course called Super Bible. It took two professors to teach it; an Old Testament one and a New Testament one. They took turns teaching and one of the requirements of the course was to meet with the professors to discuss one chapter assigned by them from anywhere in The Bible. The chapter assigned to me was Acts 10. I was blessed during that 90 minutes of sharing and being shared to.
Acts 10 is where the emphasis of the gospel shifts from just Jews to all people. In fact, chapter 9 is where we see the calling of a man named Saul of Tarsus to become an evangelist to all, whose major successes were among the Gentiles (non-Jews). In chapter ten we meet a devout believer in God who is not a Jew. Somewhere, somehow, Cornelius heard about God and believed. Whoever shared with him their faith did a good job, for we see Cornelius is a devout man who prays and worships regularly and is a generous giver. He's also a career Roman military man with at least one hundred men at his disposal. During his 3 o'clock prayer hour God shares a vision with him about calling for a man named Simon, called Peter, who is staying with Simon the tanner at his beach house. Cornelius has no idea why, but he does. He sends a trusted soldier along with two servants to fetch Peter. Meanwhile, Peter is being prepared for this upcoming visit, as when he goes to do his prayers, he is very hungry and asks for something to be prepared for him to eat. Peter goes into a God-induced trance and in this state sees a huge net descend from Heaven contained all sorts of animals, mainly the kind a good Jew like himself would never eat. Yet, the voice from Heaven says, "Rise, kill, and eat." Peter defends himself and says he would never do such a thing and that he had never done such a thing. But then God says, "What God has made clean, no longer should it be considered unclean." This happened three times so that Peter would get the message that God was indeed behind this.
Peter visits Cornelius and then understand his vision and the pressing need for him to share with Cornelius and the others present, the good news about Jesus Christ. Every person who had gathered there received the Holy Spirit and were baptized as well. Now we see the Christian Church become a scrambled egg gathering, as it should be even today. Quite a shift from being one where it was argued, Should one be a Jew first, then a Christian? Paul would argue no, one need only be a Christian. This discussion was only about Jews; now the reality is that God wants all people in the Church!
What are we doing about that? Are we allowing, and by this I mean, loving and receiving all who visit, in the spirit that encourages others to become a part of our church family? Are we making them feel a part of God's family? Or do our stares and glares make them feel like they don't belong and have made a mistake wandering into our churches? If we are yoked with God, we will love and welcome all people.
PRAYER: God of all people, forgive us the days we sought to be a church for the "like-me's" only. I now understand better than before, that the Church is Yours and I'm blessed to be a part of it. Help me to invite and welcome all to it. I ask this in Jesus' Name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
