It's a good thing Peter didn't consult me about his visions. I would have referred him to a psychiatrist, someone who could make sense out of these wild daydreams. And oh, to be a fly on that wall, to overhear what Sigmund Freud might say about those four-footed animals, the voice from heaven, the act of eating what is "unclean." Reminds me of some of my nocturnal dreams, if I'm honest, only Peter's vision is tied to a narrative that interprets what he's seen, and it's not intended solely for him.

The word that comes first to Peter is addressed to the entire community of believers: "What God has made clean, you must not call profane." To this point, the gospel had been preached primarily among the Jews, the cradle nation of Jesus, the Christ. Peter's vision is a summons to the fledgling family of Jewish Christians that salvation in Jesus is not for them alone but for Gentiles as well. The distinctions they've made between persons-even for religious reasons-must now give way to radical love and inclusion. It is a new vision for the people of God, but it's grounded in the history of their faith and the memory of Jesus' teaching. It is revealed truth tested by tradition, a disciple's inspired daydream authenticated by a disciplined life of faith.

I'm always leery when someone tells me they've had a vision from God-which is not to say that it can't happen. But I do tend to wonder how much is from God and how much, conversely, I might learn about the person's own inner workings. The role of the pastor and the Church in these Easter days, along with Peter and our predecessors in faith, is to continue the process of discernment, of holding what is new accountable to the Jesus test. Life within the Christian community is an ongoing discovery of how to be the people of God in the world.

We can't take the first century and super-impose it on the twenty-first century, as if our task will be exactly the same. The first century knows about as much of civil unions or stem-cell research as we know of clean and unclean foods. But we can learn from those disciples who lived in the wake of Jesus' ascension into heaven to return to the well of our faith tradition as we reinterpret the gospel in our time. This is the call of the Church in every age, and we rightly proceed with humility.

There was a time when Peter had all of the answers, when James and John were more concerned about political power than they were with washing people's feet. The disciples were Jesus' chosen followers, who heard the parables first-hand and broke bread with him at the table. They spent all that time walking with Jesus, yet after his death, they still had moments of discovery when they realized either that they'd missed the point entirely or that they hadn't yet grasped the full truth. What makes us think we are any different?

Like the woman at the airport who had a long wait before her flight, so she went to one of the vendors and bought a bag of cookies. She'd plopped down in a chair and was drifting away into the pages of her novel when she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that the man sitting next to her reached into the bag of cookies and took a few. She was shocked that he had the audacity to do such a thing and even considered saying something to him but decided instead to keep her irritation to herself. Every time she reached into the bag, the "gutsy cookie thief" helped himself as well-matched her one for one!-until they got down to the end of the bag, at which point he picked up the last cookie, broke it with a smile, gave half of it to her and ate the other half himself. The nerve!

At this point, the woman's irritation reached disbelief. He never thanked her, never even asked if he could have any cookies in the first place. But she held her tongue and sighed in relief when her flight number finally rang through the speaker system. She gathered her bags, headed to the gate, and boarded the plane. You know the routine. Once seated, she reached into her carry-on to retrieve something for the ride and was horrified to discover there her bag of cookies! She was the thief after all.

How often do we know that things are a certain way and base all of our judgments on that clear perspective, only to discover in time that what we never questioned was either completely wrong or only partially true, at best?

Scott Cairns challenges our self-righteous compulsions in his poem, "Possible Answers to Prayer."

Says God:

Your petitions-though they continue to bear
just the one signature-have been duly recorded.

Your anxieties-despite their constant,
relatively narrow scope and inadvertent entertainment value-
nonetheless serve to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance-all but obscured beneath a burgeoning,
yellow fog of frankly more conspicuous resentment-
is sufficient.

Your intermittent concern for the sick, the suffering, the needy poor
is sometimes recognizable to me,
if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly righteous indignation
toward the many whose habits and sympathies offend you-

these must burn away before you'll apprehend how near I am,
with what fervor I adore precisely these,
the several who rouse your passions.   

[Scott Cairns, "Possible Answers to Prayer," philokalia (Lincoln: Zoo Press, 2002): 12]

The poet turns prophet, I'm afraid. It is up to us, even as we acknowl-edge our guilt, to hear God's grace in these words.

After Peter preaches and the Spirit falls and the uncircumcised are baptized, he meets with criticism from the Church in Jerusalem. The Jewish Christians question his association with the Gentiles, whose habits and customs they find offensive. But the story doesn't end there. Peter explains his visions and points the faithful to their heritage of faith: the word of the Lord and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Peter knew, of course, that Cornelius and those gathered with him were Gentiles; but because of God's Spirit in him, Peter knew better than to regard them solely by cultural distinctions. If God gave to the Gentiles the same gift as to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I, Peter asks, to hinder God?

The community of faith was left to do the wrestling. They'd always made a distinction between the Gentiles and themselves. But with Peter's vision came a moment of decision. They held this new insight accountable to the Spirit of God and their best understanding of the faith tradition and responded with a fundamental shift in relationship to the Gentiles. Thank God, the early Church got it right.

We've seen in the news just this week the tragic, trickle-down effect of getting it wrong. The appalling humiliation of detainees in Iraq reveals the sheer vulgarity of one small group of people who considered themselves superior to another. May it never be so in the Church.

That business Paul had to say about regarding no one from a human point of view . . . we still struggle with it (and if we don't, we should). Recognizing the image of God in every person, perceiving others with the eyes of Christ, is no easy thing when we live in a world full of categories.

Even a day like this one requires discernment. How can we embody our mystical claim that we are the family of God and yet also acknowledge that we have distinct human families and important roles within them?

I've known women who never had children and couples struggling with infertility who purposely avoid going to worship on Mother's Day because their experience in most churches is too painful; and I've known mothers, on the other hand, who can't understand why their church tiptoes around the one day our society sets aside to appreciate them. So what's a minister-or a faith community-to do to ensure that none of our sisters or brothers are alienated, on the one hand, or neglected, on the other?

First, we remember that the purpose of our gathering together is to worship God, who continually re-forms us as we participate in the body of Christ. We point each other to the new family God has given us in the Church, bonds that transcend the science of blood and cause us to recognize brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in each other. Yet within that community of faith, we also celebrate and encourage one another in our particular callings, as mothers and pastors and mentors and friends. Whenever we gather as a community, all are welcome and all are valued, because together we are the family of God.

On this day when our society recognizes mothers-as it should-the Church weeps with you who weep (even those of us who are joyful), and we rejoice with you who rejoice (even if we ourselves mourn).

Before the privileged American church-folk flew cross-continent to work in the orphanage in Eastern Europe, they were told to avoid wearing colored nail polish or flashy jewelry. Susan was careful to follow instructions, so she wore a plain French manicure and simple gold wedding band, protected by gloves during household chores around the orphanage. After the messy work was finished, Susan sat with a young orphan in her lap, her plain hands now stained black and dusted with debris from the old gloves. Here in the states, Susan would have apologized to her friends for the appearance of her hands. But not in Moldova. The little girl, with the eyes of Christ, saw beyond the dirt of the hands that held her. With the tenderness of a child, she stroked them, looked up at Susan, and said, "Your hands are beautiful."

In the Church, those who are orphaned have parents and those who are childless have children. People who are despised become members of the family of God. We are, all of us, recipients of the same magnificent gift. And the roles that we play-dreamers, missionaries, mothers-are valuable beyond measure. Indeed, it may be our visions and our hands that open the doors to new understanding among the community of faith.

Syndicated newspaper columnist, Sydney Harris, went on record saying that the three most difficult tasks in life are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, as he sees it, but rather, they are moral acts:

1.    To return love for hate.

2.    To include the excluded.

3.    To say, `I was wrong."

[Quoted in Samuel M. Stahl, Making the Timeless Timely: Thoughts and Reflections of a Contemporary Reform Rabbi (Austin: Nortex Press, 1993): 2]

I think Peter and the Church across time might agree. Aided by God's Spirit, Peter caught a glimpse of heaven and learned to love and include. He had the humility to admit he'd gotten it wrong and the courage to forge a new way, and the Church-strong as ever-followed suit. We Gentiles are living proof.

You and I are still writing history, as members of the twenty-first century Church in general and Wilshire Baptist Church in particular. The issues facing us in contemporary society are many. Let us humbly confess that we don't have all the answers. That said, we are called to wrestle with the questions. Dare we give a hearing to the disciplined daydreams of our time? I hope so, for Christ's sake. And may the Spirit of God be with us. Amen.