Jan 18, 2026

My friends, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

I’m going to the eye doctor tomorrow.  There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, it’s just that these glasses aren’t doing the trick anymore.  I noticed it a couple of months ago when I was up at the altar, and all of a sudden I couldn’t read the Eucharistic Prayer.  But I’ll go in tomorrow and get examined, and they’ll write me a new prescription, and I’ll see clearly again.

I tell you this story because something similar is happening to Peter in Acts today.  And so I’ve titled my sermon “What Lenses Do We Use?”  “What Lenses Do We Use?”

Let’s take a step back and put our reading from Acts in a broader context.  I’m going to cheat a little, and bring in the rest of this story – because I think we need the whole story to understand this part.  At the beginning of this chapter, an angel of God directs the Roman centurion Cornelius – who gave generously to the needy and prayed to God regularly – to invite Simon Peter to visit his house.  Meanwhile, a hungry Peter has a vision where God commands him to eat all animals – both those that are ritually clean, and those that are unclean.

The message we heard read today is Peter’s response to Cornelius’ explanation for why he’s invited Peter to come to his home.  Were we to keep reading, the next few verses would describe the Holy Spirit suddenly falling upon all those in the house – Gentiles and Jews alike. 

It’s pretty clear that – coming into this whole experience – Peter thinks he has this “discipleship” thing all figured out.  That’s not surprising.  After all, he’s spent three years traveling with Jesus.  He’s experienced the risen Christ at Easter.  He’s had the Holy Spirit fall on him at Pentecost.  He confidently ministers to communities that recognize Jesus as the Messiah.  And embedded in Peter’s theology is an understanding that he’s part of a community that has a special relationship with Yahweh – reaching back to the time of Abraham.  So anyone who wants to follow Jesus needs to play by his rules.

And the nice thing about this is that Peter gets to label people.  “Jews.”  Well, they’re in.  They just need to accept Jesus as the Messiah.  But “Gentiles”?  Well, there’s a lot THEY have to do to get with the program, isn’t there?  They need to start following the rules.  And those tyrannical, occupying “Romans”?  Don’t get Peter started on them.

And then, Peter has what I’d describe to my children as a “learning experience”.  Picture the surprise and confusion he must have felt when arriving at Cornelius’ house and learning that God has already spoken to Cornelius.  Imagine what Peter must have been thinking as this reality hits him.  “God, what’s going on here?  I thought I was doing something special.  That people needed the rules – needed me – to get to you.  Now I find you’re out here with these Gentiles already.  This isn’t part of the plan.”  All of a sudden, Peter is experiencing a sense of whiplash.  He’s realizing that God isn’t doing what he expects God to do.  It’s easy to imagine how confusing and upsetting that would have been.

This passage is part of what’s sometimes called “the conversion of Cornelius”.  But really, it’s just as much a conversion of Peter.  Peter comes to Cornelius’ house and what does he end up doing?  He opens his mind and his heart to what the Holy Spirit is saying, and it changes him.  When Peter says “I truly understand that God shows no partiality” he’s expressing a truth he hadn’t seen before.  He has an epiphany. 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gave his followers the Great Commandment: that to properly understand what the Law and the Prophets are saying, you must look at them through two lenses: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”, and “Love your neighbor as yourself”.  In this extended story, God is teaching Peter what it means to really, truly live out this Great Commandment.  Because even though Peter had followed Jesus faithfully for years, he still didn’t understand what Jesus’ radical, boundary-breaking ministry meant until now. 

Peter hasn’t been seeing things clearly.  He needs a new prescription.  That prescription, it turns out, is Love.  And with that prescription, Peter sees that God doesn’t play favorites.  All the animals are fair game.  But the Love that God created and sends into the world knows no boundaries.  The message of love and hope and peace that Jesus brings into the world is for everyone – even someone as disagreeable as Cornelius – a foreigner representing a despised occupying power.  Jesus – who is the only true judge of the living and the dead – only lets his disciples put one label on people.  Beloved of God.

So, my friends, what does this mean for us?  I think it means we have to answer the question I asked at the beginning of this sermon – what lenses do we use?  Our story today makes it clear: we are to look at the world, and our faith, and the people and things around us through the lenses of love.  But in our arrogance and our selfishness, we cannot do this on our own. 

We live in challenging times, and one of the hardest things might be to know how to act as disciples of Jesus.  As disciples, we believe that God’s Love is the most powerful force in the universe.  So, my friends, I ask you to pray today.  Pray this week.  Pray this month.  Pray that we will receive the same gift that God gave Peter.  Pray that the God who is the true ruler of this world will open our hearts – yours, mine, and those in the world around us – through the awesome, life-giving power of his Love.  Pray that we will be given the gift of seeing with the eyes of God’s Love – which is the prescription – the epiphany – we need to see clearly.  Pray that, filled with the Holy Spirit, we will love instead of label, so that we can truly be a people of hope, justice, and peace.

Amen.