A New Truth (Part 1)

Acts 10: 9b-16

“9b Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” 15 The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.”

Peter, praying on the roof of a friend’s home in Joppa, was given a vision of the new thing God planned to do. Orthodox Jews believed that God had no use for the Gentiles.  God revealed to Peter that he did, indeed, have use for the Gentiles.  Prior to this vision, Peter would have called the Gentiles unclean.  Through this vision, God was asking Peter to unlearn an entire lifetime of prejudice and ignorance.

We often think that our prejudices are also God’s prejudices and we may even blame our prejudices on God as we point to scripture as justification.  This very thing was done to justify slavery and to oppress women in this nation not so many years ago.

To Peter’s credit, he allowed himself to be used by God and took actions consistent with God’s vision (as we shall see).

To grow spiritually, we must be open to new truths revealed by God and be willing to be led by God into those truths.

May the love of Christ be with you,

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)

God’s Redemptive Love

Luke 19:2-5

“2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

Zacchaeus was a short man.  He was also a very hated tax collector.  Not only was he a tax collector, but he was the chief tax collector.  

For some reason, Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus.  But the people would not let him in front of them as they lined the streets.  So Zacchaeus, being resourceful, ran down the road and climbed into a tree, above the crowd.

I imagine the crowd had a good laugh about making the rich tax collector climb a tree. All they could see when they looked at Zacchaeus was a short man, a tax collector, a sinner.  When they looked at him they saw all the reasons for their own anger.

But Jesus looked up into the sycamore tree and saw a child of God who was worthy of God’s love.  And Christ invited himself to Zacchaeus’ home.  And the love of Christ did what all the anger in the world could not do; it changed Zacchaeus..

Christ looks at us, even the worst of us, and sees a child of God.  No one is beyond the redemptive love of God.

May the love of Christ be with you,

Rev. Eric Lanier