Sermon: Psalm 148b, Acts 11:1-18, May 18, 2025

Scripture: Psalm 148b, Acts 11:1-18

Preacher: Bailey Bjolin

Title:

Chapter One

Four page sermon

Whenever I read this story, I am struck by the vivid image of a sheet full of animals being

lowered from the sky. It’s one of those moments when I can’t help to laugh— because, why is

God so weird sometimes? I’m convinced that God does this because God is playful and dramatic,

and God wants us to engage in the playful discernment of these visions. We are people of a wild

and unusual God— therefore we should allow ourselves to enter into these wild and unusual

spaces, to dwell in the joyful absurdity of interpretation with one another.

This is a nested story, meaning it’s framed as a story within a story. We have the story of Peter

and his vision of these clean and unclean animals being lowered on a sheet from heaven, and

then we have the story we just heard from Sarah, where Peter explains to the circumcised

believers, his skeptical friends and colleagues, his reason for eating with Cornelius, who is an

uncircumcised Gentile.

Overarching this story is a sense of fear and vulnerability. We are unsure of where our future is

leading us, and we do not know how to interpret these stories we’ve known, some of us, since we

were children. Is God still active in our lives? And if so, how do we hear and respond to God’s

call?

In the original story, which takes place the chapter before (Acts 10), Peter goes up to the roof to

pray. Here the scripture gives us extra details about what kind of state Peter is in at the time. We

learn that Peter becomes hungry, and while his food is being prepared, he falls into a trance:

“About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up

on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while it was being

prepared he fell into a trance” (Acts 10:9-10).

And it was then, in his hunger, that the vision of the sheet of animals is lowered before him, and

the voice of God asks him to “kill and eat.”

How does Peter reply? He says, very politely, “no thanks.”

“By no means, Lord,” Peter says, “[I will not be eating these alligators and pigs and snakes and

things,] for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean” (Acts 10:14). This is because,

as we know, Peter is an observant Jew. He fears God and he observes God’s covenant with

Israel. And because of this, he follows the dietary laws outlined in Deuteronomy and

Leviticus 1which prohibit him from eating “[e]very animal that has divided hoofs but is not cleftfooted

or does not chew the cud” (Lev. 11:26), as well as “the weasel, the mouse, lizards of every

kind, the gecko, the land crocodile, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon” (Lev.

11:29-30), and whatever “moves on its belly” (Lev 11:42).

But the voice says to Peter: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15).

And this whole exchange happens three times before the sheet is taken back up into heaven.

This whole sequence— the lowering of the blanket; the animals both profane and clean, all

jumbled together in one heaving mass; the booming voice— all of this must be incredibly

troubling for Peter. Here he is, an observant Jew who belongs to an emerging movement of

similarly observant Jews, and he is being visited by an incredible vision that seems to contradict

everything he was brought up to believe.

The challenge here for Peter is what to do with this incredible vision. How can he know that

what he’s seen is the word of God? How can he listen to it and take it seriously when it goes

against everything he’s ever known about God and about being a Jew?

1. Deut 14 and Lev 11

In the Talmud, which is the Jewish record of rabbinical debate about law and biblical

interpretation, there is a well-known story called the Oven of Akhnai. In this story, a group of

Rabbis are discussing whether a particular kind of oven can be used, or whether it is ritually

impure.

(Now, at this point, you might be wondering: “how can an oven be ritually impure?” And this is a

good question, but for the purpose of this sermon, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that

there is a discussion going on about the possible cleanliness or uncleanliness of an oven, and in

this case, there happens to be some disagreement.)

The discussion becomes two-sided. One one side, we have a man named Rabbi Eliezer, who

argues that the oven is not ritually impure and therefore it can be used to cook ritually pure

foods. However, all the other rabbis seem to disagree with him.

Rabbi Eliezer, who by now is growing increasingly frustrated with the way the discussion is

going, doubles down. He says to his fellow rabbis: “If the halakhah[, that is, the religious law,] is

as I say it is, then let this carob tree prove it!” Immediately, a nearby carob tree uproots itself and

moves 100 cubits2 from its place. But still, the gathered rabbis do not agree with Rabbi Eliezer.

2. Which is 150 feet, or around 45 metres for those of us who may be more metrically inclined

“No proof can be brought from the carob tree,” they say.

This happens again. Rabbi Eliezer commands the river to flow backwards; and it does. Another

Rabbi, named Joshua, who is clearly fed up, stands up and exclaims: “the Torah is not in

heaven!”

Famously, when God hears this, God smiles.

Rabbi Joshua is quoting from Deuteronomy here, where God is saying to the Israelites that

God’s commandments are near to them— that they are not too far away, not in heaven or across

a great sea— it is nowhere so remote that the people of Israel would not be able to access the

commandments themselves.

“The word is very near to you,” God says in Deuteronomy. “It is in your mouth and in your

heart for you to observe” (Deut. 30:14). The Torah is not in heaven; it exists in the wrestling with

the sacred scripture among the Jewish people.

So, in this story, we see the Jewish people grappling with how to understand their sacred text.

Often this story is read as emphasizing a people’s right to interpret the text. When we look at the

historical context around this story, we see that this story, the Oven of Akhnai, as well as the

book of Acts, were both written around the time the Second Temple fell, in 70 CE. The

destruction of the Second Temple is a big deal for the Jewish people because the Second Temple

was the place where Jewish people worshipped; it was their connection to God. Without the

temple, they had to figure out how to worship God in a new way. This was a time of great

uncertainty for the Jewish people, a time when their identity was particularly threatened. It was

stories like these, stories that asked questions around how we can preserve Jewish identity in the

midst of ongoing imperial reign, that were deeply familiar to Jewish people and early Christfollowers.

So we arrive here, at a place of fear and vulnerability. We arrive at a place of not knowing what

to trust, and of not knowing how to discern the voice of God in this incredible, unprecedented

time.

I think for a lot of us, this place might feel familiar.

• We might find that our world is not what we once thought it was.

• We are living in an increasingly secular world.

• We are living in a world that is changing rapidly.

• We watch the news and cannot help but to feel overwhelmed by the things that are

happening around the world.

• And, as the sins of the Christian church are being revealed, as we watch some of our

neighbours to the South promote a version of Christianity that is goes against everything

we know about God, we find ourselves wondering and worrying: “how can we stay alive

in the midst of all this? How do we survive? How do we hold fast to God and God’s

promise for us?”

What I’m saying is that our fear in the world is inevitable and understandable. And this is true

now more than ever. Our fear exists because we love one another and we love God, and we are

afraid of things that might threaten the people we love and the God who loves us. But we find

ourselves today in the position of both Peter and countless Jewish Rabbis throughout the years

— we find ourselves wondering how we can know that we are following God as faithfully as

possible? How do we continue to flourish and love one another in a world that feels,

increasingly, like love is a scarce commodity rather than grace freely-given?

That’s a lot of fear to be holding.

Now let’s return to Peter, and let’s think about his fear. There is a lot at stake here for him. Peter

is part of an emerging movement, one that is marked by unusual and miraculous experiences that

confirm the divinity of the crucified Jesus. He has seen his own mother-in-law healed in

Capernaum by Jesus. He saw Jesus crucified and he saw Jesus return from the dead. He’s been

primed to trust in impossible things, to see the world turned upside down. And he’s committed to

sharing the Good News of what he’s seen in his missional work.

And still, there are centuries of religious tradition that Peter is a part of. It’s this religious

tradition that gives him pause.

But what happens after this vision? In Acts 10, the original recounting of the event, Peter is taken

to Cornelius’s house, a Roman centurion, and meets a group of people assembled there.

And this is what Peter says: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with

or visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean” (Acts

10:28).

After these words, Peter shares the Word with the Gentiles, and the Holy Spirit is poured out

over them; and Peter, recognizing God’s affirmation in the pouring out of the Spirit, asks: “can

anyone withhold3 the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as

we have?” (Acts 10:47). He baptizes the people and spends several days with them.

This sequence is instrumental for us as Christians. Through this sequence, we see the Holy Spirit

moving in our midst. The Holy Spirit is the key in discernment for us as Christians.

What does the Holy Spirit ask of Peter? What is God, in the Holy Spirit, asking of us?

This story is about drawing the circle wide— it is about expanding God’s promise across even

the most faithfully-held boundaries. And that is a transgressive act. It remains a transgressive act

3. The word “withhold” here is actually closer to the word “block,” and it occurs three times in

this book and cumulates here, in the implication that to block the baptism of the Gentiles is to

block God.

even today. We should not look back on the commandments of the Hebrew Bible, or on the

Talmudic story of the Oven of Akhnai, and see these commandments and conclusions as

“wrong” or as “outdated.” Rather, we should see them as tracing a line of continuity, one where

God is ever-promising, ever-reconciling, and ever-making new in our lives. This is an active

God, our God is busy within us and working through us towards something we never could have

imagined. And we continue to grapple with the Word. That is because: our fear and uncertainty

is, on some level, our human condition. When we grapple with the Word of God, we are able to

discern the word of God.

For Peter, this moment of fear and vulnerability gives way to a time of revelation and

celebration. The Holy Spirit’s work is undeniable. Peter trusts in the Spirit and baptizes the

Gentiles then and there. He does this in community with those he had been told his whole life

that he should not associate with. The Torah— the law— is not in heaven; it is right here,

amongst our new friends.

This is a strange and beautiful thing, something that would not have made sense to most Jewish

people or Gentiles. But, like Ryan’s sermon last week, I believe that the hound of heaven is

always chasing after us; and often it turns out that the hound of heaven is chasing us into the

thing we never would have chosen for ourselves.

This, the Holy Spirit, is the love that drives out the fear that exists — and will always exist — in

our creaturely bodies. The world is ever-changing, and there is always something new to fear. We

must be responsive to this fear and we must do everything we can to transform our fear into love

— I believe this. But we don’t need to respond to this fear alone.

When we are able to let ourselves surrender to the Holy Spirit, then we can allow ourselves to be

transformed, in what we do, how we act, and what we believe.

We will be known by our fruits.

We can use Acts as our guide as we search for these fruits: where do we see community living

out its responsibility to one another and to God, growing together in faith, and encountering our

neighbours in love? I’ve only been here for a few weeks, but I see this everywhere in this

community.

This work of discernment should never be done alone; we need to be able to learn and pray with

one another, and play with one another(!), and ask questions and take risks with one another.

This is how we learn how to see and trust the Spirit at work in our midst. This is, as theologian

Willie James Jennings says, “the joy we have in participation with the ongoing life of Jesus.”

We do this work of discernment out of joy, because God is irresistible and the hound of heaven

refuses to let us go, refuses to let us dwell in our fear. We are part of an ongoing story, one with

many branches and many paths. And for us, we have been gifted with one another— though we

come from different backgrounds, and though we may believe different things. Though we may

otherwise be enemies; though I might have found you, at one time, unclean — in the love of

Christ we as Christians can share in this life together, and continue to discern a new Word and a

new way that is ever-expansive in God’s love. We might not always receive a prophetic vision,

but may we always have community within which we can discern the voice of God in our weird

and wonderful faith.

Amen.