Better to Give than Receive

Acts 11:1-18

Now the apostles and the brothers and sisters who were in Judea heard that the gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 

Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners, and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 

At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 

And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

Sermon

There’s something really difficult about accepting a pot of soup. Have you ever been sick, or exhausted, or run-down, or in the throes of grief, and someone asked you if you wanted a meal?

The odds are, you probably said, “No thanks.”

The prospective soup-maker might have said, “Are you sure?” Or “Is there anything else you need?” To which you might have given in, or maybe you doubled-down on your polite refusal.

It’s really hard to accept the gift of a bowl of soup.

Though everyone who is alive is aging, there comes a unique set of challenges in the later stages of life. Mobility starts to decline and become more difficult. Memories start slipping. Parents, siblings, and friends start to die, and we’re left with more and more empty kitchen chairs and empty beds.

As we age, we start recognizing our interdependency more and more intimately. We need a ride to church; we start wearing an alert necklace; we stop being able to do crafts, or play an instrument, or remember what’s on our to-do lists.

But so often, instead of accepting help—let alone asking for it—we rebuff offers. It’s easy to feel like a burden, or weak, or be reminded that our capacity isn’t what it used to be.

These are common attitudes. We say no to soup. We say no to rides. We say no to talking about our feelings or fears. We say no to help bathing or using the bathroom. We say no to moving somewhere safer.

It’s better to give than receive, because it turns out, receiving a gift can be really, really hard. It can be uncomfortable and awkward and frustrating and even serve as an affront to everything we’ve known.

Fred Rogers said that when we’re scared, we should “look for the helpers.” I’ve used that quote to preach on our responsibility to be the helpers in the world, but we can’t stray too far away from his intention. God meets us in the uncertainty of the world, and so often, meets us in the turmoil, confusion, instability, and uncomfortability through helpers. That is, God is constantly trying to help us and the world; the question is whether we will ourselves turn our faces toward the light of God’s countenance. The world is changing; our bodies are aging and slowing down; and the future is anything but clear. The helpers are here, but will we accept their gifts of God? Will we accept a bowl of soup, a ride to the store, an alert necklace, as graces of God?

“It’s better to give than receive, because it turns out, receiving a gift can be really, really hard. It can be uncomfortable and awkward and frustrating and even serve as an affront to everything we’ve known.”

The Book of Acts recounts the persistent, steadfast, and determined love of God in the Risen Christ through the power of the Spirit. It kicks off with the day of Pentecost, which we will celebrate on June 8. On Pentecost, we remember God’s lavish gift of grace: the Holy Spirit, who descended upon the disciples and remains with us today. That was the first of many gracious gifts in the book of Acts, and the beginning of a radical new way of life for the disciples. The church was borne, and the Risen Christ, through the Spirit, commanded the church to a challenging, love-filled existence in the world.

If you were to thumb through one of the Bibles in the pews, you would observe something interesting about the scripture leading up to today’s passage. Today’s text comes on the heels of a fuller, more detailed account of Peter’s vision and ministry to Gentiles. That means the complete passage actually starts in chapter 10, verse 1, and carries on through today’s reading, in Acts 11, verse 18. It records these events from two perspectives: from the author Luke, and from Peter’s own perspective. I’ve spared us from reading it in its entirety, which totals sixty-six verses in all.

It is interestingly lengthy. This series of events is longer than the complete Pentecost narrative in the first part of chapter 2. It is longer than the ascension of Jesus, the full arc of Saul’s conversion, and Stephen’s sermon before he is stoned. This is something we need to carefully pay attention to.

And if we were to skim back a little bit, we’d see a theme lift from the pages of our Bibles; there is a rhyme and rhythm that starts to form.

Beginning in chapter 8, the Spirit drives the apostle Philip to Samaria—an ethnic group derided by Judeans—where Philip “proclaims the Christ,” (Acts 8:4). Those Samaritans welcome Philip, listen intently, and then rejoiced in the Spirit. God gives the church a gift: these “disgusting” Samaritans.

And then, another dramatically unsavory character named Simon is given a gift of life. Simon was a magician, who performed deeds of power himself. But Philip proclaims the Christ, and Simon believes. Yet again, God gives the church a gift: Simon, the man with a checkered past.

As Philip leaves Samaria and heads to Gaza, he meets a foreigner along the way. Luke records that it is an Ethiopian man, and no ordinary foreigner, but an Ethiopian eunuch. In service to the Queen of Ethiopia, his body underwent profound physical and physiological changes. Certainly here, Philip will draw the line in the sand! But Philip doesn’t tell the eunuch to change his lifestyle, his attitudes, or his relationships; instead, Luke records a swift, joyful baptism. Church tradition holds that this Ethiopian eunuch brought Christianity to Africa in the first century. It seems God gave the church another gift: this Ethiopian eunuch.

Finally, we meet Saul on the road to Damascus. The risen Christ draws him to discipleship, even while he is persecuting and attacking the church. After his conversion, he became a true gift to the church, authoring the foundations of the Christian religion. God gave the church even Saul.

All of this immediately precedes today’s passage. It’s another gift. The gentiles.

God’s gifts to the church—Samaritans, a magician, a foreign eunuch, and Saul—those gifts became harder and harder to palette. At the same time, they were increasingly fruitful, joyful gifts. They were gifts that touched every part of the globe, and penned the very foundation of our doctrine and practice.

But if we were on the other side of the pages in our Bibles, there’s a good chance we would have called them vile.

…

I hated one of the best gifts I ever received. It was some sort of birthday or Christmas, and someone said, “I don’t need to see your wish list, I already have your present picked out.” That makes me nervous. Because I’ve received some really, really bad gifts over the years.

Something arrived on my doorstep, I apprehensively opened the box, and I peered inside. It was yellow. It was black. It was bulky. It had hoses and tubes attached to it. It was an air compressor. I rolled my eyes when I saw it. I put it in my car, and tried forgetting about it.

But then, it was winter. It was cold. It was rainy. It was gross outside, and right on cue, I realized my tire pressure was low. The very, very last thing I wanted to do was drive to scrounge together quarters, drive to some podunk gas station, and wrangle air into my tires.

But then a lightbulb went off. I have an air compressor! I pulled it out of the trunk, set the target air pressure, screwed it on, and a few seconds later… bingo! 36 PSI, right on the dot.

…

As human beings, though we have moments of clarity and insight, our default factory settings really stink when it comes to self-understanding. A professor in seminary put it this way: “We can smell self-delusion a hundred miles away in each other; but we can’t smell it in ourselves even when it’s obvious.” He said it with more expletives, but you get the picture.

We spurn the offers of friends and family to bring us a pot of soup. We refuse to use a cane, or follow doctor’s orders, or stay in our wheelchairs rather than walking independently. We try being helpers, even when our limitations are crying out and asking us to stop.

Our self-delusion keeps us from accepting truly good gifts. Like Peter, God extends us grace upon grace upon grace, and we reject, reject, and reject them. Like Peter, who also denied Christ three times, we try to rewrite the narrative, or reject the grace that goes against our tired assumptions. 

As we heard, factions of the early church decried the Spirit’s movement in racial minorities, a magician, a eunuch, and in any gentile. So too, do we decry the Spirit’s movement in the lives of those unlike us—especially those who are most vulnerable right now—and in doing so, we reject the gift and grace of God. We see something—or someone—uncomfortable, and instead of opening our lives to its grace, we try to escape it, writing it off as anything but grace.

“Like Peter, who also denied Christ three times, we try to rewrite the narrative, or reject the grace that goes against our tired assumptions.”

How often do we stop listening, or stop reading, or stop showing up, because something is considered “unclean,” or puts a lump of disgust in our stomachs? How often do we tune out, because it’s not what we learned growing up? How often do we say, “I would do more if I could understand them better,” or “they just don’t understand our values,” and in doing so, reject the grace of God, and who God has called us to love?

Maybe there’s someone or something else that you consider “unclean.” It might be someone who’s of a different political party; it might be a family member; it might be a lifestyle or difference in values. It could also be something like a wheelchair, a transition in work, or even social media.

These days, it might be anything from someone who is LGBTQ to someone who is a MAGA Republican.

Peter saw everything he was taught to avoid, and everything he was taught to reject, coming down in a sheet. He was being called by God to support and love Samaritans and eunuchs and Romans and foreigner gentiles. He was being asked to transgress the boundaries he formed and the lines in the sand he drew. During this vision, he probably clammed up. He probably rolled his eyes. If he could have, he probably wanted to write God an email questioning God’s understanding of the scripture. He probably would want easier, shorter, fluffier feel-good sermons if he was sitting in the pews listening to me, too.

But God didn’t give up. These animals and gentiles were not only things Peter was to tolerate, they were things Peter was called to enjoy and celebrate. The risen Christ was still determined to pour out lavish grace upon humanity, and through the Spirit, give the gift of new life and new understandings. God gave the church an air compressor, knowing it was a good gift, even though we wouldn’t recognize it as such. That’s why God brought eunuchs and magicians, and Samaritans, and now, here today, gentiles of every kind.

God is giving us gifts today, too, but isn’t merely asking us to accept them. God is compelling us to accept these uncomfortable gifts of grace, whether they be new relationships or transitions or something else altogether.

“[Peter] was being called by God to support and love Samaritans and eunuchs and Romans and foreigner gentiles. He was being asked to transgress the boundaries he formed and the lines in the sand he drew.”

When we stop thinking as clearly as we used to, God asks us to accept the grace of friendly reminders and check-ins from family. When we get sick or injured, God asks us to accept the pot of soup or a hand around the house. When we lose our physical mobility, God asks us to accept the grace of medical equipment and wheelchairs and canes. When we stop being able to go to the bathroom independently, God asks us to accept the very difficult grace of care providers and medical staff.

When we start blaming our neighbors for their poverty, or hunger, or mental illness, or substance abuse, God asks us to accept the grace of relationships with them. And the grace of compassion. And the grace of asking questions, even when the answers might lead us away from our narratives.

When we start feeling frustrated, or angry, or disappointed, or confused, God asks us to accept the grace of courageous conversations, and the grace of talking through conflict, rather than avoiding it. God asks us to accept the grace of moving through those feelings, not away or out of those feelings.

None of this is comfortable! It isn’t easy to accept a pot of soup, or move into supportive housing, or be friendly with people we think are disreputable. I doubt it was easy for Peter, either!

“God is giving us gifts today, too, but isn’t merely asking us to accept them. God is compelling us to accept these uncomfortable gifts of grace, whether they be new relationships or transitions or something else altogether.”

So this week, join Peter, and consider the sheet that is descending from heaven — the gift that looks like anything but a gift. The grace that looks more like an air compressor than God-given love.

What’s on it? What are those lizards, and snakes, and owls, and pigs that we were taught to avoid and disdain, but are actually gifts of grace?

And what is God asking you to do? How is God asking you to live? 

And who is God asking you to embrace?