What makes a person pull up stakes and leave their home country? When a man is standing on the beach looking into the watery horizon, what makes him think that if he reaches land-out-of-sight that life might be better? Maybe these are just wild and weird dreams. Maybe people get crazy ideas out of desperation or maybe out of hope. Sometimes dreams and visions can be from the Lord. And sometimes wild dreams come from too much pizza right before bed.
Their names were Alfred Diehl Koch and Conrad Schuessler—German men of strong constitution. They were men who got caught by some strange dream or vision of a better life. They were my great, great grandfathers. And they, along with their wives and children, immigrated to the United States as the century was turning from the late 1800’s to the 1900’s.
Alfred Koch and Conrad Schuessler were part of massive influx of immigrants. “[B]etween 1900 and 1910 . . . almost 1 million immigrants per year entered the country.[i] Records show that “from 1892 to 1924, more than 22 million immigrants, passengers, and crew members came through Ellis Island and the Port of New York.”[ii] My great, great grandfathers stood in line on Ellis Island. They knew very little or no English. They were, I’m sure, terrified and struck with awe as they were churned through the great immigration machine. My great, great grandparents came into the U.S. at the height of the immigration. I long for a full re-telling of the account of their passage. I sit in awe and wonder at what they did and how they survived.
They launched out from New York and worked their way West. They both landed in Texas with their families living no more than fifty miles from each other. I doubt if they ever met. Homesteading in the wild country was very difficult. But they survived, never knowing that their great grandchildren, my mother and father, would one day be married and telling their story with amazement.
We must stop to acknowledge that every Native American Indian lives with the reality that their land was consumed by those whose dreams were ill-informed or insensitive to the basic human rights of native born peoples. Our country, as glorious and wonderful as it is, also has a deeply scarred history of ethnic hatred. Their land and dignity were stripped in the name of prosperity, progress and greed. May God forgive our ancestors for what they did to these significant and wonderful peoples! And may our leaders today do the good work of justice with them.
American is now a nation of immigrants. We are the “melting pot of the world.” Every nationality came here by choice—except for the African Americans. Every family struggled to gain land and crops for themselves—except for the African Americans. I hope we realize that the descendents of every African American person came here under great oppression and violence. And thank God that from time of Abraham Lincoln forward there have been God-loving, conscientious people who have worked and still work very hard to make sure that that wrong is righted. Many other people-groups have come from all over the world to find success and a better way of life here.
Each one of us, except for the Native Americans, must look honestly at our heritage and acknowledge that we are immigrants—foreigners in a foreign land. But acknowledging that is a difficult task—especially when we are trying to live out the American dream we have been born under.
As we look back in history we see that there was a dramatic dip in immigration after its peak in the early 1900’s. “The older immigrants from Protestant western Europe felt threatened by the rising tide of immigrants from the more Catholic southern and eastern European countries, and the immigrants from Asia. Organizations were formed urging laws to restrict immigration. . . A literacy test for immigrants was passed and . . . in 1921 imposed a quota system, limiting the number of immigrants from Europe.”34[iii] Further legislative moves continually limited immigration from particular parts of the world and discriminated against new immigrants. Some of the law was not repealed until 1965! “Since the great depression of the 1930’s and World War II, immigration has steadily risen again in the U.S. Notwithstanding the numerous and on-going crises and debates over illegal immigration and other related issues. In all of its splendor, the U.S. is not without its dark side.”[iv]
Did you know that this is nothing new? It’s not just in America that we have had these struggles. As noted from the historical data, much of the strife erupted over religious issues between Protestant and Catholic. And in our New Testament the very same issue is brought to a head when the Church of Jesus Christ was beginning to spread. It took another dream, another vision to bring things round to right. Please turn with me to Acts 10. We’ll be looking at this chapter carefully. And I challenge you to read chapters 11 and 15 this week.
Peter was a good Jewish man. He was, as we have come to know bold and full of enthusiasm. He was given to fits of wildness like cutting off a guard’s ear when Jesus was being arrested. He was given to outlandish statements and deeply wounding behavior, as when he denied our Lord three times before the crucifixion. But something wonderful had happened to Peter. Jesus restored him to his place of ministry after the resurrection. And upon being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost he was launched into an incredibly powerful preaching ministry.
But there was something still amiss with Peter. And the Holy Spirit needed to teach him and stretch him and confront him. Being a good Jewish man he had kept the Jewish laws faithfully all of his life. The Law, by this time, had become second nature to him—it seemed as if the whole world should be playing by those rules. But God is a God of continual revelation and dynamic relationship. There will always be something that we need to learn, something that we need incorporate in our lives as we grow to be more and more like Him. God does not change, nor does his truth change. Rather we are changed when we let him form his likeness in us. And this is what God needed to do with Peter.
We come to an enormously pivotal point in the early Church in Act 10.
Acts 10:1-48
At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. 2 He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; [a person who followed Judaism but had not fully converted and who had not yet heard the gospel of Jesus Christ] he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. 3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!”
4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.
The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.
9 About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air.
In Leviticus 11 God had given very specific directions for the Jewish people regarding what to eat. These laws seem odd to us, but some scholars think that they were to help the Israelites avoid diseases or to simply demonstrate their obedience to the One, true, living God.
13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
It is here that the more complete revelation of God takes over the Christian world. Just a short while earlier Jesus had taught that no food was unclean. (Mark 7:18-19) And Jesus being God, said, “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean’? 19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”). This was God pulling one of his beloved disciples into deeper and more broad truth than he had yet experienced.
16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
17 While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. 18 They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.
19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
21 Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?”
22 The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to have you come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” 23 Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
This is a phenomenal breaking of Jewish custom! I don’t think we can quite grasp this except by thinking about how striking it was for a white man to invite a black man into his Southern home before the civil rights movement.
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 Talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Four days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, „Cornelius, God has heard your prayer remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached — 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen —by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.
Then Peter said, 47 “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Ladies and gentlemen of all nations, this is the exquisite re-telling of God’s Immigration Policy—that God does not show favoritism but accepts men [and women, boys and girls] from every nation who fear him and do what is right.
It has been God’s policy from the beginning to incorporate anyone from any nation into his great family and house! God’s immigration policy is to let anyone into his great Kingdom without regard to their nation of origin, color of skin, accent or language.
Peter was launched out into a ministry that embraced every human being. And today we fall at God’s feet in thankfulness for including us—the Gentiles of the world in His great plan.
Today I am a great, great granddaughter of German-American immigrants who has been granted a status beyond all reason—the status of a child of the King! You are God’s children, every one of you. I pray that all our churches will be communities that accept people from all nations.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment