The Joy of Being Wrong--June 13, 2023

The Joy of Being Wrong--June 13, 2023

"Then Peter began to speak to them: 'I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what it is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all...." [Acts 10:34-36]

There are these moments in life when the fog lifts, the clouds part, and you see things clearly that you did not understand before... and maybe that you didn't even realize you didn't understand.  And in those times of clarity, even if they turn your whole world upside down and make you see everything else in a new light, you discover a sense of unexpected contentment, a surprising peace, like a new day is dawning and its truth is illuminating the world that had been hidden in shadow before.  You feel what theologian James Alison once beautifully called "the joy of being wrong."

I know that phrase might sound like a contradiction--we live in a time where we pride ourselves on our 'rightness' and do not want to permit the possibility that we were wrong about anything--not to anybody else, and not even to ourselves.  We have plenty of bombastic and well-known public figures who seem to relish digging their heels in rather than ever dare admit that they were mistaken, or had more to learn, or didn't have all the facts, or--God forbid!--had taken new insights into consideration and changed their minds about something. Most of us think of "being wrong" as a failure to be admitted or confessed with our tails between our legs, and certainly not something to be joyful about.

But sometimes the truth is not what we believed... and it turns out to be good news.  Sometimes we find out we were wrong... and all we can do is rejoice over it, and maybe laugh at the way God surprises us.  That's what's going on in this scene from the book of Acts--it's about what happens when you realize you had the truth all wrong, and once your eyes are open to it, you can't help but joyfully shout it from the rooftops.

This scene is the climax of a beautiful story in what we call the tenth chapter of Acts, and it has to do with the early church leader Peter (yes, THAT Simon Peter who had been in Jesus' inner circle of closest disciples) learning that God had welcomed in people who were different from him, just as they were.  God was doing a new thing in Jesus, and it included not only Jewish people like Peter but Gentiles--even <gasp> enemies. Peter had found himself summoned (both by God and human messengers) to go meet a centurion named Cornelius, and God had directed him to tell this Gentile soldier of the occupying Roman Empire about Jesus.  And God had gotten through to him by sending him a vision that included all sorts of "unclean" animals and God telling Peter "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."  All Peter's life he had lived within the directives of the religious rules that saw the whole world in stark either-or binaries: clean-and-unclean, holy-and-profane, inside-and-outsider.  And all Peter's life, he believed that people like him, who traced their lineage through Jewish ancestors to ancient Israel, were "in," and those outside of that family line were excluded.  Even since meeting Jesus, he was still stuck in thinking  that the new community of Jesus' followers was limited to "insiders" like him, and that foreigners like this Roman centurion were not eligible for belonging. It was a neat and tidy little system for understanding the world.

And then God got a hold of him.

God leads Peter to a new realization--that God "shows no partiality," and that God in fact was welcoming in Gentiles as well as Jewish faces into the community of Christ.  It meant re-evaluating everything Peter thought he knew, but the moving of God's Spirit made it clear to him: the ones he previously KNEW were ineligible to belong were now being drawn in and included.  Peter discovered what we are so often afraid to face: the joy of being wrong.

That's what I love about Peter's speech here, as he shares the story of Jesus with Cornelius and his household: Peter is basically realizing in real-time here that he was wrong, and instead of covering it up, denying that he was changing his mind, or digging his heels in, Peter laughs with joy that God has gotten through to him at last.  It turns out to be good news that he had been wrong, because Peter's mistaken belief had made God too small, and God's mercy too narrow.  Peter can now rejoice to admit that the very people he assumed were unworthy and unacceptable were the very ones God was reaching out to include.

This story is powerful for us in the twenty-first century for a number of very big reasons.  First of all, for any of us who trace our genealogy from anybody other than Jewish ancestors, this story is the moment that opened the doors up for us to belong in the community of Jesus.  Our place in the body of Christ is made possible because someone like Peter was willing to admit he had been wrong about someone like Cornelius, and let God lead him to welcome the ones he had always deemed un-welcome-able.  Second, it's worth considering that we keep having to learn Peter's lesson: don't call profane and unacceptable what God has called holy and has already accepted.  Some church bodies even today are still struggling with the question of whether women should be allowed to lead, preach, teach, and serve as pastors--and I'd say they need to ask they're making the same mistake of declaring women unworthy when God has already decided they ARE worthy of being leaders, pastors, preachers, and teachers.  Other church bodies are wrestling with the question of including gay and lesbian pastors or welcoming LGBT persons into the full life of their congregations--and I suspect they feel a lot like Peter in this story, coming to grips with the realization that God was including people they thought were not acceptable.  

I'll admit, too, my own faith journey has been one of learning, growing, and change here--there was a time I was sure that gay or lesbian people couldn't be included among the leaders of the church, and I was sure I was on "God's side" on that issue.  And while the details of my journey there are probably too long a story for right here and now, suffice it to say that I know what it's like to be in Peter's sandals and to realize that God is the one pulling you into a new direction, which is going to turn a lot of your world upside down.  I know what it's like to be so certain, and yet to be brought to a re-evaluation of that certainly--not because I was seeking to reject God's direction or word, but precisely because I was listening and seeing what had been there all along but that I never realized. I know how difficult and humbling it is to say, "I used to think these people were unacceptable, and that it was God who said so... but now I realize was God all along telling me these faces are already accepted as they are."  But sometimes you have no choice but to step into the joy of being wrong.

Today that is my prayer--for me, for you, for all of us who, like Peter before us, are striving to listen to what God's voice is saying, and who may well find God's message surprising when it turns out to welcome the folks we thought God wanted kept out, and when it turns out to embrace the ones we thought were unworthy.  I pray that we may be given the gift of rejoicing when we realize the truth that God's welcome is wider than we dared imagine, and that it is not ours to call profane what God has called clean, good, and worthy.

Good Lord, give us the gift of your joy as we receive the truth that your welcome is wider than we dared to imagine.