I hope to see you on Sunday at 10:30 am. Many will watch via livestream, Sunday or another day. We are grateful to our AV team: Barry Paton, Rob Steeves, Steve Morley, Glen Knapp, & Penny Allen. Here is a link to the service:
Bargain Bonanza Update: You’ve been dropping off your donations, we have great things to offer for sale. Thank you! Storage space is filling up, thus we may need to push up the cut off date for donations to Sunday, May 12. Please bring your donations in sooner rather than later! There are also sign-up sheets outside the sanctuary, seeking volunteers to help organize, price, and oversee the various sections of the bonanza. Please consider signing up. The more, the merrier! Thank you! Louisa Duck
A major disconnect between our experience of church and the first Christian community is how we view food and meals. We see food as a menu of choices, we select on the basis on availability, taste, allergies, affordability. Then, the church was focused on dietary laws, what they were allowed to eat, what was forbidden. Now we eat to supply our bodies with nutrition and energy, possibly a taste we crave or to mark a special event. Then, meals were an expression of gratitude, those who at the table had been selected with consideration, signifying their status.
In our story for today, Cornelius the Centurion, a Gentile, had a vision to send for an apostle of Jesus named Peter. Peter, a devout Jew and follower of Jesus, had a vision too. Peter was praying on the roof of his friend's house, he was hungry. He fell into a trance and saw a sheet being lowered down from heaven filled with the foods good Jews were not allowed to touch or eat. A voice was heard, "Get up Peter, kill and eat." Peter's response, "By no means Lord! You know I can't eat what is profane and unclean!" There was a counter-response, "What God has made, you must not call profane." Peter said, 'Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' He baptized them and invited them to stay for several days.
When Peter declared, "God shows no partiality" he opened-up the possibility that everyone is welcome in the family of faith. Isn’t that our mission, then, now and always, to welcome, to include?