May 5, 2024 Sermon
Rev. Robert McDowell
Beulah UMC & Oak Grove UMC
Happy Cinco De Mayo! That’s about the extent of my Spanish speaking abilities. It means, “the 5th of May” because on this day in 1862, Mexico defeated the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla which eventually led to the expulsion of French control.
In the United States, we tend to commemorate this day by celebrating Mexican culture especially in cities that have high Mexican American populations. Today is a good day to enjoy some Mexican food, hit a piñata and enjoy a nice siesta.
Knowing that today would be Cinco De Mayo, I ran across an interesting story about how “the Wave” got started.
The Wave is where a section of fans in one area of a sporting event stand up together while putting their arms in the air and then they sit down, which hopefully leads to the next section of fans doing the same until the wave makes it all around the stadium. And this can go on for several times around the stadium until it finally dies out.
The Wave phenomenon actually started at a sporting event in Mexico. It was first done in 1986 at the World Cup which Mexico was hosting. The US didn’t qualify for that World Cup that year so there wasn’t as much media coverage. But it was at that World Cup in Mexico, where The Wave began.
We’ve all probably done the Wave at some point. And you have probably wondered why we don’t do it in church. Since today is Cinco De Mayo, let’s do the Mexican Wave this morning!
Excellent! Make sure you tell your friends that we’re a church that likes to have fun!
I think the reason for the popularity of The Wave is that everyone gets to participate. Nobody is left out. It’s kind of like when fans sing together during the 7th inning stretch. It’s a way of including everyone.
Like The Wave at sporting events, the Bible is filled with stories of God calling on people to start The Wave in including more people in God’s all-embracing love.
This morning’s Acts scripture reading is the tail end of a long story of God calling upon Peter to start The Wave by sharing the good news of Jesus with a man named Cornelius and his household. They were Gentiles who were considered to be outside of God’s covenant but were now invited to be included in God’s family through faith in Jesus.
God sent Peter a heavenly vision. And in this revelation, Peter saw heaven opened up and a large sheet came down in which there were several ritually unclean animals. He also heard a voice that said, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
But Peter, reacting out of his understanding of what foods are clean and what foods are unclean, protested. At first, this vision made no sense to him because it would be a violation of his religious code of conduct. Everyone knows that certain foods are considered ritually unclean.
But this voice from heaven persisted and offered him important new information to factor into his thinking. And this voice said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
And I think it’s important to note in this story that the voice said this to Peter three times. His old way of thinking was so embedded in him that God needed to repeat himself for Peter to be open to a new understanding of his faith.
Even with the repetitions, we are told that Peter was still greatly puzzled by the vision. Greatly puzzled. Sometimes, when we are greatly puzzled, that just might be an indication that we are getting closer and closer to a breakthrough in our faith.
As Peter is greatly puzzled, we are told that some travelers had arrived at Peter’s house asking for Peter to come with them. They had been sent by Cornelius, a Gentile who lived in the non-Jewish city of Caesarea, the “unclean” city of Caesarea. And his vision was to have his men go to Joppa to bring Peter to see him.
Which brings us to our Acts scripture reading for today in which we just get the end of this story where Peter then realizes why God had sent him the vision of the unclean animals. That vision was to prepare him to see how the distinctions between clean and unclean were giving way to God’s inclusive welcome to all people, both Jew and Gentile.
Thanks to God’s prompting, Peter was able to start a new wave that would welcome and include more and more people in God’s loving embrace. And like Peter, God prompts us again and again to be part of that wave in which more and more people are invited to be part of God’s family.
Visions are power things. They are even able to break the stones of our long-held beliefs in order to be open to how God is doing a new thing.
With Mother’s Day just a week away, I have been thinking of my mom who passed away back in 2012. She was a woman of vision, a woman who always had room for people around our kitchen table.
When I was growing up on a farm in south central, Pennsylvania, it was not uncommon for mom and dad to invite people who were visiting us during the later afternoon to stay for dinner.
When I refer to people, I specifically mean people like our insurance agent, the ice cream delivery man, the tax accountant, the neighbor down the road, the relative stopping by to say hi. As dinner was nearing, mom would always invite these folks to stay for dinner.
I honestly think that these folks strategically timed their visits as close to our dinner time as possible because they knew that mom and dad would invite them to stay by pulling up an extra chair or two to the kitchen table. When mom would invite them to eat with us, they would always politely decline because they didn’t want to be much trouble.
But they always ended up staying because, how could you not with the aroma of roast beef, mashed potatoes and green beans being prepared as they were chatting away.
Mom’s vision was for the people who stopped by our house to feel welcomed and included. I still have that vision of my parents there in our kitchen being so welcoming to people.
It was a late July afternoon back in 2009 as I was standing on my second-floor hotel balcony looking down on the city streets of San Lucas Toliman in Guatemala.
I was with a mission team of fourteen people from my church who had gone there to work on a water project which would provide clean water to a small community located just outside of the city.
Our team was exhausted from a long day of digging trenches under the hot Guatemalan sun. Someone on my team, had awaken me from my pre-dinner nap and said, “Robert, come to the balcony. You gotta see what Rock is doing!”
Rock was a member of my church who was also a funeral director. From our 2nd floor balcony, he was playing a game with about twenty Guatemalan children who had gathered below.
Since he couldn’t speak Spanish and they couldn’t speak English, he had them playing a game in which they had to do exactly what he was doing which were often silly motions and gestures with his face and arms.
They loved it and were laughing the whole time. In just a few minutes, the twenty children turned into thirty children and from my balcony I yelled down to Rock, “Now what are you going to do for all these children?” He shouted back up to me, “I’m going to go down to the store and buy candy to hand out to them.”
And sure enough, that’s what he did. The only problem was, as he was distributing the candy, those thirty children turned into forty children. Rock became their new best friend!
Then, Rock got another idea. He ended up forming a parade and had the children follow him up and down the polluted streets of this impoverished city as he whistled some silly song along the way. By the time the impromptu parade ended, there must have been at least 50 to 60 children who had been following him.
“Rock’s parade,” as we now refer to it, became one of the highlights of our mission trip. Rock started a small wave that ended up becoming a great big wave in which God’s love was shared with the people of that community.
I wonder what it would be like if we all saw ourselves as part of this great big wave where we are always welcoming, always inviting, always including, and always loving the people around us. Whenever we come forward to the Sacrament of Holy Communion, it is kind of like we are doing “The Wave.”
This table with the bread and the cup is open to everyone, everyone:
The nows and forevers and the yet-to-bes.
The “where you going” and “the where you’ve been.”
The living and the dead and the unseen.
The somebodies and the nobodies.
The who’s who and the Gentile and the Jew.
Everyone is invited. All are welcome. So, let’s join Peter and Rock in keeping this wave and this parade going. Don’t let it fizzle out. Share the love of Jesus wherever you go.
Happy Cinco De Mayo!
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