Daily Lesson for July 10, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 10 verses 9 through 16:

9 About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 14But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ 15The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 16This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

Peter’s dream must have been absolutely abhorrent to him. The last time I preached this text I said that with all these unclean animals being brought down — four-footed creatures, reptiles, birds of many kinds — it must have looked like lower Louisiana was coming at him. Is it any wonder he said, “By no means!”

Actually, he said something else too. He said, “By no means, Lord.”   Which means on some certain level within himself he understood that the dream came from a place of authority.  

Yet still, he still resisted. It was too much.  Too different. Too radical a split from his understanding of the given categories of his world — “clean” and “unclean”.

So the dream had to happen three times. Even though it came directly from the Lord, it still didn’t happen suddenly. He had to be told thrice.

Our old prejudices die hard. Our old categories for ordering the word — Jew/gentile, slave/free, male/female, white/“colored” — are trenchant.  Even when we know what is right, our process of acceptance is usually long and stubbornly resisted. 

Yet, the Lord does not give up. The dream persists. Lower Louisiana keeps coming down. It keeps knocking on our door, disturbing us in our sleep.

And, finally, our “By no means,” becomes, “Here I am, Lord; send me.”