April 28, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Living in Boston with the kind of winter driving that we do, I was always a member of Triple A. Over 40 years ago when Joy and I were planning for our honeymoon in Virginia since the slogan was, “Virginia is for Lovers,” (Honestly, we couldn’t afford to honeymoon in Bermuda since I was a poor seminarian at that time.), we asked Triple A to create a turn-by-turn Trip-Tik directions from Boston to Hampton Beach, Virginia.
In 1972, we had a VW Fastback with no air-conditioning. It was August and it was hot. And after putting on a happy face for our wedding and two wedding banquets, one in New York City and another in Boston the following night, we were tired and all those pent-up frustrations led us to argue with each other on our long road trip to our honeymoon Chamberlain Hotel.
We have been so busy with the wedding that we just confidently and obediently followed the Trip-Tik page by page. We only saw each page of small maps with the green highlighter on the route to be taken. When it finally dawned on us that we were traveling west in Pennsylvania to the Amish Country rather than south is when we realized that Triple A gave us a “honeymoon route” and we were hours off course. I think we argued and blamed each other again!
Triple A doesn’t produce Trip-Tiks anymore but fortunately you can still get paper maps. No gas stations give out free maps anymore. Chances are that nobody under the age of 50 has maps. I know that when I get into our daughter’s van, she has no maps.
Today, many cars have a GPS (Global Positioning System) installed into the dashboard or like me, have a small hand-held GPS sitting on the dashboard. Today most of the smartphones have GPS that can look up your current location and direct you to wherever you want to go. Then there’re Google Maps and MapQuest that provide turn-by-turn directions from point A to point B; just like the old Trip-Tiks.
With all that gadgetry available to us, even if you’re in the middle of nowhere, you can determine that you are at least somewhere.
Some people have predicted that paper maps may be going away like the cassette player or a full-size spare tire. Many would say that we’re at the point of simply not needing paper maps anymore.
But if our honeymoon trip is example of the need of paper maps or not, we still need them. There are some places like where our son and his family live in a rapidly developing community of Raleigh, North Carolina that no maps have been created for the GPS yet. If we only rely on our GPS turn-by-turn directions, we may end up driving hours off course.
The main reason why maps aren’t going anywhere is that they provide one thing that GPS and online directions—despite their colors, detail and satellite imagery—cannot provide us is context. While a GPS can tell you where you are and what’s immediately in front of you, it can’t show you all the alternate routes, the possible shortcuts, the way to get around that traffic jam. It won’t lay out the whole trip for you in one panoramic view. Paper maps offer big-picture geometry. They can show you four or five counties at one time, and not just the neighborhood you’re driving in. Where a GPS chirps “Recalculating” when you veer off the route, a paper map will quietly show you all the possible ways to get there that you may never have considered.
On a family trip to the four-corner states with the kids and my mother-in-law some years ago, we were trying to get from one town to another I believe in Utah. Rather than driving on the highway that was going out of the way, I thought there’s got to be a shortcut. On a Triple A map, we saw this small road, the shortest distance between two points, and went. It soon became a dirt road and there were cattle in the middle of the road. After shooing away the cattle and arriving at our destination, we mentioned the shortcut to the motel manager and he said, “You went on Mosquito Pass! Tourists don’t go on Mosquito Pass.” But I wouldn’t have found that shortcut if it wasn’t for a paper map.
Book of Acts
Having shared all of this, the book of Acts reads like a travelogue for first-century Christianity. When we read and study Acts, it’s helpful to have a paper map nearby just to track where all of the apostles are going.
Our text today has Peter traveling back up to Jerusalem from Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast at the beginning of the passage. When Peter goes to Joppa and eats with the Gentile Roman centurion Cornelius, the other “apostles and believers” think that he has marched completely off the map. Their criticism sounds like that voice on a GPS calling Peter to “recalculate” his ministry back to the circumcised Jews and away from the pagan Gentiles (Acts 11:1-3).
But where the other apostles and believers only saw the narrow route laid out by their old Trip-Tiks (Genesis to the Prophets books)—a route that they perceived to be only about the way and law of God’s chosen people, the Jews—Peter explains to them that God had showed him the context of a much larger map that revealed the new road God was building toward inclusion of the Gentiles in the church.
The context that God shows Peter, came in the form of a three-fold dream, where a large sheet was lowered from heaven full of animals he and his fellow Jews considered to be unclean. God’s command to Peter was, essentially, to drive off the long-held maps Peter and his people had walked for thousands of years by eating only kosher foods permitted by the law of Moses. “Get up, Peter; kill and eat,” says God, inviting Peter to eat food that was only suitable for Gentiles (v. 7). God was building a new road that would bring Jews and Gentiles together: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (v.9).
God, in fact, doesn’t just give Peter the map but also the direction of the Spirit to go to the Gentile guides to Caesarea (vv.11-12). Because Peter drives off the old road, he begins to see how God’s plan for the whole world is unfolding like a huge Triple A map. Cornelius had also received a vision from God, which altered his maps as a Roman centurion and citizen who likely had seen a lot of the world. The Holy Spirit sent Peter, a Jew; and Cornelius, a Gentile, off their prescribed routes to meet each other as an example of the new route God was showing the church.
No longer would Jews and Gentiles drive on separate roads, but they would serve the same Lord as part of the same church. As Peter puts it, “I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ (vv.16-17).
Tunnel Vision
A GPS can be a great tool, but it can also lead to a kind of tunnel vision that causes drivers to focus so much on the route on the screen and the directions given by the voice that they fail to see the full picture of the road in front of them.
This is a real story but in 2011, three women were in a rental SUV on their way to a Costco convention in Washington State when they followed their GPS instructions to the letter. They drove down a boat ramp and straight into a lake. Neither of the other two passengers in the car stopped the driver. They just did what they were told.
A lot of Christians may view God’s instructions the same way, focusing only on what we perceive to be our one and only path and not on the big picture context of God’s mission in the world. More than any other time in human history with the accessibility of social media and communication devices, our once big world has gotten a lot smaller and more connected. People of all walks of life are our neighbors and our children’s classmates. While we as Christians believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we must also recognize the larger world in which we now live. Whether we like it or not or whether we are involved or not, God is transforming the world with his redeeming love in people who believe differently from us. God has a big context for his mission in the world.
When we are stuck in our own theological interpretations of Scripture without listening to the Spirit’s guidance for the larger context, we may wind up off track and in deep water like the three women in Washington State. We can become like the Pharisees whom Jesus called “blind guides” who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24)—another way of saying that we sometimes miss the forest from the trees!
When we read Acts 11, we identify with Peter who had tunnel vision, a turn-by-turn Trip-Tik who perceive a narrow route laid out by an old understanding that there is only one and only path to God available to the Jews only. Being situated in the heart of Chinatown, we clearly know that we have a mission field outside our front doors. We don’t have to drive off the maps to reach others with the Good News of Jesus Christ. But sometimes, we become too familiar with the same old routes almost like the way we drive like an autopilot from home to work. Reflecting on your commute, you can’t even remembered anything because it has just become so routine and familiar. Suddenly you arrive at work!
One of the oldest globes in existence is the Hunt-Lenox Globe made about in 1515. It is noteworthy because it is the only ancient map that includes the Latin words “HC SVNT DRACONES” (hic sunt dracones)—which translates: “Here Be Dragons.” On the map, those words appear near the coast of Southeast Asia. In life, when our maps prove inadequate, irrational fear often results.
This is one of the reasons why we are sending a team of 18 people to Northern Thailand this June. There is nothing to be afraid in Southeast Asia. They will be driving off the map or flying off the map of familiarity and into the unknown because God’s has a bigger context of the world. And no longer are we afraid or do we consider the Hill Tribe people as being unclean because what God has made clean, we must not call profane.
Just like Peter, the Jew was working with Cornelius, the Gentile to drive off their prescribed routes to meet each other as an example of the new route God was showing the church, our mission group will be partnering with missionaries and village leaders to build a life-giving relationship that will lead to fresh clean water, health hygiene, agricultural development, and schools.
God invited Peter to unfold a much larger map that reveals a world of possibilities for people of all kinds, united around the singular direction of God’s grace and God’s redemptive mission in the world.
What is the current path on your narrow GPS that you’re on that keeps you from seeing God’s big picture?
Who are the people whom others consider to be off the map and outside God’s grace? Are you ready to drive there to meet them?
How will you, like Peter, listen to the Spirit’s direction and drive off the map to reach those whom the rest of the world just drive pass?
If you want to see the bigger context of God’s mission in the world, how about getting a world map or a globe and tell your children and grandchildren all the places that you have been so that they would have a bigger picture of God’s world. And if you may, pray for the Thailand Mission group who will be going in June to Chiang Mai and begin praying for all the places you hope God’s grace and God’s redemptive power will be.
Let us pray.
Dear God, enlarge our understanding and appreciation for the world by opening up our eyes to see that what you have made clean, we must not declare as profane. Lead us to drive off the familiar and narrow roads of personal security to partner with others to bring peace, justice, and the promise of a new day to others who are in search for meaning. We thank you for giving a vision to Peter so that we too may be called to proclaim Good News in Christ Jesus. Amen.