Sermon May 18 2025 Acts 11:1-18, Peter's Dream                  Rev. Betsy Hogan

Do you suppose Peter missed being a fisherman? After Jesus’ resurrection, I mean, when the disciples were sent out to preach the good news of his Way to various peoples around the Mediterranean lands?

I suspect that he probably did. It was Peter, after all, in that first WEEK after Jesus’ resurrection, when the disciples were still holed up in that Upper Room, seemingly stuck and at loose ends, uncertain what to do – it was Peter who finally said to the rest of them, “You know what? I’m going to go fishing.”

It was like he was grasping for something familiar, something restful. When everything around was strange and inexplicable and unclear, he just wanted to be where he felt right. Where he felt like himself.

So I do think Peter missed being a fisherman. Not that he hadn’t committed himself wholly to the new ministry of preaching the good news that Jesus had eventually sent him and the other disciples out on –

But whenever I hear the passage that Paul read for us this morning about Peter’s Dream in the city of Joppa, I find I always hear in the back of my mind the echo of the Peter’s Dream that’s imagined by the incomparable Lennie Gallant, in his song about the collapse of the Atlantic fishery.

It’s a beautiful piece of riffing on a Biblical story. Peter the fisherman, looking back and lost in memories of what was. Waking up from dreams of sailing… out on the Sea of Galilee... Casting their nets upon the water, and with Jesus, pulling them in.

I think Peter, when we meet him in the reading we heard today, he’s still waking up from that dream all the time. He’s still, always and forever, a fisherman. And it hasn't even been that long. Our memories live in our bones – that shape of who we are and what we're about –

And Peter is a fisherman. It's not his job, it's who he is, it's the shape of his life. Up before dawn, sail out to meet the sun, and salt fog and sky, it's the shape of each day. It's the restfulness of the familiar, it's where he knows and is known.

And that goes deep. I haven't actually lived in Montreal since I was 21, but literally all I have to do is turn my car onto the highway that drives along the St. Laurence River Valley, and everything about the world looks completely right to me again. Restful because familiar.

Which is nothing against the rolling forests of pine and spruce that now feel like home, but it’s where I'm from, in my bones. And I guess somehow in my spirit.

So Peter's Dream, the Lennie Gallant version, I think it's Peter in his bones and in his spirit. And that hasn't gone anywhere, and it won't. He still IS fundamentally that fisherman. 

Whose faith grew and expanded and flourished beside Jesus out on the Sea of Galilee... but then everything changed... crucifixion, resurrection, and "feed my sheep" and "receive the Holy Spirit"... and it seems like that past only exists as a dream... Except it doesn't, because 'who we are' is always somehow essentially grounded in 'who we were'. 

Peter still IS fundamentally that fisherman. And that matters.

Because a fisherman knows in his bones that there's a point past which he no longer gets to expect he's in control. He can plan, he can prepare, he can be careful and attentive and wise –

but a fisherman knows in his bones that ultimately wind and water are 'gonna do' whatever wind and water 'wanna do'. A fisherman doesn't just understand the limit of his control – he also understands that human control is limited.

He's learned it in his bones, the waves go up, the waves go down, and there's a point past which it just has to be about trust. It's just has to be about riding the wave.

I think that's crucial, in Peter. I think that's why it's Peter -- with Peter's Dream of sailing, out on the Sea of Galilee – I think that's WHY it's Peter who's the one who now has Peter's Dream in our reading today from the book of Acts. Of the cloth descending from heaven covered in animals and birds and reptiles and the voice saying "don't call profane what God has created".

Because this isn't just some dream about what Peter can or can't have for lunch. Because as a Jewish man, like the whole Jewish community, Peter would have carefully chosen and prepared food according to laws of faith governing what's "kosher" – fit and proper to eat – as opposed to unclean or unfit. 'Profane'.

And that didn't change. Peter, as a Jewish man, like the whole Jewish community of those who've also come to follow Jesus, continued to choose and prepare food that would be kosher, in accordance with the laws of faith. So this isn't a dream about what Peter might possibly consider having for lunch.

It's a dream of the limits of control. It's a dream about human control being limited. Because the waves go up and the waves go down and the Spirit of God moves over the face of the waters and there's a point past which it's just about trust. It's just about riding the wave.

And here comes the wave, and it's this cloth covered in animals and birds and reptiles, and God telling him it’s all good and it can all be for lunch – and Peter THINKS he's totally covered, he's seen this before, he's on top of all of it – Oh no, not for me, I’ve never eaten anything profane and forbidden --

But he isn't. This wave comes out of nowhere. With "DON'T call profane what I've created," God says to him, three times in a row – and then promptly sends him suddenly off to Caesarea, where... guess who's there? 

Gentiles. People who aren't Jewish is all that means, and so there's Peter in Caesarea with this bunch of unclean, unfit, unholy, 'keep your distance', 'profane' Gentiles –

But Peter is a fisherman. Peter knows there's a limit to control, and human control is limited. Peter knows there's a point past which it just has to be about trust, and you've really just got to ride the wave. "DON'T call profane what I've created," God says to him. 

So Peter rides that wave. He rides that wave right across that dividing line – Jewish and Gentile -- that for the Jewish community hasn't so much been about exclusion as it's been about self-preservation and the safety of sticking with people you know.

Peter rides that wave right across that dividing line, and he says to the other apostles and those who've come to believe: God's Spirit is poured out not only on Jews but also on Gentiles. 

I think we've lost track of how extraordinary it is, this new Peter's Dream that Peter embraces. That's he's ABLE to embrace, because of who he is in his bones – that fisherman whose "first" Peter's Dream Lennie Gallant imagines and brings to life for us.

Because it's a big shift, and big shifts take courage. This big shift for Peter, for those earliest Jewish-Christians took courage. Because from this point on, in Christian community, not everyone is people they know. Not everyone has the same background, knows the same stories, has the same traditions. From this point on, in Christian community, there's no assuming "old favourites" or everyone "obviously" knowing all the words to all the prayers. 

Because Peter's Dream isn't about inclusion – you're all very welcome, all you Gentiles, now come on in and learn to be like us – it isn't inclusion. Peter's Dream is about expansion. 

It's about riding this wave that God's Spirit has unleashed where now there's going to be faithfulness to the way of Jesus grounded not JUST in the familiar Jewishness of 'this is how it's always been for the Apostles and first believers', but instead ALSO in this weird alien Greekness, Gentileness, that really is just plain different. 

It's a big shift. It’s not just inclusion into sameness. It’s expansion into diversity.

And that’s hard. As a human family, we’ve been made to instinctively connect with each other based on shared experiences. It’s what’s familiar that we find most restful. So expansion into diversity is jarring. It takes work. It requires us to deliberately make space, to make the big tent bigger and to think of that as good and enriching instead of annoying and different and demanding.

It's a hard sell. I’ve often thought that it was particularly brilliant of God NOT to present to Peter a series of biblical arguments by which he could convince his fellow disciples that expanding the church into the Gentile community was most definitely what Jesus had always wanted – because if that’s what God had done we probably wouldn’t be here now. It’d still be being debated back and forth.

But instead when that was what God wanted, Peter just had a dream. When his colleagues asked him what on earth he was doing, preaching to Gentiles, he just said “Well, I had a dream.” And they all said “Oh! Well alright then.”

It’s hard not to be jealous, when the latest research published by the American Association of the Advancement of Science suggests that any major social shift requires at least 25% of the population to fully buy in, as the tipping point before it really takes.

And meanwhile Peter just has a dream, and the disciples are like “to the Gentiles we go!” But maybe it was because so many of them were fishermen too. They knew it in their bones – that the wind of the Spirit blows where it will, and human control is limited, and sometimes it's just about trust, and you've just got to ride the wave. So they did. 

They expanded how they thought about the Way of Jesus to deliberately make space for it to be grounded in different traditions and different shared experiences – but still be the Way of Jesus. They didn’t have to understand those different traditions and experiences and practices – they just had to make space for them. So they did.

It's literally how we're here, two thousand years later. God's Spirit poured out on us. Making faithfulness our own, doing our own space-making for our neighbours so the big tent can feel like home for them too. Learning from Peter how to ride that wave with trust when we need to. God being our helper. Amen.