Healing Still

If you feel left out of the Gospel, you're in a long long line

I have always been struck by the story of Peter on a rooftop in Acts 10.

There are dozens of places in the New Testament where people tried to keep other people from Jesus—children, blind Bartimaeus, lepers, and more. Several of those moments echo through this song.

But in this particular story, Peter is being told by God to do something Scripture explicitly forbade in Leviticus (um, just sayin’ GOD told us to ignore something in Leviticus): eat unclean food.

Now Peter, desperately trying to be both a very good Jew and, by then, a very good Christian, responds with what may be one of the greatest oxymorons in the Bible.

“No, Lord.”

Honestly, that ranks right up there with “jumbo shrimp” or “civil war.”

Poor Peter. Once again, his foot arrives in his mouth before his brain can catch up.

So God has a little chat with Peter about this contradiction and reminds him that, since God is presumably still God, He gets the final word on what is or isn’t clean.

“Peter, what I have cleansed, you must not call unclean.”

The voice of God has spoken.

Discussion over.

Except…apparently Peter needed the lesson repeated, because this whole thing happens THREE times. Then, right on cue, THREE men arrive at his door asking him to come to Cornelius’ house.

Problem: Cornelius is a Gentile.

Peter is absolutely not supposed to be hanging out with Gentiles, let alone entering their homes and sharing a meal. But Peter, to his credit, finally connects the theological dots.

So he goes.

And what he finds is not some terrifying den of depravity, but a house full of warm, loving people who genuinely want to know God.

Imagine that.

Peter eats with them, baptizes them, and heads back to Jerusalem to tell the other apostles.

Who…do not take this well.

They are essentially the first-century church gossip committee.

“Peter is out there eating with the wrong people!” “He’s associating with outsiders!”
“He’s clearly gone soft on standards!” “We follow the BIBLE!”

(Insert modern parallels here at your leisure.)

But Peter, for once, seems steady. He simply says, “God showed me something new.”

Then he tells the whole story—the vision, the food, Cornelius, the Spirit falling on Gentiles—and essentially concludes:

“Apparently, God’s grace is bigger than our comfort zones. Also…pass the lobster.”

I know I’m making light of what has been, for many, thousands of years of exclusion and pain. But the truth is, this still happens. Then and now.

People still try to stand guard at the gates of grace as though salvation were a private club with a dress code.

Trying to argue with every voice of exclusion is exhausting and usually pointless.

It’s like walking into a dark room swinging pickleball paddles and baseball bats, trying to beat the darkness out.

Darkness isn’t actually a thing in itself.

It is only the absence of illumination.

So instead…Turn on the light.

We do not have to endlessly defend how someone can be both LGBTQ+ and Christian. The best evidence that queer Christians exist…

is to go be one.

---

Healing Still
Marsha Stevens and LeRoy Dysart

A blind man calls out to You, Your people silence him,
He hears Your voice and cries out all the more.
The paralyzed man’s friends have journeyed far to seek Your touch,
The crowd won’t even let them in the door.
And through the ages longing hands have reached to touch Your hem
It seems it is Your followers keeping You from them.

(Chorus)
Lord let me never stand between the hungry child and food,
Let me never turn away deciding to exclude,
Make me instead a lighted path, a beacon on a hill
Guiding others to Your heart where You are healing still.

The children ran to You, disciples held them back,
You heard their cries and held them to Your breast,
The AIDS patient calls out Your name, his pastor will not come
You call him in as if an honored guest.
And as each outcast child has come bedraggled and alone
It seems it is Your church, God, casting the first stone.

(Bridge)
Peter on a rooftop called to bring good news
And yet he seemed to doubt what he had seen.
Oh surely not to these folks, Lord, You don’t know who they are,
God’s answer still, “Whom I have cleansed, you shall not call unclean.”

(Chorus)
Lord let me never stand between the hungry child and food,
Let me never turn away deciding to exclude,
Make me instead a lighted path, a beacon on a hill
Guiding others to Your heart where You are healing still.