August 16, 2026
• Rev. Mindie Moore
Run It Back: Second Conversions
Acts 10: 34-44
August 16, 2026
MENTION MEAL TONIGHT
Pray
Today I want to tell you a story about discovering something new. It’s a story that centers on two men, named Cornelius and Peter. One Gentile, one Jew, two men who each had supernatural visions that would change their relationships and their faith.
This story actually starts a chapter before the one we read today, in Acts 10. It’s here that we meet Cornelius first. The text describes him as being “pious, Gentile God worshiper,” someone who was living out his faith, but would have still been considered an outsider because of his ethnicity.
And as we meet Cornelius, God comes to him in a vision...there’s this angel that just appears in front of him, in the middle of the day, and he’s told to send some of his men to invite someone he’s never met, named Peter, to come stay in his house.
Kind of shockingly, Cornelius is like, “alright! Let’s go get Peter!” And he does exactly that.
Meanwhile, Peter is across town, unaware that a Gentile stranger named Cornelius is about to incite a theological 180 in him. Poor Peter, he’s just out there living his life, doing his thing, he does not know he is about to be radically disrupted!
But the Peter has his own vision! And his is...a bit less direct, maybe a little more confusing that Conelius’. It says (SLIDE):
11 He saw heaven opened up and something like a large linen sheet being lowered to the earth by its four corners. 12 Inside the sheet were all kinds of four-legged animals, reptiles, and wild birds.[b] 13 A voice told him, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!”
14 Peter exclaimed, “Absolutely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
15 The voice spoke a second time, “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”
Understand that for Peter, as an observant Jew, there were very clear guidelines on what he would eat; who he would associate with. This is a guy who knows the RIGHT things to do and the RIGHT people to do them with.
But then, he gets this vision. A vision that tells him that everything he has been so sure of, all the teachings that seemed so clear cut...they might be a little more complicated than he originally thought. He might even have some of it wrong.
And as he’s trying to process all of this, here come Cornelius’ men with their invite to come and stay awhile. And so Peter finds himself in this decisive moment. It’s almost like he’s standing at a doorway like this. And there’s a very clear threshold for him. He knows if he buys into what he’s seen in this vision, if he goes and eats at this Gentile’s home, that he is going to cross a threshold he can’t come back from. If he says yes to what God is inviting him into, nothing will be the same after that.
Have you ever found yourself having this kind of moment? Where you found yourself faced with a new idea, a different belief, maybe an opportunity to be in relationship with someone who BEFORE THAT MOMENT you had been totally opposed to?
I hope the answer is yes. And I hope the answer for us will KEEP being yes. Because while we often talk about the idea of conversion in our faith as sort of being that “moment we meet Jesus”, I think our faith, if we will let it, can actually be a series of conversions. I think our faith can be something continually opens unexpected doors and that walking through these doors is how we get to know God in a deeper, truer way.
One of the reasons I love that Peter is the main character in this story is because Peter was someone who KNEW Jesus. That’s his starting place. And as he goes to Cornelius’ home and meets with all those gathered there, this is the story Peter tells. He’s seen the liberation that Jesus creates in people. He’s seen Jesus heal. He’s seen Jesus restore people back into their communities when they’ve been isolated. He’s seen Jesus have some incredibly extreme triumphs over evil. He’s seen Jesus love. He’s seen Jesus set people free from the things that have been holding them back, spiritually or physically.
And what I wonder as I think about Peter having this experience in Cornelius’ home...is what is Peter being set free from as he has this new conversion moment?
What barriers are being broken down inside of him?
What lies are being told the truth?
What grace is being experienced?
What is about to happen in The Church because of this moment?
I truly cannot overstate how pivotal this event is, not just for Peter and Cornelius, but for the entire early Church. There are a lot of stories I would point to throughout Scripture to base my theology of equality and inclusion on, but THIS ONE is when it feels like it gets so clear. This moment is such a powerful time that we see God’s heart for people on display.
All of what I’ve told you about brings us to what we read today. When Peter is talking to those in the Jerusalem Church, telling them about this experience...I might even say, initially, DEFENDING this experience, because it was so far outside of what would have been expected of someone like him.
And as he shares what he’s experienced, a shift starts to happen. Some barriers start to break down. All of a sudden, the people around him aren’t judging, they’re celebrating. Like LOOK WHAT GOD CAN DO!
It’s a new conversion moment for all of them. It has this ripple effect that goes so far beyond that one place and time and ends up being this really defining characteristic of who The Church will be.
One of my favorite books I read this year is called (SLIDE) Better Ways to Read the Bible by Zach Lambert. I’m using it as a foundation for my upcoming class at St. Luke’s called “Why I Still Read the Bible.” It’s on September 24th, just one time, and I hope you can come.
That’s my shameless plug, but whether or not you come to the class, you should read this book! I want to share with you something he says about the book of Acts that we see in this story (SLIDE):
It’s absolutely essential to understand that the entire Bible, especially God’s work through the church in Acts, makes it clear that God is in the business of eradicating discriminatory human hierarchies in every form. All kinds of people, from all kinds of places, with all kinds of experiences, standing before God and one another in equality—that is the family of God. Anything other than that, including marginalization, oppression, and interpreting the Bible through a hierarchical lens, is opposed to the mission of God. (Better Ways to Read the Bible, p.109)
This story is like the mission of God in action. And it invites us into two important truths:
First—that God’s family knows no bounds. All the barriers that people have put up in the name of being “faithful” are actually counter to the expansive nature of who and how God loves. We preach about that a lot here at St. Luke’s and it’s one of the most important pieces of theology that I hold. So when you hear us say things like, “you belong here”, when you see us lift up people who the church has historically said there’s no place for...this is where this comes from. This is why it’s so important to me, to all of our leaders, that we’re creating this kind of church community.
And the second truth in this story is that there is always more to discover about our faith and about how God works. God is never, ever done with where we can grow.
My favorite verse in this whole story is in Chapter 10. Peter says this in v.34: (SLIDE) “I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another.”
And what I love so much about this, besides the sentiment, is the ongoing nature of what is happening for Peter. “I really am learning...” What a powerful posture to hold as we follow Jesus. To be continually open to God showing us that we might not know everything there is to know. That even if we have information, we might need a different, deeper experience to really make that shift.
Peter needed the experience of the vision and then his time with Cornelius to really let this conversion take root. It makes me think of John Wesley, who was the founder of Methodism. And early in his ministry, a couple of his mentors pointed out to him that while he had a beautiful faith—he was a priest in the Anglican Church, he knew a TON about God—what he was lacking was EXPERIENCE. He needed more of those lived moments of faith if he was truly going to experience the work of God in his life. If he was really going to be transformed, it couldn’t just stay up here...it had to be lived, and felt, and seen.
And that might be a familiar sentiment for you too. If you think about the places where your faith has evolved, my guess is that there is usually some kind of experience tied to that evolution. I believe the saying “knowledge is power” and absolutely the more we learn, the more we set the stage for growth. But for those changes to really blossom in us, for those changes to start producing new and different fruit FROM us...experience has got to be in the mix.
And here’s what’s true about when we open ourselves up to experiences, when we say, ok God, show me something new! It can be pretty scary. It can feel like a massive risk. Peter eventually gets to a place where the people around him are excited and encouraged by his change of heart, but it doesn’t start out that way. People are confused. They’re resistant. This change doesn’t make sense...but Peter knows how important it is.
A great recent example of this is the story of Richard Hays (SLIDE)—he was the Dean of Duke Divinity School, a renowned New Testament Professor, and ordained UMC clergy. And he was also, for the majority of his life, firmly against gay relationships. This theology informed his teaching, his pastoring, his ministry in general. And it informed the way he taught, the aspiring theologians and pastors he influenced. He wrote a book in the 90s called The Moral Vision of the New Testament that was used in many conservative Christian circles as a theological guideline against same sex relationships.
And then, near the end of his life...he experienced his own kind of moment like Peter. His own second conversion. I want to read you a bit of an article from United Methodist Insight about Hays:
This past year, Hays publicly changed his mind — in what he described as an act of repentance for the way his work had been used to harm LGBTQ people and to divide Christians — in a new book, “The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story,” co-authored with his son, Christopher Hays, an Old Testament scholar.
In the book’s introduction, Richard Hays recounts how his brother initially balked at attending their mother’s funeral, because her church, where the service would be held, affirmed same-sex relationships. That prompted him to reflect on the place of LGBTQ Christians in the church.
In the years since 1996, Hays had been rethinking his interpretation of the biblical texts barring same-sex relations because of his experience of teaching gay students in seminary and seeing the faithful service of gay Christians in local churches...
That included Hays' own congregation, where “I saw church members who were not theological students or anything like that but who were exercising roles of gracious and meaningful leadership,” he told Wehner.
Hays was also concerned about what he called “smug hostility” among more conservative Christians toward LGBTQ church members, something he felt in part responsible for and something he hoped to make amends for.
“The present book is, for me, an effort to offer contrition and to set the record straight on where I now stand. ... I am deeply sorry,” he told RNS in 2024. “The present book can’t undo past damage, but I pray that it may be of some help.”
“So there's a sense in which I'm eating some of my own words, and I'm concerned that it will perhaps burn some bridges and break some relationships that I've cherished,” he told NPR. “But as I age, I wanted my final word on the subject to be out there. And so there it is.” (Bob Smietana, January 2025)
These changes, these conversions, are always possible...anyone can walk through the door, at any point in their lives. I remember I was teaching a class on the Enneagram once and a man in his eighties was like, “hey, I’m in my eighties! Does this actually matter to me?” And I said, “well you’re here, aren’t you?”
As long as we’re on this earth, I absolutely believe God can do a work in us and through us. Because that’s grace and I’m so grateful that we have a God who looks at us and says “it’s NEVER too late.” We just have to show up with a willing spirit to see what could be different.
Because God isn’t going to FORCE us to walk through that door. Our God is not coercive; we’re not chess pieces waiting to be moved. But the door is open. Alway unlocked, always waiting for us to decide we want to walk through.
So as we wrap up today, I want you to consider what might make you want to walk through a door like that. What might make you want to let your faith evolve or your opinion change? Why would that matter in your life?
For me, the motivation almost ALWAYS come from people’s stories. Learning how God has worked in other people. In fact, I think as much learning as I’ve done in my life...nothing I’ve heard or read has impacted me like the experience of being welcomed into someone else’s story. Especially a story that is very different than mine.
And getting to see God’s work through peoples’ stories has opened the door to things I never would have believed were possible. If I could go back in time and talk to Mindie 20 years ago and tell her where I am now, she would probably be super confused and maybe even put me on her prayer list. That version of myself could never have imagined a community like this. That version of myself never could have had a theology that was inclusive and cared about social justice. And now here we are. I get to pastor THIS church and be loved by THIS community.
Every single day I am humbled with gratitude that God lets us grow and change. And I pray that I can keep my eyes and my heart open to keep that same attitude as Peter, “I really am learning...”
Church, let’s be people who keep learning and growing. Let’s ask God to be at work on us in here, so that we can be at work out there. And let’s remember that as we step through doorways that feel unfamiliar and risky that God’s Spirit not only GOES with us, but LEADS us through them. This is the work of faith we get to do as we follow Jesus.
Let’s pray.