Poems, Sermons and Writings

  “The waters are agitated” - these are the first words of a well-known love song - you may know it better as   " Pōkarekare Ana ". The story of Peter and Cornelius certainly agitated the waters. The story proper begins at the beginning of Acts chapter 10,  it’s a love story but it’s not a comfortable one. Cornelius has a scary vision of an angel and is told to send for Peter. Then Peter has this confusing vision of food that he had always thought of as unclean and the message of inclusion was so shocking it had to be repeated 3 times.  It was when the messengers of Cornelius arrived that he began to realise what his odd vision might mean. Peter had to overcome his life-long prejudices to go and visit Cornelius and then while he was preaching the Holy Spirit was there and made obvious to all by the miraculous speaking in tongues event. This showed Peter (who had lived through the events at Pentecost) that there was no difference between him and these Gentiles. Gentiles