There are moments in Scripture when the Holy Spirit arrives not with comfort but with disruption. Today’s passage is one of those moments—a divine interruption that breaks boundaries and reshapes our human identity in Christ.
The story of Peter in Acts 11 is not just about someone’s conversion. It’s about the church learning to see differently. The Holy Spirit refuses to let the early Christians stay safe in their categories. Gentiles—long regarded as unclean, unworthy, inferior, and outside God’s covenant—receive the Holy Spirit, just as the Jewish believers did. This was no minor adjustment for those who faithfully obeyed God’s commandments in the Torah. It was an ‘earthquake’ of faith.
For many of the early Jewish Christians, purity codes and social boundaries were not merely cultural habits—they were essential to their identity as God’s chosen people. Sharing a table with Gentiles had no doubt transgressed centuries of religious practice. But God interrupts.
God gives Peter a vision—a disturbing one—of forbidden animals presented as food. When Peter resists, citing the Torah’s clear prohibitions, God replies: ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ The vision repeats three times! Then three Gentiles knock at Peter’s door. In the end, Peter follows the command from the Holy Spirit to follow and accompany these Gentiles, who was supposed to be separated from God’s chosen people.
All that Peter experienced may be seen as scandalous. The Holy Spirit does not comply with the rule from the Torah. The Holy Spirit acts first and does not wait for baptism, theological agreement, or cultural approval. The Holy Spirit moves freely! In order to defend himself before a sceptical congregation, Peter does not argue doctrine. He tells the story—step by step—and says: ‘If God gave them the same gift that he gave us… who was I that I could hinder God?’
That’s the question for us today who follow Jesus: Who are we to hinder God?
The Holy Spirit comes not to protect the lines and boundaries we draw, but to erase them. The boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is no longer valid. There is no fear, no custom, no tradition that can separate us from one another—not when the Holy Spirit is involved.
There is no ‘island of strangers’ either. We are all made one. Not by heritage or nationality or social status, but by the Holy Spirit who unites us in Christ.
Peter’s story reminds us that the church is not defined by its boundaries, but by its openness to the Holy Spirit. It is not by exclusion that we preserve holiness, but by inclusion that we reveal God’s love.
And Jesus makes clear what that unity looks like and says: ‘As I have loved you, so you should love one another.’ That’s the heart of Christian life. Not precision. Not purity. But love. Love that welcomes, serves, and includes—even when it’s uncomfortable, disturbing, and disruptive.
The early church had to learn this in real time. It had to unlearn long-standing divisions and make room for those they once considered outsiders. That same Spirit continues to move today—nudging, disrupting, expanding. The gospel does not ask us to retreat behind walls. It asks us to cross them.
And baptism is the sign of that crossing. It does not mark who is pure—it proclaims who belongs. It is not a gate; it is a welcome. A public declaration that we are no longer strangers, but family. Not divided, but united.
And this unity must never become another club with a new set of insiders, or a group of ‘good Christians’. Baptism calls us to more than just an internal connection inside the church (inside this building). It calls us outward, into radical inclusion. The Spirit’s movement does not stop at church walls, or national borders, or our comfort zones. It breaks through.
It breaks through race and class. Through gender identity and politics. Through divisions we have inherited or created. Holy Spirit moves where Holy Spirit wills—and it always moves toward love and always goes before us!
We are still tempted to insulate our lives from those who are different, those who are poor, those who are queer, those who are immigrants, those who make us uncomfortable. We still live in a world that labels some people as disposable and others as divine or more valuable. But the gospel has never been about comfort. Jesus washed the feet of Judas. Jesus fed Peter, who would deny him. Jesus forgave the very ones who nailed him to the cross. (As we have already seen during Holy Week and easter)
When we may still be tempted to draw lines to ask who’s in and who’s out, the Holy Spirit reminds us: God has already crossed that line and boundary and poured out his love toward the world, to the whole creation.
This morning, we are reminded of that truth beautifully.
Later, Hazel will be baptised. And this baptism is more than a personal milestone. It’s a sign of what the Holy Spirit is doing among us.
Hazel’s baptism brings people together from across the world. The family have travelled from Canada and Singapore to witness and celebrate. This is not a coincidence. This is what baptism does—it gathers. It breaks borders. It calls people
to come close, to stand beside one another, to affirm that we are part of something larger than ourselves.
Baptism is not just a private act of faith—it is a public witness to a boundary-breaking love. A love that calls us not only to receive grace, but to extend and share it. Not only to belong, but to welcome.
So let us remember what we are witnessing today: not a ritual of exclusion, but a sign of inclusion. Not a declaration of certainty, but a confession of hope. Not a moment of division, but a movement toward unity and companionship.
We are not called to be gatekeepers or border security. We are called to be witnesses—witnesses to the power of the Holy Spirit who tears down walls and builds bridges of grace. Witnesses to a love that reaches beyond doctrine, beyond tradition, beyond fear, beyond hatred and insecurity.
Let us be a church known not by who we keep out, but by how we draw people in with welcome and hospitality.
Let us be disciples marked not by our categories, but by our compassion.
Let us celebrate baptism not as the finish line, but as a beginning—a beginning of a life lived in love, led by the Holy Spirit, and joined to all who bear the image of God.
In the waters of baptism, we are made one.
In the Spirit of Christ, there are no strangers.
So come—let us celebrate this boundary-breaking grace in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.