Have you ever tried something new? I don’t mean switching from Crest to Colgate Ultra. I mean something new, something you weren’t sure your friends, your parents, your colleagues, your eleventh-grade Chemistry teacher were going to get behind? Something bold, difficult?

It’s tough, isn’t it? Nobody wants to be the first person to test the water and see if parachute pants or AquaNet might make a comeback.

Nobody wanted to be the first Black person to sit at the front of the bus, refusing to get up and move to the back.

You can get into all kinds of hot water by being the first to stand up for something. The world is used to seeing things with a particular set of eyes, and it doesn’t appreciate being told its vision is faulty.

Politicians, perhaps better than anyone, know the perils of going first. You open yourself up to all kinds of backlash when you step out on a limb. Most people like the idea of our leaders publicly speaking the truth, but few people ever muster up the courage to face the inevitable fallout.

Moral courage is something people say they value—in the abstract ... when somebody else’s reputation and livelihood are on the line.

It’s tough being first. But we who’ve benefited from the courage of others ought to take every opportunity to express our gratitude. We also need to think about taking our place in the long line of people who’ve risked everything to make a better world for everyone.

Take Peter, for instance. This is a tough one for old Peter. In our Gospel this morning, the church, as a thoroughgoing concern, remains relatively young. They’ve only been at it a while now. And things are starting to settle down just a bit.

They’re feeling a bit more confident, thinking about getting a sign made that people can see as they drive past on their way to the mall. Thinking about going to Rotary, joining a softball league.

It’s not all clear skies yet by any means, but things are looking up.

Then Peter started fooling around with the constitution and by-laws, and next thing you know, they’re letting in those people.

Gentiles. Uncircumcised. I mean, come on. You start letting them into your church, and pretty soon, they’re dating your daughters, wanting to rearrange the furniture, upsetting the established order of things. Amirite?

Come on. You know what kind of people they are. It’s one thing if they agree to change to become like us, but you can’t just leave them the way they are, can you? How are you ever going to be able to hold your head up down at bridge club? Something has to be done.

Oh yeah, Peter’s stuck his hand in a hornet’s nest in our text for today.

Peter came back home after visiting Cornelius, and a testy contingent of elders and deacons met him at the door and want-to-know-just-what-he-thinks-he’s-doing eating with uncircumcised Gentiles. He was in trouble; you could see it in their eyes.

They were getting things nailed down the way they wanted them.  They didn’t need some busy body fooling around with “the natural order of things.”

How did Peter respond?

“Well, I was up in Joppa, and I was praying. Pretty soon, I was in a trance, and I saw a vision. And this sheet came down from heaven, filled with all kinds of animals. Then I heard this voice, and it said, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ And of course, I said, ‘Sorry to disappoint, but I’m a good Jew. I don’t eat that stuff.’

“The voice said, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ Three times that happened before three men from Caesarea showed up.

“And then the strangest thing: The Holy Spirit told me to go with them. Well, to make a long story short, I started talking to these gentiles, and the Holy Spirit fell on them, just like it fell on us back at Pentecost. And so I said to myself, ‘Self, if then God gave them the same gift God gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’” (v. 17).