Let us pray: O God, may the words I speak, or the spaces between them, be such that we are drawn to consider and take within us the power and reassurance of your presence. May your word inspire my words, that we may all be encouraged and enlivened to be your people in the world. Amen.

Of course the title for this reflection comes from the reading we heard from the book of Acts. Talk about an Epiphany in the season of Epiphany! We can practically imagine Peter and the light-bulb going on character of that sudden awareness, stemming from the dream he had just had. Of course the light-bulb metaphor is more suited to our time than that of Peter's. I was trying to think of something that would be suitable for his time, a flash of light of some kind. Given that light bulbs are an extremely recent invention in the historical time line, along with the resulting light pollution that light bulbs in so many forms have created, I was thinking that something like a meteor would be more suited as a description for the revelation that Peter experienced. As an interesting aside, I was attracted this week to one of those little internet flashes (no pun intended). There is an astronomy show on BBC television. At the appointed time in the week the host goes outside with a fairly large telescope to demonstrate some aspect of the night time sky. Of course, a complicating factor in this little plan comes about when the sky is overcast. To the host this week this was apparently the problem. He came on camera to tell the audience that unfortunately due to the cloud cover they were experiencing that night was going to prevent him from showing what he wanted to show. The only problem is that as he faced the camera the audience could clearly see a meteor flash through the sky right over his right shoulder. Obviously the sky was not as overcast as he thought!

Anyway, back to my main point – Peter had a mind changing dream – a dream in which he came to a startling perhaps, but definitely new insight – that God plays no favourites. As usual, the context is important. First of all we have to imagine the new community of faith – which is described in the book of Acts – that was forming around the teachings and actions of Jesus. Originally consisting of messianic Jews many would have seen this as an extension of the Jewish faith with Jesus the Jew understood as the Messiah – the chosen one. But others outside the Jewish faith – thanks in part to the work of Paul, but also others, were starting to get wind of this new community of faith. The gospel, the good news, was spreading about it. Enter Captain Cornelius from the Italian Guard, a Gentile. Luke, the writer of Acts is clear in telling us what a “good” and “fair” man this Cornelius was. He gets a message in a dream to go and find Simon, also known as Peter. Meanwhile, Peter, the Jewish apostle has his own dream, a dream that has the effect of drawing the circle wide. Suddenly, his world, at least in terms of who can be considered as belonging to the community of faith has expanded in one swell foop! It is no coincidence that the meeting between Peter and Cornelius is one that serves to seal the new found discovery that Peter had come to from his own dream. God plays no favourites was the startling revelation that Peter experienced and right away before he might have a chance to rationalise it away, he comes face to face with Cornelius who is living that ideal. How could Peter now come to any different conclusion, having met the embodiment of the dream he had just had?

Of course it is an enlightening revelation for us as well, on a day when two congregations have chosen to worship together. God plays no favourites indeed. But I might suggest that it is something that is easier to say than to live.

Before Christmas when Pastor Kirk and I first talked about this worship service, we chose the date because of certain timing issues, and then we noted that it was the Sunday when we mark the Baptism of Jesus.

For both of us, it was entirely fitting that this should be theme of worship shared. In a remarkable show of co-operation and unity across denominational lines, in 1982 the World Council of Churches, representing mainline denominations around the world, published a document called Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. I checked out the World Council's web site to remind myself of the date and came across this interesting statement which I think points out both how remarkable it is that there was consensus achieved and the struggle that we continually encounter with respect to differences. Here's the statement on what has become to be known as BEM – based on the first letters of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. If you want to look it up, it can be found at: oikumene.org, the web presence of the World Council of Churches:

This famous text, adopted by Faith and Order at its plenary commission meeting in Lima, Peru in 1982, explores the growing agreement - and remaining differences - in fundamental areas of the churches' faith and life. The most widely-distributed and studied ecumenical document, BEM has been a basis for many "mutual recognition" agreements among churches and remains a reference today.

So, there we have an introduction to an agreement which took much negotiation to work out, an agreement which says that when it comes to baptism, God plays no favourites. And it serves, as that little quote suggests, both as a guide for co-operation and how difficult it can be to live out the dream.

Given that God play no favourites and the air of unity that is inherent in that credal statement how can we explain the fact that we represent two congregations in the community of faith, and even more starkly realize that as we meet there are about nine other congregations meeting around this time around Yellowknife and in fact another one that met yesterday because we can't even agree on the day when we should gather for worship!

Well, when I put my mind to what message there might be for us as we gathered at least this time to worship together and given that most of the time there is one group over there in the chapel and another group here in this multi-purpose space I was drawn to think of a family metaphor to describe the situation. Sisters and brothers. If you are part of a family where there are siblings, you know both the common characteristics that tie people together in family units, as well as the diversity that marks the personality of individual members. It is a remarkable thing to consider both the unity and diversity than can exist within a family. We also know that as parents we are drawn to say the same as Peter: We play no favourites! Each child is loved equally. At least that's the ideal to which we strive. As a sibling and a parent myself, I know how that might feel different depending on which role I am in, the particular situation in any given moment and my own character flaws and strengths.

I also found myself wondering whether it is even true that God plays no favourites. A few weeks ago, in the season of advent, when Mary's song, the Magnificat was one of the texts. In the Magnificat, Mary describes herself as favoured by God. Based on that and the fact that the Magnificat has been seen as a manifesto for others seeking freedom from oppression I was drawn to consider again the insights that came from liberation theology which unabashedly declared God's preferential option for the poor. That does not sound like a God that plays no favourites, but even so it does sound like a God who challenges us, as God always does, to think about things in an upside down kind of way.

And really this is the message I took from this week's passages, combined with the extra consideration to which I was drawn because of worship shared: It is a good thing to read and hear of Peter's epiphany. We need to be reminded of it. We need to think more often about it and be led to consider how often we fall into a mindset in which we cast ourselves as God's favourites – as individuals, as particular denominations, as a national people, and hear Peter's corrective to that kind of thinking. We also need to be led to consider that if God does play favourites, it will always be in an upside down, last is first, least is most, unexpected and surprising way. And we should never consider ourselves as being among the favoured. We have Peter's dream to thank for that bit of Gospel. Amen!