When the white smoke went up from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel just over a week ago, we were reminded of just how large the world is. Massive crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, awaiting news of the election of a new pope. Whether among Roman Catholics, Protestants, or Anglicans, the election of a new pope stimulated great interest. The entire world was watching and waiting with curious anticipation.
But when the identity of the new pope was revealed, I had the distinct feeling that, in the blink of an eye, the world had somehow gotten smaller. It had gotten smaller because never in my wildest imagination would I have predicted the election of an American pope. And then, we quickly learned that he had received a degree from Villanova University, just a half mile up the road from here.
Suddenly, what had always seemed like a lofty, remote position occupied only by bishops from other continents seemed much closer to home. Claiming a connection to this new pope became the visible sign of infectious local pride. A church in Havertown proudly boasted that the pope had worked in their churchyard when he was a college student. And I, too, began to wonder whether Pope Leo XIV had ever walked past this church—most likely—or even walked inside for a quick look—possible?
The events of last week were a reminder that sometimes, the world gets both smaller and bigger at the same time. The world expanded as the gift of technology focused global attention on the events at the Vatican. But for residents of this area, the world narrowed as we realized just how closely we’re all connected, despite a 4,000-mile separation between Rome and Philadelphia.
This paradox of the world getting both smaller and bigger at the same time is at the heart of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. In chapter three of his Gospel, St. John tells us that the Holy Spirit is like the wind, blowing where it will. The Holy Spirit’s movement and palpable presence is beyond our control, producing order from chaos, giving guidance amid aimlessness, generating fecundity from barrenness, announcing surprise within banality. Just as the Spirit moved over the face of the waters in the beginning of creation and alighted on prophets and leaders among the people of Israel, so the Spirit moved over the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, enabling her to conceive a child by that same Spirit’s power. The Spirit rested on Jesus’s head in his baptism and then propelled him into the wilderness in a surprising move that remains yet mysterious to us. And at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus would tell the people in his home synagogue in Nazareth that the Spirit had anointed him to bring good news to the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, and those in need of healing.
This very Spirit empowered the disciples on the Day of Pentecost to send them into the world to preach the Gospel. And this same elusive Spirit upended the world of the early Church, which was flummoxed by Gentiles entering the fold without circumcision or conformance to Jewish Christian ritual practices. The Spirit is the tie that binds all the ages.
Peter’s astounding vision while praying suddenly magnifies his world. It’s incomprehensible to consider eating animals considered unclean by Jewish dietary standards. He’s told very clearly but irrationally that what was once verboten is now perfectly acceptable. It defies every fiber of Peter’s being. But this command is clearly from God, and so he acquiesces.
The Spirit continues to widen Peter’s world, like a camera lens expanding to include a wide vista. He’s sent to Cornelius the Gentile to eat with his household, a practice that horrifies others in the Jewish Christian community back in Jerusalem. Peter learns that while he was receiving a vision, the Spirit had already been at work in the life of Cornelius, asking him to send for Peter. Peter was to be an instrument in bringing Cornelius to salvation through Christ. The world is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
But then, in a dramatic moment, the blossoming balloon is popped, and in an instant, Peter’s world becomes smaller at the same time, too. As he speaks to Cornelius and his family, he witnesses the Holy Spirit falling on these Gentiles, and he knows deep in his heart that it’s the same Spirit that had alighted on him and the other disciples on that Day of Pentecost. Dietary and ritual practices that once seemed to separate Gentiles and Jews by a vast chasm turned out to be no impediment to the reconciling power of the Holy Spirit.
These days, there’s the delusion that our world is getting bigger and smaller at the same time. With each new technological advance, with each new piece of medical knowledge, with yet another mission to unseen places in the universe beyond planet earth, and with plane travel that allows us to have breakfast in Philadelphia and dinner in Paris, we think that our world is expanding and getting smaller at the same time. There’s so much more that we can see and do. There are so many more people we can meet. Our worldview is enlarging, and we’re simultaneously being connected with people in ways we could never have been before.
But there’s an odd irony in all this. Although intercontinental travel and evolving technology should bring us closer together, our world is increasingly polarized and divided rather than united. We’ve become more entrenched in our divisions, both socially and religiously. Ecumenical dialogues have faltered, and international conversations have ground to a halt. National dialogue is precariously volatile. Technology has prompted us to withdraw into our individual shells like tortoises pulling their heads back into safety. In some ways, we’re more isolated than we’ve ever been.
But for those of us attuned to the power of the Holy Spirit, we know that when the Spirit moves among us, our world always becomes bigger and smaller at the same time, and it always leads to greater inclusion and deeper relationships. The fruit of the Spirit’s work is perpetually reconciliation, not division. The Spirit teaches us that God’s purview infinitely exceeds our expectations and knits us all together more intimately at the same time.
Peter’s acceptance of the Gentiles into the life of the early Church without distinction is no mere whim but a response to the shocking impulse of the Spirit within his life. The Spirit teaches Peter and his fellow disciples that their own salvation is intertwined with the salvation of the Gentiles, from whom they would previously have kept their distance. The Spirit teaches the Gentiles that they can’t be saved without the preaching of a stubborn Jewish Christian named Peter. The Spirit teaches the Jerusalem Jewish Christian community that the same Spirit given to them has also been given to the Gentiles. The Spirit teaches us, too, that we can’t be saved without each other and that in Christ, life’s deepest contradictions can yet be bound together in a blessed unity. And as Peter aptly says, with this incontrovertible movement of the Spirit, who are they to withstand God? Who are we to withstand God?
And this should reduce us to an awesome silence. We should marvel at the Spirit’s ability to make our world simultaneously smaller and bigger. We should be speechless at how the Spirit’s power surpasses our control. We should be reticent to say who’s in and who’s out of the Gospel’s reach. We should be silent before the awesome reality that the Spirit doesn’t isolate us or create neat, tidy groups of like-minded people but that the Spirit will bind us all together, weaving a rich and cohesive tapestry from our intractable differences.
Our world becomes bigger because God always stands outside our grasp, and God initiates the action first. Paradoxically, our world becomes much smaller, too, as our foes become our friends and strangers become our family. This is a mystery that can only bring us to our knees in humble silence. And it’s a mystery that can only lift us to our feet again to praise and glorify a God who knows no bounds and boundaries and who can make a startling paradox the heart of our salvation.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 18, 2025