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\u201cAs I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: \u2018John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.\u2019 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God\u2019s way?\u201d

God broke the rules.

Jews and Gentiles were to be separate from one another. The Jews were God's people. Anyone who wasn't a Jew\u2014that is, the Gentiles\u2014were not God's people. Simple as that. Jews weren't even to so much as enter the home of a Gentile for fear of being defiled.

This had religious moorings, of course in the Old Testament law. But you can find numerous ways that such separations and divisions are embedded in our society today. Borders separate us from others who speak a different language or keep a different cultural identity. Quebec and Ontario serve as an example.

Money separates us from others. Some can afford air conditioning. Some can't. Some can afford to get out of the city. Some can't. Some can afford to live on the Upper West end of town, far away from the smokestacks of industry with the prevailing winds at their back to keep the smell away. Some can't.

The colour of our skin can separate us. Our country of origin can separate us. Our gender can separate us. Our age can separate us. Our ability to walk, or to see, or to hear, or to speak the language well can separate us.

And, as the pandemic has progressed, it has revealed that very often these things do separate us. Even if we would've liked to believe that they didn't. Poorer communities have been hit harder. Communities where immigrants and people of colour live have been hit harder. Homes for the elderly have been hit harder.

There may not be walls to divide us. But there are invisible barriers erected in our society that still keep us separate.

Yet, as things open back up\u2014if you stroll through the urban streets of Hamilton, you might just discover one of the many store front churches filled with folks who are separate from you in wealth, skin colour, immigration status, and more to whom God has nonetheless given "the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ:" the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Because God still breaks our rules today. He still breaks down our barriers and turns our arbitrary separations into Spirit-bound union in Christ.

And, if they've been given the same gift as us... well, who are we to think that we can stand in God's way by continuing to live out our arbitrary separations?

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