Acts 11:1-18 (The Message)
The news traveled fast and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it—heard that the non-Jewish “outsiders” were now “in.” When Peter got back to Jerusalem, some of his old associates, concerned about circumcision, called him on the carpet: “What do you think you’re doing rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?”
So Peter, starting from the beginning, laid it out for them step-by-step: “Recently I was in the town of Joppa praying. I fell into a trance and saw a vision: Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in.
“Then I heard a voice: ‘Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Master. I’ve never so much as tasted food that wasn’t kosher.’ The voice spoke again: ‘If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.’ This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the sky.
“Just then three men showed up at the house where I was staying, sent from Caesarea to get me. The Spirit told me to go with them, no questions asked. So I went with them, I and six friends, to the man who had sent for me. He told us how he had seen an angel right in his own house, real as his next-door neighbor, saying, ‘Send to Joppa and get Simon, the one they call Peter. He’ll tell you something that will save your life—in fact, you and everyone you care for.’
“So I started in, talking. Before I’d spoken half a dozen sentences, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as it did on us the first time. I remembered Jesus’ words: ‘John baptized with water; you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So I ask you: If God gave the same exact gift to them as to us when we believed in the Master Jesus Christ, how could I object to God?”
Hearing it all laid out like that, they quieted down. And then, as it sank in, they started praising God. “It’s really happened! God has broken through to the other nations, opened them up to Life!”
The news traveled fast and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it—heard that the non-Jewish “outsiders” were now “in.” When Peter got back to Jerusalem, some of his old associates, concerned about circumcision, called him on the carpet: “What do you think you’re doing rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?”
So Peter, starting from the beginning, laid it out for them step-by-step: “Recently I was in the town of Joppa praying. I fell into a trance and saw a vision: Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in.
“Then I heard a voice: ‘Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Master. I’ve never so much as tasted food that wasn’t kosher.’ The voice spoke again: ‘If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.’ This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the sky.
“Just then three men showed up at the house where I was staying, sent from Caesarea to get me. The Spirit told me to go with them, no questions asked. So I went with them, I and six friends, to the man who had sent for me. He told us how he had seen an angel right in his own house, real as his next-door neighbor, saying, ‘Send to Joppa and get Simon, the one they call Peter. He’ll tell you something that will save your life—in fact, you and everyone you care for.’
“So I started in, talking. Before I’d spoken half a dozen sentences, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as it did on us the first time. I remembered Jesus’ words: ‘John baptized with water; you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So I ask you: If God gave the same exact gift to them as to us when we believed in the Master Jesus Christ, how could I object to God?”
Hearing it all laid out like that, they quieted down. And then, as it sank in, they started praising God. “It’s really happened! God has broken through to the other nations, opened them up to Life!”
At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus speaks almost exclusively of being sent for the children of Abraham and most certainly not to any Gentiles. It isn’t until he has been traveling around the neighboring countries a bit that his understanding seems to grow to include those outside of Judaism. One of the most striking instances of this, for me, comes in the seventh chapter of Mark with the story of the Syrophoenician woman:
At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus speaks almost exclusively of being sent for the children of Abraham and most certainly not to any Gentiles. It isn’t until he has been traveling around the neighboring countries a bit that his understanding seems to grow to include those outside of Judaism. One of the most striking instances of this, for me, comes in the seventh chapter of Mark with the story of the Syrophoenician woman:
This always struck me as a purely nasty thing to say, and I still have a hard time fitting it into my image of Jesus. She comes to him for help and he calls her a dog. But this woman doesn’t give up that easily – in fact, she teaches Jesus a little about his mission:
She answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Apparently, even Jesus had to grow into a fuller understanding of his own mission from God. By the end of his human life he is speaking quite freely about coming to call ALL God’s people into the kingdom.
Consider the parable of the great feast, found in both Luke and Matthew. When the invited guests can’t bothered to show up – and even harass and kill the servants sent to deliver the invitations – more servants are sent to comb the streets and back alleys inviting anyone at all who will bother to accept the invitation – a clear metaphor for blessings originally intended for the Jewish people, but offered then, to the Gentiles when the Jews refused to receive them – and a clear shift from Jesus’ earliest language.
If even Jesus himself had to grow into this broader understanding, it shouldn’t surprise us too much that his followers took even longer to get there. The Jews of this time had a clear vision that God was “their” God and no one else’s. Creation, salvation – everything was about them and them alone. Just like a lot of Christians today who feel that Jesus came for them and no one else.
Even the best of us struggle to avoid dividing the world into “people like me” and “everyone else” – “us” and “them”– good people and bad people – smart people and dumb people. For the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, taught for centuries to see themselves as set apart from everyone else by God, it was understandably difficult to see that God might have any interest in anyone else besides themselves.
Paul was doing a lot of talking about expanding the “good news” to the Gentiles, but then Paul was sort of an outsider himself. He may have been trained as a pharisee but he was born and raised way up north there in Tarsus. He wasn’t really one of them.
All good Jews were taught all their lives that they couldn’t/shouldn’t share food with outsiders. Their dietary laws were very strict and one of the primary things that set them apart from the rest of the world and defined who they were. Some foods were clean and others were unclean – ritually impure– and forbidden. This prohibition was so deeply ingrained in them to the point they would be repulsed by the thought either of eating certain things or of eating with outsiders. That would be an “unclean” thing to do – and the early Christians whole worship practice, such as there was, was to gather together and share a meal. How could Paul or anyone expect them to do that?
But Peter, now, it wasn’t so easy to shrug off Peter. No ... it wasn’t easy to shrug off Peter at all. Peter was one of them. And he was Jesus’ chosen leader. And Pete, now, was telling them they had to expand their missionary teaching to include Gentiles - basically, to reject all those centuries of purity laws. There was no quick resolution to this problem. Some early Christians followed Peter and Paul and accepted the change. Others resisted as hard as they could. Reading Paul’s various letters we hear him constantly complaining that he set up churches on one set of teachings, and then other “Christian teachers” followed along behind him and contradicted the Good News he had taught. Eventually, many of the early believers fell away and returned to Judaism rather than extend any of God’s grace to Gentiles. They just could not be that open. Couldn’t do it.
We pride ourselves here on being open – but who is it we would have a difficult time following to our table? There’s bound to be someone. How welcoming would we be to a skinhead? An avowed homophobe? A known wife-beater? There are so many seemingly legitimate, justifiable reasons to judge others -- but you know, and I know that is not what Jesus has asked of us. God loves all God’s children–all God’s creation. Our actions often grieve God, I’m sure, but they don’t stop the love or God’s deep desire for all of us to come home and live as one.
God’s message to Peter – and through Peter to all of us – is that God is not going to be limited by our smallness – not held to our ideas of in and out. We will not bind God to our choices of us and them. God’s plan is much bigger than we are, and God will not be hindered by our inherent smallness.
We here are among the Gentiles, you know, and we are called to grow in love and faith ourselves, and to share the blessings we have received, and to show others the face of Jesus through the love and faith and inclusion to which we have come through him.
Let it always be so, Lord.
Consider the parable of the great feast, found in both Luke and Matthew. When the invited guests can’t bothered to show up – and even harass and kill the servants sent to deliver the invitations – more servants are sent to comb the streets and back alleys inviting anyone at all who will bother to accept the invitation – a clear metaphor for blessings originally intended for the Jewish people, but offered then, to the Gentiles when the Jews refused to receive them – and a clear shift from Jesus’ earliest language.
If even Jesus himself had to grow into this broader understanding, it shouldn’t surprise us too much that his followers took even longer to get there. The Jews of this time had a clear vision that God was “their” God and no one else’s. Creation, salvation – everything was about them and them alone. Just like a lot of Christians today who feel that Jesus came for them and no one else.
Even the best of us struggle to avoid dividing the world into “people like me” and “everyone else” – “us” and “them”– good people and bad people – smart people and dumb people. For the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, taught for centuries to see themselves as set apart from everyone else by God, it was understandably difficult to see that God might have any interest in anyone else besides themselves.
Paul was doing a lot of talking about expanding the “good news” to the Gentiles, but then Paul was sort of an outsider himself. He may have been trained as a pharisee but he was born and raised way up north there in Tarsus. He wasn’t really one of them.
All good Jews were taught all their lives that they couldn’t/shouldn’t share food with outsiders. Their dietary laws were very strict and one of the primary things that set them apart from the rest of the world and defined who they were. Some foods were clean and others were unclean – ritually impure– and forbidden. This prohibition was so deeply ingrained in them to the point they would be repulsed by the thought either of eating certain things or of eating with outsiders. That would be an “unclean” thing to do – and the early Christians whole worship practice, such as there was, was to gather together and share a meal. How could Paul or anyone expect them to do that?
But Peter, now, it wasn’t so easy to shrug off Peter. No ... it wasn’t easy to shrug off Peter at all. Peter was one of them. And he was Jesus’ chosen leader. And Pete, now, was telling them they had to expand their missionary teaching to include Gentiles - basically, to reject all those centuries of purity laws. There was no quick resolution to this problem. Some early Christians followed Peter and Paul and accepted the change. Others resisted as hard as they could. Reading Paul’s various letters we hear him constantly complaining that he set up churches on one set of teachings, and then other “Christian teachers” followed along behind him and contradicted the Good News he had taught. Eventually, many of the early believers fell away and returned to Judaism rather than extend any of God’s grace to Gentiles. They just could not be that open. Couldn’t do it.
We pride ourselves here on being open – but who is it we would have a difficult time following to our table? There’s bound to be someone. How welcoming would we be to a skinhead? An avowed homophobe? A known wife-beater? There are so many seemingly legitimate, justifiable reasons to judge others -- but you know, and I know that is not what Jesus has asked of us. God loves all God’s children–all God’s creation. Our actions often grieve God, I’m sure, but they don’t stop the love or God’s deep desire for all of us to come home and live as one.
God’s message to Peter – and through Peter to all of us – is that God is not going to be limited by our smallness – not held to our ideas of in and out. We will not bind God to our choices of us and them. God’s plan is much bigger than we are, and God will not be hindered by our inherent smallness.
We here are among the Gentiles, you know, and we are called to grow in love and faith ourselves, and to share the blessings we have received, and to show others the face of Jesus through the love and faith and inclusion to which we have come through him.
Let it always be so, Lord.
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