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Today’s Scripture
Then Peter opened his mouth and said, “Now I really see that God shows no partiality, but in every nation the person who reveres God and practices doing right is acceptable to Him.”
(Acts 10.34-35, Williams, Inclusive)
Wisdom Words
"How often, in the church, do we try to say where the Spirit may or may not blow, when the only thing God has asked us to do is to try and keep up with it wherever it goes?"
*Barbara Brown Taylor. Bread of Angels.
Comments
Peter is a key leader in the emerging Jesus Movement. He, however, is still overly shaped by the prejudices of his religious upbringing. He still sees Christ within the shape of his early “church” experiences and teaching. “Don’t eat this, it’s unclean.” “Don’t associate with those people, they’re unfit.” “Those type folk have to accept our way of knowing God and the way we speak of God, or else…” After all, that “don’t eat this and that” and “those are not fit people” and “we have the right and only way” is in Peter’s “Bible.” Right?
Does all this Peter talk sound familiar? You know, that “But the Bible says” and “But our church teaches” and “But this is what I was taught.” How about, “But I can quote the scripture text: book, chapter, verse”? And do not many of us have some hint of repulsion at sticking even our little finger into the heretic shadow? After all, we do not want to become labeled by family, friends, and fellow church members a betrayer of the “true faith”, do we? We do not, do we, want to be frowned upon and talked about behind our backs as one who sold out? “Oh, what has happened to him, he used to be such a faithful Christian?”
Well, fortunately, the Holy Spirit has little interest in us fitting in with the “official faith.” Rather, the Holy Spirit defines faithfulness as our fitting in with the intents of God, not the intents of orthodoxy, or unorthodoxy. To be attached to rebellion is as immature as being attached to conformity. God is interested in Truth, not the slide-scale of “right” and “wrong.”
So, Peter gets a holy disruption of his orthodox ways. He learns Christ has another Way. Cornelius, one of those “unfit” and “unclean” and “unholy” pagans has already received a vision to have Peter sent to him. Peter is, meanwhile, on the roof having a private prayer meeting. He sees a vision of a sheet let down with all kinds of unclean creatures, all those his religious teaching and Bible said, “God says this is unholy and don’t dare eat of it.” God says, in this personal encounter, “The things God has cleansed you must not call unclean.” God told him three times. Could it be Peter is as hardheaded and stubborn when it comes to religious belief as we are?
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Well, Peter receives the visitors from Cornelius and, soon, follows them back to a house full of those “unclean” people. Cornelius has invited friends and family to hear this Jew preach about the Way. Peter walks in and, like an orthodox believer, says, “You know it is against the law for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit one.... ” Now, that is an odd beginning for an orthodox man to begin a sermon to an unorthodox group of pagans. A good way to get thrown out of the house and town, in fact.
Everything changes with one word: “but.” “But God has taught me not to call any person vulgar or ceremonially unclean; so, I have come, since I was sent for, without any hesitation.” This fresh Word takes precedence over all other words that had shaped the life of Peter. This new Word removes the boundaries that kept his feet out of Gentile land and his heart stuck in Jewish superiority. This amazing Word removes the fetters of religion that had defined God within one religion and one way. “Now, I really see that God shows no partiality, but in every nation the person who reveres God and practices doing right is acceptable to Him.” Wow!
“But” means that our experience of God is open and can change. Our experience of faith is not our experience of God, after all. “But” means we can confess that we have been wrong. “But” means we can be taught to see differently. “But” means God can enter our lives and transform us into the shape of a more loving and inclusive meaning of the Way of Christ. “But” means God never fits in our agenda. “But” means God is more concerned about loving others and our becoming more loving men and women than our stubborn allegiances to religious and spiritual ideas.
Suggested Reflections
Are you more interested in being an orthodox Christian, as others define it, or being a Servant of Truth? Can you hear God through all the assumptions about God that you have been taught are true? Why see God through your faith assumptions, rather than let God define your faith?
Prayer
Spirit, keep my heart and mind open to the divine interruptions that will stretch my thinking and feeling to touch the lives of everyone around me. Give me faith to resist the offer of a complacent faith or to snuggle with those who turn Christianity into a comfortable refugee shared among the so-called faithful, rather than a daring thrust of love into the darkness of the world. In Christ, I pray, Amen.
Brian K. Wilcox is pastor of Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL; he can be contacted at shalom77@embarqmail.com .
©Brian Wilcox 08-15-07
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