Spirit Inspired Boundary Crossing—Lectionary Reflection for Easter 6B (Acts 10)

 

Acts 10:44-48 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴⁴ While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. ⁴⁵ The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the gentiles, ⁴⁶ for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ⁴⁷ “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” ⁴⁸ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

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                In Acts 8, Philip, one of the Seven selected to assist the Apostles in caring for members of the community that had been marginalized, engaged in two missional events. First, he went to Samaria, where he shared the good news of Jesus, leading to a revival and an act of inclusion. Then, after that event, Philip was sent by an angel to engage with the Ethiopian eunuch who was also a court official to the queen. After sharing the message of Jesus from Isaiah, Philip baptized the Ethiopian, helping expand the community of Jesus' followers. Both of these events took place in Judea and Samaria, reflecting Jesus’ commission to the community to take the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. We’ve moved, to some degree, to the third dimension of that calling, but there is another step that needs to be taken. This step will involve Peter and an act of baptism. As before, these steps are Spirit-inspired.

                Between Philip’s mission and our reading several important events take place, as discussed in Acts 9. First Saul of Tarsus has a vision of Jesus while on his way to initiate a persecution of Jesus’ followers who were living in Damascus. That persecution didn’t take place because Saul received a calling from Jesus. He would be baptized by a disciple named Ananias and filled with the Holy Spirit, such that temporary blindness was healed, and he was prepared to preach, something he did in Damascus, before having to flee from opponents of the new movement. He would end up in Jerusalem, where Barnabas, his future partner on his mission to the Gentiles paved the way for a meeting with the Apostles. As for the church in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, it was thriving. It’s at this point that Peter once again enters the story.

                As Acts 9 comes to a close, Peter spends time in Lydda and Joppa (the later a coastal town). While at Joppa he would raise a woman named Tabitha from the dead. While there he stayed with Simon the Tanner. It’s while he’s staying with Simon that he has a transformative vision. You might even say he experienced a moment of deconstruction. When we turn to Acts 10, we meet a Roman centurion, known to be a God-fearing man who was well-disposed to the Jewish people. He has a vision/angelic visitation, which directs him to send for Peter. At the same time, Peter has his own vision that involves foods he would not eat due to his religious beliefs. When presented with the food and told to kill and eat, Peter responded to the angel that he wouldn’t touch anything unclean. When he said that he heard a voice from heaven that declared that what God deems clean is clean. It was at that very moment that Peter heard a knock on the door. Standing at the door were representatives of Cornelius, the Roman Centurion. He went with them to Cornelius’ house, where he crossed a boundary and shared good news with the household (Acts 10:1-33).   

                Our reading, as selected by the Revised Common Lectionary folks doesn’t include this part of the story, or Peter’s sermon (Acts 10:34-43). We pick things up in Acts 10:44, with Peter’s sermon winding down but not completed (at least I think he was winding down). A central theme of this sermon is found at the very beginning of Luke’s account in verse 34. Peter tells Cornelius and his household, the first Gentiles to be specifically addressed in the Book of Acts, that God does not show partiality “but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts. 10:34-35). While the message was first given to the Jewish people, in God’s wisdom that witness is being expanded, for Jesus is Lord of all. This message is rooted in Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Easter message that we have before us during Eastertide.

                As he was preaching, the Holy Spirit fell on the gathered group. The Spirit didn’t wait for Peter to finish the sermon or even offer the invitation. There wasn’t room for an invitation hymn, and I need an invitation hymn to feel as if I was truly finished preaching. Peter’s companions, whom Luke tells us were all circumcised, that is Jews, are amazed at what they see and hear. Just to be clear this is an act of God’s Spirit, Cornelius and his household begin to speak in tongues (glossolalia), giving praise to God as they did so.

                After Peter sees what’s happening, he recognizes this for what it is, an act of God that confirms the message he had seen in his vision. God had truly deemed these Gentiles acceptable. After all, they received the Holy Spirit in the same way that Peter and his community had on the day of Pentecost. But the event is not yet complete. The Spirit came upon the gathering rather suddenly. To this point, Cornelius hadn’t walked the aisle to “Just as I Am.” He hadn’t made the Good Confession declaring Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, as Peter had in Matthew 16. It doesn’t appear they did anything but simply listen to Peter preach. Yet, the Spirit acted, leading Peter to recognize that God had chosen this group of people for inclusion in the community of faith.

                Once Peter recognized the Spirit’s leading in this matter he offered the same response offered elsewhere. That would be baptism. Philip baptized the Samaritans and the Ethiopian, marking boundary-crossing events. Here was another boundary-crossing event. Baptism seemed like the most appropriate response. Thus, Peter had everyone in the household baptized in the name of Jesus. While Peter and his companions were circumcised and thus Jews, Peter didn’t require circumcision. He simply offers baptism as the seal of their inclusion in the community of Jesus' followers. Some might ask who was baptized and by what mode. I’m a believing baptizing immersionist, so I lean in that direction. However, we don’t know if there were small children among those baptized. It does appear that Peter didn’t ask for a confession of faith before the baptisms. So, we are left with certain questions that aren’t easily answered. Those who baptize infants by “sprinkling” will continue their practice and others will immerse on the profession of faith. Acts 10 doesn’t resolve the issue.  What we can say is that baptism plays a significant role in the ongoing mission of God, such that in the Book of Acts, when people respond to the gospel, they get baptized. In this case, as before, baptism marks a boundary-breaking act.

                This brief reading ends with Luke remarking that “they invited him to stay for several days.” Peter brought good news to Cornelius and his household, and they responded by inviting him to spend time with them, expanding the community through an act of hospitality. You might say that while Baptism in the name of Jesus sealed the relationship between Jew and Gentile, by accepting this offer of hospitality, Peter reaffirmed that the Spirit had brokered a new relationship between Jew and Gentile. Willie James Jennings offers this intriguing comment as to the impact of this request of Peter by Cornelius:

The reading habits of the church tend to run past these slender words, but they capture divine design. This is what God wants, Jews with Gentiles, Gentiles wanting to be with Jews, and together they eat and live in peace. This is surely not the eschaton, not heaven on earth. It is simply a brief time before the chaos and questioning descend on Peter and the other disciples who will follow the Spirit, before the returning to the old regime, and before the lust for the normal returns. But in a quiet corner of the Roman Empire, in the home of a centurion, a rip in the fabric of space and time has occurred. All those who would worship Jesus may enter a new vision of intimate space and new time that will end up endless new possibilities of life with others Peter, however, must soon do a strange thing—he must give witness to the witnesses of Jesus and try to convince them that God transgresses.” [Belief: Acts, p. 115].

For this bridging of a formerly broken relationship, Peter must transgress boundaries and convince the rest of the community that God does the same. Yes, the God Peter proclaims, the God revealed in Jesus, transgresses our boundaries. Unfortunately, time and again, throughout history, Christians tore down those bridges and chose to persecute Jews, until the Holocaust opened our eyes. Unfortunately, anti-Judaism and antisemitism remain with us. The conflict in Gaza has only served to inflame them. One need not support the way Israel has occupied Palestinian territories or pursued their war against Hamas, to recognize that antisemitism is not the answer.

                If you read on into Acts 11, you will discover that Peter will have a bit of explaining to do. At least in Luke’s account, the expansion of the community may have included Samaritans and even Ethiopians (who may have been Jewish), but here is another group that must be dealt with. So, Peter must explain to the rest of the witnesses to Jesus' life and ministry, including his death and resurrection that God seems to be doing a new thing, which the Holy Spirit confirmed by inspiring Cornelius and his household to speak in tongues. The message that Peter delivers to the rest of the community is that they were serving a boundary-breaking God who declared things/people they assumed to be unclean to be clean, and therefore, they were free to fellowship with those God deemed clean.

                This passage serves as an invitation to the contemporary church to ponder who and what God might be declaring something/someone clean that the church has considered unclean. For a growing number of Christians, the full inclusion of LGBTQ believers fits this reality. While “traditional” forms of Christianity have deemed them unclean, it does appear that the Holy Spirit is changing the storyline by declaring them to be clean through the evidence of their own life of faith. Yes, the God revealed in Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit transgresses boundaries, boundaries often erected in the name of God. What happens in Caesarea is an outworking of the promise Jesus made to the community at the time of his ascension (Acts 1:8).