A Spirit-inspired Church Expansion—Lectionary Reflection for Easter 5C (Acts 11:1-18)

 

Acts 11:1-18 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

11 Now the apostles and the brothers and sisters who were in Judea heard that the gentiles had also accepted the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, ³ saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” ⁴ Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners, and it came close to me. ⁶ As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. ⁷ I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ ⁸ But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ ⁹ But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. ¹¹ At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. ¹² The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. ¹³ He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; ¹⁴ he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ ¹⁵ And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. ¹⁶ And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” ¹⁸ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

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                The final message Jesus gave to his disciples, at least as Luke reported it in the Book of Acts, was quite direct.  ^“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”(Acts 1:8). Although Saul of Tarsus better known as Paul, would be the key figure in carrying this message to the “ends of the earth,” that is to the Gentiles, Peter would be the key figure in the church’s transition from a Jewish sect to a world religion. It all happened in a Spirit-directed effort that began with a vision that involved forbidden food. The full story takes place in Acts 10-11, though the Revised Common Lectionary has chosen Peter’s summation in Acts 11 rather than the events themselves as recorded in Acts 10.

                In the previous reading for the Third Sunday of Easter, the lectionary shares the story of Peter’s visit to Joppa, where he was summoned because Tabitha (Dorcas) had died. After Peter arrived, he raised Tabitha from the dead so she could continue her ministry. Now that Peter was in Joppa, he decided to stay for a while at the house of Simon the Tanner (Acts 9:36-43). This is where Peter was staying when he had his famous vision that led him to the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion. I have long felt that this story of Peter’s vision, which included God’s message that what God declares to be clean should not be called unclean, has important implications not just about food but people as well. Richard Beck writes about the situation Peter and his colleagues found themselves in: “It is clear in Acts 10 that the gospel message was not making its way into the larger Gentile world because uncircumcised Gentiles were regarded as a source of sociomoral contamination. Given this crisis, God moves decisively in Acts 10, arranging a meeting between Peter, the Jew, and Cornelius, the Gentile. In a vision to Peter, God dismantles Peter’s sociomoral disgust psychology.” [Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality (Kindle p. 76). Cascade Books]. So, by declaring these foods that were identified with Gentiles to be clean, Peter got the hint that maybe Gentiles were clean as well. So the question for us is, who do we view as unclean? Who triggers our disgust psychology? Gay and Lesbian folks? Transgender? Migrants? Muslims? Jews? Atheists? People whose political party and convictions are different from yours. The question that Acts 10 raises concerns the identity of those whom God is choosing to include by pouring out the Spirit upon them. Once Peter gets the hint, he goes with messengers from Cornelius, and the rest is history.

                There was one more hoop to jump through. It was clear to Peter once the Holy Spirit fell on the household of Cornelius that God had moved the line a bit to include Gentiles. Peter was now convinced, but what about the rest of the community? What would they have to say about this “sudden” change of situation? Not surprisingly, when Peter returned to Jerusalem to report what happened with Cornelius and his household, he faced quite a bit of resistance to his decision to baptize Cornelius and his household.

                The first question posed to Peter concerned the decision to even go to the house of Cornelius. Why did you do that? Not only that, but why did you eat with them? That’s an important question. It was one thing to enter the home of a Gentile, but eating with them? Obviously, a Gentile household didn’t keep kosher. These were important questions that signaled that the community didn’t truly understand their calling. They assumed that they were and would remain a Jewish sect. If someone wanted to join the community from outside Judaism, they would need to first become a Jew, or so it seemed. But let us remember the commission Jesus gave in Acts 1. Then there was the Ethiopian eunuch and the Samaritans in Acts 8. Hadn’t God called Paul to take the message of Jesus to Gentiles in Acts 9? So, why the questions here? What we hear in Acts 11 is that this is all very new to the early Christian community. Remember that Peter needed a vision that involved food to get his attention. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that people had questions about Peter’s behavior.

                Peter simply answered their questions by rehearsing what happened, beginning with the vision he had while praying in Joppa. He tells them about this sheet that came down from heaven, filled with animals that he wasn’t supposed to eat as a Jew. But, a voice from heaven told Peter to “Kill and eat.” Peter responded, “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth. Then the voice repeated the command to kill and eat. Then the voice declared: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” It happened a third time. At that moment, three men arrived from Caesarea with a message. Peter told his questioners, “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.” So, Peter went with the men, accompanied by six of his own companions. When they arrived and entered the home of Cornelius, the centurion told them about the angel that appeared to them and told them to send for Simon, who is called Peter. The angel told Cornelius that Peter would provide the message that would enable the entire household to be saved.

                What I always find intriguing about this story is that Peter didn’t get to share his message. That’s because as soon as he began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household. Just like that first group of believers on the day of Pentecost, Peter and his household began to speak in tongues. It’s at that moment that Peter remembered that Jesus had told them that “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” When all of this happened, Peter realized that what Jesus had spoken of had happened to this community. So, if God gave them the same gift that God gave the early believers, “Who was I that I could hinder God?” That is an important question that we all need to consider, especially when we’re tempted to put up fences around the Lord’s Table or any other expression of God’s inclusive love. Who am I that I should hinder God? The answer is simple: you are not the one who can hinder God. So, since they checked all the boxes, Peter felt he did not have a choice except to baptize them.

                While the community started by criticizing Peter, once they heard the full story, not only were the critics silenced, but they rejoiced in this news. They seemed to recognize that God had given all of them the right and means of repenting so they might have life. Although this appears to be an important breakthrough moment, there was still much to do. It was the church in Antioch, which had sprung up because of the persecution in Jerusalem, that commissioned Paul and Barnabas for their mission to the Gentiles (Acts 13) and a council in Jerusalem to reconcile Paul’s mission with the needs and concerns of the Jerusalem church, which remained mostly Jewish (Acts 15). But the barrier had been crossed, and bridges were erected so that the church could fulfill the mission to the ends of the earth that Jesus had commissioned (Acts 1:8).