The Big Deal

Text: Acts 11:1-18 Other texts: John 13:31-35, Revelation 21:1-6

It seems to be a big deal.

This vision of Peter’s seems to be a big deal, because it appears twice in the book of Acts, once in chapter 10 and once, as we just heard it, in chapter 11. Peter had been hanging around with gentiles, people who were not Jews. He had been hanging around with them and eating with them. The Christian Jews in Jerusalem, sort of the headquarters for the new Jesus movement, were very unhappy. They were unhappy because Peter was doing something that no Jew should do, this eating food with gentiles.

We know how this story turns out in the end. The early Christians did in fact reach out to the pagans. Peter and especially Paul became missionaries to the gentiles. Because of their work, the group who would eventually come to be called Christians grew and spread in areas and in ways it might not have otherwise. Because you know how the story turns out, you might think that the Jerusalem leaders were making a mountain out of a molehill, were being alarmist, or at least were supporting the wrong missionary strategy.

But the problem they had with Peter was a real one. Jesus and his disciples were Jews. They were part of a community of people. As part of that community, they shared certain values, and hopes, and concerns. The particular community of which they were members was surrounded by a group of people—Romans and Greeks and other gentiles—who had different values and hopes and concerns, and who could not care less whether the Jewish community prospered or declined. They were an oppressed people in their own land.

The community that Peter and Paul and Jesus and other Jews shared was a holy community. Holy does not mean religious, or spirit-filled, or especially loved by God. It means separate. When God said “I am your God and you are my people,” God established a separate group of people. The word “gentile” means essentially “everybody else.” “Other people.” “People not us.”

To be separate implies or requires a boundary. On one side of the boundary people do things a particular way. On the other side, they do things a different way. That is one way you know who is in and who is out. One thing you do if you are a person like Peter is to eat particular kinds of food prepared in certain ways. And you do not share meals with people who eat other foods prepared in other ways.

There is nothing magical about the food itself. What matters is that the custom—or the rules, or the law—is important and one of the things that you do and are faithful to. It is like—to be a little trivial here—it is like wearing the right clothes if you are or want to be known as a particular kind of person. You don’t wear khakis and bow ties if you want be known as Goth. If you do, you won’t be Goth for long. And if you could and still be Goth, that would change what it means to be Goth. It would be threatening to Goth holiness, if I can mix those terms. That’s what the people in Jerusalem are worried about.

Peter was wearing the wrong clothes, a little. But more, he was welcoming others who wore the wrong clothes and had no interest in shopping for new ones. How come I can’t be Goth even though I’m wearing khakis?

Peter explains what he is doing by telling the big shots in Jerusalem about his vision. In the vision a large sheet comes down from heaven and it is full of food. What you have to know about this is that the food is not the right food for a Jew like Peter to eat. It is the wrong food. People in Peter’s community would not eat that food.

In fact, Peter would have found the food disgusting. Not just surprised, but grossed out. Things we find disgusting are the internalized rules of our group, our community. Human creatures in the world do all sorts of things. The things that our particular group really does not do we find disgusting, abhorrent, an abomination. Words and feelings like that. Unnatural, people sometimes say. What our emotions or our guts are telling us is: that’s not the way we do things here. People who do things like that don’t belong here. So Peter in his vision says to God: “Yuck! No way am I going to eat that stuff. I never have and I never will.”

What God says to Peter is: It is not up to you, Peter, to say what is clean or unclean. What is holy and what is not. Our reading says “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” But another Bible says “you must not call common.” That is, not-holy, not separated, just like everything else, common.

It is a little unfair, since God made the rules about what is clean and holy in the first place. Peter’s point is that God evidently can adjust the boundaries, and will, and most importantly, has. At least according to Peter’s vision. As a result, Peter visits a house where gentiles live, and he eats with them and eats their food. The Spirit, he says, “told me to go … and not make a distinction between them and us.”

Not make a distinction! Making distinctions is what it is all about. Who is in and who is out. Who has power and who does not. Who deserves favor and who does not. Who, even, is law abiding and who is not. Who gets to decide and who is affected by those decisions. Whom you feel comfortable with and who makes you uncomfortable. What you admire and what disgusts you. Whom you feel safe being around and who makes you cross to the other side of the street.

What Peter notices is that though we make these distinctions, God does not. And that if the Spirit has anything to say about it, we should not either. The people Peter visits have an experience of God that authorizes them to be on the inside. Or rather, that allows them not to be on the outside. It is their own experience, managed by the Spirit, that counts.

If we think we know for sure whom God likes, then first of all we are in danger of denying what God would allow. And second, we are in danger of denying ourselves an experience of God that might help us know God better. Peter turned away in disgust at first when he heard what God wanted. He was being asked to do what was not in the Bible; in fact, what the Bible said not to do. The Spirit can move us toward God in paths that cross boundaries that we protect. And our knowledge of doctrine and feelings of disgust are not reliable guides on those paths.

Jesus leads us to a new Jerusalem, as it says in Revelation. A place here on earth where God dwells among the mortals (that’s us). But being new means it won’t be the same as the old. Who knows how many ways there are to love God? In the psalm for today [Psalm 148] even the sun and the moon praise God, and the fire and fog do God’s will. We are only creatures, not always so smart or wise.

Peter, disciple of Jesus, heard Jesus say, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” Now he hears the Spirit add a clarifying explanation: when I said love one another, I meant love without distinction.

We have claimed Jesus to be our Lord, meaning our boss, our leader. We have said that we hope to allow the Spirit to lead us in ways unknown. Maybe, as with Peter and his friends in Jerusalem, God is trying to tell us something that we do not already know.

It is a big deal.