Even the Gentiles

Why did those “circumcised believers,” those men in Jerusalem, criticize Peter? What were they so upset about? Why did Peter have to explain to them what he had done in his meeting with Cornelius and Cornelius’s household? In chapter 10 of the Book of Acts we learn that Peter had gone to Cornelius at God’s urging. While Peter was preaching to Cornelius’s household, the Holy Spirit had fallen on them all, and Peter felt compelled to baptize all of them. Then he stayed with them. And he ate with them. This, actually, was what so upset the Jerusalem men. They asked Peter, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Dear God, what was it about eating?

Remember that Jesus and the first Christians were all Jews. For observant Jews, following God’s law, as it was outlined in Scripture, was the way to remain faithful to God and to preserve the identity and boundaries of the Jewish community. Actually, God’s law, as it is laid out in Scripture, is very explicit about what faithful Jews can and cannot eat. Leviticus 11, for example, gives us a lot of detail about clean and unclean foods. God is quite clear: “These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth: Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud -- that you may eat.” The text then goes on to forbid the eating of camels, pigs, shellfish, a number of birds, including eagles, ravens, and owls, flying insects, locusts, lizards, and animals that died a natural death. In Deuteronomy 14 God tells the people that they may eat oxen, sheep, goats, deer, gazelles, roe deer, wild goats, mountain goats, antelopes, and mountain sheep. The passage ends by warning people that, "You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to the LORD your God.” By eating with Cornelius’s household, then, Peter risked serious defilement as an observant Jew, since he would have been obligated to eat whatever was set before him, even if the meat were something that God had forbidden, or, worse yet, if it had come from a sacrifice at a pagan temple.

Of course, we don’t have such scruples about food and about eating with people. Or do we? Vegetarians or Vegans, i.e., vegetarians who don’t eat even eggs and dairy, certainly do. They routinely question restaurant servers. What’s in this dish? What was it cooked in? Some of us are worried about food-miles, i.e., how far our food has to travel to get to us. We look at labels to see where the food was grown. Then we ask, “Do I really want to eat that cantaloupe or those grapes, knowing that they came all the way from Honduras, or, worse yet, Chile?” Or maybe the food you’re serving me is loaded with pesticides, fertilizers, and growth hormones rather than being organic. And don’t we worry about who sits down next to us? Do we happily share a meal with the homeless man who clearly hasn’t bathed in days? Do I head for the people who look most like me, if I’m at a community dinner, or the people I know if I’m at, say, Diocesan Convention? Or perhaps, even worse yet, perhaps our home teams are football rivals. You had a pre-game dinner with them?

“Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Because an angel had appeared to Cornelius directing him to send for Peter, and God had directed Peter to go to him, even though Cornelius was a Gentile. What is more important, God had declared that all foods were now lawful for Peter to eat, that no longer were any foods to be considered unclean: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” While Peter was preaching to Cornelius’s household, the totally unexpected happened: the Holy Spirit came upon the Gentiles gathered there. Then Peter understood the meaning of his vision. He ordered that Cornelius’s household be baptized, for he realized that, “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?" Who indeed! And when the Jerusalem men heard this, they too understood that God was doing something new, that God was welcoming into their community people whom they had formerly disdained, from whom they had kept apart. Then they praised God, saying, "Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life." At that point, the early church turned a corner. Peter and the other leaders in Jerusalem realized that disciples of the risen Christ would no longer only be Jews, but that God’s saving love was available to all people, that there were no people who were “profane” or “impure” to God, but that all were welcome as members of Christ’s Body. Although there were still a few more arguments in Jerusalem, which we hear about in chapter 15 of Acts, from then on, distinctions of ethnicity, gender, color, class, or nationality were no longer important in the Christian community. As the church began to grow and spread as a truly counter-cultural force in the hierarchical, patriarchal Mediterranean society around it, Christians realized joyfully that all were loved as equals in God’s eyes, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit they were creating a whole new community bound together by love rather than by social, familial, or ethnic distinctions.

My sisters and brothers, God gave Peter a vision of a new community, of a church that welcomed all, regardless of their ethnicity or social status. I wonder what our vision for the church is. As disciples of the risen Christ, as people who see ourselves guided by the Holy Spirit that he gave us, do we look forward to a church that welcomes all? We are reminded by Walter Brueggemann that, like Peter, we too are called to “move in generous love,” to reach out across all the boundaries that divide us: citizens and immigrants, Jews and Muslims, gay and straight, rich and poor. Is that our vision for this parish? Do we want to be more than a church for the wealthy? Do we want to be more than a church of those who happen to walk through our doors? Do we want to be a more inclusive parish, one that practices, truly practices, radical hospitality? What is our vision for this parish? What might God’s vision for this parish be, and how might we discover it? We know that we will never again be the church of 1964, but what will we be? What could we be with the help of the Holy Spirit? Could we be a parish that welcomes and cares for “all sorts and conditions of men?” With our particular gifts, how might we best generously reach out to others? Might St. Peter’s become ever more a parish committed to prayer, a center perhaps for more contemplative and intentional prayer? Might our good works then flow from our devotion to prayer? Might we reach out particularly to those in need of our gifts of prayer? Might Grace be an energetic partner in the work of the Meigs Cooperative Parish? Might this building be more than a gathering place for Sunday worshippers and become a center for mission all the rest of the week? Might this community be able to reach out in welcome rather than driving people away through hostility, indifference, and fear?

Henry Wardlaw, Archbishop of St. Andrew's in Scotland at the beginning of the fifteenth century, was a prelate known for his extravagant and generous welcome of all. The masters of his household were rightly afraid that he would exhaust all his funds in entertaining the great numbers who resorted to his palace. So they asked him to make out a list of the people to whom they should extend hospitality. "Well," said the archbishop to his secretary, "take a pen and begin. First put down Fife and Angus"—two large counties, containing several hundred thousand of people. His servants hearing this, retired abashed; "for," says the historian, "they said he would have no man refused that came to his house."

Are we ready to extend such radical welcome to all? Are we ready to let God’s Spirit lead us into being a more inclusive community? Are we ready to make the changes in our life as a parish that being more inclusive might require? Are we ready to put all our resources, of time, talent, and treasure, in the service of such a vision? Are we ready to hear God’s call to us and joyfully serve and welcome all those to whom God leads us?


Lord Jesus, keep working on us. Help us keep our eyes on the vision that you have for us!