Things to ponder, friends...today I thought I would draw directly from the lectionary readings from yesterday. Let's start with the reading from Acts 11:1-18.
Imagine you are Peter in this story from Acts 11. You've just heard that Gentiles are receiving the Holy Spirit. The thing is, your religion, your very society, prohibits - or at best discourages you - from associating with Gentiles. You are a Jew. Yet, Peter goes anyway. When he returns, he is criticized for associated with "unclean" Gentiles. In fact, rumor has it that Peter has eaten their (non-kosher) meat! This is unbelievable! An outrage to the religious culture from which these followers of Jesus grew up in. If you are Peter what do you do? Lie? Deny that you shared meals with people that your religion has ignored and shunned? God already knew what Peter was going to face. Jesus was accused in like manner. How easily we religious folk forget such things in Scripture.
While in Joppa, Peter has a vision, telling him to go and eat with the Gentiles. Speculation could be made about the symbolism in this vision, but that is for another post. Peter is there, in the city, and very much within his character - he hesitates. We, like Peter, hesitate a lot. We all worry as to what the establishment will think. The voice from heaven speaks in verse 9:
"But a second time the voice answered from heaven, 'What God has made clean, you must not call profane.'"
"What God has made clean." What did God call good in the begining? All of creation. What did Jesus shed his blood to redeem? All of Creation. What is God redeeming through the work of the Holy Spirit? All of Creation.
The voice repeats this three times. I do not think this is a random occurrence. God knew that he needed to remind Peter of the time when he failed to trust Jesus and denied the Lord three times. Verse 12a:
"The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us."
In other words, take the Gospel to the culture.
And Peter obeys...he goes into the place that the religious establishment told him not to go. He speaks and lives out the truth of Jesus to the Gentiles. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit. He remarks in verse 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?"
Here's the takeaway point. There is a false safety in the dogma of man. When we allow the routines, rituals, and memorized lists of religious rules to overshadow the moving and leading of the Holy Spirit - then we give into fear. God did not call us to recede from taking the Gospel of Jesus to culture, but to arm ourselves with love, the Word & prayer, and the unction of the Holy Spirit and GO into all the world. What if Peter had given into fear of being ridiculed by other Jewish Christians? The Gospel would not have spread outside of Judea, and you and I would not have been grafted into the vine of God's chosen people.
What are we afraid of? Who are we afraid to love? What is stopping us from spreading the good news of the kingdom to every corner of the world? God is calling us to "lay aside the things which so easily beset us" - whether it be sin or the old law (or dogma) - and begin to live radically dangerous lives of love to ALL of God's Creation.
Tomorrow, we will look at the adjoining passage from Revelation 21 about why we live out the kingdom of God.
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