Text: Acts 11:1-18

When we left Peter last, he had gone to stay in the house of one, Simon the Tanner, in Joppa. If you recall, he had just been involved the most improbable of miracles. He had acted in the name of Jesus Christ to restore Tabitha to life. This faithful servant had died; Peter had knelt beside her body in prayer until she returned to the living. It is clear from this tale that there is new order to life, new dimensions of reality, a new vision of the world that comes when God’s spirit moves. Because of Peter’s powerful witness, many believed in the Lord. Peter had made incredible progress from a rough and bumbling fisherman to God’s chief spokesperson within the Jesus movement in Judaea. The rock was steady and strong, open and willing for God to move though him and work in him.

In Luke’s clever writing, the little note about Peter’s lodging in Joppa could almost slip by unattended if it were not for the story that comes next. Why would Peter, having made all this wonderful progress in his life of faith, house himself with a tanner? Even if this Simon was a devout Jew, his occupation would make him ritually unclean. He was not the kind of person for an observant Jew to hang out with let alone sleep under his roof. How could Peter, as a leader of this new movement in Judaism, stay with such a one? Luke offers no explanation; just offers it as a footnote to the story of Peter’s stay in Joppa and the resurrection of Tabitha.

But, in hindsight, it seems like a significant bridge to the story that follows, the story of Peter’s new vision and subsequent ministry with the household of the Roman centurion, Cornelius. The text tells us that Cornelius was a “devout man who feared God,” who “gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God.” Obviously he was a man of deep faith, but he was a Gentile, not even a convert to Judaism, and he was a Roman soldier. It was unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit the home of a Gentile, yet that is exactly what Peter does. The word spread quickly throughout the Jewish community and the Jesus movement of Peter’s outrageous behavior. The progress of his faith and ministry seems to have taken a twisted turn that could only lead to disaster. It looked like the old impetuous Peter had once again bungled his calling.

Finding his way back to Jerusalem, he is confronted by the apostles and believers in Judea. Jon M. Walton says their overriding questions are these: “To whom is the gospel to be preached? How wide is God’s embrace? A controversy had erupted in Judaea when the apostles and believers, good Christian Jews, heard that gentiles were being converted to the faith. This was hardly good news to those who were bearers of a messianic expectation and a code of laws that nurtured and defined their separation from the uncircumcised and unclean. Admitting gentiles into the synagogue seemed like inviting foxes into the henhouse, and unclean foxes at that” (Jon M. Walters, “Living the Word: Dreaming in Joppa,” Christian Century, April 17, 2007, p. 17.)

The circumcised, the observant Jews of the Jesus movement call Peter to task, criticizing him for even hanging out with gentiles, let alone ministering among them and baptizing them into the movement. “Explain yourself, Peter. Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” From our position of familiarity with this text and distance from its original context, we must try to understand what an abhorrent thing Peter has done in the eyes of his colleagues, his contemporaries and, to some degree, in his own eyes.

Peter the peasant would have had little or no contact with a Roman centurion by virtue of their difference in class and their difference in political allegiance. More importantly a devout and observant Jew would have had only as cursory contact with a gentile as necessary. He certainly would not have engaged in intimate conversation or entered the house of such a one. To do so would be defiling activity, would make one ritually unclean. A good Jew of this time would not have risked such contamination. The practice of purity within the religion demanded that one follow faithfully the rules and Peter’s mindset must have been in line with these expectations. In his conversation with the gathered household of Cornelius, Peter makes it plain, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a gentile…”

His colleagues in Jerusalem want an explanation for Peter’s behavior. So Peter offers his story, a step by step account of what has happened to him. In the first place, he was praying. That is, he was in a state wherein he was centered on God and God’s will for his life. He was in a position of openness for God to speak to him and lead him. This was one of the major aspects of Peter’s progress – his life of prayerful consideration of God’s presence, Jesus’ leadership and the Spirit’s power in his life. This meant he was much less impetuous, much less likely to act on impulse, to get himself backed into a corner and to make promises he couldn’t keep. A life centered by focused prayer may still get one into trouble but it also gives one the resources needed to deal with whatever trouble comes.

Now Peter’s prayer was so intensely focused that he fell into a trance, a sort of self hypnosis, and in this state he had a vision. I wonder when any of us was last in such an intense state of prayer that we had a vision. Or is it possible that such visions pass through our lives on a regular basis unattended? On this day, on the rooftop of a house in Joppa, the confluence of Peter’s prayerful openness and the moving of God’s spirit brought about a remarkable scene.

From heaven descends a sheet spread with “four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.” For Peter, this must have seemed more a nightmare than a vision. Was it something he had eaten or was it his hunger that had stirred such a distasteful apparition? These creatures were unclean and disgusting in his sight. It makes me think of those occasions when an unwanted image appears on the back of your eyelids and you force yourself awake to rid yourself of a disgusting or horrifying picture.

But before Peter can rid himself of the image, the situation is compounded, made more difficult by the sound of a voice saying, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat.” He can’t believe his ears. This must be some auditory hallucination, some voice of Satan, urging him toward grief. In his trance state, he struggles to find the words, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” Peter has been an observant Jew, a faithful follower of the law in this matter. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” The voice of the tester seeks to lead him astray. His efforts to counter the onslaught notwithstanding, the vision occurs twice more. Once again the number three plays a heavy role in Peter’s progress.

Having pulled himself from the trance, sitting still on the roof, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the vision, there appear before him three men in the dress of a Roman house of privilege, entreating him to come with them to Caesarea, to the home of their master, Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Guard, who has had his own vision, telling him to send for Peter that he and his household might be saved. “This cannot be coincidence,” Peter is thinking, when he hears the Spirit speak to his troubled soul, telling him to go with these three gentiles. For Peter this must have been akin to being abducted by aliens or at least being captured by the enemy. Still, in the strength of his new found faith he follows the Spirit’s directions, taking with him six others as witnesses, going with the messengers to the house of Cornelius, where he does proclaim the good news, leading to the conversion of Cornelius and his household.

His progress complete, the Galilean peasant now defends himself before his gathered community: “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?” A simple, clever and compelling defense. The assembly responded by praising God and saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” This is a moving story, showing Peter’s progress to the apex of his understanding of what it means to follow Christ, to a new vision of life as it is to be lived in the inbreaking culture of God.

In our words of preparation, James Alison says, “The story of heaven is the story of how we learn not to call anyone profane or impure, so that a story is created in which there are, in fact, no impure or profane people… what Peter saw in his vision seemed to him to be disgusting, and it was so unnecessarily. Our question as we receive the eschatological imagination must be: who are, for me, the repugnant beasts, or for whom am I a repugnant beast? In this way we'll be able to begin to knock down the same wall as Peter (James Alison, Raising Abel, p. 102.)

I can’t help but wonder if the conversation among the circumcised believers in Jerusalem went as smoothly as the writer of Acts reports it. Did the assembly really accept so readily the authority of Peter’s witness to a new way of doing business with Gentiles? After all, this is a cultural shift of enormous proportions for his companions. In Bible study, last Tuesday we tried to imagine what a parallel change might be in our own lives and community. Where have we established purity codes? Where have we set up boundaries that define who is welcome and who is not in our company? What disgusts us in such a way that we might be incredulous to hear the voice of God say, “Get over it”? In our time we have known racial and ethnic divisions that have been virtually impossible for us to overcome. We may have looked with loathing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered folk. Who is it that we have seen as not “like us” to such degree that we could make no room for them? Who have we defined as enemy to ensure that a gulf remains between us?

Walter Brueggemann says that “the reason this text continues to be urgent is that the church finds endless ways to resist the trance, to reject the spirit and to set up distinctions…the church may be dazzled by the move from heaven to break open the earth beyond our pretentious arrangements. The break may be taken as a threat, as a gift, as challenge, as opportunity, but however it is taken the break is the truth of the gospel. Embracing the new commandment leads to life…Imagine that we are all invited to ‘the same gift’…no distinction, no privilege, no advanced notice and no advantage in better faith or better future. All are clean!” (Walter Brueggemann, Blogging toward Sunday, Theolog: The Blog of The Christian Century, May 6, 2007.)

This vision of Peter’s, this word of the Lord, is the one that breaks down every barrier, that builds bridges across every gulf, that insists that “What God has made clean, [we] must not call profane.” When we come to this table, we set aside any notion of exclusivity, of superiority, of privilege. The radical hospitality and extravagant love of God are practiced here. This is the Lord’s Table. God’s gifts, her abundance of grace and nourishment, her promise of new life for all are laid out here. Whosoever will may come.