The book of Acts is volume two to the Gospel that bears Luke’s name. It’s full name is The Acts of the Apostles, yet it could also be called The Acts of the Holy Spirit Poured out on all Flesh. It tells the story of the first believers struggling to keep up with the movement of God’s Spirit after God had raised Jesus from the dead. The opening chapters of Acts are centered in Jerusalem, but the Spirit pushes outward, and soon we hear about Philip’s witness in Samaria and the wilderness baptism of a man on his way back from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. But what presents the most difficult challenges to the first witnesses isn’t geography or the hardships and dangers of travel: it’s learning to think about themselves as participants in God’s movement in the world.
One of the most significant divisions in the ancient Jewish world was between Jews — God’s people, called to live in righteousness and holiness — and Gentiles, seen as living far from God in the darkness of their idolatrous ways. And now the good news of Jesus was spilling over into the Gentile world, crossing boundaries and reshaping identities that had been in place for generations. In Acts, Luke masterfully compresses this gradual, very difficult, and contested development into a sequence of dramatic scenes with Peter as a key character.
Last Sunday, Nancy read Acts 9:36-43, the story about Peter praying at Tabitha’s bedside. Tabitha had died, and after praying for her, Peter told her to get up — and she opened her eyes and got up. The scene concludes with the narrator’s comment, “This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.” The next verse, verse 43, seemed a little odd as a conclusion to the reading, so Nancy asked, “Do I have to read the last verse? Meanwhile [Peter] stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner. What does that have to do with anything?” So, she ended the reading with verse 42. That odd verse 43 doesn’t add anything to the story about Tabitha, but it prepares Luke’s audience for the story that unfolds over the next two chapters. Peter was in Joppa, a port on the Mediterranean, on the edge of the Jewish heartland, where he was staying at the home of Simon the tanner. Tanners work with animal carcasses, and their occupation made it very difficult for them to remain ritually clean. Many pious Jews would have chosen a different place to stay on a visit to Joppa. So, Peter wasn’t just on the edge of the Jewish heartland; he was awfully close to the boundary line of purity and holiness. Some would have thought that Peter had already gone too far, but this was only the beginning.
Now Luke introduces Cornelius, an officer in the Roman army, in Caesarea, forty miles up the coast from Joppa. Caesarea was a thoroughly Gentile port city, but Luke lets us know that Cornelius was a devout, God-fearing man. They knew him at the synagogue, and they liked and respected him. He participated regularly in the daily prayers and shabbat services, and he gave generously to those in need. Cornelius was as close to being a Jew as a male Gentile could be without undergoing circumcision. And one afternoon Cornelius had a vision. An angel of God came to him and said, “Cornelius! Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial before God. Send messengers to Joppa and bring back a man named Simon, who is known as Peter. He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.” Cornelius called two of his servants and a soldier from his personal staff, and sent them to Joppa.
In the next scene, we see Peter on the roof the house, where he’s praying. He became hungry, and while the meal was being prepared, he had a vision. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being lowered to the earth by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-legged animals, as well as reptiles and birds. And a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
“Absolutely not, Lord!” Peter exclaimed. “I have never eaten anything that is impure or unclean.” The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” This happened three times. Three times — who would have thought that a heavenly voice could run into such resistance! Clearly a lot was at stake here for Peter. What he was told to do went against some of his most deeply held convictions, things he had been taught since he was a little boy.
Now while Peter was wondering what to make of this very persistent vision, the men sent by Cornelius arrived at the gate, and the Spirit interrupted his thoughts, “Simon, three men are looking for you. Get up and go downstairs, and do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.” So, Peter went down and the men told him, “We’ve come on behalf of Cornelius, a centurion in Caesarea; he is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is well-respected by all Jewish people. A holy angel told him to ask you to come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” Peter invited the three into the house as his guests, and the next day he went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along.
Anticipating their arrival, Cornelius had gathered his relatives and close friends. Upon entering the house, Peter found a large gathering of people, and he said to them, “You all are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. However, God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?” Cornelius told him of his vision and said, “It was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to tell us.” And Peter said, “I now realize that God shows no partiality to one group of people over another. Rather, in every nation, whoever worships him and does what is right is acceptable to God.” And while he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. God was indeed pouring out God’s Spirit on all flesh! Peter declared, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water; they have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered the whole Gentile assembly to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
An ancient boundary, deeply embedded in Jewish life and tradition, was eroding and collapsing. It was astonishing, yet for all who were there, their actions only followed the lead of God’s Spirit — they certainly felt quite uncomfortable on the way, but they went anyway, prodded by the Spirit, and to them their actions didn’t manifest disobedience, but rather true obedience.
Back in Jerusalem, Peter was criticized for crossing the line: “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them?” Brian Peterson writes,
To those serious about Israel’s covenant, eating with Gentiles carried a whiff of idolatry. It might have been understandable to preach the good news to these Gentiles. It might even have been acceptable to baptize the household, especially if the Spirit was as evident as Peter alleged. However, those in Jerusalem apparently did not agree with Peter in how to interpret, and even more importantly how to embody, what this event meant. Baptism admitted these Gentiles into some level of belonging.[1]
Maybe Gentile faith and baptism meant that they could be welcomed at the table where the disciples of Jesus gathered; but should disciples of the Lord really join a Gentile table?
Luke then tells the story of Peter telling them the whole story, and it all ends beautifully. Peter says, “God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ—who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” And his critics praise God and say, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
Even to the Gentiles. The church in the first generation moved from a carefully bounded ethnic identity to a multi-ethnic, Christ-centered identity, and it wasn’t the church’s doing. The initiative was God’s and the church followed — slowly, hesitantly, but Jewish and Gentile believers followed. Both Cornelius and Peter were given visions that allowed them to see what God was up to. Both were given new identities as recipients of God’s boundary-crossing initiative. Both were given new purpose as witnesses to the wideness of God’s embrace of the whole human family. And Luke shows us repentance that leads to life not only among the Gentiles in Cornelius’s household, but also among Peter’s circumcised fellow believers in Jerusalem. We witness a miraculous change of heart, inspired by the Lord, that infused the early believers with a radically transformed sense of the kind of community that is possible in God’s new realm.[2]
It is tragic that for centuries, conversion has meant that they have to become like us in order to be acceptable, or that we have to become like them. But Luke tells a different story, a powerful corrective to that dominant story of conversion: in obedience to the Spirit’s guidance people welcome one another despite all that divides them. They welcome the stranger, ready to hear what divine word they might bring. They enter the house of the stranger, not to take it over and make it their house, but completely entrusting themselves to the Spirit’s movement and work.
What if we, amid the seismic shifts we’re experiencing and the deep divisions we watch only getting deeper, what if we entrusted ourselves to the Spirit’s movement and work? What if we went, wherever we go, trusting that God is already there, preparing encounters for our continuing conversion into the likeness of Christ? What if we embraced, in every encounter, the repentance that leads to life?
In Revelation, the end of our story is seen as a city. “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them; they will be God’s peoples, and God will be with them and be their God.” According to John, our story doesn’t end with all of them finally becoming like us; it ends with God being at home with God’s peoples. And you heard that right, it’s peoples, plural. The One who is making all things new delights in plurality and is at work even now to heal all our divisions. Thanks be to God.
[1] Brian Peterson https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-acts-111-18-4
[2] See Karl Kuhn https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-acts-111-18-5