In the Acts 10, the apostle Peter experiences a vision of God’s inclusive love for all people and nations—and not only the people of ancient Israel. Author Barbara Brown Taylor describes this critical moment for the early Christian movement. Peter meets a gentile named Cornelius and shares what he has learned from the Spirit in his vision:
Peter began by telling them what he had just learned for himself. “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to [God].”
If anyone in that room breathed for a full minute after he said that, there was something wrong with them. Because Peter had just said something no one on earth had authorized him to say. He had just opened the church to those it had previously shut out, people with whom he was not even supposed to associate. He had not checked with anyone in Jerusalem first. He did not even quote a passage of scripture to back him up. He based what he said on the fresh revelation God had given him, and on his belief that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Not some, but all.
While he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone in the room, both the Jews who were there with Peter and all of Cornelius’ crowd. Everyone was speaking in tongues and praising God, so that Peter could hardly make himself heard…. And they were all baptized right then and there.
Peter got in big trouble for it too. When he arrived back in Jerusalem, his Jewish brothers jumped all over him…. From their perspective, Peter had sold out. He had crossed over the dividing line between God’s people and other people. He had disobeyed the law, which was not negotiable, which was the one thing that made them who they were.
As gently as he could, Peter told them what had happened to him, how God had taken that one thing [the Jewish dietary law] away from him, but had given him something else instead—a vision that included all creatures, all people, whom God alone had the right to call clean or unclean. He had not sold out….
“If God gave them the same gift that [God] gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,” Peter said, “who was I that I could hinder God?” When he said that, everyone got very quiet. Then they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”
How often, in the church, do we try to say where the Spirit may or may not blow, when the only thing God has asked us to do is to try to keep up with it wherever it goes?
Reference:
Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels (Cowley Publications, 1997), 77–79.
Image credit and inspiration: Credits: Tony Sebastian, untitled (detail), 2019, photo, India, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like a bouquet of many different kinds of flowers, we are all gently held as beautifully chosen and beloved.
Story from Our Community:
For God, the Holy Spirit is in every person. Every person is my neighbor. Thank you to CAC and Fr. Richard’s Daily Meditations for helping me to continue this exciting and loving journey as I look forward to opening and going through new doors provided by God through the Holy Spirit.
— Bill W.
