Last week I was asked a question I could not answer. I was asked what changes I have resisted. I don't think of myself as a person who is resistant to change. I think of myself as a pretty open and flexible guy. But then I started wondering what changes have taken place in my life in recent weeks, months, and years. Three children in 5 years. The call to Zion. Visiting people in prison. These are significant changes. I think I have adapted, but mainly because they were welcome changes---changes that I embraced and even initiated. It is hard for me to think about a change or trnasition that occurred in my life that I have resisted because I have not faced much change that has forced me out of the comfort of my own embedded way of life. As I write I am beginning to hear an internal voice tell me the truth, though. I have been sent to people in this community who are struggling and i have only scratched the surface of that ministry. I should be in the homes of neighbors every week. And there are weeks that go by that I manage to avoid visiting strangers, visiting prisoners, visiting anyone. I avoid new encounters with people. I put people off in order to do safer things, like plan bible discussions, write sermons, or prepare for worship. These are important things, too, I tell myself. But we have neighbors who are suffering. I know it.
Peter's encounter with Cornelius is one of my favorite stories in the new testament. Cornelius is a soldier and a religious man. He is envisioning an encounter with an angel, perhaps as he recalls to mind a particular biblical story. The angel speaks and he listens and resonds obediently, without question and without full knowledge as to the meaning of the vision.
Peter is reluctant, on the fence, a little reticent about what God has been showing him. He has begun to conect with gentiles and is questioning in his heart whether or not it is safe, culturally and religiously, to be in relationship with them. He is confused. is he a devout Jew, obedient to the law, or is he a lover of all people in the manner of Jesus? His discipleship and his embedded socio-religious culture are in conflict.
Cornelius is a God-fearing gentile, a devout man. And he is open to receiving a word from a man sent by God. He is open to the possibility that God might speak to him through a meeting with a stranger. He is welcoming and eager to hear the words of the prophet apostle.
Peter does not understand the vision he receives that compels him to eat uncooked flesh of creatures he does not consider food. His religious sensibilities and his cultural ethnic sensitivities are challenged by this vision to eat snakes and birds. Three times he rejects this vision of food that is not edible. Three times he denied Jesus on the night of betrayal. Peter is resistant to this vision, even though he has fasted and is hungry. Yuck. Food becomes a great metaphor for things that repulse us that are actually acceptable to others. What is repulsive to me that is an embedded part of someone else's culture and life?
Peter is so on the fence about all of this that he doesn't obey the Spirit and go with the three soldiers sent to collect him. He becomes their host before he will become their prisoner. Now they come in peace, but they are Roman soldiers sent to take him to Caesarea, a Roman base. Peter invites them in partly out of a cultural requirement to provide hospitality, partly in response to the story of Abraham and the three strangers from Genesis 18. But perhaps he invites them in to ingratiate the men. They will be less likely to mistreat him if he has shown them respect and hospitality. He does not trust the word from the Spirit telling him that he is to go with them without hesitation.
When he does go and is received by Cornelius' household, Peter asks why he sent for him? It is not enough that the Spirit sent Peter. Peter wants to know what is in it for Cornelius. Peter tells them that he is breaking his own cultural and religious rules by being there; but he also tells them that God has shown him to call no one profane or unclean. Peter is living in a kind of ambiguity here. Is he a lawful Jew or is he obedient to God? Are the two mutually exclusive at this point? What does it mean to have God challenge your convictions about GOD? Is God contradicting God's law? Is God changing the rules?
What rules do we live by that God might be challenging? What is the "food" I am refusing to ingest,but God is inviting me to eat? Who is profane that God is sending me to meet?
