Bob Maddox's Blog

Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-6
Bob Maddox

Acts 11:1-18
Peter’s Report to the Church at Jerusalem
Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’

Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, ‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” But a second time the voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were.
The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.” And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 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?’

When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’

Remember Acts offers a series of snapshots from the family photo album of the opening days of the Jesus movement that became the church. It was probably written late in the first century or early in the second century. The earliest date would be something like the 80’s and the latest something like the 110’s. Or it may have come from the 80’s and received its final editing in the early second century. At any rate, it is the only running, narrative account of the developing church we have in the New Testament. I am persuaded for the most part it contains important history if a bit glossed over. But history is always glossed over by those inside the narrative who want to put the best face on the story. Early or later the church will have been in steady if limited development.

Remember Acts has two main human characters: Peter and Paul. The first part of the book is primarily about Peter and the second part is about Paul. The third main character, the one that knits the book together is the Holy Spirit. In Acts we get the name of that pervasive Spirit whose presence is seen and felt throughout the Bible, throughout the long story of the people of Israel. The name is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes singing and dancing, blowing and flickering into the life of the church at Pentecost, some fifty days after Passover and after Jesus ascended into heaven as “photographed” in Acts 1. From then on to this present day, the Holy
Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the identified, named, breath of God has interacted with Jesus people. Some welcome the presence of the spirit. Others get uncomfortable when the preacher begins to talk too much about the Spirit. “That’s not the kind of Christians we are,” some want to say. Well, if we are Christians we are people of the Spirit, like it or not, talk in lofty King James language or in the vernacular of TV preachers. The Spirit of God animates the church if it is a church. The degree of the permitted and invited animation of the Spirit is the degree of overall effectiveness of the local church. The same Spirit of whatever name also breathes life, energy and hope to all of humanity who will open themselves to this marvelous experience with the Holy.

This episode before us today involves Peter, the Holy Spirit and a Roman, God-fearing Centurion.

I regard this episode as a major moment of illumination in the life of the developing church. This event set early in the Book of Acts signals the movement’s determination to leap beyond the bounds of its birthing tradition and become a faith that embraces the wide world. Those moments come to people and nations. One day the person or country travels in one direction. Something big or little intrudes and an entirely new road beckons. That’s the larger point of this fascinating story before us. In the life of the church this event and the clusters of breakthroughs it represents compare with Augustine’s development of love as the template by which to judge all of human life, of the Reformation, of the evolving decision to give women their rightful place in church and world, of desegregation of southern churches, of the open and affirming embrace for all people with no regard for sexual orientation, the election of the first black president of the United States, etc. In short, this pericope with Peter and Cornelius represents an axial moment in the life of the church and hence in the history of the world.

Notice the set up. Peter gets called before the movement’s “executive committee” meeting in Jerusalem to give a report on what sounds like to the committee startling, unsettling events. First of all, I ask “How do we get from a handful of followers of Jesus to an “executive committee” of what has become a movement? And who gave the committee the power to decide who was in and who was out of the movement?”

Take a look at that development. The first disciples all came from Jesus’ home region of Galilee, a lush, bread-basket yet highly volatile region of ancient Palestine. The gospels make a point to tell us these men came from the rank and file of life—fishermen, toll takers, tradesmen. Probably few if any could read and write not a requisite part of one’s resume at that time. No doubt these men had savvy, ability, courage and devotion to Jesus. His death shook them to their boots. Bishop Spong surmises that Peter and most of the other close friends of Jesus probably retreated to Galilee to Hide, grieve and attempt to pick up their lives without Jesus. But the time with Jesus proved too pervasive simply to return to their boats. In time, under the ferment of this Holy Spirit, as yet unnamed, Spong has Peter and some of the other close friends of Jesus trekking back to Jerusalem the center of gravity for the country, their traditional faith, and the scene of Jesus’ lamented death. Thus Jerusalem, not their homeland of Galilee, became the headquarters of the Jesus movement.

Through twists of history that escape us, James, the brother of Jesus, not Peter became the leader of the Jerusalem movement. We ache to know the dynamics of how James emerged as leader but Acts only gives us snippets. At any rate, James, and, according to early Acts, a growing number of Jews with a few non-Jews sprinkled in formed the nucleus of the movement. I have the strong hunch much more was going on than we see in Acts but that’s the subject of my next book. This inner circle of Jesus people had not yet moved very far beyond their Jewish traditions, especially those practices that involved keeping kosher. For instance, they still insisted on circumcision even for non-Jews who wanted to become part of the Jesus movement, definitely a hindrance to non Jews. In fact, the Mediterranean world regarded circumcision as mutilation, despising the practice.

Another aspect of this dynamic pops up at me. The Jesus people assumed they had to have a boss, a final authority. James became their leader. Following the prevailing pattern of government among the Romans and Jews, he became the boss, at least for awhile. And he had a group of men around him who felt it their duty to call the shots for everyone else. That drive for organization patterned on Roman government brought us the Roman Catholic Church and myriad of other hierarchal religious structures.

Thus, Peter’s report to the convened executive committee. The committee had received the disturbing news that some of the new followers of Jesus had experienced some suspect form of Holy Spirit moment and, horror of horrors, resisted keeping kosher especially circumcision. “Wait just a minute,” the committee must have declared. “We never did it that way before.”

Peter’s report of his dream and subsequent encounter with the uncircumcised Roman military official blasted the lid off the committee.

Before we look at the dream and encounter, let’s note that the executive committee under James’ leadership did grow and change. Later in the Acts and Pauline narratives, Paul, who by then had become the acknowledged preacher to the non-Jews, made his own presentation to the Jerusalem executive committee bubbling over with excitement declaring that many in the larger Roman world were turning to Jesus. After much wrangling, that same executive committee, with James as leader, agreed with Paul. Non-Jews did not have to keep kosher! Wow, a giant leap forward for these men. These Jerusalem followers of Jesus loved their Lord. They wanted to follow Jesus. They were serving the spiritual and physical needs of the Jerusalem church but they were having an exceedingly hard time breaking out of their ancient cultural ways. But they did change, if gradually and reluctantly. Fortunately, that’s been the overriding pattern of the growth and expansion of the church for these centuries. We do change and grow if reluctantly. Leaders change and grow if reluctantly, sometimes imperceptibly. We must always look at what the Spirit invites us to do. Measure that prompting carefully. As the Spirit seems to lead us in new directions, we have to become open. Avoid the trap of “We never did it that way before.” I think Westmoreland does a pretty good job of remaining open to the leadership of the Spirit as transmitted through the demands of the needs around us. Jon Meacham quotes Churchill saying, “Americans finally do the right thing—when every other alternative has been exhausted.”

Now, to Peter. He remains one of the most human, endearing, volatile yet dependable characters in the New Testament. Anything but an intellectual, what he lacked in head knowledge he made up for with heart energy. He loved Jesus even if he did cave at the arrest. He truly wanted to do the right thing. He just did not always know the right thing to do. Besides, he wanted to get along with these people, some of his best friends in the world. The first pope? Highly debatable. One of the first leaders of the movement? No doubt. Evidently those men who emerged as leaders of the post-Jesus Jerusalem church recognized Peter’s lack of administrative skills when they passed over him and blessed James as their leader. Yet they loved him as he loved them.

So here’s Peter in Joppa preaching the good news of Jesus. In a vision, a dream the Spirit demands that Peter eat all manner of non-kosher meat. His stomach churned in revulsion, his entire being recoiled at the thought. He tossed and turned on his bed. Then the voice of the Spirit whispered saying, “What I have declared clean is clean. Do what I say.”

Waking up, Peter heard the sound of someone knocking at the door of the house. Soldiers announced to him their centurion, the pivotal officer in any Roman legion, wanted to see Peter—in a house up in Caesarea. Peter had probably never set foot inside the home of a non-Jew lest he become ritually unclean. I can see Peter taking a deep breath. Looking over his shoulder at the other Jews around him. Dreading the scorn of the committee in Jerusalem. To his credit he obeyed the soldiers. But more, he obeyed the leadership of the Spirit.

The rest is history. Cornelius and his household became followers of Jesus. The Spirit fell on them just as the Spirit had done on the clustered followers of Jesus at Pentecost. Indeed, God wanted them all to see that this new thing involved everyone around the world leaping across cultural barriers to bring about new life. Tradition gives us the story of Peter’s martyrdom in Rome, crucified upside down.

I would like to report that the moment with Cornelius changed Peter forever. That’s not entirely the case. Later, under pressure from that same Jerusalem council, that, itself, had not fully opened itself to the new, Peter back peddled. Paul excoriated him for caving yet again. In the long run, however, Peter continued to grow, change, experience the exciting new in his own life and share that newness with people of all walks of life.

An alternative Lectionary reading for today directs us to Revelation 21. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”

Years before John penned these gorgeous words so full of promise, Peter and Paul and their gospel comrades had begun living in the new earth and heaven bringing this astounding new to the people of the Roman world. We respond to and live out our calling as we embrace this possibility and reality of the new earth and heaven and invite folks of all walks of life to come join us.

See you at the Fellowship Breakfast at 8:30 AM. The food is always delicious and the conversation delightful.

Robert L. Maddox