"what God Called Clean" Fifth Sunday Of Easter, Year C Series

Acts 11:1-18

The Jewish leaders in Judea, the circumcised, The Church Leaders rebuked Peter for sharing a meal, Breaking Bread, with the uncircumcised, the Gentiles (cf. Galatians 2:11-14). They gave him holy heck for doing what they felt went against the rules.

Peter proceeds to tell how it happened that he broke bread with Gentiles, the uncircumcised. You see God sent Peter a vision of a carnal feast consisting of bottom feeders or scavengers. Those that know Bible recall this story, Peter’s vision on the rooftop. It is the explanation about why we can eat shrimp and lobster now.

Whew, thanks, Peter. Rise, kill, and eat, gives us all kinds of permission to change our diet and include all kinds of delectable things.

Otherwise, no bacon! Yes, this is the text that opens the door for the New Christians or followers of the way to be able to eat foods that Jews forbid. It was a nightmare for an orthodox Jewish man. According to the Levitical food prohibitions in the Torah, Jews were not to indulge in (or with) certain flesh (Leviticus 11).

Based on the question that the church circumcised asked Peter, it seems that he may have been using the dream both to explain the baptism of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and by extension to justify his breaking bread with them. In today’s context, there are a lot of folks asking how you can eat with “them” questions.

But the real question does baptism erase those distinctions? Does baptism reset the clock of sin and allow us all to start as infants in the faith and learn the Lord via relationship and not solely as a collection of commandments and rules.

In Peters's dream, God clears those distinctions prior to baptism. Even though it was the Lord who told Peter in the vision to eat the food before him, Peter responded that he absolutely could not. Such fast food had been prohibited. But the Lord trumps tradition and Torah instruction based on God’s original creative authority and act: you cannot make profane or unclean what God has created clean.

To me, this is the main focus of the mission of Jesus and maybe the entire new covenant in the New Testaments. That the law was made by God for God and Not by man for man and that ultimately the true definition of the law is in God not the thinking and keeping of humanity.

Our text this week isn’t the vision; that happened in chapter ten. Nor is this an analysis of the vision, Peter had done that immediately after it happened in the last chapter. No, what’s happening here is Peter is explaining himself to those of the fellowship who don’t like what he’s done.

Peter has crossed a line in the eyes of some of those who are now accusing him.

Yes, it would be easy for me to spend time telling you about eating and how good some bacon-wrapped shrimp over a mesquite pit fire with a lemon butter drizzle would taste. Except that isn’t what it is all about. This doesn’t really have anything to do with food. Despite the imagery in the vision, this is about people. Which makes it infinitely more . . . messy.

When long-held beliefs and practices are threatened, people tend to lash out. Voices are raised and fists are shaken. Words like “how dare you” and “who do you think you are” were hurled and long-standing relationships were broken. The accusers felt challenged, felt wronged, and felt unheard. It was a tense moment in the early church.

The truth is we have a lot of 2022 Gentiles, and I believe God is going to judge us according to how we interact with them and how we secure their baptism by the Holy Spirit.

1) Who are the New 2022 Gentiles

A Gentile is a person who is not Jewish. The word stems from the Hebrew term goy, which means a “nation,” and was applied both to the Hebrews and to any other nation. A 2022 Gentile is someone who is not Jew are Christian but wants to know and Love the Lord.

It took a vision from God to change Peter’s mind that even Gentiles could have the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out on them (Acts 10:11,45). Peter later shared this good news to the Jerusalem council – God does not discriminate between Jews and Gentiles. Both are saved by grace (Acts 15:9–11).

Who are the New Gentiles today the are a host of people that the church wants to marginalize and trough out.

Loving God and neighbors must mean refusing to label the New Gentiles in our midst. For in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, clean nor unclean, and yes neither vaxxed nor unvaxxed.