Food or People: There is No Dichotomy!

 

Read Acts 10

So, we dive into this single chapter of Acts and find Peter staying at the house of a tanner named Simon. These are not the ultimate accommodations. His host works with the skins of dead animals.

Peter can’t complain. He has a nice spot up on the roof.

Realize this is the same Peter who revealed Jesus was the Christ and the same one who told Jesus he wouldn’t let anyone harm him. Nobody was going to kill him. Deny him? Are you kidding me?

We know that Peter. We also must know the Peter who addressed hundreds, perhaps thousands, in his sermon on Pentecost. What we see at this time is Peter 2.0. He got the Holy Spirit upgrade, and he is spreading the word.

But for the moment, Peter is relaxed on the roof, so much so that he goes into a trance and sees a vision. It is a vision of foods that might have been regarded as unclean or common in the Hebrew faith.

He is told to get up, kill, and eat. His response was 100% the old Peter. Ain’t no way! Never done that before. Not starting now. Ain’t no way.

This was the Peter who told Jesus that he would not let them kill his Master, the same Peter who said there was no way Jesus was going to wash his feet, and the Peter who denied Jesus three times. This was Peter 1.0 in full operation.

God, in this vision, chastised Peter for calling something unclean that God had made clean. It was slightly reminiscent of Job being admonished by God. Where were you when…

God told Peter, “Just who are you to say what I say is clean is anything else?”

Who are you to call unclean what I have made clean?

That’s straightforward. These creatures are now worthy of your consumption. Case closed, sort of…

Concurrently, a Roman Centurion named Cornelius had a vision as well. Even though he was a Roman of some standing, we discover that he was a man of God, and God through his angel told him to send for Peter.

Cornelius dispatched men to retrieve Peter.  They arrived after about a day's journey, coinciding with the end of Peter’s vision, which concluded with God telling Peter to go with the men waiting for him downstairs.

Peter obeyed. He didn’t get started until the morning, and he took a few Hebrew believers with him, but he did not hesitate.

Cornelius was overjoyed to see and received Peter. He overdid it and fell down before him. Peter explained that he was just a man.

But he quickly moved to sharing the gospel and the story of the Lord Jesus Christ. The people received Jesus as Lord and the Spirit came upon them.

And the Spirit came upon them.

The Spirit came upon them; these pagan, gentile, supposedly godless people (though the household of Cornelius was surely an exception)  had just received the Holy Spirit. Peter is surely well out of his comfort zone, but not for long.

Peter had to put all of this together quickly in his mind. What was he thinking?

God sent me here.

I did what Jesus told me I would: proclaim his gospel wherever I went. This time, it was into a gentile household.

God gave these Gentiles the Spirit of God.

Conclusion: Who am I to say these people on whom God has bestowed his Spirit are unworthy or unclean? I just learned that up on the roof with food.

God has been leading me to see that he is claiming his entire creation, and among the best parts are the people.

It’s about people.  Yes, it is. Whoa! How can we not also baptize them?

Then that stuff about eating food that was previously unclean isn’t right. Oh, it’s right. If God called it clean, then it is clean.

God didn’t say this vision is for instructional purposes only and not to be taken literally. It was instructional. It was literal. It was also a figurative way of inserting a harbinger of something that would follow. We see a lot of that in God’s word.

So, it’s about food? Yes.

But I thought it was about people. It is.

What? Which is it?

There is no dichotomy. We have to create one to create a conflict where one does not exist.

Is it exclusively about the food? No. Is it exclusively about the people? No.

God is reconciling the whole creation to himself. For a time, God spoke to humankind mainly through one people—his chosen people. He spoke and acted through pagans as well, but the bulk of his efforts were through his chosen people.

He separated his people from the other peoples of the earth in different ways. They would have a sign in the flesh, at least the males. They would be given rules to follow, practices to implement, and a diet not given to the rest of the world.

They were also given a land and an identity, but today we are looking mostly at the diet.

These people were set apart for God.

But we live in an age where God is calling everyone to him. Everyone!

What separated no longer separates. Today, the separation lies between those who have called upon the name of the Lord and those who will not.

There is no Jew or Gentile in Christ.

We have a sign in the Spirit, not a sign in the flesh.

We don’t have a menu. We have a holy temple to care for, and what goes into it matters.

We are not restricted. We are liberated to do what we are designed to do: Bring glory to God.

When we catch the idiom of this, life gets more exciting and abundant. We have less of "can I do this or not do this" and more of "I just thought of a new way to bring glory to God."

No one is unworthy of receiving the gospel. We must not put our human parameters on our God-given mission, our commission. A man named John Wesley took the gospel to those deemed unworthy and ended up with a denomination.

God reset some parameters, some of which concern our diet, but our mission is to go into the world with good news—good news for all people.

So, what does that mean? As we live our lives, we:

Look for fewer

·       Dos and don’ts

·       Can and can’ts

Look for more opportunities to

·       Be known by your love

·       Be light and salt

·       Bring glory to God

In this age, we have fewer restrictions on ourselves, not so we can focus on ourselves and our comfort more, but so we can live more fully for God and bring glory to his name: Not so things are easier, but so the things we do bring glory to God.

This whole business of bringing glory to God’s name should become increasingly important to us as we grow in faith and God’s grace.

We begin our days with thanksgiving and praise, followed by the acknowledgment that your grace is enough. Then, we start looking for ways to bring glory to God.

It so much less about can and can’t and so much more about being liberated to bring glory to God.

Amen.