What God Called Clean

A familiar story, Peter’s vision on the rooftop. It is the explanation about why we can eat shrimp scampi 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. So, an important story to say the least. So, a great sermon to precede a church potluck. Dig in, everybody!

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. Wouldn’t you rather preach about bacon?

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.

What we don’t have, and it would be helpful to us if we did, is a sense of the tone of those who have approached Peter. We can imagine, and we might even have experienced something similar, but we don’t know. It is possible that they came calmly and rationally and asked Peter to help them understand how the rules are changing. And if not the rules, then certainly the practices that they have been following, consciously and unconsciously since they began this new venture. This step has caused them to reconsider who they are and what their calling is as what is about to be called the church. So, they needed to sit and think together about who they will be from here on out.

That’s certainly possible, and I would like to think it happened that way. But experience tells me, it wasn’t quite so calm. 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, felt unheard. It was a tense moment in the early church.

Peter stood his ground and passed the blame. “It wasn’t me,” he declared; “it was God. This wasn’t just an idea that I had or a strategy I decided to employ; it was a direct revelation from God.” That’s a hard line to argue, also hard to support. Perhaps the folks of that time were more in tune with hearing the voice of God and accepting such things as visions, but perhaps not. Not surprisingly, not a lot is said about what happened after this conversation. Was it convincing? Was there a general shrug of the shoulders and a general acceptance in this radical change in practice and understanding? The story we have seems to imply that it was so; the church is spread into the Gentile world, and the mission takes off by leaps and bounds. There are a few hints that there were still some battles to be fought. Just like Peter in this text, Paul is called on the carpet for extending the circles too wide and including those who should not be included, or in the way that Paul wanted to include them. He too argues that it wasn’t him, but the Holy Spirit that fell and there was nothing he could do but go along.

Maybe it was all accepted, and the new direction of the church went without a hitch, but that seems doubtful. More likely, there was anger and digging in of heels and possibly even a schism in the newly forged community of faith. Maybe we had the formation of the “First Reformed True Followers of the Way” Church in Jerusalem made up of those who chose not to accept this new teaching. Who knows?

What is clear from our text is that something changed. Some understanding, some position, some rule – written or unwritten. What’s not so clear is what exactly that change entailed. That this vision, this redirection was not about food is clear to Peter, at least. This is not a new way of looking at bacon. It is a new way of looking at people. What God has made clean, you must not call profane, that’s the word that came to Peter in the vision. The one put into practice at that very moment when some men appeared at his door. This statement is about people. The people God has made clean, Peter must not call unclean or profane. People.

But which people? Well, that also seems clear in the context of our text. It is the Gentile race, non-Jews, who had been considered unclean and therefore unapproachable, especially in intimate settings like eating together, abiding together, acknowledging the existence of, and things like that. You know, life stuff. That seems a safe assumption.

It is, however, an assumption. The vision isn’t specific, really. There is no word that says these people named here are now made clean and those people over there are still in the unclean category. Peter’s interpretation of the vision was larger than that. In the previous chapter, the living out of the vision, Peter says, “but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.” (Acts 10:28) A little later, he says again, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34). Anyone, no partiality. All-encompassing statements. He doesn’t say, “You are now not unclean” or “These people should be included.” He says, “All.”

Think about that for a moment. Is it any wonder he was challenged in this behavior and in this interpretation? He was confronted by those who wanted to say, “But what about . . . ?” What about this group or that type or this nationality or that ethnicity? What about the ones who wear their hair this way, or who speak like this, the ones who live differently and love differently? I truly have seen that God shows no partiality. What a radical hospitality that represents, don’t you think? What an awesome rethinking of our role as witnesses to the Christ we follow that would be. Rather than judgement and exclusion, we proclaim acceptance and inclusion.

Dr. Darryl Stephens says it this way:

Preaching about bacon might be easier, let’s be honest. But it would not be nearly as transformative, not nearly as powerful, and, frankly, not the gospel. We are witnesses to the power of the Spirit at work in the world, and we are invited to stand with any and all and declare them clean.