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.
Such things have nothing whatsoever to do with the Body of Christ.
2) It’s hard not to sort, secretly or not, who’s in and who’s out.
It’s hard not to sort, secretly or not, who’s in and who’s out. Like Peter, we may be tempted to point out the New Gentiles from whom we need to be separated.
Separating people into acceptable and unacceptable, safe and unsafe, politically left and right, vaxxed and unvaxxed, Methodist and Baptist, Catholic and Protestant – and the list could go on indefinitely – appears to be a favorite Christian pastime.
It’s our attempt to put asunder those whom God has put together (Mark 10:9). We like to divide, We do it all the time who are the old members, who are the new members, who were here when?
Let’s not even talk White-Black, Rich-Poor, Educated-Uneducated, City-Country, Deep River-Down Town, and Been Here-Came Here.
So why does the Church the glorious yet not yet fully sanctified Body of Christ continue to do this? The worst answer to that question is that we don’t truly trust Jesus. And we don’t understand Baptism.
3) Baptism makes us all insiders.
The United Methodist Church’s Baptismal Covenant is bold! Our church has a long history of care and concern for those who are oppressed.
We believe that discipleship includes the work of justice. Baptism is a sacrament, a sign/act of Christian initiation.
When a person is baptized s/he is making a confession of faith. In the case of infants/children, those who have accepted the responsibility for nurturing these in the faith, take the vows for them until such a time as the child can confirm the promises made on their behalf.
The person being baptized is asked to accept the freedom and power of God for the work of peace which comes from justice.
Baptism welcomes the person into a life of working against injustice and oppression of every form.
The work of justice has many forms within the church.
Some people will be called to ministries of teaching or preaching, challenging people to consider racism just as evil as other forms of sin.
Others will work at ministries of service and healing, reminding us that systemic injustice runs not only in society but in the church as well.
Regardless of the forms of ministry, baptism is the ritual that keeps central to faith the necessity of justice work.
Equally, when a person is baptized, the congregation is invited to reaffirm their faith commitment. This sacrament involves the entire congregation.
All are renewed by water and the Spirit.
No one is ever baptized alone. During this sign/act, the congregation is encouraged to rekindle their boldness for the vows. The ritual reminds those who have already been baptized that we have accepted the power given by God for the work of justice.
United Methodist congregations are empowered to baptize girls and women just the same as boys and men – for in the sight of God – the female is not inferior to the male.
Likewise, both poor and rich, both gay and straight, and both old and young are baptized. It is in the church we learn there is one baptism for all persons.
It is in the church, that we first practice what it means.
The covenant of baptism empowers entire congregations to work for justice, no matter where injustice remains.
Baptism, individually and collectively, encourages us to practice our faith in tangible ways.
Our daily walk of faith enables empowered actions to alleviate the suffering and hurt of our neighbors.
Our baptism initiates us into the ministry of justice and for a right relationship with God and neighbor.
We are called to live out lives of love, grace, equity, justice, respect, and mutual accountability as acts of justice and freedom.
Let me close with this story a young sister some years ago was being brought before the church, the leaders of the church said that she was found in sin she was 17 years old and pregnant and not married and they wanted to have her put out of the church and off the choir because of her sin. So the day came when she was to confess before the entire church as they got ready to put her out for her sin. As they were walking her upfront someone whispered in a low voice the question whose baby is it anyway? They kept walking and the rumble got louder Whose baby is it anyway?
Finally, they could take the interruption not longer and they said who is asking this inappropriate question at that time the mother of the church all 87 years of herself said I do believe the Child belongs to me. And soon some of the other mothers of the church caught the spirit and also started to say the Baby was theirs. That is when the mother of the church explained we can’t punish this young girl or her unborn baby because she is us and we are here. Since she was baptized into this church, we are all responsible for this child, and on the day that the child is baptized into this church, it will indeed be all our child again.
