Picnic
Acts 11:1-18
May 2, 2010
Today may not be the best day for a picnic in this part of the world, yet it is impossible to be a Christian without thinking about food. What really divides the faithful of the world religions are not different perceptions about God, but different attitudes towards food. Spiritually it is true - we are what we eat.
We also talk about what we eat more than we talk about prayer and social justice and the meaning of life, and such conversation has become a new form of secular spirituality. Mostly we talk about the foods that we cannot eat: those that are not tasty enough, that are just too disgusting, that are not properly healthy enough, and those cause us all sorts of gastronomical and physiological distress. Many of us will refrain from talking about our prayer life or lack of it - it’s too private and intimate - but few will hesitate to talk about the foods we can no longer eat. We are what we eat, or maybe we are what we don’t eat!
Ah, but maybe it isn’t exactly food that is at issue. For Peter the issue was not really strange and unclean foods, but strange and unclean human beings. Perhaps we should restate that maxim: you are who you eat with. He had definitely eaten with the wrong people in Joppa, a Mediterranean coastal town mostly populated by Gentiles, people who were not Jews. There was something fundamentally wrong with Gentiles because they don’t believe in the same God, gee, many of them didn’t believe in any god or too many gods, and look at the kind of food they eat, would you? If you ate with them, you would be giving them ideas that they were equal with us and basically legitimate human beings, and what’s more, their food would make you seriously ill. Oh by the way, a minor detail, you and I are all Gentiles.
The first big problem of the early church was not avoiding Roman persecutions, but the quandary about who and what we are? Most early Christians still saw themselves as Jews, but with an attitude. Consequently, they continued to practice all the Jewish laws and customs and to look at others as either Jews or non-Jews or Gentiles. The scuttlebutt about Peter made them realize they had stumbled across an ancient unresolved conundrum. Is God, our God of Israel, truly the God of the Universe, Creator of heaven and earth, and therefore the God of every human being on earth? We are God’s chosen people, but does God allow other people, Gentiles as a matter of fact, to choose our God? And do we have to let them in?
There’s not much of an argument from a logical and philosophical perspective - Yes, of course, a universal One God has to be the God of every person. No nation, no race, no people, no gender is excluded. It may be logical, but not how most human beings operate, whether it be in Israel or Palestine or Saskatchewan. We always prefer, insist, on being the chosen ones. Foreigners can never really join us. They aren’t real Jews or authentic Christians or genuine Saskatchewanites. Only we are, and what are you doing eating with one of them imposters, Peter? Is nothing sacred?
Upon being asked this question about his religious patriotism, Peter answered with a vision he had received. He was just praying, minding his own business in Joppa, when all of a sudden he saw this picnic tablecloth being lowered in front of his eyes “with meats of all kinds imaginable, and sea foods, and a complete assortment of fowl.” This vision wasn’t on mute, however, so a voice booms out, “Kill and eat!” If this were a picnic tablecloth, this is a rather intriguing invitation to be given at one of our picnics! Peter replies that he has always been kosher and has always done things correctly according to tradition, and had never eaten anything inappropriate. He had never gone off his diet.
Now this is what a very good boy is supposed to say and it’s supposed to be the end of the discussion, but the Voice wasn’t finished. “What God has cleansed, you must not call dirty.” The Voice repeated this three times - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then the Vision and the Voice evaporated. But then there was a knock, knock, knock on the door (had to be three ‘knocks’ for the dramatic effect!), and there were three (told you!) men standing there. They were sent here by the Spirit and by a certain Cornelius and the Spirit nudged Peter to go along and visit him.
Off they go with three more of Peter’s Joppa friends and reach Caesarea to knock on the door of Cornelius, a Roman centurion and “God-fearer.” A surreal atmosphere ensues in which they start exchanging the stories about how they were brought together. Cornelius only wanted to hear the Gospel preached, so Peter obliged, but in the midst of his sermon the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius and his household, “just as on us at the beginning.”
When Peter had returned to the home church in Jerusalem, he was set upon by a faction within the congregation called “the circumcision party.” These were the ones who saw themselves first as Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Messiah. The world was still divided into the clean and unclean, the Jews and the Gentiles, “us” and all the rest were “them.” They were all over Peter because the word had reached Jerusalem that he had eaten with a bunch of “thems.” When everybody gathered around Peter had heard the conclusion to his story, they were stunned into silence - “just as on us at the beginning.” They began glorifying and praising God for now they recognized what an incredible God they had. “You mean, God has also given salvation to the Gentiles?” A three-fold Amen would have been appropriate, and maybe that’s just how they praised God.
There isn’t much fanfare about it, but I believe this is the turning point in the history of the Christian Church. I am not sure we would be here today if Cornelius and Peter had not received their respective visions and acted upon them. Christianity decided right then not to be a clean religion. The natural world is no longer divided into clean and unclean, raw and cooked, sacred and profane, for the basic theological understanding of the universe is now that God has created it all and God is good, so all creation is basically good. Some of us eat grains and fruits, animal meat and fish, some shellfish; still others will eat pork and insects and horses and cats and dogs, and all manner of road kill. And it’s all God’s.
It’s a quick jump from eating all kinds of food to eating with all kinds of people. Once there is nothing clean or unclean about food, then there is nothing clean or unclean about people, and eating with any of them does not contaminate you. Indeed you are enriched and made wealthy by eating with locals, foreigners and strangers, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, polytheists and atheists.
Yet most important of all, the Church would decide then to be open to all people. The Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not restricted to only one ethnic group, one language, one nationality or one community - even now the Gentiles are receiving the salvation of God. It’s messier that way, for human beings have this dogged tendency to gang up against those who are perceived to be different from themselves. Yet we have received a treasury of gifts from our diversities which all keep pointing back to the Gospel.
When Peter entered Cornelius’ house, something did not happen as in many other stories in the Gospels and Acts - Peter did not heal anybody. Cornelius was not asking to have his or anyone in his family’s body healed. Cornelius wanted to hear the Gospel from someone who knew it well. That’s why people still come into this place from all over the world, from every social and economic status. They aren’t looking in the first place for some service, but wanting to hear a word that will change the way they experience the world. Are you ready to eat with them and tell them the Good News?
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan