Simon Peter’s Report: The Challenge and Joy of a New Commandment to Love

Rev. 21: 1-6, John 13: 31-35, Acts 11: 1-18 May 6, 2007

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another……” Those are familiar words in the church, but I can imagine that someone unfamiliar with Christian thought might find this to be a rather odd teaching. “How can you command love?” they might ask. “In this world we see people fall in love and out of love, we see love that comes and goes, and if use the common understanding of love as a feeling of affection between people, where’s the logic in making it a commandment? Who can control their feelings? You can command people to fly but it’s not going to happen because we don’t have the capacity. You can command people to love, but isn’t love really something that just happens?”

I’ll come back to those questions in a few minutes, but first I want to share with you the story of a controversial preacher who got in trouble with the powers that be. They said he was contradicting the teaching of God that had been passed along in the Bible. They said he was making a radical change the Christian fellowship by ignoring disciplines and traditions that had been tested for centuries. They said he was departing from the fundamental approach that Jesus had taken, and doing things that were not at the core of Jesus’ work. Well, it’s not surprising that people were upset because the preacher was contradicting some long-held teachings of the Bible. He was making radical changes in the fellowship of God’s people. He was doing things that Jesus had done most rarely, if at all. So he was called in to give an account for himself.

The preacher’s identity? I’m not trying to stir up a current and unresolved controversy by telling the story of some contemporary liberal pastor who is advocating acceptance of gay people, though there are some overlapping issues. .……. I’m not hearkening back to those church leaders a few generations ago who caused furor and division by saying that women can be ordained, regardless of what some verses of scripture seem to say, or to those of several hundred years ago who contradicted certain Biblical verses by saying that slavery is morally offensive to God. Those issues generated a lot of fire in their time but they are mostly settled….. I’m not thinking back to the times of Martin Luther, who got people upset by saying that clergy could be married, and that everybody in the Church can be a priest in a certain sense, or to St. Francis who caused such a furor by renouncing all possessions and shunning a conventional place in the religious institutions of the day…….

No this is a much older story. The controversial preacher was Simon Peter, and the leaders of the Christian fellowship in Jerusalem were very concerned by reports that Peter was ignoring and violating the longstanding wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles. As most of you know, Jesus and the disciples and all of our first Christian ancestors were Jewish, and they inherited a centuries-long tradition of sharp division between Jews and other people. It was common for Jews in that era to see themselves as a unique spiritual people, emphasizing the parts of the Bible that focused on their being a holy people set apart for God, with distinctive laws and dietary restrictions and rituals and purity codes of behavior that made them uniquely favored by God. As Israel’s political and military fortunes fell and they were ruled by other peoples, this sense of Jewish separation and/or superiority was often even more emphasized. “We might not have our own king anymore, and we have to pay taxes to a pagan empire, but at least we know we’re God’s own chosen people,” someone might say. They would do business with outsiders only as necessary, while avoiding social contacts, the sharing of meals, and anything that might indicate equality or oneness. Once in a while a Gentile might convert to Judaism – but they would be welcomed only if they submitted to all of Jewish law – circumcision, dietary cleanliness, ritual purity, etc. They’d have to leave their Gentile status behind to embrace the separate, holy, distinctive identity of a Jew.

That’s the situation the first Christians inherited. They believed in Jesus as their Messiah, but they were still Jews. Nothing had changed about that. Jesus had been kind to the occasional foreigner he might meet, but he never mounted any big campaigns to reach out to Gentiles. So, it’s not surprising that Peter, James, Andrew, John and the other early Christians saw themselves as a Jewish sect still separate from the Gentile world. If a Gentile wanted to join them it would be the same rules as always – leave the old life behind, and become a Jew as a way station on the road to becoming a Christian. This may sound snobbish to modern people, but I imagine that behind these attitudes was often a sincere conviction that this was God’s will. “You shall be holy for I am holy,” says the God of scripture.

But then the leaders of the Christian fellowship in Jerusalem hear a shocking story about Peter, namely that he’d gone into a Gentile’s house – and not just any Gentile but an officer of the hated Roman army - that he’d eaten a meal there, and most astonishingly, that he had baptized and welcomed into the Christian fellowship some men who had no intention of following the Jewish way of life.

The events are described in chapter 10 of Acts, and then in chapter 11 we hear Peter’s explanation. Here’s his report, as it begins in verse 1 of chapter 11:

The apostles and the other believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. When Peter went to Jerusalem, those who were in favor of circumcising Gentiles criticized him, saying, "You were a guest in the home of uncircumcised Gentiles, and you even ate with them!" (Acts 11: 1-3)

So Peter tells his story, in effect saying “I was raised with the same convictions as you and I don’t blame you for being surprised. This wasn’t my agenda; I had no intention of violating our heritage, but listen to what happened.” Here are his words, from verse 5:

"While I was praying in the city of Joppa, I had a vision. I saw something coming down that looked like a large sheet being lowered by its four corners from heaven, and it stopped next to me. I looked closely inside and saw domesticated and wild animals, reptiles, and wild birds. Then I heard a voice saying to me, "Get up, Peter; kill and eat!' But I said, "Certainly not, Lord! No ritually unclean or defiled food has ever entered my mouth.' The voice spoke again from heaven, "Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.' This happened three times, and finally the whole thing was drawn back up into heaven. (Acts 11: 5-10)

In Peter’s vision he’s been tempted to violate his Jewish faith by eating foods that were considered ritually unclean. He thinks he’s passed the test by saying “No, I’ve never eaten unclean foods and I never will.” Those are the rules he’s familiar with. That’s what he think God expects of him, but the voice in his vision says “You’re mistaken, Peter. Nothing that God has made should be considered unclean.” After three repetitions the vision comes to an end and Peter must have been wondering “What on earth does this mean? All the rules are changing! Am I being tempted by the devil or being shown some new truth by God?” But the next events convinced him that this not just about food – as one writer with a knack for puns put it, “more about men than the menu.” His report continues like this, in verse 11:

At that very moment three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to go with them without hesitation. These six fellow believers from Joppa accompanied me to Caesarea, and we all went into the house of Cornelius. He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, "Send someone to Joppa for a man whose full name is Simon Peter. He will speak words to you by which you and all your family will be saved.' And when I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: "John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' It is clear that God gave those Gentiles the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, then, to try to stop God!"

Well what could Peter’s critics say? Peter’s not some wild-eyed radical with an agenda for destroying traditional Judaism. This new course of events wasn’t his idea, but when he saw the Holy Spirit coming to Cornelius and others in his household – in the same way it had come to Peter and the other believers – Peter wasn’t going to argue with God. He knew this was God at work and he baptized those Gentiles then and there.

The leaders in Jerusalem weren’t going to argue with God either. Acts 11:18 wraps up the account with these words:

When they heard this, they stopped their criticism and praised God, (I love that phrase. It’s one thing to get people to be quiet – perhaps a grudging silence in the face of unwelcome evidence, but these folks are more mature than that). They stopped their criticism and praised God, saying, "Then God has given to the Gentiles also the opportunity to repent and live!" (Acts 11:18)

Why did Jesus think it necessary to give a new commandment to love? Because the old ways of love – the love understood as a feeling which just comes naturally and easily, the love or friendship that sprouts up of its own accord between like-minded people, the love that requires no effort, the love for people who already love us or who are just like us – this love is not adequate to save the world.

Left to their own devices two men like Cornelius and Peter would never have met, much less come to the point of sharing a faith and becoming brothers in Christ. The love that just springs up of its own accord, the love that is a happy feeling – it never would have happened. Peter knew that his vision carried an implicit command. It was not a command to feel affectionate feelings toward Gentiles, but it was a command to share what he had and what he knew. So Peter went – doing the loving action regardless of what others might think of Gentiles, regardless of past religious teaching, regardless about how he may have felt about Gentiles in general and Cornelius in particular, and well aware of the controversy that would follow. He shared what he had; he acted out of a deep concern for the other party. He acted loving, in response to a command.

Everybody has a Cornelius or two in their life. Everybody has people or groups that they find threatening, unpleasant, or unworthy of care, and if we get in a sanctimonious mood we may view them as ungodly, impure or unrighteous – unacceptable not only to us but to God. For some people their Cornelius might be a foul-mouthed radio personality like Don Imus, and for others it might be the politically correct hypocrites who got him fired……. For some people it might be political leaders who (they say) “lied us into a war in Iraq,” and for others it’s the Monday morning political quarterbacks whose critiques seem so self-serving…… For some people the “Corneliuses” of this world are immigrants – legal, illegal, whatever……. Gay people…… Evangelicals……. The American Civil Liberties Union, etc….. People of other races…… Everybody has some people they consider unacceptable, some Gentiles, some Corneliuses.

If we wait for feelings of love to spontaneously grow between us and our Corneliuses we will wait forever, and the longer we wait the more dangerous our world becomes. In its extremes we see this danger in Darfur, in Iraq, in Israel/Palestine, in Northern Ireland. In its milder forms we see it in families where the generations can’t get along, in church groups that would prefer schism to dialogue, in communities where the school budget vote stirs smoldering resentment….. Reconciliation with our Corneliuses doesn’t happen of its own accord. It’s not like falling in love, so Jesus says “I’m commanding you to love – not to have a feeling of affection but to do what is caring, to do what is loving, and to do it for whoever you consider a Gentile, a Cornelius.”

What a challenge that command is, but what a joy to see – as Peter discovered – that God can use our feeble intentions to bring about that love which is rooted in the command, in the example, and in the spirit of Jesus. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”