Earlier in Acts 6, the charge was leveled by the Hellenistic or Greek widows against the Hebraic or Jewish widows, that they were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. I wonder, has there ever been a time in your life, when you felt discriminated against? Has there ever been a time when you were the one accused of doing the discriminating?
Sometimes we experience discrimination because of things beyond our control. For instance, we can’t control our race or ethnicity, our skin color, where we were born, who we’re related to. We can’t control our biological gender, genetic profile, our basic body type, our height, age, or hairline, how able or non-able bodied we are. This is the traditional, and once dominant, view of discrimination.
I can think of few things that are more heavily policed than discrimination. If in the church, in the workplace, in the classroom, in government, in social policy, if on social media you so much as “appear” to discriminate, you will pay a maximum price. No matter your intentions, or your age. You cross that line and you will be named and shamed. Consequences will follow you everywhere you go. Hate. Intolerance. These are unforgivable sins!
Look how closely our culture polices language and labels. You cannot say anything that psychologically afflicts or triggers another human being. And affliction is in the mind of the hearer. It’s not what you “intend”, it's “how” what you say or do makes me feel. It doesn’t matter if it’s even true. If I don’t like the way you make me feel, then you become the aggressor (the oppressor, the bully, the one doing violence) and I become the aggrieved party (the victim, the afflicted).
It wasn’t an overreaction for the apostles to appoint seven men full of the Spirit and wisdom to resolve the matter. Of course today, people might take issue with why seven “men”. Why weren’t women included? Why not a mix of Hellenistic and Hebraic representatives? And people would take issue with the process utilized to resolve such a matter. Did the church employ a trauma-centered, trauma-informed methodology? Did they employ a power and control, top-down, hierarchical methodology? Were the apostles perhaps too dismissive of the matter—handing it off while they tended to the matter of word and prayer?
If you are going to be a leader today, you can’t blow concerns of accusation off. You can’t just walk away. You are going to need spiritual wisdom—which is abundant in Scripture. But you are also going to need spiritual power. You will need the fruit of the Spirit in spades. A spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Pray for both!
As we come to Acts 10, an even more explosive situation presents itself. Just for context, in Acts 1, Jesus tells the disciples to be his witnesses first in Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. In Acts 2 God-fearing Jews from all around the world are gathered on Pentecost and hear the gospel in their own native language. But hey, they were still Jewish. But then slowly the gospel spreads. The church is persecuted and scatters all over Roman Empire. You got Philip going down to Samaritan villages preaching Jesus. You got Philip sharing Jesus with an Ethiopian eunuch. In Acts 10:1, we come to Caesarea, “At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment.” Here is yet another ethnicity being reached by gospel.
In Acts 10:2-8 we read Cornelius side of the story. “He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.” It’s worth nothing that in both last week’s message (and this week), the Ethiopian eunuch and Cornelius were clearly God - Fearers. And that’s not a small matter. If a person fears God, and is sincerely seeking God, who are we to stand in anyone’s path to God?
3 One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” 4 Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked. The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.” 7 When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier who was one of his attendants. 8 He told them everything that had happened and sent them to Joppa.”
In Acts 10:9-16 we read Peter’s side of the story. “About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” 14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” 15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” 16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.”
In Acts 6 you have an instance of traditional discrimination. Let’s call Acts 6 an instance of “social” discrimination, or favoritism. Acts 6 is the kind of discrimination you can resolve with a technical solution, a technical methodology. Let’s come up with a new system to address the iniquities, the unequal distribution,… let’s make things more fair. We don’t know the exact details, but a technical solution was implemented and the church flourished IN UNITY.
But in Acts 10 we have an instance of “structural” discrimination. Acts 10 is the kind of discrimination you can’t resolve with a technical solution. It requires something far deeper, and transformative. It requires new thinking, new feeling, indeed a shift in one’s religious thinking and worldview! Perhaps nothing was more codified in the Jewish mind than the categories of clean and unclean, pure and impure, holy and unholy, worthy and unworthy. Way back in the day Noah was commanded to discriminate between clean and unclear (kosher and unkosher) animals. The notion of clean and unclean exploded under Moses and the Law, and then centuries of Jewish religious practice.
Getting a Jewish person to eat pork isn’t a technical matter. At home one of our Schnauzers has an aversion to eating certain foreign supplements. His mother believes such foreign supplements are matter of health—indeed life and death for him. Supplements for eyesight, for cognitive support, heart health, liver function, kidney function, urinary track health, skin health. The dog has wised up that all these years mom has been researching this stuff on Facebook groups and sneaking this stuff into his food—so now he smells everything handed to him and if he whiffs anything weird, he refuses! Mom has tried countless technical tricks and technical methods to get him to eat these supplements. But his problem is he has come to believe his mom has been poisoning him with a closet full of supplements. He rightly believes mom has collaborated with Jeff Bezos, UPS, and Fed X to bankrupt our home to amass said supply of supplements. It’s not “how do you teach an old dog new tricks”… its “how do you teach an old dog to think differently?”
With structural racism an attitude is hard coded into one’s very thinking, one’s religion. And what happens in Acts 10 is God Himself intervenes from heaven to decimate not just a “social” but more deeply, a “structural” source of racism. In Acts 10 God himself must decimate the dividing wall of hostility and bring the divided hostiles together to begin living into a greater gospel reality.
In Acts 10:17-20 we read, “While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. 18 They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there. 19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. 20 So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
Acts 10:23-48, “The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the believers from Joppa went along. 24 The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27 While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. 29 So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30 Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31 and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32 Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33 So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. 37 You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— 38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a cross, 40 but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.”
With technical change, you get instant results. But with structural, deep, transformative change, you must continually labor and struggle for results. In all the rest of Acts, the Early Church lives out the implications of how in salvation there is no longer categorical theologically justified discrimination. In Galatians 3:28-29 Paul would write, “There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.” There is no person “inherently” unclean, impure, unworthy. In Acts 10 God is making some new decree—he’s reasserting an ancient decree. All the prophets have testified that everyone who believes in Jesus can receive forgiveness through his name.
Throughout all Romans, New Testament writings, the early church will continue to grapple with the Peter and Cornelius epiphany and what was a paradigm shift for both. In time, the Apostle Paul would have to rebuke the Apostle Peter to his face for not fully grasping and living out the implications of Acts 10.
I don’t think our message is that in Jesus, there will never ever again be a hint of social or structural racism, favoritism, prejudice, discrimination, privilege—or whatever it may be called. I think our message is that in Christ we find the seeds—the very tools for decimating racism in most subtle or brazen forms.
In Christ, God invites us to a common table, to share in a common meal, recognizing that his body and flesh has been mortally struck and distributed equally to the benefit of all of us who have sinned. His blood shed, his blood now atoning, to bring the benefit of forgiveness to all of us equally, who have sinned.
The gospel is powerful to undo sin in all its effects and ramifications. And this includes the undoing of death itself. May we reflect on what it means that God has invited not just to his holy temple, but to this table of fellowship, to be a place of prayer for all nations, all people, all who might believe and fear God.
Ephesians 2:11-22, “So, then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands. 12 At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. In his flesh, 15 he made of no effect the law consisting of commands and expressed in regulations, so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. 16 He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.[c] 17 He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for Gods dwelling in the Spirit.”