Part of the simple logic of the Christian faith flows
from the nature of God. God reveals himself to
Peter had been raised, along with all his Jewish brothers
and sisters, to believe that Gentiles were beneath them and the Romans were
oppressors who needed to go. But one
afternoon he was praying on a rooftop on the shore of the Mediterranean when
God began to change that. While he was staying in the home of a leather maker
(an ironic twist in the story seeing that the job of leather making made one
unclean), God put him in a trance and showed him a sheet full of unclean
animals. When God told him to rise and
eat, Peter responded out of his upbringing and faithfulness to Old Testament
Law. “Never,” he said. “I have not eaten anything unclean and I won’t start
now.” But God’s response is what changes
things. God told him to never call
anything unclean, or common, that he has called clean.
At that moment an envoy from Cornelius shows up at the
house where Peter is staying and asks him to come. God told Cornelius to send for Peter. God told Peter to go. God was up to something
big. As soon as Peter enters the house
of the Roman Centurion something strikes him as so important he repeats the
topic twice in a short span of time. He says, “You yourselves know how unlawful
it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God
has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean. So when I was
sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me” (Acts
10:28-29). And then, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality” (Acts
10:34).
Peter was raised to show a harsh partiality. He was raised with a strict “us vs. them”
ethic and now God was teaching him something very different. He was taught to see people like Cornelius as
beneath the honor of his presence and on this day Peter brings a whole group of
Jewish Christians into his house to fellowship, eat with him, and talk about
Jesus. Peter came face to face that day
with a truth woven into the bones of the Christian faith: no human being is unclean. Every human being is of inestimable value.
Every human being is worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No human being is beneath a disciple of Jesus
Christ.
The logic is clear – no human being is beneath Jesus
Christ, the God who emptied himself and became flesh. Thus, no human being is “less
than” any other human being, and certainly not “less than” a follower of Jesus
Christ. And every human life can become something that glorifies its Savior,
Jesus Christ.
And why is it no human is beneath another in the eyes of
God? It is by virtue of our creation in the image of God, and, as God told
Peter, God has called every human clean. In other words, our status measured in
earthly or ethnic terms does not determine our worth. The creation and decision
of God does. No human lacks the image of God. No human is unclean.
One of the radical beliefs a Christian carries into this
world is that God does not show partiality.
For all of its bluster about equality and human rights, our culture
loves to decide who is and who is not worthy of life and privilege. Our culture loves building ladders out of
people. The abortion rate for children diagnosed with Down Syndrome is 94%. In
a now infamous study, the abortion rate for African-American children in the
city of Manhattan is over 80%. Children are still sold as slaves on the streets
of Western, advanced cities. Political schemes rely on dividing people into
groups that suspect and hate each other. Politicians have become wealthy beyond
reason stoking those fires. And we all know the story goes on, and on.
But the Christian belongs to another God, a different
kind of God. One who does not show partiality. God does not draw distinctions
between people, calling one better than another. And thus, by the grace and strength of God,
neither do we.
