Could I Stand in God's Way?

Could I Stand in God’s Way?
Acts 11:1-18;
Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

Systems of belief, institutions, communities of faith, and individual minds are all subject to the effects of constricting build-up, just as the arteries and veins of our bodies become constricted with the plaque of cholesterol. Individuals and societies develop some sort of process by which the breadth of vision becomes smaller and smaller. It is like looking down a tunnel and seeing the other end which appears to be much smaller. In the tunnel, however, the far end turns out to be the same size as the near end. But in the case of vision, the size spirals smaller and smaller, as in a very long sugar cone intended for ice cream. The constriction of an ever smaller spiraling thought pattern may cause spiritual angina or congestive spirit failure. That’s a chronic condition that is as dire for the spirit as its cardiac counterpart is for the body.

Scholars like Loren Mead and Phyllis Tickle(1) have been saying for some time now that the North American church has entered an age which is very comparable to the Apostolic times of the first and second centuries. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life research which came out last year showed that the number of practicing Christians in the United was continuing to decline. But the most provocative of their findings was that the number of people who self-identified as having no religious preference has soared from the long-traditional 7% to a whopping 20%. These are the “Nones” but for the most part they are not atheists, but are spiritual in ways that are independent from the institutional church. Robert N. Bellah in his 1985 seminal work, Habits of the Heart, noted that religion in America was moving very much towards individualism, which he labeled “Sheilaism,” in honor the example he used.

If the trend of individual religion is confirmed by the rise in the “Nones,” the spiritual but not religious, then there is a whole pantheon of religions alive and living well outside these doors. And the idea that we have returned to the Apostolic Age in terms of being a minority religion, one faith among a multitude of faiths, is very much a force to be recognized and responded to.

British New Testament scholar G. B. Caird noted in his study of the Apostolic Church that Jewish orthodoxy was much more oriented toward  practice than belief. The Jewish religious scene was populated with a variety of sects, from the near hermit Essenes to the Sadducees and Pharisees. The scholars of the day did not condemn the Christians for any beliefs they held about the Messiah, the Resurrection, or the Age to Come. Those discussions were already going on within the wider community. Specific Christian beliefs would not be likely to incur any charge of religious disloyalty as long their beliefs did not affect their obedience to the Law.

Judaism was regarded as more than a religion; it was a nationality. The Torah was religious precept, social custom, and civil law all rolled into one. Even though the religious center of life had shifted from the Torah to Christ, Jewish Christians could not abandon the Torah as a national way of life without becoming cut off from the nation.(2)

The remaining disciples of Jesus were part of this ethos. They were part of Israel the nation as well as Israel the faith. The complexity of this situation came to a head for Peter when the Holy Spirit fell on the household assembled in the home of Cornelius, a Roman army officer who lived in Caesarea. Peter had a dream about a vast buffet of foods that encompassed foods which observant Jews could not partake of. Three times the same image came to Peter with the accompanying narrative, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Most of us need to be told something more than once before we can take it in. Remember that Samuel was beckoned by God three times before Eli realized that it was indeed God that was calling the boy. After three iterations of the dream Peter wondered what it all meant. That was when the messenger from Cornelius arrived to fetch Peter to Caesarea, for Cornelius had received a vision of an angel telling him to send for Peter.

When we stop and think about it, the hero of the Book of Acts, the chief protagonist, is not Peter or Paul. It is the Spirit who gets top billing throughout the whole story Luke tells in Acts. This is certainly the case in today’s reading. The Spirit rather than Peter was the driving force behind the
change of mind in the Jerusalem community; and in the Apostolic Church’s subsequent change of strategy in the accounts which follow this one.

Of course, the apostles and believers who lived in Jerusalem didn’t have the advantage of Peter’s dream or his experience of the Holy Spirit coming upon Cornelius’ household. All they knew was that Peter had gone into the house of a Gentile – a Roman, no less – and had eaten with him and his family. From a behavioral standpoint, Peter had broken one of the biggest norms of the Law. And they were ready to tell him in no uncertain terms about it: “Why did you go to the uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

It is as if the uncircumcised were the untouchables in India. It is evidence of the narrowing, limiting, constricting force that seems so inevitable with institutions, society, and individuals. Thinking about what Professor Caird said, it is as if not only their purity and identity is threatened but their very existence. As I was reflecting on this passage this week, it struck me that the attitudes espoused directly or indirectly were a lot like those offered in the late 15th century when a Genoese sailor named Columbus tried to sell the idea of sailing west in order to get to the Far East. Everyone knew that the proposition would not work. The earth was flat and the ships would fall of the edge of the world. It is akin to saying, “There is an edge to creation beyond which God does not go.” In spite of the words of Genesis: “God created the heavens and earth.” In spite of the psalmist’s declaration: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” In spite of the psalmist’s affirmation that there was absolutely no place that he could go to be absent from God’s spirit.

The “uncircumcised” represent something that is scary, frightening, unknown, threatening, maybe even fatal. The “uncircumcised” are anyone other than we ourselves. They are the “them” that are so different from us that they have to be kept at bay, barricaded away at arm’s length. Why? What is so frightening? So perceived as dangerous? Are we so unsure of ourselves that we are afraid that we will be tempted away from what we firmly know and believe? Are we more afraid of becoming like them than their becoming like us? Are we so undisciplined that we are more likely to run away and join them than they are to join us?

Peter concluded his defense before the assembled apostles and believers by saying, “If God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God? Who am I that I could stand in God’s way? How could I object to God?”

The history of the Christian Church from the very beginning is the story of how the Spirit continually challenges the faithful to carry the Gospel to the world. We are still being challenged to live and witness in that historical environment.

Who are we to hinder God? And who are the uncircumcised that God has called us to go to. They aren’t the first choice we would opt for. We would feel more comfortable, at greater ease, going to people just like us. And some of us are called at different times to do just that. But more than likely, the uncircumcised in our lives don’t look like us, don’t act like us, don’t think like us, don’t vote like us. And are probably just as scared of us as we are of them. They might people we don’t even know. They might be people we know a little: the pharmacist, the technician who takes our blood sample, the clerk at the post office or bank, the server at the drive-thru window, the clerk at the library, the neighbor across the street, the mother who comes into the food pantry.

Who is God calling to come into the orbit of your daily life, knowingly or unknowingly seeking the salvation of Christ, the good word of Life, the new creation of redemption? And who are we to refuse God’s working through us? Who are we to hinder God?


(1) Loren Mead, The Once and Future Church (Herndon VA: Alban Institure, 1991) and Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence (Grand Rapids MI: Baker, 2008)

(2) Caird, G.B. "The Apostolic Age." Studies in Theology. (London: Duckworth & Co., 1955) p. 83-84.)

Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Used by permission.