Acts 11

Acts 11:1-18

Families often will have core stories. The stories that carry the most weight are ones in which something pivotal has happened where there is a before and after; births, deaths, disagreements and reconciliations and more. It is a moment of change.

The member of the family may tell the story differently but it is held and remembered by all.

The fact that this story is told twice within two chapters in ACTS --- tells us this is a core story of the community.

There are a few initial things happening that seem note-worthy ---

First of all we are returning to a character we have walked with pretty closely through Holy Week and Easter: Peter.

Peter who denied Jesus three times

Peter who received a threefold call into forgiveness and calling: do you love me… feed my sheep

Peter now has a three-fold vision --- of this cloth filled with forbidden foods being lowered from the heavens.

Peter is, like all of us, figuring out what this calling of God looks like in our lives. And Peter, like all of us are discerning what is means to be faithful to this call.

The other is the theme of hospitality that runs through Luke-Acts. There is a repeated witness across these writings that extending and receiving hospitality as an act of love is a core practice of Jesus and hence those who call themselves disciples of Jesus.

This is repeatedly a call to see, receive, heal, share life with those who are not seen, not received, dismissed and forgotten.

The Ethic of Easter – is that we be a people who love one another (John passage)

With outstretched (that is cruciform) arms…

Why? Because as the Revelation passage from today says:

See the home of God is among mortals- He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples; and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more; for the first things have passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said: See I am making all things New….

When we hear this larger vision of God’s dwelling and new creation in us, among us and between us… like Peter we might pray – help me to be part of that and not be in the way of God’s creation…. Or more directly the quote is: “Who was I that I could hinder God”