Peter As Recovering Purist
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
Every society has its purity laws. Germany has hundreds of years of purity laws in relation to the production and promotion of beers. The “Reinheitsgebot” law was introduced in Bavaria in the 16th century BCE to restrict the ingredients to water, barley and hops, thus preventing brewers from using the wheat and rye needed for production of bread. With Pasteur’s research into bacteria in the 19th century it was realised that yeast was also an ingredient. The “Reinheitsgebot” law was enforced throughout Germany with unification laws in 1871, leading to the disappearance of local brewing traditions using spices, cherries and other distinctive flavours.
Most purity laws are not written down like the Reinheitsgebot. I think about the purity laws that come into play when I do the laundry each week. I keep the colours and whites in different loads. Underwear and socks, for some reason, don’t get put next to the tea towels and handkerchiefs on the clothes line! There’s nothing written down anywhere that I’ve seen and the fact that I’ve noticed this is probably due to my time on Maori marae where these kinds of customs are spoken about openly with reference to the tapu (holy or sacred) nature of the head.
Peter had no shortage of written laws to tell him what was pure and what wasn’t. Leviticus is stacked with instructions on ways of avoiding mixing and matching. And he knew that Gentiles who broke those laws did not go together with Jews who kept the laws. And yet here’s an experience that challenges Peter’s assumptions about who’s in and who’s out. He had a blind spot. He needed a visual metaphor to help him prepare for the inevitable experience of meeting people who didn’t fit his neat diagrams of in and out, clean and impure.
Peter Reports to the Church in Jerusalem
(1) The apostles and the followers in Judea heard that Gentiles had accepted God’s message. (2) So when Peter came to Jerusalem, some of the Jewish followers started arguing with him. They wanted Gentile followers to be circumcised, and (3) they said, “You stayed in the homes of Gentiles, and you even ate with them!”
(4) Then Peter told them exactly what had happened:(5) I was in the town of Joppa and was praying when I fell sound asleep and had a vision. I saw heaven open, and something like a huge sheet held by its four corners came down to me. (6) When I looked in it, I saw animals, wild beasts, snakes, and birds. (7) I heard a voice saying to me, “Peter, get up! Kill these and eat them.”
(8) But I said, “Lord, I can’t do that! I’ve never taken a bite of anything that is unclean and not fit to eat.” (9) The voice from heaven spoke to me again, “When God says that something can be used for food, don’t say it isn’t fit to eat.” (10) This happened three times before it was all taken back into heaven.
(11) Suddenly three men from Caesarea stood in front of the house where I was staying. (12) The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry. Then six of the Lord’s followers went with me to the home of a man (13) who told us that an angel had appeared to him. The angel had ordered him to send to Joppa for someone named Simon Peter. (14) Then Peter would tell him how he and everyone in his house could be saved.
(15) After I started speaking, the Holy Spirit was given to them, just as the Spirit had been given to us at the beginning. (16) I remembered that the Lord had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (17) God gave those Gentiles the same gift that he gave us when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So how could I have gone against God?
(18) When they heard Peter say this, they stopped arguing and started praising God. They said, “God has now let Gentiles turn to him, and he has given life to them!”
Acts 11: 1-18 (Contemporary English Version)
Like Peter, I’m a recovering purist. I’ve certainly had a few blind spots over time. I remember talking with a fellow student at school about how you’d know if a girl was a Christian or not. He suggested that if she smoked cigarettes that would reduce the odds. I was inclined to agree with him. A Christian teacher overheard the conversation and challenged our blind spot. It took a long time for me to work through that. I was helped to deal with that by a Dutch ministry colleague who pointed out that the Christian taboo against smoking was culturally conditioned. In the Netherlands, he explained, this would be a nonsense. Likewise the taboos against drinking beer wine and spirits.
The house church I’m connected to is starting a series tonight on ‘Generous Orthodoxy’, the book written by Brian McLaren. Brian challenges the polarization found in the church in which people find it hard to recognize God’s work in those with differing practices and beliefs. Maybe we’ll be confronted with a few visions like that experienced by Peter, challenging us to connect with people we’ve thought to be off-limits.
