Papers

Christianity in Asia – reflections on Acts 10

Damayanthi Niles

The story of Peter and Cornelius is a powerful and moving story. One which I have returned to time and again through out my life.

It is the story of crossing boundaries, relationships, Christian doctrine – like how the Godhead functions, particularly its most troublesome member, the Holy Spirit – understanding the sacraments; baptism of course, but in a different way communion as well, and most important what it means to be ecclessia (Church). All of these are looked at in radical ways that changed the way the Christians of the first century understood themselves as people of God, how to be Church.

The main actor in this story is neither Peter or Cornelius but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit goes to the home of the foreigner and blesses him and his household and sends for Peter – Peter not Paul the apostle to the Gentiles on whom much of the book of Acts is focused.

Peter, a Galilean fisherman used to the simple practicality of living in a village among people who spoke his language, ate the same food as they did, followed the same Jewish customs and got about the business of putting food on the table and a roof over their heads in 1st century Nazareth. This was no Paul – a cosmopolitan used to dealing with strangers in strange lands, knowledgeable in Hellenistic language and philosophy. I wonder how many "strangers" Peter met, let alone was required to eat with, in the days before he left his nets to follow a carpenter from Galilee. Yet it is this same Peter who leads the Church into opening itself to the Gentiles. Peter, firm believer in Jewish law and ritual, Peter who in Galatians 2:11-13 will be characterised as one who draws away from eating with the Gentiles, this very same Peter is called by and sent by the Holy Spirit to the foreigner.

The Holy Spirit pushes him out of his comfortable space to see God at work in a place where God has no place being. The Holy Spirit forces Peter to understand that the line he draws between what he feels at home in and what is strange is NOT the line that separates the sacred from the profane. Those categories have no place in God's understanding of the world.

What must be noted is that this Spirit at work here is not a rebel acting outside the nature of God, but a revealer of God living out in His very deeds who God is – something Peter sees for himself when he meets Cornelius and hears his story.

"I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to Him" God who creates everything does not make some of it sacred and some of it profane. He just makes it his. Peter recognises that the God that is with him is with these people.

With this understanding Peter goes on to tell the story that made God understandable to him. The story of God manifest, God incarnate, the story of Jesus Christ – and as he speaks the Spirit washes itself over all present. Here, in the telling of the story of Jesus, God who has been present with the people assembled at Cornelius's house – both Jews and Gentiles – comes alive and active in a new way. Here is enough material on how the Trinity works to keep the likes of David Ford busy for a lifetime! But I do not want to rest here to even try and unpack all the God-imagery that lies dormant in this text – as powerful and exciting as that could be – but choose to move on to what I believe are even more interesting aspects of the story.

Another character of the story is Cornelius, who though good and devout, is a supportive role – a critical one – around which the story revolves. He functions as the OTHER with whom God relates and in whom God is recognised by Peter. In Cornelius, God chooses to show Peter and the rest of the Church how incontainable God's activity really is. God can and often does choose to work in any part of creation – even the OTHER outside the realm we call sacred.

But it is not the Other we are interested in in this story – but in how we respond to the Other.

So we turn to the subject of our story – Peter. Peter is the main character, the one around whom the story unfolds. He is the hero, with whom we as readers identify and through whom we learn. He is the believer, the Church, one of the chosen, the subject – HE IS US.

And where is God? – He is with the object, the foreigner the one who does not belong. This is not to say God is not with Peter – in fact quiet the opposite – it is because God is with Peter, opening his eyes, that Peter is able to see God with Cornelius. And in the act of making Peter recognise that God relates ALSO to Cornelius, God asks, no demands, that Peter accept that Cornelius is important to God and therefore important to Peter.

How God does this is fascinating – He uses FOOD. Those of you who know me know I take food very seriously: the preparation of it, the sharing of it, the ritual around it.

In the act of sharing food something wonderful happens. Think of the food you have eaten at your mother's table, "comfort food" the Americans call it. Food that brings back memories of the meals shared in the past, people they were shared with and all the stories that go with them. Food that make you feel safe warm and at home, nourished – and just tastes GOOD. The giving of that food to another person is a sharing of self. A person gives something that helps them sustain life – in every sense of that word – to another to help them sustain life.

In the taking of food one receives something another uses to sustain life and makes it a part of one's own system. Food is a form of bonding. To call a food taboo is to put it outside the realm to which one is willing to relate and people who eat that food fall into that category as well. That is why we find repulsive the people who eat food we find repulsive. Food habits are important to people. The sharing of food, especially with a stranger, makes one vulnerable.

It is this vulnerability that the Spirit asks of Peter.

Peter is hungry and in the powerful vision – of a sheet coming down from heaven itself – God sends him sustenance. But it is in a manner outside Peter's understanding of normality and he protests. I cannot find life giving substance outside my sacred space – it is profane, common taboo, unclean.

And God says what I call sacred and clean you will not call unclean – meet me there and find life giving sustenance.

It is not surprising one of the most important sacraments of the Church is around food. The holy communion is the act where God gives his very self to sustain us and the people who gather around that table with us are people whom God has called to be there. They may look different than you or I, behave act, worship even believe differently – but God has a relationship with them

And we believe God is present as host – in both senses of that word at that communion. We are compelled to be in relationship with each other. We share a common food.

Acts 10 tells us the world is the communion table where God shares himself. So what is the relationship of the members of the world to each other?

Peter sees that God is there already with Cornelius and his followers and his response is to accept them as Church. How he chooses to do this is by formalising the relationship – he calls for them to be baptised. He says "you are already part of the Church because you already have a relationship with God so let us formalise the relationship that is already in place."

God acts as God chooses. The Church cannot prescript that activity of God. The faithful response to God's activity is for the Church to place itself where God is – NO matter how foreign it may seem to some members it is the response to God's love of others. Become part of it, communion with the people God chooses to be with and with them celebrate God – and God will be there also. And you will see him again with new eyes.