The Apostle Simon Peter, deemed the
Rock of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, had been sent away with
a flea in his ear by that upstart Paul from Tarsus. This humiliating story is
told in Galatians chapter 2 when Paul rounded on Peter why he believed that all
Christians, whether Jewish or not, should live the same as Jews.
The Galatians themselves were an
example of this unnecessary victimisation. They had little or no background in
what we call the Old Testament so Paul had to start from square one to present
to them the good news about this Jesus whom he called Christ. This epistle is
the result of the events in Acts 14:8-23,27. After Paul had left, the area was
visited by Christians from Jerusalem determined to ensure the Galatians
Christians filled in the missing Jewish gaps.
This included the whole law of Moses, especially the
dreaded Leviticus, including the stipulation that all faithful males be
circumcised (ouch!), a painful practice from which we males are thankfully now
exempt. And Peter had, without thinking this through, had gone along with this.
Paul was livid at this misguided leadership display when they met at Antioch
and told Peter so.
The flea in Peter’s ear had not retreated when he
arrived at Joppa (Acts 10). While waiting for lunch, he dozed off on the roof
and dreamed of all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds coming to him and a
command to kill and eat from them. Being still a good Jew, Peter protested to
God, quoting from Leviticus as one does as if God cannot read, aghast at eating
anything “common or unclean”.
Back came the voice, “What God has cleaned, you must not call unclean.” The penny was
beginning to drop for Peter as he was invited to visit the centurion Cornelius
from the Italian Cohort, as Gentile as they come. The rest is history
continuing into Acts chs 11, 15. Several of the chapters in Acts are out of
sequence when first compiled but once sorted out the message becomes clearer.
Because of that historic meeting between Peter and
Cornelius, stimulated by Paul, the good news of Jesus Christ has come down to
us. Peter probably accompanied Cornelius when he returned to Rome so here we
are.
We are here because our spiritual ancestors were
prepared to step out of their comfortable box to include those they had
previously left out. Cornelius keeps coming to the One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic Church through our yesterdays and today, knocking on the door,
strangers to what we have become used to, to seek inclusion.
Cornelius comes from different ethnic, linguistic,
and cultural backgrounds, from women seeking ordination, from those with all
sorts of disability, and from people of differing and diverse sexual
orientation. That voice still comes back to us, again and again, just when we
thought we were comfortable in our own familiar ways, “What God has cleaned, you must not call unclean.”
