We have arrived at a watershed moment that describes the inauguration of the mission to the Gentiles (Acts 11:1-18). While today we cannot think of Christians other than as including Gentiles, their (our) inclusion involved a radical change in thinking for the first Christians who were all Jews, still felt like Jews, and maintained many of the religious customs of the Jews. Our reading today changes the whole complexion of the Christian ‘movement’ that was inaugurated by Jesus.
The conversion of the Cornelius that we hear about today first involved something of a conversion on the part of Peter, who becomes aware that God is calling all people of all races and all religions. This was a major breakthrough in the development of the Church’s awareness of its identity.
The Apostles and their fellow Christians in Jerusalem had heard that the pagans were accepting the word of God. The Christians in Jerusalem seem to have received this news with mixed feelings because, when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the “circumcised believers”, that is, the Jewish Christians, criticized him for visiting the homes of the “uncircumcised” and even eating with them. This recalls how Jesus, too, was criticized for consorting with the ‘unclean’ and eating with them, which led to his speaking the three beautiful parables in chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel about the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son.
The “uncircumcised” were those Gentiles who did not observe the laws of clean and unclean food and hence were in violation of Jewish regulations concerning food preparation. At this stage, it is clear that the Jewish Christians still saw themselves, even in a religious sense, as Jews. We know that they continued to go to the Temple to pray, and in this reading, they have not yet changed their attitude toward non-Jews—still seeing them as a source of contamination.
Peter shares with them a dream that he had. In this dream he had a vision of every kind of living thing that could walk, crawl or fly. The Holy Spirit told him to kill and eat them, to which Peter recoiled in horror. As a devout Jew he had never touched food that was regarded as ‘unclean’. Peter was told that in no uncertain terms: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” To be sure Peter got the message, the vision was repeated three times!
Just then, he also got an invitation to join three men in going to a house in Caesarea. This house, as we were told in the previous chapter, belonged to Cornelius, a centurion in the Roman army. It seems that he was an out and out Gentile, with no connections whatsoever to Judaism. Peter went, together with six “brothers”, under the guidance and the approval of the Spirit. When they got there, Cornelius said he had been told by an angel to summon Peter to his house. Peter had a special message for him to hear. Peter had barely begun to explain the message of Jesus when the Holy Spirit came down on all of the household, just as the Apostles themselves had experienced it at Pentecost. It was perfectly clear to Peter that there was no way that he could deny baptism and membership in the community to this Gentile, who, up to this time, Peter had regarded as unclean and a person not to be associated with.
Peter told the Christians in Jerusalem: “If then 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?” Peter could not deny to the Gentiles the invitation to be baptized and to enjoy full fellowship in Christ with all believers. The Jewish believers were compelled to recognize that God was going to save Gentiles on equal terms with Jews. By divine action rather than by human choice, the door was being opened to the Gentiles.
According to Luke, Peter was considered to have been the first to receive pagans into the Church, in spite of the episode of the Ethiopian eunuch (with the deacon Philip), about which we read on Thursday of last week, and the date of the evangelization of Antioch, to which Luke does not refer till later (in fact, immediately after this incident). Against this background, the council of Jerusalem (which we will hear about in the middle of next week) appears as a kind of sequel to, or repetition of, the discussion in today’s passage.
This episode makes clear the Peter is the leader of all Christians. The people in Jerusalem accepted what Peter told them and gave thanks to God that even the Gentiles could experience “the repentance that leads to life”.
This story is just one example that will be repeated again and again in the life of the Church: change in the Church does not come from the center, which is often resistant to change, but from the outer fringes. The same is true of our Church today. There is always tension between the central institution of the Church and the more charismatic and prophetic elements which are often more in touch with the grass roots and with the changes taking place in society. These effect a call for change in the thinking and behavior of the Church. In recent times, the Second Vatican Council and more recently, the Synod on Synodality, are excellent examples of this process. It is important to recognize that this tension is a good thing, and it is necessary both for progress and continuity.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!