Focus

Slow your breathing and become aware of the taking in and letting out of your breath. Focus on putting things aside so you will be open to what God is saying to you today.

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Read

Acts 10:34-43 (NRSV)

Then Peter began to speak to them: “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. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

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Reflect

It’s likely that Simon Peter, part of Christ’s inner circle of disciples, had never been in the home of a Gentile before crossing the threshold of Cornelius’ house in Caesarea. Such interaction was expressly forbidden to devout Jews. Had it not been for his vision on the rooftop just two days before, he wouldn’t have been there then. But the Lord had changed Peter’s mind about the Gentiles, saying: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” As he entered the centurion’s dwelling, he met the surprising gathering of God-fearing people who expressed to him the desire to hear “all that the Lord has commanded you to say.”

Three times the Lord’s vision had come to Peter. It’s interesting that Peter denied the Lord three times, only to be reinstated by the risen Christ at the seaside by requiring him, three times, to reaffirm his love and devotion. Peter was unwilling to eat the unclean animals in the vision, but three times the Lord insisted that these formerly forbidden meats were now clean. In the afterglow of that vision, Peter stood in the centurion’s house and declared: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” In other words, Peter realized the gospel of Jesus Christ was for all humankind without regard to racial, national, or ideological background.

We think of Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles, and he was. But Peter first proclaimed the gospel to Gentiles, first acknowledged they were filled with the same Holy Spirit that he and the other apostles had experienced, and first baptized Gentiles in the name of Christ. And Peter first defended the Gentile mission in the mother church at Jerusalem. It took him three times to learn something, but when he did, what a difference it made! May be it be so with us, who sometimes are a little slow on the up-take of God’s will in our lives.

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Pray

O God, thank you for showing no partiality among the world’s people, but instead offering your grace to all who will trust in your Son, Christ our Savior! Amen.

Go with God.