Scripture: Acts 10:13-15
A voice told him, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!” Peter exclaimed, “Absolutely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice spoke a second time, “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”
Thought for the Day: Is the Bible a static statement on human existence or an invitation to participate in the evolutionary growth of what it means to be human? It is a tough question, yet just think about the ways Christianity has evolved since its conception. From slavery to women’s rights, from the placement of the earth in the universe and the planet’s actual shape, from our understanding of physical and mental health, from… and the list goes on and on. We are evolving and growing in our awareness (some might call it consciousness). In the above passage, Peter is a guy who was shaped by his faith community. He had been told and taught, and then reinforced with practice, that certain animals were off limits. Throughout his ministry, Jesus continued to shake-up these categories of holy and unholy, yet Peter still held tight to them. I find it interesting that Peter, in his dream-encounter with the divine, still pushed back. It’s as if he was saying to God, “I’m sorry, God, I can’t do what you are telling me to do because my people have told me that you had told us that we should not do what you are now telling me to do.” It is a convoluted argument that is rather funny when you think about it…except that it has been used to defend all kinds of hateful, destructive and ugly ways of thinking and acting. In the Prophet Isaiah, we hear the voice of God declaring, “See, I am doing a new thing. It is happening right now.” That was stated 400 or 500 years before Jesus, and then Jesus comes on the scene and does a new thing. Actually, I don’t know if it is so much a new thing but an invitation to expand our awareness, and see the new implications of what God has always been doing. Love, if we allow it, will always challenge us and change us.
Prayer: As I am a work in progress, I pray that my growth will continue to expand in ways that honor you, O Voice of Heaven. May an ever growing awareness within me be an awareness of your eternal calling on my life to follow you and your gift, Jesus Christ. Amen.
THIS COMING SUNDAY
Still Talking About Passages
We’d Like To Bury
