In today’s first reading we continue to hear the story of the conversion of a Gentile, named Cornelius. Peter’s outreach to non-Jews causes some controversy for the early church who saw themselves as a Jewish sect, that is, Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. So, when Peter returned to Jerusalem some Jewish-Christians, the “circumcised believers confronted him.” They criticized him for associating with a Gentile: “You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them.” Peter replied that “God made me do it!” He describes his God given vision in which God declared: “What God has made clean; you are not to call profane.” Since God created all people in his image and his likeness, all people are clean in God’s eyes, no one is excluded.
Peter describes what happened when he arrived at the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them.” Peter concludes: “If then God gave them the same gift, he gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?” God forced Peter to break out of his closeminded or parochial view and to realize that Jesus came for all people both Jews and Gentiles. This is the conclusion of the early church as we hear at the end of today’s first reading: “God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too.”
The early church was faithful to Jesus’ mission. As we hear in the Gospels Jesus went out to all people. He welcomed the “unclean,” lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. It took the early church a while to realize the universality of Jesus’ message. As Luke relates in the Acts of the Apostles, they were guided, directed, pushed, and prodded by the holy Spirit. The holy Spirit has continued down through the ages into our own day to push and prod us as a church to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching and mission and to go out to all people and nations and preach the Gospel. We are called to answer like Peter: “God made me do it!”
Image: “IMG_8684 Domínikos Theotokópoulos, dit Le Greco 1541-1614 Tolède. Larmes de saint Pierre Tears of St Peter ca 1590 Toledo Museo del Greco.” by jean louis mazieres is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.