God made me do it! Peter defends himself in today’s first reading from Acts by claiming, “I didn’t want to do it, God made me do it!” What did Peter do? He went to non-Jews, Gentiles, and preached to them. Some of the Jewish Christians, the “circumcised believers” confronted him for associating with “unclean” Gentiles: “You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them.” Peter tells them that God gave him a vision and taught him that no one is unclean in his sight: “What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.” Peter relates that this vision happened three times and then people from the Gentile Cornelius arrived seeking him. As he was preaching to the house of Cornelius in Caesarea, the holy Spirit fell upon them. So even though Peter did not want to do it, God made him do it: “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?”
The Acts of the Apostles is the story of the holy Spirit leading and even pushing and prodding the apostles and the early church to move beyond their cultural and even spiritual blindness to see people as God sees them. Jesus’ message of forgiveness and salvation is meant for all people and all nations, no one is excluded.
The Spirit continues to guide us as a church today, sometimes pushing and prodding us to move beyond our cultural and spiritual blindness to see the world and ourselves as God sees us. God wants us to welcome all people and to show his love and compassion to all people. No one is excluded!
Image: “Fr Mont Sainte Odile chapel – Saint Peter painting – detail” by Pethrus is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.