Sunset Over Simon the Tanner's Horizon
The Divine Approach to Complexity is Simplicity
Dear Friends, the news this week was very challenging--deeply saddening and perplexing. The stories that surfaced were not caused by the COVID pandemic, but I believe the pressure caused by COVID’s impact certainly brought them to the surface.
Consider the story questioning the imprecise scientific modeling. And of course, the horrific video of George Floyd. And even the heartbreaking report of Iyad Halak, an autistic man from East Jerusalem killed by guards near the Western Wall. The sadness of these stories simply speaks for itself. The perplexity of the stories comes from their complex larger context--and begs the question, how should we respond?
I did find encouragement and guidance when reading about Peter receiving a vision while in Jaffa. Here are some of my thoughts this week.
Peter’s Dream
In Acts 10, we read that Peter was staying at the house of Simon the Tanner in Jaffa. One afternoon while sleeping on the roof he had a vision. The sky opened up and a great sheet was lowered before him full of animals that were unclean and impure by religious law. Nevertheless, God told Peter to kill and eat the animals. Peter refused, three times in fact. He said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.”
The story continues. At the same time that Peter had his vision, a Roman Centurion named Cornelius also had a vision. In his dream, a man dressed in white told him to seek out a man named Simon, called Peter, who was staying in Jaffa--and invite him to his house.
The result was an encounter between Cornelius and Peter that changed history. For the first time, the doors to the gospel were opened to gentiles and the Holy Spirit came down and filled their hearts in the same way the Spirit had done with Jews only a few months earlier.
Peter was Perplexed
As Peter first considered his vision, the author of Acts tells us that he was greatly perplexed. The instruction to eat certain meat may sound like no big deal to us. However, in Peter’s time he would have faced immense pressure, both internal and external.
Internal:
The instruction to eat this meat went against every authoritative voice Peter had ever heard. The Mosaic Law that prescribes what to eat was the sacrosanct divine imperative for centuries. This law would have been reinforced by religious leaders, social traditions and Peter’s very way of daily life.
More so, in all of his time with Jesus, Peter did not receive any instruction to the contrary.
Now, Peter had to determine if in fact, God was asking him to do something that violated his deepest core values which caused immense internal pressure.
External:
There would have been external pressure upon Peter as well. Just weeks before, Peter’s friend and brother in Christ, Stephen was martyred by a mob on the streets of Jerusalem. Stephen's death was one of the reasons Peter had fled Jerusalem and come to Jaffa in the first place.
Stephen was a special man. Peter had personally chosen Stephen to oversee the distribution of resources among believers, resolve disputes between Jewish believers from Jerusalem and Hellenistic Jewish believers from outside. In short, Stephen was a man of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom chosen to help shepherd the flock. Now Stephen was dead.
Stephen was stoned to death because Jewish leaders of the Synagogue of the Freedmen, which included leaders from Jerusalem as well as throughout the Empire, had incited the people against him. The accusation against Stephen was that he taught against the Mosaic Law. Which food was clean to eat and which was not would have been one of the issues high on the list of accusations.
As the leader of this emerging Jesus movement of a few thousand Jewish believers, Peter would have been concerned for his own safety if he had taken a stand that all meat was deemed cleaned. More importantly, he would have felt the burden of placing individual Jesus-followers, as well as the movement itself, in danger.
In the context of this perplexity, this complexity, Peter received a divine instruction and acted upon it. I think this approach provides guidance for us today.
Peter’s Response, and Ours
God did not ask Peter to try to understand and figure out the complexity of this issue. He did not ask Peter to simply take a stand on one side or the other. God asked Peter to do one simple thing: Get up and go visit Cornelius, a Roman Centurion. Peter knew what to do because he had spent time with God and reflected upon His voice.
These simple two steps, spending time with God to hear His voice, and taking one simple action based upon what we hear, provide a helpful formula when facing complex situations. It may sound overly simplistic. But consider, Peter’s act changed the course of all gentiles who believe Jesus is the Messiah. I bet Peter never would have guessed how this simple act impacted such a complex situation.
What can we do today?