Peter must have been pretty worried about having to give a report to the church in Jerusalem.
He had definitely overstepped the mark this time. He had baptised Gentiles. He must have known how people were going to react.
When he was up in front of the church, they asked him, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’ In other words, why have you broken the rules?
Peter’s answer was essentially that he had followed the directions of the Holy Spirit.
Firstly he had a dream in which he was urged to break the rules concerning food.
Secondly he was told to go with six men who came to fetch him.
Thirdly he met a man who said he had been told to send for him by an angel.
Fourthly the Holy Spirit had fallen upon these people just has it had fallen upon Peter and the apostles in Jerusalem.
And then Peter said this, ‘If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’
When the believers in Jerusalem heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’
There are a number of really important points to be made about this account.
First of all the people in the church in Jerusalem who listened to Peter, listened to him and then changed their minds about a foundational cultural narrative.
Following the food laws, being circumcised, not eating with uncircumcised people; these were all rules which they followed as part of their covenant with God. This was what they did to show God their commitment to him. Their devotion to Jesus came out of their same desire to commit to their relationship with God. This was no small thing they were changing their minds about. They were prepared to change a fundamental cultural narrative closely bound up with their own identity.
The second thing to point out is how open these people were to what God was doing in the world. They were a church prepared to be surprised by God. Notice how Peter tells how he was directed in this unexpected way by the Holy Spirit, by dreams and by an angel. How did the church understand what had happened; what had made them completely change their fundamental belief? ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’ God had done something new and this was why they felt compelled to shift their position.
The third thing to draw attention to is how Peter justified the actual baptism himself. Having been led by the Spirit to these people who were Gentiles ‘If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’
In these words we see again a preparedness to be led by the Holy Spirit, by the action of God in the world. But there is also an echo in what Peter says of the commandment Jesus gave to his followers ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ And also the commandment to love one another which we heard in this morning’s Gospel reading.
If we love one another, if we love our neighbour as ourselves, then how can we deny to others what God has given to us. This is essentially Peter’s defence for having broken the rules.
So we can see how the desire of Peter and the other Christians to follow the commandment that Jesus gave them to love one another, led them to unexpected places, led them to overturn foundational cultural narratives, led them to do things they never thought they would do.
Most of us, if not all of us here today are Gentiles. So, of course, we are beneficiaries of this willingness to be led by the Spirit; this willingness to love one another. If it were not for the early church following the direction of the Holy Spirit and baptising Gentiles, the church would never have grown beyond the confines of the Jewish nation – we would not be part of the worldwide church today.
Peter is therefore vindicated by history. We know he was right. And we are grateful to him and to others. This is because we have a stake in this story. We have skin in the game as they say. And, because of this, there is a danger that the message of the Holy Spirit in this account is obscured to us.
To make the commitment to follow the simple commandment ‘love one another’ is to be permanently marooned in a difficult and awkward place.
Those followers of Jesus in Jerusalem wanted to love one another and they also wanted to follow the rules of the old covenant which signalled their commitment to God. And after what Peter had done in Joppa, it was clearly not going to be possible for the church to be a community that did both.
This is what happens when we follow the commandment to love one another.
It is a very difficult rule to follow consistently. We all follow it inconsistently and we therefore become open to accusations of hypocrisy.
Here’s an easier commandment to follow: Love yourself and don’t care about other people. That can be followed consistently but once you commit to love others you are going to spend the rest of your life following the commandment sometimes and failing at other times. This is the challenge of being a follower of Jesus Christ. It is the challenge of being in a permanent state of tension.
How consistent are we in the way we love people who have poor mental health, whose behaviour is annoying, upsetting, draining or even dangerous?
How consistent are we in the way we love people from other countries who want to come and live with us in this country?
How consistent are we in the way we love people who don’t seem to be able to get a job and rely on the state for support and on the community for charity?
How consistent are we in our love for people who have committed crimes that are anti-social or have inflicted great hardship and despair on others?
How consistent are we in the way we love people who drive around in sports cars and go to Piccolinos?
However generous hearted we are or however generous hearted we want to be, when we are being honest with ourselves we have to admit that there are some people, among those whom we called to love, whom we would rather see locked away, kept out, cut off from the support they need. We have our own red lines even if we don’t care to define them; other rules we are following that are important to us; there is a point where our capacity to love is exhausted.
But God’s capacity to love is inexhaustible.
Jesus calls those who follow him to participate in this inexhaustible love. He calls on us to share it with each other.
Peter returned from Joppa, told the church in Jerusalem that he had followed the spirit in loving others outside the boundaries that had previously been set.
The church in Jerusalem was open to what God was doing in the world. They embraced and affirmed what Peter had done. They praised God for his inexhaustible and generous love and his call upon them to share this love more widely than they had expected to.
We are the heirs of this sharing. We are the beneficiaries of this love. The call made on the lives of our brothers and sisters in Jerusalem all those ago, is the same call that is made on our lives. It won’t always be easy, sometimes we will fall short, sometimes we will appear hypocritical, but as we affirm our faith today in the risen Lord, let us recommit to follow his commandment to love one another. Amen.