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Introduction:
The Bible and Contemporary Society
Derek Poole
A
Moving Experience
Ruth Hutchinson
From
the Director
David Porter
Letting
the Bible Speak
Graham Redding
Hagar
and the God Who Sees
Fran Porter
Faith
and Practice...David McClurg
Ruth Hutchinson
Wilson
on Suffering
Alan Wilson
God's
Prejudice Reduction Training
David Porter
How
Will We Vote?
Stephen Cave
Book
Reviews
Alwyn Thomson
GOD’S
PREJUDICE REDUCTION TRAINING
In 1993 I began working with Belfast YMCA on their cross community programme.
As part of my induction I took part in prejudice reduction training workshops
with both the National YMCA and Community Relations Council. These workshops
were integral to a series of community relations training courses and
confronted me with hard questions and real issues rarely explored or matched
in years of involvement in the small group in the context of a local church.
Who was this man, this Peter the missionary? He preached at Pentecost and 3000 believed (Acts 2.1-41); he healed the sick (Acts 3:1-10; 8:32-43); he was imprisoned and flogged but stood before the authorities and refused to compromise his message (Acts 5:17-42). Peter, as John Stott highlights, was following the example of Jesus, working in the power of Jesus, bringing the salvation of Jesus to the glory of Jesus. And, in the same way, his ministry brought him opposition and persecution. Peter was the successful servant of God, a leading apostle, a spirit filled, miracle working preacher. It should come as no surprise that such a character played a vital role in the early church. He was a forceful and dominant figure among the twelve. Together with John and James he was particularly close to Jesus. Peter dominates the early chapters of Acts (1:15; 2:14; 5:3,29). Sometimes on his own, sometimes with John, he proclaims the good news about Jesus. Yet for all this there was something wrong in Peter’s life. Not just something minor, insignificant, but something that stood in the way of God’s purpose for Peter and for his church, something that stood in the way of the salvation of men and women. It was this flaw that God was going to deal with through the encounter with Cornelius. Not only would salvation come to Cornelius but renewal and transformation would come to Peter. God had dealt with Peter once before. One of the most touching passages in the whole of the Bible is John 21:15-19, which tells of Peter’s restoration by Jesus. At the heart of Peter’s christian experience was the tragedy of betrayal, of his denial of Jesus. John 21 tells us how the risen Jesus dealt with the aftermath of that betrayal by asking the question, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” On that occasion Jesus restored Peter and brought him back into fellowship. In the encounter recorded in Acts 10 God was once more going to deal with Peter. At issue was not so much the question of Peter’s relationship with Jesus but Peter’s attitude as he carried out Jesus’ commission in his ministry. Here God was dealing with the very basic question of what kind of person Peter was. God had once restored Peter, now he was going to transform him. His ministry brings him to the port of Joppa (9:43). It was from here that the reluctant missionary of the Old Testament, Jonah, fled from his call to the Ninevites. God brings Peter to the same place in order to present him with the challenge of his call to the Gentiles. Cornelius – Open to God (Acts 10:1-8)
The first eight verses of chapter 10 introduce Cornelius. He is a centurion, a Roman soldier, living in Caesarea. He is a Gentile serving in a garrison city, part of the Roman force that occupied Judea (10:1). We are also told that Cornelius was a man who was open to God, devout and God-fearing. His devout nature showed itself in regular prayer and in practical assistance, through almsgiving, to those in need (10:2). This Gentile, this centurion, this Roman occupier of Judea was open to God. And God was not indifferent to Cornelius. To this open and devout man God spoke in a vision (10:3). It was a frightening and disturbing thing for Cornelius (10:4) but Cornelius obeyed God (10:7-8). In the vision Cornelius was told to fetch Peter (10.5). For Cornelius this was a great risk. The gulf between Jew and Gentile in the world of the early church was vast. While Cornelius may have been respected in the local Jewish community for his alms giving and his piety, the fact that he was a Gentile was never forgotten. Religious Jews did not mix with Gentiles, even God-fearing Gentiles. Even if Cornelius did not know who Peter was, even if he did not know of the movement Peter represented, he would have known that he was a Jew. And, as a God-fearer, he would have known better than most the limits of Gentile - Jewish relationships. Cornelius was surely not unaware that he was taking a risk in obeying this vision. Nevertheless, he was willing to do so because he was open to God. Peter – Closed To God (Acts 10:.9-16)
As Cornelius’ servants set out on their journey the spotlight turns to Peter. He is resting in Joppa after an intensive time of ministry (Acts 9:32-43). He is renewing his physical and spiritual energy (10.9-10). But God is about to renew him spiritually in a way he is not expecting. Peter, like Cornelius, receives a vision from God (10:10-13). But unlike Cornelius, Peter is closed to God. Cornelius obeyed the message from God; Peter said “Surely not, Lord!” (10.14). This spirit filled miracle worker may have been used greatly by God but in his heart he was still burdened down by the prejudices of his past. The thought of breaking the cords that tied him to the Jewish people, to his Jewish heritage, to his Jewish religious identity was too much. And if Peter was not able to break through the barrier of dietary regulations, what hope was there of him breaking through the barrier of Jew and Gentile? How could God use him to proclaim the truth to Cornelius, the Gentile, if he remained closed to the message in this vision? Yet, while Peter still had his blind spots, we should remember just how far he had already come. Acts 9:43 tells us that Peter was staying in the house of Simon the Tanner. Religious Jews would not have done such a thing. A tanner dealt with the corpses of dead animals. Contact with them would have resulted in a state of ritual uncleanness. Acts 8:14-17, 25 tells us that Peter had already broken through the barrier separating Jews and Samaritans. He had laid hands on them, seen the Spirit come on them and preached the Christian message in their villages. Peter had also broken through the barrier of attitudes of superiority towards women. The role of women in Palestinian Judaism was usually a marginal one. Yet Peter had seen Jesus accept and welcome women as his followers. When Jesus was raised it was women who found the empty tomb and women to whom Jesus appeared, sending them to the disciples to be witnesses to his resurrection. Though Peter seems to have had his doubts about their testimony (Luke 24:11-12), ultimately he had to accept the truth of what they said (John 20:1-18). After the resurrection women were an integral part of the new Christian community the Spirit had created (Acts 1:12-14) and clearly accepted as such by Peter. Peter had also learned to accept the importance and value of children, a group often excluded in ancient societies. In these societies children were often at best ignored, at worst abused. Jesus, over the protestations of Peter and the other disciples, had welcomed a child and used that child to teach spiritual lessons to the adults (Mark 10:13-16). So in many areas Peter had made a great deal of progress. His attitudes in a wide range of areas had been transformed by the teaching and example of Jesus and by the work of the Spirit in the early church. Yet Peter still had one major blind spot. When it came to crossing the barrier separating Jews and Gentiles, for Peter this was a bridge too far. He had crossed many cultural barriers but this one was too much for him. “Surely not, Lord!” summed up his progress on this question. In fact Peter’s resistance to the vision was so great that even after the message had been given three times he was still ‘wondering about the meaning of the vision’ (10:17). Peter still had not understood. It seems his prejudice was so deeply ingrained that even a heavenly vision could not overcome it. However, before Peter had time to reflect on the vision, before he had time to accommodate it to his existing beliefs, he received God’s summons to action. If the challenge of the vision was the first part of God’s prejudice reduction training, the challenge of the summons to action was the second. Journey To The Other Side (Acts 10:17-29)
Three Gentile servants arrive at the house. They stop by the gate, keeping their distance, perhaps fearing they would not be welcome in a Jewish household. Perhaps Peter could have ignored the voice of the Gentiles but at the same time he heard the voice of the Spirit: ‘While Peter was still thinking about the vision the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”’ (10:19-20). While Peter was still thinking God was acting. No hesitation was permitted - there is no time for theological reflection, no time to worry what others will think, no time to ponder the implications. Is there a sense of exasperation in the Spirit’s voice? “Look Peter they are here, stop prevaricating, get on with it. Come on, Peter.” Peter responds. He makes contact, invites them in, hears their story and obeys. The next morning he accompanies them to Caesarea - he enters their territory. There he meets Cornelius and establishes a relationship. He discovers, not a Gentile, but a fellow human being. These are the three steps of God’s practical prejudice reduction training for Peter: Invites them in – contacts the Gentiles on his own territory;
Goes with them – enters their territory;
Meets Cornelius - establishes a relationship. At the point of encounter the vision that had previously bemused him now made sense. God’s message became real and potent in the challenge of his meeting with Cornelius the Gentile, the occupier: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. So when I was sent for I came without raising any objection.” (10:28-29). Peter has got the message. Peter has worked it out. God At Work (Acts 10:30-48)
Both Cornelius and Peter had responded to God. Neither fully understood what God was doing, but as each related his story they realised that God has been at work behind the scenes (10:30-35). Clearly, God had prepared both of them for this encounter. Cornelius had been open to God and had been willing to obey the vision. Peter had been closed to God but had been transformed by this new experience. At one time Peter would have dismissed Cornelius as unclean, now he saw in Cornelius a man who feared God and did what was right, a man whom God had accepted. Even though Cornelius did not yet know Christ, God was already at work in his life. Peter’s responsibility was to complete that work by bringing him the message of Jesus. The opportunity for the good news was unseen to Peter blinded by prejudice. As the good news is proclaimed Cornelius is given his opportunity to respond. The result is seen in 10:44. The Spirit came upon those who heard the message. Peter had responded to the voice of the Spirit. He had gone to the Gentiles and proclaimed the gospel to them. Now God had vindicated his message and his messenger by sending the Spirit on Cornelius. And not only Cornelius, but also his relatives and close friends - a large gathering - heard the message and experienced the coming of the Spirit (10:24, 27). There were no decision cards; there was no chance to make sure they were the right sort of people. The Spirit came - God had made his decision. Cornelius was not alone but neither was Peter (10:45). Other Jewish believers had accompanied him to Cornelius’ house. What had happened had stunned them. They were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. God was the God of Israel, the God of the Jews. God was their God. Jesus was their Messiah. Yet here was God clearly reaching out beyond the boundaries they had set and saving others - those they perhaps still considered unclean, beyond God’s interest. Yet there was nothing they could do about it. There was no way out, there was no way back, there was no time to organise a theological conference or consultation. God had acted and the barriers had been broken down. Peter - A Man Transformed
Once again God had dealt with Peter. Yes, his was a great and effective ministry but there was also a great barrier to that ministry, a barrier that held back the Jews who had received the good news from reaching out with the same news to the Gentiles. To break this barrier down God had to revisit Peter. Peter had once been restored (John 21), now he had to be renewed. This renewal touched the deepest recesses of his heart, touched the very core of Peter’s being. He had to be renewed in a way that shattered the prejudices of his upbringing, his culture and his religious values - prejudices that ultimately were rooted in the values of the world, not those of the Kingdom of God. It is all too easy for us to focus on Peter’s mistakes and failures. But we need to recognise that Peter was willing to be taught, willing to confess his failures, willing to be transformed by God. In this respect Peter, far from being weak, was a strong character. Far from being a warning, his life is an example. In this respect Peter is the great example of what a disciple should be - a follower who is also a learner. Peter may have been closed to the message God gave him at first, but he was also the first to insist that the Gentiles should be baptised. He also faced his critics in Jerusalem who still held the prejudices that Peter had cast off, and honestly but forcefully told of his own experience and of the work of God in bringing salvation to the Gentiles (11:1-18). Peter himself became the bridge. Peter’s Big God
What can we learn from the story of Peter? How does Peter’s experience help us to understand our own situation in a society riven with prejudice? What can we learn as God’s people ministering in such a society? Essentially this is a story about God – it is God who embarks on the work of prejudice reduction in Peter. It is Peter who acknowledges this work of God in his life: ‘I truly understand that GOD…’ (10:34). Peter is now able to say God is the God of all the world and all the people of the world. We forget that at our peril. Unfortunately, like the people of Israel, we do forget that. We speak and act as though God were our God only. In effect we try to put God in a box, we try to put him under house arrest. Have evangelicals in Northern Ireland made God into a tribal God? Have we made him into an idol created in our own image - a God who validates our beliefs, our convictions, our identity, our status? But God does not belong to any one ethnic or cultural group. God is not our God alone. He is the God of all the world - the God of the ‘other’ we reject. He is the Lord God. Since God is the God of the whole world it follows that he is at work in the whole world - even in those places where we least expect it. God is also at work in the lives of his people - in the deepest recesses of our hearts. God is often working in areas of our lives where we least expect it or feel we have little need of it. He deals with the vital matters, those things that make us the people we are: our values, our convictions, our fears, our prejudices. And in this he ‘does not show favouritism’, as Peter was forced to acknowledge (10:34). God deals with us all the same way. Through this whole encounter Peter learned something about God. He came to a deeper understanding of who God was. He came to a fuller understanding of God’s purposes. When we are tempted to limit or ‘tame’ God, when we inherit a tradition which assumes that God is on ‘our’ side, we too need to remind ourselves, or to be reminded, who our God is … ‘God has shown me…’ (10:28) Not only did Peter learn something about God, he also learned a great deal about himself, about his attitudes. “God has shown me,” said Peter, recognising his previous blindness (10:28). What had Peter learned? He had learned that his prejudice was deep-seated. He had learned that something good - the sense of communal identity and a shared culture and heritage - had been twisted and distorted by the sinful attitudes and false values of the world into the evils of ethnic nationalism, bigotry and sectarianism. This is what sin has done in our world. Such problems do not afflict only Northern Ireland, for they are the common lot of humanity. Wherever we look in this world we see the manifestation of xenophobia, prejudice, bigotry, sectarianism, racism. Human beings are constantly defining themselves in ways that exclude others. Often, the ‘others’ are defined in very negative ways. Nor do these attitudes only affect the rabid minority, the fanatics. None of us is immune. The roots of prejudice go deep into all of us. No matter how open we are, no matter how great our desire to overcome prejudice, sin still shapes both us as individuals and the world in which we live. Divisiveness and prejudice are rampant. Christians are under pressure to conform to these values. Christians should resist these pressures and instead aspire to be “transformed by the renewing of [their] minds” (Romans 12:1). If we are to be true to the God’s command we dare not allow prejudice to become a barrier between God and us. Our deep-seated prejudices can blind us to what God is doing in the world. God was at work where Peter thought he was not working. More than that, God was working where Peter thought he could not be working. It went against all of his most deeply held beliefs. God couldn’t be working among the Gentiles. But he was wrong. God was at work in ways that left Peter shocked and surprised. God actions were not constrained by Peter’s expectations - nor by ours. God says to his people: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55.8-9) While we acknowledge this in our sermons and our prayers, we are still shocked when God does not act in accordance with our expectations. We may be prisoners of our own culture and our own tradition and heritage but God is not. God is truly multi-cultural. His love and saving power reach out to all people everywhere. Men and women from every tribe and nation bring him praise and glory (Revelation 7:9-12). Our attitudes can be barriers to what God is doing. God’s desire may be to transform our attitudes and to break down the barriers: ‘…I should not call any man impure or unclean ’ (10.28). In our society Christians too easily dismiss other Christians of different traditions. They are also quick to dismiss those who are ‘out there’. They judge them to be profane and unclean. Yet these are people, the Bible tells us, made in the image of God. How often do we speak of those who have done appalling acts, whether terrorists or violent criminals, as ‘animals’, ‘savages’ and so on? Terrorists and others, no matter how detestable their crimes, are not animals, but human beings made in the image of God. Only human beings can be called to account; only human beings can be made answerable to the demands of justice – only human beings are amenable to God’s grace. In dismissing others we attempt to distance ourselves from them. Peter’s whole life had been lived with as little contact as possible with the other community - the Gentiles. He stayed with his own sort and that reinforced his stereotypes and his prejudices. Yet while Peter distanced himself and remained closed to God, God himself was acting in grace. God himself took Peter to Cornelius to teach him that the grace of God was not Peter’s to dispense and withhold. Cornelius and his friends were not to be denied fellowship because of Peter’s prejudices. No more should our prejudices set the boundaries for fellowship where God has been at work by his grace. In Christ we have an obligation towards others - those who are believers and those who are not. If they are in Christ we have an obligation to accept them. If they are not believers we have an obligation to share the grace of God in Jesus - no matter how different they are to us, no matter how obnoxious we may find them. Crossing The Gap
Peter learned three lessons, about God, about attitudes and about people - GAP. There is a gap in our Christianity. As Christians we disengage with the world and often each other. Sometimes this gap is justified as a necessary separation to preserve the holiness of the people of God. However, in truth the gap more often arises from a distorted fear of God, from twisted attitudes within ourselves, from our dismissive attitudes towards people made in the image of God. If we are to heal this land’s hurts we need to bridge that gap. It is not a bridge too far. It is a bridge that God himself has crossed. And if we are to cross it we need to meet our Cornelius, whomever that may be, wherever that may be. Such an encounter may not result in anyone coming to faith but it will result in God doing a renewing work in us, a work that that will better equip us to help heal the wounds of our community. It was no easy task for Peter to live out the implications of this new experience in his own life and ministry. He faced pressure from the world and sometimes from other christians. Sometimes he stood firm (Acts 11: 1-18; 15:1-21). Other times he gave in to the pressure (Galatians 2:11-14). Clearly Peter’s experience was not once for all and irreversible. These were lessons he had to learn many times. However, throughout the New Testament Peter comes across as a true learner. It was his willingness to learn - even if reluctantly at times - that made him the man he was: a true disciple and a true minister. Is there any hope for the healing of this land’s hurts? In the words of Peter himself: “Let us continue to praise and serve God who gives the repentance that leads to life to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 11:18).
David Porter is Director of ECONI.
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