Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Peter has seen a vision, of a large sheet-like thing floating down by its four corners, accompanied by all sorts of beasts of prey, reptiles and birds. Peter is commanded to eat, and responds that he will not eat the profane. The response is that what God has made clean, he must not call unclean. This happens three times, perhaps to assure sure Peter gets the point. He’s then summoned by a centurion named Cornelius. While a gentile, Cornelius and his family are firm believers. Where formerly their gentile status might deem them unclean, Peter’s vision tells him otherwise. Peter talks to the gathered people about Christ, and the Holy Spirit lights upon them and they’re all baptized.
This is a key pivot in the world of Christianity. Where before it had been seen and practiced as a religion for the chosen, Peter’s vision and Cornelius’ action, both inspired by God, break open that Good News to every nation.
I live in a small community outside Pittsburgh that, at its height, was the home to tens of thousands of people supported by the steel mill, 6 blocks from my home. Originally, most of those people were Eastern European immigrants. Between their perceived profane status, and the grime thrown up by the steel mill, the mill owners created a town up the hill. It was created to provide distance and distinction between the supervisors and managers, and the grimy foreigners who lived down the hill.
Somewhere along the way, African Americans moved into the former immigrant grimy town. In 2019, Homestead was 60% African American, with a median household income of $28,000. Up the hill, Munhall is 81% Caucasian with a median household income of $51,000. The divisions continue.
Just today, I read on social media someone from Munhall complaining about crime coming “up the hill”. That the crime and kids running around unsupervised in Homestead was creeping up. In less than 24 hours, nearly 100 people chimed in, supporting the classist and racist comments. True, the uphill community was built by the mill to provide separation from the ugliness of the poverty created by the mill. And it is true that I knew the wildly different racial and economic composition of the two communities, within walking distance of my home. But I guess I was unprepared for the lingering division perceived – the clean and the profane.
What God has made cannot be called unclean.
As someone who lives down the hill, surrounded by the poverty and grime, I’m wondering what I can do to inch towards that pivot that Peter made, where God’s reign and love and mercy are not reserved for the select.
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