Wednesday, June 13, 2018

“Peter declared. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean. But the voice spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’” (Acts 10: 14 -15) 

                I am a sucker for lists -  the top ten sort of thing. So, this morning an article on the sixteen most dangerous foods caught my immediate attention. Oh my!  They were almost all of my favourite things – hot dogs, potato chips, soda pops, french fries, fried foods, fast foods, margarine, chocolate milk even, white bread, breakfast cereals, packaged cookies, red meat, etc. Probably no great surprise, although funnily enough the one food that I rarely eat on that list is fat-free products.

                Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!

                The argument is that these products contain too many empty calories or too much sugar or nasty additives and chemicals, or are not nutritious enough, or has too much salt, or are too heavy in trans fats or hold other sneaky and insidious things like taste and joy and pleasure. Eventually, if we insist eating these foods on a regular basis we are all going to die of cancer, diabetes, heart failure, digestive calumny or obesity. I was so upset that I had to eat a chocolate cookie right away.

                Taste and see that the Lord is good, indeed!

                Peter has a vision in which he is challenged to rethink his strict, religious, food diet. As you may know Jewish folk observe many restrictions in their diet, e.g. no pork. But in his vision God presents Peter with a cornucopia of a variety of foods, many of the animals forbidden.  He is troubled when God tells him it is OK to eat anything that he saw. But God insists. Peter remains puzzled by the vision and its interpretation. But it was important enough to have happened three times.

                I doubt that the vision had much to do with food as it was to teach Peter about the all-inclusive nature of God’s Kingdom Project. It was a mission to all persons: “In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.” (Colossians 3:11, NLT)

                Walter Brueggemann wrote regarding this text that Peter had to unlearn what he most trusts, well schooled in purity codes of his religious community. “He is summoned away from his legacy of purity and cleanness to a new world.” (Gift and Task, p.204).

The old, dogmatic rules don’t work in the light of God’s Love through Jesus Christ. They get in the way of true community and fellowship. These stringent dietary restrictions spawn disunity and disharmony within the family of believers. (As it did within the early Church between some Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians.)  We judge others and refuse Table fellowship – one of the most potent symbols of our togetherness in Christ –  to those we think don’t fit in or act differently or don’t obey our rules or maybe, occasionally make a mess at the table from time to time.

                “Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:5)

                I grant that the list of dangerous foods does remind me that I should be more conscious of my diet and what I eat. Peter’s vision is a reminder to us as Christians, at least, and thereby setting an example for others, that deciding who is unclean and unfit for our company is anathema to God’s Kingdom.  Too many Christians, especially, are overly concerned about who is or who is not welcome at the Table and want to keep the Great Feast all to themselves.

                “The unlearning must have been a shock and threat to Peter, but he does not resist for long. We face no lesser task.” (p.204)

Dale