Daily Devotion for Lent 2020 - Day 16

Scripture Reading: Acts 10:24-48 (NRSV)

Peter meets up with Cornelius in today's reading and I find it interesting that he begins to worship Peter.  If he really thought he was divine, it seems a bit presumptuous to have those under you to fetch him to you rather than go to him.  This makes me re-evaluate how I treat God on a daily basis.

It may be surprising to see how Jews really thought of Gentiles.  The sense of separation that they were supposed to have was from one school of thought within Judaism.  That was the sense that they were set aside as a holy people.  To interact with Gentiles would profane them and thus their ability to be God's covenant people.

Deuteronomy 7:1-6 lines this out quite clearly with lines that stand out when interacting with outside tribes like, "you must utterly destroy them", "show them no mercy", and "do not intermarry with them".  Of course, this reads differently if you are a minority, persecuted people.

Another school of thought was the idea that God's people were to be a light to the nations.  This occurs within the Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah that many Christians reinterpret to represent Jesus.  So it is no surprise that Christianity tends to fall more along the lines of this philosophy.  We see it as we are to witness to the ends of the earth.

Isaiah 42:6-7 reads:

I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
    I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
    a light to the nations,
       to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
    from the prison those who sit in darkness.

Of course, this sounds like the ministry of Jesus.  Would it be that much of a stretch to see the Gentiles as a people imprisoned "who sit in darkness"?

So when you have two schools of thought that sometimes clash, something has to give.  For Peter, it is their separation from Gentiles.  When he states that "God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" in verses 34-35 of chapter 10 of Acts, we see him putting the controversy over God-fearers to bed.  There must have been some who would have questioned whether God would even hear the prayers of a Gentile in that day.  There always seems to be this limiting of God as we have had prominent Christian pastors question whether God receives the prayers of Jews today.

This understanding that God is universal is a part of the theology of prevenient or preceding grace.  It is a generosity of spirit and allows for God to be present in places that may be foreign to you. 

Jesus reminds us, "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold."

So when Peter asks the question, "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" it reminds us of the similarly loaded question that the Ethiopian eunuch asked of Philip.  Luke includes these questions in Acts because they are still being worked out practically in the churches of that day.  Some people would say "No, of course not" but others would undoubtedly say, "Yes, they are heathens and undeserving of baptism."

This would have us ponder the entire idea of grace.  Who does deserve baptism?

I do like the wonderful reminder as a United Methodist within our doctrinal document, By Water and the Spirit, which states, "There are no conditions of human life that exclude persons from the sacrament of baptism." 

While this may be aspirational for us today, I do think it is good to lift up what we're striving for and see that it comes from our very beginnings as a church.

Prayer for the day:

Gracious God, 
it is through the Sacrament of Baptism
that you initiate us into Christ's holy Church.
We are incorporated into your mighty acts of salvation
and given new birth through water and the Spirit.
All this is your gift, offered to us without price.
May we reaffirm our faith and renew the covenant declared at our baptism,
acknowledging what you are doing for us,
and affirming our commitment to Christ's holy Church.
Amen.

Prayer adapted from The United Methodist Church's Introduction to the Baptismal Service.

Photo by Jeff Ashton via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.

All scripture quoted is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.