In today’s first reading, Acts 11:1-8, Peter is given a
vision of all kinds of creatures, ”four-legged animals of the earth, the wild
beasts, the reptiles, and the birds of the sky,” and hears a voice saying to
him: “Get up, Peter. Slaughter and eat.” Peters immediately objects: “No way.”
He insists on remaining true to the Jewish dietary laws. God retorts him: “What God has made clean, you
are not to call profane.” The Spirit
then instructs him to accompany three men to the home of uncircumcised men: “Accompany
them without discriminating.” I wonder, what instructions the Lord would give
the Church and us, as we continue to
discriminate against one another, men against women, women against men,
Christians against those of the Jewish, Islamic, Muslim, Hindu, Methodist,
Baptist, Protestant, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and other religions and them
against us; Whites against Blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, Mexican, Indian, Native American and other races and
them against us. “Accompany them,
include them, speak to and about them ‘without discriminating’; stop your
prejudice,” I think the Lord would say to us, challenging us, and the Church, for the ways in which we
discriminate against anyone in our everyday practices.
As Peter insisted upon the Jewish dietary laws, upon what
man-made laws do we continue to insist?
Where do we need the Lord to say to us, as He said to Peter: “What God
has made clean, you are not to call profane”?
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