May 15, 2022 |
Find Blessing Today
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Find Blessing Today
This sheet comes down. Peter sees all these animals that he's supposed to stay away from. And the voice from above from God says, Peter kill and eat. And Peter says, no, absolutely not. He thinks, you're testing me. I know this one. I don't get to eat those things.
Three times this happened. And three times Peter says, no, I know the rules. And God speaks from above and says ‘nothing that God has made clean is unclean.’ And again, we're not talking about God's scrubbing.
You have said, these things are not worthy of nourishment. They are not worthy of being presented as a sacrifice. Blessing is not in them, but I am telling you, there is blessing and nourishment and power here too. Don't lose sight of that. Don't miss what's right in front of you. That's easy enough for us.
As Christians and as Gentiles, we often take this reading simply to mean one or two things, perhaps. Now we get to eat bacon, cool, thanks God. But we have this issue as Christians, where we treat the dietary restrictions that are presented before us of God's people, we treat them as true as unthinkable.
We diminish the faithfulness of our Israelite ancestors and of people of contemporary society in our faith, in our lives. Now, many of our Jewish siblings and many siblings from other faiths across the world have very specific dietary restrictions...
Three times this happened. And three times Peter says, no, I know the rules. And God speaks from above and says ‘nothing that God has made clean is unclean.’ And again, we're not talking about God's scrubbing.
You have said, these things are not worthy of nourishment. They are not worthy of being presented as a sacrifice. Blessing is not in them, but I am telling you, there is blessing and nourishment and power here too. Don't lose sight of that. Don't miss what's right in front of you. That's easy enough for us.
As Christians and as Gentiles, we often take this reading simply to mean one or two things, perhaps. Now we get to eat bacon, cool, thanks God. But we have this issue as Christians, where we treat the dietary restrictions that are presented before us of God's people, we treat them as true as unthinkable.
We diminish the faithfulness of our Israelite ancestors and of people of contemporary society in our faith, in our lives. Now, many of our Jewish siblings and many siblings from other faiths across the world have very specific dietary restrictions...