I was the only white boy at the birthday party. I have no direct, clear memory of that fact, but my mother told me about it when I was older and I know it because of her memory. It was second or third grade and we accepted an invitation to celebrate a schoomate’s birthday. Evidently the birthday boy and all the other boys who came were African-American.
I would like to think that my heart is still that innocent second grader’s, oblivious to the race and color of those around me, simply accepting everyone as fellow human beings, as God’s children loved by Him. I’d like to think I don’t need 2×4 vision over the head like Peter’s in Acts 10, where he’s forced by God to confront his prejudices regarding Gentiles and bring them the Gospel. I’d like to think I’m much further along than Peter was.
The fact is that I can distinctly remember for myself losing that second grade innocence about race not more than a couple years later as I walked home from a school summer program with a craft I’d made. Another boy walked along with me, admired my handiwork, then grabbed it and ran off. And that time I did remember the color of his skin, which was different from mine.
Yes, I would like to consider myself innocent of racial feeling, but I know it’s not true. I still can find myself wary around people of other colors. Driving with my daughter a couple years ago through particular neighborhoods near her school in Chicago, I was uneasy for us to be the only white people around. And there are all sorts of other ways that kind of feeling arises in me.
Which is all to say that our text for this week, Acts 11:1-18, which retells for the church in Jerusalem Peter’s experience at the Gentile household of Cornelius, is not just ancient church history. It addresses what is still a challenge for most of us. The challenge is the same one the Holy Spirit gave Peter in verse 12, to be with those who are different from us and “not to make a distinction between them and us.”
The text for this Sunday more or less repeats the story of chapter 10, and more space is given to this incident than any other event in Acts, save Pentecost. That tells us how crucial this matter of overcoming racial distinction is to the Gospel we believe. In fact, the coming of the Holy Spirit to Cornelius’ house is sometimes called the “Gentile Pentecost.”
So my hope for our attention to this text is to honestly appraise how far we each still have to go in becoming the kind of people, the kind of community, God is creating in Christ. As Peter says of himself in verse 17, who are we, with our prejudices, to hinder God in bringing anyone to Himself?
This lesson in no distinctions is simply the outworking of Jesus’ own words found in our Gospel text for Sunday, John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”