An Insight into Impartiality

ONLINE REFLECTION, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

AUGUST 26, 2020

TEXT:               Acts 10:1-16

The Caesarea referred to in today’s lesson from Acts is different from the Caesarea-Philippi that was so prominent in the gospel lesson this past Sunday.  The city mentioned today is actually Caesarea-Marittima on the Mediterranean Coast of Israel.  It is a picturesque place, and would later become the place where Paul made his appeal to Rome, and where the Jewish Revolt would begin in AD 68.

But in today’s lesson it serves a different purpose.  It is a place where God’s revealed will takes an entirely unanticipated direction.  The passage starts the chapter, all of which is dedicated to God doing something newthrough Peter and Cornelius’ household.

The basic points are these:

·      Cornelius is a Roman Centurion – a Gentile soldier overseeing 100 men.  He is respected by the local Jews because he is compassionate, a God-fearer, who gives alms.  But he is still a pagan.

·      Peter, in nearby Joppa, receives a vision – quite graphic – that “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

·      Cornelius sends for Peter – because he, too, has had a vision.  Peter goes, even though his understanding before the vision was that the Law prohibited any contact with a Gentile.

·      Peter is welcomed into Cornelius’ house and into his household.  It is then that Peter speaks the words which echo through the millennia: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality… anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

·      Peter, touched by Cornelius’ earnestness, baptizes the entire household – and Cornelius becomes one of the first non-Jewish Christians.

Peter’s point about God showing no partiality is a foundation for Paul’s theological statement in Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

All of us.  Rich and poor.  Educated or uneducated.  Republican or Democrat. Northerner or southerner. Black or white. Conservative or liberal.

All of us are one in Christ Jesus.  May we learn to see with God’s eyes.