One of the hardest things for us to accept as human beings is the concept of equality—the idea that, as Peter says, “I’m just a human being like yourself.” I’m not better; you’re not worse. I’m not lower; you’re not higher. We are both ‘chosen’ to be exactly who we are, and neither of us is favored over the other by God. I can think of nothing in our culture that supports this idea, but I can think of countless forces, from advertising through the justice system, that undermine it on a daily basis.
In his encounter with Cornelius Peter learns that God doesn’t show favoritism. He learns a lesson about equality that is revolutionary in the 1st century of the Christian era—that God doesn’t favor Jews over gentiles. As the Holy Spirit descends on Cornelius’ entire household—his family, servants and slaves—BEFORE Peter decides to baptize them, Peter can’t help but recognize that God ALEADY dwells in every one of them. In fact, it is this movement of the Holy Spirit that leads Peter to see them as sisters and brothers, as part of God’s family. Spirit takes the lead; Peter follows.
As a member of God’s ‘chosen people,’ Peter has been enthusiastically spreading the news of Jesus to other Jews. Suddenly he is forced to recognize that God has equally chosen Cornelius and Cornelius’ entire household, all of whom are pagans! Cornelius is a Roman authority, a Roman soldier. He is not a Jew, not a member of the ‘chosen people,’ and yet God has clearly ‘chosen’ him AND his family to receive a magnificent outpouring of Spirit no different than the outpouring Peter and the disciples experienced at Pentecost. It is a second Pentecost—an unlikely bestowal of Spirit on a group that, until now, has been viewed as completely outside the realm of God. The ancient barrier between gentiles and Jews dissolves before Peter’s eyes and what’s left is a radical equality that will revolutionize the culture of those first Christians.
If only it were possible to revolutionize the culture of today’s Christians by applying the lesson of Peter and Cornelius to the prejudicial issues of our day. We continue to be challenged by those words—“God shows no partiality.” We are all just human beings, all equal, all making mistakes and trying to avoid humiliation, all flawed yet beloved and chosen for exactly who we are. What if there were enough Christians with that attitude that in any given conflict all parties were treated with respect, even persons who are deranged by virtue of mental illness, rage, or extreme sorrow? Isn’t this the road Jesus walked? Isn’t that what he did as he stumbled through crowds of fear and fear’s cruelty on the way to the cross?
John’s first letter expresses the profound truth for which Jesus lived and died. It is THE truth that grounds and sustains all life on earth: God is love. God is love. God is not judgment and condemnation. God is not punishment and eternal damnation. God is not watching and waiting for us to mess up and planning some horrible outcome to teach us a lesson. God loves us no matter what. Like a loving mother, God understands how difficult it is sometimes to be our real self, our best self, and just keeps loving us in those dark and desperate corners of life.
And God loves everyone else the same way.
It’s hard to accept this. It’s hard not to judge and condemn when things go wrong. It’s even hard not to judge and condemn ourselves when we make mistakes. It is all-too human to seek revenge rather than show mercy. But that isn’t God’s way. God is love. God is forgiving and merciful.
In a recent interview, James Finley, author, psychologist and former monk, said: “under stress, we regress. We stumble. We have unfinished work to do.…The richness of spiritual maturity is that even the unfinished business in your heart is God, even the woundedness is God.”
“We are always to be grounded in humanity…in Christ God has identified with the human experience, and I’m a human being. As a human being I’m to work on the things that hinder and compromise love.”
And so we give ourselves to that work—and it’s a life-long effort. Gradually we learn to overcome the fears and jealousies that seek priority over others, that yearning to be ‘special’ and ‘chosen’ above others. Because God is love we can trust that the efforts we make in the service of love are noticed and integrated into the fabric of our lives. We are tenderly held in the arms of love and we won’t be forgotten or left behind. The same is true for all our sisters and brothers, in their brokenness and in our own.
What separates members of ISIS from those they terrorize and kill is the same system of inequality that separates the police officers in Baltimore from the community of Freddie Gray. And the hardest thing for us to accept is that both the killers and their victims are loved and cherished by a God who shows no partiality, a God who is a lover and not a judge.
We can depend on our Mother-hen God to keep us under her wing while we struggle to learn the lessons of love. We can also rely on our good shepherd God to search for us if we lose our way. Trusting that Love is the foundation of all that is we can remind ourselves that all of our experiences have a purpose, and that purpose is linked to our gaining some degree of mastery in navigating the challenges of love.
Since God is love, and we are all children of the One Mother/Father God, we are the bone and flesh of Love Itself. There is ultimately nothing to fear and everything to learn about who we are and how to be what we truly are together. When Jesus commands us to ‘love one another’ he only does so because he knows it’s possible, and his commandment is meant to encourage us to stay true to the path.
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