Peter #

“Peter, it is time to go. If we wait we will be forced to travel in the heat of the day.” I cannot wake. My eyes will not open, this man, his voice, he is one of the new ones. I… do not remember his name. My friend turns then and says to me, “Who do they say I am?” and I think that He is teasing me in His way about misplacing names again. But, no, He is serious and that is not now, no. It was then. “I will make you fishers of men so that they don’t die!” He says, and he laughs at his own joke and the truth of it hits us then on the shore and we dress and we leave everything behind. This new one; he is shaking me gently. “Brother, come, will you not wake?” Can I not wake? The little girl, she only slept and my friend woke her. Food was brought; she ate. He clapped his hands then and said words to her that no one heard and the child smiled. Then He turned to me and said, “John came baptizing with water but you will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” Or was that before? Or later? “Brother?” this one says again, worried. He turns away from me and says, “He will not wake.” Another one says, “Surely Peter did not have too much wine, we all ate together.” Am I truly asleep as these brothers say? A gentile! This one that shakes me, he is a gentile! These are gentiles! How has this come to them as to us? “I cannot take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” He says to the woman prostrated before Him. Vindication burns in my chest then; I loudest of all had urged her to be sent away, that Syrophoenecian woman. But then, yes, then she makes a joke – so little as that? – and my friend laughs and clasps her hands in his and declares her faith great. “Brother!” urgent now, a low mumble of the others voices. We rebolt the door. “The tomb is empty, empty!” Mary, Joanna, Mary James’ mother, breathless all, “We have been told by a Messanger that He is woken!” but I go to see for myself and all I find is discarded linens and confusion in my heart. Is my faith great? I heard, but could I hear? Then He is there among us despite the door and then again on the shore and He has made breakfast and a joke escapes him that escapes me and the others must explain to me later. He eats. “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” He is speaking to me but it is not then but later, almost now. And there is something like a large sheet coming down from Heaven and it is close to me, taut. On it I see four-hooved animals, prey, reptiles, birds, creatures I have never seen but know now. These are unclean, not to be eaten. “No, no! I cannot. Nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” Laughter, gentle and chiding, a dinner with the other teachers, and I a rough fishermen among the great. “No, no, no.” He laughs in his way. “Friends, no, what comes into you makes its way not to your heart but passes into your belly and from your belly out into the latrine! How can that make you unclean?” Shock on their faces. I rebel at the memory and protest in my heart. “Peter, what God has made clean you must not call profane.” And I say, “Tabitha, get up.” The breath of God rushes into her her again and they raise up the cloth from her by its four corners and I take her hand and raise her up and she laughs and I can do nothing but weep. “Brother, brother,” is this Cornelius? Yes, I remember him now. He has grasped me and taken me up to my feet. “Oh Lord,” he calls out, “oh Lord.” This man, a Roman, a centurion, he prays and he has been visited even. “Surely this was the son of a god,” this one said, after the screaming had ceased and the blood no longer flowed. But no, not this one, another. The land was rent, signs even for the blinded. “Behold, behold, I bring to you the gospel of the lord, of Ceasar Augustas!” and the wind turns then from over the sea, crosses the land and brings with it the smell of the flesh of corpses rotted in the sun. “Peace now to the citizen and peace to the alien!” Then, not now. A different man at the tree where my friend hung, not this Cornelius that bears me to my feet, prays for me to wake. Has a Roman ever touched me kindly before this moment? I have dined with this man, with a few of his soldiers even, reclined at his table with those that I travel with and I ate his bread and oils and fishes and fruits. Were the bowls clean? And yet, he cries out to God. This faith, these words, would these have not delighted Jesus? He would have said something, done something in response and this thing would have unfolded in my heart slowly, so slowly. I am simple and I am rash and quick to anger. If the Spirit will not settle on me I cannot speak and will not understand, no. Why a taut linen, I wonder, but I know there are many things I do not understand in their right time.

My eyes open and I see. These new brothers and sisters that the Lord has found good have gathered around me, girded to travel even now. They see that I see and one touches their forehead and recites “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” in a practiced voice, in a Greek I only barely comprehend. I smile at these siblings and speak to them as one. “I am well, thank you, I am well. I was only caught longer in dreams and memories than usual, that is all. Do not be afraid. Come, thank you friends for waking me. I only slept.” Cornelius loosens his grip but he does not let me go. The Spirit has found a purchase in my heart. I do not understand, but I know and a thing has changed that I did not understand could be changed. “Come, come, I am well!” I say, and shuffle my feet to show them that I have my balance. “There is much we have to tell the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, come!”

And, so, we go.

This piece was given at worship on Sunday May 15, 2022. Pr. Jeff Johnson was away on sabbatical and the Chapel community took up a new set of practices ourselves¹. One of these new practices was to have a Chapel member compose and read a story based on a Bible text, organized by Pr. Janet Katari. I was honored to write on Acts 11:1-8. I had never, before writing this story, actually read the Gospels plus Acts with concern for anyone beyond Jesus. I did not ignore Peter, of course, but he was a kind of cardboard cutout character, someone that pops in and out from the background of the scene when needed to give the stages some more depth. But this time I read specifically with concern for Peter, what his life must have been like in context – I read “Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus” in preparation which I can warmly recommend. I came to have a strong notion of how he must have felt and how he must have groped for understanding.