God is not partial. God shows no partiality. God does not
favor people based on their skin color or ethnicity, by anything considered
“unclean” or called “profane.” God doesn’t care about any of that. I feel like
I need to say that in twenty-seven different ways. But, still, I think we all
have an idea that that lack of partiality ends somewhere. On the surface, God
showing no favoritism seems straightforward, but we also talk all the time
about God favoring those who love him, God favoring Christians, God blessing
America, and so on and so on.
I’m going to read the last money quote
one more time: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every
nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Why is
it always the case that the Bible explains one thing by introducing several new
questions?
I mean,
Peter understands that God shows absolutely no partiality—God does not have a
single bias in the world—EXCEPT he favors those who fear him and do what is
right, which is kind of frustrating, because Peter’s dream reminds us that we
don’t always know what is right. God finds people who follow the law
acceptable, no matter their nation, which is wonderful, EXCEPT that it then
makes us question what really matters. Certainly Peter can’t be certain,
because on the one hand he’s given this vision where various not-kosher animals
are dangled in front of him and he’s told to just go ahead and eat that eagle
and that snake and that pig and everything else that God had been telling his
Hebrew children not to eat throughout history, then on the other hand he tells
us that God expects us only to follow
the law.
I
realize this isn’t really the point of this story. The point is that God
doesn’t care if you are Jewish or Gentile, i.e. whether you are one of God’s
chosen people or not. But for those of us living in the year 2015 A.D. this
story evokes different questions; tough questions; about what it means to be
observant Christians following the law. Moreover, this story introduces one of
the single greatest stumbling blocks for Christians in the 21st
century: We are terrible at distinguishing law and gospel.
This starts as a problem we have with
the Old Testament, because it’s there in our Bible but we only read it when we
want to, when it’s convenient, and when it’s making the point we want to make.
We might think “Of course we will fall back on the grace of God in the end,”
but in the meantime we pick and choose parts of the law by which we order how
to live our lives. Then it becomes all too easy to make that what it means to
be a Christian—living out the law as good people, believing that Christianity
is about following God’s law. But it’s not.
I realize what I’ve said so far is very
theoretical, so I’m going to try to be very practical now. The question of how
to be a Christian is a difficult one. It’s much easier to be a strict Orthodox
Jew, because Jews have these commandments to follow and that is how they are to
live. Jesus offers less straightforward commandments: Love God, love your neighbor.
All the rest is gravy. Then, he offers one really tough line about
discipleship, saying, “Pick up your crosses and follow me.”
That’s how a Christian is to live, which
is a whole lot less clear than a checklist of commandments. And many Christians
have a hard time recognizing the difference. So, many Christians make the faith
about being good and following the law, and that is sort of where Peter ends up
anyway—whoever does what is right is acceptable to God… But then why did Jesus
come in the first place? Just to be an example? Or to free us from sin but only
so that we act like good boys and girls?
There are plenty of people who feel this
way, who think being a Christian is about being a “good” person. Probably some
of you feel that way, to tell you the truth. And it’s not that Christians
should be bad people, but that’s not really what it’s all about. Jews should
also be good people, and Muslims, and atheists. Probably you should just be a
good person no matter your beliefs, because you’ll contribute to a better
world. But being a Christian is more complicated. Being a Christian means that
even when you are not a good person we have a God who went on a cross and died
for you. Does that mean it doesn’t matter how you act? No, of course not. It
just means that it doesn’t matter for your salvation. One follows the other,
but they are not the same. So, those old school Sunday School movies and
lessons about Jesus watching you when you’re doing your most horrible things
are true to the extent that of course God knows what you do—and what you don’t
do—mostly because you know yourself what you do and don’t do, but those
messages are wrong when they suggest that the path to heaven is to be better
No, that’s the path to the good life down here. Your salvation is not dependent
on being a good person, which is good, because you won’t do it. Your salvation
is dependent on Jesus. Christianity is not a “do” religion; it is a “done”
religion.
But more
than that, and contrary to popular Christian opinion, eternal salvation is not
the only thing that matters. It’s the biggest thing, just not the only thing.
It also matters that you act well, but you don’t do it because God is looking
over your shoulder; you do it because it’s what a person does. Better yet, you
do it as a response for the gift of grace you have been given that you couldn’t
possibly deserve. You love God and your neighbor as a response to it.
There
are other ways to understand this scripture. There are plenty of people who
will tell you that everything I just said is wrong; that God shows greater love
to those who keep his commandments; that salvation is a contract between God
and Christians where God pays the price and then we become good in order to
live up to that gift—and they may be right; the Bible leaves open to the door
to that possibility. But, ultimately, here I stand because I look at a God who
shows no partiality to Jews or Gentiles and I can’t for the life of me imagine
that this God who is above and in all things, who is incomprehensible and all
the other adjectives we futilely use to try to describe him, even come to think
of it this God whom we struggle to identify with “him” or “he” because “it”
just doesn’t seem right; I can’t imagine that I can praise this God on the one
hand and believe that my salvation depends on my actions on the other; that
Jesus dying on the cross only did half the work, or even 99% of it. I believe
that God did everything, and that my little responses are cute but just that.
And if you don’t believe that, OK. It doesn’t hurt God to be a good person to
try to earn God’s favor; it’s just that I worry where that will leave you. I’m
worried that preaching that tells you to be a better person is just weak
self-help. I’m worried that you’ll still always be thinking, “Have I done
enough?” Can you ever know you did enough? And if not then perhaps we can begin
to believe, radical as it is, that this God truly shows no partiality, that God
is in the business of salvation; that you and I are free to live, free to do
whatever, and then, most importantly of all, we should choose to freely show
that love that God has shown us first.
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