Cultural Barriers to Jesus

On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.  But he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance; and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air.  A voice came to him, "Get up, Peter, kill and eat!"  But Peter said, "By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean."  Again a voice came to him a second time, "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy."  This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky. (Acts 10:9-16 NASB)

 An important characteristic of Jesus that gets mentioned, but not understood, is that Jesus entered the world as a Jewish man.  Modern Christians will agree, but modern Judaism obscures what that really means.  First Century, Second Temple, Judean Judaism is not what we see today.  I haven't asked a rabbi, but I'm pretty sure they would agree.  There are tremendous cultural differences between the various Jewish groups  today; and even more differences between those of the region and time of Jesus and now.  So trying to understand Jesus as Jewish man is difficult when the understanding is attempted through modern Judaism.

In a sense through, one aspect that remains the same is a "survivor" mentality that doggedly holds Jewish groups together and attempts to rigorously maintain their distinctness from other cultures among which they may live.  In First Century Judea, the fairly recent history had seen the end of oppression of the Jews by Seleucid Greeks who attempted to force them to adopt Greek culture.  It had witnessed the inability of the Jewish religious leadership to also govern the people well.  It had recorded how the Romans were invited into the country to stabilize the region.  And, in the days of, and just beyond, Jesus' earthly ministry, the attempted rebellion of the Jews against the Roman presence in the land.

Part of the consistent thread that held these people together is their persistence in being distinct from those they lived among.  The end of the First Temple Era eradicated syncretistism (mixed religious practice) which included idols from their culture.  That was never a problem again.  In the first century, the main focus of the Jews was survival of their race and traditions.  In that focus, they made some mistakes.  In these mistakes, they lost sight of their true King.  By the time He showed up in person, they were not ready.  It wasn't until after He left that many seemed to understand or at least accept Jesus as the true Anointed One of God.

One of the biggest struggles Jesus faced was the continued pressure from the religious leaders to conform to their traditions.  He consistently refused in many respects.  In other respects, he conformed already.  I suspect that in what He ate, He conformed.  But He also taught His disciples that "unclean" was really a characteristic coming from within a person, not from outside (Mark 7:14-23).  There the issue was "hand washing" rather than specific food, but the writer notes that Jesus declared all foods "clean".

So why, having had that lesson, does Peter hang so tightly to the isolationist practices of his people?  I'm not sure, but I suspect there at least two reasons.  The first is that those traditions were what he knew and was familiar with.  There seemed no good reason to leave them when they were Scriptural (i.e. in the law).  In some sense, if it's not broken, why fix it?"  What he was about to learn is that it was broken in one way.

I suspect that another, possibly unconscious, reason is that Judaism was legal in Roman society where the belief in Jesus as Messiah was not.  Romans permitted other beliefs as long as their requirement of venerating the emperor was also practiced along with what ever belief was held.  Followers of Jesus could not do that.  Their only protection from the requirement was their attachment to Judaism which was exempt from the practice.  This is never given as a reason in Scripture, it would need to be derived from an examination of the culture in which Christianity was born and grew.  It may have been more in the mind of Paul in Europe than in Peter in Joppa. 

This chapter does make one thing very clear though.  The lesson of the animals in the sheet was not about eating, it was about cultural barriers to salvation.  That wasn't obvious to Peter at first because he didn't have the context in which to understand it.  He needed Cornelius' story to point out to Him that God had already accepted this Gentile soldier occupying Judea.  Once he had that, he was able to connect the dots, and saw a new characteristic of God, that He accepts people outside of Jews.  Judaism itself became understood as an unnecessary barrier to a relationship with the Maker of galaxies and atoms; a dangerous proposition in that day.

So where's the lesson for me?  I set up my own barriers to others by my cultural practices.  I chose who I associate with based on social position, economic status, and my perception of safe and prudent practices.  That is not the path on which I see my Master taking and leading His people.  Instead, my Master crosses those boundaries of economics and society.  He reaches into the lives of those left behind and marginalized by their culture.  This is a difficult, very uncomfortable, lesson for me.  I don't enjoy hugging someone who smells.  But don't I smell?  Am I more acceptable to my Master than those with whom I am uncomfortable associating?  I don't think so, and yet I do believe so.  I behave that way.  And I do so to my own disgrace.

I suspect the only way out of this is by practicing crossing those boundaries.  I need to.  I have a lesson to learn through practice.  I don't like those, those character-building-lessons my Master seems to like so much.  Well, I guess I need to go.  It seems I have "homework" to do.