Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“And Peter said to them, ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, April 22, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
No one is profane or unclean. No one. That means we don’t get to decide that some person or group of people we don’t like or don’t agree with or feel uncomfortable around is somehow not up to snuff in God’s eyes. We may not follow specific laws such as circumcision or other ritual purity laws, but we all have implicit or explicit thoughts about what is and is not acceptable to God. And if we’re honest about them, and examine them thoroughly, we’re going to find that they have a lot more to do with our own fears and feelings of not measuring up than about what God thinks.
This story isn’t just about Peter getting to ignore the rules he’s lived with until that point in favor of a whole slew of new ones later imposed by the Christian church on any number of people they didn’t like or were threatened by. It’s about how God’s love can’t be limited to any specific group. Period. No one is unacceptable to God. No one. It’s that simple.
Are there individuals or groups of people I dislike or make me uncomfortable? What is it in myself that causes me to feel that way?
![1 Kings 17:1-16 [17-24], God’s Care for the Widow](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/bf37035e-33d5-439f-a0d6-a68b02d0f1bc/24-11-03.jpg)
