Peter addressed them, "You know, I'm sure this is highly irregular. Jews just don't do this..." (10:27-28)Do you have any of those "I just don't do___________" in your life? At soccer practice yesterday, I heard a mom say, "I just don't do spiders" as she referred to the arachnid she had seen in a room in her house, shut the door, and waited for her husband to get home from a trip - four days later! Or, there's the dear friend who doesn't do planes - she hasn't flown in decades. And another acquaintance who proclaimed she doesn't do female relationships - she just doesn't trust other women. (I'm sure there's a heartbreaking story behind this statement.)
For Peter, it was Gentiles. He just didn't do the relational thing with them. They didn't hang out, they didn't rub shoulders, they didn't share the gospel. Jesus called him to this "highly irregular" act of playing no favorites, of visiting and relaxing with this different ethnicity, and of baptizing these outsiders. It dawns on Peter, "that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again - well, he's doing it everywhere, among everyone." (10:36)
As I've conversed with God about this, I've been forced to face the question of what I just don't do. This statement would never have been allowed in my growing up. And because most of my life I've had no options but to do all the gross, scary, weird, hard stuff, it's easy for me to dismiss the question. God, you know that I don't even entertain the idea of not doing something.
God hasn't let the question go. He's asked me to look deeper, to examine what "highly irregular" relational responses He's calling me to. He's called me to respond in love when I don't feel loved; to serve when I'm not served; to look for what God is stirring in someone, instead of walking away when their sin is bumping up against me. So, when I spend an extended period of time with someone and they never show interest in me or anything about me, I'm called to the highly irregular response of moving toward them with real interest, even as I feel invisible. When my husband forgets something important to me or does that hurtful thing for the umpteenth time, the highly irregular response is to look for what's going on inside him, seeking what would lead to intimacy not enmity. When my insecurities are hanging out all over the place and I can hardly stand to be in my own skin, leaning into the insecurity - where I meet God - instead of distracting myself by going where I feel competent.
These kind of responses are not a natural part of my life. Just as it was unnatural for Peter to befriend a Gentile, someone the exact opposite of himself, and then call him a brother in Christ. The Spirit is whispering to us to be highly irregular (10:19-20).
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