Fly away Peter, fly away Paul

The gentiles were mine
Luke had even put it in the minutes
at Jerusalem.
You can read it there
'Peter stood up and said,
"God made a choice that I should be the one
through whom the gentiles would hear the message."'
No one disagreed.

The vision was mine
The prompting to meet Cornelius.
When I saw the vision:
A cloth from heaven:
Bats and slugs and spiders and snakes.
I knew these too are God's gifts to us.
I knew enough to see it meant
God has no particular favourites.
No chosen people or chosen creatures -
all are his favourites:
to be used and abused
for good or ill.

Salvation is about
overcoming the division
between rich and poor
male and female
Jew and gentile
black and white
Christian and Muslim
Israeli and Palestinian
sick and well:
all are part of the greater wholeness
of God's world.

So what does Paul think that he's on about:
telling the Galatians that he was made
an apostle to the gentiles
and I was to go to the Jews;
calling us dogs,
telling us to castrate ourselves.

Since when did he follow the rules anyway
he stayed with Jews and preached in synagogues.
If he had stuck to the gentiles he would have had less trouble.
Both of us were in the same boat
both at times close to sinking.

We thought we knew what was right and wrong
and especially who was right and who was wrong.
"Wrong," said Jesus

What makes you unclean
has nothing to do with what you eat
or even what you do
or who you associate with.
It's what you are inside:
Angry, jealous;
Creating rivalries or factions;
but guilty and depressed too.

And God
with his infinite sense of humour,
sends you to those who most wind you up.
The rich find themselves in the slums
the fisherman are sent to preach to rulers.

And our arguments and jealousies
over religion and politics
pale into insignificance
against the needs of the world.
The need for inclusion
the need for acceptance
which religion cannot answer.

So fly away Peter
Fly away Paul
Make way for God

©Peter G Ashby 2008