Be Polluted To Attain Purity - Rev. Irwin Arthur Jesudas

From the text Acts 10:9-16, we see a clear picture of symbolic or metaphoric interaction between Peter (one of the apostles) and the divine.

‘About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.

Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven’. (Acts 10:9-16 NRSV) Peter was perplexed by the vision and protested vigorously.

But why this protest, it is because the Jewish norms clearly distinguish between clean and unclean animals. So Peter was very much to the purity laws and wants to stick by it. We may even be surprised at the attitude of Peter the apostle who was a close and sincere disciple of Jesus, who witnessed and participated in the ministerial work of Jesus. Jesus did not observe the purity norms of the Jewish tradition which is very much visible in his ministerial action where – Jesus touches lepers (Math 8:3), menstruating women (Math 9:20-22), and corpses (Math 9:25). And contrary to the norms of meals Jesus eats with the tax collectors and sinners (Math.9:11) and in Luke (10:7, 8) Jesus contradicts with dietary laws.

Once in my church I had to preach on the 7th commandment ‘do not commit adultery’ so I tried to explain the value of family life, sex a gift from God, faithfulness and love between partners and etc. but at last I tried to raise questions like the response of the church towards those who are caught up in the evil of prostitution for which members are ready to help victims financially and materially and even meeting them and sharing the gospel – the love of God.

But when I raised the issue of participation of those people in the church activities and especially church service (communion), people were not happy. So in reality we are not in a position to accept people as they are, the discriminations and the differences prevail at various levels. We are also in the similar position of Peter where even after several years of practicing Christianity, our thoughts and attitudes are still corrupted.

We think that we are pure before God by practicing certain rituals and prayers but we forget that we are defiled if our thoughts and actions are closed towards other people. So without implementing God’s concept of impartiality in our lives, we are impure and polluted with corrupted thoughts and attitudes. Are you willing to change? Illustratively: Churches consider the altar to be so pure and sacred that laypersons are restricted from entering the altar. If some one is not permitted in the altar – a place where God is dwelling, then is the altar pure as there is discrimination between people?

Are we willing to extend our mission to transgender people (one example) accepting their participation in church ministry and trying to frame their life more meaningful in societal, economical and moral (self respect and dignity) fronts? Are we willing to cast out our purity rituals by coming out of our status, rigid attitudes and try to maintain holiness through implementing justice in the society?

Here I would like to stress on the act of incarnation of God where the Son of God emptied Himself from His ultimate glory and unified with humans (who are born out of sin) so this is an act where God from his state of purity denies his state and gives himself to dwell with polluted humans to deliver purity. Thus many a time all our spiritual rules and norms does not have proper link with that of God’s will. All these human made laws deviate us from real God’s mission. Thus God’s pastoral project is to bring us to an understanding of God’s will, so that we may better collaborate with God in the work of salvation. This is a challenging task to us in our ministerial life, but still we are expected to promote God’s will to all people through our life. Let God motivate us, activate us and guide us in fulfilling the expected role of us in the societ