Acts 11:1-18 (click for full scripture.)

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story. (v.2-4)

I like to think I'm an independent thinker—rational, open-hearted, with good moral judgment, and not easily pressured to conform. Social psychologists would tell me I am dead wrong. The people I hang out with likely have far greater influence than I realize. So, I probably rationalize some decisions to please the people with whom I want their approval.

I was stirred by exploring Peter's challenge when he gets criticized for eating with Gentiles. Peter had a transformative experience on a spiritual and relational level that pushed him to new insight: who belongs, who is in, and who is out of the community? Like many original thinkers, Peter's epiphany is not well-received by his community. I want to explore how Peter responded to the attacks in a way to build bridges rather than further division.

First, let's talk about Peter is up against about human nature. Psychologists have tons of data to back their point about how we conform to group pressure. Solomon Asch devised the line test in the 1950s. Here is an example. Participants were shown a line and had to pick from three other lines to see which was the same size. Five of the six participants were actors who would all give the same wrong answer. Guess what happened! 75 percent of the participants conformed with an obviously incorrect answer at least once. If we are so easily influenced about the length of a line, think how much we conform to complex issues of race, gender, and morality.

Stanley Milgram took things further, testing how far people would obey authority. Participants thought they were in a memory study. They were told to shock a “learner” (an actor) for each wrong answer, increasing voltage—even to “Danger: Severe Shock.” Even when the learner cried out in pain, 65% of the participants delivered the maximum punishment. This result shocked everyone (pun intended!).

Why do people act like this? Let's look at the example of Peter's opposition. Our first take might be that these people are barriers to change, stuck in their ways, and maybe even a little bit xenophobic against Gentiles. Aren't these the same kind of people who excommunicated Galileo and thought telescopes were an instrument of the devil? The same who burned witches or excluded people from church based on race, gender, class, or sexual orientation? After all, Acts names them the "circumcised believers." That doesn't sound like a label I want. I'm not against it, but it does sound creepy!

But let's walk in their sandals for a moment. Like most first century Jews, they chaffed under Roman rule. They are isolated, belonging to the faction of Judaism that is following Jesus, who Rome crucified. What is a gentile to them? Greco-Roman culture has been infiltrating Israel for three centuries. They have already fought one war in the Maccabean rebellion. Greek was the language of commerce, and Greek religion filled the empire with temples, idols, and strange gods. To Jews, this threatened their identity and the Ten Commandments' call to reject idolatry.

Peter's opponents act like many of us do when we believe our values are threatened. In their minds, Peter eating with Gentiles is contributing to the gradual eroding of the Jewish faith, and he is participating in the downfall of their religion and way of life. They’re caught—alienated from both Greek culture and mainstream Judaism for following Jesus.

Peter's response to them breaks some interesting ground. Peter could have pushed back and told them they were being like the Pharisees or that they were prejudiced. He could have told them to get with the program and stop being a barrier to God, and by the way, he was Peter, who worked side-by-side with Jesus and was commissioned by him to lead the church.

Instead, verse four reads, "Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step." He is going to take them through how his thinking evolved. How has your thinking evolved? Have you ever changed political parties or moved to a different denomination? Maybe you didn't believe in God for a while. Or do you now see an issue like gun control or gay rights in a different light? Perhaps you were a Yankees fan and switched to the Red Sox. What did you believe ten years ago that you no longer believe? If you tell me nothing has changed, you have either reached the state of perfection, or I should be worried about you.

It's healthy to grow and evolve. But we often state our positions without sharing how we shifted and came to this place. We can be angry and judgmental of people who haven't had the same experience and expect them to get on board. Peter does not get defensive. He is going step-by-step.

Step one: Pete has a strange dream. Peter is told to eat from a variety of unclean, non-kosher animals. It's a dream, so he might have seen a dancing pig in a toga, a snake is eating shrimp cocktail, and a rabbit is nibbling bacon-wrapped scallops. Peter knows better than to eat any of that stuff and piously refuses. It happens again, and a voice says not to call unclean what God has made clean. After three times, Peter wakes up and thinks, I should not have eaten that squid falafel. Was it a silly nightmare, or was it a divine message? Most of us aren't sure about intense dreams in the light of day.

While Peter ponders the dream, he gets invited to visit a Roman centurion in Caesarea. Cornelius, obviously a gentile, dreamed of an angel who told him to seek Peter's counsel. The dramatic scene is much like the Pentecost story from Acts 2, where God's Spirit is present, and all of Cornelius's household become believers. Once Peter told his story to the "circumcised believers," he quoted the words of Jesus, saying that the Holy Spirit would baptize all. He doesn't start by whacking them with a Bible; he brings his experience first. Peter is authentic. He shared his reluctance to change his mind about eating with forbidden food with gentiles. He is astonished to be in this situation, but it feels God-driven.

Let's wrap our minds around this conclusion. Two people come together from vastly different cultures with tensions and mutual suspicions. One is a Jewish fisherman, the other a Roman centurion. The only thing they had in common was a dreamlike vision that disturbed their status quo. They found common ground in a mutual experience of who God is.

A question we asked in Bible study was, “Who gets converted in this story? The standard interpretation focuses on Peter winning over Cornelius to following Jesus. But everyone in the story must go through a transformation. We often assume the goal is to bring someone else around—to persuade them, to change their mind, to win them over. But in this story, no one walks away unchanged. Not Peter. Not Cornelius. Not the believers back home.

Through the lens of our polarized divisions today, this whole story can feel like a fantasy. Who changes their mind anymore? We’re entrenched in worldviews, insulated from each other, exhausted by decades of the same divisions. I don’t want to give up my convictions—they’re hard-won—but I’m also weary of the attacks, the anger, and the fear of even speaking honestly. Is there any hope for real transformation?

I don’t have any easy answers. Last year I asked a hard question during a clergy meeting. Is it possible to be both a truth teller and a bridge-builder? These virtues are two of my highest values. Tell the truth. Build bridges. Too often, if I say what I believe is true, it angers people, and if I try to build a bridge, other people are angry because they see me compromising. How do we heal a society when honest compromise seems impossible?

Here I enter the realm of faith, not current evidence. Scriptures tell us that the early church transcended so many cultural and national divides. Saul the oppressor of Christians becomes their chief apostle. Cornelius the centurion believes. He later writes to the Galatians that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. The motto of the United Church of Christ is “that they may all be one,” after Jesus’ prayer for his disciples. In light of all that, are we going to give up on overcoming the divides?

I know—it all sounds like a strange dream.

People from opposing worlds sharing meals. Minds opening. Hearts changing. Not through force, but through story. Not through arguments, but through presence.

But isn’t that how God so often works? Through visions we barely understand. Through invitations we never expected. Through conversations we once feared.

I believe the Spirit still moves—between unlikely people, through honest dialogue, and in hearts willing to be disturbed. Not everyone will change. But some will. And that might be enough.

May we be brave enough to speak truth, humble enough to listen, and faithful enough to believe that even now, God is building something new—one conversation, one meal, one converted heart at a time.