Don Friesen
Yogi Berra was a master of mangled utterances, like the time that hot weather prompted him to say, "It ain't the heat, it's the humility." He came dangerously close to making sense, however, when he said: "In theory there is no difference between theory and practise. In practise there is."
I imagine that when Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another" (John 13:34), some of his more critical disciples may have said, Well, that sounds good in theory, but it will be difficult to put into practise! Perhaps they were recalling the arguments some of the disciples got into over who among them was the greatest! (Luke 22:24) Another may have said, Why does he call it a new commandment? It sounds a lot like an Old Testament commandment, like the one in Leviticus: "Love your neighbour as yourself". (Leviticus 19:18) Some of the disciples may have assumed that the commandment was only intended for the group of twelve disciples, and so it shouldn't be impossible to put it into practise.
One might expect Peter to join in, perhaps egged on by doubting Thomas, only Peter had changed. Gone was the cowardly and impulsive Peter of the Gospels; in his place is the New Peter, the Peter who takes charge; a fearless Peter, unafraid to speak up for Jesus; a Peter who can speak about his faith with some facility, communicating well with those for whom this Jesus stuff is new. This is the New Peter, the post-resurrection Peter!
It May Be a Theory, but it Deserves to Be Tested
Peter may have thought, Okay, loving one another may be but a theoretical commandment, but, having hit his apostolic stride, Peter was willing to test the theory, and not just among his fellow disciples. Peter saw, early on, how the good news of Jesus' love had taken root in Jerusalem, and how "all who shared the faith owned everything in common; (and how) they sold their goods and possessions and distributed the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed" (Acts 2:44-45, JER), and it gave him confidence that Christian love was much more than a theory. He had noted how Jesus' commandment to love one another had taken root among many, and who were, as a consequence, of "one heart" (2:46) "shared their food gladly and generously". (2:46) Peter saw how Christians' love for each other attracted (2:47) those beyond their circles, and, as a consequence, their own circle was expanding daily! (2:47)
God was stretching the New Peter, stretching his heart and mind to envision the practise of love in ever-widening circles. And in Acts, chapter 11, the New Peter tells his more cautious colleagues about his breakthrough experience in Joppa. While there Peter had a vision. The vision was like a food menu of sorts, featuring entrees that Peter's ethnic and religious upbringing forbade him to eat. It was like a vegetarian dreaming about a choice selection of meat! Or a diabetic being offered a tantalizing array of sweet pastries. Peter was invited, in the vision, to partake of these forbidden foods. But Peter said, "Certainly not, Lord! No ritually unclean or defiled food has ever entered my mouth." (Acts 11:8, TEV) A voice in his vision told Peter, "Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean." (11:9, TEV) Three times this happened before the vision came to an end.
Peter hardly had time to consider the implications of his vision when three Gentile visitors appeared at his door. They wanted him to accompany them to Caesaria. Peter said, "The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us" (Acts 11:12) – to accompany them without the least hesitation or misgivings or discrimination." (11:12, AMP) Peter followed the Spirit's leading, and he recounts how, as he was sharing the gospel with these Gentiles, "...the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning." (11:15)
The whole experience changed Peter's way of thinking about the power and circumference of love. He said, " If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?" (11:17) Or as another translation phrases it, "...who was I (to) ...stand in God's way?" (NASB) It sounds very much like Gamalial's comment, earlier in Acts, when he said of this new and spreading gospel, "...if this ...is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you cannot possibly defeat (it). You could find yourselves fighting against God!" (Acts 5:38-39, NRSV/TEV) The impression one gets is of an inexorable movement of God's Spirit and love. There is about the force of love an inexorable quality, for the book of Acts reveals that repeated attempts to squelch apostolic activity were unsuccessful. God's purposes will not be thwarted.
The New Peter made a breakthrough, moving from an us-them mentality to a more universal perspective. As he recounted his experience, first in Joppa, then in Caesarea, he convinced even the more conservative disciples that something new was afoot. The Apostle Paul is often credited with the Gentile breakthrough of Christianity, but it was the Apostle Peter who was first convinced of the power of love to cross boundaries that had previously been seen as uncrossable! Paul, of course, ran with the idea, convinced that if the theory of love was of God, it could be applied to some of the worst divides known to humankind. And so Paul dedicated his life to putting love into practise in the matter of Jewish-Gentile relations – no little challenge. And a century or so later pagans were saying of Christians, "See ...how they love one another.... See ...how they are ready even to die for one another...." (Apology of Tertullian, A.D. 197)
A Long Tradition of Putting Love into Practise
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (ca. 150-160 – ca. 220-240), a major theologian of the Church in the third and fourth centuries, said of Christ's followers, "We are a body knit together ...by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together as an assembly and congregation (and) ...pray ...for the welfare of the world (and) for the prevalence of peace.... We assemble to read our sacred writings . . . and with the sacred words we nourish our faith, we animate our hope, we make our confidence more steadfast; and no less by inculcations of God's precepts we confirm good habits. ... There is no buying and selling of any sort in the things of God. Though we have our treasure-chest, it is not made up of purchase-money, as of a religion that has its price. These gifts are ...not spent on feasts, and drinking-bouts, and eating-houses, but to support and bury poor people, to supply the wants of boys and girls destitute of means and parents, and of old persons confined now to the house; such, too, as have suffered shipwreck; and ...any in the mines or banished to the islands or shut up in the prisons.... ...it is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us." (Apology of Tertullian)
Tertullianus was a learned man, a theoretician, but what he describes is not theory but practise, observations confirmed by even enemies of Christianity. Peter's confidence in the power and practise of love was borne out even centuries later.
It is this fine and noble tradition of putting love into practise that inspired the Apostle John, even in times of great distress and persecution, to dream of the very real possibility that one day the love of Christ will triumph! In our reading from Revelation the application or practise of Jesus' love commandment moves to an even larger venue. John pictures a city, the new Jerusalem, a city whose maker is God, and whose inhabitants come from far and wide and for whom nothing is worthy of conflict. Sorrow will be forgotten; sin vanquished; darkness at an end; and time transformed into eternity.
John talks of the fulfilment of God's plan for His creation, the fulfilment of God's purpose for human history, the fulfilment of the promise in 2 Peter where we read that "...in accordance with (God's) promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home." (2 Peter 3:13)
"God will wipe away every tear from (our) eyes" (Revelation 21:4), John writes, and what lent credence to this hope was the conviction that the theory or concept or ideal of love had already been put into practise! The audacity of Christian hope is rooted in its application. It has been tested under some very difficult circumstances, and has not been found wanting.
When Peter's critics heard how the Holy Spirit had moved Peter to include the heretofore excluded, it not only "silenced" them; we read that they "praised God". (Acts 11:18) An amazing change of heart, for which we too praise God! AMEN
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.