Meditation for 2 June 2010
From The Rev. Peter A. Munson
Galatians 2:11-14
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; 12for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. 13And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’
The Cost of Putting On Appearances
Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, gives an account of a confrontation that he had with Cephas (Simon Peter) in Antioch. The controversy had to do with whether or not newly converted Gentile Christians had to observe Jewish dietary laws. The first Christians were Jewish Christians who were used to following a certain diet, a diet that went all the way back to Moses. When Christianity expanded, largely through the ministry of Paul, and suddenly Gentiles (non-Jews) started becoming Christians, there were suddenly new issues to be worked out, such as whether all Christians were going to have to follow the Jewish dietary practices. It eventually got worked out. (Read more of Galatians and especially Acts 15:1-35, and the council that occurred in Jerusalem, at which James and Paul and Silas and Peter were key players in a compromise decision.)
Something else that intrigues me about this passage, though, is how upset Paul got with Peter’s hypocritical behavior. Peter was eating regularly with the new Gentile converts (verse 12), even though he (Peter) had grown up as a faithful Jew. Presumably, he had eaten various types of Gentile (non-kosher) food during those meals. Then, when representatives came from James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem (still the “base camp” and heart of the Christian movement at this time), to check out what was going on with the new church in Antioch, Peter “drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision party.” (A party of Jewish Christians who believed that all male Christian converts had to be circumcised and follow the Jewish dietary laws.) And Paul named Peter’s behavior for what it was – hypocrisy (verse 13). Peter was putting on an act – putting on appearances – and Paul (being Paul) called him on it.
Sometimes you and I try to live a double life. We might be tempted to act one way around our church friends and another way around our non-church friends. Or, perhaps closer to the Galatians story, perhaps we “read” the type of Christians that we are with. Perhaps rather unconsciously, we might think to ourselves, “I’m with my more evangelical Christian friends now…” and perhaps we suddenly say “Lord” and “Jesus” more frequently. Or, “I’m with my more liberal-minded Christian friends now…”, and perhaps think about our language in other ways. (“Oh, I better not say too much about sin or Jesus, because I might offend someone.”) Perhaps you know other variations of this story (Catholic friends? Pentecostal friends?), but you get the point.
It’s a disaster any way you “play” it, because this type of acting/putting on a mask or persona – i.e., being a hypocrite – takes a lot of energy, and it is ultimately very draining. To be a person of integrity, among other things, means being the way you are with whomever you are with, and it has to do more with letting your essence – the core of who you really are – shine.
And I would say that each of us finds that essence by staying close to the One who teaches us how to be real. I would say that each of us is close to that essence when we remember that we are the beloved of God, and when we speak, pray, move, act, and love out of that place – out of that confident place of knowing that we are the beloved of God, that God is with us, that God wants to work in us and through us, and that we don’t have to put on an act for anybody.
Will we get scared at times? Of course. If the apostle Peter got scared, then you and I are going to get scared, too. But fear is not intended to be a destination. When we notice we are afraid, we need to breathe into the fear. For when we remember to breathe, God does something – the Spirit moves in us – and the fear moves, too. And before long, we are not immobilized by our fear, and we can move again, return to our essence, and be ourselves.
If we get caught up in the fear, and forget to breathe, then – quite often – we forget who we are, and we start acting like hypocrites. And man, does that take a lot of energy! And the cost of being a hypocrite is this huge energy drain. We try to be what we think other people want us to be, rather than being who we are in God. When we go out into the world from a grounded place, acting and speaking from who we are, life flows. When we are putting on appearances, by the end of the day we are totally exhausted.
The choice is ours, each and every day. I only know that Jesus came that we might have life, and have it in abundance.