How a shared meal can end division — What Acts 10 teaches us today

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What can a shared meal teach us about ending division? In Acts 10, Peter has a vision that changes the direction of his ministry. He realizes that the ritual purity rules that had kept him separate from gentiles no longer define the boundaries of the good news. A barrier is erased, and the table becomes a place where people once kept apart can now share in sacred community. 

This reflection by John Hamer, Director of Outreach and Innovative Mission, was shared from the Ottawa congregation, with Pat Mooney as our reader, as part of Beyond the Walls on June 14, 2026.

Ancient religions were not primarily about individual beliefs. Far more important were the things that you do and how you do them. Every activity was accompanied by rules and rituals designed to keep people in right relationship with divine forces operating in a very dangerous world. While rituals accompanied important life events like the birth of a child, marriages, and deaths, they also accompanied every little thing you might do daily, like stepping across the threshold of your door, or preparing a meal.

When societies developed special priestly castes, the priests were often subject to even more specialized rules. These rituals were understood to purify the individual, enabling them to mediate with divine forces on behalf of the whole community. For example, in Hinduism, members of the priestly caste (known as the “Brahmins”) are required to follow strict dietary laws to maintain their ritual purity. If Brahmins eat from the same plate or share utensils with someone from a different caste, they become ritually impure. The resulting caste system has had enormous consequences for India, including discrimination against individuals who are literally “outcastes.” The Sikh religion was founded in the 15th century with the goal of overturning the caste system. All Sikh places of worship include a “langar” hall, where anyone of any caste or religion can come to eat a free meal. However, all must sit on the floor and eat together, sharing a meal that signifies a complete rejection of the rules of caste and ritual purity.

Israelite religion in the 1st century AD was at a crossroads with two competing ideas that were both gaining momentum. On the one hand, prophets and teachers had begun to see the God of Israel as the God of the Universe—with the implication that God is not simply Lord of a single ethnic group, but must also be Lord of every nation. On the other hand, a growing focus on the five books of Moses meant that an ever-expanding number of Judeans had begun to observe purity rules. While these historically had only been maintained by Jewish priests, many sects like the Pharisees promoted the idea that all Judeans ought to live like a nation of priests—an entire people set apart through ritual purity.

In Acts, Peter testifies that from childhood on, he has never eaten foods that Mosaic law labels as ritually “unclean.” As with the Brahmins in India, following these codes has meant that Peter has been unable to share meals with individuals who are not also following the same rules. Sharing a meal with a gentile would make Peter ritually unclean. And so, the idea of ritual impurity was effectively separating Peter from the people to whom he had been commissioned to bring the good news: all the nations (or “gentiles”) of the world. Peter’s vision that “what God has made clean, you must not call profane,” signals an end to Christian observance of ritual purity laws. Like the Sikh langar that sought to overturn the caste system, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper broke down the ritual barrier among early Christians by allowing those with Jewish backgrounds, like Peter, to share a sacred meal with new converts from all nations.

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