In 11 years of priesthood, I don’t remember ever having a week quite like this past one! In the past 8 days we’ve had confirmation, 8th grade graduation, the end of school, and today, Fr. Ritter’s Ordination. All wonderful things for sure. But it’s been difficult to focus on preaching and preparing for the Sunday homily in the midst of all this excitement and the preparations that come with it. As always, the Holy Spirit comes through with an idea for our reflection this weekend we continue to hear about the early Church and the issues they had to deal with in the early years after Christ had returned to the Father and the apostles were figuring things out, little by little.
I think this reading of the early Church history is really good for us 2000 years later because sometimes we romanticize what it must of been like. Kind of like when people talk about the “good old days”. There were indeed some incredible spiritual powers being thrown around in the early church: people being healed, raised from dead, mass conversions of 1000’s of people at once, and believers selling everything they had to benefit the poor. Truly inspiring! At the same time, they also fought, disagreed, compared themselves to each other based on which Apostle baptized them, and many other petty and insignificant things. The early Church, like the Church of our times, was not perfect. It was made up of gifted, broken, sometimes selfish and prideful humans who were trying to understand what it meant to follow Christ.
Today’s first reading from Acts of the Apostles, allows us to drop in on a dispute that seems like a non-issue to you and me, but was one that threatened to tear apart the entire church which was less than 20 years old at the time. The main issue centered around Jewish law, especially circumcision and dietary practices, what animals and foods were ok to eat, and things like that. While none of these issues are a moral concern to you and me, we have to remember that nearly every Christian of the early Church was also Jewish. They would go to the temple and synagogue and pray with their friends, family members, and neighbors who may not know Christ and then they would go to someone’s house and celebrate the Eucharist in the breaking of the Bread. For the the first generation Christian, following Jewish customs was something you did as part of being Christian.
The big shock to all of this was the conversion of St. Paul, who originally was persecuting Christians because he felt they were polluting Judaism. Once Paul’s heart was transformed by the Holy Spirit, he realized that Christianity was the fulfillment of Judaism rather than its enemy. He started spreading to his fellow Jews until he got kicked out of the synagogues and communities. Then he started preaching the same message to the gentiles and they started converting in huge numbers. Which was all well and good until Jewish Christians and gentile Christians started hanging out together and trying to pray as one. There was a collision of cultures.
Understandably there were many Jewish Christians, with good intentions, who felt like all new converts had to become Jewish as well which meant giving up the bacon (since pigs were considered unclean, keeping the kosher laws, getting circumcised, and many other things. As you might imagine, this wasn’t well received among the gentile Christians and a huge fight was about to explode. In fact, our reading tonight says, in a very understated way, “Because there arose no little dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas with them, it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.”
Here’s what is great about this. Even though St. Paul and Barnabas were absolutely sure that they were correct in welcoming non-Jewish people into Christianity, they didn’t assume the authority to make that decision until they talked with St. Peter and the other apostles first. Their humility and respect for the structure and chain of command that Jesus set up, kept the situation from getting out of hand and tearing apart the young Church which was just starting to find its way.
For those of you who aren’t too excited about history, you might be wondering, “that’s a great bit of trivia, but what does it mean for me?” Great question! I see two things:
Paul and Barnabas, as well as Peter and the other apostles were not motivated by trying to be right or getting their way in this dispute. The motivation for all of these Church leaders was the sentiment we expressed in the psalm, “O God, let all the nations praise you!. This refrain inspired St. Paul on his missionary journeys and St. Peter as he settled this question of whether or not Christianity was another form of Judaism or the fulfillment of how to know and praise the Lord. Helping others, helping the whole world praise God was the number one goal and they never let their pride or ego get in the way of that. Can you and I say the same? Do we desire that God be praised all over the world by every person? Do we want it so badly that we work to bring the gospel to those we live and work with? Do we try to settle disputes inside and outside the Church to help bring people together in worship? Or do contribute to the drama and division by exalting gossip, politics, or our own agendas above the praise of God?
Secondly, at the end of the 1st reading, the Apostles confirm what St. Paul is doing. Gentiles are free to become Christians. They do not have to practice Jewish customs. However, the apostles ask the new converts to give up three things: don’t eat meat sacrificed to idols, stay away from blood and meats of strangled animals, and don’t enter into unlawful marriage (which meant close relatives). In other words, the apostles were saying, “even though these things aren’t wrong in your culture, even though you have a right to do them, please give them up for the sake of your Jewish brothers and sisters who will see them as a sign of scandal and disrespect.” We need more of this mentality in our time within our Church and throughout our country. Just because we CAN do something doesn’t mean we SHOULD. As members of Christ’s body, we have an obligation to build each other up and not give scandal. Our one goal is that all people praise and glorify God. As modern people, we spend a lot of time and energy making sure we get what is owed to us and practicing all of our rights. Which is all well and good unless it begins to create division or power struggles which tear apart the unity that Jesus longed for as he prayed with his disciples at the Last Supper.
May you and I take to heart these lessons of the early Church and be motivated simply by a desire that God be praised and be willing to give up some of what we are entitled to in order that all might be one in faith.
