Bethlehem Lutheran Church

I remember doing a wedding at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Medina. The groom and his family were very active members of St. Philip the Deacon, where I was serving; the bride and her family were very active members of Holy Name.

 Often, at Roman Catholic weddings, communion is served, and quite often, only Catholics are invited to come to the Lord’s Table. Communion was being planned for this wedding, and I will never forget Father Arnold Weber’s words to the gathered families at the rehearsal: “The rules about Communion are ‘human made rules,” said this Benedictine Priest from St. John’s Abbey who was serving as the priest at Holy Name. “Therefore, if you come to receive Communion, I will give it to you.”

 There was an immediate “Lutheran Huddle” with the groom’s family. “Chris, Chris, what should we do? Should we take Communion in this church?” I said, “Absolutely! You were just invited. You don’t want to start this marriage with a visible sign of disunity between the families! By all means, go!”

 All settled. Until, as the rehearsal was ending, Arnold turned to me, and said, “Chris, what are you going to do?” I was- heck, I AM a well trained pastor, I want you to know...

 I thought to myself, if you take communion here, you, as a pastor not only at St. Philip the Deacon, but also of the entire ELCA, are making a statement about altar fellowship that the ELCA has not yet made. We don’t have pulpit and altar fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church. There are huge differences between our churches that have yet to be resolved, even though we have some significant things in common- like Jesus, for example. But still, I started to hem and haw...

 We are continuing our journey through the Book of Acts in these days after Easter. Our focus is on our shared “Life Together,” and today, we have one of the most important stories from the early church, the story that has become known as the “Jerusalem Council.”

 And, we have two tellings of the story for you today: St. Paul’s account of the Council from Galatians 2, and then Luke’s account from Acts 15. It is one of those rare instances when we have a primary source- St. Paul- most likely written in the mid-50’s, and then the secondary one from Acts, written some 40 years later, with Luke’s take and emphasis. Both are vital in our understanding of this Council.

 You could well be thinking “what in the world does this story have to do with me and my life?” It’s quite simple.

 First, had this question of whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised before they could become members of this new Church been answered with a “YES,” you and I likely would not be here right now. The Church would have remained a small “post-Jewish” cult, and it would probably have disappeared!

 You and I would likely not know of a relationship with the creator of the Universe made possible in the life, death and resurrection of an obscure, itinerant rabbi from the backwaters of the Roman Empire, because no man not born into Judaism  (sorry here, sisters) was going to endure the pain and indignity of a very personal procedure that was the mark, literally and figuratively of what it meant to be Jewish. I mean, what did circumcision have to do with believing in Jesus?

 Let me back up and provide some context: two weeks ago, Beth shared with us the Conversion of St. Paul- how Jesus appeared in dramatic fashion as then Saul and his party were approaching Damascus with instructions to arrest Jews who had become believers in Jesus.

 Paul turned out to be every bit as good of a missionary for Jesus as he had been a persecutor. He understood his call from Jesus to share the Good News with the Gentiles- that is, every one who was not Jewish, and he set out to do it. That set in motion several cultural issues that culminate in our readings today.

 In order to share the Gospel with Gentiles- that Jesus had come for ALL people- that Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God- a world in which all people, even the poor and the outcast were valuable and loved by God.

 That Jesus’ death on a Roman cross had been for the forgiveness of ALL people; that God so identified with all of humankind, God had been willing to take on our deaths, and then was raised from the dead, so ALL people, you and me included, could be in relationship with God forever.

 That there was and is, as Paul would later write in his letter to the Romans “nothing in all creation that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” and we are called to share that Good News with our world!

 In order to share the Gospel with Gentiles, Paul had to hang out with them- had to associate with them, eat with them- in short, treat them as the valuable people they were. It meant he could no longer follow the Jewish Law when it came to purification and diet. For him to eat with Gentiles was to make himself ritually unclean!

 And last week, Mary shared how this first hurdle was overcome: God sent Peter to the Roman Centurion Cornelius, after a dream in which God was quite clear that the dietary laws were less important than sharing the Good News of Jesus.

 Peter ate with the Gentile and his family- by example, now agreeing that “God shows no partiality...” words used exactly by Paul in our Galatians text today as he makes the point that he was every bit as much a leader as the Jerusalem leaders of the church...

 It is God’s desire for his children to overcome barriers- especially when they are artificial. It is God’s desire that God’s children be the brothers and sisters they were created to be! With Peter’s visit, those old rules start to crumble, and the leaders of the early community can’t have a lot of things to say about Paul’s behavior.

 Now I need to take just a moment to talk about the dynamics of change here. Change is hard, as we all know well. But how difficult must have this been for the first followers of Jesus!

 They were Jews: they were God’s chosen people- set apart as God’s own, and they did their best to remain separate from all the other communities in their world. For all their lives, they had, as best they could, followed the Law of Moses. The idea was that by following the Law, they were embodying God’s presence in and to their community.

 Now, even though they believed that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s Son, the Law was still important to them- it had been given by God through Moses- for a millennium and a half, it had ordered their community... This new idea of eating with just anyone would have been difficult, at best...

 And if the Law was the ordering of God’s people, then circumcision was the mark- the identity of God’s people. This goes all the way back to the Father of Israel, Abram. In Genesis 17, God makes renews the covenant with Abram made in Genesis 12- to create of Abram and his wife Sarai a great nation, more numerous than the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, changes his name to Abraham, and says to Abraham:

 “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised...”

 Put yourself in the place of the earliest Christians: for as long as there had been a people of God- roughly 2000 years, the mark had been circumcision. It would have been hard enough to accept that others from the outside could be included. But if you got there; if outsiders could be People of God, well then, by definition, there was a little something one needed to do...

 And then in comes this Paul guy who has been working with Gentiles for fourteen years- he has been starting churches all over- and HE says that the mark of the People of God is baptism... I mean, goodness, we Lutherans pitch a fit if someone tries to change something that’s thirty years old- or less! (Think changing hymnals- or musical styles...) Here we’re talking millennia of tradition!

 The potential for conflict and division is breathtaking!

 And so the Council happens. The Apostles have to decide what really matters- what is really important. I am one who believes that without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit this would not have ended as it did. (Remember in Acts 11 how the Spirit was present in Peter’s sermon to Cornelius and his household- and he baptized them...)

 Notice how Paul challenges them: in Galatians 2, he notes how he brought Titus, an uncircumcised Greek believer, along with him to Jerusalem. (A detail omitted in Acts 15- the beauty of the primary source!) You can almost hear Paul say, “OK, folks, you tell my friend here- this fellow believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ- that his faith is inadequate- that there’s something else necessary... And that I have not been telling the truth about what it means to be a follower of Christ. Why should they believe anything I have said???”

The mission to the Gentiles would have been over...

 In Acts, by contrast, Paul and his party tell of all the wonderful things that have happened- Gentiles becoming believers, lives being changed. There is less confrontation, but it is every bit as powerful.

 Peter retells the story of Cornelius, and how he and his family became believers. He notes that they were given the same Holy Spirit shown through the Jewish believers, and God has made no distinction between, in Peter’s words, “them and us...” In other words, them ARE us... And he concludes “we believe that we will be saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as they will...”

 After hearing more from Paul and Barnabas, James, the brother of Jesus concludes by affirming Peter’s story- he uses the name Simeon, the Hebrew for Simon, and interesting, because at the beginning of Luke, another Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms, and calls him “A light to lighten the gentiles...”

 God is doing a new thing; the old ways no longer apply. In Galatians, Paul says that Peter, James and John extend to them “the right hand of fellowship,” that is, open acceptance of the work among the Gentiles.

 Jesus and his work- his life, death and resurrection matter more than anything- even a tradition thought to be at the heart of what it meant to be the People of God. And with that, this two thousand year tradition ends; the Church builds throughout the Roman empire- into Africa, Asia, Europe and so, eventually to you and me! You can follow Jesus today because of the Jerusalem Council’s decision in Acts 15!

 That’s the first reason this text is important. (remember I started with “first...?) The second is every bit as important, but I won’t take nearly as much time with it. We face the same question faced by the Apostles as we think about our faith today:

 What is it that is at the heart of our faith today? What is it that really matters- in our relationships with other followers of Christ- and in how we relate to those who are not yet part of the People of God? How do we best bear witness to the love of God in Christ Jesus- his incredible grace which gathers us to him?

 Maybe another way of asking it is: what part of our traditions do we carry with us- that we love and value- that are NOT essential in the sharing of our faith with the people around us? And can we- like the early Church- let them go, as cherished as they are...

 I remember a decade ago when the ELCA was fighting over our relationship with the Episcopal Church and the role of bishops. A neighbor of mine pointed to the newspaper and said, “This is why I don’t go to church: you people fight over things I don’t care about...”

 When Jacob’s Well was being launched, Pastor Greg Meyer visited all the Lutheran Churches in the area, and at one, he was confronted by a man who said “we need those young families in our church!” Greg asked him, “What are you willing to do to reach them?” All too often, our answer has been, “Of course, people are welcome: all they have to do is dress like us, act like us, look like us, follow our worship order, and they’ll fit right in- with us...”

 Father Arnold and I continued our discussion about communion. And when I asked him if he were at St. Philip’s and I was presiding, would he take communion from me? He sighed, sadly, and said to me, “It is amazing how we can take something so beautiful and simple, and turn it into something so difficult...”

 The next day, at the wedding, while communion was being served, I slipped, unnoticed into the sacristy, and waited there until distribution was complete.

 To this day, I regret my actions.  Can you imagine the witness to all present about how a Lutheran pastor and a Catholic priest can share in the Lord’s Supper. Maybe most wouldn’t have noticed; it was not, after all, about us. But we would have been saying that the rules and traditions of our respective church bodies mattered less than the fact that we were and are brothers in Christ- and that all who were gathered around the table were brothers and sisters in Christ. I have resolved to never let those kind of rules get in the way again.

 Are we willing to embrace those who follow Christ of all stripes, regardless of which tradition they come from. Don’t just nod and say “Of course...” These folks come from different ethnic backgrounds, different cultural backgrounds, different theological backgrounds. They worship differently than we do, they start their conversation about God from a different place than we do. And yet, they confess Jesus as Lord. As Peter says in Acts 15, “them is us...”

 It’s not simply caving to the lowest common denominator. It is rigorous conversation while holding fast to that which matters most: the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

 My suspicion is that the laity will be far ahead of the clergy on this, and that’s a good thing- it has happened regularly throughout history. AS just one example, I know there are couples here who regularly travel between Bethlehem and the Basilica of St. Mary’s... Please share with me how you interact with your friends from different churches.

 And then, how might we all better connect with the people around us who are not a part of our church family yet. More and more, the people who don’t attend church don’t do so because the way we share the message of Jesus Christ doesn’t connect with their lives.

 What do we need to do to connect with them? What do we need to let go of- that we probably cherish- in order to better witness to the heart of our faith: a living relationship with the creator of the universe through the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we willing to do whatever it takes to reach people with that wonderful news?

 Grandparents- are you willing to do whatever it takes so that your grandchildren have the same relationship that you have with Jesus- even if it means a different worship style- or organizational style? Parents, I ask you the same question: are you willing to do whatever it takes so that your children have the same relationship that you have with Jesus- even though it might mean big changes?

 It is a question for every one of you- for all of us here: are we willing to do whatever it takes to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people who are searching for meaning, for significance, for hope in their lives, even though it might bring huge changes to us? Let us pray:

 Loving God, as you filled the early Church with your Spirit and gave them the courage to step away from traditions that were valuable, meaningful and helpful to them, in order that they could better reach the world with your love, we pray for the presence of your Spirit among us today. Help us to discern how we can reach out more effectively with your love. Help us to let go of whatever might distract or hinder us, so that we may better witness to the great love you have for our world- and for each of us. In Jesus’ precious name, Amen. 

 

 

 

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