Becoming Church Together: Council in Jerusalem

Acts 15:1-21

Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’ And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders. So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.’

The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter. After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.’

The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, ‘My brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first looked favourably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name. This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,

“After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen;
from its ruins I will rebuild it,
and I will set it up,
so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—
even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called.
Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things known from long ago.”

Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood. For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.’

Dear beloved children of God, grace and peace to you from our crucified and risen savior Jesus who is the Christ. Amen.

Back in simpler times, my wife Beth and I set some pretty firm ground rules with our two kids around limiting their screen time. Apart from the occasional weekend deviation, we seldom let the kids have more than an hour on their screens on any given day.

Over the past few weeks, the weekly screen time reports I’ve received on my phone from my children’s devices is telling a slightly different story. Between distance learning, and working from home, and rainy days, we’re just trying to make it until bedtime. So the average screen time usage has skyrocketed. 

While I’m not sure yet what any of it means for long-term child development, it has introduced some interesting catch phrases into my four year old son’s lexicon. I’m not certain he really knows what any of them mean, but he’s been deploying them accurately — which is just a little unsettling. For example, a couple weeks ago, when my gentle redirection of his behavior turned into me yelling at him after getting zero response, he threw his hands in the air and stomped off while shouting, “Everyone’s a critic!”

That was an arresting moment.

Then there was the other morning when at some God forsaken hour he crawled in bed to “sleep” with us, and after thrashing around for a while, got himself too close to the edge of the bed and rolled off onto the floor. He looked at us with surprise on his face and said, “That was unexpected.”

If there was ever a phrase to describe tonight’s reading from the book of Acts: That was unexpected.

It can be difficult to fully appreciate nearly 2,000 years later, but at the time no one would have guessed that this story would have unfolded the way it did. Yes there was Peter’s meat sheet experience. Yes, there had been the dramatic conversion of Paul. Sure there had been the baptism of the Ethiopian official. There had but all kinds of signs that something different was unfolding in the early church. But this?

No way.

It’s too drastic. Too radical. It completely and fundamentally reshaped the church’s identity. 

Up until this point, the Jesus movement was a subset within Judaism. Most if not all people were Jews, and if they weren’t Jewish there was the expectation that they would become Jewish. It’s how they understood their relationship to God. They were people of the law, people of Moses, they were God’s holy people set apart, to be different, and faithful and holy. That took work. It meant following the law, it meant circumcision. It meant dietary restrictions. It was a way of life and a way of faith. The two were inextricably intertwined. You didn’t do one without the other.

So to believe in Jesus and to confess him as Lord meant that you followed the law. It was part of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus who saw him as a fulfillment of the promised messiah. None of that changed. Until all of a sudden it did. And everything was different. And it was totally unexpected.

Think about it. Entry into nearly every single human community is conditional. You do this or that and then you’re in. You pay dues. You fill out paperwork. You pass a test or demonstrate competency. You make a commitment. There are those kinds of things, but then there’s bigger stuff. In most instances, there is something you must do to adhere to the norms of the group. You become one of them by becoming like them. That’s how we humans usually do things. 

In first century Judaism their identity was marked by their adherence to the law, by circumcision, by dietary restrictions. This is what they did. It was who they were. To become one of them you did those things, you became like them. 

But all of sudden the community decides you could become a part of them, one of them, without becoming like them. It opened the door to diversity. No, it tore the door off the hinges and let diversity come pouring into the church. It changed the church. No longer was it a subgroup of Jewish followers of Jesus. It was a group of people from all over the known world who weren’t bound together by adherence to particular practices but were called gathered, and made holy, made a people by the Holy Spirit.

It changed everything. And it was totally unexpected.

But then again our God is always doing the unexpected, so maybe we should start to expect it.

Picking Abraham and Sarah was unexpected. The Exodus was unexpected. David was unexpected. Mary was unexpected. Becoming human in Jesus was unexpected.

The disciples were unexpected. Who would have picked them? God.

The crucifixion. The whole death of God thing. Real unexpected.

Easter and resurrection, no one saw that coming. Pentecost the explosion of the church, Saul becoming Paul.

Nobody ever sees God coming. Until afterwards and we look back and we say, God did it again. God brought more people in, God grew the kingdom. God worked through the most unexpected means to bring about the things that we count on God for, life, hope and healing.

Nine weeks or so ago we held our first online-only worship experience. A part of me wondered if I was going to be presiding over the beginning of this church. A part of me wondered if people would show up. But you did. By the hundreds. Then after Easter I wondered if anyone would tune in, because nobody shows up the Sunday after Easter. But you did again. Over 600 households. We’ve never seen that many folks when we’ve gathered in “normal times” on the Sunday after Easter. Week after week you keep showing up, and on Wednesdays too, and it’s not even Lent and still you’re here.

It’s a beautiful night in a Minnesota spring and still you’re here, and I find myself saying, well that’s unexpected.

But it shouldn’t be.

God is at work in and through this crisis. I don’t believe that God caused it, but I do believe God will use whatever unexpected means that are at God’s disposal to bring hope and healing and life to God’s people.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know when rhythms and routines will change again. I don’t know when it will be safe for all of us to gather together again. But I do know that God is busy. I do know God is moving in and through this community called the church. I do know that the Spirit is loose among us and in the world and that something new and beautiful and surprising will emerge. I’m trying to expect the unexpected. I’m trying to expect our God. 

Amen.