Homily for Thursday, 5th Week of Easter

Homily for Thursday
5th Week of Easter

May 23, 2019

Acts 15: 7-21
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said…” (Acts 15:7).

Debate, argument, disagreement are nothing new in the Church.  Yesterday’s reading ended with the apostles and elders coming together in Jerusalem to hash out a contentious issue—the contentious issue—of the early Church:  the relationship between Jews and Gentiles within the community of believers.  That’s where our reading today begins.

A depiction of St. Paul at the Council of Jerusalem

(from Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls)

It’s about 50 A.D., according to the scholars, some 20 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, 20 years after the Good News of our redemption began to spread from Judea to Samaria, and then to the Greek world of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Did Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs, and others have to adopt circumcision and all the rest of the Torah in order to follow Jesus and be saved?  Did Jesus come to save only his own people, and does that salvation depend somehow also upon Moses?

The great gathering in Jerusalem decided that Jesus offers salvation by is by grace—by faith, as we heard the Collect stress—not by the Law.  God calls whomever he wishes, including the Gentiles, and freely bestows his Spirit also upon them.

How did the council of Jerusalem come to that decision?  By listening!  By listening to the Church’s experience, as reported by Peter as well as by Barnabas and Paul; by listening to each other in the “much debate” of the 1st verse of today’s reading—and I’ll bet it was heated debate; and by listening to the Sacred Scriptures, to see how the Word of God enlightened their experiences and opinions.

This is just what Pope Francis has been trying to do as he leads the Church today:  to promote full and honest debate on issues like marriage and family life, youth ministry, the environment, and spreading the Good News in today’s world.  What’s our experience?  What are the different opinions and options?  What does the Word of God and the long tradition of the Church say to us?

All of which can be applied also to our own lives:  to our personal decision-making, to our family life, to our parish life.

May we always keep ourselves open to God’s voice, to his touch, to his guidance in our own experiences, in dialog with others, and in our prayerful reading of the Scriptures.