Acts 15: 7-21, Psalm 96:1-3, 10, John 15:9-11
Let’s take a minute to look at the history behind our first reading.
The first believers in Jesus were Jews. They saw belief in Jesus as an extension of Judaism. They came to believe in Jesus from within their own context, which was the Jewish faith. Jesus was a Jew. He was the Messiah God had promised to the Jews. The assumption was if non-Jews were to believe in Jesus they would have to become Jews. There was a tradition of people converting to Judaism, so this wasn’t something totally new.
The issues involved were circumcision and the common table they shared at Eucharist. To become a Jew the gentiles would have to be circumcised. How could Jews eat with Gentiles when Jews didn’t accept some foods Gentiles ate routinely? The Church, through the experience of Paul and Peter came to understand that Gentiles could have faith without first being Jewish. That is what is reflected in this reading. Peter is saying, Gentiles don’t need to be Jews. They just need to follow some basic rules of respect.
I think today it’s easy for us to say, “Of course, anyone can be Catholic or Christian. Why wouldn’t we accept others who accept what we believe. We have centuries of history in which missionaries have literally traveled the globe to convert people to Catholicism.
The Gospel is trying to instill in our hearts that God loves all of us. The issue is who do we accept as us? Who is Jesus talking to when he wants our joy to be complete? Is he’s talking to everyone? Can we accept that?
It should be comforting to know this is not a new issue, as evidenced by the reading from Acts. Those first followers of Jesus expected you had to be a Jew to follow Jesus. But the issue is very real today for us too. It just takes shape around different people.
Can we share table, can we accept as brothers and sisters, people we really don’t understand or may even be afraid of? Perhaps we still have some misgivings about people of a different skin color. Today that may or may not be the most pointed problem. What about gays, immigrants from anyplace south of the border? What about people who aren’t very clean or don’t have a place to live? What about people whose politics is different from ours? What about people who voted for raising property taxes to build the new library or a new school or any public improvement.
Can we be a people who has a sense of our human community? These days, people in politics, Democrats and Republicans, don’t look like they could agree on anything. Groups seem less willing to compromise. The need to say who I am outweighs the need to understand who we might be together. Ultimately, we must recognize our need to get along and work together. We need to do that because we care about each other. If we are Christian, we are called to get along not out of expediency but out of love, because God loves all of us. That’s what Jesus says. “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.” Jesus is trying to explain that there is a kind of unity that exists between God and us, between us all. If our joy is to be complete we will need to embrace that unity, to help make it actual in our lives. To see past differences and believe as Acts says, “God made no distinction between us and them.” The challenge to us is to consider who we still treat like “them” or “those people.” Otherwise we will be acting just like the first century Jews who expected Gentiles to be circumcised before they could become followers of Jesus.
