Wednesday of Fifth Week of Easter

Lectionary: 287

Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers,
“Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved.”
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 presbyters about this question. 

 

Anyone familiar with the Scriptures or Church history cannot complain about controversy. Although we aspire to the lofty goals of solidarity and harmony, we have strong opinions and strong feelings about many religious issues. In the course of many centuries we have learned to appreciate the value of these intense, sometimes rancorous, discussions. Invariably the Holy Spirit leads us through the confusion, distress, and pain to a deeper appreciation of God’s mercy.

At their heart is the young man’s question: “What must I do to gain eternal life?” We want to know God’s way and we dread being misled by our own preconditions, preferences, and unconscious fears. As the early Church announced the Good News, she encountered many deeply rooted philosophical beliefs of the Greco-Roman world which distorted the nature of the human being, and consequently the message of Christ. People found these misunderstandings easier to accept than the revealed Word of God. But heresies distort our understanding of God and of ourselves; they lead us not to God but into deeper sin. The faithful Church cannot tolerate such misconceptions.

Saint Luke, in his sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, recalls the first challenges the disciples faced. From the outset there were factions with vested interests. When gentiles showed an eager willingness to know and love the Lord Jesus, some Jewish Christians of the Pharisee party assumed they should also be fully initiated into the Jewish religion. At the time many gentiles admired Abraham's religion, and some Jews eagerly welcomed them. Also, at that time, the gap between the Jewish and Christians sects had not widened into an irreparable breach. If many gentiles were becoming Jews by circumcision, why shouldn’t they do the same when they joined the Christian sect?

The older Apostles Peter and James, eyewitnesses of Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection, had no answer to that question. The question never came up during Jesus's life. Obviously, he could not have answered a question that was never asked. But Saints Paul and Barnabas did! Both were scholars of the Jewish tradition and Jesus’s first disciples were unlettered fishermen and tax collectors.

Saint Paul insisted,

“If you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you…. You are separated from Christ; you are trying to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”

Paul, burned out by his former zealotry, recognized the spirit of his pharisaic competitors. Although they were nominally Christians, they wanted to score points and accumulate merit. If they were good enough, they supposed, God had to save them. Paul and Barnabas despised such pusillanimous drivel. They saw in the death and resurrection of Jesus the overwhelming generosity of God; it shown better on the undeserving than the deserving. Any suggestion that God owed anything to anyone cancelled the superabundant mercy of God. 

Worse, it rendered salvation impossible. The Church vigorously fights every form of heresy because they invariably cancel God’s sacrifice. Whether we speak of the Incarnation of Christ, the Trinity, or efficacy of the Sacraments, to dismiss or alter these doctrines is to prefer an impossible shortcut to salvation.

At that time, the Church's decision proved to be popular. Baptism was a lot less painful than circumcision! It doesn't always work that way. Today, as we continue to teach God's word and what it means in the twenty-first century, we confront abortion, euthanasia, racism, suicide, drug abuse, family violence, and a heavily armed citizenry with the Good News of God's mercy. The world needs to hear this message even if it doesn't fit their polarized preferences.