Loving God, we tend to be most comfortable with people who are just like us and sometimes have trouble comprehending the wideness of your mercy.  Help us to see each person we encounter as you see them – beloved and redeemed through Jesus Christ, for in his name we pray.  Amen.

            Today, we get to hear about the first general synod, or church convention.  Paul and Barnabas are sent as delegates from the church in Antioch, which has sent a very important question to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem:  Do Gentile believers have to become Jewish in order to be saved?  As the convention considers this matter, they engage in debate with one another and listen to reports about what God has been doing among the Gentiles.  People share their personal experiences, they discuss theology, and they search the Scriptures for guidance.

         In the end, it is the wisdom of the apostles that prevails, and a letter is sent to the Gentile believers telling them which parts of the law of Moses are deemed important for them to remember in that particular time and place.  Circumcision is not required of them, and the congregation at Antioch rejoices at the exhortation (Acts 15:31).

         Interestingly enough, it is a pattern of decision-making that continues in the church to this day.  However, the most important question today is not how to make decisions as a church, but what is required for salvation.  Today’s reading began with some people coming from Judea to Antioch and telling the believers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1).

         They reflect the mindset of many in the early church who connected faith in Jesus with being Jewish.  Because of this mindset, the only way they could think of to include Gentiles among the believers was for them to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses – in other words, to convert to Judaism.

         This is not unlike the mindset that accompanied many missionaries who set out from Europe to share the good news about Jesus around the world.  Many of them could not separate faith in Jesus from Christendom – the official religion of the Roman Empire, which then became the official religion in many European nations.  Hence, when they shared the good news about Jesus, it came part and parcel with trying to turn indigenous people into Europeans.

         We can see this in the pictures from residential schools where the boys and girls are wearing European clothing, and the boys all had to have their hair cut short.  We also see it when their own language and culture were forbidden so that they would learn English, or French, or Spanish, and would learn European behaviour and culture. The missionaries did not come with evil intent, but they couldn’t conceive of faith in Jesus without all of the trappings of their own experience and culture.

         One example of this is found in a letter that was written by one of the first Lutheran missionaries in Pennsylvania (For All the Saints: A Prayer Book for and by the Church).  He is writing to a mission society in Germany and is asking them to send an organ, as well as somebody who knows how to play it.  He believes that having an organ would help greatly in his missionary work, and that the natives will come running to hear such strange and wonderful music.

         We might chuckle at this now, but I have no doubt that he was quite sincere in making this request.  The thing is that all of us carry with us our own experience and culture, and many of us have the same tendency to weave that right in there with our faith in Jesus.

         A pastor in Scotland shares the story of some teenage boys who started attending the congregation that she serves (RevGalBlogPals.org).  They came more than once, and even attended a Bible study.  However, two of the first things that they learned about the Christian faith was that they couldn’t wear baseball caps at church and they couldn’t have sex outside of a marriage relationship.  Once they learned these things, they never came back.

         You cannot be saved unless you are circumcised.  You cannot be saved unless you take your hat off.  You cannot be saved unless you dress properly.  You cannot be saved unless you behave like we had to when we were little.  You cannot be saved unless you change your sexuality.  You cannot be saved unless you follow all of the rules.  You cannot be saved unless you learn to speak our language.  You cannot be saved unless you become just like us.

         Do we really believe that all are welcome by God’s grace and that we are saved by grace through faith?  And when people show up who are curious about the Christian faith, do we start with all of the rules or with the story of God’s love through Jesus Christ?  After all, the most important commandments are not about what to wear, or even about our sex lives, but about love for God and for one another.  And, as the apostle John says so often, it is God who first loved us in and through Jesus Christ.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Easter 5 (NL 3)                                 Acts 15:1-18

May 2, 2021

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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