In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene - during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. All people will see God’s salvation.’”
Acts
When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them. Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.” The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that they were accepted, by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as was done for us. God did not discriminate between us and them, for their hearts were purified by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that they are saved, just as we are.”
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Remember the outcry when women were to be ordained in the church? It was indeed fearsome to behold. If women were going to be ordained, the whole Christian movement would go to hell in a handbasket. Yet, today most mainline Protestant denominations have ordained women.
Two of the kinder arguments used were that Jesus didn’t ordain any women, that women were not as smart as men. The less kind argument was that women could not possibly be a reflection of Jesus - and the Bible was used as a kind of proof. Well, technically Jesus didn’t ordain any men either! The Bible does tells us that Jesus called women as well as men to be his disciples. Luke’s Gospel tells us of the women and men who travelled together with Jesus - and the women provided the money. The Book of Acts tells us of the women who led churches. The first witnesses at Easter were Mary Magdalene and her friends. Genesis, in the creation story, says both male and female were created in the image of God, and it’s interesting that the Catholic Catechism also says that both men and women are made equally in God’s image.
During the 12-13C CE, the Cathars, also called Albigensians by Rome, lived in the area of Languedoc, in southeastern France, bordering on Spain. The Cathars rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary lives, and an inner group of Parfaits (men) and Parfaites (women) who led ascetic lives, but worked for their living - generally in itinerant manual trades like weaving. Men and women were regarded as equals; there was no doctrinal objection to contraception, euthanasia or suicide. By the early thirteenth century Catharism was probably the majority religion in the area, supported by the nobility as well as the common people. Not only did many Catholics, priests included, defect to the Cathars, but the group refused to pay tithes to Rome. Accusing the Cathars of heresy, Pope Innocent III instituted a Crusade against the Cathars, and by the end over 500,000 people, Cathar and non-Cathar alike, had been killed.
We of a certain age can remember even further back, when blacks were not considered people, could not worship in a white church, or eat in restaurants for whites, or use the same washrooms, or shop in the same stores, or live in the same parts of town as whites. In 1980, when Norio and I visited friends in Maryland, they told us that selling their house to blacks would mean the value of homes in the whole area would go down.
Many of us remember the debates over the admission of gays and lesbians to ordained ministry in the church in 1988. At the national office, I often found letters on my desk, accusing gays of having sex with animals, and all kinds of depraved behaviours. At General Council in Camrose, Alberta in 1997 - bags of dog poop were left on the chairs of people who were either suspected of being gay, or supported gay ordination. These things were always done either overnight, or early enough in the morning that no-one saw who it was.
Well, less than 20 years after the Pentecost experience, Paul and Barnabas faced similar challenges. It is a fact of human living that as long as there are institutions, and churches, and societies - there will always be arguments about who is “in” and who isn’t. Acts 5 records the most controversial, and the most pivotal event in the life of the early church. It called into question whether or not the new “church” was a Jewish reform movement, an independent sect, or was a wider movement where all barriers had been removed. There had already been other arguments about food, and practices foreign to the Jewish church. Following his conversion, Paul had visited Jerusalem, met Peter and James, caused a stir there among the Jews, been shipped off to Caesarea and then home to Tarsus. He spent the next eleven years in Cilicia and Syria. Around 40-41 CE rumours of Greek converts in Antioch went around, and the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to check it out.
Barnabas got on board, and together with Paul became pastor of a new church which was young, dynamic, and mostly Greek converts. The church in Jerusalem was strongly Jewish, and steeped in the Jewish traditions. The church leaders in Jerusalem thought that any Gentiles who wanted to follow Jesus had to become Jews first, by being circumcised. They could buy the idea that proselytes to Judaism like Cornelius could receive the Holy Spirit, for he was already a "God fearer", but accepting out and out pagans from another place and culture was a different matter. Its wasn't long before this issue came to a head.
On the first journey Paul and Barnabas witnessed to Jews and Gentiles alike. They founded churches in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe in the Southern region of the province of Galatia. Increasingly, it was the Gentiles who believed. The Jews got jealous and incited the rabble, and the authorities, to throw the apostles out of each town, one after another. When the dust had settled, and their visas were running out they turned round and worked their way back to the coast visiting each of these newly formed churches, and appointed leadership teams. Eventually they returned to home base, Antioch in Syria, tired but fully convinced of the rightness of their strategy. The hostility of the Jews, the responsiveness of the Gentiles, and the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit convinced them that it was the grace of the Spirit, not religious law or text.
In the Acts text, the words of some believers who were Pharisees insisted that new believers must be circumcised and require to obey the Law of Moses. Peter points out that God made the choice that the Gentiles would hear the message; that God had given them the Spirit, and that God made no distinction between Jew and Gentile. And Peter asks “Why do you put God to the test? We believe it is by the grace of the Spirit that they are saved, just as we are.”
If we are Christians, that means we are followers of Jesus, and that means we are followers of the most radical and inclusive way. That’s the message about preparing the way - preparing your heart, opening it to the Spirit. Everyone receives wisdom and Spirit from God, regardless of race, language, age, gender, or sexuality. Paul says God makes no distinctions. There is no “in” and “out”. Being inclusive means recognising the gifts that the Spirit has given to all people. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Sermon by Rev. Stephen Sizer, www.cc-vw.org/sermons/ibsacts15.htm
2. www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk/old-site/against.htm
3. http://www.cathar.info/
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