A reading of the holy gospel according to John. Jesus said, this is a continuation of that same discourse. Jesus said to his disciples, as the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love. You will live in my love if you keep my commandments even as I have kept my father's commandments and live in his love.
All this I tell you, that my joy may be yours and that your joy may be complete. This is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. This business of reading these texts, atomized, that is shattered, doesn't lend itself to giving you a very complete picture of what we're reading.
Now, here we have these two readings, the first and the second, the first having to do with the Acts of Apostles, the second is long discourse with which Saint John records of our Lord, and they have a certain unity above all the one from the acts. And you will get that only if you sit down quietly and read them in their entirety. You're talking in terms of minutes of your time. A few minutes will do it. The impact will be worth your effort.
Now this reading from the book of the Acts of Apostles has to do with a very significant issue, well, a number of issues. Here we have the history, the only history we have of the primitive church. There's nothing else besides this. Now, the big question that faced the church immediately, that is as soon as non Jews expressed a willingness to become part of the new way of Christ, As soon as that began to happen, and it happened as soon as the apostles moved out of Israel, they moved north towards Antioch Of Syria, then over towards Antioch Of Pisidia, and then kept going west and west. The question then arose, What do we do with these Gentiles?
All the first Christians were Jews out of the synagogue. Secondly, when the apostles, those who were sent, went into these Greek cities, the Gentile cities, they went into the synagogues to carry the message to the Jews so that it was a Jewish religious movement, solidly Jewish, exclusively Jewish, until Gentiles started to get on the band wagon. What do you do with it? Well, there was a group that said they have to become Jewish, because we're all Jews, for one reason. And what we're having here is something which is based upon, which is built upon the Old Testament, upon Jewish practice, upon Jewish religion.
Christ was Jewish. So if the ones coming in, the Gentiles, if they wish to follow the new way, they must follow our practices. That sounds reasonable enough. Reasonable enough, enough in a way, but in another way it sounded very unreasonable, especially to Paul and Barnabas, because they are the ones who were going up there to Antioch Of Syria. So we have a dissension.
Of course, is what involved is circumcision for the males and then the Jewish dietary laws. They're the main ones. Now don't minimize that you're talking in terms of a lot of rules and regulations. You're not talking about the 10 Commandments. You're talking about a whole new way of life that you were asking these Gentiles to assume in order to become Christians.
And Paul and Barnabas says, Nix, we don't want any of That's not reasonable. Well, others said, Oh yes, it is reasonable. This is the way it ought to be. Now, point number one: Could they have resolved that question themselves if they thought they had the authority? Of course they could, if they thought they had the authority, but they didn't think they had the authority.
They said, We must take this question back to Jerusalem to Peter and the other apostles in Jerusalem. And that's what they did. Today's reading then brings us there. We've had this reading going on now for several days, and you can't keep track of it, I know that. But this is a real dramatic story.
You can put it on the stage if you want, but there's a lot of things we're seeing anyway. Now, when they come to Jerusalem, notice notice this, in the reading, there were some Pharisees there who were Christians. And naturally the Pharisee would say, Of course, they should become Jewish, they should follow the Jewish way of life if they want to be Christians. Naturally they would say that. And there's reason on their side too, some reason.
But others said no, so there was dissension. Now, just listen to this first line. After much discussion, Peter took the floor. He took it as if by right. He wasn't voted in.
It wasn't a democracy. And Peter says to the apostles and to the elders, this was a real this was a real schism about that. I mean, they were broken up. They were divided. So Peter takes the floor.
I work right. He tells him, brothers, you know well enough that from the early days, god selected me from your number to be the one from whose lips the Gentiles would hear the message of the gospel and believe. So he takes the floor not by arrogance but by authority, which he says he got from God. Now what's the point of all this? Why am I making a big deal out of it?
I am because this is what is being today challenged. Was there an institutional church, or wasn't there? Of course, this is just a hangover from the sixteenth century. But the question is, was there Well, Price didn't sit down call in some architects and planners and managers and efficiency experts and say, Now let's draw up a fine chart of and we'll have job descriptions, and we'll have a complete administrative channel outline, and we'll get it all blueprinted, and then we'll put it on the Xerox, we'll have everybody have a copy. We will then have nice order, order, order.
Christ didn't do anything like that. Nothing like that. But he did not leave his church in disorder. That is the point. It was only to Peter that he says, You are the rock, and on you I will fill my church.
Not to the others. And you just go through the four Gospels and see that on every single instance, who took the floor, who was the spokesman, who jumped out of the boat, Who answered the questions? Peter. And never once was he rebuked for taking the lead. Today, here this don't under this was a real serious question.
This could have split the church wide open. And a matter of fact, it was splitting it. There was a great division. The first point is the disciples did not think they had the power to resolve it for themselves. In other words, the church of Antioch of Syria remember, the church only means a gathering, a crowd, a collective of people.
They didn't think they had the power. Why didn't they think they had the power? If all the disciples were equal, leaving on Paul. But they recognized they didn't have the authority. Where was the authority?
Back in Jerusalem. And there, who takes the floor? Peter. Not all on anybody else, and he takes the fire bright and he says, God appointed me. Now this is the fact of the matter, and we should not overlook it.
And the fact that you have an organization, not a blueprint of an organization, but an organization, in fact, is beyond dispute. But no one disputes these texts, And they're very early. And so I urge you to read this. There's so much in the air today which tosses you around. You don't know where you stand.
You should know where you stand. You should know where you stand. And there's no reason for losing your bearings. You may be tossed around over, but there's no reason to lose your course. There's no reason to lose your target or your vision of the target.
None at all. None at all. And the fact that there is some confusion, so what? There's confusion at very the earliest days of the church there's confusion. So let's not wonder that.
That's par for the course. And so I urge you again, take up your New Testament and read these things in their context, in their entirety. Some people do it and who have been reading their bible often on, you know, dribs and drabs, and it's a revelation. So see what that they find. They say, I didn't know anything like that was there.
Try it. You may even like it. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.