The early church was facing a crisis. Some of the apostles were welcoming gentile believers into the community but not insisting that they keep the Law as given to Moses. The question the community was facing had to do with the limits of God's grace. Was God's grace given to only the faithful remnant of Jews, or was it for all who responded to the Gospel? And once people responded, how were they to change their lives?
The fact that this crisis occurred early on in the life of the Church, while many of Jesus' closest disciples were still alive, is a pretty strong indication that he gave no direct teaching on this matter. Remember that the words we are reading here are probably written a generation, possibly more, after these events took place. There were, as yet, no gospel accounts written. Paul was likely writing his letters but the most important of these had not been gathered together or given any particular authority. What we have, in this moment, is the early Church facing a question of how it will order its life and not having a clear recollection of Jesus' will in the matter. I find that worth meditating upon. Jesus apparently trusted the disciples who were going to be building the community of his Body to do the right thing. Or more to the point, he expected them to be led by the Holy Spirit into making the decisions that he would have expected them to make. That level of trust toward those of us in the Church, on the part of the second person of the Holy Trinity is rather breathtaking. I don't know that we ever really think about its implications. I'm not sure I recognize or understand them all. Jesus calls us friends, sisters and brothers. And he's apparently treating us that way, letting his family order its common life. (I find my comfort in my own belief that if we chose wrongly, the Holy Spirit will lead out of that error eventually.)
In response to this particular moment, the apostles gather together to take counsel with each other. They listen to Paul and Barnabas talk about what they had witnessed as they had preached the good news to the gentile people. They were especially interested in seeing the Holy Spirit's presence and action in those who had received the Gospel and begun to live into the message.
They looked into the scriptures of the Jewish people to see if what they were doing was contradictory to what was taught there. They did find support. It's worth remembering that there are other verses in what we call the Old Testament that would contradict this mission to the Gentiles. Holy Scripture is never simple and there's rarely a clear single thread. I would guess that they chose to read it they way they did by using the lens of the Gospel to make sense of what they found. The good news and their experience of Jesus' direct teaching, and the Holy Spirit's actions led them to give more weight to certain verses than others. In the end they were convinced that they were not acting in a manner contrary to the full witness of scripture.
But they did not welcome the new believers without putting some restrictions on them. There were some parts of the Law that still applied to all. (It seems that the apostles believed that jewish converts would be still expected to keep the full Law - which was apparently the case for the original apostles, with the exception so far of Peter.) The apostles, having come to a consensus in their counsel wrote a letter to the whole church. (I hope that the act of writing a letter to the whole church sounds familiar. The House of Bishop's meeting I attended in Kanuga, wrote a letter to the Episcopal Church following this example.) We do know that the matter was far from settled after the letter was written. It took many years for the teaching to be received by the whole church. And some parts of the early church, particularly the parts of the Church in Jerusalem, struggled with the question for many years afterwards.
What happened in this instance became a model for how the Church made its decisions. It's the process that was used when the Nicene Creed was compiled. It's the process used when the list of which books belonged in the Bible and which ones didn't was drawn up. It's the process used to decide questions about the role of Mary in the lives of the faithful.
It can also be a model for much smaller groups as well. When we are faced with a difficult decision, we can come together, try to discern God's action in a moment, test that action using the scriptures, looking at the traditions of the church and thinking hard about what is reasonable. (That's our Anglican "three-legged" stool right there.)
I wonder today how well we keep to this pattern. Do we discern in community? Or do we hold ourselves apart as we make decisions. Do we have a community to use to make decisions? Do we try to discern God's will? Do we test by remembering the message of the Gospel and scripture? I do imagine that what we ultimately decide is decided because we are convinced it's reasonable, so we've got that part covered: as long as we're discerning in community.
What community do you use to make decisions? How did you chose it? Or did it chose you? You probably do have one, though perhaps you've not thought about it this way. Is the the community you are using the one you think you should be using?
If not, what are you willing to change?
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