| First: | Acts 15:1-6 |
| Resp: | Psalm 122:1-5 |
| Gospel: | John 15:1-8 |
Acts 15:1 Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’
Wow! This is a loaded issue. It was in Paul's day as well. It demanded the "church" make a call on this. The first council, in Jerusalem, had to decide what was necessary for the gentiles to do to be saved.
I can't help but think about how this cry is echoed today, especially today, even though it has already been decided, sort of. How many times do we hear " you can't be a Christian if you ..."? Now, that might refer to behavior, or belief, or whatever. But we still, to this day, put burdens (as Peter calls them) on others that we can't even bare ourselves. We say if you vote a certain way you can't be a Christian. We may reluctantly consider others to be Christian, like "right wing" or "evangelical" or "liberal", but in our hearts we question their true faith. Or we think that Roman Catholics aren't really Christian. Everybody that is not like us can't be Christian. Now the issue in the text was being saved, I know, but it is basically the same thing.
Jesus says that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Yet we resort to dividing ourselves every chance we get. Sometimes I wonder who really is not the Christian? The one that isn't like me, or me for dividing the body of Christ according to my own distorted and limited view of the truth?
The reason Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden is not just that they disobeyed some rule of God, directly. The stated reason in the Bible is that now, having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in other words having a heart of judgement, they must be kept form the tree of life so that they will not live forever as they are. It was a judgmental heart that was the issue. By judgmental, I mean the desire to be their own judge of what is right and what is wrong, their desire to be like God, or to be their own God. One of the meanings of god is ruler, or judge.
As we accuse our brothers and sisters of not being Christians because of how they vote or what church tradition they belong to, I think we need to consider that we may be like Adam and Eve all over again.
Will we then be kicked out of our garden as well?
Father, please, by your Holy Spirit, humble me and help me to keep my eyes on you and to realize that you are God and it is wrong for me to call bad, what you have blessed and called good.
Amen
