Word to the Wise
Monday, April 26, 2010 - Monday in the Fourth Week of Easter
[Acts 11:1-18 and John 10:1-10]"If then God gave them the same gift he gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?" When they heard this, they stopped objecting and glorified God, saying, "God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too."
This is a moment almost as important as the conversion of St. Paul. One might call it the conversion of St. Peter! In the person of the leader of the Twelve, Christianity reaches a defining moment. Would this new faith remain a branch or sect of the diverse but geographically limited reality of Judaism? Or would it admit to the possibility of new believers who had never embraced Judaism? The equivalent question in our own time, even if it would sound a bit strange to us, might be: Must one be "born a Catholic" to be a Catholic? If the answer to that is "No!" as was the answer (not without hesitation) of the Jerusalem community, then what becomes of the practices that are so much a part of the religious background and history of the Jews who had come to believe the Jesus is the Messiah. Another way of putting the question might be: Is Jesus the messiah only of the Jews? All of this arises from the confrontation with Peter in Jerusalem when he returns from a journey up the coast to Joppa! "You entered the house of uncircumcised people and ate with them!" Peter then relates his vision about the issue of "clean and unclean foods." Of course, the matter is much bigger than diet! Cannot God give faith to anyone God pleases to? Peter asks a very important question when he says, "Who was I to be able to hinder God?" That last question doesn't put an end to the matter, however! Even if the Jewish observance of the Mosaic law is not required of new converts, what should be required? That places a challenge to the "charter" or "cradle" believers? What can we ask that avoids putting a "hindrance" to God's gift of faith? To what are WE committed that new members should be asked to commit themselves? Now THAT is a bigger question than I have space for today! AMEN
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