Word to the Wise
Thursday, May 13, 2010 - Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter
[Acts 18:1-8 and John 16:16-20]When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began to occupy himself totally with preaching the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. When they opposed him and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, "Your blood be on your heads! I am clear of responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles!"
This is another of those important "moments" in the development of the early Church! It is a colorful one! Paul could hold his own in a cursing match! He shakes the dust off his garments at his opposition to indicate he doesn't want anything to do with them anymore and uses a familiar expression of blame. (Remember Jesus telling the disciples when they meet opposition to shake the dust of the town off their feet in testimony against the opposition? Remember Pilate at the trial saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood." To which the crowd says, "His blood be on us and on our children!") At this point, Paul doesn't seem to care if there's ANY carryover requirements from Judaism for Gentile converts! Later on, his anguished testimony in his Letter to the Romans shows that he could not ignore his own roots and the roots of the Christian community in the Chosen People. Nevertheless, the future of the new "movement" was clearly not within the Jewish community, which, unfortunately, created the early roots of anti-semitism, a vicious prejudice that would later cause the horror of the "Holocaust" in Nazi Germany. Paul could not in any way be accused of that, but his frustration at the opposition from his "co-religionists" is understandable! His turn to the Gentiles would have tremendous consequences for the future of Christianity! It seems to have been providential and we are the beneficiaries. AMEN
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