Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2022 – Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23; John 14:23-29

Those of you who are at least 60 years old remember a time in Catholicism when we did some things that we don’t do now and didn’t do some things that we do do now. But, if you remember having conversations with your parents and grandparents, they would have told you that there’s some stuff we do as Catholics now that they didn’t do when they were growing up and some stuff that we don’t do now that they did do when they were growing up. And so, it’s fair to say that, when our children and grandchildren are our age, they will be able to say the same thing. There are things that we do as Catholics now that we didn’t do back then and things we don’t do anymore that we used to do back then. The church has allowed itself to obtain the image of being rigid and unchangeable. The fact is that the church is always in the process of changing. It is an evolutionary change in the sense that each new idea or movement grows organically out of some thing or some doctrine in the church’s past. So there’s never a time when there’s a complete and irrevocable break from one thing to the other.

That’s why I asked you to listen carefully to the issue that sent Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem to see the apostles and to the solution the apostles came up with. The issue was circumcision. Not much of a deal for us, but for the Jews of Jesus time it was a make-it-or-break-it deal. Circumcision existed among the Hebrews probably from before the time of Abraham, certainly since the time of the patriarchs. But it became a critical issue in their faith only about a hundred years before Jesus was born.

When the Greek empire conquered the Persian Empire, a man came to power as emperor of Greece. His name was Antiqua Epiphanes, and he issued a decree that it was against the law to have their male children circumcised. It was a crime punishable by death. And so, what had once been an inter-us issue, and a household issue, became the way in which one defended one’s faith. And many people were martyred rather than obey the decree of the Greek emperor. And so, in the time of Jesus, and therefore in the time of the apostles, circumcision was the “that without which” knot for being Jewish.

The problem is that Paul and Barnabas had converted thousands of Gentile people - pagans, who couldn’t have cared less about the Jewish religion - to follow in the way of Jesus. And they saw no reason to impose the Torah on these people. But the church had begun as a small group of Jews who believed they had found the Messiah. They never thought of themselves as anything else except Jews. They continued to go to temple and offer sacrifice. But, when they celebrated the Seder in their homes, they celebrated The Lord’s Supper. In the midst of the meal they broke the bread and said the words of institution, and passed the cup of wine and said the words of institution. It never occurred to them that life would be any different. Even when they had conflicts with the local rabbi, or when the Sanhedrin tried to expel them from the temple. Until they were expelled for the last time they thought of themselves as the Jews who followed Jesus.

And so, they thought that anybody else in the world who would ever come to follow Jesus would also first become a Jew, and that the males among them would honor the rite of circumcision. When Paul and Barnabas said no, it threatened to split the church into pieces. It was like a bomb going off in the midst of the community. So the whole church gathers to deal with this critical issue. But did you notice what the solution was? Paul and Barnabas say, “Go home and tell your people not to eat meat sacrificed to idols. What has that got to do with the issue that was raised?

This is what it has to do with it. When the Lord’s Supper was celebrated, it was celebrated as a community meal. People brought to the community meal what we would call potluck. They all brought something for the table. If a community, made up of Jewish and Gentile Christians, came together for Eucharist, and the Gentile Christians went to the marketplace and bought meat that had just come from the temple of Zeus or Apollo, it was tref. It was unclean. The Jewish Christians at table could not touch it. And so, in the midst of this supposed fellowship, there was a breakdown of community. How can you break the bread of Eucharist if people are not speaking to one another over the issue of what else is at the table? How can you share the chalice of salvation if people have insulted other people by the food they brought in potluck?

The Mass that we celebrate today looks very different and sounds very different from the one I just described. From the very beginning, however, there were always two things – the Word and the Eucharist. The Word was a scroll of the Old Testament, if they could find one. Otherwise it was apostles or their friends or their disciples telling people the stories of Jesus, followed by the consuming of a family meal within which the body and blood of Christ was revealed and received.

How did they get from what they thought was the big deal issue to what finally became the big deal issue? It took four things. It took creativity, empathy, farsightedness, and flexibility. Empathy – understanding how the other person feels in this situation. Creativity – going about things in a different way. Flexibility – being willing to move off the dime and consider other options. Farsightedness – having in the center of your mind what is the most important and substantive issue. The most important and substantive issue for the church from the beginning has been preserving unity at Eucharist. It is the heart of our life. Without it we do not exist. And everything else, everything else, takes second place to preserving unity at Eucharist. But, we cannot really have creativity, empathy, flexibility, and farsightedness all by ourselves. In our own lives as family, as community, as church, sometimes we got it, sometimes we don’t. It comes through two gifts of God.

Jesus says in today’s gospel, “My peace I leave with you. It is not like the peace that the world gives. And, if you love me, my Father will love you and He will send you the advocate who will call to mind what I have taught you.” These four gifts within the church come from the peace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Eucharist is the center of our lives. Without it we do not exist as a community. In order for the church to evolve from one time in its history to another, it requires empathy, creativity, flexibility and farsightedness. Ryan [First Communion child], welcome to the center of Christian life.