June 17, 2007
Proper 6C
One of the important conflicts of the early church involved customs and ritual. As illustrated in our Gospel today, one such custom was the fact that Jews of that time often refused to eat or even associate with known sinners or non-Jews (known as gentiles). As the Good News of Christ began to spread beyond Jerusalem, the apostles were confronted with the fact that many people who believed in Jesus were not Jews. This fact brought up the question of whether Jewish Christians could even associate with non-Jewish Christians. Eventually – and after what appears to be a protracted battle – the Church came to the decision that a Christian was not someone who observed Jewish customs, but someone who believed in Jesus.
It sounds silly today – of course a Christian is someone who believes in Jesus – but I actually think that that problem faced by the early church is a problem we face today. To understand what I mean I think it will be helpful to look closer at how the conflict over Jewish and non-Jewish Christians was resolved.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul play key roles in this conflict and its resolution. Saint Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, tells us about a dream that Saint Peter had that directed him – against his will – to associate, eat with, and even baptize gentiles. In today’s reading from his Letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul tells us of a confrontation he had with Saint Peter over (what appears to be) the aftermath of this very event. He writes: “Before certain men came from James, [Peter] ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.” Essentially, Saint Peter caved into peer pressure and again separated himself from “the wrong people”.
Saint Paul writes what he told Saint Peter: “We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified.”
I always get bogged down by the word “justified”. Sometimes it helps me to go to the original Greek to understand better what the text is saying. The Greek word that is so often translated as “justified” basically means “to put in a right relationship”. Thus, what Paul explains is that we are not put into a right relationship with God by following the law or by performing certain commands of the law, rather, the only thing that puts us is a right relationship with God is believing in Jesus Christ.
In our Gospel today Jesus deals with this same conflict and comes to the exact same resolution. When Jesus is eating at the house of Simon the Pharisee, a woman who is a known sinner comes to anoint Jesus’ feet with oil. Jesus is condemned by those he is eating with for allowing her near him. To their astonishment Jesus announces that this sinful woman’s sins are forgiven. Why are her sins forgiven? Because of something she did or didn’t do? No. Because she believed in Jesus. Jesus tells her: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
If Saint Peter needed to be reminded, then I certainly need to be reminded as well, and I imagine many Christians do to. Christians, beginning with Saint James and Saint Peter have separated themselves from other Christians for many different reasons. All of those reasons have one thing in common – not one of them puts them or us in the right relationship with God, and I think that its pretty obvious as well that none of those reasons puts us in a right relationship with each other. How many denominations are there? How many Christians are there who look across the aisle and doubt that the person they see is in a right relationship with God?
Christian unity isn’t an abstract idea. It begins and often breaks down over food. Peter and James objected to eating meals with the wrong people. Simon the Pharisee and his friends objected to a sinful woman’s presence at their table. Today Christians will often eat with anyone, until it comes to eating bread and drinking wine at Communion.
Jesus ate with saints, sinners, and everyone in between. I believe that if we are to remain in a right relationship with Christ, we are called to do what we can to be in the right relationship with the Body of Christ in the world. For me, Holy Communion is a good place to begin a right relationship with other Christians. I believe in Jesus, and so I come to receive his Body and his Blood. No matter how unrighteous the person next to me might appear to me, why would I assume he or she believed in anything other than Jesus? Sometimes that can be very difficult for me to swallow, but I believe that it’s a good way to start getting in the right relationship with the rest of the Body of Christ.
