No strings attached.

        If you read this blog with any frequency, you'll note my penchant deriding the rules and rubrics that man has created especially in regards to religion. I might be tempted to say that I feel like I am in great company because Jesus also railed against the Pharisees for much the same reason. Honestly though, Jesus is my mentor and it is his example that leads me to these truths, if not all truths. I follow him.

       In today's passage from Acts, you have a fledgling Christian community in Antioch welcoming gentiles into their midst.  It had now been determined that they need not be circumcised. You did not have to become Jewish first in order to become Christian, a follower of Jesus. But humans being what they are, a simple welcome would not suffice. There must be a little human restriction even if it's not to the extent of the Pharisees or heaven forbid, the ways of the Roman Church today.

       So welcome gentiles one and all but.......abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. After all, we wouldn't want to make things too easy now, would we? Well, why not?

       Have so many rules done anything but keep people from being saved? Don't the rules and rubrics only set up standards and judgment without the Spirit?  One of the things that I love about the Episcopal church is your ability to journey. You can believe what you wish as long as Jesus is your Lord and Savior. It's not like Cafeteria Catholics who might be ostracized if they confessed verbally what they have trouble believing or worse, refuse to believe.  Must we believe in Limbo? The assumption of Mary in bodily form into heaven? How about original sin, birth control and the primacy of the Pope?   I would contend that more Catholics are closet Episcopalians than anyone realizes.  The truth is, the naysayers, rule minders and onerous orthodox are merely standing in the way of a thoroughly welcoming and loving Father who embraces everyone.  NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

        Why must we find ways of restricting access, making rules and rubrics that are not of God in the first place?   How can we open ourselves to the same universal welcome that God graces each one of us with. This may be the challenge of a lifetime effort but it surely is our calling if we believe in Jesus Christ and believe following His way, The Way.

             

Acts 15:22-35

 Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: ‘The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.’

 So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. When its membersread it, they rejoiced at the exhortation. Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.