The Church’s Mission to all People
1991 (Year B), 23 June /
Pentecost 5
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
Now not many people know this, but the history of the early church reads like something from South Fork. Let me explain. After the death and resurrection of Jesus leadership didn’t pass to St Paul, or indeed to St Peter. Leadership went to James the Lord’s brother.
According to the Acts of the Apostles, after Peter and Paul and Barnabas had spoken in council, ‘it was James who spoke’. ‘I rule then,’ said James, sending out a ruling that was to direct the churches outside Jerusalem. ‘I rule, not Peter, or James or John, but I, the brother of the Lord, rule that the following things be carried out by Christians in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.’
Another early church historian said this, ‘Those who were called the brothers of the Saviour governed the entire church, in virtue of their being relatives of the Lord.’ The early church was a dynasty. We have to face the fact that after Pentecost Jesus’ family took over. Of course there are similarities in history. Nobody, I guess, would’ve heard of Winnie Mandela, and she certainly would’ve had no power at all, if it wasn’t for her husband. Edward Kennedy inherited power and influence from his brothers. Rajiv Ghandi’s supporters tried desperately to persuade his widow that the family had some kind of divine right to rule their country.
Jesus’ family didn’t discover something new. They weren’t the first to realise that power could be inherited. When Judas Maccabaeus, the great Jewish freedom fighter was struck down, several centuries before Christ, his brother Jonathan accepted leadership of the Jewish people. He was anointed high priest and founded the Maccabean dynasty. And of course the Egyptians knew all about dynasties, so did the Chinese and the Romans.
Why is it then, that if what I’m suggesting is true, most of you have never heard of the Lord’s brother? You probably never even knew he was called James? Why is it when we think of the early church we think of it being led by Peter or Paul?
The reason is simple. The dynasty died. After AD 140, only a 100 years after the resurrection of their saviour and family member there is not a trace of them left in the world of living human beings. And the reason they died is that they were never ready or able to undertake their ‘exodus’. They couldn’t leave their spiritual home. They insisted on the necessity for converts to observe the Jewish law, in particular in regard to food and circumcision.
They felt no need to reach out to neighbouring nations and cultures as equals in the sight of God. No need to search out the meaning of Christ together. They were not the ones who took the Good News to Rome in a permanent way. Others performed that task. They saw no truth, only darkness in the gentile world. And they stand as a sad and mournful warning to all of us in the church today about cultural blindness and arrogance.
The Good News was taken to the Gentiles only after fierce argument by Peter and supremely by Paul. We heard part of that argument in the second reading today, as Peter tried to convince Jewish Christians that they need not insist that Gentile converts should eat identical food. I have no doubt that it was an argument those who were involved thought would tear the believers apart. Identical predictions and arguments are being used today by those who still look inwards and backwards in their attempt to maintain purity and masculinity of the priesthood in the church.
We can of course refuse to commit ourselves to a journey of exploration and discovery, maintaining that really ‘it’s business as usual’. But if we do, we must ask whether we, the current bearers of the Christian message, will not die and pass from history, just as surely as those first Christians did. They too, had their day in the sun.
The early church stands as a beacon proclaiming to us the dangers of remaining tight and inward looking. Quite simply we have to move out of ourselves not only to survive but to in order to maintain the mission entrusted to us by Jesus. As we do move out, so the gospel we seek to communicate will change. It will be enlivened and enlarged by the insights of other cultures and religions. It will become God filled. AMEN