This article was originally published by The Mennonite

Listen to God and each other

The Jerusalem Council models reconciliation in church conflicts

In Acts 15, we read of a transformative experience called the Jerusalem Council, where some ethnocentric Jewish believers who follow Jesus insist that Gentile believers must also abide by Jewish cultural laws, such as circumcision and observing the food purity laws, if they want to follow Jesus.

So church leaders gathered in Jerusalem to discuss the conflict. Would there be a continuation of things “as they’ve always been done,” or will there be a “new creation”? This conflict evoked a variety of deep feelings.

cc_Dominic Wade-1920x840After Peter shared about God’s abundant and all-encompassing grace in giving the Holy Spirit to Gentiles as well as Jews without discrimination, we are told in verse 12, that “the whole assembly became silent as they listened.”

How often do we fail to listen, truly listen to each other in the midst of a conflict, especially within a conflict that we care about deeply?

John Paul Lederach, who has devoted his life to peacemaking and reconciliation, has recently published a revised edition of his book Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians (Herald Press). In this book, he has a whole chapter devoted to the Jerusalem Council and its implications for today’s church.

He writes: “Our capacity to listen to God is only as great as our capacity to listen to each other when we are in conflict. I mean that literally. We test our real capability to listen, not when it is easy but when it is most difficult. Listening is much more than a technique devised to improve communication. Listening is about the process of relationship, engaging Truth and finding God.”

As participants in the Jerusalem Council met, every voice was represented. The council decided to send some representatives back to Antioch with a letter outlining the council’s decision to allow for room for the Spirit to lead in different ways in different contexts.

Lederach clarifies it this way: “In essence they decide, ‘We recognize new things that God has envisioned for the church, things that from our tradition we did not expect. We are changing our beliefs to match this new understanding of God moving among us. However, we recognize important things from our past that we must not let go, and we share them explicitly with our brothers and sisters.’ ”

The letter instructed the church in Antioch to abide by only three regulations instead of hundreds: abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. Keeping in mind their context, all three of these are connected with idol worship.

The first two are related to food deemed unclean or offered to idols as an act of worship. They were also to abstain from sexual immorality as related to temple prostitution connected with idol worship, and incest, which was present in their culture. These regulations would not be new or a surprise to anyone, since Leviticus 17 and 18 applies these rules both to Jews and to aliens living in Israel.

Acts 15:31 tells us that upon hearing the words of the letter the people in Antioch were glad for its encouraging message. They took it to be an affirmation of their faith, of the activity of the Holy Spirit in their lives and a proclamation of the unity that can be realized under and through and by the Holy Spirit.

Webster’s dictionary defines “reconciliation” as “the act of causing two people or groups to become friendly again after an argument or disagreement; or the process of finding a way to make two different ideas, facts, etc. exist or be true at the same time.”

At the heart of reconciliation is the ability to name and embrace our differences as well as those things we agree on, the things that will forever keep us connected.

We, the reconciled church, have become the new creation Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

Within this new creation of the church, we are reminded that it is by God’s grace, as a gift, that we can experience salvation, a new beginning.

And furthermore, God does not make a distinction between Jew and Gentile; instead God is a God of equality.

This leads Paul to make the startling and grace-filled claim in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” The new creation is realized and being lived out in the early church.

Today, as in the time of the Jerusalem Council, we live in a period of uncertainty, and we are striving to discern together difficult questions.

In the conflicts we face, I wonder:

  • What are the confining boxes we have placed around God?
  • Where has God said, “My grace is for all,” while we say and live out, “Yes, but these people, must clearly be unworthy of God’s grace?”
  • Where do we give lip service that God’s grace is for all yet within our body of faith not treat others as full brothers and sisters?
  • Where are we making distinctions within the body of Christ that God is not making?

In his study of Acts in the Believers Church Bible Commentary, Chalmer E. Faw writes that for the past century the church has been wrestling with distinctions arising from race, ethnic origin, education, economic level and gender.

Now we add sexual orientation to Faw’s list of distinctions. If we agree with Lederach that “our capacity to listen to God is only as great of our capacity to listen to each other when we are conflict,” how are we doing hearing God?

I am not advocating for a certain position. The only “position” I’m articulating is that God’s grace, the invitation to salvation, the message we are instructed in Acts 1:8 to proclaim to the ends of the earth, is for all—no questions need be asked by you and me, for it is a gift of God that we are invited to proclaim as part of a missional ministry of reconciliation.

Each of us is a sinner saved only by God’s grace. Since not many of us come from Jewish ancestry, most of us are only in fellowship because the Jerusalem Council extended the table and we were invited to come. It is my hope and prayer that once we are reminded of our own salvation, of God’s all-encompassing grace that has embraced each of us, we will be compelled not to remain silent in proclaiming God’s grace.

As we proclaim God’s grace to all, may we also actively join the Holy Spirit in the transformative ministry of reconciliation—a ministry needed in our church and world today.

Voth,Cindy-bwCindy Voth is pastor of community life at Waterford Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind. This is an adaptation of a sermon she preached at Waterford Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind., on April 19.

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