& if you say you're okay

i'm gonna heal you anyway

A sermon from the First Jerusalem Council:

Well, thank heavens that’s settled. 

That we’re free to breeze past embarrassing issues like this; like circumcision…

No, we modern people know better. We’re too enlightened for all that. 

We know something like circumcision can’t save. That really it doesn’t even make much of a difference. 

Do it, don’t do it. Who cares…

We hear today’s lesson and nod approvingly, “they sure got that one right.” 

With a lesson like this, all that’s left is for the pastor not to prattle on too long so we can head home, confident in all our assumptions, and enjoy our Sunday brunch…

And you can tell how cut and dried the issue is too, by how easily it’s put to rest: Peter gives a brief speech. Paul and Barnabas recount their experience of the uncircumcised gentile’s conversion. James quotes some scripture, and then that’s that. 

The circumcision matter is put to rest once and for all… 

Amen? You don’t have to be circumcised. Let’s go home… 

Of course we know it’s not so simple. Honestly, this issue has been building from the start. After all, a major reason people begin plotting Jesus’ death is because he keeps spending time with all the wrong sorts of people. 

And the matter is still alive and well even after Jesus is resurrected. In the tenth chapter of Acts; when, in response to a revelation, Peter goes and visits a Gentile, Cornelius. Peter gives him and his household a little sermon, when suddenly they all start speaking in tongues! 

In response to that, Peter does the only reasonable thing, he has them baptized. Without checking for their bris records first… 

Well, before Peter can even make it back home, some members of his parish have called the church office. “We heard Pastor made some visits and before having new member classes, he gave them communion. Could you let him know we’d like a call?”

Honestly, issues like this are never settled so easily. And we know that. Sure, circumcision may not be our bugaboo, but we have not shortage of our own hang-ups. Do we?

One of me favorite directors is Wes Anderson, he’s written Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox and bunch of others. 

During my last year of college, “Darjeeling Limited” came out. It’s about three brothers, who after the untimely death of their father, stop speaking to each other. 

After a year of that, the eldest brother, Francis, invites them all on a train trip across India. His hope is that they will bond with each other over it. 

Now, he’s chosen India because he’s also found out their mom, whose always been absent, is living in a monastery there. It’s his secret hope they will be reunited with her there, too.

Of course none of that pans out. From the get-go, all their attempts to bond, only seem to drive them further apart. 

A good illustration of this is a ceremony Francis wants them all to do. 

Early in the movie he gives each brother an envelop with an ostrich feather and instructions for the ceremony. Every time they try to do the ceremony though, they’re interrupted. 

One night, at a train stop, as they’re arguing. Francis’ brothers have found out he’s been secretly leading them to the mother. He pulls out his envelop and asks his brothers if they’ve read the instructions. 

They nod, distracted…

Taking their envelops they each go off. After a beat or two, they come back together. Standing there, Jack the youngest, breaks the silence. He asks which way everyone’s feather blew. Francis, upset, asks what he means.
Jacks repeats his question, which way did everyone’s feather go. His blew toward the mountains.

Frustrated, Francis corrects Jack. “No, you weren’t supposed to let it blow away, you were supposed to blow on it, then bury it.” 

“…Oh,” says Peter, the middle brother. “I didn’t get that, I still have mine,” he says. Showing his brothers the feather. Francis grabs it in frustration. 

“You guys didn’t do it right,” he shouts. “I tried my hardest,” he says in resignation. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Not only have they messed up, though. Because in the distance they hear a train whistle. 

They run to catch their train, but not fast enough. They miss it. 

They make arrangements for another train. But not before finding out their mother doesn’t want to see them anyway…

Things have gone from bad to worse, so they head to the airport to go back home. As they start to board their flight, though, Peter takes their tickets and tears them up. They decide to go and see their mom anyway. 

And they do make it to they monastery. And for one night they’re all together again. But by the next morning, she’s snuck off… 

Slowly and painfully, over the course of all that, as everything else is taken away from them, as everything falls apart, the three stop trying to be brothers. 

And in that, they start to become brothers. 

It comes together in a perfect scene. 

They’re catching the last train to the airport only to realize it’s pulling out of the station. As they run to catch it, Francis shouts, “these bags aren’t going to make it!”
Then, the camera switches into slow motion. The Kink’s song, “Powerman” begins to play. And you watch as the brothers drop the luggage they’ve been dragging around with them the whole movie. Freed from everything now, they jump on the train together. 

The whole time they’d been trying to do this and that, thinking it’d make them brothers. But all their efforts were the very thing that kept them apart. It was only in letting go of it all, losing it, that they were finally freed to just be brothers. 

That’s what’s at stake in today’s scripture, what scholars call the “Jerusalem Council.” Truthfully, that’s what’s at stake every day you get up and dare to follow Jesus. 

We always think we’ve got to, you name it, to get right with God. And before long, it’s that very thing we think we have to do, that’s keeping us from God…  

Because we’re good at making rules, aren’t we? 

What we’re not so good at, is when they’re gone. When they fail. When they make matters worse. When they become just one more yoke neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear.

And that’s what’s really at stake with the circumcision discussion, you know. 

It isn't about some ceremony or even circumcision, per se. It’s not about what you have or don’t have to do even. 

It’s about faith. Faith that can only come from the one who meets you when everything else is gone. Faith that doesn’t come from following rules, but from the one who meets us when they -or we- fall short.

They’s why the decision reaching in Jerusalem is still binding. Why it’s still relevant. Why it still matters. Why we still need to hear it.

So weigh the evidence. Consider what scripture’s been saying all along. Reflect on your own life even.

Those times when everything else has been taken from you; and I know you’ve found yourselves in such a place. When you were there, who met you? And did he care if you had everything in order? If you had kept all the rules?

No.

He was there to do what we couldn’t. What all our rules weren’t able to; to save us.

So hear this, Jesus is enough. He’s actually saved you. Done it all. Jesus means freedom. The freedom that can only be found when everything else is gone. True freedom. The freedom that actually saves. The freedom that makes you into a follower of Jesus. 

That meeting in Jerusalem isn’t settled, is it?

It’s still being worked out here. In your lives. When you go from here. In this place, in your lives, this decree takes on flesh. As you are made into witnesses of the freedom that can only come from Christ. 

So get an earful of this freedom, God cleanses your hearts by faith. And not just you, but everyone’s. God makes no distinctions. All will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus.

The one who meets us when everything else is gone. The one who doesn’t check to make sure our records are in order, but instead gives us what we’ve been trying to get all along; himself, his relationship with God, his life.