Sunday, May 1, 2016

Acting It Out

Don't you just love reading the Acts of the Apostles?  It's that book in the Bible right after the Gospels.  It begins with Jesus' ascension and gets right into the business of the early Church.  Most of the structure of the Roman Catholic Church began right there in the Acts of the Apostles.


It's messy.  There are many fits and starts, failures and triumphs, hope, joy and despair.  There are miracles too and many, many conversion stories with the best being that of Saul to Paul.

It's a busy time.  Right from the start, God has to nudge the apostles to get going.  As they are standing looking at the sky after Jesus' ascension, two men appear and ask why they are just standing there (Acts 1:10).  It's time to get busy with the business of beginning a ministry.  Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they must begin a Christian community and spread the Good News.  The Holy Spirit does not disappoint and the brave apostles (together with Paul and Barnabas) successfully convert scores to become followers of Christ.

As beautiful and inspirational as that was, there were also administrative details.  I hear people sometimes complain about the "details" in the Church and how it is so obsessed with them.  There are so many little rules and bureaucracy.  It all began there in the early Church, as chronicled in the Acts of the Apostles.  It was easy in the beginning.  They met, prayed, shared food and took care of each other (Acts 2:42-47).  Then they traveled and converted people far and wide, people with different cultures, languages and traditions.  There must be uniformity and organization in a movement, especially one that addresses fundamental questions of doctrine and faith.

Then, as now, the Church is ONE.  It was spread out, but it was unified in a faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.  Everyone was welcome to share in the unity.  Christians lived as a community - not solitary believers worshipping God in their own ways.  If it takes a little administration, a little herding of cats, the goal of the "little details" is singular as Jesus prayed it would be:

I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You.
Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me,
That they may be one even as We are.
(John 17:11)

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