Friday of the Fifth Week in Easter 2025
What does it mean to have a steadfast heart? We know from living with the Scriptures that the heart is more than the beating muscle that pumps blood through our body. Our heart of hearts is our inmost part, the action of mind and body that makes decisions and discerns a purpose for our life. David, who was Israel’s king, was chosen for his heart, which God said is like His own heart. That means, I believe, that his inmost reality was oriented toward the universal good.
Our psalmist then tells us today that the one with a steadfast heart is one who is full of praise, and whose praise overflows into song. That kind of heart is not parochial. The decisions of such a heart reach beyond the local community into the wider society. And at all times that kind of heart is working toward glorifying God.
The council at Jerusalem, attended by many of the apostles and others, perhaps around 40 AD, showed exactly that kind of decision making happening in the early Church. There was a disagreement over just how much of the Jewish law would have to be observed by the Gentile converts. On one side, strict Jews would make these people get circumcised and obey every one of the five-hundred plus restrictions on diet and holidays and all the other things that even Paul admitted were difficult to keep. On the other side, there were disciples who would minimize the law, perhaps even to the extent of softening the Ten Commandments.
What emerged from the council appears to be an excellent compromise.
Did it outlast the test of time? The message sent with the emissaries Judas and Silas was clear. The original Jewish Christians had no mandate from the apostolic college, and did not have any authority. The mission of Judas and Silas validated the mission of Paul and Barnabas. The restrictions agreed upon were not to eat meat that was sold in the pagan temple markets, or from blood or the meat of strangled animals, which probably still had blood in it. Those regulations eventually were allowed to lapse. But the most important one, listed at the end, was to abstain from porneia, and the Greek word carried over into our word “pornography.” That’s any sexual relation outside legal marriage between one man and one woman. It’s still in force, and the one thing that our culture keeps trying to get us to abandon. Don’t hold your breath, sexual sinners. It’s here to stay, because messing with marriage has gotten our culture into the swamp now trapping it. Marriage is a sign of the union of Christ and the Church. Don’t mess with it. You’ll be messing with your own salvation.
Finally, we have the watchword of the day in our Gospel from John. Jesus calls men and women out of the world to follow Him. He calls us friends, philia, which means he loves and likes us. It’s only enemies we are allowed to love, to wish good for, but not like. And the command of Jesus is clear, and repeated here and elsewhere. We will be known as His disciples only if we have self-giving, self-sacrificing love for each other. His grace will enable us to do that, may His Name be praised forever. Amen.
