Bellarmine University
“The Whole Picture”
Rev. Ronald Knott
April 12, 2015
The community of believers was of one heart and mind.
Acts 4
I cannot go through the Easter season without remembering the simple traditions we had growing up. Unlike today, when people buy clothes all year round, back then, especially in the country, Easter, along with Christmas and the start of the school year, was one of those times of the year when we got new clothes. New outfits also brought out the camera for pictures. Our family album was full of pictures of smiling kids, standing in front of the house, in new clothes: suits and ties for the boys, frilly dresses and hats for the girls, clutching Easter baskets.
The family picture album is a very important part of remembering and sharing the history of the family: births, baptisms, first communions, confirmations, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, going off to college or the military, Thanksgivings, Christmases, Halloween parties, beach vacations and proms. Smile! Look this way! Stand up straight! Say cheese!
As wonderful as a family picture album is, it never tells the whole story, does it? Unless you were really weird, you never got the camera out to get a shot of Mom the moment she was diagnosed with cancer, you probably didn’t get a shot of Granddad taking his last breath or Grandma in her coffin, you didn’t get a shot of dad in a drunken rage, uncles and aunts not speaking to each other or old girls friends that didn’t work out, you probably didn’t get a shot of Dad when he lost his job or the response on your parents face when they found out that your unmarried sister was pregnant.
The community of believers was of one heart and mind.
Acts 4
What we have here is a beautiful snapshot of the early church in its finest, on one of its best days. It is only one beautiful snapshot among many beautiful snapshots of the early church. The Scriptures, however, are disarmingly honest and, unlike most families, has included some not so beautiful snapshots of the early church.
Not everything was sweetness and light. Keep reading and you will see another side of the very early church. (1) We read that people sold their property and possessions and divided them according to each one’s need, but we also read that the Greek speaking widows complained that the Hebrew speaking widows were getting a disproportionate share of that division. One of the couples, Ananias and Sapphira, made a pledge to sell their property and give it to the church, actually held back some of the proceeds and later lied about it. They both dropped dead for lying. (2) We read that “all who believed were together,” but we also read that Paul and Barnabas, two of the greatest missionaries of the early church, had such a bad falling out that they had to part ways and quit working together. We also read that Paul called Peter, the first head of the church, “two-faced” because he followed one set of rules when he was with Jewish believers and another when he was with Gentiles. (3) Even Paul, before his conversion, we are told, is out rounding up Christian and having them jailed for heresy, even holding the coats of those who stoned St. Stephen to death. A new convert by the name of Simon, we are told, was so amazed that the Holy Spirit was being conferred by the laying on of hands, seeing a gold mine of opportunity, offered to pay money for that kind of power. These are a few of the not-so-flattering snapshots of the church, even at its beginning, that Scripture has the courage to include.
If we read only the good passages, without reading the rest of passages, we can actually get a distorted picture of the church in its reality at its beginning. When we idealize our history and make it sound so perfect, we erroneously conclude that the church today has wandered so far as to be nothing like it “should” be, and because it is not as it should be, it is OK to leave it! If you do not know of the other early church snapshots, you might be tempted to be critical and even bitter about the weaknesses of the church today. I believe those who leave the church because it is “not like it used to be” simply do not know how the church “used to be!”
Jesus was right, the church is like a field of weeds and what growing together. We are blessed with our great saints, embarrassed by our miserable sinners and most of us are somewhere in the middle. After a dozen years or so of watching our sins and dirty laundry aired on TV around the world, we can now stand proud of one of our great leaders, Pope Francis. Even Protestants, Jews, Muslims and non-believers are pouring on the praise. Before him, we watched the funerals of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II, beloved by people great and small, within and outside the church. Over the next few years, the world will no doubt focus on the faith, strengths, simplicity, honesty and good works of Pope Francis, a man who has made all of us Catholics proud of our church once again.
Yes, the church is that field of weeds and wheat growing together. Yes, it is tempting to get disgusted by the sins of some of our members and leave in a huff, as if we are so good and righteous ourselves that we do not want to be sullied by association with them. But the fact remains, that that field of weeds and wheat grows within each and every one of us. As one native American Elder put it, “Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. Which dog wins? The one I feed the most!”
We have a saintly side and a sinner side and just as God loves us for better or worse, we must love Christ’s Church for better or worse. In the end, there is no room for self-righteous indignation over the sins of others, because if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem. To paraphrase one of our hymns, “Let the faith of the Church be renewed and let that renewal of faith begin with me!”
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