FIRST READING: Acts 15:1-2; 22-29. Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according, to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and the elders about this question. Then it seemed good to the Apostles and the elders, with the whole Church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, with the following letter: “The brethren, both the Apostles and the elders, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. Since we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us in assembly to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
SECOND READING: Revelation 21: 10-14; 22-23. In the Spirit the angel carried me away to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
GOSPEL: John 14: 23-29. Jesus said to his disciples, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my word; and the word which you bear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you: ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.”
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The Council of Jerusalem had a thorny question to decide: does love need accessories to be complete? This, deep down, was the main issue with circumcision. The answer was no. Not circumcision and not anything else. Love alone was complete in itself. This was the only requisite of the new Christian communities. Anything else was peripherical to it, derived from it, and directed towards it. No wonder the apostles considered this question to be of fundamental importance and significance. Jesus seems to have taken it for granted. Indeed, the resolution arrived at had enormous consequences for the Church. It not only confirmed the Church’s universal nature, but also that of Jesus’ mission and God’s plan for humankind.
This constitutional nature is expressed by John with the image of the gates of the ‘new Jerusalem’. By stating that it had ‘twelve gates ... on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates’, John gave witness to the accessibility of any person to the grace and dream of Jesus and of God. No Christian community is Jewish as much as it is not of any other nationality or race. Jesus’ and God’s community of love is open to all indiscriminately. It does not have frontiers except those of love.
Such love is what brings peace. As Jesus insists, not the peace which ‘the world gives’, but ‘his’ peace. This is a peace built on love amongst all beings; a peace which embraces justice and a true respect for all. Each and every person who is in line with Jesus’ word is guaranteed that, as Jesus said, ‘my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’
