Scripture: Galatians 2:9-10
…and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.
Thought for the Day: An agreement is made between Paul and the Apostles in Jerusalem, and the agreement appears to say that both sides had been entrusted with the Gospel, but to share this message in two very different cultural settings. As the Spanish, and later the English and French came to this new land, they brought with them Christianity but also their culture. They felt as if the two went hand-in-hand, and to be Christian also required for the indigenous peoples to take on certain Western European characteristics. This imposing of certain cultural traits alongside Christianity was not helpful, and appeared to dismiss the idea of the incarnation. God came among us as one of us, making the message relevant to the unique context. If God would have chosen Texas in the 1930’s as the place for the Word to take on flesh, do you believe the incarnation would have been a 1st century Middle Eastern peasant? I doubt it as it would not have been relevant to the context. The Gospel is all about meeting people where they are, and the core consistencies as Paul suggest are “the grace that had been given…” and the need for everyone to “remember the poor.” There are so many ways in which the acknowledgment of grace and the expectation of care for the least among us can be expressed, and the places where Christianity has been most successful have been where it allowed the unique cultural setting to guide the process of sharing and embodying the faith.
Prayer: Let me share your Gospel, O Lord, and not impose it. Amen.
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