Thursday, 15th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 24:1-23
Morning Prayer

So today, the Jewish leaders, and their advocate, “one Tertullus,” have arrived in Caesarea to make their case against Paul. Interestingly, Tertullus’s charge that Paul is “one who stirs up riots,” is the same charge laid against Barabbas, the anti-Roman rebel, who was released by Pilate instead of Jesus. And Paul is accused of stirring up riots “among all the Jews throughout the world.” This is a very serious charge to bring before a Roman official, obsessed as the Romans were with peaceful order.

By laying the riot charge against Paul, Tertullus is saying to the Governor Felix that this is not an internal Jewish matter, but one which threaten the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, which the Romans were quite brutal in enforcing. It is also heavily ironic that Tertullus should credit Felix with bringing “much peace” to Judea, since in fact Felix was sitting on a time-bomb that would explode in about a decade with the Jewish rebellion of 66. Paul deftly avoids mentioning his travels throughout Asia and Greece, since they haven’t been very peaceful, and emphasizes his brief time in Jerusalem, where he had not preached at all, but had been in a quiet time of prayer with his fellow Jews. Then again, Paul invokes the debate over resurrection as the real issue here. In effect, Paul is saying to the Roman Governor: this is an internal religious matter among us Jews that need not concern you.

For now, of course, that is true. Paul is not challenging the Roman authorities. But read his letters, in which he regularly refers to Jesus as “Lord,” the same title used to refer to the Roman Emperor. Years later, of course, Christians would be forced to choose between two Lords, Caesar or the Risen Christ. For now, Paul is perfectly content to play up his Roman citizenship for his protection and the opportunity to preach the Good News in Rome.

And so it is 2000 years later. In a hot August, where many voices compete to be heard by the most by screaming the loudest, we who follow “The Way” must always be ready to shift alliances when such shifts give us the widest opening for the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ to be heard. There is no “Christian” party that can claim pour permanent allegiance. We the Church stand in judgment of all man-made parties and ideologies. And we need each other, with our different opinions and perspectives, to keep us ever mindful of that truth.