Our Supreme Court has been in the news lately because of the important decisions it is preparing to render. These decisions are of paramount interest not just for the effect they will have on the issues immediately before the court, but even more because of the precedent they set for the future. Who knows what future issue will be decided one way or the other because of the rulings the court will hand down in the next few months?

I suspect Luke very much wanted the decision being rendered by the Jerusalem Council to set a precedent for the resolution of future disputes in the church. By the time he was writing, Luke must have foreseen that the question of the rightful place of the Gentiles in the church would be resolved over time. Who thinks of this today? But Luke wanted the reasoning behind the decision and the manner in which it was reached to serve as a template for resolving future disputes. Unfortunately, the wise procedures that Luke endorses in the Acts have not always been followed by future generations and, one could argue, have been just as much lacking in our church today.

Basically, the early church resolved the thorny issue of deciding the place of Gentiles by adopting what I would call the “ABC rule.”

“A” stands for “absolutes.” Be careful about adopting absolute rules or declaring some behavior or principle an absolute. The Jewish followers of Christ had assumed all their lives that the Mosaic Law—with all its injunctions and restrictions—was absolutely determinative of our relationship with God. But without warning they suddenly had to confront a situation in which that was no longer tenable as more and more Gentiles were added to the community of “followers of the way.” They were forced to accept the fact that the Mosaic Law was not an absolute, in the sense that there were other ways in which God was mediating his presence through Jesus Christ his Son. So what are our absolutes today? We should be careful not to absolutize practices or truths simply because we are attached to them or lack the courage and humility to reexamine our long held and deeply entrenched assumptions. Telling the difference between genuine absolutes and stubborn prejudices can be a challenging exercise of spiritual discernment.

Secondly, “B” stands for burden. We should be careful not to impose unnecessary burdens on others. Indeed, one of Jesus’ goals in his ministry was to free people from unnecessary or overly onerous burdens. Jesus was tremendously demanding and challenging, but he communicated this by calling people to usher in a kingdom and by affirming life, not by placing stumbling blocks in their way. The burden of Jewish observances would have been virtually impossible for Gentile Christians to carry. That was a clear sign for the apostles like Peter and James to heed the advice of Paul and Barnabas and consider the greater good of welcoming the Gentiles. This lesson became stamped on church practice through the canon law principle of applying burdens as narrowly as possible, and benefits of the law as broadly as possible. (One place where church law reflects a superior wisdom than the tradition of jurisprudence that prevails in our civil law.) In our church, we should keep burdens to a minimum based on our imitation of Christ.

Finally, “C” stands for compromise. If you look closely at Luke’s story, neither side won an absolute victory and completely vanquished the opposition. The apostolic decision carefully considered the legitimate sensitivities of the Jewish Christians and the scandal that total flaunting of Jewish practices could cause in the church at large. At the same time the decision had to respect the rights of the Gentile Christians to follow Christ without having to adopt an alien lifestyle that was contrary to their culture and impractical in their real-life circumstances. Too many people today are prone falsely to allege that compromise is an abdication of principle and an embrace of moral relativism. Most disputes are open to compromise without undermining the integrity of the parties.

It’s interesting to apply this ABC rule to some of our controversies today. Of course, to do so is seldom easy and requires both wisdom and courage. Maybe that is why the ABC rule is not common practice. People who are adept at practicing the ABC’s are amply endowed with humility, patience, compassion and trust, to name a few of the necessary virtues. Maybe that’s why Jesus was such a practitioner of the ABC rule. Give it a try next time you’re asked to take sides in a dispute.
—Walter Modrys SJ

 Today’s readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.