Thursday, June 4, 2015 (Pope John XXIII)

Galatians 2:1-10 

              Remember the “Good Old Days” ?

              However we remember those days gone by when, as if we were included in a Norman Rockwell painting, an idyllic world was not a figment stirred up from a vivid imagination, but rather a reality to be lived through and enjoyed.

               Those words are often used in conversations in different congregations, where there are memories of times past, when services were filled and chairs were need for the aisles. Memories of times past, when the church was at the centre of community and personal life.

               Different days… different times…….

               Over the years of my ministry there were times when individuals suggested to me that we would all be better off if the life of the church was in tune with the days of the Apostles, when everyone lived in harmony. The reading from Galatians appointed for today shows another side to those expectations. As Paul meets with the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem the conversations take a strident tone, as he defends and celebrates the ministry which he has offered and continues to offer in the name of Jesus.

               The resolution of the different perspectives on ministry is

clearly identified as being centred around the area of ministry, not the content of the Gospel message.

               I suggest that the experience which Paul is writing about is as real today as it was in the days of the Apostles. The content of the Good News has Jesus at the very core of its message. Yet time and time again, within the Church there are those who engage in ongoing disputes regarding how the Gospel message is best lived out, proclaimed and experienced. Anger and frustration well up within individuals whose personal agendas are not being met. All of this negative energy does little to build up the life of the Church.

               In Jerusalem, Paul spoke of his ministry in the name of Jesus over a fourteen year time frame. He shared his vocational call and the way in which he had lived out his response to that call. He spoke of the way in which he had used his God given talents and abilities and he talked about his faithful witness. At the end of the conversations there was an understanding of mutual respect which was reached.

               Mutual respect, tolerance of differences, fellowship in ministry and personal desire to reach out to others in the name of Our Lord. These are elements of ministry and personal experience which need, at all times, to be given their place and priority in our own lives and in the ministry we share with others in the service of Our Lord.

- Rev'd Canon Christopher Pratt