NO PERFECT CHURCH, NO PERFECT POPE

 

On the sabbath Paul and Barnabas entered the synagogue and took their seats. Many Jews and worshipers who were converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to remain faithful to the grace of God. On the following sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.

Acts 13:14, 43-52

Hardly an Easter goes by that I don’t remember family “picture taking” from childhood, especially on Easter Sunday morning when we were all decked out in our finest new “Easter clothes.” Back then we got new clothes twice a year – when school started and Easter – so it was a big deal.

In those days, people would never think of going to church without being all dressed up. Most women wore hats and gloves and carried purses.  Most men wore coats and ties. Boys wore ironed shirts, shiny shoes and even ties sometimes. Girls wore dresses and hats and carried purses.

On Easter, however, we went all out. There are innumerable photos in our family album to prove it. I especially remember my brother and I all lined up, with and without our Easter baskets, looking very frozen in uncomfortable shoes, bow ties and slickly combed hair. It seemed that we took turns taking pictures of each other – often Mom and the girls in one picture and Dad and the boys in another. We were always smiling, even if it looked forced sometimes. Our clothes were always pressed with an iron.  Our hair was always combed. We always stood there smiling into a blazing sun and trying to look our very best.

It is what the pictures didn’t show that is worth mentioning today. We have no shots of the screaming, yelling and name-calling that went into getting ready. We have no shots of my Dad in one of his rages. We had no shots of my mother, looking haggard and worn, late at night, ironing all those clothes by hand for six kids, herself and my Dad who never did learn how to take care of his own clothes. We have no shots of any of the pain and struggles that we went through as a family back then. If you just look at our Easter snapshots, you would think we were the Walton’s on “mood altering drugs!” Snapshots never tell the whole story! They are only “snapshots” – moments in time!

Such in the case of one of the passages at the beginning of The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:32-35) where it says, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind.” It is one snapshot of the church during its infancy. If you read only that passage, by itself, you would have to conclude that the church has gone to hell in a hand basket since then! In reality, it is like the “Easter pictures” of my childhood.  It only tells part of the truth. 

The Cardinals of the Church have just gathered and elected Pope Leo XIV - a surprise gift from God! I am ecstatic!  However, the readings today give me a good opportunity to talk about the fact that, like your family and mine, there is no perfect church or no perfect Pope. I believe he will do extremely well serving the needs of the church and world today, but we all have our good days and we all have our bad days, but with love and forgiveness we will manage, with God's grace, to keep going into the future. 

In the beginning, the church did have some days when its members seemed to be “of one heart and one mind,” some days when “many signs and wonders were done,” and some days when “they enjoyed the favor of all the people.” If we just read this one reading and looked around the church today, we would have to conclude that the church’s original luster and beauty has indeed faded. However, if you continued to read on in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, you would start reading what Paul Harvey called “the rest of the story” and the “rest of the story” would sound very much like the church today.

Thank God that "the rest of the story" stories are included in the Scriptures. It helps us not to idealize the church in its beginnings and be discouraged by its weaknesses today. 

In previous Eater gospels, we read about the doubt of Thomas who refused to believe until he saw and touched Jesus' wounds personally. We read about a bunch of people walking away from Jesus because they could not believe his teaching on being the "bread of life." We read about some of Jesus' family who showed up while he was preaching to take him home because they thought he was "out of his mind." We read about James and John, the "climbers," who made a move behind the other apostles' back to get the best positions in Jesus' new kingdom. Then there is the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter and the total abandonment by all the apostles at the crucifixion except John and some women. 

If we kept on reading the Acts of the Apostles reading today, we would quickly read about Ananias, and his wife Sapphira, who made a pledge to give the proceeds of the sale of some of their property to the church.  Later, with his wife knowledge, they held back part of the pledge and even lied about it.  Caught in the lie, they both dropped dead. If we kept reading, we would read about the future Saint Paul hunting down Christians and having them killed and even holding the coats of those who stoned St. Stephen to death. Today we read about Paul and Barnabas, two of the greatest and most effective missionaries in the early church, converting huge numbers of people and whole cities turning out to hear them preach. If we kept reading, we would read about Paul and Barnabas clashing over giving a fellow missionary a second chance, and having such a falling out that they could not work together and having to go their separate ways. If we kept reading, we would read about Peter acting one way around Jewish believers and another way around Gentile believers, resulting in his being called “two-faced” by Paul. If we kept reading, we would hear about Greek and Jewish widows arguing over their fair share and apostles with “too much to do.”

There are many beautiful snapshots of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles, but they are balanced by some snapshots of the ugly side of the early church as well.  Just as Jesus was fully human and fully divine at the same time, his body, the church, may be of divine origin, but it is also full of real human beings and human weaknesses!  In spite of this, Jesus has promised to be with the church till the end of time and has promised that even the power of hell shall not prevail against it. Therefore, hang in there and hang on! If the church was supposed to be perfect, we would never have been invited to join - and, with us in it, it would no longer be perfect, would it?