Scripture ReadingActs 2:42-47 Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.Scripture ReflectionThe Jerusalem Church in the 1st century shared a sacred bond, and a secret of sorts. Their shared bond was their beloved and risen Lord Jesus Christ, who had risen from the dead after his crucifixion at the hands of Jerusalems’ elites. The “sort of” secret shared by the Christians was that this same Jesus had prophesied that their city would soon be destroyed for this crime. Now, Jesus had preached this openly, as had the prophets before him, so it really shouldn’t have been considered a “secret”; but what made it a “sort of” secret among the Christians of Jerusalem was that they alone believed this oracle, while they were persecuted by those of the city who didn’t. It was a secret by virtue of their faith. Even knowing this “secret”, however, they did not flee the city. They didn’t immediately abandon it to that awful fate — war and conflagration — which Jesus had signaled was coming very soon. They diligently labored in it as a vineyard, hoping to harvest more faith from out of the city, so dear to the Lord, that had failed to recognize her hour of visitation. The only divestment the Christians made was in their worldly property — they did not do this merely to cut their losses in the doomed city. They sold all they had, and handed the proceeds over to the apostles, so that the Church could care for all the poor in the city. And there were very many poor — such was the fever pitch of injustice in the city that had fallen from God’s grace. The poor of Jerusalem were those “blessed” by God according to the Beatitudes; it was for these that St. Paul collected gifts from the churches of the more affluent cities which, unlike Jerusalem, still had futures ahead of them: Macedonia, Achaia, Galatia. This same St. Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, had once gloated at the stoning of St. Stephen, one of the Jerusalem Church’s first deacons charged with her ministry to the poor, who was accused by the Jerusalem elites with preaching that Christ would destroy the Jerusalem Temple; and now Paul himself was delivering gifts to Stephen’s brothers in the diaconate of the Jerusalem Church for their ministry to the poor (Ro. 15:25-28). They all knew the time was short, though they did not know the exact day or the hour when the city would be consumed by the inferno of war (Mt. 24:36). Yet they did not hesitate to remain encamped as “strangers in a strange land” in the city that had once been their possession. For the sake of the salvation of the city’s souls, as long as the full breadth of the wrath of God was still held back, they would live and labor among the people for their common good — caring for their needs, spiritual and material. This is a parable for all of us. There are always an all-too generous share of doom-prophets to go around. It seems their message to us is to divest of the care of our own communities, head for the hills, and hide in a haven of our own provision. They can be economists and politicians; they can also be self-help gurus telling us to abandon our relationships when the going gets tough. The Jerusalem Church, knowing the city’s demise was at hand, didn’t batten down the hatches; build walls or fortifications; throw all their money into a suitcase and leave the place for dead. Knowing the time was short, they joyfully expended all they had in sharing and caring. Yet, their investment in the souls of the city did not doom them to a lost cause, or to go down with the ship, either. Indeed, the time came for their inevitable retreat to safety. Christ himself had warned them that at the end of their labors in Jerusalem, the time would come to head for the hills: “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” (Mt. 24:15-16). The Church historian Eusebius wrote that when this time came, “the people of the church in Jerusalem were commanded by an oracle given by Revelation before the war to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. To it, those who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem”. When “at last the abomination of desolation, proclaimed by the prophets, stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, the temple which was now awaiting its total and final destruction by fire” (Ecclesiastical History (Eusebius, Ecclesial History, Book 3, Chapter 5) — then and only then, was it time to flee, after a generation of valiant and very fruitful efforts for the souls of Jerusalem. From this story we learn that just as there is a time to stand our ground, there is also a time to retreat. Both are paths to peace. We pray for the preservation of our societies, and we labor toward this end; but there also come times when retreat becomes necessary, as the Desert Fathers and the Benedictines retreated from their own cities and even churches, which had become worldly, vulgar, and corrosive to their souls. In either case, this story shows how it is the Church that acts as our most trusty “salt” in times of preservation and ark when the time comes for a “flood”. The Church fed Jerusalem as her collapse approached; and when she fled, she shepherded her holy remnant to safety like the angels who led Abraham and Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the bounty of all God’s beautiful creatures were safe in the ark when came the flood, all that was good and beautiful in Jerusalem was treasured in the heart of the Church, and lives on in her today. The same is true of Rome and Alexandria, cities whose greatness went into exile at their collapse; all their knowledge was preserved and re-propagated by the peasant monks of Europe, particularly Ireland. This is a pattern in history, and there are many other such examples. The Church is our shelter in uncertain times. We, her people, share the common bond of our faith in Jesus Christ; and we too, like the first Jerusalem Christians, share a secret of sorts; that “heaven and earth will pass away, but [Our Lord’s] word will never pass away” (Mt. 24:35). Empires fall and empires rise. Winters of darkness come and new life springs bright again. Whether it is time to stay and labor, or time to flee and replant, let us take shelter under the wings of our Heavenly Father in the body of the Word made flesh, the Holy Church of His Son Jesus Christ, with the same Holy Spirit of caring and sharing exemplified by the Church of Acts 2. Amen.
David Roberts’ "The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70"Song Meditation: “Table of Grace”
Table of grace
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