Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of the labels we give ourselves and others.  I learned something about the insufficiency of labels at a young age.  Around the time I hit 12 years of age, I became aware of the word “conformity.”  Even more interesting to me was the concept of non-conformity.  The lack of desire to fit in, be like anyone else.  Ironically enough, this is a common enough sentiment, particularly at that age, which can be difficult (so we’re conforming to non-conformity, I suppose).  You’re figuring out what it means to become independent, etc.  Little punk that I was, I brought up the subject with my mother one night at the dinner table.  To the best of my recollection, this was during a spring break trip to Florida, because that’s the kind of thing I did, little independently minded punk kid that I was, while having dinner during a spring break trip to Florida.

“I’m a non-conformist,” I offered a propos nothing in particular.  My mother told me this.  “Well, there are some things that you must conform to, like good manners.”

1. I clearly had to rethink my 13-year-old non-conformist stance.

When we are following Christ and using labels, it’s vital to define them.  We’ve heard in the last couple of weeks how followers of Jesus had spread throughout the Roman Empire, and that they were subversive communities.  Depending on your makeup, you may like that idea.  Subversiveness!  Yes!   Remember that line: What exactly are we subverting as followers of Christ?   Remember how Jesus’ followers were described in Thessalonica  - “When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also,”  Yes!  Let’s turn the world upside down!  What are we turning upside down exactly?  We’re going to see in our story that Paul shows himself to be a traditionalist.  What are we holding onto when we hold onto tradition and memory?  Paul can also be described as a radical.  What does this mean?  Over everything, we see Paul being faithful to the God to whom he belongs.  Paul is modelling what it means to live faithfulness out for all who would come after him. 

We’re now in the final section of Acts.  Paul arrives back in Jerusalem, where this whole story started.  Where this whole church story started, and we are still living it out, beloved church.  Jerusalem.  Head office.  I like to call our CBOQ Office in Etobicoke “Head Office” – ironically, as Baptists are not a top-down organization.  We believe in the autonomy of the local church, the independence of the local church.  At the same time, we don’t label ourselves independent.  We hold our independence up at the same time as we hold the truth up that no one church is the body of Christ.  We live and serve Jesus interdependently with one another.  Believe that.  We’re talking around 57 AD here, around 25 years after Jesus death, resurrection and ascension.  Jerusalem is still “head office.”  It’s where decisions are made and from which they’re communicated.  James, the brother of Jesus, is leading the church.

We remember the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.  The question before the church was “Are Gentiles followers of Jesus to be required to follow Jewish law?”  The Jerusalem Council is the model for the practice of communal discernment we’re going through at church now in order to discover God’s will for this family of faith.  We remember how the outcome was described in the letter that was written to let the outcome be known – “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” 

It’s a difficult situation in Jerusalem, and I suppose it’s always a difficult situation for the church in some measure.  Nationalistic tendencies are running high.  Xenophobia is also running high.    Felix is the Roman governor of Judea.  He’s cruel and corrupt.  Anti-Roman anti-Gentile sentiment is strong.  Paul arrives with the multicultural group who have been his companions along the way.  Luke doesn’t mention it here, but Paul has brought a monetary gift for the church which he has collected from Gentile churches throughout his missionary travels.  Paul is concerned for how the gift will be received.  He had written to the church in Rome and asked them to pray that the gift would be accepted. (Rom 15:30-31)  This is what’s going on as Paul enters Jerusalem.

“Some of the disciples from Caesarea also came along and brought us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we were to stay.”  We’ve talked through these weeks of the importance of Christian hospitality – of a Christian welcome – to the story of what God is doing here.  Unfortunately, this will be the last friendly roof under which Paul stays.

“The brothers welcomed us warmly,” Luke says.  The next day Paul goes to visit James and the elders.  Paul greets them and relates to them what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.  All the things we’ve been reading about since Acts 15.  The Greek tour.  Ephesus.  The trip back to Jerusalem.  Once again God is praised.  Then the problem is presented.

“You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law.”

Now we have seen in the book of Acts where zeal for the law can end up.  Riots.  Violence against those who don’t share your view.  Death to those who don’t share your view in the worst case.  It’s the kind of thing that may lead one in terms of black and white and right and wrong, and I always know which is which and I’m always in the right.

The church has experienced a lot of growth. Look at what this growth has meant to the Jerusalem church.  A group of people who are zealous for the law.  “They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.”

“But I never said that,” Paul may have said.  “Well, how about when you wrote to the people of Corinth and told them that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing?” (1 Cor 7:19)  “That’s not what I meant,” Paul might have said, “and it’s a little more complicated than that!”  In his commentary on Acts, NT Wright puts it like this – “Speaking for a moment as a church leader, I take great comfort in Paul’s uncomfortable position.  It’s where we often find ourselves.  Zealots to the left of us, zealots to the right of us… while those of us who have to find a way through with real people who are struggling to live real lives in loyalty to the real Jesus know… that things are more complicated than that.  Not because we have made them more complicated, or because the gospel itself isn’t clear, or because we are fatally compromised, but because real life in God’s world is complicated and the gospel must not only address that real life from a distance but must get down on its hands and knees alongside it and embrace it right there with the love of God.”

Here’s the rest of that verse from 1 Corinthians.  “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but obeying the commandments of God is everything.”  A clever person might say at this point, “Well, isn’t circumcision a commandment from God?  Isn’t Paul contradicting himself?  Paul never encouraged a Jewish believer to give up Jewish customs, and in fact he carried them on himself.  If we’re going to say that obeying the commandments of God is everything, then we want to take seriously what those commandments are all about.

Get to the heart of the matter.  Get to the root of the matter.  Get radical about it. 

I know the term radical can have negative connotations.  The word comes from a Latin word radix, which means root.  “His law is love, and his gospel is peace” is how a Christmas favourite puts it.  We’re talking now about getting radical.  Getting back to and staying in the heart of the matter.  Let’s get zealous for the heart of the law and hear those words of Jesus spoken in answer to the question “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Matt 22:37-40

Love God.  Love others.

Paul once thought that love of God meant breathing out threats and murder against those who believed differently.  God brought him to the point where he would say that if he had prophetic powers and understanding and knowledge and faith and gave away all his possessions and did not have love, he gained nothing.  As the church, may we be brought back to this truth and remain in it, God helping us.  Getting radical.  Getting to the roots.  When faced with the question “What then is to be done?” ask alongside it “What does love of God and others call for here?”  Let us as a church seek the unity of the Spirit in responding to the summons to return to and remain in the roots of our faith.  This means to dismiss labels that we put on ourselves or others; to dismiss categorizations that would divide us and place us into opposing camps – conservative/liberal, progressive/traditional.

We recognize and honour the role that tradition plays in our faith; of course we do.  At the same time, we do not worship tradition.  We recognize and honour the role that memory plays in our faith.  At the same time we recognize that memory may lead us to imaginative new ways of doing things and new ways of living in the love of God and people and all of God’s creation. 

.  What it didn’t mean was going after people and having them flogged and jailed because you felt they were a threat to your beliefs.  As church leaders, our job is to issue a summons to a return to the roots of our faith.  It’s to dismiss categorizations that divide us and label us and put us into camps like conservative and liberal or progressive and traditional.  It’s to rather recognize the role that tradition plays in our faith.  At the same time, it’s to recognize that memory can lead to imaginative new ways of doing things and new ways of living in the love of God and the love of people and all of God’s creation.

Paul was radical.  Paul was also traditional.  The question as to what is to be done is still before him and the church.  The customs with which he had been raised meant something to him in terms of his own devotion to God.  He recognized at the same time that freedom in Christ involved love and care for fellow sisters and brothers in Christ.  Paul recognized that it times we are called to do something or not do something that others might not stumble in their walk. 

What then is to be done?  This is the question that is asked, and it’s the question that should never be far from our minds.  We live in the midst of questions and tensions and ambiguity.   What does the love of God and others call for at the intersection of ethnicity and integrity, culture and generosity, inclusion and exclusion?  In this case, for Paul it meant complying with the request of James and the elders.  Paul goes through a rite of purification along with four men who have taken a vow.  Paul pays for it all too.

Did Paul have to do this?  Did his salvation depend on it?  Of course not.

But to reiterate another piece of family wisdom I acquired: “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”  Similarly, “Just because you don’t have to do something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”

I know we’re talking about ancient Jewish rites here, and you might be thinking, what does this have to do with our world today or our lives today?  What does it mean to be culturally sensitive without compromising the Gospel?  Let’s keep asking that question and living out the answer in our faith family.  How can being radical – abiding in the love of Jesus our vine and the roots of loving God and others – and remembering lead us to fresh expressions of what it means to be the church in Toronto in 2026? 

May this be true for all of us.

It doesn’t just happen between cultures but among cultures in a single country. The story is told of how a mission agency based in southern India had at one time encouraged new believers who were from a Sikh background to cut their hair and shave their beards as evidence of their new faith.  This doesn’t happen so much now as new converts to Christ are no longer taught by this agency to abandon this aspect of their culture.  There is more openness to such local cultural expressions.  Someone has said “Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the exponential growth of the church in that region, as locals begin to realize that a Punjabi need not become a ‘madarasi” (colloquial term for South Indian) in order to be a follower of Jesus.’”  Someone has said, “In India and many places around the world, the Good News is often lost or damaged because it comes packaged in Western cultural wrappings.”

These were questions that were always before Paul and will always be before us.  May we too be kind of traditional radicals – looking back and becoming ever more deeply rooted in our faith while at the same time being inspired by the Spirit to fresh expressions of that faith.  May this be true for us all.