The Wisdom of the Holy Spirit: Homily for Sunday, May 25, 2025

The crisis we encounter in the first reading this weekend was major. But the real lesson is two-fold. First, the solution to the problem was grounded in the discernment and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. And second, it was the Church who did the discernment. Readings for Today.

The Wisdom of the Holy Spirit

There can be a romanticized version or view of the early church. We can think that the early church was one that was basking in love and kindness because of the impact of the risen Christ. But this is not accurate.

It took the early church time to understand exactly what it meant to follow Jesus and to understand exactly what it meant for the Church to receive the Holy Spirit. The first reading describes the first real significant discernment question for the entire church. What to do about the Gentiles who were converting? Was the new Christian faith simply a new version of Judaism? If so, it would be necessary for those becoming Christian to follow the Mosaic Law.

If not, it is because it seems that the divine experience of the Holy Spirit is similar for Jews and Gentiles who decide to follow Jesus. So what to do about this increasingly divisive question?

A few things to note. First, how did the early church go about solving any issue? We should note that first, it was not the decision of any one person or any one apostle, but rather it was the decision of the apostles. It was the result of a council. We also know bishops were mentioned 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Second, and most important, is the importance of recognizing that when the Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit in the same observable way as the Jews, it broadens a belief about just who can be saved. The Gospels indicate the mission of Jesus gradually widened as well.

In the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 15, Jesus says this, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Further, we know that in the same Gospel, the Gentiles were referred to as dogs and swine. The use of these words indicated the Gentiles were seen as less than the Jews.

But by the end of Matthew’s Gospel, we hear Jesus commanding the apostles to go out into the whole world and not just to the house of Israel. In the Acts of the Apostles, the people gather for the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which we will celebrate in a couple of weeks, and each heard the apostles speaking in their own language.

So by discerning the action of God in their lives, this Council of Jerusalem makes the decision that the Gentiles do not have to follow the Mosaic law in its entirety. But they do lay down rules that must be followed. So while the decision about circumcision in the Mosaic law need not be followed exactly, there are religious laws that must be followed.

Another important lesson we can learn from this first reading is that the Church councils are called only when there is a dispute about some teaching of the church. While the canon of the Bible, that is, the books that we believe are part of the Bible that we use as Catholics, had been accepted by the Christian community for centuries, the church only specifically articulated the books of the canon when the canon was challenged by Protestant reformers.

At the same time, there are sometimes councils that are not called to settle a dispute. The most recent council of our age, the Second Vatican Council, is an example of this second type of council. The Second Vatican Council did not articulate any new doctrine. Rather, it clarified and explained existing articulated doctrine.

And we see this in an historical examination of the Second Vatican Council. The first document to be promulgated was the document on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, likely because it had largely already been written before the Second Vatican Council ever began. So what does this mean for us? Or as sometimes is said of the academic writing, what is the “so what” factor?

First, the first reading indicates that the church is a divine institution. In giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter, as a king in the Old Testament would have given keys to their prime minister, Jesus promises he will always be with the church he founded, not letting the gates of hell prevail against it. In saying the church is a divine institution, we are claiming in faith that Jesus founded the church.

The survival of the church happens when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. The problems in the church do not arise from God, nor is it the case that God is abandoning the church, but rather that the human members of the church have sinned and failed. We see that the desire of God to save all people was significant.

The Jewish religion does not proselytize. But from its earliest days, the Christian church did. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the apostles to go out to all the world to teach and to baptize and to make disciples. Next week I will discuss the reasons why the Ascension was a necessary event. And on Pentecost, I will talk a bit about what this great commission to go to teach, to baptize in the Gospel of Matthew means for us in today’s context.

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