Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!
Acts 15:1-19
High School Graduate Recognition Sunday

Making good decisions or right choices is a supremely important ability in this life. The need to choose is almost omnipresent in daily living. We must choose between brands at the grocery store. We must choose between entrees at a restaurant. We must choose how to get from point A to point B when we are driving around town. We could multiply examples because choice is built into the very fabric of daily living. Now most of these choices are inconsequential. It does not really matter whether you choose Charmin, Scott’s, Sam’s, or Kroger brand toilet paper. In the larger scheme of things such choices are matters of indifference. They are simply expressions of personal preference. However, some choices are weighty and should not be made casually.

Choices, such as a major in college, or whom to date, or whether to attend church, are really important for young people. Ultimately, choosing a vocation, choosing a spouse, choosing a church home are consequential decisions that profoundly shape us, our families, and our community.

In the end, we are the sum total of our choices. Through the choices we make in the present we are becoming who we will be in the future, and perhaps even for eternity.

But consistently choosing what is good and right in consequential matters is not always easy. Choice is more complicated than mere reason and logic. We are not machines. We have feelings, needs, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. These are also power factors in our decision making. Furthermore, no one is an island. Our culture, which is like the water around a fish, surrounds us and profoundly influences us. And finally, in this world there is the reality of evil and sin that moves not only in the children of the wicked one but also in the children of light.

How can we make good decisions, the right choices in consequential matters?

One paradigm that has proved very helpful to many Christians is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral or the Methodist Quadrilateral as it is sometimes called. It is attributed to John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism.

A quadrilateral is a four-sided figure. Wesley taught that the four sides of the quadrilateral are scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. When considered together, the four elements can greatly help us to make good and right decisions as individuals and as communities of faith.

Wesley did not really invent this approach to decision making. Instead, he gave voice to what he saw in scripture. This morning’s reading from the Book of Acts is a classic example of the quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience in action.

The early church was faced with perhaps the most consequential decision of all. Who could be part of the Church of Jesus Christ? Or to use the language of the text, what must a person do to be saved?

The good news about Jesus Christ had spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and even to the Gentiles in Phoenicia (modern- day Syria and Turkey). In the city of Antioch, Paul and Barnabas were laboring in the work of evangelism and the organization of churches comprised primarily of Gentile believers. While they were thus engaged, unnamed individuals from Judea visited the churches and taught the new converts that “unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (vs. 1). It seems from verse 5 that these were Christians who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees who taught that “it is necessary for them (the Gentiles) to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

We should not be too hard on these Jewish Christians. I imagine they did not fear change so much as a loss of identity. Judaism was and continues to be defined by the rite of circumcision, sabbath observance, kosher food, and Torah keeping. The Jewish Christians must have felt like their religious, cultural, and national heritage was at stake in this question. The truth is, they were right. Christianity is not a Jewish sect. These Jewish Christians stressed the traditional side of the quadrilateral, the custom of Moses.

However, staring tradition in the face was experience. The conversion of the Gentiles was real and undeniable. This juxtaposition of tradition and experience created conflict in the early Church. There was no small dissension and debate between Paul and Barnabas and the Judean Christians.

In the end, the Church leaders decided they needed to appeal to a higher authority, so the Gentile Christians in Antioch sent Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem to discuss the question with the apostles and elders.

Just as in Antioch, the question stirred a vigorous debate. Although the text does not record the details of these discussions, they must have included reasoned arguments. Was it reasonable to believe that the millennium- long customs of Moses were to be set aside?

The Apostle Peter explicitly appealed to experience. In verses 7-9, Peter alludes to the conversion of the Roman soldier, Cornelius, and his household. Peter pointed out that Cornelius and his family (all Gentiles) had received the Holy Spirit and had been cleansed by faith and that God had made no distinction between Jews and Gentiles. This was his experience, an experience widely known in the Jerusalem Church.

However, Peter also appealed to reason. In verses 10-11, Peter argues that the Church in Jerusalem should not impose a heavy yoke (circumcision and keeping the Torah) on the Gentile Christians. After all, he argues, not even the Jews or Jewish Christians were able to bear the yoke. Jesus had said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus imposed no such yoke of custom and law.

Barnabas and Paul were also given the opportunity to speak to the assembly. They recounted their experience. They told of the signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

Finally, James, the leader of the Jerusalem Church, appealed to scripture. He quoted from the prophet Amos. The Lord through Amos promised the restoration of the people of God and the inclusion of the Gentiles. “After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old” (Amos 9:1-12). James declared, “I have reached the decision that we should not trouble the Gentiles who are turning to God.” Most of the Church of Jerusalem agreed with him. A good and right choice had been made.

It struck me that we should add two more sides to Wesley’s quadrilateral and make it a hexagon. Perhaps we could name it the Presbyterian Hexagon! The two sides that should be added are community and the presence of the risen Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit. The best decisions are not made in isolation by a few but together in the body of Christ, in community. The work of the Holy Spirit, although not expressly mentioned, is presumed throughout the story.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our dear graduates Abby, David, and Grace, life is filled with decisions. You will be faced with many consequential choices as you begin the path of higher education and adulthood. Let us all remember that we will finally become the sum total of the choices we make. We must not forget that powerful forces surround us and shape us: our feelings, our culture, sin, and evil. So let us all rely on scripture, tradition, reason, experience, the community of faith, and the risen Christ present in our midst by the Holy Spirit to help us make the very best choices we can in this life.

But I would also remind us that all our choices are predated by God’s choice of us in Jesus Christ through baptism. This is good news, for even when we make poor choices there is forgiveness, restoration, and inclusion in Christ and his body, the Church.

Thanks be to God who does all things well and will yet cause us to triumph when God’s kingdom comes, and God’s will is done. Alleluia! Amen.