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Circumcision is one of those topics I don’t remember ever learning about when I was in Sunday school. As a matter of fact, not only did my Sunday school teachers avoid this topic but so did my parents, the pastors in the churches I’ve attended; even my religion teachers in college and seminary didn’t spend any time discussing it. Why would they? It’s uncomfortable. I remember a colleague of mine who explained trying to address the topic with a group of middle schoolers. After the class, an embarrassed student came up and asked privately, “excuse me, but where exactly on the forearm is the foreskin?” There are a few topics no one wants to talk about when dealing with the Bible – this is one of them. It might even seem a little awkward and inappropriate that I’m using it in today’s devotional. I promise you, I will never again bring this up in any future devotionals.
And yet, it was one of the central issues of faith for a couple of thousand years (albeit for the males in this patriarchal tradition). Those who were circumcised were considered members of the faith community. Those who were not, were not. The early Christian church was wrestling with whether the new (non Jewish) believers had to be circumcised to be a part of the body of Christ. Acts 15 tells of this debate; “unless you are circumcised… you cannot be saved.” Acts 15:1 The battle was intense. They were trying to determine if this was one of the essential aspects of what it meant to be a true believer.
How would they solve the issue? They ultimately decided it just wasn’t that important to be circumcised to be a follower of Christ. They decided that God who knows the heart accepts us, just as we are. Acts 15:8-11 I imagine that they came to this conclusion by looking at the teachings of Jesus and saw that (like my Sunday School teachers) he didn’t say anything at all about circumcision. In fact, if you look closely, you’ll notice that Jesus didn’t say anything about most of the hot button religious issues that divide people today. Jesus didn’t talk about circumcision or homosexuality or abortion or politics. He did however, talk a lot about love, compassion and caring for the poor. He told parables designed to draw us toward being our best selves. He taught about radical inclusion and unlimited grace.
While I’d love to give you a stirring lesson today about circumcision, I’m going to take my cue from Jesus and remind us that while faithful people can disagree about many things, the central qualities Jesus would seek from all of us this week is not that we look for ways to disagree about controversial topics but rather that look for ways to be inclusive and compassionate, full of grace and showing love to our colleagues, families and friends.
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