Scattered not lost

The Hellenists in the texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today are particularly persecuted.

Not lost

We contemplate how the promise of Jesus of unbroken friendship and freedom from the fear of being forsaken or cut off from God must have been deeply meaningful to them.

The Acts of the Apostles illustrates that the Christian movement contained the seeds of doctrinal divergence from Judaism.

* [8:3] Saul…was trying to destroy the church: like Stephen, Saul was able to perceive that the Christian movement contained the seeds of doctrinal divergence from Judaism. A pupil of Gamaliel, according to Acts 22:3, and totally dedicated to the law as the way of salvation (Gal 1:13–14), Saul accepted the task of crushing the Christian movement, at least insofar as it detracted from the importance of the temple and the law. His vehement opposition to Christianity reveals how difficult it was for a Jew of his time to accept a messianism that differed so greatly from the general expectation.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus, the bread of life, reveals himself as spiritual food which produces the very life of God within us.

* [6:35–59] Up to Jn 6:50 “bread of life” is a figure for God’s revelation in Jesus; in Jn 6:51–58, the eucharistic theme comes to the fore. There may thus be a break between Jn 6:50–51.

George Butterfield is reminded of Tertullian who said that "the blood of the martyrs is seed."

In the Gospel, Jesus states that the will of his Father is that those who believe in him will have eternal life "and I shall raise him on the last day." The Evil One and his henchmen simply cannot win. If they kill Christians, the blood of those martyrs raises up new Christians. And, besides that, they can never ultimately get rid of the people they manage to kill because Jesus promises that he will raise them up. Those who fight against God and kill his children cannot win in the end. They only postpone the inevitable. Jesus is Lord. His children will reign with him. The tyrants of this world will win some battles. But they will lose the war.

Morgan Lee shares some recent research to adjust the Tertullian assertion.

Not necessarily, says missiologist Justin Long, who recently compared Pew’s latest tally of religious freedom restrictions to Operation World’s latest tally of Christian growth (see chart). His conclusion: Church growth is "not strongly" correlated with either governmental or societal persecution. However, Christianity "tends loosely" to change more rapidly (grow or shrink) when governmental restriction is high, and stays relatively stable when such pressure is low.

Don Schwager, reflecting on the “Bread of Life Discourse” comments that Jesus offers unbroken friendship and the gift of everlasting life with God.

Jesus makes three claims here. First he offers himself as spiritual food which produces the very life of God within us. Second, he promises unbroken friendship and freedom from the fear of being forsaken or cut off from God. Third, he offers us the hope of sharing in his resurrection. Jesus rose physically never to die again. Those who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior will be bodily raised up to immortal life with Jesus when he comes again on the last day.

Friar Jude Winkler notes that the Hellenists are being persecuted but the Apostles remain untouched in the account from Acts. The Hellenists particularly aggravated the Jews. Friar Jude claims that persecution becomes an opportunity to evangelize and as Christians we turn anything around to grace. The realized eschatology in the Gospel of John is at the core of our sense of being saved as “Already but not yet” as Friar Jude explains.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, connects to concepts of The Essential Self and the Passing Self as he summarizes some of Diarmuid O’Murchu’s helpful insights into gender and the Passing Self from his recent book, Incarnation: A New Evolutionary Threshold.

O’Murchu writes, that “how we experience ourselves as male or female is largely the result of learned conditioning.” Our different biological features are “secondary to our identity.” Both sex and gender are “fluid concepts that exist along a spectrum, rather than as fixed binaries determined by biology or genetic imprinting.” [3] In spiritual terms, gender is an attribute of the “false” or passing self, and is thus not one’s essential identity in God. The “True Self” or “Anchored Self” is beyond gender, which is probably the point Jesus is making when he says in heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage (Luke 20:35).

Some of the difficulties we have with spirituality and gender resonates with the particular pain endured by the Hellenists in the first century.

References

(n.d.). Acts, chapter 8 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved April 18, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts8:58

(n.d.). John, chapter 6 - United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Retrieved April 18, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/6

(n.d.). Creighton University's Online Ministries. Retrieved April 18, 2018, from http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html

(2014, December 4). Sorry, Tertullian | Christianity Today. Retrieved April 18, 2018, from http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/december/sorry-tertullian.html

(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved April 18, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/

(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved April 18, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/