Persecution understandable

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today offer some food for thought on the way in which we live and experience the peace of Christ. The rejection of Christ and Christians by the world is an unfortunate but not unexpected consequence of living and advocating a life style which is counter cultural. Recently Pope Francis addressed young people at Confirmation, advising them, “To go against the current, this is good for the heart, but we need courage to swim against the tide.” The currents against which Paul and Barnabas struggled included rejection of the invitation of Jesus to all people that they would find peace in living daily in the relationship of Love between Jesus, Son and Father, God. The Spirit of God is the courage which believers use to get up and continue to serve God in loving others even when the others have beaten us down. Friar Jude Winkler notes that the persecution of followers of Jesus is more than the physical suffering experienced at the hands of others. It includes rejection, ridicule and being thought a fool. The “Shalom” which Jesus promises, in the text from the Gospel of John, accompanies working for the will of the Father is profound. The choices we make to serve others in Love deepen our peace. The direction the dominant culture declares best for our individual welfare seems to separate winners and losers, encourages obscene consumption by winners and ignores constant the constant struggle for survival of the losers. Friar Jude reminds us of the lost discipline of fasting which gives opportunity for our being to live simply in an experience of freedom from our passions to over attend to ourselves. We understand more that coming to the Father is our mission and the path to the Father with Jesus involves deaths to self and service to others.

The Advocate reveals

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary remind us of the comfort we often seek by putting our interaction with God at a distance. The psalmist describes the lifelessness of worship and religious practice which is based on behavioural patterns which keep our experience at the surface. We dwell on the idol, the mantra, the verse and the liturgy. Paul and Barnabas have struck a chord below the surface in Iconium and need to flee for their lives as the disruption to the status quo of their message begins to sink into the consciousness of the authorities. Friar Jude Winkler comments that every society must avoid the danger of interpreting Christianity from our own cultural background. The attribution of Greek god status to Paul and Barnabas is the cultural response presented in the Book of Acts today. Friar Jude notes that the prosperity gospel is a particularly North American confusion of Christianity and the dominant culture. The desire we have to reach the goals is often translated to tell us the rules and we will observe them. The Gospel from John today begins to sort out the path for our understanding of the revelation of Jesus. Friar Jude notes that fuller adoption of the Love commandment of Jesus happens slowly in human society. He cites the long struggle of Christianity with the issue of slavery. Jesus gives us the Love command which sets the standard of love for one another at the love which He has for us and He promises the Holy Spirit, or Advocate, as our constant companion to continue to draw us deeper below the surface to the revelation of how that Love is to be practiced today in our time and place.

Open Doors

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary are words that point to open doors which are offered by God through Love to the new heaven and the new earth. The psalmist praises the steadfast love of God which is known in thanksgiving as compassion and slowness to anger. The review of the history of the people of God gives the psalmist much for which to be thankful. The invitation into this communion with the Divine comes in the Christian tradition through baptism. The Book of Acts today presents the details of the missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas and how, in the words of the author of Acts, Luke, God has opened doors for the Gentiles. Friar Jude Winkler comments on the quality of love and perseverance in the mission of the Apostles to the Gentiles where they are able to be thankful to God for the rejection, imprisonment and beating which has accompanied them and which has been witness to the Gentiles of the Love which motivates their lives. The baptism ritual is one of introduction to the Love which Jesus prepares His disciples to witness in the text today from the Gospel of John. The immersion of the person seeking baptism in water has many symbolic harmonics. Water, of course, cleanses, as Chapter 13 of this Gospel describes, when Jesus washes the feet of His disciples. Friar Jude points out in the passage today from the last chapter of the Book of Revelation that in the New Jerusalem there is no sea. The sea was the source of evil, chaos and death to the people of John’s time. Immersion in water allows us to die with Jesus in the Baptism ritual. We emerge from Baptism as New Creations and as Father Larry Gillick SJ points out we are given a share in the mission of love as co- creators of the environment where deep love of the other through thanksgiving for the Love we know transforms the outsider, the modern “Gentile”, to people who radiate the Life and Love of God. The door that Jesus sees opening to His Glory, which in the Gospel of John, is the Son lifted up on the Cross to testify that God loves us to death comes through the betrayal of Judas. We are given the key to the experience of the New Jerusalem. We love one another as He as loved us.

Plan for the world

The text today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary puts us in touch with the intersection between the search for understanding of God by people and the revelation of God to people. The author of the Book of Acts, Luke is described by Friar Jude Winkler as a person who believed that God has a plan for the world and that plan must be discerned and followed by people. Luke was a learned Gentile and familiar with the philosophic thinking of his age which included Stoic concepts that God has a plan for humanity. Luke presents following Jesus as the lawful and true direction for the long established Jewish communities. The Roman rulers should understand that Jesus is rooted in a religious tradition which is the Jewish tradition. The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as Divine and Messiah. The text today is a passage where Jesus declares that He and the Father are One. Friar Jude notes that this truth is difficult for us to comprehend. People who become familiar with thoughts and ideas often confuse that familiarity with knowledge and understanding. This unfortunately seems to have created, in this age, a satisfaction with superficiality. The Nicene Creed putting words to the relationship between Father, Son and Spirit was not developed until 325. The Trinity remains a mystery for exploration in faith. The revelation by Jesus that He is Son was very difficult for the Jewish community. Jesus presents His works as witness to His essence. He invites us to be part of the unity between Father and Son and from that existence we will be deeply aware of the Love which is expressed through the Name of Jesus and we will seek to act in that Love.  The first century Jewish leader, Gamaliel, advised the religious authorities to let the work of Jesus disciples continue because if it were not of God it would disappear. If God is working in Jesus, people will not be able to stop the plan of God.

Way to Life

The psalm chosen for the texts of the Roman Catholic Lectionary today proclaims that the people of God have been chosen as sons of the Father. Recognition of the chosen nature of the Jewish nation underlies manner in which Paul addresses the members of the synagogue in Antioch in the passage from the Books of Acts. Paul speaks from his own deep commitment to seek God and observe the Law through his experience and education as a Jew who practiced as a leading Pharisee. The invitation Paul accepted from Jesus to proclaim the Good News is a fulfillment of the Promise made to Israel. The pattern of the missionary work of the early Christians was to bring news of Jesus first to the synagogues and after that to address the Gentiles in the communities they visited. Friar JudeWinkler comments on the text, part of the Last Supper Discourse, from the Gospel of John as one which is apparently in contradiction to the dualistic theme of this Gospel. The place which Jesus prepares in His Father’s house has many rooms. The image of this place generates hope that certainly there must be a room for everyone. Our human understanding cannot encompass the breadth and depth of the Spirit of God which desires intimacy with all humanity. John presents the dialogue with Thomas to underline, in a more dualistic manner, that the decision to follow Jesus will be the Way and the full understanding of God will be in the Truth revealed by Jesus and the fullness of life in Jesus begins now and will continue through death. John does not concern himself with the question of other ways to God. He is proclaiming the Life of the intimacy of humanity with the Spirit of God in Jesus.

Live the Proclamation

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today are chosen to provide a link for us to St Mark the Evangelist. Exegesis (from the Greek 'to lead out') is a critical explanation or interpretation of a religious text. Scholars who do the exegesis of the Gospel of Mark find a document which is skillfully crafted to proclaim Jesus human and Divine nature to Gentile Christians living in Rome. The words chosen by the evangelist and the structure of the writing are important. The preference of modern western readers for journalistic accounts of events does not mean that they were written in that manner. Friar Jude Winkler comments on the advice of Peter written from Rome, symbolically renamed Babylon, to the leaders of the early Christian churches to live humbly and be aware that pride will weaken our defense in the spiritual war with temptation in the world to choose other than the Way of Jesus. This passage in the letter of Peter places Mark the Evangelist in Rome from where he worked to write his Gospel account. The recent election of Pope Francis brought much discussion of the model of a simpler Church structure. The ending of the Gospel of Mark points the disciples of Jesus to the mission of proclaiming the Good News and baptizing people for salvation. Pope Francesco, in the spirit of his namesake Francesco of Assisi, may be the humble shepherd who encourages us to live the Good News as our proclamation of our baptism in Christ and to use words only when necessary.

On the mission

The Church grows and Saul and Barnabas are dispatched on a missionary journey throughout the cities around the Mediterranean in the text from the Acts of the Apostles in the Roman Catholic Lectionary today. The environment in which the Holy Spirit moved the Apostles to visit the synagogues of the region was one of commercial movement of people throughout the region. The Jewish Diaspora of this time meant that synagogues had been established throughout the territory of the Roman Empire. We are expected to be missionaries for Christ within the environment the Spirit presents to us. This is most likely to be within the realm of the possible and not necessarily a leap into activities completely foreign to our experience. Our 21^st century view of the missionary journey of Paul may assume a pioneering predisposition of these people. Paul was born in Tarsus, studied in Jerusalem, travelled to Damascus and resided in Antioch. The movement of Jews through the territory was typical. The view from our time of the Gospel of John sees a work which FriarJude Winkler comments is highly dualistic. Our struggle with dualism comes from lives which exist in the tension between liberal and conservative, new age and fundamentalism, rich and poor, and like the Gospel, good and evil. We may understand the Gospel of John as a strong assertion of the choice we need to make between darkness and light, salvation and condemnation, God and the way of the world. Our environment and experience is that we are Christians under construction. We make our direction the one prompted by the Spirit toward Jesus and set off like Paul and Barnabas to do Christianity and as we move we come closer to Jesus.