EASTER SUNDAY VI “B”
MAY 16/17, 2009
A few months ago during my weekly phone call to my mother she commented on an event that was occasioning much conversation in my little hometown. A family of Hispanic origin had moved in. For a small rural northeast Iowa community comprised primarily of descendants of Czech and German immigrants most Catholics, many of whom intermarried and, in turn, remained there such “newcomers” caused quite a stir. I commented to my mother that both my home community and parish are being challenged to live what “being Catholic” is all about through outreach and welcome to these newest members among them.
Today’s scriptures set this same challenge before us. In today’s reading from Acts Peter is confronted with the “catholic challenge.” The early church was very much like my home town and parish, a fairly homogeneous group of people who shared a common racial and cultural heritage, and a common religious tradition and practice; Judaism. Chapter 10 of Acts, from which today’s reading is taken, describes a vision Peter had of a large blanket descending from the sky filled with all kinds of animals and God’s command to him to “slaughter and eat.” Peter objects because among them are animals not considered kosher for Jewish dietary purposes. God tells Peter that all things he has created are “clean”, rendering all food acceptable. Immediately, Peter is summoned to the home of Cornelius, a member of the Roman army, a Gentile, and so an “unclean” person according to traditional Jewish cultural and religious practice. After arriving at Cornelius’ home, Peter and all present experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit similar to that of the community in Jerusalem on Pentecost. God’s message is clear: the body of Christ, the church, is to be, like God himself, “catholic”, universal, an open ito peoples of every race, language, culture and way of life. It was a challenge for Peter to be “stretched”. It is a challenge for us to also be “stretched” in our understanding and practice as the “catholic” church today.
Recent years have witnessed great tension in the church, particularly here in the United States, as people have chosen to align themselves along various points of church teaching and practice often to the exclusion of other perspectives. Because of such divisiveness, the rancorous partisan political atmosphere of our civil society has seized this opportunity to conquer and divide the church even going so far as to say that allegiance to one or other major political party demonstrates “loyalty” to the church. Given this, how do we go about living a truly “catholic” attitude and faith practice? The words of Jesus and those of the author of John along with the example of Peter and Cornelius show us the way.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of having chosen and befriended all who have remained with him. This offer of friendship to the disciples is part of a chain of love that begins with the Father, whose love is poured out in the self-gift of Jesus, who in turn, offers friendship to all. Jesus tells his friends how to keep that chain unbroken: pay the love forward to others, befriending them in the way he has done for them. He speaks of this as a “commandment”. How, we might ask, can one be commanded to “love” another person? For the Bible, “love” signifies not so much the feelings one has toward another. Rather it designates deeds of loving kindness toward another that communicate to that person that he or she is part of the community of the chosen friends of God and Jesus. We are commanded to act this way toward others, no matter how we might feel about them, agree with them, or whether or not they reciprocate the love offered.
Jesus demonstrated a “catholic” love when he washed the feet of all his disciples. He did not skip either Peter or Judas. He explained this is as the greatest kind of love: the willingness to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. The most challenging aspect of this love is that the friends of Jesus are asked not only to embrace within the community of the church those like themselves, but especially those to whom they are not naturally drawn, even to the point of willingly risking their own lives for them. Such is the love of God. Such is the love of Jesus. When this seems a humanly impossible choice, Jesus assures his disciples that when they ask God in his name for the courage and strength to live and practice such “catholic” love the necessary grace will be given.