Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C
Acts
11:1-18
Psalm
148
Revelation
21:1-6
John
13:31-35
The
disciples had gathered with Jesus for their last earthly meal together. At one point during this meal, for a brief
moment, tension and great evil surrounded Jesus. He looked into the heart of Judas, and saw
what Judas was about to do. Then Jesus
looked into Judas' eyes, and said, "What you are going to do, go do
quickly." Without another word, and
unable to look at Jesus any longer, Judas got up and walked out of the
room. He went to meet with his
co-conspirators.
The
greatest betrayal in history was now set in motion – and Jesus was the target
of it.
It's
at this point that we enter the Gospel reading for this 5th Sunday
of Easter. The reading begins,
"When he [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said..." If we had to turn the page at this point, or
reading a contemporary Hollywood movie script, we would have reasonably
expected some response from Jesus like this on the next page: "Well, boys,
that scoundrel Judas did it this time! He
set me up, and now I'm in really big trouble.
Probably you guys, too! If I ever
get my hands on that snake I'll tattoo his face with my fist!"
Normal
human responses to such a betrayal would probably include things like anger,
fear, hatred, or revenge. To be
betrayed, especially when one's life is involved, is a highly grievous assault. And it seems only natural to want to
"get even."
But
instead, Jesus took this incident to drive home the whole point of his
ministry. He said nothing more to Judas;
he didn’t yell at him, or strike him or gossip about him. Instead, he turned to his disciples and said
two important things: first, that he [Jesus] was now glorified in God as God
was glorified. And second, he gave the
disciples a new commandment: "Love one another, just as I have loved
you. By this everyone will know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Thomas
Merton wrote that for a person to glorify God meant that that person would
become who God made them to be. That
person would grow into who they truly were, and they would live the way that
God would want him or her to live. Since
God is love, and Jesus and God are One, it was Jesus' destiny to live a life of
pure love regardless of what happened to him.
He glorified God because he knew that his earthly life was soon to be
over, and that he would face the events of this next day in total love, just as
he conducted himself throughout his ministry.
God
did not send Jesus to earth just to
die on a cross. He sent Jesus to earth
to demonstrate to us the meaning of love in the face of any of life's challenges, even if it meant that he would die on a
cross. This is what St. Paul meant when
he wrote, "And [Jesus] became obedient to the point of death – even if it
meant death on a cross." (Philippians
2:8) Jesus maintained his
love for the world even in the face of the greatest injustice – the murder of
the Son of God. Even with his last few
breaths he was able to say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do."
So
there he was, sitting around the last supper table with the remaining disciples
knowing that at that moment Judas was arranging to have him killed, and yet he gave
his disciples a new, overarching, commandment of love. "By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another."
And
now, we are faced with this deepest of Christian principles – to love in the
face of whatever befalls us. What does
this mean? How do we do this?
It
has to start within each person, and gradually spread outward. So, start with yourself – Jesus said earlier
to love your neighbor as yourself. Don't forget this last part – it's key to the
whole thing! We need to deal with
ourselves in a loving manner regardless of the mistakes we make, or the
decisions that may lead us astray. How would
a loving person treat you in these matters?
This is how you need to treat yourself.
This will give you practice in loving someone else, too. And eventually, this will cause us all to
reach out with love into the community and eventually into the world.
Psalm
148 expresses the joy one finds in this loving approach God takes toward us.
Reflection
Questions
1.
What does it mean to you to glorify yourself in God?
2.
Think of some issue or concern you are faced with right now. How can you respond to this in love?
3.
How can we, as the Church, respond to the world's issues in love?
4.
How can we, as a country, respond to the world's issues in love?
5.
Read through the scripture lessons for this Sunday again, and spend some time
journaling your thoughts.
Third Sunday of Easter – Year C
Acts
9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm
30
Revelation
5:11-14
John
21:1-19
Easter
is the season of awakening – the risen Christ awakens us to the proof that
God's love can't be compromised by anything, even as humanity stoops to its
lowest point. We become aware that we
are, indeed, children of God, and that we are really all one family, all loved
by God. God yearns for our
companionship, wanting us to be one with this unity.
But
seeing the truth about this love is less likely if our minds are pre-occupied
with something else, something false, something sinister.
The
readings for today show several examples of this. Paul (then Saul) could not see the loving
truth about Christ because he was filled with a misguided hatred for the new
Christians. He was "breathing
threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord," and was actively
persecuting them. Who could think
clearly with all this on his mind?
Even
Peter and some of the disciples initially failed to recognize Christ standing
along the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.
Why couldn't they see clearly through to him? Perhaps their minds were still reeling from
the events of the past Easter weekend as well as reflecting on their whole
experience of Jesus' ministry. They were
still somewhat confused and uncertain about what to do. Filled with grief and lack of direction, they
returned to the things with which they were most familiar. Peter finally said, "I'm going
fishing."
Even
today, we don't often see clearly.
We often miss the presence of Christ in our lives because we have our
minds focused on something else we think is important. Our awareness of his presence in our lives is
often clouded in varying degrees by things that have been given birth in our
false selves; things like fear, worry, shame, prejudices, self-pride,
power-lust, or even lack of self-esteem.
Luke
(the presumed author of the Acts of the Apostles) describes the inability of
Paul to see clearly as having "scales" over his eyes. After he had
been helped by a man named Ananias,
Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, "and immediately something like
scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored." He could now see clearly because the scales
of his hatred fell away.
From
this point on, Paul had an understanding of God's love, the interconnectedness
of all people under God's family, and the truth about life itself.
When
the disciples listened to the man on the shore trying to help them, they
suddenly realized who it was. "It
is the Lord," they shouted. And
when they finally recognized Jesus in their lives, they went to him, and were
renewed.
The
scales in our lives are usually things that have attached themselves to us from
the shadows of our past, or are pulling us into the illusions of the
future. The only place we can see clearly is in the present moment.
One of the first things we can do to remove the scales from our eyes is
to recognize these visitors from the past, or these tempters of the
future. They will all rob you of life
today. Awareness of them, seeing them
for what they are, is 80% of the victory.
Then,
work with your spiritual support team to shed more of God's Light on these
scales. The more of this Light that
shines, the fewer of these shadows can survive.
None of these scales are from God – they do not belong to you as part of
your true self. The full Light shines in
the NOW, the portal to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Leave
the past to God's mercy, and the future to God's providence. God's love is in the Present.
Reflection
Questions
1.
What scales are blocking you from seeing "straight," from seeing how
much love God has for you?
2.
Who can help you bring Light to the scales in your life?
3.
How can thinking about the past help you in the Present Moment?
4.
Read through the scripture lessons for this Sunday again, and spend some time
journaling your thoughts.
Second Sunday of Easter – Year C
Acts
5:27-32
Psalm
118:14-29
Revelation
1:4-8
John
20:19-31
In
the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter we encounter the passage:
"If you forgive the sins of
any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are
retained." (John 20:23)
The
first reading of this passage leaves one with the impression that Jesus is
giving the disciples (and the Church) the power to either forgive sins, or to
retain them and not forgive them. It
seems to make sense – either you forgive sins, or you do not.
But
something about this approach goes against what I understand to be Christ's
underlying theology of the forgiveness of sins.
It troubled me that, on the one hand, Christ spent much of his ministry
healing people and forgiving sins – even dying on the cross for the redemption
of sins – and then giving the option to "retain sins" right at the
end of the Gospels. What's up with that?
I
reflected on this for quite some time, and eventually realized that what may
have happened here is that Christ was offering his disciples, and his Church,
more than one way to heal someone's "sins." Perhaps at this point Jesus felt that his
disciples were ready to understand the healing of relationships at a higher
level.
Jesus
forgave sins, and taught us how to forgive them. He even included this all-important act in
the Lord's Prayer – "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against
us." And how often should we do
this? Not just 7 times, but 70 times 7,
he instructs.
But
he was also suggesting to us in this passage that our sins, and the sins of
others, can be handled in another way – by "retaining" them.
Our
western mind is quick to assume that "retaining" means to "hold
against" in the sense that we do not forgive the person whose sins are
retained. But if we explore the original
Greek word used here, κρατητε, we can see a slightly different sense of the
word is possible: to hold, or to hold fast, almost an embracing.
Paul
describes this well in his first letter to the Corinthians when he uses the
analogy of the body to explain how the family of Christ works. "For as with the human body which is a
unity although it has many parts - all the parts of the body, though many,
still making up one single body - so it is with Christ." (I Corinthians
12:12)
We
are baptized into one body in a single Spirit, he goes on to explain, and are
all given the same Spirit to drink. The
key point is then laid out in verse 26: "If one part is hurt, all the
parts share its pain." This is a
unitive way of looking at life, an inclusive way, a way that Jesus tried to
emphasize so many times in his parables and teachings. It is counter to our individualistic way of
living life, a way that Jesus often criticized.
If
one of us is hurt, then we all share to some degree and in some way in that
pain. Sharing in the hurt and pain
diminishes the effects of that hurt or pain, because it's spread out and
received by the rest of the body. It is
'retained', or held fast, by the entire body, and not just one of its members. It is
shared, and as a result, it can be remedied more effectively.
Jesus'
appearance to the disciples included the marks of his crucifixion: pierced
hands and feet, and a spear mark in his side.
These are marks of his sharing in the problems and shortcomings of the
human race. By absorbing these, by
taking them on as part of his body, he diminished them for all of us. This is vicarious
assumption of our shortcomings as a whole.
Jesus appeared with these marks to remind his disciples that as a
family, we all share in human shortcomings.
We are not to segregate or separate those who are "sinners"
from those who are not, because as a body, we are all what each one of us is.
Jesus
was reminding us that there are two ways to deal with sin – to forgive or to
retain. To forgive is to simply release
from blame; to no longer carry the anger or need for remembrance, and to open
the way for renewed relationships. To
retain a sin is to bring it in, to know it, to understand it, and to dissolve
it in the Light of God's love. We help
those in trouble to understand the impact and consequences of a wayward
thought, word, or deed. We use friends,
and counselors, and therapists, and pastors, and guides; we join together to
absorb the pain and sorrow of the trouble, and then place it at the feet of
Jesus.
Forgiving
or retaining doesn't necessarily mean that there are no restitutions or amends
offered. It simply opens new collective
avenues for dealing with our troubles in this world. We listen, we help where
we can, we pray, we stay aware and alert, we forgive, we understand, we
remember that when one of us hurts we all hurt. We remember that we are all imperfect, and yet
we are all One. Therein is our
strength. We are the Body of Christ.
Reflection
Questions
1.
Does this perspective on dealing with sins help you forgive others?
2.
Does this perspective on dealing with sins help you forgive yourself?
3.
What might still be keeping you from forgiving someone else or yourself?
4.
Read through the scripture lessons for this Sunday again, and spend some time
journaling your thoughts.
