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Richard Bollman, SJ
April 20, 2008
5th SUNDAY of EASTER
SCRIPTURE: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:1-10; John 14:1-12
Our story this week from the early life of the church in the book of Acts
points to problems that arose as the community increased in size,
and as it became a community of mixed races and background.
The "hellenists" referred to were Greek people, non-Jews,
who noticed that their poor widows were being neglected.
The story is important as one of many in the scripture
where the community had to adapt its structure
to meet new human needs more effectively.
No solution was final or total,
but what is important is this liberal and practical will to adapt.
Both the second and third readings, from Peter’s letter and John’s Gospel,
speak to those who are new in faith,
and yet they encourage us old-timers too.
Peter puts together a long list of metaphors
about the dignity of the Christian way of life,
all of them from the older Hebrew scriptures.
Placed together in this letter,
they make a powerful teaching about community
that encourages people through the ages
with its freshness and hope.
In the passage from John’s Gospel,
the words of Jesus at the Last Supper
continue to cut through the darkness of our worries,
pointing with great simplicity to the
central and sufficient presence of Jesus
as the core of our way of life.
HOMILY. 5th Sunday of Easter–A
"Remembering our Holiness"
I just want to underline this event of conflict and resolution
that we heard from the Acts of the Apostles.
So what has happened?
The inclusion of gentiles, the European Greeks,
seems in itself to be an underlying tension, even in Jerusalem.
And a vocation crisis shows up: there is not enough time
for the Twelve and their helpers to see to everybody’s needs.
So a kind of prejudicial ministry grows up
that leaves out the foreigners and prefers the widows of the Jewish folks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if at first Peter and the rest got defensive.
There may have been some blame or hard feelings.
But then the community shows itself to be flexible, responsive.
Arguing and blaming will not let the word of God through,
but when the whole community was entrusted with the task of choosing new help,
this allowed for growth and peace.
It was a structural change about ministry and church life, very early in our history.
At the level of a parish, the local church, conflict and complaint
happens with some frequency. I’m sure you know this.
And when it’s important, it stays around a while, and can yield good results.
Some of our parents here in the parish have felt a need
for children to understand Sunday worship more from the inside.
You may have taken part at an open meeting in February where this came up.
It’s not about child care for the very young,
but more a hope for the spiritual development of children
at a kind of awkward age
between First Communion and junior High School.
Now I tend to get defensive about change, I don’t like it,
but I do find that if I shut up better things emerge.
So an idea came up from one of the dads which has now taken shape,
thanks to the work of several families getting together.
And that’s the origin of the Family Mass happening later this afternoon,
I remember one mother saying how the Children’s Mass at Christmas
really gets through to young people, all that they see and understand,
and maybe that could happen several times a year.
We’re not expecting 400 people, but maybe 40 or 50 folks,
but we learn from that.
Already I’ve learned a lot,
that there is creative spirit within every person’s complaint or unrest.
And when we act from a desire to listen and learn,
we enter into ministry together, and, as the scripture says,
"the word of God increases and the number of disciples multiplies greatly."
We live out our holiness, our priestly calling.
And I want to make a further point for each of us,
whether we have family concerns or other kinds of concerns.
None of us goes along very far in the Christian life
without meeting irritations, self-doubt, disappointments, anger.
We’re almost always under pressure, unable to manage.
Most of us have the same problems in the pews on Sunday
that ten-year-olds have:
our minds are elsewhere, we’d rather sit than stand,
rather check out other people than what’s happening up front.
We just cover it up better.
And yet, as Peter’s letter insists, we are a holy people,
made holy in our baptism.
It’s like the holiness grows in this kind of messy dirt of ordinary life.
So here we are always needing to grow up out of our infancy.
So when the struggle is most apparent,
there is an invitation within the darkness.
Our holiness wants to be acknowledged!
For me it’s often the groaning of the first half hour of the day,
the apprehension, the confusions from the night’s dreams.
So there it is. From today’s scripture comes a good prayer:
"here in this confusion, here in the dark, you are the Way and the Truth,
I have nothing to fear."
Now that’s not exactly my own prayer, never in words so clear,
but you get the point.
Growing up happens as we start to learn that our trials are not forever,
but that they are the stones out of which God is making something new.
They are the fertile soil where we learn forgiveness and patience, and trust.
And there it is that our presence in the world becomes a true priesthood,
where we allow for suffering, and yield to service,
and pay good attention to other people as they are.
Al Bischoff, who calls all people "saints,"
has an interest in holiness, especially the ordinary kind.
He passed along to me an article he was reading
about the life of Dorothy Day,
how she insisted that grace arises only
in the give and take of what we go through with people close at hand.
The writer concludes about her,
"like most holy people, she often fell short of her ideals.
We know this because she herself calls attention to her faults–
her impatience, her capacity for anger and her self-righteousness.
‘Thinking gloomily of the sins and the shortcomings of other,’
she writes, ‘it suddenly came to me to remember
my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others.
This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind.
It makes on unhappy to judge other people,
and happy to love them.’"
That’s a good description of our shared priesthood
in a priestly community,
turning again and again
to listen, to learn, to forgive and to serve.