Richard Bollman, S.J.

On SCRIPTURE, 5^th Sunday of Easter, C.

Acts 14:21-27; Revelation 21:1-5; John 13: 31-35

The rather short Gospel today is part of Jesus’ farewell at the Last Supper.

These words come right after Judas leaves the room,

and lead into a long discourse about love, Jesus’ death and departure,

and the promise of the future gift of the spirit.

Today’s section includes the commandment of love,

and also a more obscure section about how Jesus will be glorified

through the betrayal and death about to occur.

The glory of God, the glory of Jesus (referred to as Son of Man)

is that inner life of God that shines forth, Christ’s radiance.

This light is not put out by the darkness, but shines through it.

The 2^nd selection, from Revelation, presents a vision of that great coming day

when we will all live in a place that is full of God’s glory,

a place referred to as the New Jerusalem.

But first, we rejoin the Acts of the Apostles,

the First Missionary Journey of Paul, accompanied by Barnabas.

This is a passage looking back on the gift of that first journey.

The geography of this journey took Paul along the south coast of Turkey,

up into the center of the country and then back to the coast,

and finally across to Cyprus. 800 miles. 4 years.

Though in his day, it was not Turkey, but rather Cilicia, Syria, Cappadocia,

Pisidia, Galatia: more tribal entities than nations. The Hellenic World.

Greek would have been the common language,

but, more to the point, all of it in the first century

was fundamentally a part of the Roman Empire,

now at its maximum extent.

These were the journeys of evangelization:

the founding of early Christian Communities.

These journeys opened the Christian way of life to ourselves,

the non-Jews, the nations.

HOMILY. Easter 5C. "Remembering our Origins, the Gentile Church"

So you have to get in touch with the daring of this early Christian group

who were now becoming something clearly different

from the Judaism of their parents even a generation ago.

The turning point was not just the figure of Jesus appearing in Jerusalem,

but the new life of Jesus among the community, risen and present,

drawing people into a new way of community and social relationships.

This first venture abroad, led by Paul and Barnabas,

moved out from Antioch into modern Turkey and back again.

They would have encountered some synagogues, but they didn’t stay long

working against the grain with the Jewish community any more.

And in some parts of this new world,

Christian Jews were forbidden to enter the synagogues.

So they brought the good news to gentiles, (and that’s us);

they’d get a group established, and then later

return and visit them and strengthen their souls, as it says in today’s reading.

Why would souls need to be strengthened?

I want to dwell on that a little, because I think the issues are always with us.

Because it was not easy to be a Christian in the first century Mediterranean world.

Picture these people: some of them learned, educators or magistrates,

some merchants, textile workers, farmers or fishermen.

Paul and Barnabas would have drawn them into a trust of God

that went beyond what religion had offered these people before.

What were the religious options they had up to this time, these gentiles?

There were the mystery religions, cultivated in secret story enactments, rituals,

and these were usually gender exclusive.

Women’s groups focused on the cycle of seasons and fertility,

sometimes involving blood sacrifice of animals,

as well as development of healing arts.

And there was a mystery sect for men too, devoted to Mithra,

again secret in its ritual but promoting the virtues of courage and military prowess.

These cults did not draw society together:

that was the business of the state religion, Rome’s effort to revive the old gods,

placing the emperor at the center and telling you to just trust

and follow the rules of being a good citizen at your level of life.

Christian faith brought people into relationship together, around God,

male and female, bringing the best of Judaic family cohesion,

but an even more inclusive spirit, across tribal lines,

with the risen Jesus at the center of the community.

Jesus forever including people at the table,

recognized there in the breaking of bread:

a community that lived Christ’s mission outward in love for others–

these early groups through the first century started care centers for the sick, sanctuary for political dissidents,

all of this bringing a new way of feeling and living in society.

They took on an ethical life in their business and buying and selling,

not just the standards of greed and wealth.

They trusted sexuality to be a sacred commitment,

not an amusement or an aspect of the market place.

There was a practice of forgiveness in the community, getting beyond guilt,

and they believed that this conveyed the deep forgiveness of God.

You can see why this kind of religion is socially threatening

because it touches so much of how life is lived, and it offers a different vision

from the old gods centered on political power over people.

It touched the spiritual vacuum people felt during those decades.

And Rome as a government had become a spectacle of dubious leadership,

from Tiberius to Caligula to Claudius and Nero.

People wanted something more, and when they found faith,

they knew often they were in danger of retribution and becoming marginal.

We have to be careful ourselves to remember our origins

and to gather strength from these dangerous memories for our own era,

We can forget what it is that holds us together.

We tend to reduce Christianity to some facts about God or Jesus,

and a propensity to help people.

Get in touch with our own daring, different from just religion,

and different from just being people who do good works.

What we trust is not just a fact about Jesus long ago,

but rather that even right now we are a part of Christ,

we are included in Christ, claimed by God,

and that is the way our faith feels to us.

What starts as a personal relationship with God

becomes a community relationship of belonging to God,

an experience of belonging to Christ as we live and pray and work together.

The Christ who makes all things new.

Last weekend I spent some time in Boston,

looking for strength in my own soul, by revisiting some Jesuit friends

I hadn’t seen in a few years.

The three of us then visited the old Jesuit church on Sunday,

in the south end of Boston, the mother church of the Jesuits,

like St. Xavier downtown here.

There had been a college, but it’s moved to Chestnut Hill,

the high school left behind is now moved out to Dorchester.

The old buildings left had been serving as an Urban Outreach Center,

and as headquarters for the New England Jesuit administration,

most of that under the Church,

but none of it can be afforded now.

The church building at the center of it all is 4 million dollars behind in upkeep.

It is not a parish now, and never was: there are no former members out there

who want to come back and save The Church of the Immaculate Conception.

So it will be shut down at the end of the Easter season.

Each Sunday there is a congregation who comes there,

and especially now it is a kind of soul strengthening time.

The institutional moorings are weak, so what is left?

Who are they? A marginal people of course who found a home through the years

outside the parish structures of central Boston.

Some families from nearby neighborhoods,

whose children take up the collection;

some of the gay community feel welcome there,

other single people and religious women too.

One of the nuns who had been organizing

worship schedules and outreach for years,

an older woman, Sister of Notre Dame, was retiring this Sunday.

The applause for her was so alive, warm . . . . I didn’t even know her

but got caught up, turning to see her, for awhile managing well

then bursting into tears.

It was strong and simple worship: the pews had long ago been removed

and we sat in chairs opposite one another, the altar in the middle.

There was a piano and an organ and a small choir group.

In the first row across that little space

one gay couple were sitting, older men, one in his 60's surely,

sitting and holding hands the whole time.

Holding hands as if on a life raft.

And the sermon called everyone to take part in remembering the voice of Jesus,

how they have heard it here, so that they will always recognize it.

The Sunday of the Good Shepherd, it was.

I thought of my own recognition of that voice

outside the the usual boundaries of my own town and parish,

and know it to be a voice that speaks here too.

But somehow it felt more vital in the situation of a community

about to lose its home.

They’ve been having meetings about the future,

partly about possible places to continue,

but mainly about confirming their sense of community

how to stay together, for the sake of hearing that voice

and living in Jesus.

People in Derbe or Pamphyilia, Antioch or Cyprus

might have had similar moments in their life as communities.

Two thousand years ago–it’s been that long–this news was brought to us gentiles,

that the one who died, has died for all,

and invites us to the table where the risen life continues.

Our institutions are not always strong, but there is strength here in the Lord.

Our power to live the truth in a compromising culture,

that power is not always strong, but it is revived here.

For the strength of our souls we look across the room into other faces,

and let our prayer rise up,

and so then we can be sent everywhere out these doors

where our strength and commitments are called to good use.

It is a long story we are involved in!

Blessed always is the name of God, and the holy voice.

Come, Lord Jesus. Make everything new.