THE SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

The Acts of the Apostles 8:5-8, 14-17

The First Letter of Saint Peter 3:15-18

The Gospel according to John 14:15-21

In the Book of Revelation, God withers the people saying, I would you were hot or cold; but because you are lukewarm I will begin to spit you out of my mouth. You have heard the saying, I’m sure. Perhaps you wonder what the Lord means. To whom do the words apply? Remember the question that blared from posters in the late 60’s and early 70’s of the last century? If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? I think the two statements are closely related. Maybe we could add a third adage for flavoring: Actions speak louder than words!

We’re near the conclusion of the Easter Season and closing in on Pentecost. Our Neophytes have had these weeks to experience the reality of their new life in Christ. And the rest of the Church has had the time to see the fruits of their period of penance during Lent and the renewal of their Baptismal Promises around the Font in the celebration of Easter. For both groups, enough time has gone by to begin to experience the humdrumness of the routine of daily living the faith. How are the lives lived now different from the lives lived before the encounter at the Font?

Peter, in this week’s second reading, speaks words of comfort and support to Christians under siege. They are on trial and facing death for being Christian. Their witness and their mode of living have been deemed unacceptable by the civic authorities. The Christians no longer hope in Caesar anymore. Their hope is in Christ’s Resurrection. The jaws of the lions loom. Peter urges them to act with gentleness and reverence so that when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. Apparently these Christians are not lukewarm in their faith response. They are on fire with the Spirit living in them. Their actions speak loudly. The risen Body of Christ living in the hearts of the Baptized continues to scandalize.

We might be tempted to forget that Jesus gave scandal. We might be tempted to soft pedal the charges related in the gospels. This man welcomes sinners and shares table with them. In our minds eyes those sinners can become sanitized. We see them as plaster-of-Paris saints fit for depiction on Barkley Street holy cards. Surely they’re not really sinners. We can accept that Jesus was comfortable among the poor. We’re even consoled that he approached lepers. Surely that’s what the gospel text means by sinners. Do you think so? I don’t. Sinners are sinners. They were in Jesus’ day, too. Sinners did not live by God’s law. Some of them were prostitutes. (Don’t read Mary of Magdala here. She was far from being a prostitute.) Some of them were tax collectors – which translates into being in cahoots with Roman suppression and being extorters of their neighbors. (You might think of Matthew here.) Some of them were thieves. You name the vice and surely representatives could be found in Jesus’ company. He was comfortable with them. Then add the poor and the lepers and any other off scouring of society and you will have a digest of Jesus’ table fellows. Jesus ministers to them unconditionally. He loves them for who they are. There’s no indication that all of them changed their ways and became his disciples.

What’s my point? The danger I see in these times is Catholics being too antiseptic in the practice of the faith and our assemblies becoming too homogenous. It’s fine to be in choir stalls and to have splendidly florid liturgies. But that makes no one uncomfortable. In the assembly, what evidence of diversity is there? Would sinners feel welcome? Under what conditions? How comfortable are the pews? Does the Eucharist celebrated evoke the full, active, and conscious participation of the Assembly? And does the Assembly rush forth, renewed by the Meal they have shared, to be themselves broken and shared until all have been fed. Are they on fire?

We celebrated recently the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Remember the days leading up to that horrific event? There were marches in the streets of Alabama and numbers of people, vulnerable to batons and fire hoses and dogs’ teeth, witnessed to the need for change. They were willing to lay down their lives for justice. Some did that literally in Alabama and Mississippi and elsewhere. Some of those demonstrations turned riotous. Remember Watts and Chicago and Detroit among other places. Witnessing sometimes can be messy.

Those were heady times, that first era that coincided with the close of Vatican Council II. Sure there was upheaval as always happens amidst birth pangs. But something new and wonderful was being brought forth. The new Church was being born. Remember Archbishop Oscar Romero who left the serenity of the Bishop’s manor to go into the streets to stand as a shepherd in the midst of the poor and call for justice for the people in El Salvador. Remember Dom Helder Camara whose witness to absolute solidarity with the poor became a precursor to the controversial Liberation Theology linked to Archbishop Romero. Even though he was an Archbishop, he lived in poverty among the poor. Camara said: When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a Communist. At the time of the Viet Nam War he wrote The Spiral of Violence in which he challenged the young people to break the cycle of violence to which previous generations have become addicted.

Remember the sit-ins and demonstrations on college campuses, the students who were shot to death at Kent State. Remember the demonstrations in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic Convention. Remember the brothers Berrigan. Remember and be inspired. Sure there were specific issues challenged by those demonstrations that may no longer seem pressing. No one would want to relive the years that spawned the assassinations of Dr. King and of John and Robert Kennedy. But the violence of those times should not lull us into complacency in our own time. There are still the poor who are hungry. There are still homeless people who live without shelter and whose homes destroyed by the hurricane still have not been restored. There is no shortage of injustices that cry out to heaven for vengeance. Will the Church respond?

If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? That’s what the Neophytes must ask themselves. That’s what the seasoned Catholics must ask themselves. Jesus says to us in the Gospel this Sunday: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Which ones? There are really only two. Love God with your whole being. Love your neighbor as yourself. Stated otherwise: Love one another as I have loved you. That love must be practical. It is in the act of loving that we come to love Jesus and in turn to know that we are loved by the Father and loved by Jesus. And most wonderful of all, Jesus will reveal himself to those who so love.

Let’s see what happens on Pentecost. Imagine the wind that could blow then, and the fire.

Sincerely,

Didymus