Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
Easter 6 C - May 22, 2022
We have gathered again on this morning of the Sixth Sunday of Easter to celebrate the Resurrection and be fed in Word and Sacrament. From the Gospel passage we heard this morning, we are placed in the Holy Week events and this may seem strange during the Eastertide season. However in the gospel acording to John, these are the chapters where we hear from Jesus himself what living into the resurrection reality truly means. We will come back to this in a moment. First let us explore the main theme from today’s readings which seems to be mission which stems from discipleship or discipleship that leads to mission.
In today's passage from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul receives a vision from God. A few verses before this passage begins, Paul and his companions Silas and Timothy seemed at a loss for where to go preach next. They had moved around in the region encountering barriers that strangely seemed to have been set up by God. The Spirit had prevented them or rather had forbidden them from going into Asia or into Bythinia and they were restricted to Troas by God’s refusal to let them go North, South or West.
Though the verses that preceed our passage today are ommited as part of it in the lectionary, they are important in that they teach us, the church, that God is in charge of the mission. They also clearly show that the church at times searches for God’s calling in mistaken directions and futile attempts and that the will of God communicated by the Spirit often happens through frustrating and difficult discernment.
As already stated, today's passage begins with Paul receiving a vision and the vision is not as clear as we would imagine and therefore needed to be interpreted by the community of faith and owned up by the same community before it could be acted upon. In verse 10, we hear the community taking ownership of the vision… “we concluded what it meant and what to do about it”. We learn a crucial lesson here this morning that although God communicates with individuals, the mission He gives is not necessarily for that particular individual but for the entire Community and not just as a theme for discussions and meetings, but for immediate action.
The mission that we recieve is not personal, it is not even for the Church but it is God’s. However, the Church is called to discern God’s mission at every turn and that is our call this morning… Where is the Spirit calling us, is the Spirit calling us to those whom we might think are outside the circle of our responsibility? What visions call us as a Religious Community or as an Order beyond the boundaries we have set for ourselves, into ministry where and that we had not considered before? Are we so comfortable in West Park, Toronto and a certain part of the Republic of South Africa that our eyes have been closed to visions of, and our ears have become deaf to, God inviting us to new frontiers?
After the community discerns where God is calling them, Paul and his mission team head directly to Philippi which was a Roman colony, a miniature Rome, a place that was supposed to show what the empire is all about and can offer. Paul heads there and plants a church so that it acts as a community that says No to the ways of imperial power and offer a different way of life, a different story, a different promise. This is still the mission entrusted to the Church today; to be, and to offer, in the face of different and of familiar systems of power and oppression, a different way of life and of being. Unfortunately the Church of today has become so comfortable in her dealings with the systems of power in place and has become compromised and contaminated to the extent of providing theology to back up some of the most oppressive and violent regimes, ideologies and policies that have characterized life in our world today and in the past! If you want to see the extent to which our society has become rotten, look no further than most of the churches!
Paul’s vision had involved a Macedonian man but the first to welcome the good-news in Philippi was a woman (and non Jew) named Lydia. This woman was from Thyatira where Paul had just come from and the lesson here is that we should not have any simple expectations about God’s mission. What we need is an open mind and an open attitude to acept what God continues to reveal. This is because God reveals self afresh daily but if we become stuck or fixated on the original vision or mission or even in our successes or failures, we most likely will miss the point and end up sabotaging what we claim to be working to build.
Lydia’s faith became active immediately and she and her entire household got baptized. She therefore becomes the first person in Europe to become Christian! She then opens her home to the disciples and by so doing, social and cultural barriers begin to crumble as this Roman outpost begins to be changed by God’s grace. Lydia prevailed upon Paul and his companions to stay with her just as the Emmaus disciples prevailed on Jesus to stay with them for the night. When lives are transformed and opened up by faithful discipleship, the fellowship of the risen Lord continues to extend in the world.
This brings us back to today’s Gospel passage. We hear Jesus talking to his disciples about his imminent departure in what is popularly known as the farewell discourse. He speaks to them about the mission he is entrusting to them, that of love! He makes it clear that his followers will love him by serving others. Most of us most of the time think we can make a distinction between loving Jesus and keeping his word and erroneously imagine that we can do one and omit the other. Jesus however does not recognize or envision that distinction. In verse 23, he states a fact as a condition .. “those who love me will keep my word”(John 14:23)… Love for Jesus is love in action!
Now, for us to live that kind of love we need the constant presence of God in our midst. Jesus speaks of that presence in a special way when he talks about himself and the father in relation to those who love him… “we will come and make our home with them”. This statement is in no way a reward for good behavior. It is a statement of where God likes to spend time. The book of Revelations 21 tells us that the home of God is among mortals God will dwell with us as our God. We will be God’s people and God himself will be with us!
Jesus also reminds the disciples that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything and remind them all He has said to them.(John 14:25) He also assures them of His peace a peace that is different from the peace the world gives. Those of us who have the mission to love Jesus will therefore be known in our work and in our being by these characteristics, that is, The father and Son will make a home with us, in the work of the Spirit to call to mind everything that Jesus taught us, and in the ongoing experience of peace, a peace that comes from Him and not from the world!
Whenever peace is mentioned, it does not necessarily imply that there will not be hardships. As Jesus is making this promise of peace, he himself is on his way to the Cross. He also knew what troubles his disciples would suffer. His promise of peace is therefore remarkable. It is one thing to offer reassuarance when things are well; it is another to do so when suffering looms. Yet, Jesus admonishes his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled or be afraid. It is one of the paradoxes of Christianity that the greatest peace can exist amisdt the greatest suffering. Matyrs testify to this. Trials and temptations, hardships and opposition, disappointments and discouragement are all part of the package that is discipleship. True discipleship however is evident in the ability to say with Paul… “If God is for us, who can be against us”, (Romans 8:31). The peace that Paul experiences and spoke about in his hardships filled life is the peace in the midst of suffering. He spoke many times of this peace and it is the same peace we are offered today. It comes from having one’s heart set on what trully matters; God and His love in our hearts.
Let us therefore pray that God’s indwelling presence comes to us afresh so that we can be able to be love in action as we strive to make Him known and loved through word and action. Jesus offers us peace and love by offering himself. Let us therefore receive him into our hearts and lives. Only then can we find true peace!
AMEN
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