Journey's Weekly Homilies

Journey Catholic Community                                                  Acts 8:5-8,14-17
6^th Sunday of Easter – 5/5/02                                                   1Pet.3:15-18
Homily:  Nancy                                                                             John 14:15-21

The Feast of Pentecost is only two weeks away!  We have enjoyed 35 days of the great 50 days of the EASTER SEASON, so far.  We are a good 2/3rds of the way through that marvelous time of year when we remind ourselves of our baptismal promises, every week, with water that spreads out to all of us, and is blessed by being shared among us at a gathering of believers such as this.  This is the Season, when the paschal candle burns in our midst as we pray.  This candle, which we lit in the new fire of the Easter Vigil, is before us so that we cannot forget that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that we are a light to the world of that good news. And there’s the rub, as they say.  We are a light to the world…WE are the bearers of the counter-cultural, confrontative, challenging, message of the one sent from God.

You have probably felt the change of how the scripture plan works during this Season of Easter.  The first reading is from the book of Acts for the Season.  Sunday after Sunday we are hearing the stories, as they trace the expansion of the church’s mission from Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria to the ends of the earth!  Today we hear the fascinating story of Philip, who has accomplished conversions in Samaria…but we also hear how important it is for Luke the writer to make clear how important it is for the original community in Jerusalem to give their imprimatur to his work, so Peter and John have to come to Samaria and finalize the converts status.

The second reading, in all but one of the weeks of this Season, are from the 1^st Letter of Peter.  The whole of this effort is like a baptismal homily.  The newly baptized, thrilled at their admission to all the privileges of the people of God (as we heard in last Sunday’s second reading), are today reminded that it will NOT be smooth sailing all the time.  Those who accept this baptism (and that’s US, too) must know what they are in for.  How could it be otherwise?  Baptism is the beginning of the Christian life, and the Christian life is a following in the footsteps of the Christ.  The passage we heard today ends with a quotation from an early Christian hymn…about death and resurrection of Christ.  We see before us there a clear example of the power of the texts we sing, how they form us, create our theology, and stay with us in our hearts and faith lives.  The wedding of scripture and music can carry us through a life long path of searching and change.

The Gospel we hear today is the second half of the 14^th chapter of John.  Tom shared the first half of this chapter last week, and Joe play for us during communion time the great hymn that Tom quoted, “Come my way, my truth, my life…such a way as gives us breath.”  It is after all, what John writes as Jesus’ “farewell discourse.”  And today’s gospel is the conclusion of Jesus’ response to the request from verse 8, where Philip asked Jesus:  “Show us this God.”  Jesus begins to talk, and the words grow in importance verse after verse. The verses are rather poetic in form, beginning and ending with the same statement, “…if you love me, you will keep my commandments,” and then “…those who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me.”   This is how it goes in the reading of the gospel of John; we find a language that calls us to a consciousness, about believing INTO Jesus….following him, abiding in him, loving him, keeping his word, receiving him, seeing him.  In John we are brought to a new understanding of the realm of God.  John gives us new ways of speaking about our searching.  With John’s gospel we begin to find terms that are interchangeable, like “Spirit…above…life…light…not-of-this-world…freedom…truth… and of course, love.”  With John we have a new vocabulary…because by the time this gospel was written, decades had passed…a lot had happened among our ancestors in faith.  John and his group seek the establishing of NEW VALUES, not new structures.  Paul emphasizes new structures.  But, in John, WHO is involved and HOW things are said are everything!  In John we receive what one commentator calls an “anti-language”…a language of a society of people, of believers, who are offering us a conscious alternative, a mode of resistance to the way the world is.  When I read that phrase, “conscious alternative,” I know that it is the very thing we want to be here at Journey.  We began our very life together in order to offer to each other and to the city of Portland, a “conscious alternative” to other ways of celebrating faith and being in community.  Jesus is counter-cultural.  We are followers of him, so we are called to be counter-cultural, too! 

I don’t know about you, but for me the desire to be counter to the culture of the world around me is rising up.  I feel the desert of confrontation around me on all sides.  I cannot find a way out of the maze of mixed truths that surrounds the pedophilia scandal stories.  The failure of the leaders of our church to do what is right in protecting the children within our institution seems equal to  the sicknesses that appear contagious among these trusted people, people who are supposed to be ministers of our truth.  I cannot look at the front page of the local paper without finding there a picture of the low door of entrance to the large church of Bethlehem in Judea…and two monks carrying out a body of a man on a stretcher…a man whose life is ended because on this holy ground there are people who have lost all sense of what is right and wrong and can only fight for ownership of that ground that they can never own.  The Dignity Village, the homeless encampment, full of people who move their tents from place to place in our own city, trying in every way they can to eek out a basic existence.  And I (for one) have never given them one scrap of bread from my abundant table.  And the mail brings, almost daily, another plea for just a little of my money:  just this week… for research to end a disease, for native American children’s education, for missions in the frozen land of upper Alaska, for justice in more civil rights efforts throughout the country.

We gather here, and our very existence is counter-cultural in the church.  The culture of our church does not have room for communities such as ours.  But to gather here, and welcome women in leadership, to use a eucharistic prayer that has not been approved by Rome, to break bread that has something in it other than flour and water, is to already be in a certain counter-cultural stance.  But, my Brothers and Sisters, it is not enough.  As we heard from the letter of Peter, we as baptized people are not set for smooth sailing for the rest of our lives.  We live in a time when every ounce of our creativity needs to be placed at the service of these questions… what are we going to do, to be true to our baptismal call?  Our Gospel tells us today an important basic fact:  Our God does NOT abandon the community…but remains with it and within it.  Go home and read the 14^th chapter of John again this week.  Jesus’ farewell discourse tells us, “I go to send the Spirit” and “I myself shall return.”  We, just as the disciples of nearly 2000 years ago, can recognize his abiding presence…in the community, in the scripture, at the table, among us here.

Whatever fear is keeping you from taking the next step, then bring this message to that fear.  Jesus said, “I will not leave you desolate;  I will come to you…those who have my commandments and keep them…those who love me…will be loved by God, and I will love them.”  This is our hope.  And remember what Peter wrote, “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you…”  We can begin, this night, to call each other to account.