Our prayer group prepares a meal on Saturday every other month for the residents of a local low-income senior apartment building. We’ve done it for more than three years now, and we look forward to it. The residents are so very appreciative. We do old-fashioned, “meat and country vegetables” dinners, and they love it. We love it, too. We have grown to know many of them. We sit and eat with them, sharing the news of the day and the ups and downs of life. Yesterday we were short-handed, and one of the residents, a member of our parish, jumped in and began to serve the others along with us.
Paul and Barnabas
Our actions of “love one another,” as Jesus tells his disciples to do in today’s Gospel, were tiny, compared to Paul and Barnabas’s actions of healing the crippled man in Lystra in today’s first reading. Yet some of the same temptations are there in our efforts that must have been there for Paul and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas had just been thrown out of Iconium. Being shown out of the city gates happened quite often to them, as they made their missionary journeys through Greece and Macedonia. Now, at Lystra, when they healed the lame man, even the local priest of Zeus made ready to offer sacrifice to them. The grateful residents thought Barnabas and Paul must be Zeus and Hermes (Greek gods) come to life.
Paul and Barnabas didn’t demur, saying softly, “No, no, this is an action of the great grace of God.” They
“tore their garments
when they heard this and rushed out into the crowd, shouting,
“Men, why are you doing this?
We are of the same nature as you, human beings.
We proclaim to you good news
that you should turn from these idols to the living God,
who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.”
Tearing of garments was a sign of distress and mourning in their culture. Paul and Barnabas were deeply upset because people interpreted their goodness to the crippled man as a sign they were something other than ordinary human.
Today’s Gospel
Today’s Gospel matches well with this reading from Acts. Part of Jesus’ Farewell Address in the Gospel of John, in it Jesus explains that he manifests himself to his disciples, then it is his disciples’ task to spread the Gospel through the world.
At first reading, I was confused by the question Judas (not the Iscariot—called Jude or Thaddeus in other Gospels) asked and Jesus’ answer:
“Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us
and not to the world?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
yet the word you hear is not mine
but that of the Father who sent me.
It seemed to me that Jesus did not answer the question. I found a good explanation in Jean Vanier’s book, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John. I’m going to quote it at length, because it gives us much to think about:
What Jesus Meant
“Jesus is not going to do wondrous acts to convince everyone in the world that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. His plan is to live in his disciples—to begin with just a few:
“Whoever loves me will keep my word,
and my Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
yet the word you hear is not mine
but that of the Father who sent me.
It is they, the Church, the community of believers who will continue his mission. It is they who will manifest Jesus to the world. But the Paraclete, Jesus and the Father will only come if…
This is not a threat but a promise, a promise that if we keep his commandments or his words, the Paraclete will be given to us. The “if” is a condition and implies that we are called to struggle against all those forces of egoism that prevent us from keeping God’s commandments.
And these commandments, what are they? Essentially, they are all the commandments of love: to serve each other, to be compassionate, to live in communion with one another, not to judge or condemn but to forgive, to love enemies, to live the beatitudes, to wash the others’ feet. The commandment of Jesus is that we love one another as he loves us. This is his way, the way to God. We are all called to leave behind all the selfish attitudes of the world, to no longer put all our energies into the pursuit of power, wealth, honor and superficial friendships. It implies struggles, moments of grief, purifications. We cannot be moved by the Spirit for the things of God if we are seeking only the things of the world.”
Walking in the Truth of the Spirit
Truth is, when our prayer group cooks up green beans, coleslaw, ham, rolls, potatoes, carrots, and peanut butter pie—we CAN BE living in the Spirit the same as if we were healing a man crippled from birth.
We CAN BE. Not we are. We CAN BE. IF we are living the commandments of love.
We CAN BE living in the Spirit when we cook for our family, play shoot-the-rubber-band with our children, talk over the fence with our next-door neighbor.
We CAN BE.
When we do what we do because it is Jesus commandment to love as he loved us, we are doing ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD.
Jesus remains the Way, the Truth, and the Life, manifesting Himself to the world through me, through you, through all of us today.
As St. Teresa of Avila said it: “Christ has no body now on earth but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.”
Prayer:
Lord, today help me to love as you love in whatever task you give me. When I am tempted to see myself as doing great things–or to think that I am doing not-much for the Kingdom of God, help me to remember my job is to be faithful to your commandments to love in the way you love. Whether I am praised, criticized, or ignored, help me to remember that results, recognition, or gratitude are NOT signs I am doing your work. Simple faithfulness to you is the only thing that is important. So, Lord, help me to not be distracted today by accolades or criticism. Keep my focus on You. Amen
Jean Vanier recently went to be with God. May he rest in peace. Selection was from p 261-262 of Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John (New York: Paulist Press, 2004).
