Fifth Sunday of Easter 2024
The psalm that we sang or heard just a little while ago, our responsorial today–does anyone remember the first words of the whole psalm in Scripture? It’s Psalm 22. The last time we encountered it this year was during Holy Week. The first words were spoken by Jesus from the cross, just before He died: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” But what we just now heard don’t sound coherent with that beginning, do they? We heard “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live for ever!” Words of encouragement, praise and hope, not despair. Those were among the last words of Jesus, if He prayed the whole psalm, at least in His Sacred Heart.
I’ve found over the years that the Lord is constantly turning things upside down. He’s especially great at upsetting human plans, and harming human hubris. We listened to the President’s state of the union early in 2020, right as the COVID-19 catastrophe was revealing itself. “I have done this; I have done that. Everything is great and will get better with me at the helm.” No, it was not a word-for-word quotation, but it was bragging. I know many hearers don’t want to be reminded of that one, but reality set in and turned everything upside down during that sad year. God is also great at turning awful things of our construction upside down and making them right, particularly in the spiritual realm. That’s why the first thing Jesus told His disciples after the Resurrection was “Peace be with you” as He gave them the greatest power, to forgive or retain sins. Remember sin? That’s the real problem, the one that Jesus came to turn upside down.
Take Saul as an example of turning upside down, and setting him on the right path. He was strolling along with documents affirming he was the big wheel among the Jews, and allowing him to pick up and imprison any followers of The Way–the first term applied to the Church. Fat and happy and on the top of his game. He was blinded by a billion flash bulbs going off at once and heard the voice of God–“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “What?” He thought. He was just going after these pesky schismatics who believed in that Galilean we had crucified a few months ago. That’s good, isn’t it? The Sanhedrin had told him so. He had the documentation with him.
And a few days later he was baptized and telling everyone about Jesus being the Jewish Messiah, the One promised by God through all the prophets. He was happy and a bit confused when the Jesus gang in Jerusalem ran away from him and looked at him with more fear than they showed the Romans. Barnabas, another Jesus rightly nicknamed “Son of Encouragement” took him aside and convinced the believers that he was the real thing, but then when he tried to take up the mantle of deacon Stephen and disputed with the Jews in the Synagogue of Freedmen those guys were plotting to do to him what they’d done to the martyred deacon. Barnabas and the others smuggled him back home through Caesarea Maritima and returned him to his family in Tarsus. He just needed time to cool off and get his head around all the things he had learned both from Jesus the Christ and the rest of the Church. Even enthusiasm needs prudence.
Now that we’ve thought about God’s plan not being ours, and how we need to listen carefully to see if our great ideas really need some upside downing, maybe we can handle the letter of John and his Gospel more easily.
You may have heard the wise saying “don’t make decisions based on a single Bible verse.” Today we see one of the key examples. You’ve probably heard the other one from a guy or gal who is living a dissolute lifestyle, just full of what we used to call “public sin.” They look at you with a cynical grin and say, “Hey, didn’t Jesus say ‘judge not lest you be judged.’ Who are you to tell me I’m doing bad stuff?”
Well, here’s two of the most abused verses, both from John the Apostle, one from his Gospel and the other from his first letter. “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” And the Gospel quotes Jesus saying, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.” So the next line from the cynic to you is “I ask for stuff all the time, and my prayer, my wish, is never fulfilled. So why should I believe in this Jesus stuff?”
The cynics never want to get into a real Christ-centered discussion about any of this, because that would inconvenience their lifestyles. Note carefully the conditions: Our hearts must not condemn us, first, to have confidence before God. That means we have to repent of our sins against God’s law, the ten commandments, so our hearts won’t condemn us. And we have to “abide” in Christ. That means, too, keeping His commandment of true love of God and neighbor, and living a life of prayer and constant seeking of Christ’s will. Otherwise we are not abiding in Him. We’re just giving Him lip-service. It’s not magic; it’s a disciple’s change of lifestyle.
Let’s look at life through a new set of lenses. As an infant, I am constantly aware of how close I feel to the first feelings of satisfaction I knew before birth. I was warm, surrounded by my mother’s womb, and I was well-fed, essentially feeding off her own nutrition. I wanted for nothing because I needed nothing. At birth, I was pushed out of that comfort into cold and, soon enough, hunger. I had one means of communication, so I revved up my newly-freed lungs and screamed bloody murder until somebody made me warm and fed. After a while my bottom felt cold and I screamed again until somebody made me dry and warm again. And it went on like that for months until I aged out of that.
But for years all I thought about were my needs and wants, which I thought were the only things important. In time, my parents, who kept me warm and fed with hugs and kisses, helped me to learn that I could feel even better if I did things they liked or needed. So I changed behavior and learned to add “I give” to “I need.” Ultimately, if we are truly blessed, the “I give” statements and actions take hold of our lives and we are even happier. Hopefully, we end up in a community of faith where most of the folks have learned or are learning that. It’s all done by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, who is truly the one who lived to give and not to receive.
