Easter 5

Readings: Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

There is an ancient legend about St. John, 
evangelist and beloved disciple,
that is recounted by Thomas Aquinas 
at the end of his commentary on John’s Gospel.
John, who was the one apostle 
not to die a martyr’s death,
lived to a ripe old age.
When he was no longer able to walk,
he was carried to the church by the faithful
so he could teach them.
And he taught only one thing:
“Little children, love one another.”
Thomas Aquinas adds,
“This is the perfection 
of the Christian life” (§2653). 

The conclusion Thomas draws 
from this apocryphal story
rings true not only with the Gospel 
and the Letters of John,
but with Scripture as a whole.
We hear this morning from
the First Letter of John:
“If we love one another, God lives in us, 
and his love is perfected in us.”
As Aquinas uses the term, 
“perfection” is not 
some unobtainable ideal,
something true only of God;
it is in fact true of anything 
that fully realizes the kind of thing it is.
A knife is perfected by being sharp,
a racehorse is perfected by being fast,
food is perfected by being 
both tasty and nutritious.
For something to lack these perfections 
is to fall short of being 
the thing that it is meant to be.
And, seemingly, the life of a Christian
is perfected by loving others;
and not to love is, for us Christians, 
to fall short of being 
the thing we are meant to be.

Perhaps this leads us 
to breathe a sigh of relief.
Love? 
Who knew that perfection was so easy?
But of course, it’s not so easy.
And St. John, even if he did,
at the end of his life,
teach nothing except 
“little children, love one another,”
knew that love, as Christians understand it,
is something quite arduous and demanding.
It might seem quite easy to love God,
especially if the God we love 
is simply an abstract notion,
an omnibenevolent higher power
whom we encounter as a distant, hidden force.
But Christianity requires also love of neighbor,
the insistent close-at-hand human presence 
that demands of me 
some sort of concrete response.
 
Maybe this difficulty is why 
love is not simply suggested,
since suggestions are something
we feel free to ignore,
but commanded.
“The commandment we have from him is this: 
those who love God must love 
their brothers and sisters also.”
And the brothers and sisters 
whom we are called to love
might not seem to us very lovable.
They will probably seem weird 
or annoying or grubby 
or threatening or alien.
To love my neighbors 
in their insistent proximity 
will involve my heart traveling 
some distance from where it is
to where God wants it to be.

In our first reading,
the story of Philip baptizing 
the Ethiopian eunuch,
we get some sense of the distance 
the heart must travel
in order to reach the perfection 
of the Christian life.
Philip is a “Hellenist”—
that is, a Greek-speaking Jew
from the diaspora, outside Judea.
The Ethiopian is, well, an Ethiopian, 
which in the ancient world 
was a generic term
for anyone with black skin. 
Ethiopia, moreover, 
stood in the ancient imagination
as a place that was far distant 
and almost unimaginably exotic.
The Roman writer 
Pliny the Elder claimed 
that there were Ethiopians 
who were twelve feet tall,
and that they “never spit, 
do not suffer from 
headache or toothache 
or pain in the eyes, 
and very rarely have a pain 
in any other part of the body.”
They might as well be 
from another planet.
And in the Old Testament, 
when the writers want to speak 
of something as being at a great distance,
they say it is as far as Ethiopia,
in the same way we might refer 
to something being in Timbuktu
(which, in case you don’t know,
is an actual city in Mali).

But the Ethiopian’s distance from Philip
is not simply geographical or cultural.
For this Ethiopian is a eunuch,
and even though he is reading 
from Israel’s scriptures
his status as a eunuch would prevent him 
from joining in Israel’s worship,
for eunuchs were excluded from the Temple.
Philip’s heart must travel some distance
in order to be perfected by loving this Ethiopian,
in order to see him as a brother for whom Christ died
and welcome him into fellowship through baptism.
And so the story emphasizes 
at every moment
that it is the Spirit 
who is propelling Philip,
for only the Spirit can guide us 
across such distance.

Given events in the world today,
it is hard not to be struck by the fact
that the setting of this story
is the road that runs 
from Jerusalem to Gaza.
What better symbolizes for us
the seemingly impossible journey
that the heart must make
to the perfection of love
than traversing the road 
from Jerusalem to Gaza?
What better captures for us
the seemingly intractable complexity
of creating not simply a cessation of violence
(which would in itself be something)
but the creation of true shalom,
the true peace of God 
that is the fruit of love?
What situation better sums up
how cultural and religious difference
can erect barriers that block 
the path to love of one another?
 
The road from Jerusalem to Gaza
marks a journey whose distance is too great,
a journey that we cannot make on our own.
And while we see that unmade journey 
vividly displayed 
in the current conflict in the Middle East,
we also have roads from Jerusalem to Gaza
in our own nation,
in our own homes,
in our own hearts:
Intractable racial divisions,
long-festering family conflicts,
the gap between the good 
that I know I should do
that the evil that I actually do.
All of this and more
tells us that the love for one another
that is the perfection of the Christian life
often involves a journey 
too far for us to make.

But though we cannot ourselves
make that journey,
the Spirit can.
Though we cannot 
cross that distance,
the Spirit can.
For the Spirit,
who can traverse
even the infinite distance 
between God and us,
binds us to Jesus
and make us abide 
in his love for the Father
and the Father’s love for him,
so that the flow of love 
that is the life of God
begins to flow through us
and begins to flow from us
out across the distance 
that separates us from one another,
even the distance from Jerusalem to Gaza. 

Jesus tells us in the Gospel: 
“apart from me you can do nothing.”
But if we abide in him
through the Spirit…
well, who knows what is possible?
“Beloved, let us love one another.”
Let us love the weird, annoying, grubby, 
threatening, alien other,
“because love is from God; 
everyone who loves 
is born of God 
and knows God.”
And this is the perfection
of the Christian life.

 

Easter 4

Readings: Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

VIDEO

This has been a tough week 

for Catholics in Baltimore,
as the prospect begins to sink in 
that the Church in the city could go from 
sixty-one parishes 
to twenty-one.
It has been especially tough
for those parishes that, 
in the current Seek the City proposal,
are slated to be closed and merged
into other parishes.
But even in parishes that are likely 
to remain as worship sites
there is a pervasive sense 
of shock and grief and, yes, anger
at the idea of nearly two thirds 
of the parishes in the city closing.
Fallen human nature being what it is,
some may be gloating that their parish
has, as they see it, “survived” 
where others have not,
but that is generally not 
what I have heard from people.
The Catholic community in Baltimore 
is tightly knit:
we know each other’s parishes;
we have worshipped at them over the years
at Baptisms and Communions and Confirmations; 
we have admired the beauty
of their buildings and their people;
we are, as today’s Gospel puts it, 
one flock with one shepherd,
Jesus Christ himself, 
and so we bear each other’s sorrows
and share each other’s loss.

Many may feel that the Church
is abandoning the city,
like the bad shepherds of whom Jesus speaks: 
those who work merely for pay 
and have no concern for the sheep,
who see a wolf coming and run away,
leaving the sheep to be scattered.
Let me say that while this feeling
is understandable,
I don’t think that is what is going on.
Perhaps I have simply, as they say,
drunk the Koolaid,
but I do believe that, 
while I may agree or disagree 
with this or that 
specific recommendation,
the Seek the City process 
has been a good faith effort 
to address the needs of a shrinking flock
and laying the groundwork for the flock to grow.

But let’s not let the shepherds 
off the hook entirely.
I will not deny that we clergy
must bear our measure of blame
for the state of the Church in the city today,
and for people’s skepticism 
regarding anything we say about it.
Obviously, the abuse scandals 
have driven away members of the flock
and engendered cynicism 
among those who remain.
But also, and even more,
we clergy have all too often 
simply not risen to the task 
of forging new forms of ministry 
amid depopulation and disinvestment,
high crime rates and pervasive poverty;
we have ourselves succumbed 
to despair and inaction and cynicism
at the sight of emptying pews.
And, at the heart of it all,
we have sometimes 
simply not loved God enough
to lay down our lives for God’s flock.
And for all this I can do no more than, 
like Job, to repent in dust and ashes.

But while, as always, 
there is plenty of blame to go round,
and while we should be honest 
about our failures,
laying blame and wallowing in failure 
are not what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about.
It is about the stone rejected by the builders
that becomes the cornerstone of a new Temple
in which we worship God in Spirit and in truth.
It is about the love of God bestowed on us
even while we lay dead in our sins,
making us God’s children.
It is about the assurance 
that we have a good shepherd
who will never abandon us to the wolves,
a shepherd who lays down his life for us,
a shepherd who takes up that life again
so that we can be taken up with him
into the glory of eternal light.

People need to be allowed to feel 
the darkness of this moment;
they need to be allowed to grieve
and even to feel anger.
But if we are to be Christians,
darkness, grief, and anger
cannot be the final word.
In the midst of darkness,
we cannot forget the promise of light,
the light that streams 
from the risen body of Christ.
St. John writes in our second reading,
“Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.”
We can and should look at demographic trends
and population patterns in the city,
measure pew space and count numbers,
think through what is possible 
and what is plausible,
but the fact is that we don’t know
what God’s plans are 
for the Church in Baltimore:
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
And it is hard to live without knowing.
But we do know we are God’s children now;
we know that we have a good shepherd;
we know that a stone rejected
has become the cornerstone;
we know that God brings life out of death
for we have met the risen one on the road
and felt our hearts—
weighed down with darkness, grief, and anger—
burn within us with the fire of his love.
We know that he is risen,
and we are risen with him,
and nothing can separate us from his love.
This is the faith that will carry us through
the difficult months ahead,
for this is the faith that will carry us
through death into eternal life.