Gospel Give and Take (6th Sunday of Easter, Year C)

To listen to this homily, click here.

In 11 years of priesthood, I don’t remember ever having a week quite like this past one! In the past 8 days we’ve had confirmation, 8th grade graduation, the end of school, and today, Fr. Ritter’s Ordination. All wonderful things for sure. But it’s been difficult to focus on preaching and preparing for the Sunday homily in the midst of all this excitement and the preparations that come with it. As always, the Holy Spirit comes through with an idea for our reflection this weekend we continue to hear about the early Church and the issues they had to deal with in the early years after Christ had returned to the Father and the apostles were figuring things out, little by little.

I think this reading of the early Church history is really good for us 2000 years later because sometimes we romanticize what it must of been like. Kind of like when people talk about the “good old days”. There were indeed some incredible spiritual powers being thrown around in the early church: people being healed, raised from dead, mass conversions of 1000’s of people at once, and believers selling everything they had to benefit the poor. Truly inspiring! At the same time, they also fought, disagreed, compared themselves to each other based on which Apostle baptized them, and many other petty and insignificant things. The early Church, like the Church of our times, was not perfect. It was made up of gifted, broken, sometimes selfish and prideful humans who were trying to understand what it meant to follow Christ. 

Today’s first reading from Acts of the Apostles, allows us to drop in on a dispute that seems like a non-issue to you and me, but was one that threatened to tear apart the entire church which was less than 20 years old at the time. The main issue centered around Jewish law, especially circumcision and dietary practices, what animals and foods were ok to eat, and things like that. While none of these issues are a moral concern to you and me, we have to remember that nearly every Christian of the early Church was also Jewish. They would go to the temple and synagogue and pray with their friends, family members, and neighbors who may not know Christ and then they would go to someone’s house and celebrate the Eucharist in the breaking of the Bread. For the the first generation Christian, following Jewish customs was something you did as part of being Christian.

The big shock to all of this was the conversion of St. Paul, who originally was persecuting Christians because he felt they were polluting Judaism. Once Paul’s heart was transformed by the Holy Spirit, he realized that Christianity was the fulfillment of Judaism rather than its enemy. He started spreading to his fellow Jews until he got kicked out of the synagogues and communities. Then he started preaching the same message to the gentiles and they started converting in huge numbers. Which was all well and good until Jewish Christians and gentile Christians started hanging out together and trying to pray as one. There was a collision of cultures. 

Understandably there were many Jewish Christians, with good intentions, who felt like all new converts had to become Jewish as well which meant giving up the bacon (since pigs were considered unclean, keeping the kosher laws, getting circumcised, and many other things. As you might imagine, this wasn’t well received among the gentile Christians and a huge fight was about to explode. In fact, our reading tonight says, in a  very understated way, “Because there arose no little dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas with them, it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.”

Here’s what is great about this. Even though St. Paul and Barnabas were absolutely sure that they were correct in welcoming non-Jewish people into Christianity, they didn’t assume the authority to make that decision until they talked with St. Peter and the other apostles first. Their humility and respect for the structure and chain of command that Jesus set up, kept the situation from getting out of hand and tearing apart the young Church which was just starting to find its way. 

For those of you who aren’t too excited about history, you might be wondering, “that’s a great bit of trivia, but what does it mean for me?” Great question! I see two things:

Paul and Barnabas, as well as Peter and the other apostles were not motivated by trying to be right or getting their way in this dispute. The motivation for all of these Church leaders was the sentiment we expressed in the psalm, “O God, let all the nations praise you!. This refrain inspired St. Paul on his missionary journeys and St. Peter as he settled this question of whether or not Christianity was another form of Judaism or the fulfillment of how to know and praise the Lord. Helping others, helping the whole world praise God was the number one goal and they never let their pride or ego get in the way of that. Can you and I say the same? Do we desire that God be praised all over the world by every person? Do we want it so badly that we work to bring the gospel to those we live and work with? Do we try to settle disputes inside and outside the Church to help bring people together in worship? Or do contribute to the drama and division by exalting gossip, politics, or our own agendas above the praise of God?

Secondly, at the end of the 1st reading, the Apostles confirm what St. Paul is doing. Gentiles are free to become Christians. They do not have to practice Jewish customs. However, the apostles ask the new converts to give up three things: don’t eat meat sacrificed to idols, stay away from blood and meats of strangled animals, and don’t enter into unlawful marriage (which meant close relatives). In other words, the apostles were saying, “even though these things aren’t wrong in your culture, even though you have a right to do them, please give them up for the sake of your Jewish brothers and sisters who will see them as a sign of scandal and disrespect.” We need more of this mentality in our time within our Church and throughout our country. Just because we CAN do something doesn’t mean we SHOULD. As members of Christ’s body, we have an obligation to build each other up and not give scandal. Our one goal is that all people praise and glorify God. As modern people, we spend a lot of time and energy making sure we get what is owed to us and practicing all of our rights. Which is all well and good unless it begins to create division or power struggles which tear apart the unity that Jesus longed for as he prayed with his disciples at the Last Supper.

May you and I take to heart these lessons of the early Church and be motivated simply by a desire that God be praised and be willing to give up some of what we are entitled to in order that all might be one in faith.    

Do You Know His Voice? (4th Sunday of Easter, Year C)

To listen to this homily, click here.

I just paid my cell phone bill for the previous month and something that caught my eye was the number of text messages sent and received in the last month. Over 3000!!! Which probably isn’t that much compared to some. But it’s still means that over the last 30 days I sent and received, on average, over 100 text messages a day! And that is to say nothing of the thousands of emails sent, received, and deleted in a given month. There are also phone calls but those don’t bother me as much. The sheer number of communications I’ve sent and received exclusively with the written word blows my mind and also makes me a little unsettled.

We’ve all probably had this experience of reading an email or text and taking it the wrong way. The words come across as angry, judging, outraged, accusatory, passive-aggressive, or any number of other offensive ways and they set off a response that only escalates the situation. Sometimes, it’s not until we pick up the phone and call the other person that things get straightened out. Many times, in my experience, I’ve gotten a written message, a text, an email, and been confused, offended, hurt or angry ultimately for no reason. Why? Because I couldn’t hear the other person’s voice and words apart from a human voice lose a certain level of context and nuance. How many words and phrases in our speech can be either happy, encouraging, loving, and kind or also bitter, hurtful, sarcastic, and angry…all depending on tone, inflection, and volume. Words without a human voice lose something of their power and clarity. 

It’s amazing what you can know and feel instantly when you hear the voice of someone you love. Immediately you can tell if they are ok or not, whether they are having a bad day or just got great news, whether they are scared, sick or distracted. Even if their words say something different, it's their voice that expresses the truth. And how wonderful it is to hear the voice of your friend or beloved family member unexpectedly. An instant smile crosses your face without even trying! Unless you were doing something you shouldn’t have been, like so many times growing up when my mom said something like, “what’s in your hand?” as we were trying to smuggle food from the pantry to our room.

When you are around someone for years and years, when you love someone deeply and they love you back, you never forget their voice and their unique way of speaking. In fact, it’s a sound that brings you peace, joy, and reassurance.

In our gospel today, Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me." This notion of the shepherd's voice is extremely important. In ancient times, sheep remained with their shepherd their entire lives, from the moment of their birth until their last breath. Understandably, there was a very close bond that existed between sheep and shepherd. As a matter of fact, most shepherds would name their sheep and all shepherds had a certain call or song the sheep knew. This call or song was the crucial bond between sheep and shepherd; Oftentimes, because places of pasture and shelter were scarce and hard to find, several flocks would mix together while feeding or sleeping for the night. However, when it was time to sort out the sheep, one of the shepherds would stand some distance away from the group and make the particular call, which his sheep knew. As the sheep of his flock heard him, they would run to him, leaving behind the other shepherd with his sheep who refused to come to the first shepherd because they did not know his voice.

In a perfect world, every Christian who belongs to Christ's flock would recognize his voice and follow after him. In reality, how much easier might it be for me NOT TO KNOW the voice of Jesus when he speaks to me? There are so many other voices that are louder and bolder to distract us. Consider the Bible! How many of us know what it says? How many of us prayerfully read it on a regular basis? Aside from here at Mass, how many of us have actually read it more than once in the last week? Or the last month? This is one of the primary ways we stay in contact with the shepherd; they are his Words. If we do not often pray with the Scriptures, do we really know the voice of the shepherd? 

How many of us actually prayed to God at least once a day, every day last week? Did we dare to do so with our own words? How many of us, when we thought to pray; when we thought to talk to God and bring our requests; thought also to listen to God? How many of us actually took the time to quiet our hearts and minds to listen for a message: a word, a thought, an impulse from the heart of the living God?

I hope that most of us can say that we listen to his voice in the Word of God, the teaching of the Church, the sacraments and personal prayer. But does that make us one of his sheep? Not quite! It doesn't until we actually respond to His voice, until we actually try to do what the shepherd is calling us to do, until we actually follow the one who is speaking.

Friends, in the eyes of God, each one of us has a place within his flock. God is calling out to us. God is searching for us. God is asking us to come to Him, to listen to Him, and to enter his fold to be sheltered and made safe with the rest of the sheep. He wants us to be safe from robbers and thieves; safe from the evil one who would have us live in darkness and despair.

The Good Shepherd never gets tired or discouraged. He never gives up on anyone. He is forever calling out to us in the scriptures, the sacraments, the teachings of the Church, and in the love and compassion of other people. He wants to bless, nourish, protect, and guide each and every one of us. I hope all of us can come to know his voice as well we do our friends, family, and loved ones. And I hope when you hear it, whether here at Mass, in prayer with the Scriptures, or in the bustle of everyday life, it brings a sense of joy, peace, and security to your heart and soul!