Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
6th Sunday of Easter

May 8, 1994

Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48
John 15: 9-17
St. Vincent, Hunters, Grand Bahama Island
St. Agnes, Eight Mile Rock, GBI

“The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were surprised that the gift of the Holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also” (Acts 10:45).

Peter baptizing Cornelius (Wikipedia)

We read in the 1st chapter of Genesis (v. 27) that God created human beings in his own image.  Sinners that we are, we often try to reverse that, to make God in our image.  So it is in the story of Cornelius and his household.  Unfortunately, in their concern for brevity the editors of our lectionary have hacked the story to pieces (so we have read it in its entirety straight from Acts).

Cornelius, tho personally devout and a friend of the Jews, was one of the Roman occupiers, a Gentile, not part of God’s covenant, not an heir of God’s promises.  He was inspired to send for Peter, and Peter saw a vision in which God declared all things clean, in contrast to the Jewish law.  Peter went to Caesarea and preached Jesus to Cornelius and his whole household and friends, and they believed.  For Peter had begun to grasp what some of his companions did not:  that God is in love with every person and plays no favorites.  “The man of any nation who fears God and acts uprightly is acceptable to him” (10: 35).

And God bore out Peter’s words by pouring out the Spirit upon these despised Romans, these foreigners, these people whose empire so oppressed the Jews.  They were the 1st Christians who were not Jews.  No longer would Christianity be just another sect or party with Judaism, like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots.  Christ is meant for the whole world.

It took a while for many Jewish Christians to accept that basic.  In fact, we read in Acts 15 that a council of all the apostles and elders met to decide the issue after long and serious debate.

You see, many people believe in their hearts, and speak and act accordingly, that God has chosen them specially and looks down on everyone else.  They may be one tribe butchering another, as in South Africa and Rwanda; or Moslems killing Christians, as in the Sudan; or Christians killing Moslems, as in Bosnia; or Catholics and Protestants going at each other in Northern Ireland; or Arabs and Jews shooting each other in Palestine; or whites putting down blacks, Latinos, and Asians in the U.S.; or Bahamians putting down Haitians.  But the truth of the Gospel is crystal clear.  No Christian can discriminate against any person.  Every man is our brother, every woman our sister—especially if, like most of the Haitians, they profess the same faith we do.  And all the more if they are the poorest of the poor.  If God does have a special liking for anyone, it’s the poor; that’s written on almost every page of the Gospel, from Mary’s Magnificat to Jesus’ parable of the last judgment in Matt 25.

The world would undoubtedly be a much improved place if professed Christians would only start to treat their fellow men and women as images of God, children of God, beloved of God.  And that’s as true of the Bahamas as of anywhere else.  In any case, we live in the Bahamas, and this is the world in which we have to be Christians.

“God shows no partiality,” plays no favorites.  In fact, God in Christ calls everyone, Jew and Gentile, male and female, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, to friendship.  “There is no greater love than this:  to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I no longer speak of you as slaves….  Instead, I call you friends…” (John 15:13-15).

Part of the scandal of Christianity to Jew and Gentile alike was that God could come close to us.  Sure, he walked with Abraham and spoke face to face with Moses like an old friend.  But would God do that with just anybody?  with smelly fishermen and dirty farmers and a traitorous tax collector from Galilee, for instance?  or with you and me?

Jesus has answered that question for us.  God not only would come close to us, but he has actually done it.  God not only loves us, but he even likes us.  “Greater love than this no one has….”

If God is our friend, we can talk to him anytime.  We can speak as informally as we like.  We don’t have to put on an act.  We can open our hearts to him.

If God is our friend, we respect him.  What belongs to him—his name, his house, all his children—is sacred.  We treat them all with reverence.

If God is our friend, we trust him.  We don’t always understand him, but we know we can count on him to have our best interests at heart.  Not everyone will lay down his life to save our lives.  But the Son of God has done just that.

If God is our friend, we listen to him.  In our prayer we don’t do all the talking.  We listen quietly, too.  That’s why we have quiet moments at Mass, why we all need some quiet time every day.

Listening includes obeying.  God commands, but as a friend, not as a master.  He commands what is best for us, and we trust that.  He commands like a parent telling a child to stay out of the street or not to touch the stove.

If God is our friend, we thank him for his gifts and praise him for his accomplishments.  We ask his pardon when we offend him—which, of course, we try not do to.

If God is our friend, we love him and everyone whom he loves.  “This command I give you:  love one another.  Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:17,12).  He loves us all, without partiality, without limit.  “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”