The Gospel for this Sunday is not new to us. On Thursday and Friday of this past week in our daily liturgies, we have heard this passage broken into two pieces. So when I opened up the pages of the lectionary to prepare my homily for this Sunday, I was faced with a daunting proposition. Consequently, I admit that I am cheating a little bit today and turning to one of my favorite spiritual writers, Monika Hellwig. Most of this homily is originally from her book, Gladness Their Escort, a compilation of homilies that appeared in the Jesuit magazine, America, back in the 1980’s:
By this time most of us have laid aside the festive mood of Easter and lost ourselves in the business of making a living and simply surviving in a complex and competitive world. The liturgy, however, insists on our returning into the presence of the risen Christ until the full fifty days have run their course. More than that, the readings bring us back not only to the resurrection but to the issue of Jesus’ death itself, reminding us that the issue is love. Lest we think of the Easter spirit as a momentary luxury, or as an event that remains forever outside of ourselves and in some measure alien, all three of the readings for today make it clear that the earthly glory of the risen Christ is our empowerment to overcome all obstacles by divine love, so that life can never be quite the same for any of us.
Because of the distance in time and culture, we do not easily realize the magnitude of the obstacles that were overcome in Peter’s baptizing of the family of the centurion, Cornelius. Though the line has been left out of the lectionary, upon entering the house of Cornelius, Peter says: “You know that it is unlawful for a Jewish man to associate with, or visit, a Gentile,. . .” The barrier between Jew and Gentile was at least as great as the barriers erected by racism in our own society, and anyone who has tried to break them down knows how intransigent these barriers are. We must know too, how difficult it is to accept literally in our own times Peter’s discovery that “God has no favorites.” Our historically cultivated national sense of “manifest destiny” seems so indisputably to establish our special merit and exclusive divine election over and against the peoples of the Third World. Among many Americans it seems that economic and professional success most surely signal moral and spiritual worth that sets us far apart from the faceless and unsuccessful – welfare families, refugees and immigrants, the unemployed, the homeless, denizens of skid row, those in lengthening bread lines, and in particular, people of color. The revelation to Peter is as fresh and pertinent today as it was then: God has no favorites. The societal barriers have been put in place by our own sinful making. God hears the cry of the poor, the oppressed, and the excluded. Psalm 98 reminds us that salvation comes to all in the world.
The message that reaches us on this Sunday is not one of condemnation but of hope. For John assures us that all the talk about transforming love is not simply a command to us to change, but a gift of empowerment; the love of which we speak is that by which God first loved us into new possibilities and new creativity. If there is talk of laying down one’s life, one’s prejudices, or one’s special claims to wealth, status or power over others, it is in the context of the death and resurrection of Jesus who has brought about a whole new creation with new possibilities. John’s point is that there is really a whole new beginning. What was not possible before in human relations and human community has now been begun by Christ.
John’s language is so poetic and lofty that it is all too easy to miss the compelling practical quality of his teaching. He presents the message of Jesus as startlingly simple but all the more exigent for that simplicity. Radical transformation of all human activities is possible because love is from God. God’s love extends to all people. We are called to live and remain in that love.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator