Mercied and Therefore Called

 Miserando atque eligendo 

Mercied and therefore Called

CHRIST IS RISEN! ALLELUIA! ALLEUIA!

Here is a list of most of the places we will have encountered in the Sunday Readings from the Acts of the Apostles as we make our way from Resurrection to Ascension:

Jerusalem

Portico of Solomon

Sea of Tiberius

Cana in Galilee > Perga

Paphos

Patmos

The district of Pamphylia

Attalia

Antioch in Pisidia

(All on Paul’s First Missionary Journey.)

It is not an extensive list but it maps a journey from the familiarity of Jerusalem and Galilee to half way across modern Turkey’s southwestern coast(Patmos is off the western Turkish coast) and back again to Antioch, a Syrian city (an outward journey of roughly 900 miles by land, not counting the back-to-Antioch sea journey[1]), and Antioch would quickly become the most important city in the early years of the Christian story, where, almost certainly, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were written. The point is we have a tiny group of frightened friends of Jesus, hiding in a room, behind locked doors, to keep out possible enemies. Yet soon we are journeying with them around Asia Minor and entering cities carrying news of Jesus of Nazareth and bringing people to believe our story that he was and is the Saviour of the world. And our story, a folly to many and a stumbling block to the more religiously literate, was believed, and communities were formed, bread was broken and hearts were set alight.

So where did that proclaiming energy come from and why is it withering on the vine in our time and in our places? As we pray our way through Eastertide we are called to be amazed at the wonderful works of God and to examine ourselves as the sons and daughters of those pioneers of God’s glory and ask ourselves what has happened to our proclaiming energy and why is our vocation to gospel all peoples more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Every advance of the gospel of God in those ancient days is a rebuke to our inability to promote Christian growth in these green and pleasant islands.

First ReadingActs of the Apostles 14:21-27

Check the first sentence of this reading and ask yourself why on earth those who constructed our Lectionary have mucked up the inspired text yet again. Here is what Luke wrote:

When they had gospelled that city (Derbe), making disciples of a considerable number, returning to Lystra and on the Iconium and to Antioch, they put fresh heart into the disciples…[2]

There are a number of useful indicators in this reading that may be regarded as identity markers of truly Christian communities, especially instructive as they come to us from our very earliest fathers and mothers in faith. Luke provides in his usual summary fashion an insight to what may be described as normal practice for such creative proclaimers of the gospel of God as Paul and Barnabas, both, of course, new to the job and making it up as they went along. While making allowances for the fact that they are on the road, we may garner the following:

1. They put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith.

That remains the work that is demanded of all who shepherd disciples in every time and every place. Having created Christian communities, they continued to pastor their little churches.

2. They appointed elders.

It is most instructive to be quite literal here. This is the Greek text:

χειροτονήσαντες δὲ αὐτοῖςκατʼἐκκλησίανπρεσβυτέρους

appointing elders by the laying of hands for each and every church …

The first Greek word in the above begins with cheiro-, from which we get such words as chiro-practor, one who uses hands to manipulate the spine or whatever. This is an important subordinate clause.

For our purposes it denotes laying on of hands in the process of appointing elders. These elders would, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, eventually become what we would call episcopi and diakoni in the churches of the New Testament. See Philippians 1:1. The JB text misses this in its translation.[3]

3. On their arrival, assembling the church, they were reportingall that God had done

There is an imperfect tense here which indicates that this “reporting back” was normal general practice, not a one-off. From the beginning, therefore, it was the practice of keeping the people fully informed of what God was doing through those who were at once proclaimers of the word, founders of churches, and pastoral carers of established Christian communities.

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 144:8-13 (145 in the hebrew Bible)

Since God is known by what God does, acknowledgement of God’s work is praise and this psalm is full of verbs such as “extol”, “bless”, “praise”, “acclaim”, “laud”, “declare”. To sing God’s praises is to declare God’s wonderful works. The very essence of God’s deeds on behalf of humanity is given in 144:8-13, the heart of this acrostic psalm. The LORD is kind, merciful, slow to anger, whose chesed is boundless. All the God has done and does flows from that steadfast love which endures for ever.

Second Reading A Reading from the Book of the Apocalypse 21:1-5

The Bible begins with a creation story. And so it ends. There will be a new heaven and a new earth, the destiny of the creation of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). The apocalyptic vision foresees a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth. But the earth does not pass away. It is transformed. God comes to earth from heaven and the human and worldly is transformed by the One who makes his home amongst us. Humanity shall be his people and the God who come will be Emmanuel, God-with-them.

What we have here is a collection of Old T6estamentallusions which look to messianic times. The sea (always an enemy in the OT – see Isaiah 51:9-10; Psalms 74:13; 77:17; 89:10; Job 26:12, and the waters of chaos in Genesis 1:2) will be no more. There will be a re-creation (Isaiah 65:17), a new and consummated marriage (Hosea 2:16 and Isaiah 15:18), a close presence of God (Joel 4:17-21), tears will be wiped away (Isaiah 25:8). In short, there will be a whole new creation, on earth as it is in heaven.

Gospel John 13:31-35

Love is his name and love is his sign. It is interesting to note that the Judas and Simon Peter stories in this chapter envelope this declaration of love. Judas, when he had received a piece of bread (13:30 – and how significant that it!) went out. And it was night - and how significant is that in a Gospel were light and darkness stand for so much! Following the declaration of the glorification of God, made present of earth in the glorification of the Son, which will reach its apotheosis, its telos, on the cross, Simon Peter is discovered to be the one who denies him. So it looks like this:

Betrayal 13:27-30

GLORY 13:31-35

Denial 13:36-38

The love of God for humanity, incarnated in the Son, is ever sandwiched between human failure and human denial. Yet it is this very love which Jesus commands his friends to have for one another. And it must be a love so strong, so deep, so loud and so clear that everyone will know that such love can only come from God, can only be of the kind that Jesus brought to earth.

It is frightening to know that

WE ARE THE ONLY JESUS THAT SOME PEOPLE WILL EVER SEE.

May the blessings of Eastertide be with us.

Joseph.

1

[1] Not counting the journey to Patmos which, of course, is the island where the John of the Book of Revelations was imprisoned (Revelations 1:9).

[2] My translation. Luke has a habit of using a verb (as here) which we need to translate as “to gospel” (he seldom uses “gospel” as a noun). See 2:10, where the angel of the LORD tells the shepherds I gospel you with great joy for all the people, which sounds just great.

[3] In earliest forms of Christianity, both institutional and charismatic forms of ministry can be identified, but gradually the more institutional forms came to be the norm. Jewish communal and institutional patterns were adopted by early Christians but were altered to accommodate the Gentile nature of most early churches that we know of. Thus, for example, the word synagogue was replaced by ecclesia, a word taken from the political administration of Greek towns and cities. The term archisynagōgos became episkopos when used of a leader of a house church. The assistants to these leaders were called diakonoi, replacing hypēretai. The power of the Holy Spirit was also evident in apostles, prophet, teachers, speakers in tongues, and others who were prominent primary movers in early churches.