A Homily – The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B)

First Reading – Acts 1:15-17,20-26 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 102(103):1-2,11-12,19-20

Second Reading – 1 John 4:11-16 ©

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:18

The Gospel According to John – 17:11 – 17 ©

 

(NAB)

 

Listen!

The Book of Acts was written decades, nearly a century after Jesus was killed, it was written by men who never met Jesus, who were themselves the followers of a man who never met Jesus.

It is likely that the authors of Acts had some contact with Peter and some of the other Disciples, but that contact was limited, and much of what is written in Acts concerning those encounters is hearsay. 

Understand.

David does not foretell the future, we know this because God, the creator of the universe, God created us in freedom; the future is not written.

There was no divine compulsion at work when the disciples named a person to take the place of Judas among them. It was their idea, one they instantiated for their own reasons. This is a reflection of the reality that the structure of the church is a human construction. The church was formed the way it is, with its orders, and hierarchies to suit the purposes of human beings, not God.

Drawing of lots is a superstitious practice, one that never has and never could reveal the will of God, who would never have intervened in such a matter in the first place.

This is propaganda. The fate of the church was not left to a game of chance. This narrative should be rejected on its face; it is full of falsehoods, fabrications and errors of reasoning, giving it no place in the sacred text, other than to serve as a reminder that the early church was busy after the fact, writing justifications for its management of the nascent movement.

 Consider the wisdom of the psalms.

 Give thanks to God. Give thanks for life, the freedom of self-determination, and every other aspect of our being that accommodates our personhood. Give thanks to those who are loving, to the peacemakers…bless them as you are able.

 Bless all of God’s children, as God does, love them all, both the good and the bad, the helpful and the harmful, the just and the unjust.

 Be mindful.

 God is known through us, through the love we bear toward all human beings, toward all of God’s children who carry within themselves a spark of the divine, a seed of the Word, the divine spirit.

 God resides in everyone, but not everyone acts as if this is true. It requires faith to love and to love fully, even your friends and family. It requires a much greater level of faith to extend that love to a stranger, and even more to love your enemy.

 The faithful do not require proof that God’s spirit resides in them or in anyone; the faithful know that dwells in all people. This cannot be proven with the recitation of a creed; neither can it be undone by any deed.

 We manifest our love for God by the love we share with our family and friends, even more when we exercise the divine compassion for those we do not know, to those we fear, or to those who have done us harm.

 God will not abandon anyone. God will leave no orphans, not one of God’s children will be abandon in the wasteland of sin; none shall be lost.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today, it is replete with confusion.

 Set aside for a moment the fixation on names in today’s text, they are meaningless. It is not the name of the nameless God, that has or confers power. Neither is the name of the man from Nazareth, whose name was not Jesus, that has power. There is no power in a name, names are accidental features of our identity.

 Nevertheless, the notion that names have power in and of themselves was a popular superstition at the time the gospels were written. Concern for the power of names was especially important to other groups of Christians who were later prosecuted for heresy, such as the so-called Gnostics and Jewish practitioners of the Kabbalah.

 When the Gospel writers suggested that Jesus had kept all of the disciples except one, Judas Iscariot, true to the mission, they are engaged in a cover up. This suggestion  completely over looks how all of the disciples abandoned Jesus when he was arrested.

 They ran away and hid.

 It may be true that Judas acted alone when he sold Jesus out, but the rest of them failed to stand by Jesus, including Peter who explicitly denied Jesus three times on the night he was arrested; only his mother and his female followers understood what was going on and stayed with him.

 Today’s reading also puts forward the contradictory claim that when Judas betrayed Jesus, and therefore God, did so in fulfillment of scripture.

Was Judas acting freely, or was he compelled? The narrative is very murky.

 Remember.

 God is present in the world, God is everywhere. We exist within the divine being. God is the sole creator, all things come to be in and through God, God who sustains us all. The church has rejected all forms of dualism in theory, it has rejected dualism in its philosophy, but not liturgically or in its spiritual practice.

 As followers of the way we are called on to finish that that work, to strip dualism from the sacred rites, and every other place where it persists.

 

First Reading – Acts 1:15-17,20-26 ©

'Let Someone Else Take His Office'

One day Peter stood up to speak to the brothers – there were about a hundred and twenty persons in the congregation: ‘Brothers, the passage of scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, foretells the fate of Judas, who offered himself as a guide to the men who arrested Jesus – after having been one of our number and actually sharing this ministry of ours. Now in the Book of Psalms it says:

Let someone else take his office.

‘We must therefore choose someone who has been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was travelling round with us, someone who was with us right from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us – and he can act with us as a witness to his resurrection.’

  Having nominated two candidates, Joseph known as Barsabbas, whose surname was Justus, and Matthias, they prayed, ‘Lord, you can read everyone’s heart; show us therefore which of these two you have chosen to take over this ministry and apostolate, which Judas abandoned to go to his proper place.’ They then drew lots for them, and as the lot fell to Matthias, he was listed as one of the twelve apostles.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 102(103):1-2,11-12,19-20

Praise of the Compassionate Lord

 My soul, give thanks to the Lord, and never forget all his blessings. Alleluia.

 My soul, bless the Lord!

  All that is in me, bless his holy name.

My soul, bless the Lord!

  Never forget all he has done for you.

The Lord, who forgives your wrongdoing,

  who heals all your weaknesses.

The Lord, who redeems your life from destruction,

  who crowns you with kindness and compassion.

The Lord, who fills your age with good things,

  who renews your youth like an eagle’s.

The Lord, who gives fair judgements,

  who gives judgement in favour of the oppressed.

As a father has compassion on his sons, the Lord has pity on those who fear him.

The Lord is compassion and kindness,

  full of patience, full of mercy.

He will not fight against you for ever:

  he will not always be angry.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve;

  he does not pay us back for our wrongdoing.

As high as the sky above the earth,

  so great is his kindness to those who fear him.

As far as east is from west,

  so far he has put our wrongdoing from us.

As a father cares for his children,

  so the Lord cares for those who fear him.

For he knows how we are made,

  he remembers we are nothing but dust.

Man – his life is like grass,

  he blossoms and withers like flowers of the field.

The wind blows and carries him away:

  no trace of him remains.

The Lord has been kind from the beginning;

  to those who fear him his kindness lasts for ever.

His justice is for their children’s children,

  for those who keep his covenant,

  for those who remember his commandments

  and try to perform them.

The Lord’s throne is high in the heavens

  and his rule shall extend over all.

Bless the Lord, all his angels,

  strong in your strength, doers of his command,

  bless him as you hear his words.

Bless the Lord, all his powers,

  his servants who do his will.

Bless the Lord, all he has created,

  in every place that he rules.

My soul, bless the Lord!

 

Second Reading – 1 John 4:11-16 ©

Anyone Who Lives in Love Lives in God, and God Lives in Him

My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another.

No one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us

and his love will be complete in us.

We can know that we are living in him and he is living in us because he lets us share his Spirit.

We ourselves saw and we testify that the Father sent his Son as saviour of the world.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God.

We ourselves have known and put our faith in God’s love towards ourselves.

God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:18

Alleluia, alleluia!

I will not leave you orphans, says the Lord; I will come back to you, and your hearts will be full of joy.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John – 17:11 – 17 ©

Father, Keep Those You Have Given Me True to Your Name

 Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:

 ‘Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us.

While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name.

I have watched over them and not one is lost except the one who chose to be lost, and this was to fulfil the scriptures.

But now I am coming to you and while still in the world I say these things to share my joy with them to the full.

I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because they belong to the world

no more than I belong to the world.

I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the evil one.

They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.

Consecrate them in the truth; your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth.’

 

A Homily – The Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B)