4th Sunday of Easter (A)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell,
OP
Our Lady of the Rosary,
NOLA
Who
belongs to Christ the Good Shepherd? Jesus says, “My sheep hear my
voice.” Who are these sheep? What does a flock belonging to Christ
look like? John – in the Book of Revelation – describes his
visions: a great multitude of people from nation, race, people, and
tongue crowding the throne of God. These are all the saints who have
survived the Great Distress. They certainly belong to the Good
Shepherd! Paul and Barnabas in Acts tell the Jews who have not
converted and who are hounding the apostles in fits of jealousy that
they have rejected the Good News and now it’s time for them – the
apostles – to turn their evangelical efforts to the Gentiles.
Apparently, some of the Jews do not want to belong but the Gentiles
now have a shot at belonging to the God Shepherd, and they are
delighted. Who belongs? Who can enter this house? Who is worthy?
Better: who can be
made worthy? What
does it take to be made a member of the Body of Christ, a member of
the flock? And how is it done? And once done, what does a member look
like?
These
are serious questions on the fourth Sunday of Easter because we are
rapidly approaching the birthday of the Church at Pentecost. Some
fifty days after the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit sweeps down on the
desolate and deserted disciples to swiftly kick them in their
collective behind, motivating them to step up to the challenge of
giving their lives to the infectious spreading of the Good News. This
is the Church. This
is what the Church does: spread the Good News. Infectiously. This is
what Paul and Barnabas are doing in Antioch. This is what the great
multitude crowding the throne in heaven did before they died. This is
what those given to Jesus by the Father are grateful to do. Belonging
to Christ then is not about possessing a genetic trait or a political
history or an attitude. Belonging to Christ is not about the mere
intellectual assent to a theological formula or a philosophical
worldview or knowledge of a wisdom tradition. Belonging to Christ
means following Christ. Those who belong to him – know him, hear
him, and follow him. And
that can be anyone.
Anyone at all. Any nation, any race, any people, any tongue. Anyone.
Anyone given to Christ by the Father. . .
Wait!
Anyone given to Christ by the Father? You mean we have to be given to
Christ in order to belong to Christ? Yep. We are gifts to Christ from
our Father, given to him for our salvation and the Father’s
glorification. God the Father created each of us to desire Him before
all things. And for our exclusive
benefit we are made to worship Him. Our God has no need of our
praise. Our longing to praise Him is His gift to us b/c in praising
Him we are perfected in His love. We know the itching need to praise
God only because He has graced us to do so. Our creation is a grace.
Our desire to belong is a grace. Our need to worship is a grace. Our
enduring existence is a grace. Our ability
to say YES to God is a grace. Our capacity to obey, to be holy is a
grace. And we ourselves are a grace to Christ, a gift to the Son from
the Father in the Spirit. And all we need do is know him, hear him,
and follow him. When we refuse to do these things, when we contradict
the Word, disobey the Body, we do violence to ourselves as gifts, and
we do not belong. . .by
our choice.
To
be clear: sin does not hurt God. Sin ravages the sinner. Abuses the
Church. And defies every baptismal promise. Sin is the enemy of
belonging, the adversary of a graced communion. When we sin, the
longing we feel for God turns to loneliness. When we sin, the
emptying-of-self that imitates Christ turns to abandonment. When we
sin, the humility we rightly feel at our brokenness turns to shame
and guilt. In sin, our longing for God becomes a rejection of Him and
we end up living lonely, empty, and restless lives – not just
imperfect but broken and lost. When we disobey – fail to listen to
the Shepherd – our desire for holiness becomes a destructive
appetite for material satisfaction that tempts us away from Christ.
We cannot belong to Christ while rebelling against his Word; while
rejecting the life of the Spirit he offers us.
Who
can belong to Christ? Anyone, anyone at all. Who belongs to Christ?
Those given to him by the Father who know him, hear him, and follow
him. Why would anyone want to know, hear, and follow the Son as a
gift from the Father? So that they might be perfected in their
vocation to become Christ for others. Why would anyone abuse
themselves as gifts to Christ by rejecting his saving Word? This is
an ancient desire, one whispered by the Serpent in the Garden, the
desire to become god without God, to be perfected through ungraced
efforts, to be made holy by pious works alone; and this inordinate
desire is named Disobedience b/c it is the willful refusal to listen
to Christ in his Body, the magisterial witness of the Church, a
refusal to listen to the Good News that your life is a gift, your
progress in holiness is a gift, your life eternal is a gift. All just
given to you freely, without charge or interest, handed over to you,
an open-handed donation from God through Christ in the Spirit.
Now,
the hard question: what does a life that belongs to Christ look like?
You belong to Christ, does your life look like a gift from God, a
freely given grace, or does it look like an expensive debt that will
never be paid off? If you live your life in Christ like an expensive
debt, exactly who is it you think you owe? Christ? The Church? Who?
Who among the saints, the Blessed Trinity, or the souls in purgatory
has sold you something on credit? Is there a Jesus Christ VISA card I
don’t know about? And even if you can identify your creditor, how
are you paying off this debt? Good works? Prayer? Mass attendance?
Donations? All perfectly good things for a Christian to do, of
course; but if you are doing these things out of a sense of
indebtedness, then you are not answering Christ with an excited and
blessed YES. Instead, you are answering with a begrudging, “Here,
Lord, take what's owed you.” This is not the Spirit that crashes
into the disciples, creating the Church at Pentecost! This is not the
Spirit that drives Paul and Barnabas to risk their lives for the joy
of the Lord. This is not the Spirit that excites the elders around
the throne to worship the Most High. And this is not the Spirit that
seduces us, pulls us toward the Lord so that we may know him, hear
him, and follow him. The fear of being a joyful Christian is a stake
to the heart! Fear joy at your peril. No sheep of the Good Shepherd
will live long trembling in the shadow of death. Know him, hear him,
follow him, and walk free and clear of every fear, every limit, and
belong to the only One on whose name we rely for help: Christ
the Good Shepherd!
________________________
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