May 13, 2001 5th Sunday of Easter

See also: [2004] [2007]

Commentary by Bruce G. Epperly

Acts 11:11-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

Acts 11:11-18. Acts of the Apostles is a manifesto of God's radical inclusion of strangers into the family of faith and the power of mystical experience to transform persons and institutions. When fellow believers challenge Peter for welcoming Cornelius and his household into the family of faith, he cites his own experience of divine transformation. In light of his mystical experience, Peter expands his theological vision. His exclusivist theology gives way to a universalism that affirms God's presence wherever it is found. Regardless of their ethnicity, Cornelius and his household belong to the community of faith precisely because the Spirit is moving within their lives. Profoundly iconoclastic, the Spirit transcends the purely analytic orthodoxy that was present even in the early church. While we must always seek adequate and insightful theological understandings of reality, these must be balanced by the lived encounter with the surprising spirit of God.

The pastor might choose to ask his congregation to reflect on those persons who they perceive to be spirit-less or beyond God's care. Liberals can also be "fundamentalist" in their liberal orthodoxy! Too often liberalism has substituted rational theology for lived experience, despite our origins in Schleiermacher's experiential theology. Perhaps, in a church school session, congregants might experience this radical inclusion through a "guided meditation" on Peter's dream (Acts 10:9-16) or on the many faces of faith, in which they would experience God's light permeating and inspiring persons of different theological, liturgical, and ethnic backgrounds. A living faith is grounded in the integration of solid theological reflection and intuitive, mystical encounters with the Holy Adventure. An insightful reading of Acts will enable us to go beyond the dichotomy of "spirituality" and "religion" that characterizes much of today's religious landscape.

Psalm 148. The Psalm of the day reminds me of St. Francis' "Canticle of the Sun." The Psalmist lives in an enchanted universe, in which all things witness to the Creator's love. All things are icons of God, windows through which God is speaking to us. But, more than that, in and of themselves, they are God's beloved partners in creation. The Psalmist paints a picture of a joyful universe and, in so doing, invites us to claim our place in the symphony of creation.

Liberal theology has often neglected the importance of "praise" in the spiritual journey. To many of us, acts of praise imply that God is "out there" and "utterly transcendent." But, authentic praise involves the recognition that God is joyfully speaking through us - in our cells, in our feelings and thoughts, in our bodies and minds, in our care for children, parents, spouses, and friends. Meister Eckhardt noted that "if the only prayer you can make is thank you, that will be enough." Praise weaves together experience, gratitude, ethics, and metaphysics. Perhaps, in our ecologically precarious times, praise is the virtue that will save us from self-destruction. Praise opens us to God's beauty in the non-human world and in the stranger.

In my own life, praise has been an element in the transformation of my marriage. When I chose to focus on the beauty of my wife, her gifts and commitment, her love as a parent, and her commitment to me, everything began to change. While we still spent time addressing "issues" in our marriage, now these "issues" could be understood within the broader horizon of gratitude, appreciation, and beauty. Appreciation and gratitude transform our lives and may transform those who nearest to us. As Alice Walker's The Color Purple suggests, our appreciation of something as simple as a purple flower connects with the divine beauty present in all things.

This Sunday's Psalm invites the homilist to choose hymns that affirm our world as a reflection of God's care: "For the Beauty of the Earth," "Now Thank We All Our God," "God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale," "All Creatures of Our God and King," "This is My Father's World." The children's' sermon might focus on beauty in its many forms - blossoms, leaves, flowers, faces, bodies.

Revelation 21:1-6. "I am making all things new." Now, if this isn't a process-relational passage, I don't know what is! God is bringing forth a new creation out of a world of conflict, persecution, and upheaval. God is immanent in the historical process as well as the events of our lives. God's aim is an inclusive wholeness in which sin, pain, and grief find their healing, not through avoidance, but through transformation. The persecuted church will find healing in God's new creation, that is both a future hope and a present reality. For us in the twenty first century, this same dynamic is also at work: the immanent God invites us to moments of creative transformation in which we discover God's aim at beauty in the midst of the complexities of life. This is not "pollyanna" spirituality, but a faith grounded in facing injustice, conflict, and brokenness. God's ultimate aim at wholeness shapes every moment of life, whether or not we are aware of it. We are challenged to open ourselves to divine healing and share that healing with others.

John 13:31-35. Jesus' words are spoken in the shadow of the Cross. The Master becomes the servant as he washes his disciples' feet. Jesus reveals the meaning of love in action, the willingness to embrace the other's well-being as part of one's own wholeness. In a world of zero-sum economics, love is the one virtue that grows as we share. The image of an ever-expanding circle of love may be meaningful here. Just as God's love centers on each one and embraces everyone, we are called to embody that same inclusive love. Peter learns the meaning of this love in his encounter with Cornelius and his household. The Psalmist portrays this love in the ecstatic hymn of creation. Although, as Whitehead notes, "life is robbery," we are called today even as we inevitably destroy non-human life to honor the beauty and value of non-humans. Jesus is suggesting an ecology of love in which the whole earth is healed through our willingness to expand our vision of beauty and value and act accordingly. In the spirit of John 3:16, we are called to be lovers of the world and not just our own flesh.

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While Mother's Day is not a liturgical holiday, most churches will take this Sunday as an opportunity to honor mothers, both birth and spiritual. The image of ever-widening love and gratitude connects with our experiences of parenting at its best, that is, thankfulness for the profound creative symbiosis between a parent and child. We are reminded of the simple and often neglected graces of parenting. Our parents' acts of love are mostly ordinary and undramatic, but often reveal an extraordinary love.

Mother's Day is not always a time of joy. Many of us have suffered from abusive, narcissistic, judgmental, and distant parents. We would just as soon avoid Mother's Day altogether. The Revelation passage may serve to comfort those in need of healing in their parent-child/child-parent relationships. The hope that God will wipe every tear from our eyes may very well be a word of grace to those whose family life is characterized more by pain than love. Divine healing can encompass even dysfunctional families. God is the supreme mother and father whose love nurtures and encompasses us all. In light of God's care, we can summon the courage and love to forgive and accept forgiveness.

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