May 9, 2004 |
See also: [2001] [2007] |
Contributed by Paul S. Nancarrow
Acts 11:11-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
Acts 11:1-18
This passage serves as a sort of companion piece to the story in Acts 9, the conversion of Paul, that was read two weeks ago. Here in chapter 11, Peter is recounting to the Jerusalem leaders his “conversion” to acceptance of the Gentiles. Both Peter and Paul find their lives redirected by the new possibilities God opens up before them; both experience God’s call as a new “lure for feeling” that leads them into patterns of relationships they had not expected. For Peter, this means accepting as “clean” things that his training and tradition and devotion had before told him were “unclean.” Peter learns that God’s circle of relationship extends far more widely than Peter had previously guessed—and that, if he is truly to follow God’s way, he must be prepared to associate with people he had always thought to be beyond the pale. And again, as in the story of Paul’s conversion, Peter’s new calling is confirmed by a second vision granted to another party, in this case Cornelius: just as Peter’s vision is ending, messengers arrive from Cornelius with the story that an angel has instructed the centurion to send them to this very house to invite Peter to come with them. Finally, the two visions are brought together when the Holy Spirit comes on Cornelius’ household, just as the Spirit had come on the apostles at Pentecost, and Peter realizes that it is genuinely God’s will that Jew and Gentile come together in the church. The whole story is an illustration of how God’s will works on a large scale, through many diverse agents, who may not themselves guess what part they are playing in the larger system, so that the right people can be brought together at the right time in the right environment for new relationships to be formed and new possibilities engaged. It invites us to ask what unexpected, “beyond the pale” people God might be calling us to engage, so that new possibilities and new relationships in the Holy Spirit might be disclosed among us.
Psalm 148
The psalm depicts a universal hymn of praise, in which all creatures and all ranks of creatures are united in the shared act of praising their Creator. The psalm is arranged as if it were a series of concentric circles of creation, from the cosmic to the human: from heavens and heights, to angels and heavenly host, to astronomical bodies, to seas and deeps and meteorological phenomena, to mountains and forests, to human communities, to kings and princes, to everyday folk. The psalm is a vision of the wide diversity of created beings brought together in a single act of praise—each creature acting in its own proper way, with its own distinctive becoming, yet all coordinated in a vast Alleluia, like a choir with innumerable voices and multilayered harmonies. We today might bring to our reading of the psalm our scientific knowledge of the subtle and far-reaching interconnections between creatures in ecosystems and biospheres and planetary systems and stellar neighborhoods—we today might ask if our knowledge of the fifteen billion year evolutionary journey of the universe might help us see the universe as an even more wondrous place than the psalmist saw it. Can the vision of the psalmist help us see our universe as an ever more awesome hymn of praise?
Revelation 21:1-6
John’s vision of the New Jerusalem is the climactic moment of the entire Revelation, symbolizing the final and complete overcoming of all barriers between God and God’s world, the fulfillment of all things in their complete openness and transparency to God’s will: “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God; they will be God’s peoples, and God Godself will be with them.” From a process-relational point of view, the promise of fulfillment is summed up in the promise of renewal, “See, I am making all things new”: from each perished occasion, God fashions the particular aim for a new occasion that can carry forward and expand the value of the perished occasion. The constant renewal of the world, growing in a Godward direction, informs the hope that the world can become transparent to God, each and every creature a willing co-creative partner in realizing God’s longing for justice and peace, right relationships of mutual well-being. Such a “new heaven and new earth” are beyond our vision now; but the hope of such fulfillment can inspire us to build our communities—local and global, human and ecological—as forerunners of the City of Peace in our time.
John 13:31-35
The Gospel readings for these last Sundays in the Easter season are all taken from the Farewell Discourse of Jesus in John 13-17. While John has set this teaching before the Crucifixion and Resurrection, some commentators note that in this passage Jesus is speaking as if he is already beyond this world, as if he is already speaking from the point of view of his resurrected life. In many respects, this discourse in John functions in the same way as Luke’s account of Jesus’ special teaching to his disciples after the Resurrection, in the forty days between Easter and Ascension. In these selections from the Farewell Discourse, Jesus is instructing his disciples how to carry on his ministry, through the power of the Spirit, after he is gone, and in that sense they clearly point to the post-Resurrection church. That is the significance of Jesus’ saying, “I am with you only a little longer.” Although Jesus is no longer present to the church in the same way he was present during his earthly ministry, he is still a formative and constitutive presence in the church’s experience. “I give you a new commandment,” he says: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” As the quality of love revealed in Jesus is reenacted in his disciples, so Jesus’ New Life becomes a stream of influence in his disciples’ lives. The love that was the defining characteristic of Jesus’ ministry is reenacted and re-embodied in his disciples, and so comes to define them as well: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is the “glorification” of God, made manifest in Jesus, that will continue in the community of Jesus’ followers.
If you found this lectionary helpful, please consider contributing to Process & Faith by making a donation or becoming a member.