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| Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee |
In Sunday's Gospel, Jesus says we have a dwelling place with God. What precisely will this place be like? We don’t know! In death, we will have to let go of our earth-bound existence, with unconditional trust that God will bear us away within himself forever.
Sunday's word of God in the Book of the Acts takes us back to the beginnings of Christianity. The early Church is beginning to diversify. The challenge then and now is how to stay united as we diversify.
Suddenly in today’s passage, a problem arises: the community is neglecting some people in need. The community solves the problem by ordaining some as deacons. The Greek word diakonia means service. And that is why the Church continues to have so many agencies that do so much good for others, especially the needy.
The letter of Peter evokes the image of a spiritual house, a living temple of God. The living Christ is the cornerstone or center of this community. And we are the stones.
One of my favorite images of the church, one of the oldest, is a boat. We are on a journey, with
a map and stormy weather, people slipping, survivors being pulled in, mutinies, getting off
course, being attacked. A boat needs a captain. Peter didn't seem ideal, yet what his crew and
subsequent crews managed to do has lasted over two thousand years. Today there are more than 1.2
billion Catholics.
Perhaps we might best describe the Church as a community who believe in God as Triune
and in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the redeemer of humankind, and who shape their lives
according to that belief; a community which remembers that belief ritually in the Eucharist, and
recognizes the Bishop of Rome as the foundation of its unity.
Like many things in life, this global community lives with some messiness and muddles through as best it can. We continually have to strive to do the right thing, to forgive, to let go of feelings of resentment and bitterness and, as the prophet Micah said centuries before Jesus: "do right and love goodness and walk humbly with our God."
We remember and celebrate the awesome presence of the Living Christ, gloriously alive, in our midst. He is our way into eternal life, our true Good News who scatters the “fake news” all around us, and our life who overcomes death. We retell the stories of Jesus;we celebrate the sacramental presence of the living Christ in liturgical signs. The same Spirit who transformed the disciples from cowards hiding behind closed doors into heroes proclaiming fearlessly that Jesus is alive, that same Spirit lives within our global community, within us, and can fire us up to do wonders for God if we will only let the Spirit do so.
