Deacon Tom Writes,
“In The Beginning”
The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the early days of the church as it came to understand its purpose and mission. It describes individuals coming together and struggling to understand the profound mystery they had recently witnessed. Today’s first reading from the forth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles says that, “…the community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common”. It appears that the death and resurrection of Christ touched their lives profoundly and so they made a conscious choice to live their lives according to the spirit of Jesus’ teaching… and to care for one another… “so that there was no needy person among them”.
What’s happened over the centuries? Has the mandate Jesus gave us to “love one another” changed? Has it been enhanced or modified or made conditional so that we…love others only IF they love us in return, or IF they hold the same ideological position as we do, or IF they are the same color, ethnicity, or culture as us! God forbid that we define “neighbor” as used in the Golden Rule as only those who are just like us. Jesus had a much wider interpretation in mind as to who is our neighbor.
It seems that on the most basis level we fail to understand that Jesus loves the victim, no matter what side of the fence they are on. The Risen Jesus is not concerned about nationalism, borders...ethnicity, etc. He is with the suffering of every race and creed. He is an outcast with all those who are disenfranchised; He mourns with all the broken hearted no matter the color of their skin…He is shunned along with all those people we run and hide from...that we are afraid of…that we can't look in the eye, perhaps because we helped contribute to the way they are. Christ suffers want, rejection, isolation, poverty and humiliation with all who experience those pitiful states of existence.
We hear the rhetoric: we can’t afford to pay for everyone to have health insurance… or let them work like the rest of us and become "self-made men" - whatever that means - or send them home where they belong! And so Jesus wanders the streets today, sick and uncared for. He sits in an ICE detention center waiting to be sent back "home". He’s chronically unemployed, under educated, invisible, losing hope, forgotten, a victim of hate crimes, discrimination, exploitation. He is despised and rejected to this day.
Didn’t Jesus have something to say about these things? How we have twisted and distorted His words to make them to our liking? I guess the Romans weren't as brutal as history or we might judge them to be. Sure they beat Jesus...They tortured him…They made him drag the instrument of his death across town...They nailed His hands and His feet to the cross so He couldn't move. And, they even stuck a lance in His side to make sure He was dead. BUT, they never silenced Him! No, they never did shut Him up! We do that !!!..We silence Jesus when we choose to ignore what He taught us…about love, about being servants, about what it will cost to follow His lead.
In these joy filled days following His Resurrection, let us pray to be filled with the Spirit of Christ so we may follow His example and His teachings as those early followers of his did in the beginning, when all the community “was of one heart and mind".
Enjoy the day and the Blessing that is now!
Deacon Tom
Image Credit:123RF.com Hands in a heart #17810429
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