5th Sunday Easter - Year A

From last Sunday’s celebration of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, we turn our attention this week to who we are and how we are to live as Jesus’ sheep, or, to put it another way, as church.  To aid our prayer and reflection in this regard, each of the scripture selections for today offer images and analogies that emphasize some aspect of what it means to be church.  Luke, in the first reading from Acts (6:1-7), will remind us that service is an essential constituent of church, service to God,  service to the word, service to one another and, in particular, service to the poor and disadvantaged.

In the 2nd reading (1Pet 2:4-9) we get several images of the church.  The first one says that we, as church, are living stones built into an edifice of Spirit upon the corner-stone of Jesus Christ.  Reflecting upon the implications we have to ask ourselves these questions:  1) Are we, as the living stones of the church, true and authentic memorials of God’s encounter with humankind in Christ? 2) Do people look at us and recognize in us an “awesome shrine”, an “abode of God”, a “gateway to heaven”? 3) When they are in our presence, do others have the sense that God is with us, within us and therefore with and within them? 4) Does our lack of unity, our indifference to the poor, our refusal to take the challenges of the Gospel seriously render us an obstacle and a stumbling block, a counter-witness to what we are to be as a church of living stones?

The other images are an affirmation of church as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people claimed by God to proclaim glorious works”.

In today’s Gospel (Jn 14:1-12), the evangelist alludes to these works as the proper responsibility of the church.  Promising that they (we) would do the works he did and works far greater than his, the risen Jesus left his own an agenda to be accomplished in the interim between his advents.  Part of that agenda is to continue being a church who fully and truly reflects the loving concerns of Christ for humankind.  Unfortunately, this agenda has not always been met.  Let us not forget that we are daily and continually blessed with every gift and grace necessary for fully realizing our potential and God’s intentions for the world.

ON STEWARDSHIP... “DO THE WORKS I DO”

“Those who have faith in Me will do the works I do, and far greater than these,” Jesus tells His disciples. That’s quite an assignment for us as Christian stewards!   See John 14:12