Year A

Jan 14 2025

A House of Living Stones

Over the years several television shows have focused on rebuilding and reshaping houses. For over thirty years PBS’s This Old House has offered tips on repairing homes. More recently, Extreme Makeover takes a team into someone’s home and transforms it to meet the serious needs of its occupants, often dealing with health or disability issues or trying to serve the larger community in some way.

From the beginning the church has been imagined as a house of living stones, built on Jesus Christ, a dwelling place where people come for shelter and sustenance, where they can set down their burdens and find comfort and consolation before being sent back out in the world to make it a better place to live.

The risen Christ is truly one who offers an “extreme makeover.” He can be trusted to shape us into a dwelling place where the Spirit of the Lord takes up permanent residence, bringing gifts to benefit the world. From the beginning there have been challenges for those who form the church, and an ongoing need for renovation to meet the needs of the time.

Our efforts to make the church a home where love, mercy, justice, and peace will be found should lead us to build more firmly on Jesus our cornerstone. When the time comes, the home he promised to prepare for us and take us to should be easily recognizable. It should not be that much different from the church we have been living in all our lives.

Consider/Discuss

What does it mean to be a community of “living stones”?
What are the “works” that Jesus empowers us to do, perhaps even greater than what he did?

Responding to the Word

We pray the Lord to give us confidence to trust in his word that he has gone to prepare a permanent dwelling place for us, where we will be with him and all those who have gone ahead of us. We pray that this assurance may strengthen us to live as if we were already there.

Jan 14 2025

Scripture Study for

Today’s scriptures observe tension within the early Christian community. Both the Greek-speakers and Hebrew-speakers were probably Jewish-Christians, separated by language rather than by religious background. At issue is some practical matter, not a point of doctrine. Peter does not stand as sole leader. Rather, the entire group of apostles, known as the Twelve, addresses the problem. Besides this collegiality, the community practiced subsidiarity, for the community select ed men to exercise the ministry. The diversity that accompanied the growth of the community both enriched it and was the cause of the tension described here.

The second reading characterizes Christ as a living stone and describes Christians as living stones as well. The stone is living because of who Christ is and not because of what he does. When “living” describes Christians, it refers to the life that is theirs because of their relationship with Christ. As cornerstone, Christ is the underpinning of the building, the church. This stone is sometimes considered the capstone, the stone that holds the two pillars of an arch together. This passage clearly related the way they understand Christ and how they understand the church.

Jesus seeks to strengthen his followers who are troubled at the thought of his departure. He urges them to trust. He does not focus on the end of his life, only on the joyful events that will follow it. He leaves to prepare a place for the others with God. The passage is open to both an apocalyptic and a mystical interpretation. In the first, he is referring to his return at the end of time; in the second, he is alluding to the indwelling of his spirit enjoyed in this life by those united with him. Neither Thomas nor Philip fully understands what he means. Jesus ends his discourse with a promise that those who believe in him will be able to perform deeds that are even more wondrous than those he has performed.

Jan 14 2025

Following the Shepherd

At the end of the day, shepherds would bring their sheep to a common sheep fold, leading them through a gate that was guarded during the night. Shepherds would give names to their sheep and call to them when daylight came, leading them back out to pasture. Because the sheep recognized the shepherd’s voice there was no mix-up with sheep that belonged to others.

The idea that shepherds had a name for each of their sheep brings home the difference between a good shepherd and a stranger. The good shepherd was concerned not only for the flock but for each sheep in it. He knew them and they knew him. “They will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers” (John 10:5).

There are two words in Greek for “good”—agathos and kalos. Agathos refers to moral goodness, as in being a “good person.” Kalos refers to being “good at” something. Certainly Jesus is the Good Shepherd in both senses, but the word used here is kalos, emphasizing his being “good at” shepherding.

Jesus knows his sheep by name, leads them to safety when darkness falls, and returns them to pasture. He was willing to lay down his life for them. Most comforting of all, he came then and comes now so we might have life and have it more abundantly. This image challenges all who have been called to be shepherds in today’s church, to be good shepherds and to be good at shepherding.

Consider/Discuss

What does the image of Jesus as the good shepherd say to you in your life?
What does the promise of “abundant life” mean for you?
Have you come to know the difference between the voice of the good shepherd and the voice of “a stranger”?

Responding to the Word

Jesus, our shepherd, not only cares and searches us out, but he “bore our sins in his body upon the cross so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). We praise the Father for giving us Jesus as “the shepherd and guardian of our souls” and we pray for all who have taken up ministering to God’s people.

Jan 14 2025

Scripture Study for

When Peter declares that God made Jesus both Lord and Christ, the people are cut to the heart with remorse. They realize that they put to death the Holy One, God’s anointed. The openness with which they receive Peter’s words of testimony and accusation shows that all of the Jewish people were not hard–hearted, as some have suggested. Peter then exhorts them to repent and be baptized. The promise of which Peter speaks is probably a reference to the promise of the Spirit that was initially made to the ancestors of the people in Peter’s audience. The promise of the Spirit is now made to them.

The author of First Peter claims that when we suffer precisely for having done what is good, we have the example of Christ to follow. Afflicted though innocent, he did not resort to vengeance. The description of the innocent suffering of Christ recalls a passage from one of the Suffering Servant Songs of the prophet Isaiah (53:4–7). This passage also contains the image of the shepherd. It is employed here to indicate that Jesus is the shepherd and his disciples are the sheep. Although at times they wander away from him, they will be safe and will prosper only if they follow his lead.

In the Gospel, Jesus uses figures of speech to make his points. Characterizing himself as a shepherd, he contrasts himself with those who try to steal into the sheepfold. He seeks to guide, guard, and nurture the sheep; strangers want to snatch the sheep. The true shepherd will be recognized by both the gatekeeper and the sheep. Then, using the technical phrase “I am”, he characterizes himself as the gate. Those who go through Jesus will be safe within the pen. As both shepherd and gate, Jesus shows concern for the welfare of the sheep. He insists that he has come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.

Jan 14 2025

Resurrection Words

The power of words spoken by a person with great conviction can be transformative. I have heard various presidents of our country speak, and many preachers of the gospel. Most memorable were those who offered not only a well-written speech but one communicated with what has been called “fire in the belly.” This does not translate necessarily into a lot of shouting or banging of the podium, but more an experience of word becoming flesh.

Jesus certainly had this ability, as we hear today in the disciples’ reaction: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). The same sense of heat being generated is in today’s first reading when Peter raises his voice and proclaims: “You who are Israelites, hear these words” (Acts 2:22). Peter then goes on to preach Jesus Christ whom “God raised . . . up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it” (2:24). This is a far cry from Peter in the courtyard the night Jesus was arrested.

We spend seven weeks celebrating the Easter event so that the awareness of this mystery might occupy a bigger place in our heart. Like the disciples on the road, we may find ourselves losing hope that our belief in Jesus really matters in today’s world, but seven weeks of Easter can help us recover a stronger sense of what we heard in 1 Peter today, that truly our “faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:21).

Consider/Discuss

Can you think of a time when the words of another have transformed how you were thinking or feeling?
What impact do the words “He has been raised!” have on you?

Responding to the Word

We can pray that we will be welcoming to anyone through whom Jesus continues to meet us on the road and bring us to deeper understanding of what his death and resurrection mean for our lives and the life of the world. We pray for liberation from whatever prevents us from recognizing him.