Seventh Sunday of Easter

Jan 30 2025

Replacing Judas

My friend the storyteller Bob Wilhelm shared an “artful” variation on the story of the choice of Matthias. Both Matthias and Barsabbas were artists, so St. Peter decided on a contest. He divided the upper room where the community gathered for worship with a curtain, giving half to each man to decorate as he saw fit. The community would declare the winner and Judas’ successor.

Barsabbas, a painter, sent for his brushes and a rich assortment of paints. All week long he painted lovely scenes of Jesus preaching, teaching, healing, casting out demons. His brush captured the parables, illuminating them. Matthias, a stonecutter and polisher, also toiled all week behind his curtain. People could hear only his humming and soft singing.

The day came and the people entered Barsabbas’ half of the church. They broke into applause at his artistry. The uses of color were magnificent. They found themselves depicted in his paintings. They were delighted. Peter became worried. How could Matthias’ work possibly compete with this? But he went over to the curtain and turned it back.

Silence filled the room as people turned to see what Matthias had done. His work had been to polish the stone walls of the chapel’s other half, allowing people to see themselves as never before. The walls shone like mirrors and every person was given a sense of the beauty of Christ shining within them, a glimpse of the divine spark each one carried within. And so Matthias was chosen to replace Judas. He had revealed Christ by revealing Christ’s followers to themselves.

Consider/Discuss

Have you ever left a decision in God’s hands?
Do you believe that God has placed a divine spark within you?

Responding to the Word

Loving God, you have made us in your image and placed your truth within our hearts that we might know, love, and serve you. Consecrate us further with the truth of the gospel and direct our feet in the way you wish us to walk. Let us live in your joy.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

After the Ascension, Peter assumes leadership. With the betrayal of Judas, the circle of twelve apostles had been broken and must be restored. The choice of a successor was necessary. It had to be one who was among the company of disciples from the time of Jesus’ baptism to his ascension. He also had to be a witness to the Resurrection. The prayer preceding the casting of lots illustrates the faith of the assembly. Since only God can read the human heart, only God knew which of the two should be selected. They were confident that God would determine the outcome. The lot fell to Matthias.

According to the author of the second reading, just as God’s love was manifested in the unselfish and redeeming, saving sacrifice of Jesus, so Christians must love others with an unselfish and forgiving love. Such love manifests itself as visible works of love. The reading develops the idea of the mutual abiding of God in believers and believers in God that manifests itself in two ways. First, the Spirit of God that inspires unselfish love is evidence of the abiding presence and love of God. Believers’ acknowledgment of Jesus as the Son of God sent to be the savior of the world is further evidence of God’s abiding presence.

Jesus’ concern for his disciples is plainly stated in his prayer. Prayed shortly before his death, it takes on profound significance. He wishes to share with his followers the union he enjoys with God. Accepting God’s word through Jesus, the disciples share in God’s holiness. Having sketched the contours of union with God, Jesus acknowledges the resistance that God’s word encounters from the world. He is not speaking of the natural world, but of that dimension of society that is antagonistic toward God. Jesus himself was hated by that world and now, because of God’s word, his followers will suffer the same fate. It is for this reason that Jesus prays for them.

Jan 27 2025

Called to Holiness

As I came to the end of today’s Gospel, I got stuck on the word “consecrated.” Jesus says it three times—asking God to consecrate “them,” consecrating himself for “them” and that “they” be consecrated in truth. What in the world does “consecrated” mean? I went to look up it up.

From the Greek sense of the word, consecrated means to sanctify, make holy, purify, or set apart. Its opposite is “common.” Jesus asks his Father to make his apostles holy, set apart, to make them saints. He gives himself up for them. The Holy Spirit will come to sanctify, purify, and set them apart as special for God.

As I type this sentence about being “set apart,” I look up from my laptop. To the right of the dining room table where I write, is a cabinet of dishes that our family has “set apart.” On the top shelf in the back, are fifteen of my mom’s crystal goblets that we bring out only for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They are not “common.” We handle them carefully.

So does holiness mean to be “set apart,” placed on the shelf in the heavenly “cupboard of the saints” like those goblets? Is holiness limited to those whom we designate “consecrated” and those who live in monasteries? Does Jesus’ “them” include us common folks as well? Is he praying for our holiness, too?

In the same cupboard, we also have some heavy earthenware dishes decorated with oak leaves. They are not delicate. They are special to us, too.

God’s children are as inexhaustibly varied as fine china and earthenware dishes. You and I—we are each unique and distinct. Each of us is created to become holy, divinized, and godlike, in our own particular way. We each have a sacred purpose in this world.

Consider/Discuss

Unlike the self-help books that tell us that we are special and “you can do this,” we cannot divinize ourselves. The self-help movement suggests to us that we can get “better” under our own steam. How is that working for you? To be made holy, to be divinized, and to become god-like—that is a high calling, a great adventure. We need a helper. Jesus prays for the coming of the Holy Spirit. What happens if we disregard the presence of the Holy One in our midst and try just to “do it” on our own?
Our world begs for holy and ethical people, not just in the Church, but in families, business, law, carpentry, technology, politics, caretaking, medicine, plumbing, and teaching. It doesn’t matter where you rest your head. God wants you and me to be holy. What does it mean to be continually made afresh in the image and likeness of God? What is your route to holiness?

Living and Praying with the Word

Dear God, sometimes I feel that holiness is a word meant for someone else. I stumble around breaking things. I mess up. I am not fine china in a glass-enclosed cabinet. I am just as comfortable in my boots in the dirt as on my knees in a church building. But if that’s okay with you, then I offer myself to you for sanctification. It won’t look like someone else’s holiness, but I’ll give you what I’ve got. You have given me a sense of your presence deep in my heart. Since you want me to be holy and pure and good, then, please make it so.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

Before the church can begin its work after the Ascension, it must replace Judas. Since Jesus had declared that the apostles would rule over the tribes of Israel (Luke 22:28–30), there must be twelve of them. Peter begins by noting that Judas’ betrayal was already anticipated in scripture, perhaps referring to Psalm 41:10 (see John 13:18), meaning that his act had been folded into the divine plan. Scripture also points out the next step, which is found in Peter’s citation of Psalm 109:8. The choice of Matthias is likewise guided by God. The throwing of lots was a divinely sanctioned way of discerning God’s will in ancient Israel (Leviticus 16:8; Joshua 18:6–8).

The second reading picks up the idea being developed in the reading from the Sixth Sunday. There John emphasized the divine love made manifest in the sending of the Son (4:7–10). As adopted children of God, Christians must take on the image of their heavenly Father, showing the same love for one another that God has shown for all humanity. Just as those who saw Jesus saw the Father (John 14:9), now those who see Christians should be able to see the Father, who “remains” in them. In effect, through the power of the Spirit, Christians come to enjoy much the same relationship with God the Father as Jesus does. This incredible status is the work and sign of God’s love.

The Gospel reading comes from Jesus’ extended farewell prayer for his disciples. A key feature of this prayer is the distinction between those who are “consecrated in truth” and those who “belong to the world,” or that sphere of human society that is hostile to God. The prayer acknowledges that Jesus’ disciples must continue to live among those whose values and actions are opposed to the divine will, and even overtly antagonistic to it. They cannot be taken away from the world; in fact, they are sent to it to continue Jesus’ mission. Jesus’ prayer is that they will remain safely “in the truth,” which means in effect to “remain” in Jesus. This, and only this, will protect them from the evil one, whose realm “the world” is.

Jan 14 2025

Giving God Glory

There are moments of life that we call “glorious,” special times beyond ordinary experience, that give us a hint of transcendence, a glimpse of glory, whether it is a “glorious day” in spring or a “glorious occasion” like a wedding. Such times lift our spirits and hearts, and we feel transported to a different level of awareness and know a joy beyond words. Such are moments of glory.

We hear the words “glory” and “glorify” five times in the opening verses of to day’s Gospel as Jesus prays to his Father. In John’s Gospel this is the last recorded prayer of Jesus, since John does not have Jesus praying in the garden. Jesus begins his prayer by telling the Father the “hour” has come, that is, the hour of revelation, the time when the Father will give glory to the Son and the Son will glorify the Father. It is the moment when the Son is “lifted up,” which refers to both the lifting up on the cross and the Resurrection. Jesus has said: “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all things to myself” (John 12:32).

This mutual glorifying that characterizes the relationship between the Father and the Son also embraces the disciples. Jesus says at the end of today’s reading that he prays “for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine and I have been glorified in them” (John 17:10).

Consider/Discuss

Do you see your life as one that gives glory to God by what you say and do?
Do you follow the example of Jesus by encouraging others to glorify God?

Responding to the Word

We pray this final Sunday in the Easter season that the prayer of Jesus can also be ours: Father, give glory to your children, so that your children may glorify you. Help us to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. Alleluia. Amen.