Sunday, 5th Week of Easter

April 24, 2005

by Reverend Deacon Lawrence A. St. Onge

The setting of today’s gospel is the “Last Supper,” and it is called the “Last Discourse.” Jesus is saying goodbye to his disciples. He tells them very plainly that He is going away, but He is coming back to take them to a place they know. However, this doesn’t seem to comfort them. Thomas and Phillip voice their reaction to being abandoned. They react like little children who have just learned that their parents are going out for the evening. “Where are you going?” “When are you coming back?” “Who’s going to stay with us?” It is interesting to note that they never ask what is going to happen to Jesus. They only ask what is going to happen to them. We can rest assured that we did not invent self-centered religion. Jesus then gives them the assurance that in his Father’s house there are many rooms - rooms for the disciples - rooms for us all.

 Jesus says heaven is generous; we heard in the gospel; “There are many dwellings in my Father’s house.” That’s good new, isn’t it? Maybe there’s room enough for us! Or is it bad news? What if there is also room for those people we know don’t deserve to be there. So often we tend to think of God as “our God.” However, the God of the Bible is the God of the whole universe. The testimony of the scriptures is that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world unto himself.” It does not say God was reconciling us and our kind to himself. The point is, in God’s heart there is room for more people, than there is in our hearts. This being true of heaven, then, it needs to affect how we relate to all people on earth, no matter who they are. In other words, our own hearts must grow, not just in intensity, but also in extensiveness, to be all encompassing.

There is a story told about a clergyman and an ordinary working man, a cab driver. They arrive together at the gates of heaven. An angel gave the clergyman a plain cotton gown, a wooden halo, and a modest dwelling, containing only the bare necessities of eternal life.

To the cab driver, the angel presented a complete wardrobe of the finest materials, a golden halo, and a lavish dwelling containing every imaginable luxury and convenience.

When he saw this, the clergyman protested, “Why does he get so much and I so little? The angel checked the records and said, “It is because of the work each of you performed on earth. When you were preaching, your congregation slept. When he was driving his cab, his passengers all prayed.”

Jesus said: “Whoever believes in me, and that I and the Father am one, will do the works I do, and greater far then these…because I go to the Father.” The Church and every member of every Christian community is called on to continue the mission of Jesus in today’s world.

In his first words to the world as pope, Benedict XVI called himself “a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.” While he is charged with shepherding the whole flock of Christ, the pope is, like all the rest of the baptized, as we heard in the 2^nd reading today, a member of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of [God’s] own.”

But whether we are a pope, a bishop, a priest, an office worker, a cab driver or a housewife, our duty is the same; to lead the people with whom we come in contact, along the Way of Jesus – the Way of Truth and of Life. By working together, we can do more than Jesus did, or rather, He doing it through us. The Gospel still needs to be preached with great enthusiasm, with greater relevance, with great integrity. We cannot water it down to appease those in our secular society who would like to approach it as a buffet table, where one picks and chooses.

As in Jesus’ day, the masses are calling out to be fed, and we, the disciples of Jesus, have been called to continue to bring the Bread of Life to the world. Jesus said: “Without me you can do nothing.” But it is also important for us to realize that the opposite is also largely true: without us, Jesus can do little, for we are his voice and his hands and feet in the world today.

Pope Benedict XVI was born on Holy Saturday morning and was baptized at the Easter Vigil. The initial moments of his life were caught up in the paschal mystery. It is the same mystery of Christ’s dying and rising that each Christian is called to bear witness to in their own living and life.

The days, weeks, and months ahead will show us the type of shepherd that Pope Benedict will be. The judgment of his service will be left to history and to God. In a like manner, the days, weeks, and months of our lives reveal what kind of baptized Christian person we are. Like Pope Benedict, the judgment about any one of us is ultimately left to God.

Today’s gospel reminds us that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the one who reveals the Father to us. He also reminds us that in His Father’s house there are many dwelling places. While we may not all dwell in the same room, we believe, that while we are in the same spiritual house, we are praying to the one God who is revealed to us all.

In his book, “God is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life” (Ignatius Press: 2003), Pope Benedict describes how the Eucharist brings the all-powerful God into an intimate closeness with those who share in Communion. As we pray for our new Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, let us also pray for ourselves, that Almighty God may unite us all in one communion of love.