Word to the Wise
Saturday, May 5, 2018 - 5th Week of Easter - Sat
[Acts 16:1-10 and John 15:18-21]"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me." [John]
MAY 5 ST, VINCENT FERRER, O.P. [Dominican friar]
There is a certain tone of "us against them" in this segment of the Farewell Discourse. Jesus uses the term "the world" to mean those who do not believe in him as the one whom God has sent. Scripture scholars tell us that this tone of "us against the world" reflects the situation going on at the time this gospel was composed. The earliest Christians who began life as Jews still considered themselves to be Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. When they began to proclaim this, they met resistance that resulted in their being expelled from their synagogues. The bitterness of this experience found its way into all four gospels, but is rather pronounced in the way the Farewell Discourse is written.
The phenomenon of "us against them" is common enough and often shapes political discourse in our country. Occasionally it shapes religious discourse as well. I have encountered it in my years of campus ministry when students became involved in cult-like "Christian" groups that isolated its members from parents and friends. That is an extreme, but even in the Catholic church there has been a kind of "us against them" thinking called "the Benedict option," named, unfortunately, after Pope Benedict XVI, who once warned that the church might become smaller in numbers to remain faithful. Many of us remember the "Jonesville Massacre" and the Dravidian stand-off near Waco, TX. Both of these had elements of "us against the world" thinking.
In the Gospel According to John, we read in chapter three: "God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son." God has not withdrawn that love even if it is not always returned. We are called to be missionaries by virtue of our baptism. An "us against them" mentality militates against preaching the gospel. If we want the "them" to become "us" we have to reach out instead of pulling back. AMEN