5th Sunday of Easter (5/6/2007)

Homilist: Fr. Donald Brick

The word "new" belongs to that restricted number of magic words that always and -only evokes positive feelings. "Brand new," "new clothes," "new life," "new year," "new day." The new makes news. They are synonymous. The Gospel is called "good news" precisely because it contains the new -- par excellence.

Why do we like the new so much? It is not only because the new, the unused (a car, for example), generally works better. If this were the only reason, why do we welcome the New Year and a new day with such joy? The deepest reason is that the new, that which is still unknown, inexperienced, leaves more room for expectation, surprise, hope, dreams. And happiness is the child of these. If we were sure that the New Year would bring exactly the same things as the past year, no more and no less, we would not be very pleased about it.

The theme of this Sunday’s readings is newness, which is not often a concept we would associate with the Roman Catholic Church, as it has been around for a long, long time, but that is the theme of today’s reading and a constant theme in this season of Easter. God is going to keep His promise made to us at the end of the reading from the book of Revelation where the One who sat on the throne said, “Behold I make all things new.” The theme of newness begins in this reading with the vision of John in the Book of Revelation where he says, “I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away and the sea was no more. I also saw a holy city a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

John’s vision of the Kingdom of God (because the Book of Revelation is not about the future; it is about John’s time and our time) is the vision of God making all things new - both the heavens and the earth and the Church, because the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God is an image of the Church prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. The image of the Church as a bride of Christ, of all of us as the bride of Christ, has its origin from the Book of Revelation. There is something in the heart of Christ, and in the mind of Christ, to make all things new. If we think the Church is old there is probably something wrong with our vision.

We look at today’s Gospel to see some of the new things that John might be referring to in that reading. Our reading is a very short one taken from the Gospel of St. John describing the moment when Judas leaves the Last Supper, having been told by Jesus he was going to betray him. We are back at pre- crucifixion time in this reading. After Jesus had told Judas he was going to go off and betray him he told his disciples and said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him God will also glorify Him in Himself and God will glorify Him at once.” Now that all sounds kind of strange to us. The reason that it sounds strange is because we do not usually associate glorified and glory with suffering and death. The word to glorify someone means something different in our ordinary way of thinking and so this way of thinking – Jesus’ way of thinking - is something entirely new. The Christian understanding of glory is different from the world’s understanding and it is generally different from what you and I think everyday. The problem with us is we do not think in the new way of Christ and we do not live out of that thinking in our ordinary life.

So it is not the Church that is not new; it is us. We keep stumbling back into being the old man. The old man is Adam. You remember Adam and Eve, our parents, not only brought sin into the world but they set a pattern which we all imitate in being satisfied with much less than what God really wants to give us. They were more satisfied with choosing themselves than choosing the glory of God. The way that God thinks is that there is glory in giving oneself away in a self-sacrificing love, which is shown to us by Jesus on the Cross. This is a new way of thinking and a new way of acting. If you and I can think and act that way tonight, tomorrow and the next day, we would be entirely new. Let us go on and read the rest of the reading.

After saying that, Jesus turns to His disciples and says to them, “I give you a new commandment to love one another.” It does not sound new to us. We have heard it time and time again. Actually, it was not new to the apostles because Jesus in His preaching had reminded them that the whole OT of the law and the prophets could be summarized in two commandments, to love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole soul, your whole heart and all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. So what is Jesus mean when, He says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.” This part does not sound new to us but again look more deeply and listen to the sentence that follows. Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you should also love one another. This is how all will know if you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.” Now there are a lot of world religions and one of the things that we have in common with them is that most major world religions focus on doing some sort of discipline in your life. Asceticism - giving up sin and disciplining yourself. But if you compared Christians to Hindus, we would not show up very well in that category. We pray, but if you pray the way you and I pray with the Muslims they do a much better job. They get down on their knees and face Mecca five times a day. When was the last time you got on your knees and prayed? If that was supposed to be the characteristic of the people of God, we would not be very distinguished there. But what distinguishes us even from our Jewish ancestors is the way that Jesus calls us to love in this Gospel - to love one another as He had loved us - and it is in doing that the world will know we are His disciples. And what is the way He loved? To the point of giving His life in a self-sacrificing way on the Cross. If you and I loved that way starting tonight, it would be an entirely new way of us loving. It is an entirely new way of loving because there are conditions on the love of others that are part of the culture and there are self-imposed conditions on love that we impose on ourselves all the time. There is something about the Gospel of Jesus that is entirely new if we took it seriously and took Him at His word and lived it in our day to day life.

I went to hear Deena Burnett the wife of Tom Burnett speak yesterday. I am not sure you are familiar with this story. Tom is the individual who lead the charge to take back flight 93 on September 11th of 2001. The plane we know crashed in Pennsylvania and all the individuals on the plane died. We also know the plane was intended to crash into the white house. The white house is still standing because this man made a choice. We are faced with choices each day in our lives to live this Gospel in a new way. There are a couple of stories which she told of Tom. One was how he as the high school star quarterback helped a little kid throw a football. He wrote and said he never forgot it. Another was a lady on a plane who he impressed by talking to his family. The lady was so impressed she called her father whom she had not spoken to in years. The point is none of us would remember these and Tom would not have but living his faith and life made impressions on people. We need to live the Gospel in a new way with faith, fervor, joy and life.

This brings us back to the first reading, which is from the Acts of the Apostles. We remember that the readings from Acts are lessons on how to be Church. This is why they are given to us on Easter Sundays. This reading is about travel and a bunch of strange names. We are told that as they traveled they did something very important. Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each town, and that is the beginning of the local Churches. The preaching of the Gospel came forth from the Resurrection of Jesus and the community of Jerusalem and traveled throughout the whole world. But it was not the Church that Jesus wanted it to be until it became a concrete Church in a concrete place and when Paul and Barnabas laid hands and appointed elders to be leaders of the local community; that is when the Church began to be born and that is why we are here today in the tradition of Paul and Barnabas.

We are a community that makes the teachings of Jesus alive in each generation and in each day and that is why we come together. This is the community in which God causes all things to be new and this is what we celebrate today. Are you new or old? Fresh or stale? Alive or boring? The Church is to be new, as we are told by John in the second reading: “I also saw a holy city a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adored for her husband.” This is you and me! “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, God’s dwelling place is with the human race, He dwells with them, with us, and they will be His people and God Himself will always be with them.” And we ask Him to make us something entirely new.