Acts 11:
1–18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21: 1-6; John 13: 31-35
The following is a homily by Fr.
Gene Tucker which was given at St. John's Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on
Sunday, April 24, 2016.
“EVERYONE COUNTS”
(Homily texts: Acts 11: 1–18 & John 13: 31-35)
“Everyone counts!”
So said the poster on the
wall of a facility I was in this past week.
I was struck by the truth of
that comment, which – in the place where I saw it – announced to everyone that
everyone and anyone could initiate an action to assist others in the
facility: Staff and those being served
alike.
“Everyone counts.”
The appointed readings from
the Book of Acts and from John’s gospel account for this morning make it clear
that – in God’s eyes – everyone counts.
We would do well to take a
closer look at the situation that Jesus encountered when God the Father sent
Him to earth. Much the same situation would face the early Church as the
Apostles went out from Jerusalem, carrying the Good News of God’s work in
Christ.
As we look at the culture,
both Roman and Jewish, we can see that not everyone counted.
To the Romans, the many
people who were slaves didn’t count. Neither did the peoples who had been
conquered by the Roman army…they didn’t count, either. Remember that the Jews fell into this
category.
To the Jews, Gentiles didn’t
count. The Samaritans didn’t count, either. Neither did the “sinners” of Jesus’
day. To the Jews, these others were less than fully human and less than
acceptable to God.
Over and against these
attitudes, Jesus set the example for His disciples to follow: He spent time
with the hated Samaritans. He assisted a Roman centurion to heal the soldier’s
daughter.[1]
He ate with tax collectors and those other hated sinners.
When the Apostles went out
into the world carrying the Good News, they, too, went to the Samaritans. They
also went to the Gentiles. In this morning’s text from Acts, Peter is asked by
others in the Church about the ways in which he was hanging out with Gentiles.
“Why are you doing that?” they wanted to know. They are referring to the fact
that Peter had gone to see a Roman soldier, Cornelius.
What is the basis for
showing consideration, care and love to these persons who didn’t count?
Perhaps the basis is simply
this: Each and every person is composed
of an essential, basic quality, a quality which is the primary characteristic
of their existence. Each person is also composed of other, secondary
characteristics and qualities.
I should explain.
Each person is created in
the image and likeness of God. (See Genesis 1:26.) Each individual is the
deliberate result of God’s creative work. And, as we used to sing with our
middle school students in our retreat weekends, “God don’t make no junk!”.
So the basis for caring for
each individual, and loving each individual, lies in the fact that God created
that person. Each person is the deliberate result of God’s work.
As we said a moment ago,
each person is also composed of other, secondary characteristics. We could name
some of them: their racial background,
their ethnic heritage, their gender, their age, and so forth.
Unfortunately, in our own
age, as in Jesus’ day and in the age in which the early Church went forth into
the world, it is often these secondary characteristics which form the basis for
dislike, disdain and hatred. These secondary characteristics often are used to
send the message “You don’t count.”
And so, on the basis that
His original disciples were human beings first (and all those other things second),
Jesus gives a new commandment in our gospel text for this morning when He says,
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another.” Certainly, Jesus demonstrated His love for His disciples by loving
them for their essential characteristic, that of being human. Those early
disciples offered the Lord plenty of road blocks to being loved, for they were
slow to learn, they were often ignorant in their unwillingness to follow, and
they made plenty of mistakes. But He loved them, anyway.
Jesus’ willingness to love
His first disciples changed the secondary characteristics of those first
disciples: They, like Peter, understood that God loves everyone, and that
everyone is worthy of hearing about God’s love, made known in the person of
Jesus Christ. On that basis, they went out into the known world, carrying the
Good News to Jew and to Gentile alike, to notorious sinners, to noble men and
women, to slaves, to people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.
(Remember our second reading from last week,[2]
that wonderful description of peoples from every language, tribe and nation,
standing before the throne of God in heaven, singing God’s praises? That is the
image of the Good News having gone out into all the world.)
At this point, we ought to
take a moment to say something about love. For in our own culture, love is
often confused with permissiveness. Love is often confused with a laissez-faire
attitude which says, in essence, “anything and everything is acceptable.” But the
witness of Holy Scripture is that love is an entirely different sort of thing
altogether. The love that God shows us is willing to accept us on the basis of
our essential quality of being human. But God’s love also seeks to reform and
shape our secondary characteristics so that we will reflect the sort of
unconditional love that God shows us in loving others. Only then can we share
in God’s work of reforming and reshaping the secondary characteristics of those
we encounter.
This morning’s gospel makes clear
that the essential marker of being Christian is the ability and the willingness
to love. “By this,” Jesus said, “everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.” We are called to love one another because of
the essence of who we are as human beings. On that basis, we are called to love
one another even when one or more of our secondary characteristics, such as our
personalities, might tend to obscure our human-ness.
Everyone counts. Everyone
deserves and receives God’s love. Everyone deserves our love, as well.
AMEN.
