Fullerton T

5th Sunday of Easter

In this Sundays Gospel Jesus calls us to a new way of living when he tells us to love one another as I have loved you.  At one level this is a simple call to love, at another it is a big challenge for us to be Christ like  to others in this sometimes horrible world. This means that we should love as Jesus loves, in order to be the face and heart of Christ the face of the fathers mercy to a wounded and hurting world. It seems to me that our faith should constantly challenge us to live lives of love, love of God and love of one another and this ideal is so very hard to achieve. The love Jesus speaks of seems to be narrow and restrictive. He is addressing his disciples when he says, “love one another.” This love may seem insular and applicable just to an inner circle of his followers. Is he telling us that the sacrificial love he calls us to applies only to those around us in the Church? No, of course he is not saying that because we know from other parts of John’s gospel that Jesus’ mission of love includes an outreach to the world (John 10:16 I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.)  That outreach in our modern times must include all those who have left the Church for many reasons we should not leave them behind as many people might want to do.

Jesus wants us to be united with him and one another in love. A loving and caring community has a great effect on others bringing those who might be doubtful with it. What more articulate proclamation of the gospel can there be than a group of diverse people drawn together, not by similarities in education, economic status, neighborhood, citizenship, race, etc, but by the love that God has for them and their bringing that love for one another to other people? A community such as this couldn’t help but draw others into it and to one who is the source of their universal love. We are called to be that community of love showing the love of God to those around us especially during this year of Mercy and at all other times as well.

4th SUNDAY OF EASTER Good Shepherd Sunday

This weekend we celebrate the 4^th Sunday of Easter which is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The idea of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a lovely thought because it is a well known fact that the shepherd never leaves his sheep outside the sheepfold. If any are outside the sheepfold the shepherd will seek the lost sheep at all costs until they are found.  The wandering figure of the shepherd, anxiously tending his sheep to the point where he is willing to surrender his life for them, is the image Jesus uses about himself in this Gospel Reading. That mixture of tenderness and toughness, care and self-sacrifice, is one that summarises his own practice of leadership. It is not a leadership of detachment and defensiveness; rather, it is a leadership of physical involvement and self-sacrificial love. In the good shepherd’s foolish extravagant love, his own life matters less than that of his sheep as we know Jesus gave up his life for us on the cross Good Friday. 

The good shepherd is not an image of religious authority that is involved with its own importance, blind to the useless pain it causes in those it leads. The authority of the shepherd costs the shepherd, not the sheep. The image of the shepherd cannot be separated from how the shepherd actually cares for his own sheep. When we see how Jesus actually behaves as a leader, we see his tenderness and courage.   The parable of the Good Shepherd has many consoling truths and promises for people of every century, including ourselves in the twenty first. The good shepherd challenges our own way of leaving people for lost: remember that Jesus also said “I have come to seek out and save the lost.” All of us know people who have wandered away from the Church, who have lost their sense of belonging, who feel they have no community to belong to. How will they know they are welcome back if no one tells them? How will they be helped back if no one offers to make the journey with them?

This as we know is the Year of Mercy a year of return a year of journeying with those who want to return to God as well as those who believe. Turning our gaze to God the merciful Father, and to our brothers and sisters in need of mercy, means focusing our attention on the essential contents of the Gospel: As we celebrate the Jubilee Year of Mercy we are asked to place Jesus Christ, the face of the all merciful Father, at the centre of our personal life and that of our communities. As people of mercy we are asked to journey with those who are trying to return to the sheepfold as well as journeying along with our friends who are still there.

3rd SUNDAY OF EASTER

This Weekend we celebrate the third Sunday of Easter it seems strange that we have come so far from the ashes of Ash Wednesday right through to Easter and Jesus resurrection but time waits for no one. In Jesus resurrection we are given the possibility of forgiveness, of being forgiven and of forgiving each other. That new possibility and its radical mercy should never be understated or forgotten as we celebrate the joy of Easter. We celebrate the resurrection of the one who affirms for us that our God has walked on our streets, confronted the evil we confront and suffered for us, even though we celebrate Easter Joy the craziness of some people is still there.

The resurrection assures us that life can come out of death and good can overcome evil and it does. It doesn’t always seem that way these days but for people of faith that is people who have faith in God and Faith in each other nothing is impossible. Of recent times we are being harangued by unyielding ideologues that say I am right even though they are inherently wrong. After a tragedy like Paris, Brussels, or whatever there is a strong response of self-sacrifice and compassion from everyone to help the victims and those affected by the violence.

Then with the passage of time we go back to where we were before the crisis, preoccupied by our concerns and yet through all of this bad stuff God is with us remember at Christmas we sing about Jesus, Emanuel and that means as we all know that God with us. After the earth shattering events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday Peter and the others were ready to put the events of those days behind them and return home to what they did before they came across Jesus. But Jesus won’t let them go. In our Gospel Story for this Sunday he comes to the shore fishing for them. He gets their attention, as he did when he first called them, with a large catch of fish. He prepares breakfast for them and invites them to eat, “Come, and have breakfast.”

After the meal Jesus asks Peter three times about the reality of his love. Insisting on love is something of a mark with Jesus. Three times Peter affirms his love, as three times Jesus insists on it. And when Peter professes his love Jesus commissions him to care for his flock when he says feed my sheep. And that is what Peter does – as we hear in Sunday’s first reading. In his ministry of preaching and healing Peter gets through to many people, and the authorities become nervous at the ability of Peter and the apostles to work in the name of Jesus. In spite of the opposition Peter will continue insisting on his love for Jesus and this insistence will take him to martyrdom in Rome.

No matter whether the believer is new or old, a pew sitter or a leader of people, the call of Christ is the same: “Follow me.” Following Christ means life in the community where we are. Are we, like Peter, spreading the net for new believers and professing a true love for our Savior? Or are we on the sidelines watching others doing the work when we should really be out there doing the work with them? At the end of the day whatever happens we remember that God is with us and wants us to be with him now and in the future, He is with us in good and bad times so let us take courage this Easter to go forward in faith.

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

This weekend we hear another of the great gospel stories of mercy as we continue our journey of mercy. Following on from the parable of the prodigal Son we hear the story of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus did not deny the Scribes and Pharisees the right to carry out this prescription of the Law, but he insisted on one condition, namely, that they have no sin on their consciences.”Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” So many of us today are like the Pharisees in that we are prepared to lift the stone and be the first person to throw it despite our own shortcomings. This story is about so much more that throwing the stones it is really about God’s mercy to the woman and by association God’s mercy to us. When Jesus and the woman were left alone, he looked up and said, “Woman, where are they?” Ironically, the self-righteous observers of the Law, so eager to throw stones, could not measure up to the requirement that Jesus had laid down and all of them had left.

After they had gone, Jesus lifted up his eyes to the woman looking at her with the eyes of gentleness; he asks her, ‘Has no one condemned you?’ She replies, ‘No one, Lord.’ And he says, ‘Neither do I condemn you. What does this say to you and me today as so many of us are prepared to throw stones of condemnation at so many people and of course there are also people who would throw stones at us as well.   If we remember what Jesus tells us when he says let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw the stone then we won’t go far wrong. The simple truth whether we like it or not is that all of us are sinners and none of us are in a position to throw the stone!! As we continue our celebration of the Year of Mercy let us ask the Lord to show us his mercy especially as we head towards Palm Sunday and Holy Week.