The Church Is A Living Church 教會是有生命的

Fifth Easter Sunday, Year A
Theme: The Church Is A Living Church 教會是有生命的

We know that the Church is more than just a building. In the words of St. Peter, she is more than a living organism made up of believers, who “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). She is more than a physical building; and more than a sociological community because the Church is a “spiritual house” of God. In other words, the Church grows and develops towards the eternal spiritual realm through human history in which she would go through crises as well as flourishing. In the first reading today, we read of how the early Church in Jerusalem dealt with a crisis which was paradoxically a result of her successful growth.

The Church was born in Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost immediately after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. On that day, three thousand people were added to the initial community of 120 believers (Acts 1:15) after hearing the testimony of St. Peter (2:41). To a certain extent, this expansion fulfilled what Jesus says in today’s gospel passage. He says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12). Believers of Jesus should do the works that Jesus has done because He returns to the Father. What surprises readers is the phrase which follows, namely that we “will do greater works than these (the works of Jesus)”! How can it be possible? Doesn’t Jesus also say elsewhere that “No disciple is above his teacher, no slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher” (Matthew 10:24-25a, Luke 6:40)? Did Jesus try to be consoling because He would be leaving His disciples behind soon?

Well, let’s take as our common ground that evangelizing the world is “the works” which Jesus refers to above. In His public ministry, Jesus managed to attract more than 5000 people to follow Him after the five loaves and two fish miracle. This could be the pinnacle of Jesus’ achievement in terms of the number of followers. Yet, His “Bread of Life” discourse which is hard to accept (John 6:60) has subsequently driven away many followers (6:66). In fact, within the short span of time and space available for Jesus to evangelize, it would only be reasonable that Christians are able to make more converts in the future generations. Thus, Jesus was telling the disciples the truth and was not trying to console His distraught disciples (14:1) because it was obvious to them that something unpleasant was going to happen (13:21-30, 36-38)!

Let’s return to the first chapters of the Acts. In those days, overseas Jews and coverts to Judaism would go pilgrimage to Jerusalem once a year in one of the great Jewish feasts such as Passover, Tabernacle and Pentecost etc. Thus, among the first batch of three thousand converts to Christianity, there would be local Jews as well as Greek-speaking Jews who came from overseas. This classification is rather misleading because “local Jews” could also be Greek speaking too! It is because most of the followers of Jesus came from Galilee in the north and not from overseas. They were living on the fringe of the Judaea province of the Roman Empire and must have been interacting and speaking in Greek with Gentiles in their daily lives. On the other hand, Jerusalem was a cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong nowadays, serving as the economic, religious, cultural and political centre of the province of Judaea. Citizens of Jerusalem spoke in many different languages. All in all, I tend to believe that the early Church in Jerusalem would consist of a comparatively higher proportion of Greek speaking Jews.

In Judaism, widows occupied a privileged position in the society. Following the teachings of the prophets literally, court cases of widow complaints would be dealt with next after the fatherless, “Hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). Jewish marriage was a form of contract called “Ketubah” in which a divorced woman or a widow was entitled to receive a certain amount of financial compensation. In case the widow was survived by a male child, she would become the guardian of the infant children of the deceased. Thus her livelihood would be taken care of. However, widows would still live in poverty when the husbands died poor or debt-ridden or when justice had not been done her in disputes. The Christian community had become a natural refuge for those widows in poverty.

Now that we have laid down the background of the dispute between the Hellenists and Hebrews within the early Church in Jerusalem (Acts 6:1), we may better understand how appropriate the Twelve had settled the dispute: namely by delegating authority to a group of selected Hellenists to take care of the needs of the Hellenists. “Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this tasks (to serve at table)” (6:3). I hope to do a more in-depth analysis of the appropriateness of changing the issue of “daily distribution” (6:1) to “serve at table” (6:2) later. It suffices to say that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Twelve were able to manage the growth of the Church well. As a community gets bigger, new structures will come about to meet the demands arising from a greater complexity.

The potential of the Church needs time and space to fully actualize. It also takes time for her to understand herself better. For example, the disciples asked Jesus before His ascension, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” (Acts 1:6) Similarly, St. Peter still kept the concept of the “Chosen People” in mind when he wrote, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own” (1 Peter 2:9; Exodus 19:6). But in God’s mind, He envisions the Church as an entity more than a royal priesthood, a holy nation, in other words a New Israel. In the words of St. Paul, “Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the Church in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25b-27). In eternity, God sees the Church as the Lamb’s Bride (Revelation 21:9)! It takes time for the Church to appreciate this concept!
God Himself is love and therefore life-giving. The Father reveals Himself through Jesus Christ. When Jesus proclaims His divinity by saying, “I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6a), one of the many things He is telling the disciples who are the foundation of the Church (Ephesians 2:20) is that the Church has to go through a length of space and time in order to reach her full potential because we are mere mortals confined within space and time. But Jesus Christ Himself is the Way and He pledges to accompany us to reach the Father.

Brethren! May our relationship with Lord Jesus Christ grow deeper day by day within and without the Church. Amen. God bless!
2020 Reflection
Picture Credit: religiousaffections.org