Fourth Sunday of Easter April 25, 2010

(Acts 13:14,43-52; Revelation 7:9,14b-17; John 10:27-30)

By this point in Acts, Paul has been introduced into the story
and we find him here on his first missionary journey in Asia Minor
(modern Turkey). As elsewhere in Acts, he begins his work in
local synagogues among Jews and converts to Judaism. Paul’s (and
Barnabas’) success among them leads to trouble on the following
Sabbath.
Luke now sets up the turmoil between Paul and Barnabas and
the religious leaders (referred to as ‘the Jews”), justifying Paul’s
decision to reach out to the Gentiles, based on the leaders’
rejection of Paul’s preaching (“the word of God spoken to you”).
His language though is loaded (“since you reject it and condemn
yourselves as unworthy of eternal life”).
Paul cites Isaiah 49 to justify his outreach to the non-Jewish
world. For a short period in Israel’s history some of the prophets
spoke of the universal salvation of all people (including the
Gentiles) that would be ushered in with Israel as a light of God’s
salvation. However, that outreach quickly ended and so too the
missionary outreach of Judaism.
But, Christianity quickly became a “missionary” religion
after the resurrection. Once the full impact of Paul’s preaching
becomes clear to the religious establishment, they resort to one of
the oldest tricks in the book. They get the religious women of the
place on their side and then sit back and watch the fireworks.
The tactic is as old as Greek drama itself. Use the power of
riled up women to oppose the success of any movement and it will
cease. In about 400 BC Aristophanes wrote the play Lysistrata,
where the women of Athens get fed up with the violence of war
and agree to deny marriage rights until the endless and useless
destruction of war would cease. Would that it existed in the real
world, not limited to Greek Drama! Movements like the Lysistrata
Project (see lysistrataproject.org ) notwithstanding, war and its
attendant violence continue to consume us.
 In Sunday’s case, religious women join with the leading men
of the town to reject Paul and Barnabas who are forced to flee.
Since Christianity cloaked itself in the language and customs of
Judaism early on, it was regarded as simply another sect of
Judaism in the early years. Once the implication of their preaching
becomes clear, the religious establishment reacted. It did not
become the establishment by catering to every movement in every
time and place. Some things never change.
So when the religious establishment (orthodox Judaism of
that time; not in the sense we speak of orthodox Judaism today)
reacts to defend itself against the radically new (Christian
preachers like Paul), Christians began to take pot shots at the
establishment. Paul’s words, in fact, are stronger than any Jesus
had used with those who rejected his preaching. “...since you reject
it (the word of God) and condemn yourselves as unworthy of
eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.”
To emphasize complete rejection of them, Paul and Barnabas
shake the dust from their feet, refusing to carry away with them
even a speckle of dust from that place. As they go elsewhere they
were “filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.” Even though no one
likes rejection, the early Christians became even more firmly
convinced of the rightness of what they were doing. Adversity and
rejection will always be part of the experience of being Christian.
That, like eternal life, is the destiny of those who “wash their robes
in the blood of the Lamb.” But we all ought to exercise caution and
kindness when speaking of others. Sometimes the New Testament
authors were neither cautious nor kind because of the ties they had
severed.

Fr. Lawrence L. Hummer