Sunday
June 2nd 2019 7th Sunday of Easter (Cycle C)
Dinner with Saul *
The tie in
between today’s readings: Are you in the faith?
SETTING: Saul’s mother’s house in Jerusalem. He
has dinner with her this day every week following his fasting ritual. She is
getting worried. It’s after dark and he’s never been this late before. Saul
enters with a self satisfied look on his face.
Mom: “Oh!
You’re home late, Saul. Sit down; dinner’s getting cold. So how was your day?”
Saul: “Such a day you wouldn’t believe. It
started out normal. Prayers at the Temple with my mentor, Gamaliel. Gave alms and
another offering after my fast. Then such a commotion like I never heard.”
Mom: “A commotion?”
Saul: “Yes, at the Synagogue of the
Freedman...you know those foreign Jews. We heard some men arguing about how the
veil guarding the Holy of Holies could have ever been split? A big shouting
match, you would think the whole world needed to know, and in the middle of it
all was that apostate, Stephen. He joined that new ‘The Way’ cult. It’s what
those fishermen and that tax collector who started it call themselves.”
Mom: “Stephen? Isn’t he the one who helps feed
the widows in the city? I heard he even
healed cousin Miriam’s friend who almost died from a fever.”
Saul: “Really, my dear? It was more likely
the chicken soup.”
Mom: “How did such a nice boy get mixed up in
such a ruckus?”
Saul: “Nice boy?! He probably started it with
all that slander his people are saying about the high priest and the
crucifixion of that blasphemer, Jesus! You know that his people even accuse our
most revered and trusted elders of having the Romans kill that pretender! Our
Sanhedrin! Jehovah’s rulers! Can you believe it? That Jesus had his trial just
like his boy Stephen did!”
Mom: “A trial? I have to sit down! Over an
argument? What happened?”
Saul: “Yes, a trial and about time, too!
These Lamb of God zealots are full of contempt for our Temple, Moses, and our
Law. They have to answer for it. Praise God we Pharisees are here to defend the
faith of our fathers! And after today, you know, I’ve never been prouder to be
a Jew. Our whole community: the elders, teachers of the law, and the good
people of our city dragged that Nazarene lover before the Sanhedrin and gave
testimony about your nice boy’s blasphemies.”
Mom: “Oy! I never would have believed it!”
Saul: “Believe it! And then out of his own
mouth he accuses the entire Sanhedrin of being the sons of prophet killers,
lawbreakers, and murderers of the Messiah!”
Mom: “What happened then?”
Saul: “What else? He was plainly guilty. We
dragged him outside the city and stoned him!”
Mom: “Stoned him!”
Saul: “Yes, of course, stoned him. It had to
be done. Such an honor they gave me that I should watch their coats as they
carried out the Lord’s justice. You should have seen him, dying with that
deceiver Jesus’ words on his lips that Jehovah should forgive us. FORGIVE US!
Pathetic! I hope he’s with him right now. Good riddance!”
Mom: “It sounds so horrible.”
Saul: “Horrible, yes, it was horrible...gloriously
horrible. Sometimes you have to do the terrible to preserve the beautiful. The
Temple, the Law of Moses, our heritage in Abraham, our traditions, these things
are beautiful. Every fiber in me will fight to keep them from being destroyed
by that carpenter’s corruption!”
Mom: “Calm down, Saul!”
Saul: “Calm? How can I be calm when there’s
more of them every day? No! No more! I swear that I’ll devote the rest of my
life to crushing out this heresy.”
Mom: “Where are you going?”
Saul: “To the High Priest. We have to get
organized. First, we’ll purge Jerusalem of these swine. Once that’s done, I
hear there is a cell of them forming in Damascus. I’ll head there next. There’s
no way, ‘The Way’ is getting away and if I don’t hear the name of Jesus again
I’ll die a happy man!”
We
know that everything changed for Saul on that road to Damascus where Jesus in
His glory knocked Saul off his horse and asked, “Why are you persecuting Me?”
Our Lord’s question shows His intimacy with His body, the Church as described
in our gospel reading John 17:20-26. It also shows that no one is beyond the
grace of God and the reach of Jesus to turn an enemy like Saul into Paul, one
of the greatest Apostle and son of God every recorded. So, let us keep praying
for our loved ones, who as of yet do not know Christ as their Savior and Lord.
Don’t lose heart. At the same time, we need to look deep an examine ourselves
to make sure that we truly are in the faith and not deluded like Saul (2 Peter
1:10-11, 2 Corinthians 13:5). There is a lot riding on it.
Our
last two readings: Psalm 97: 1-7 and in Revelation 22:12-20 bring the
consequences of being on the wrong side of the Jesus question to light. Both
refer to the judgment of God on the wicked, even the morally religious wicked,
trying to earn their way to heaven. So the important thing is not whether you
think that you are on God side like Saul, but whether you are in Christ like
Paul. I’ll finish by letting the Apostle tell you in his own words in
Philippians 3:1:14.
Philippians 3 New International Version (NIV)
No Confidence
in the Flesh
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the
flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on
the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6
as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law,
faultless.
7 But
whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a
loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose
sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through
faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know
the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming
like him in his death, 11 and so,
somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not
that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but
I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not
consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting
what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has
called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
● Not historically accurate
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