Fifth Sunday of Easter

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I should have been helping with the last of the Kairos Retreats at LaSalle High School where I taught before becoming a pastor.  Seeing that in my calendar this week caused me to reflect that just before this Covid-19 nightmare began I had just finished two very most powerful and energizing retreats which had fired me up for a great and spirit filled Lent.  I was jazzed, I was pumped.  Then the transmission started acting up on my car forcing the decision to trade it in on a new one.  Not what I wanted but not totally unforeseen.  Vacation started a week after that, and I spent a week in the Florida panhandle where I heard the first rumblings of Covid-19 in this country.  I got home just in time for a week of lockdown-lite before the full blown lockdown.  I don't know what Lent and Easter are like for you all, but for priests they are not only the busiest times of the year, they can and often are the most spiritually rewarding and personally fulfilling times.  This year’s was like taking Christmas away from the kids.  In the midst of all this Fr. Stephen learned that he was being reassigned.  We both agreed that you all had enough bad news to deal with so we delayed dropping that one on you as long as we could.  Why this long list of woes?  To underscore two truths that are present in today's scripture readings. 

The first is that the one constant in life is change.  Nothing remains at status quo for very long.  No matter how much we would like things to stay stable, and no matter how hard we fight against change and whine about it when it comes, the reality is, change comes and it comes quite often.  The little vignette we read from the Acts of the Apostles tells us that even for the early church, their moments of peace and tranquility didn't last for very long.  This internal dispute about certain widows not being taken care of adequately leads to the institution of the first deacons.  How blessedly wonderful!  And among this first group of deacons was a man named Stephen because of whose preaching would result the first major persecution of the early church. Their peace and tranquility would be shattered again and the early church community would be scattered around the Middle East as the disciples fled the persecution in Jerusalem.  That would cause the fledgling Christian religion to spread.  Then as now, one constant in life is change.        

The Gospel reading tells of the second truth.  This is part of St. John's Last Supper narrative.  Jesus spends the entire reading reassuring the disciples that even though he is going away, it will be okay because God has a plan.  Our plans are for today or tomorrow or if we are really far thinking for this year and next year.  But God's plans are for our eternity.  The saying goes, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.  If there's any truth to that, it's probably because God is amused at how short sighted they are.  We are looking at this week. He's looking at our eternity.  Sometimes God chuckles and says, "O no, dear, that's just going to get in the way."           

To be able to go along with God's plan we must be able to do what Jesus asked the disciple in today's Gospel to do, trust.  Is Jesus and the Father really One and the Same?  If you don't trust that, this whole project falls apart like a house of cards.  Can Jesus do for us all the he says he can?  Well that one's a bit more tricky.  If we mean, will he give us everything we ever wanted in life and chocolate ice cream on Sunday.  No, that's not what he promises.  He never promised to be our cosmic Santa Claus.  He did promise to be with us always and that we would have new and eternal life through him.  Of course, that life is the life of God himself.  That means we will slowly begin to think and feel and reason like God.  If we reject that transformation happening, we are stuck with the old life and we are blocking the one set of changes that can really do us a literal world of good, an other world of good.  That set of changes is all part of God's plan.        

Change is coming.  It's already upon us.  Jesus reassures us that it's okay and that it's all part of God's plan.  He says "don't let your hearts be troubled," because that's exactly what's happening.  We don't like change.  And even if we can see where the eventual end is for the society, we don't know where we personally will be at the end of it.  That's scary.  We are very troubled.  The uncertainty we face today is very similar to the uncertainty the disciples faced in today's Gospel.  In today's Gospel we are reminded of the ultimate reassurance Jesus provides every disciple.  "Even should it come to death, there is a place prepared for you in my Father's house and I will come and take you to it, so that were I am, you also may be.  Getting there is simple, just follow me.  I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."  And what happens in the mean time, between now and when we take up residence in the Father's house?  We will do mighty deeds and perform wonders in his name because we believe.  Now, Chocolate ice cream on Sunday is good, but it's not that good.  Not even close.   Of course, the key here is to keep following Him and not get turned aside.  We mustn't let our fears waylay us into something that's destructive of our self or of others.  If you're tempted you must pray for the courage and/or the strength to not let yourself go down those paths.  When frustrated by life, tired or angry or in some other way tempted to just toss it all aside, we must remember the Lord and all he has meant to us and done for us and pray for the strength to not abandon him today, right now.  And when tempted to put something else in His place; my life, my children or grandchildren, my career or  business, my passion or hobby, we should ask ourselves have any of these prepared a place in their father's house for me that I may live for all eternity?  They may all be good things, but none of them are the God who saves you.       

Yes, we are experiencing a great amount of change.  We might even call it upheaval.  But change is part of God's plan, stressful though it is.  He doesn't expect us to tough it out alone.  He will help us and send people to help us.  As turbulent as it is, God knows where it is all heading. He has a plan and it is a plan for our ultimate good.  Really?  How do we know that?  "(Because) God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."  (John 3:16-17)  God's plan is for our ultimate good, for your ultimate good, because He loves you.

- Fr. Paul Gebhardt