Friday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel

Commentary on John 15:12-17

Jesus, speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper, continues to talk about the centrality of love. He expresses it in a central commandment—and perhaps surprisingly to some—this commandment is not to love God, or to love Jesus, but to love one another. God does not need to be mentioned because that love is only possible when God is acting in and through us.

That is the touchstone of the genuineness of our love for God. And the measure of that love is that of Jesus for us. If that is not clear enough, he spells it out:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

That may mean dying for others, but it can also mean living for others; in either case, our primary concern is for the needs of the brother or sister. And this is the only path to demonstrate that we love God and that God’s love is in us.

Jesus shows that love by his own death for his friends. And who are his friends?

You are my friends if you do what I command you.

And what he commands is that we love each other to the same degree that he loves us.

Earlier, after washing their feet, Jesus told his disciples that he was their Lord and Master, but now he also calls them his friends and not servants. Jesus is our Lord, but he is also our Brother and our Friend. Because of that he has shared with us all he has received from his Father. Obviously, it is for us to share all we know about Jesus with others too.

Finally, he reminds them that they are his followers, because he has chosen them—they have not chosen him. We do not confer any favour on Jesus by following him. We are only answering a call that has already come from him. And the response to that call is to “bear fruit”, lasting fruit. Our lives must be productive in love, in caring, in justice, in compassion and in building up the world of the Kingdom. And we need have no fear. God is with us and everything we need will be given to us to become fruitful. Finally, once again, he repeats the core commandment:

I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

We need to ask ourselves, how much of all this is descriptive of our own lives?

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Friday of Week 5 of Easter – First Reading

Commentary on Acts 15:22-31

Having decided that circumcision should no longer be imposed on non-Jewish converts, the community leaders together with the whole church gathered in Jerusalem to promulgate their decision to the wider Church. They sent a delegation to Antioch in Syria, which was effectively the centre of the Greek-speaking Christians (both Jews and Gentiles). Wisely, the delegation included representatives from the Jerusalem community.

Among those from Jerusalem two leaders are mentioned: Judas, also called Barsabbas, and Silas. It is not clear who Barsabbas is, but in the first chapter of Acts we are told that a Joseph Barsabbas was one of the two candidates chosen to replace Judas Iscariot. But as we know, “the lot fell on Matthias”. Silas became a missionary companion of Paul and we will meet him on the Second Missionary Journey. Silas is the same person known as Silvanus in some of the Pauline letters. At this time, he was a leader in the Jerusalem Church and called a ‘prophet’ (Acts 15:32) and, like Paul, was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37).

But with them went Paul and Barnabas, who represented the outer limits of the Church, and who had raised the issue in the first place. Apparently there was unanimous agreement with both the choice of messengers and the contents of the letter which they carried.

The letter comes from the “apostles and the elders [Greek, presbyteroi]….leaders among the brothers” in Jerusalem and is addressed to the “the brothers and sisters of gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia”. Antioch was the leading city of the combined and adjoining provinces of Syria and Cilicia. It is significant that the Jerusalem leaders call themselves “brothers” of the gentile converts, thus identifying all as belonging to the same family.

They speak apologetically of the Jewish Christians who had, apparently on their own initiative, gone to Antioch to complain about the non-circumcision of gentile converts. That is why they are sending a delegation from Jerusalem together with Paul and Barnabas, who have their full endorsement. They are men who:

…have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

They then make a significant statement:

…it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…

Not only are they speaking unanimously in their own name, but they know they have the full endorsement of the Holy Spirit in their decision. They then list the four exceptions mentioned yesterday (Thursday of Week 5 of Easter)—Jewish practices which were still binding on all.

We should note the interesting process that is being described during the past three days’ readings. The Spirit is with the whole Church and communicates its faith with the centre. The centre then discerns and recognises where the Spirit is working and issues an authoritative statement giving confirmation under the guidance of that Spirit.

The Church still works this way. The Pope is not the one who tells the Church what to believe; he tells the Church what it believes after listening to the faith of the whole Church. This listening process on the part of Rome is crucial for the growth and development of the Church in so many different areas with very different needs and aspirations.

There is another element in today’s reading which at first sight seems to be contradictory. Having ruled out the obligation to be circumcised, they still forbid eating meat sacrificed to idols, and require abstaining from blood, the meat of strangled animals and “sexual immorality”.

Yet this shows the need for a sensitive balance between the feelings of the Gentiles and those of the Jews. Circumcision was a much more sensitive (in every sense!) issue, involving as it did mutilation of the body and in a particularly delicate area, relating to not only the body, but the whole area of sexuality and generation.

The other Jewish traditions which were still being imposed could be lived with without great difficulty. In the course of time they too would fall away. All of these issues concerning inviolable principles and acceptable areas of compromise are just as relevant in our Church today as they were at the beginning.

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