A WORD OR TWO                                                            May 13, 2012                                                                                   
 

                     FROM FATHER ALEX

     In next week’s Gospel for the Seventh Sunday of Easter Jesus speaks of us as not belonging to this world. He also speaks of himself as not belonging to this world. Yet he lived in this world, and we certainly live in this world.

What does Jesus mean when he speaks in this way? The short answer is that Jesus is drawing a distinction between belonging to him and his values in opposition to belong to the secular world and its values, a world which hates us because of what we believe.

 Jesus prays, not that we be taken out of this world that hates us, but that God will protect us from the “evil one” while we are here. Finally, even though we might find this world difficult and unpleasant, Jesus says, as God sent him into this same world, Jesus now sends us into that world. In speaking this way Jesus is talking to us as “his own”, as belonging to him and everything that he represents. Jesus himself lives in “another world” where weakness is strength, and power is weakness. In Jesus’ world, evil will be defeated by mercy, and loving another person is the highest accomplishment we can achieve. 

Consequently, if we are trying to imitate Jesus, then we, too, are already living in another world. Indeed, if we are really believers in Jesus Christ, we are supposed to be living in Christ’s world—and that is the opposite of living in our own little mental cave. As Christians, we believe in a totally different set of values than the world at large.

We live in the midst of people who offer us all kinds of temporary “other worlds” to inhabit. Many false values look attractive, especially to young or immature people because, for a time, any new trend can seem fashionable, exciting, even good. But none of these values endures forever. None of them create lasting legacies of goodness. Only God’s type of loving can do that.

The second reading next week from the First Letter of John tells us how we can create this kind of different world, by choosing a different response to the world. To decide to see everyone around us with the eyes of love will change everything. And when we decide to change our response to the world outsideourselves, then the world insideourselves also starts to change. The challenge for us is to interact in such a way that we see all of life as God does.

                                                        Peace to all.