Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 14, 2023 – Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

So, this kid was in a Sunday School class one morning, and the teacher was teaching about what happened after Adam and Eve bit the apple and God threw them out of the Garden of Paradise and said to them, “Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The kid went home and changed out of Sunday clothes and happened to look under the bed and went running out to Mommy and said, “Mommy, there’s somebody under my bed who is either coming or going.” 

Apparently, Jesus does not know whether He’s coming or going. In last Sunday’s gospel, He said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you.” And there was this big discussion because one of the apostles said, “Well, we don’t know where You’re going. How can we know the way there?” This morning He says, “I will come to you and be with you.” It can’t be both at once, can it? 

What we have here is what happens with the development of faith. At the very beginning, when Jesus rose and ascended into heaven, the disciples thought that the world was going to end in their lifetime. That Jesus was coming right back to take them away. It didn’t happen. One generation died and it still didn’t happen. Then a second generation died, and it still didn’t happen. A third generation was close to dying and it still didn’t happen.

And so, John, the gospel writer, seizes on this task of figuring out what Jesus meant. And he comes to the conclusion that what Jesus meant was two things at once. Yes, eventually there’ll be an end to all things but, in the meantime, Jesus is constantly on the point of coming in your life and mine. And the discovery of the Christians was that Jesus was present in His Word. Jesus was present when they broke the bread of Eucharist together in their homes. Jesus was present in the entire community of believers. And so, John says there are two things going on here at once. You can call it, if you want to, a horizontal and vertical dimension to things. There’s a relationship directly with God. There’s a relationship with other human beings. And we are in that time in the period of history when the vertical dimension is more prominent. 

It’s because of that that we look carefully at the first reading. Notice what the writer of the Book of Acts, St. Luke, says. He says, “Philip went down to the city of Samaria,” which is not really accurate because Luke didn’t know his geography of Jerusalem very well. But there were two major cities in the region of Samaria. One used to actually be called Samaria. The Romans changed its name to Sebaste when they made it a summer escape town, like a second destination. But the most important city in Samaria was Shechem. Shechem was so ancient, by the time the Book of Acts was written, the city of Shechem was at least - at least - fifteen thousand years old. Maybe more. It was on a major trade route that went from the Mediterranean Sea over into western Asia. And almost everybody, at some point in their traveling life, passed through Shechem. But it was only about 30 miles from Jerusalem.

So, what are we talking about in terms of travel? We are talking about here to Liberty. That’s only how far away it was. And when you walked - the way people walked back then - it was a two- maybe a three-day journey. That’s all Philip did. He walked two or three days away from Jerusalem. And he started talking to a polyglot group of people. There were Jews there, on business. There were the native Samaritans, who were Jewish by birth but were considered heretics by good Jews. And there were Pagans. All mixed into the same city. And Philip began to go around talking. And people were enamored of Jesus and wanted more. And Philip baptized them. But notice what happened next. It said they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord. And so, they sent back to Jerusalem for Peter and John to come and lay hands on the people who had been baptized.

Once again, we have a vertical and horizontal dimension. That enthusiasm is essential for faith. If you don’t care, then we are not going to be strong believers. But sometimes enthusiasm is unharnessed. And so, it needs structure. Structure is what the apostles provide. The headquarters. The first people. The one’s who were with Jesus from the beginning. And so, we see here also the beginning of a vertical dimension. There is structure to the faith, as well as enthusiasm and joy and meditation. Both those things go together. One can’t really survive without the other. Enthusiasm without structure is like boneless chuck. And structure without enthusiasm is like a dead letter. And so, the Book of Acts is telling us a story that John, the gospel writer, had lived through. How the faith grows and how it changes as it grows.

But look at what Jesus said in the gospel. He said, “The one who has my commandments and keeps them - and keeps them - is the one who loves me.” In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus said that the whole Torah is reducible to only two commandments. Love God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. And, as a matter of fact, the one is equal to the other. And St. John wrote in one of his letters, “You can’t love God, whom you don’t see, if you don’t love your neighbor, whom you do see. So, in order to love God, we have to love one another. We can’t really attach ourselves to God. We attach ourselves to one another because God loves that other person just as God loves me. 

Right now, according to the latest statistics, there are - hang on to your hats - two and a half billion, two and a half billion Christians in the world. And, although only 30% of them - which is about 750 million - go to church on a regular basis. Because, after all, only Catholics and Orthodox Christians are required by the Church to attend Mass every Sunday. Other Christians are expected to attend Mass frequently, but it’s not a sin for them to miss a single Sunday. Only about 30% of those Christians attend service every Sunday. That’s 750 million. But at least 60% of those two and a half billion - which is 1.9 billion - take their faith seriously. Which is to say they have Christ’s commandments and try to keep them.

In the second reading, St. Peter said something very interesting about having the commandments and keeping them. He said, “Be ready to explain your hope” (which is the same as enthusiasm). “Be ready to explain your enthusiasm to people who don’t believe. But do it with kindness and gentleness.” Right now, in this country, we are a country divided. And the ways in which we express our divisions can become very ugly. Howling mobs, ugly slogans, waved fists, drawn guns. And a lot of that division is based on the way in which our religion or our spirituality sees a certain issue. But we’re not called upon to be ugly and venomous. We’re called upon to be gentle and patient and kind in the way we express our positions. If we can’t do it that way, then we’re better off, and our Churches are better off, to keep their mouths shut. 

Just like Jesus, Christians and we Catholics need to know whether we’re coming or going.