Fifth Sunday of Easter: “… their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution …”

Fifth Sunday in Eastertide
2020

Parish of Holy Cross – St. John the Baptist
Midtown Manhattan

“… their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution …”

The Book of Acts – the second volume from the author of the gospel of Luke – traces the advancement of the earliest disciples living in the power of the Spirit breathed out by the Risen Jesus.  Tracking their engagement of a preaching mission and their embrace of a common life, we are afforded a series of capsule descriptions of the community’s experience.  Among them:

• They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.¹
• All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.²
• The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.³
• There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.4 

Meanwhile, our second reading from today’s liturgy recounts a rather different occurrence:

As the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.5

Ouch.  That didn’t take very long, did it?  What on earth happened?  Old habits die hard!

In announcing the kingdom of G-D and gathering disciples, Jesus of Nazareth invited those he called to embrace a fresh set of loyalties – loyalties vastly wider, allegiances more far-flung than anything for which cultural experience could have prepared them.  For Jesus’ contemporaries, kinship patterns determined belonging, identity and community – family, village, town.  Bloodlines and language surpassed all other considerations in understanding to whom one belonged, with whom one was in living relation.  Clear lines defining insider and outsider.

The issue of language in 1^st century Palestine was fraught.  Who spoke Aramaic?  Who spoke Greek?  Aramaic-speakers held their fellow members of the covenant of Moses who spoke Greek in disregard and mistrust.  Their orthodoxy and fidelity were held suspect.  And, if the truth be told, those who spoke Greek tended to be in closer relation with elites living in cities, and also enjoyed significantly better earning opportunities.  Economic envy among imperiled peasants?

If the matter of language was burdened, bloodlines were even more so.  Familial relations determined your economic options, your officially recognized “honor,” your bonds and boundaries.  In such context, this saying of Jesus functioned as dynamite: “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.  Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”6

The kingdom of G-D proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth and already begun in his life, death and resurrection – though not yet complete – is a new creation, a new communion.  Old and narrow loyalties melt away.  New bonds of purpose and possibility bloom.  Crossroads appear.

The scriptural account of economic strain between Hellenists and Hebrews conjures the furies of both bloodlines and language.  Greek-speaking Hellenists.  Aramaic-speaking Hebrews possessed of presumed superior bloodlines.  Squeezed in the middle were the widows – desperate, vulnerable, exposed.  A quarrel at the crossroads for the community of believers.  

The dynamism of the Risen One’s Spirit – trajectory and aim – eclipses the stale divides that threaten true communion.  The danger of relapse into factions born of language, ethnicity and bloodlines threatens not only the earliest believers in Jesus’ Way7 – it is a temptation that skulks the Church in every age.  Communion or Crevice?

Crossroads.

In our extremely perplexing time, remembrance of the early church struggles to live fully into the gospel of Jesus Christ is vital to our own vigilance so that we steer clear of the snares of bias.  As a living communion, our common anthem: In Christ there is no east or west, In him no south or north.  This is the distinctive witness we offer globally and in every local church. 

Communion.

“As their numbers grew…”  The longer the passage of time, the wider the swath of cultures, the more daunting the challenge of the crossroads.  For disciples of Christ, gradual retreat into less expansive relationship remains ever a danger.   Refuge in chauvinism an alluring illusion.  

Crossroads.

This Christian commitment to communion in the grace of G-D poured out in Christ Jesus is our perennial mission.  I would like to suggest that at this exceptionally global moment – in all its intensity, its complexity, its menacing force – our witness is also timely and opportune.  For in this time of imposed sheltering in place, grievances old and new rapidly simmer and flare.

Each day, with this health crisis extending in duration, our social fabric frays.  Sheltering in place is one thing for those with backyards and sprawling homes.  Quite another experience in a cramped apartment in Hell’s Kitchen or a studio apartment in the upper reaches of Chelsea.  

Reports of health care disparities multiply daily.  Brown and black people are dying at rates that far exceed the rest of the population.  In an uncanny parallel to the vulnerable Hellenist widows in the Book of Acts, residents of nursing homes appear helpless before the onslaught of Covid-19.  

How about testing for the virus?  Various quarters report uneven access not least determined by wealth, fame and connections.  So too, access to the financial relief funneled by the government through various banking institutions.  Some connected businesses gamed the system.  Small businesses relying on small banks find themselves, at best, at the end of the line.  Many workers are ineligible to apply.  Need we say more about access for immigrants?  The undocumented?

Here and now, the witness of a community marshalling its resources for the benefit of all, most especially the most vulnerable and forgotten, is needed more than ever.  This time and this place cry out for the witness of a community prepared to confront its inequities and biases, so as to resolve them in favor of true justice.  Now is the time for that kind of community to shine.

Our heritage tells us that by the grace of G-D – not our own doing – we are that community.  Through the power of the Spirit of the Risen One, we are that communion.  That Spirit moved Hellenist and Hebrew followers of Jesus’ Way in 1^st century Palestine to re-forge their relationship in light of justice – divine justice.  That same Spirit moves among us in every age, beckoning us to live more fully into the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ – Light of the World.

Cooped up, hunkered down – we habitually find ourselves harried, restless, jaded.  Perhaps we each can carve out a more refreshing niche amid our arid surroundings.  A place for prayer and for reflection on our shared vocation to be light of the world through the grace of our G-D.  Here is one suggestion:

How about finding some time to go online to read up on and critically study Catholic Social Teaching?   It is our body of shared wisdom around the demands of divine justice – formally begun at the rise of modernity and forged in the consequences of three revolutions:  American, French and Industrial.  An evolving tradition, today it grapples with our own present revolution – the Digital Revolution – providing resources and insight worthy of our time and effort.

A caveat. The very suggestion presumes access to a computer and the internet.  Access – to employment, healthcare, financial relief and so much more – is the justice question of our day.  Just as once the Spirit of Christ claimed access for those neglected 1^st century Hellenist widows.

 

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¹  Acts 2:42
² Acts 2:44-45
³ Acts 4:32
4  Acts 4:34-35
5  Acts 6:1
6  Mark 3:33-34
7  John 14:6. From the gospel passage proclaimed in the Sunday Assembly today: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”