Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter

During the night Paul had a vision.

A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words,
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The call from Macedonia, delivered by way of a dream, signifies the world’s eagerness to hear the word of God. Macedonia is in Greece, that is, Europe. So far in Luke’s writing the gospel has spread only in Asia and, by way of Simon of Cyrene and the Ethiopian eunuch, to Africa.  Jesus told his disciples to announce the kingdom to all nations, even to the ends of the earth. Paul’s crossing the Hellespont on his way to Macedonia is a big step in that direction.

But the world has a singularly mixed response to the gospel, as Jesus prophesies in today’s reading from Saint John:

If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
and I have chosen you out of the world,
the world hates you.

That mixed response begins in the world’s ambivalence about itself. I am reminded of the time I had an enormous splinter under my fingernail. It hurt like the dickens and I wanted Mom to get it out. But when she took hold of my ring finger and went at it with needle and tweezers, I begged her to let go. “I’ll live it with it!” I said. Of course she didn’t let go and finally succeeded in yanking the slab of wood along with a pound of flesh and a quart of blood from my finger. The world wants salvation but is afraid of the pain that entails.

Jesus has taken upon himself most of the pain, but left some for us. Losing that splinter hurt but the pain subsided immediately.

The world knows it has a deep investment in violence, poverty, illiteracy, disease and death. The world knows these are evil institutions but it fears losing the few gains it has made. Some will say, “At least not everyone is poor, sick, illiterate or insecure. I got mine!” 

Inevitably the world will create rationalizations for the abyss between rich and poor, safe and unsafe. Theologians will point to the doctrine of double election: some are born to be saved and others are born condemned. Economists can argue there’s not enough to go around. Politicians must represent their constituency.

But the world is still calling to us, in the night, in our dreams, “Come to Macedonia and help us.” And we still follow in the wake of Saint Paul:

When he had seen the vision,
we sought passage to Macedonia at once,
concluding that God had called us to proclaim the Good News to them.