Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Lectionary: 285

When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out in Lycaonian,
"The gods have come down to us in human form...."
...The Apostles Barnabas and Paul tore their garments when they heard this and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, 
"Men, why are you doing this?
We are of the same nature as you, human beings. We proclaim to you good news that you should turn from these idols to the living God,"

The Lycaonian response to Barnabas and Paul, while comical, also describes a serious temptation for Christian missionaries. Regarded as godlike and honored in unseemly fashion, they might be all too willing to accept popular adulation. Pope Francis has called this clericalism, and challenged the Church, both clergy and laity, to renounce that form of idolatry. The horror of clerical abuse occurs in Lycaonian circumstances where priests are given prolonged, unquestioned, and inappropriate access to vulnerable children and adults.

Barnabas and Paul refused that nonsense. First they tore their garments, a typically Jewish response to blasphemy which might have escaped their pagan audience. And then they "rushed out into the crowd," perhaps off the raised dais, to show their human similarity to the people. And finally, they insisted, "We are of the same nature as you!"

Which is to say, "...mortal, frail, and sinful." And then they insisted,

"We proclaim to you good news

that you should turn from these idols to the living God,

who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.

But, Saint Luke tells us, the maddened crowd were not persuaded. They wanted to see, believe in, and worship their familiar gods even if they appeared like ordinary men. They were not eager to hear anything about the God made Man and a Church empowered to heal by the Holy Spirit of God. 

That struggle has never ended, as the ongoing scandal demonstrates. It is a struggle within the greedy, avaricious heart of every Christian who is given a position of authority in the church, from the Pope down to the catechist and Eucharistic minister. We're tempted to turn our service to personal advantage. It takes more than ordinary modesty to resist the demands of idolatry. Neither the populace nor the missionary wants to renounce the old, customary ways. 

What's more, the minister's temptation is to think they have something which the unenlightened lack. They might say, "We know the gospel, and you don't." Barnabas and Paul resist that temptation when they frantically argue,

In past generations he allowed all Gentiles to go their own ways;

yet, in bestowing his goodness,

he did not leave himself without witness,

for he gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons,

and filled you with nourishment and gladness for your hearts."

They are saying, "You know something of the gospel already: you can see that there is one God who created the world with its fruitful seasons. That is the God who sent his only begotten Son to be the Son of Mary, one like us in all things but sin!" 

Some Protestant sects fall into a trap when they insist there is no natural knowledge or revelation of God. They insists that the fidelity of non-Christians to their spouses and children, and their love of neighbor count for nothing. That sectarian form of salvation is available only to those who wholeheartedly accept the Gospel. Even if these people are put off or scandalized by unscrupulous, predatory missionaries, they must still accept the Gospel for without it they're doomed like all their ancestors.

That narrow definition of grace is as dangerous as clericalism. It opens only a narrow door to salvation and closes it too readily.    

God's mercy opens doors through our human nature by the Incarnation of God's Son. The Father honors the natural reverence we show to the despised, the helpless, and the foolish. Jesus announces, "The Kingdom of God is here" wherever husbands and wives keep their vows and raise their children in peace. As Moses said, "It is not high as the sky or as deep as the ocean." It is right there in front of you, in the incoherent priest, the bumbling catechist, and the blue-jeaned Eucharistic minister.