The Year of St. Paul began on June 28, 2008 and it seems right to make note of it before it recedes in the revelries of summer, beginning with Fourth of July celebrations tomorrow. Prior to St. Paul's conversion, he persecuted the Church and "was trying to destroy it" (Gal. 1:13). Paul recognized that his former sin marked him, calling himself "the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9). But Paul also knew why he was an apostle, a saint in the Church of God: "by the grace of God, I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:9). Sometimes, I think, the burdens of past sins keep us from the sainthood to which we are called.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it is told, know something about sin. It is not mine to judge, since I have never met them and they never return calls, but we all know something about sin, and we can find our own woundedness so great it seems impossible to rise above it. In a Rolling Stones' song, "Saint of Me", Jagger and Richards plumb the sins of a couple of saints, and their subsequent conversions, including that of Saint Paul:

"Saint Paul the persecutor was a cruel and sinful man Jesus hit him with a blinding light And then his life began I said yeah I said yeah."

In this verse they reference Paul's sinful past as a persecutor of Christians before his Damascus Road conversion, but in later choruses and verses boastfully, or perhaps humanly, state that they themselves are not on the same road as Paul:

"I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah You'll never make a saint of me Oh yeah, oh yeah You'll never make a saint of me."

Why? The threat of suffering and martyrdom seems to be one of the reasons:

"And could you stand the torture And could you stand the pain could you put your faith in Jesus When you're burning in the flames?"

The reality of martyrdom, of the suffering that St. Paul proudly states marks him as a follower of Jesus, can frighten those who fervently want to be saved:

"And I do believe in miracles and I want to save my soul and I know that I'm a sinner I'm gonna die here in the cold I said yes, I said yeah."

"Saint of Me" brings to bear a powerful force in human life: the sense of Augustine's "I want to be healed, but not yet". Anyone who reads St. Paul's story, scattered throughout his letters, sees a frail human being transformed by Jesus Christ into one able to persevere and accept all things that afflict him due to the power of his encounter with Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Jagger and Richards give us a sense of the human being faced with giving oneself over to the power of Jesus Christ, but drawing back from the possibility either due to fear or the sense that one's sinfulness is too deep to be healed. There is, indeed, a fear that to be a saint is possible, but it means giving up too much and, perhaps even more, accepting too much. As we enter the year of St. Paul, let us remember the model of the one who gave himself fully to Jesus Christ and who did not let his manifest sinfulness stand in the way of saying, "make a saint of me." In fact the term that Paul uses more than any other in his letters to describe his fellow Christians is the Greek hagioi, "holy ones," or saints. You'll never make a saint of me? Paul argues that this is our very call and it is to this that we need to answer "yes, I said yeah."

John W. Martens

God's compassion and love, even pity, for human beings is on display in all of the readings for the eleventh Sunday in ordinary time. Yet some readers might perceive a glitch in the program of universal love. Exodus speaks of the Israelites as "my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation" (Exodus 19: 5-6). Jesus himself, in the sending out of the Twelve, also asks that his apostles "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 10:5-6). Why this limitation on salvation? We might ask this especially in light of the fact that the Church did indeed go to the Gentiles and Samaritans, rapidly and often, soon after Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. We might also point out that Jesus himself had encounters with Gentiles and Samaritans that acknowledged both their need for salvation and their ability to receive it (Mark 7:24-30; John 4:1-42). This is one of the innumerable passages in Jesus' ministry where understanding Jesus as a Jew and understanding the Old Testament context are essential. In the early 8th century B.C. the Assyrians scattered and exiled the northern kingdom of Israel, consisting of 10 or 9 ½ tribes. (The Levites, the priestly tribe, did not have a bequest of land and so they, in truncated form, remained along with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin after the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom, so, 2 ½ tribes remained in the southern kingdom.) Yet, when the Jews imagined God's salvation of the Land and the People, they imagined a restoration of all the tribes. A key motif of the Post-Exilic prophets is that when God acts to save, to make all things new, the tribes will be gathered in. This ingathering is found in a number of prophetic books, such as Isaiah 56:8, Micah 4:6-7, Zephaniah 3:16-20, and Zechariah 10:8-12. The Zechariah passage is especially powerful:

I will signal for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as numerous as they were before. Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and they shall rear their children and return. I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria; I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, until there is no room for them. They shall pass through the sea of distress, and the waves of the sea shall be struck down, and all the depths of the Nile dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. I will make them strong in the Lord, and they shall walk in his name, says the Lord

The choosing of the Twelve by Jesus is symbolic of the reality that God is acting now and that the tribes are now being gathered in, indeed, that the eschatological time of salvation is at hand. "There was never a saviour apart from a saved Israel, nor would there be a Messiah apart from a messianic Israel...Israel, in short, understood salvation in ecclesial terms. Where the salvation of the nations was promised or announced, this was conceived as assimilation to saved Israel" (Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus, 134). So, when Jesus asks that the Twelve go nowhere amongst Gentiles or Samaritans, but "go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," he is not omitting the Gentiles and Samaritans, but setting in motion the conditions that will allow all people to come into the covenant, which will allow the world mission to take place. The Jews first and then the Gentiles. The prophets speak of this universal call as well. Isaiah 56:6-8 notes that all people will ultimately be welcomed to participate in the salvation of God:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant-- these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.

Jesus' call that his apostles go nowhere amongst the Gentiles and Samaritans is not an attempt to limit salvation, but the necessary prerequisite that will allow all peoples to be welcomed into the covenant: "As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near'" (Matthew 10:7). That kingdom is for all people.

John W. Martens

To spend any time with Jesus' teachings is to be amazed by the depth of the simplicity. I have sometimes asked students in class to write parables, in order to see how difficult it is to tell a simple story that has power, meaning, force and a moral that does not seem sappy, contrived or sentimental. I join them in the exercise. Never once have we managed to come up with a parable that comes near to matching the power of Jesus' teaching. That is to be expected, I know, but sometimes Jesus' teachings, whether from having heard them so many times or having thought we understand them in full already, are not allowed their full measure of careful brilliance, even in simple statements. For me, a teaching that fits into this category is "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners" (Matthew 9:13).

I think I understand that, especially in light of Jesus' teaching just prior that it is the sick who need a physician, not the well (Matthew 9:12). Jesus is coming in aid of those who have the need, to heal those who are sick, and so the good physician must be with those who are ailing, regardless of their social and religious standing (see Father Leonard's and Father Kilgallen's posts below for excellent analyses of what it meant to be a "sinner" in Jesus' day). Yet, I always wonder if Jesus in this simple statement is getting at more, asking us to open our eyes to who we are and to what sin is.

It is easy to classify "sinners," but how does it feel to be the one classified as "sinner," comprising the major component of one's identity? "This is my friend Bob the farmer, my friend Bill the merchant, and my friend John, the sinner." But so they are classified in Matthew 9:10-11. Jesus seems to accept the classification, but I think there is something deeper going on in this passage.

Ultimately, we are all sinners, and Jesus accepts us for who we are and sees beyond that classification in each of us to call us all to be healed. The question is whether we are willing to put ourselves in the class of sinners in order to allow ourselves to be healed. When Jesus says, "I did not come to call the righteous but sinners," do we hear the call? I do not suggest that the Pharisees of Jesus' day did not have a measure of righteousness which exceeded that of those called sinners, but it might be that very righteousness, both for the Pharisees in Jesus' day and for us today, that blinds us to our own faults and does not allow us to see that we, too, are in need of the physician. When we can accept who we are, then we can join Jesus at the table with the rest of the sinners.

John W. Martens

I am so happy that Fathers Leonard and Kilgallen have blogged recently on Ordinary time and especially its connection in the Northern hemisphere to the coming of Spring and Summer and the blossoming of plant life of all sorts. I have been looking for a scriptural and liturgical entrée into the world of vegetation for a while. Rising food costs and high gasoline prices, which are also linked to the rise in the cost of food due to the fact that so many foods are shipped from a long distance away, ought to encourage us to go green this summer. For many years I have grown vegetables in a small backyard plot or in a community garden. Aside from the great joy that new growth brings, watching seeds sprout and mature, there is the benefit of eating vegetables freshly picked and grown without preservatives. There is also a taste benefit, and not only with the obvious suspects, like tomatoes, but with homegrown carrots, beans and peppers. There is a cost benefit as well, as it is amazing how much a small plot of land can produce. Even from a small garden such as ours, we eat beans we have frozen, raspberries we have made into jam, herbs we have dried, and tomatoes which we have canned all through the winter. The benefit, however, extends not just to individuals or a family, but to the earth. Every vegetable we grow and eat in our backyard or neighborhood is one that does not have to be shipped from far away. It does not take a lot of space to do it, and even apartment dwellers can grow in containers, and the skill is something that can be learned from talking to experts or by trial and error.

Gardening is truly Ordinary time, certainly for much of the world which still depends upon what they themselves can grow, as it was in Jesus' time when the vast majority of people were engaged in agriculture. And this is the final benefit, I think, of digging in the ground and watching the plants grow and sometimes wither: Jesus' numerous parables with agricultural themes. Parables such as the Sower and the Seeds (Mark 4:3-8), the Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30-32), and all Jesus' teachings dealing with harvest time take on new resonance after time in the garden. This is the liturgical gift of the garden: lectionary readings will spring to life all throughout the year.

John W. Martens

The Apostle Paul packs a mighty punch in his letters, even when delivered in small doses; this Sunday's Second Reading, Romans 3:21-25, 28, is a short passage that delivers great power. It can be difficult today to understand the challenge of the theological issues buffeting the early Church, especially as related to the place of Christ in salvation history and the role of the Mosaic Law. It was not obvious to the earliest Christians that the Mosaic Law was redundant or obsolete, and, in fact, the Law of God does not simply "cease" in its significance or reality for Christians (see Rom. 10:4; cf. Matt. 5:17-20). Yet, Paul is quite clear that the Mosaic Law as practiced for centuries by Jews was no longer relevant in the same way for Christians. How could this be? How could the Law God gave to Moses lose its significance in light of Christ's saving act? The discussion of the role of the Law in Paul's theology has fueled a small industry, so stepping into the debate without taking account of all relevant qualifications leaves one open to charges of misinterpreting Paul's understanding of the Law, Judaism, or later Christian formulations of how the Mosaic Law fits within the context of God's eternal Law. For some scholars the issue is that Paul lacks clarity.

There is clarity, though, in Paul's claim that "the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law" (Rom. 3:21). God has worked in some new way through his Son, Jesus Christ, to allow us to share in God's own righteousness. It is available "through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (Rom. 3:22). A couple of points about the Greek are necessary. The words translated as "faith" and "believe" in v. 22 have the identical root, pist-, which indicates that there is no heart/head distinction going on here: it is the whole person who responds in trust to Christ. The second point is that the words translated as "righteousness" and "justified" also have the same root, dikaio-, and it is necessary to see the connection between God's "righteousness" and the Christian who is "justified." The Christian is justified through a participation in the salvific sacrifice of Christ, who was an "expiation, through faith, by his blood"(Rom. 3:25).

The follower of Jesus, therefore, is "justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Rom. 3:28). Such justification is available to "all," as Paul states, which means that whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, Christ's sacrifice is sufficient to respond to the ubiquity of sin (Rom. 3:23). Certainly this opened Paul up to a number of charges, such as one who destroys or tears down the Law, to one who cares not for behavior and opens the door to an antinomian free-for-all. The freedom that Paul claims Christ calls us to was not, however, an opportunity to give a "whatever" shrug to the Law, but a call to live in the Spirit and to be guided by the Love of God and neighbor, in which the whole Law was fulfilled (see Gal. 5:14). It was to follow the Law in a new and radical way.

I have sympathy, though, for the first generations of Christians, especially those who had grown up in Torah-observant homes. The radical change that took place with the formation of the Church threw many certainties into the category of uncertainty. The solid, unchanging core was the reality of Christ's sacrifice and the reality of Christ himself. The Church depended upon it then and must depend on it now, as every age throws up its own uncertainties. But, "the mystery of the Church's participation in Christ is a literally inexhaustible resource for radical and fruitful change in its institutional life. If the aspirations and deep needs of the world for whose salvation the Church exists are a challenge, its radical capacity to respond to this challenge incomparably surpasses the capacities of any simply human agency or institution" (Ben F. Meyer, S.J., "The Perennial Problem of the Church: Institutional Change," 122). Paul's teachings were a challenge to the first Christians, and to us I think, to rely fully on Christ for our righteousness and to respond to it with ever growing faith.

John W. Martens

Donna Carr responded to my post on The Trinity with a set of questions, which I have altered only to form more distinct queries. She states,

"the homily after Holy Trinity Sunday Gospel did not clarify for me the following: 1.If a person knows that the man called JESUS walked this earth but they do not believe Him to be God incarnate, will God not accept them into His kingdom even if their works on earth were filled with love and compassion, etc.? 2. What happens to ''non-believers''? 3. What happens to children yet to mature? 4. What happens to people of non-Catholic/Christian faith? 5. What happens to people where missionaries have yet to go? 6. Are ''believers'' guaranteed a place in heaven just because they believe that ''God sent His only Son.....''?"

I cannot, of course, respond directly to the homily to which Donna refers, as I did not hear it, but I think it must have been based on the last portion of the Gospel reading, John 3:16-18:

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

This question - are only Christians saved? Or, for some, are only Catholics saved? - has been at the heart of my personal journey to theology. As I said in response to Donna's post in the Comments section, though I do not know if my response has been posted yet, for me it is in many ways "the question". It has been a question of mine for so many years, since I was a teenager growing up in Vancouver, B.C.. The question was brought back to me even prior to Donna's post because I returned to Vancouver for my 30th High School Reunion this past weekend. Vancouver and its suburbs have always had large populations from India, China, and Japan, but they are even larger now. One of my best friends in High School, and still a good friend, is a Sikh. My next door neighbors were Japanese and participated in rituals that I would describe in retrospect as a combination of Shinto and Buddhist. I can recall when their grandfather died, a small shrine was set up, with his picture surrounded by burning incense. My good friend down the street was Hindu and I remember vividly the poster of the elephant god Ganesh on the wall of their entrance. There was every variety of religion and culture on display, including Islam, Judaism and all sorts of Christianities. What I noticed this weekend when informing long lost friends what I did was that not many claimed any sort of formal religious allegiance. The question that started me on my path to theology could also be stated negatively, as I asked myself many years ago: are all my friends who are Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and anything, or nothing, else you might name going to Hell? I found this hard to fathom. I still do. So, this is my response.

I believe that Jesus is Lord, the Second person of the Trinity, True God and True Man, and if this is true then he is Lord of all humanity, regardless of who accepts this or not. From there, it gets complicated for me. What of those who have had an encounter with the Gospel, but have rejected it? As the Gospel of John states, "but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." It gets complicated because there are those who have had only a fleeting encounter with Christ or the Gospel, or who have been abused by someone in the Church, or condemned cruelly by those who claim to be Christians, and so turned away from Christ and the Church. How can they be condemned when they have, on at least some occasions, lived far better lives than Christians? The CCC says that "baptism is necessary for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament" (1257). It can be difficult to define, however, who has received true proclamation and whether all those who have heard of Christianity have had the ability "of asking for this sacrament." Baptism is the only means, though, which the Church knows that "assures entry into eternal beatitude" (CCC, 1257), but even those who are baptized can turn away from God's gift of life, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant Christians.

Note, however, that the CCC states that "the Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude" (1257). This, to me, indicates that God indeed knows of numerous means and is not limited: God pours out mercy and forgiveness on whomever He wills. The CCC also states that "every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved" (1260). Those who have not had the Gospel preached to them, who have not known of Christianity, are not beyond salvation, as the Apostle Paul indicates in Romans 1:19-20 and 2:14-16.

As to children, the CCC says that they are entrusted to the mercy of God and that Jesus' beautiful openness to children allows "us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism" (1261). The Church used to speak of a limbo for children, where they went for eternity, but did not receive the beatific vision; you might notice that discussions of limbo, which always represented theological opinion, not doctrine, are noticeably absent from recent Church teachings.

Where does this put us? I am an optimist at heart, though perhaps not in the manner of Origen, who believed that all ultimately would be saved. I do not know that, but I do believe in God's abundant goodness and limitless love for humanity. I hope for the best for all those I know and love, for all humanity, and feel that my best witness is to be a Christian of substance. I know of many people who have turned from a potential meeting with Christ due to sins of the Church or of individual Christians. Given my own abundant sins, how many people have turned away from the Church because of me? I will never limit God's mercy for humanity, though, and pray that all might be saved, including myself.

This is the best I can do with what for me is the most difficult of questions. Who else wants to join the discussion?

John W. Martens

Two things are immediately brought to mind by the Gospel reading for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, John 3:16-18. One is the ubiquity of John 3:16 amongst evangelical Christians, a key verse in "the Four Spiritual Laws (see Law 1 at http://www.godlovestheworld.com/). I grew up with this verse as perhaps the most significant verse in the Bible. Some of you might remember the rainbow haired man who held up "John 3:16" at sporting events, and who now sadly spends his life in a California prison. The ubiquity of this verse should not allow us to drain it of its power or beauty, or take its message for granted. The second thing that I recall is my childhood wonder that Jesus was God, or was it, is Jesus God? Or was the question, how can Jesus be God? I recall a great deal of confusion as I puzzled over this great mystery: was Jesus a man or God? Was God Jesus as well? Or was Jesus God? (I admit right now that I must have relegated the Holy Spirit to a position off to the side or on the bench, as I do not recall puzzling to the same degree over the person of the Holy Spirit.)

As I began to study early Christianity formally I began to note that there was no easy answer or easy explanation to the relation of the three persons of the Trinity. I read the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils at Nicea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon. I found them all compelling, but it seemed that what they were describing was beyond words. It was a mystery and one that had been studied, examined and explained by numerous great minds in the Church, but always with the sense that there was something that could not be explained or grasped this side of heaven. Love seemed to get to the heart of it, but even more to the heart of the matter is Paul's benediction from 2 Corinthians: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you" (13:13). I am not certain how to explain the relationship amongst the Trinity, but what needs to be explained when you experience the grace, love and fellowship? Paul was not operating with any formal definition of the Trinity when he wrote those words, centuries prior to the Ecumenical Councils. He was operating with a lived experience of the Trinity that defied description or confusion, that imposed itself through the very reality of grace, love, and fellowship on his heart and mind. This is how I understand the Trinity.

John W. Martens

The Feast of Matthias, Apostle falls on May 14. How are you celebrating this year? Matthias, according to Luke in Acts of the Apostles 1:15-26, was chosen to fill the place abandoned by Judas. And that is the first and last we hear of Matthias in the New Testament. The passage is intriguing at many levels. It is clear, for instance, that Pentecost would not take place until the 11 apostles were restored to 12, for the 12 are symbolic of the restored Israel, essential to Jesus' prophetic scenario of the future. Peter himself notes biblical passages that speak of the need to fill Judas' place in the ministry (Acts 1:20 cites Ps. 69:25 and 109:8). So, the scene of Matthias being chosen is essential for the development of the plot, but the character, we might say, is not developed.

Matthias is also chosen by lot, though we do not know for certain how the lots were cast. It might seem like a strange way to perceive God's way - luck be a lady tonight? - but it does have a pedigree in the history of Judaism, especially amongst Priests and Kings (see 1 Sam. 14:36-42; Num. 27:21; and Deut. 33:8), and it was seen as a discernment of God's way, not gambling or luck.

It does make me reflect, however, on Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus. How did it feel to be that close to being an apostle? Did he regale his friends and family with stories of how he was almost an apostle? Did he resent not being chosen? Or did he simply accept this as God's sovereign choice? Both he and Matthias were chosen from amongst those "who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us" (Acts 1:21-22). Even before the casting of lots, therefore, they were already chosen from a larger group (Acts 1:23) and Luke tells us this group is about 120 persons (Acts 1:15), though whether they all met the criteria is hard to say. It reminds us, though, that the apostles were only a small number amongst the faithful, those faithful who might not have had formal roles, who might not have been chosen for heroic or historical parts, but who carried out the task of becoming witnesses "to his resurrection" (Acts 1:22), just as the apostles did. Not many of us are chosen for world-historical roles, not then and not now, but God knows that we each have roles to play, for which we alone have been chosen, whether to be the one who was almost an apostle or to be the last apostle amongst the 12, about whom nobody knows. The prize we await is not fame, wealth or earthly glory, but a heavenly destiny, so Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus is not an ancient prototype of Pete Best, a model of what might have been. It's not what we might have been, but what we are called to be, who we indeed are. So, three cheers for Matthias, and Justus, and all those who labor in God's vineyard, anonymously and quietly.

John W. Martens

Many years ago now, when I was a teenager, I went to visit a girl I knew in Texas over Thanksgiving. She had a brother at Oral Roberts University, so we took the bus from Lubbock, Texas to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit him and the campus. I did not know much about Oral Roberts, but I was sweet on the girl. At some point in the weekend, there was a gathering of all the visiting high school students and Oral Roberts came to address us. He asked how many of us spoke in tongues. A great number of students put up their hands. They were asked to leave the auditorium. Then he asked how many wanted to speak in tongues. Another large number of students put up their hands. When they, too, left the auditorium, I looked around and realized that apart from myself there were only a handful of other visiting students left, and not particularly viewed as the righteous remnant. I did not want to speak in tongues; it scared me. Then Oral Roberts spoke to us in tongues, which left me spiritually unmoved but nervous.

So the first reading is a challenge to me: "When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim" (Acts 2:1-4). Why did I not want the Holy Spirit? Of what was I scared? Some people, Pentecostals especially, but other charismatic Christians too, place a surprising amount of emphasis on glossolalia as a sign of the Spirit. There is no question that Luke sees the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as a gift to the Church and a sign of its unity. People from all around the ancient world respond to hearing their own languages and it is a sign also that the Gospel will soon spread to these far-flung regions. Paul, also, spoke of glossolalia, especially in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and he, too, sees it as a sign of the Spirit. There is no question the phenomenon existed amongst the early Christians and that it was a mark of Christian worship, unity, and love.

Yet, Paul also warns of tongues, and their misuse, in 1 Corinthians 14: 6-25, especially of their potential to be a moving spiritual experience that does not aid the community as a whole. But Paul never warns of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in general. Those who can say "Jesus is Lord" have the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). Paul speaks of the many gifts, workings, and forms of service that come through the Holy Spirit. "There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit" (1 Cor.12:4-7). There are many gifts, but the same Spirit: I have loved this passage ever since I can remember hearing it. Whatever our gifts, "we were all given to drink of one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13). Maybe my fear of speaking in tongues is explicable at a personal level - it is not my gift - but if I fear the gifts God has given of me, or my brothers and sisters fear those given to them, we are in danger. Our gifts are for the benefit of the whole Church, whatever they may be, and since the Holy Spirit is with us, we need to be bold enough to share them with others. And to those who say they have no gifts to share, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13 that the greatest gift is love.

John W. Martens

There is a line from the end of 1 Peter 3:18, a part of the second reading of the Sixth Sunday of Easter, which bothered me as I was preparing to write for this blog last week. So, I decided not to write last week so that I could look at this line in the context of the readings for the Ascension of the Lord, May 1, 2008. The last part of v.18, which has hymnic qualities in the Greek, reports that Jesus "was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit." When I reflected on this line, I thought that there was an element of the body-soul split, so common in ancient Greek philosophy and so counter to the embodied nature of Jesus himself and Hebrew and Christian thought in general, particularly thought related to the resurrection. Yet, the notes to my New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), assure me that "made alive in the Spirit does not refer to a "part" of Christ that survived death, but that God raised Christ to a new life in the divine realm" (398 New Testament). Likewise, the New Jerome Biblical Commentary ( Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990) states that "this distinction is not that of "body" and "soul" as found in Greek philosophy...The text refers to two spheres of Christ's existence, that of his earthly life and that of his state as risen Lord transformed by the Spirit" (907). The phrasing, however, makes it confusing, at least to me, and I wonder how many others are confused, not just by this line, but by the very real and continuing physicality of Jesus Christ.

The ascension is the celebration of Jesus' enthronement as Lord, but also a sign of his continuing existence in the flesh, albeit the resurrected body. It has also been, in many ways, a marginalized teaching of the Church, perhaps because of its very physicality which can tend to embarrass modern or postmodern sensibilities. Where is the Risen Lord? Luke reports that "as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven" (1:9-11). Ephesians states that God has seated Christ "at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come" (1:20-21). The cosmology reported in these two New Testament writings is so very foreign to us, as Jesus seems to "float" into his home in the sky. On the other hand, the bodily existence of Jesus is real and we cannot simply revert to the body-soul split of the ancient Greeks and even many modern thinkers.

How do we retain the core of our faith, the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord, while embedded in an ancient cosmology which we no longer share? It was Douglas Farrow's book, Ascension and Ecclesia (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999), which made clear to me how significant the doctrine of the ascension was, not only within the New Testament, but to the Church today. While we may reject the ancient cosmologies which describe Jesus flying into the ether, if we reject the particularity of Jesus we lose not only his bodiliness, but our own and are prone to fall into the trap of Gnosticism. The ascension is essential for the Church. Farrow writes, "to take seriously the fact that Christ has ascended to the Father is not to say he is everywhere, or nowhere, or somewhere else, but that he is with us in this twofold way: He is there, in first-century Palestine, and there again, at the parousia. Because he is with the Father, he is before us and after us; only so is he with us. He is with us precisely as a question put to our very existence, so that we too must decide with Pilate – and under essentially the same circumstances – 'What shall I do with Jesus, who is called the Christ?'" (Ascension and Ecclesia, 225). And in the Church we answer that we recognize Jesus, and meet him now, present in the Eucharist, as we await his return in glory.

John W. Martens

For the fifth Sunday of Easter, the first reading continues with the Acts of the Apostles and the passage chosen raises a number of historical questions. Luke again makes the point that "the number of disciples continued to grow (6:1)," which directs us not only to the acceptance of the message in general, but the growth of the Church in Judea and Jerusalem specifically. Much of Acts will be taken up, especially beginning with Chapter 10, describing the success of the Gentile mission, but one of the reasons Luke might focus on the growth of the Church at these early stages is to make clear that Jews themselves were willing hearers of the Gospel. Remember, Luke has spoken earlier of "about three thousand (2:41)," or "about five thousand (4:4)" responding to the message. Is it on Luke's mind to make certain that Gentile readers know that the Gospel message was not rejected where it was born? Are there questions amongst Gentiles as to why those whom first received the message seem to have said no to it?

Second, Luke states that "the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution (6:1)." Many scholars have pointed out that Luke presents an idealized picture of the earliest Church, as demonstrated with his picture of the Church holding "all things in common" (2:44). But this notice of the neglect of "Hellenist" widows and the response of the Church to rectify the situation suggests the acceptance by the Apostles of the criticism of inequality in the daily distribution of food. Most scholars accept that "Hellenists" and "Hebrews" refers to the common languages of these two Jewish-Christian groups and gives us an early example of a cultural divide in the early Church. Not an ideal situation, but a real one.

The attempt to heal this breach was to choose from among the disciples "seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task (6:3)." It is not clear that these seven were chosen from amongst the Hellenists alone, but the names of the seven are Greek names. Are they to care for the Hellenist widows alone or for the widows of the whole Church? (see Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles: Sacra Pagina. Volume 5 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992) 110).

Whatever the case, the seven chosen are seen as the first "deacons" according to the tradition of the Church. In 6:1 the widows are said to be neglected in the daily distribution. In Greek, the word diakonia appears, so the phrase could be read as "the daily service". In 6:2 and 6:4, forms of the word diakonia appear again, with the seven said to be devoted to the "service" or "ministry" of the table, that is, the distribution of the food, and the Twelve devoted to the "service" or "ministry" of the Word. The word diakonia (or its verbal form diakoneo) does mean "service" or "ministry," with the sense of "taking care of," so those seven who had hands laid on them have been chosen and appointed for this special task of ministering through caring for the widows.

We only meet two of the seven again, though, Stephen and Philip, and when we do, they are not waiting on tables or distributing food. Stephen is doing great wonders and signs (Acts 6:8) and chapter seven will describe his martyrdom. Philip will be seen proclaiming the Messiah (8:5-13; 26-40) and was said to have had four unmarried daughters who were prophets (21:8-9). That is, the only two "deacons" who are discussed again seem to have broadened the mandate given to them.

What does all this mean? Even in an "ideal" history such as Luke's the reality of life comes shining through. Development is a constant in the life of the Church, as are disagreements and even the neglect of certain parties. It is important to be ready constantly for the movement of the Spirit in the life of the Church because change happens and we need to be open and alert to it in order to be guided in the way of the Spirit, to respond to new situations and to make certain no one is being overlooked.

John W. Martens