Refuse to be Sad, Be Hopeful about your Salvation, since God is the Arbiter of Salvation
Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1 John 4:11-16; John 15:9-17
A major preoccupation of our generation is the refusal to accept uncertainty. We live in an era of precise science, where the margins of errors are seriously blurred, accuracy is the watch-word and certainty the capstone of science. In a lot of instances, medical science can guess, with relative accuracy, the day and time of conception and delivery of a baby, the day of death, in terminally ill cancer patients, and astrophysics can predict the day and time for the appearances of galactic bodies, and a host of other possibilities. If certainty is the hallmark of our time, guaranteed by science, our God is greater than science and he alone provides the certainty of which science cannot supply, the certainty of salvation! Today, the certainty of human salvation is guaranteed by God, this is the good news proposed by our readings for reflection.
Few weeks ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that North Korea’s president will be canvassing for peace, and spreading the good news of love around his neighborhood; yet, that is what is happening. Few years ago, it would have been impossible to think that Saudi Arabia would accept to talk about allowing churches to be built in their country; but that is the good news we now witness to. These happenings call to mind the saying, “never say never”. This wind of positive changes is blowing in our readings of today also, especially for those of us who feel rejected by God because things are not the way they should be. Today, God topples barriers of segregation and erects column of unity, love and happiness, as proofs to us that he can reshape and rebrand our lives and situations. The language of this Sunday is the universal acceptance of every human being, especially those the world considers outside of God’s love and compassion. The new kind of love proposed to us scales every boundary, levels out every obstacle and reconciles every hatred.
If human disunity is often the factor that eliminates happiness from human societies, love replaces disunity and brings unity to the fore. If wars have been fought under the pretexts of linguistic differences, Franco-Prussian war; on the grounds of a superior race, holocaust; from the angle of superior weaponry, Japanese war; for the sake of profit, Iraq and opium wars; the solution is the power of love. If tribalism, religious bigotry, gender segregation, income inequality, racial differences and mineral deposits all serve as causes of wars, injustices, discriminations and genocides in the world, what remains certain is the certainty of salvation procured from the power of love, God’s love for humanity!
Our first reading today directs humanity to a different source of unity and happiness, beyond what meets the eyes – “God has no favorites”! Jewish religious bigotry and theistic exclusivism are toppled with the experience of Peter in Cornelius’ home. The meeting of the Roman political power in the centurion Cornelius, and a Jewish-Christian, Peter, obliterates all physically and humanly contrived criteria for segregation and division and replaces those with unity because “God has no favorites”. The first overturn of the status quo ante was the appearance of an angel of God to a pagan Roman centurion. Curiously, God said to Cornelius, through an angel, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea” (Acts 10:4-6). How unbelievably true that God hears the prayers of a pagan, one who doesn’t pray the way you and I do! How recalcitrant can human beings be, that a house God entered into and sent his angel to deliver a message in – the house of Cornelius – should be called a house of a pagan by Jewish standards? Yet, that is our attitude, even today, towards those we call sinners and bad people. But God identifies with a pagan, just as he does with the rest of humanity because he has no favorites.
God accepted Cornelius’ prayer, even as a pagan, but God wanted him to do it properly, so he directed him to Peter. Peter was contemptuous of non-Jews and their beliefs, typical attitudes of First Century Judaism, so God gave his Holy Spirit to pagans just by listening to Peter, ever before they received baptism. On account of a pagan, Cornelius, God reversed our sacramental order, without apologies, and he gave the Holy Spirit to pagans before they could be baptized. In the encounter between Cornelius and Peter, it was the so-called “righteous Jew,” Peter, who needed conversion more than a pagan Roman centurion, Cornelius. Peter needed to become a Christian, from his Jewish jaundice, and superiority complex – our God has no favorites! Imagine how condescendingly we look at sinners, and sometimes, we even doubt our own salvation and goodness, forgetting that God is the arbiter of salvation and not ourselves!
Refuse to be sad, be hopeful about your salvation, since God is the arbiter of human salvation. The joy of every child of God comes from the recognition that God has no favorites; in fact, God is on the side of the so-called bad person only waiting to show him/her how much he loves him/her. Hear the gospel of today re-echoing the joy that should accompany every child of God, “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘as the Father loves me, so I also love you”. Three explanations follow this declaration by God. First, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete”. To be loved and be told that you are loved is a cause of joy! God gives a joy that is “complete,” unlike the temporary joys of the earth because he loves us. It is impossible for any joy on earth to be complete, except when it overflows into the joy of salvation. The joy of salvation is complete joy because it comes from God and it leads back to God. When the Israelites were weeping over their misdeeds, after their return from Babylonian captivity, they were told, go home and eat and drink for “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10)! So, let us rejoice, not because of our sins, but despite our sins because God loves you and me!
The second attestation for the need to be happy on account of the certainty of salvation is because, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you”. God knows how holy or sinful you and I are, yet he chose you and me as those he loves and saves. In the first reading, the Jewish people considered themselves those loved by God to the exclusion of other people. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon pagans demonstrated the universality of God’s love, and made true the declaration of Peter: “God has no favorites”! The Logic of salvation is the outflow of God’s love, and the redefinition of the meaning of love; love without borders is God’s love; love that goes beyond human expectation and logic. Yes, love that makes a sinner raise his head high because he too is a subject of love and care by God!
Finally, Jesus tells us the kind of love he has for us, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. Imagine what our world would look like, should every human being refuse to take life, and be ready to die to save every human life! Imagine what would happen to our world should we transform our industrial complexes of weaponry into a theatre of life saving ventures. Imagine what kind of world we would be living in should our war mongers transform themselves into agents, spies and crusaders for peace and love! Love has no limit, it goes beyond and transcends the grave because Jesus loved to his death, but by rising from the dead, he made love immortal; even now, Jesus keeps loving human beings while seated at the right hand of his Father in heaven.
Three statements from our readings today should nourish our joy of acceptance by God, and should strengthen our resolve to be certain of our salvation. The first comes from our first reading, “anyone who does God’s will is acceptable to God”. But what is the will of God? Today’s gospel responds this way, “Remain in my love”. It is when we walk out on the love of God, instead of remaining in it, that we lose our happiness and salvation. From our second reading, we realize that “No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is brought to perfection in us”. When love of neighbor replaces wars and hatred, happiness returns to every facet of human life. How true the statement of St. Augustine: “love, and do whatever you will”! If we love God, we would love what God loves, and detest what God detests, and the certainty of our salvation will be assured!
Assignment for the Week:
Find and enter Cornelius’ house today: that is, that brother or sister you have written off as sinner or bad person, visit him or her this week.