Words of love and challenge

Today's readings - as the Scriptures so very often are - are full of love and challenge.

We have the beautiful Gospel of the Good Shepherd (John 10:11-18) and also this wonderful passage from John's first Epistle (3:1-2):

See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.

Yet so we are.

The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.

Beloved,
we are God’s children now;
what we shall be
has not yet been revealed.

We do know that when it is revealed
we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.

But we begin - in today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles (4:8-12) - with words of challenge.

The reading begins with Peter's ironic observation that he and the Apostles are being challenged for a good deed done for a person in need.

Peter goes on to challenge his listeners with the Gospel of Christ, reminding them first of their own responsibility for Christ's death, then asserting the power of Christ’s resurrection, and finally stating emphatically that

There is no salvation through anyone else,
nor is there any other name under heaven given to men
by which we are to be saved.

These words of challenge do not belong to the past alone.

Even now, we as Christians are being challenged by those who hold power and influence in this world.

In some places, Christians and Christian institutions are being challenged for doing good deeds - from caring for the sick to taking care of orphans - unless they agree to do what is immoral.

In many places, faithful teachers of Christian doctrine are being loudly (albeit falsely) denounced as anti-Semitic and intolerant for teaching the very same things that Peter - a devout Jew who loved all people - says in today's first reading.

And of course there are some economically powerful places in this world where authentic public proclamation of the Gospel is a crime, for which draconian punishments are often imposed.

Yet even as we are being challenged, so even more must we as Christians challenge the people of this world.

The challenge we bring, however, is not the challenge of force or hate: it is the challenge of love, of salvation, of truth, and of ultimate meaning.

The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.

We must make Christ known to the world: not the plastic Christ depicted by the "devout" Hollywood of old, nor the unreal Christ depicted by the "avant-garde" Hollywood of today - but the real living, breathing, loving, eternal and omnipresent Christ who walked and talked on this earth, who was murdered and who rose from the dead, who established and commissioned his Church, who is Lord of heaven and earth, whose Spirit is at work among us, and who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

We must be the "sheepdogs" of Christ the Good Shepherd: seeking out and calling after lost sheep with selfless love and absolute truth - setting aside our own agendas, our own comfort, and even our own lives if necessary.

This command we have received from our Father
and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ:
these words of challenge,
these words of love.

***

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD....

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his kindness endures forever.