Lectionary for May 18, 2025
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148;
Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
I was just talking with a new friend about commemoration days for auspicious saints. May 18 recalls the life and ministry of John 1, the bishop of Rome. King Theodoric the Great sent Pope John I on a mission to Justin I, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, to request that an earlier decree against Arian Christians be moderated. When John 1 brought back the good news that there was a willingness to relieve persecution by Nicaean Christians, Theodoric was suspicious. How often are Christians really willing to set aside internecine fights, after all? His mistrust led Theodoric to imprison John I for being a spy for his rival.
John 1 eventually died in prison, but his mission to decrease hostility among people who proclaimed Jesus as messiah was successful for a time. His legacy shapes how I read the lectionary passages this week: they contain stories of surprising inclusion and warmth toward others.
In Acts 10-12, God works a surprising act of inclusion. We should note that gentiles had been worshiping God for hundreds of years by this point. There were places at the temples reserved for God-fearers, gentiles who wanted to worship the God of Israel but didn’t want to join the peoplehood. As far back as Sinai, God was actively welcoming gentiles to the movement (Exodus 12:38). The scroll of Isaiah (11:10, 42:6, 49:6) speaks of God’s activities among the gentiles. It would be foolishness and ignorance of Scripture to say that God had not been acting among the nations prior to Peter’s vision.
That said, the people of Jesus experienced a pouring out of God’s Spirit unlike anything that they had ever known. The Jerusalem Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection was a Jewish-only event (Acts 2:5, 14, 22, 29, 36). But now Peter brought a report to the believers in Jerusalem that God’s Spirit had fallen on Cornelius’ whole household in Caesarea. Those who had complained against the idea that Jesus’ movement of restoration for the lost sheep of Israel could have anything to do with gentiles were silenced. Instead of complaining, they began immediately praising God, saying, “Then, God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18).
I want to say, I do understand the initial complaints about the inclusion of Romans. Jews were a people under occupation by the Romans, who eventually drove them into exile. Cornelius was a commander in the occupation army who tortured to death innocent Jews. What could the Prince of Peace possibly have to do with those complicit in genocide against his people? Everything, as it turns out.
God will take up residence in the new earth among the peoples. Everyone is part of the vision!
When the Christian Jews heard Peter describe how the Spirit had also fallen on Romans, their movement from complaint to silence to eventual acceptance and praise feels incredibly mature and humble. They were willing to allow God to reframe the short- and medium-term goals from national liberation to international reconciliation.
The author of Revelation argues that the telos is long-term as well. In the vision of the new heavens and new earth, God will once again dwell among God’s people, just as in the wilderness and during the incarnation. We need to pay close attention to the number of the nouns in verse 3 to see the fullness of the good news. God sets up the tabernacle among God’s humans again, and they shall be God’s peoples. This is not just one people group—laoi is plural. God will take up residence in the new earth among the peoples. Everyone is part of the vision!
Jesus anticipated this final vision during his ministry and instructed his disciples to live every day in light of those coming days. As Jesus prepared to lay down his life to win victory over sin and death, he instructed his disciples to love one another, as Jesus loved them. This mutual love was to be a sign for all people (literally “each [person]”) that someone truly followed Jesus. This is the sine qua non of membership in Christ’s body. More than correct Christology, ecclesiology or even soteriology, or whether, in fact, we love each other, even across massive disagreements, tells the truth of how wrapped up we are in Jesus. Or not.
Pope John I was sent on a mission to request that the Christians with whom he agreed stop persecuting the Christians he was surrounded by. In the end, his success guaranteed his death in prison. This is the kind of action we are called to today. That, even when it is “our side” that is doing the wrong, we must be willing to sacrificially love each person, especially when it is difficult.
