Fifth Sunday of Easter

“Amen I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these.” (John 14:12)

I ran across a story about how a group of Christian university students some 40 years ago decided to find every verse of scripture that spoke of the “works” that God calls us to do. It turned out to their surprise that they all related directly to issues of justice: care for the poor, the abandoned and the neglected. To their further astonishment they found over 2,000 texts about this call to do these “works, which they then cut out of an old Bible.

Their discovery came to be called the “Bible full of holes.”

As the story goes this “holy” Bible is still in existence. These “works” that Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel are precisely the type He did: healing the sick, washing the feet of others, feeding the multitudes, throwing arms of forgiveness around prodigal sons and daughters, challenging the powers that be who were taking advantage of the downtrodden.

Robert F. Kennedy wrote about these kinds of “works,” and the ones that represent the “greater ones than these” that you and I can actually do, in this way. He said:

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.

Each time a person stands up for an ideal,

 or acts to improve the lot of others,

or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.

He goes on to say:

Those tiny ripples of hope, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring,

will build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

You and I, all by ourselves are probably not going to heal sick people in the same way Jesus did, but we can certainly attend to them. You and I, all by ourselves are probably not going to raise anyone from the dead as Jesus did, but we can grieve with those who have lost a loved one. You and I all by ourselves are probably not going to stop the horrific spread of human trafficking that is a blight on humanity. We are probably not going to end the terrible rise in drug addiction, or put an end to the income inequity so many people are struggling with, or find an answer to the care of the mentally ill, or end abortion.

But what we can do is perform those “diverse acts of courage” that will enable us to stand up, to speak out, to demand an accounting. What we can do is become a “tiny ripple of hope” that, joined with others, can become a “current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression, resistance, and evil.”

All three of our Scripture readings today tell us of our call to go forth. In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles we hear of the seven men who were called to serve as deacons to the widows that were being neglected. All of us are called to diaconia which is the Greek word for service.

Our second reading from the First Letter of Peter reminds us of who we are. We’re not just anybody, it tells us.

We’re “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own … who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” “A people of his own” is the way scripture describes us. We’re different from everyone else.

We are his presence in this world. We are his face, his voice, his hands, his feet, his heart.

And how will people know this? By doing the “works” that mimic the very ones Jesus does. Perhaps if each one of us asked ourselves this one question, it would help us know what the “works” are that we are called to do:  What in the world today most breaks your heart, most offends your sense of justice, most inspires passion within you, who near you needs your help?

Then trust in the words of Jesus and have courage that you can perform great works.

Then, as the saying goes “JUST DO IT”

Deacon Larry McDonald