Commentary on Lectionary for May 29, 2011

Easter 6A

Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

The featured speaker at Ursuline College’s graduation this year was an astrophysicist, Dr. Evalyn Gates. She is currently the CEO and Executive Director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. One of the points she made to the graduates was that if you consider the earth and all the stars and galaxies we can see, the total mass of them represents only a fraction of the matter in the universe. The reason is that most matter is “Dark Matter,” and we cannot see it. But we search for an understanding of it, and when we do come to more understanding, it will hold answers to many of our questions about energy and the architecture of the universe.

Put more simply, what we can see is only a tiny part of what actually exists.
If you are reading this, you know that the world did not end, as predicted, on May 21, 2011. But, we still have 2012 to look forward to, according to other predictors. At the graduation, Dr. Gates did not mention any of these predictions. She came across as a very positive person, and saw her new position as a way to encourage science education and thus make a difference in the world. She told the graduates: “Follow your passion…Find what you can contribute...Explore… Do not limit yourself by someone else’s lack of imagination.”

Isn’t this exactly what Paul was doing in his speech in front of the Areopagus? Jesus had taught him something about God, and now Paul was teaching his listeners what he had learned. And he used their own statue to an unknown God as his jumping off point. When you live in a perilous, disease-ridden, and fragile world (don’t we all?), and if you believe that there are great forces outside (call them gods) who have power to make things turn out well or badly depending on whether they are pleased with you, then you are very careful to please and appease them. You even offer sacrifice to the “unknown God,” just in case there is one—and for these Athenians, there WAS!

Some might say we have come a long way in understanding the universe and our place in it. Only 20 years ago, we were learning a mnemonic to remember the nine planets. Then Pluto was demoted, and then when astronomers looked farther, they have found 531 planets to date, with another 1200 up for verification. We no longer believe that everything in the universe revolves around the earth, although astronomers have found nothing yet to match its atmosphere.

But how about our understanding of God? Has it evolved? Developed? And then the key question: Do we know God well enough to have a relationship with Him (realizing “He” has no gender)?

What if we reflected on just that first line in today’s reading from John, John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We could interpret that as meaning, if we haven’t kept his commandments, then he won’t love US. Seems like the opposite of unconditional love. It certainly points to our need for a Helper, an Advocate, a Counselor.

But we can also imagine a mother saying that to a child, a teacher to her students, a spouse to her husband: If you love me, you will do as I say. But wait a second. Jesus may have been referring to the “new” commandment he was just talking about in John 13:34: “…that you love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples…”

What he may have been saying is, if you develop a relationship with me, become full of my Spirit, you will find yourself looking at others in a new, much more positive way, with “gentleness and reverence,” as Peter wrote (1 Peter 2:16). If that should happen, we will indeed be able to sing with the Psalmist: “Come and see what God has done!” (Psalm 66:6). And we will have added light to the dark matter of the universe.