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Homily for Friday of the Third week of Easter, 06 May 2022, Jn 6:52-59
Today I want to focus on two reactions, Ananias’ in our first reading, and the Judeans’ in our second reading.
Let’s start with the first. Ananias is shocked that the Lord is endorsing to him a murderer and a persecutor of the early Christians, asking him to pay Saul a visit, pray over him in order to heal his blindness. Ananias expresses his vehement objection and says, “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man and what evil things he has done to your holy ones in Jerusalem. And here he has authority to imprison all who call upon your name.” (It’s like saying, “Lord, are you sure you know what you’re asking me to do?”)
But the Lord tells him to just do as he is told and that this murderer and persecutor of the faith is destined to be God’s “chosen instrument” who will carry out his name before all the Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel, and that God would show him “what he would have to suffer for his name.” And so Ananias does as he is told.
The second reaction is that of the Judeans after Jesus tells them that the bread of life that he intends to give is his own flesh for the life of the world. Before that, let me just clarify why I use the term “Judeans” instead of “Jews” (from Greek Ioudaioi). It is my solution for people who ask me why John refers to those who opposed Jesus as “Jews,” as if Jesus himself and his family and circle of disciples were not Jewish. The solution is to distinguish between “Jewish”, in terms of religion, and “Judean,” in terms of ethnicity.
Strictly speaking, Jesus was a Galilean, meaning a citizen of the province of Galilee, and not a Judean, because he was raised in Nazareth. Although John tells us Jesus was preaching in Capernaum in Galilee when he spoke about the Bread of Life, he also had some Judeans in his audience who could not keep their reaction to themselves.
Remember, it was John the Baptist, according to John, who had presented Jesus as “The Lamb of God” (meaning, the Righteous Servant described by Isaiah as a sacrificial Lamb by whose death his people would be saved). The Judeans had no problem thinking of John the Baptist as messiah, since he was known to be a Judean. But that was not the case with Jesus. They had an issue about his being a Galilean, and one who came from Nazareth at that!
Remember how Nathanael once reacted to Philip, a former disciples of John the Baptist, when Philip said, “We have found the Messiah,” and identified him to be a Galilean from Nazareth? His reaction was, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” He could have said “Can anything good come from Galilee, for that matter?”
When our perceptions are too colored by our biases and prejudices, there are great chances that we will not be able to see God’s hand at work in some people whom he has chosen as his instruments. If we are too fixated on perishable bread, we might miss out the true bread that brings eternal life.
Saul himself had first to be healed of his own biases and prejudices against the Early Christians before he could serve as God’s chosen instrument. Luke tells us it was after Ananias prayed over him that “things like scales” immediately fell from his eyes and he was finally able to see Jesus in the people he was persecuting.
We all have our little blinders, the scales that prevent us from seeing in some people our brothers or sisters. This is a good reminder for all of us as we endeavor to choose the right candidates whom God wants us to vote for. This is the time when we need to hear the sweet sound of God’s amazing grace—so that wretch who “once was lost can now be found, and he who once was blind will now be able to see”, with the eyes of faith.
