Sixth Sunday of Easter (B) | Acts 10.25-26,34-35,44-48 | Psalm 98 | 1John 4.7-10 | John 15.9-17
One of the things that has helped me get through this past year, and its times of seclusion and separation, has been to rediscover some of the simpler joys in my life. One of those is music. At a time when I am unable to be with my children and grandchildren, rather than focus on the negative feelings that separation can engender, I allow music to mystically transport me to places that touch my spirit.
For each person, the music that transports us to that place of the spirit differs. But I suspect the effect is universal. How easily we can be moved to tears by a song…. sometimes by the words, sometimes by the melody, and sometimes by the memories that the song rekindles. Hymns are particularly good at that – but it’s not just hymns that have that effect.
One of the songs that does that for me is Blackbird, written by Paul McCartney. Partly because of the gentle but moving music, but mainly, it is the words that touch me most deeply.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night… Take these broken wings and learn to fly… All your life … You were only waiting for this moment to arise. Blackbird singing in the dead of night … Take these sunken eyes and learn to see … All your life. … You were only waiting for this moment to be free.
McCartney originally wrote the lyrics in homage to the struggle for civil rights going on In the late 60’s in North America. It was a powerful time for me as a teenager – the world was changing in ways we would only comprehend many decades later. In hearing the song, I am taken back to the civil rights marches and demonstrations of the late 60’s and early 70’s that I attended, as well as remembering the hope that the spirit of those days engendered in us as young people.
It was a time when we were coming to grips in a radical and eye-opening way with the prejudices in our society. But this systemic and pervasive prejudice was not just something of the 60’s or of recent history. It was there 2000 years ago, and the readings today uses the events in the life of Peter to remind us of that fact and of something even more profound. Let’s break open this scripture a bit to look a little deeper into the message contained within ….
Peter was staying at Joppa on the Mediterranean coast. You may remember that Joppa was the city where the prophet Jonah had fled, to board a ship to Tarshish. Jonah was trying to run from the Lord’s command to go and preach at Ninevah, the capital city of Israel’s arch-enemy, Assyria. About 50 km north of Joppa, was the Roman provincial capital, Caesarea, where the governor lived. Under his authority were some 3,000 troops, including Cornelius, who was called a centurion because he commanded 100 soldiers.
The Jews despised the Roman occupation of Palestine; they hoped that Messiah would come and deliver them from the Roman oppression. And so the stage is set: you have a Gentile Roman soldier, representing the despised occupation of Israel, residing in the main city of the Roman occupation. Fifty kilometres south you have a Jewish apostle, temporarily residing at the spot where Jonah had taken off in disobedience to his commission to preach to Israel’s enemy.
Peter easily could have thought, “Centurions are Roman soldiers and are wicked, sensual, worldly pagans.” To think that, Peter would have badly misjudged Cornelius. Cornelius could have thought, “I’m supposed to learn from an uneducated Jewish man who is staying with a tanner? He probably has never been outside of Palestine. What could he teach a well-traveled Roman like me?” To think that, Cornelius would have missed God’s blessing.
And so, with a touch of divine nuancing, events unfolded to bring these two men together in a way that shocked both of them and broke down the walls of prejudice between them. In our first reading, we discover a group of Gentiles who had such an intense experience of being loved by God in their encounter with the Holy Spirit, that in their joy they burst into praise. And at that moment, Peter and the Jewish Christians who were with him understood that the love of God is universal, extending beyond their own nation to embrace the whole world: all of us are loved by God.No-one is excluded. It’s why this story is so powerful. It’s why you should perhaps take some time today to sit with and go over the readings from todays Mass.
For if blindness to our prejudices has caused our sunken eyes and being immersed in a prejudicial society has broken our wings, then, like Cornelius, it is our experience of a loving and merciful God, our gentle encounter with the Holy Spirit, that has allowed those sunken eyes to see, those broken wings to fly.
For I think all of us who have been around enough time have wings that are bruised, broken. And eyes tired and sunken from the pressures of life that steal our energy. And just as certainly, living through this time of pandemic adds significantly to those damaged wings and diminished energies. Yet, the words of the song remind me of what God can do with bruised wings and sunken eyes. And the message in McCartney’s lyrics resonates with the psalms, those songs from over 2000 years ago, that musically and joyously proclaimed the very same message.
Shortly, the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost will mark for us a transformation from when God was present in both place and time, to the reality of God being with us beyond space and time. The ability of music to move us beyond space and time, and connect us to an experience of that realm, is music’s greatest gift to us. And it’s ability to inspire us as we struggle through this time of pandemic is a reminder once again of how God makes Godself present to us in our needs.
For it is through the love of our God for each and every one of us, without exception, that our sunken eyes can see and our broken wings can fly.