The Easter season finished a few weeks ago, but the feasts of the Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi (last Sunday) mean that only this Sunday do we return to the green vestments of what the Church describes as “Ordinary Time”. In the older Catholic calendar (used also partly among Anglicans and Lutherans) the Sundays of this period are termed rather the Sundays “after Pentecost” (this is the third Sunday after Pentecost) which puts the accent on the development and growth of the life of the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. As after the first Pentecost the Church grew in faith and in numbers (its remarkable expansion detailed in the book the Acts of the Apostles) so in our times still the Holy Spirit is at work in constituting and renewing the Church as the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel reading today inserts into this context. Our Lord calls his disciples to him, and commissions them (giving them grace and authority) to preach and minister in his name. Moved by the crowds who are helpless and harassed Jesus sends out these men (now called “apostles” – those who are sent) to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God. In time this Kingdom will be realised and made present in the Church, with these same apostles becoming its pastors and shepherds, called not only to preach the Gospel but also to maintain Christ’s Church in unity and peace. Today’s Gospel is prophetic of the formation of the Pentecostal (if I may call it that) Church of Christ, St Peter holding the first place among the apostles who act in union with him by power of the Holy Spirit.
The first reading (Exodus) guides us further in reflecting on this theme. The reading represents a key moment in the Old Testament, the history of the Jews; they’ve departed from Egypt but await the sealing of the Covenant (Old Covenant, of Moses) on Mount Sinai (and the giving of the ten commandments – this happens shortly afterwards). Through Moses, the Lord speaks in a beautiful image: “You have seen … how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself … [now if you] keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession … a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” God’s holy people have been constituted and established by him alone; they have been brought into a unique relation to him. They are “his own possession” (the Psalm has the same idea, but the other way round: “we belong to him” [Ps. 100:3]), the object of his special favour, set apart from all other peoples, made not simply one people or tribe like others, but a “holy nation” and a “kingdom of priests” (cf. Exod. 19:4-6). This great act of divine election (giving them a place of privilege and a special dignity in virtue of God’s call) will be dramatically sealed and shown forth in the Covenant with Moses made on Sinai.
This Exodus passage illumines the mystery of the Church. In olden times God brought into being a people of own possession in the covenant of Sinai; through the preaching of the Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit, a new people of God is brought into being, not limited by territory or heredity, but – drawn from the nations – made in a radically new and sublime manner God’s own possession, the special object of his favour. St Peter seems to be thinking of today’s Exodus passage when he says (in his first letter) of Christians that “you are a chosen race … [you are] God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (1 Pet. 2:9) That “marvellous light” is the light of Christ and the new law of the Gospel which shine out in the mystery of the Church, uniting Christians in the bond of charity. We also, moreover, are “marked off” or “set apart”: “We know that we belong to God” St John teaches, but then he adds: “the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One.” (1 John 5:19, JB) Or again St Paul’s words: “[God] has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:13-14)
It is the same St Paul in today’s second reading, on the other hand, who describes the ultimate source of this grace and gift: the death (holy passion) of Christ. We have been “reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10). Indeed, in Acts Paul speaks of the “the church of the Lord which he obtained with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28) We have been bought (to use words again of St Peter) at the price of the precious blood of a lamb without spot or stain, namely Christ (cf. 1 Pet. 1:18-19). The most striking passage expounding this doctrine is of course in Paul’s letter to Ephesians, with extracts from which we can conclude: “[Now] in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ.” Christ has reconciled us “to God in one body through the cross … [he] came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we … have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Paul, stating that Christians are “are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” adds that the Church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets”. He concludes that in Christ, the whole structure of the Church “is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:13-22) Amen.