Scriptures of the Sunday:
From Acts 6 As the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So the Twelve called together the community of the disciples and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table. Brothers, select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task,
1 Peter 1 let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
John 14 Jesus said: The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.”
When Jesus says to His believers that they will do greater works than what they have seen already in His ministry, as in walking on water, healing a blind man, raising Lazarus, and feeding a multitude from a few loaves—they must have thought: “We can’t do greater things than Jesus!” What’s He talking about?1
And they would have been partly right—for, no, they could not, on their own, do what Jesus did, but the thing Jesus was implying here was that He was going to be at work through all of them and also in all His believers, all at once. You could say that Jesus was pointing to how He was to be fantastically multiplying Himself ahead—as so to live in the souls of His disciples, who then would be doing works by His indwelling in them, all around the world and through time.
Indeed, Jesus lives through you and me, even while He reigns on the throne in Glory. Jesus is Alive and has His ongoing works about the earth, which are honored to take part in with Him.
Now perhaps it is more clear to us of what Jesus meant when He said in John 14. ‘Whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do…and greater works than before.” It is what St. Francis of Assisi would comprehend and pray to be as he said: “Make me an instrument of Your peace… O Divine Master.”
We have lots of good works in Jesus’ power and presence going on in this parish.
Jesus is their source, but He is using us as His instruments of peace, love, justice, kindness, and faith.
I was looking at what our Resurrection parish council has done, for instance. We have a working Food Pantry under them and great volunteers, or a Winter Shelter outreach annually that we staff, or a Free Family Fun Day for young families and their children each September, and a council rep from Riderwood including much outreach to senior residents—which inspired our Praise and Share idea mixer for building the faith community. Also involved via Riderwood and White Oak Hospital ministries is the cooperation made with Hospice and room visits. Council members also represent the outreach response to the changed demographics of the parish of the Black and African-African membership. My point is–all of these “works” going on in the Body of Christ are of and by Jesus Who is among us, Who let’s us participate in what He remains doing on the earth. Thanks you, Lord, may we be instruments for Your good purposes.
Greater Works are going on in this New Testament, New Covenant times! They go on all throughout the world, in Jesus’ Name, by Jesus’ inspiration and leadership. In John 14, Jesus was revealing something about the mission He would entrust to the first Church and eventually out to us. It isn’t that we’ll outdo Him in miracles. (A misread of you’ll do greater works than I have); It’s that the scope of our work in His Name, like that as happened with the apostles and early disciples, will grow, will widen, and will reach beyond what was first going on in Israel. Jesus is telling them and us that His ministry is an expansive one, and it involves us being engaged with Him in His works to the whole world and to these modern times.
So it means not greater than Jesus did but more expansive than those limited public ministry years Jesus had with them in Israel.
I was thinking of a great thing a young teen did in the 1990’s in a parish I pastored. She invented a web site for youth to visit to help them in their Catholic faith. It ended up getting huge national hits or traffic to her site for curious faith participants of her age. That was an example of what Jesus meant by greater works will be coming, as the Internet was around in 33 a.d. Later on in the 2000’s, Carlo Acutis in Italy developed an young adult internet following for Eucharistic Devotion. Greater works again—all of Jesus using Carlo as His instrument.
This gospel ending of John 14 is a story of Jesus wanting to break barriers and push for the Gospel love to go to new unexpected places and in new ways.
It seems that the apostles caught on well to what great works could be coming.
In Acts 6, our first reading today of the early Church’s life, the apostles saw that they needed to quickly and openly expand their ministry to the Hellenists. It would take a great work for that to happen, though. The Hellenists—that is, the Greek speaking Jews—had been in the camp of the non-important and non-included people in the old Jewish way of practicing things. But Jesus was inspiring inclusion. The Hellenists complained to the early Church leaders that their people were getting neglected in care. Could the old Jewish ways be revised, and could widows stopped being viewed as people who deserved a poor treatment for supposedly upsetting God? Were widows really being punished by God by their circumstances? Did not Jesus stop for the Samaritans or for the widow who was in a funeral procession of her son—and do a marvelous work of love for them? So could the Church be the instrument of Jesus?
Acts 6 shows that the apostles immediately began an outreach to the widows, the Hellenists, and anyone else needing attention—as they began a diaconate order for more service actions of need. Acts 6 names those first 7 deacons. Can you recall all their names? Anyway, it just shows how Jesus keeps on creating greater ways He will be reaching out to the world using us. In our own Resurrection parish, Deacon Chuck in an active deacon who responded to a call to give special service for the Archdiocese. In Riderwood community, we have at least two men who also were deacons. Again, I just mention a few examples of what you see in the parish. Then there are all the other sorts of ministries going on in the Church, and of your own personal ones of living as a true Catholic Christian and in giving yourself to Jesus as an instrument of His good purposes, made through your open yes to Him.
It is how we live out the words of the epistle text today: “let yourselves, like living stones laid, be built up into the spiritual house…(of) Jesus Christ.” 1st Peter 2:5. ###
Answer: Stephen, the famous one who would be a martyr over his zealous witness, and also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch,