Year A, 5th Sunday of Easter
0. The commission of the seven has been traditionally seen as the creation of the diaconate. However, the word deacon is never used to described any of them. What is of importance, though, is the fact that the Church back then adapted itself immediately in face of need. This is no longer what the Church, the RC in particular, deals with internal need.
1. It is interesting that seven men were selected to be responsible for the distribution of food. But it is not so much establishing a responsibility ex nihilo, but making the table has always been women's job. Thus it is rather an expansion of the role, including men into the responsible.
2. It has implication in the question of incarnation as well: why was God incarnate as a man but not as a woman? Today's Gospel mentions Jesus as making rooms in the house of God for us. But house-making, in the ancient world and much still today, is women's work. In ancient times men were in a privileged position and would not do this. Thus if God would incarnate as woman, people would say "ah, it is natural for the God incarnate to do that".
3. Indeed, it is not difficult to understand that what the first letter of Peter calls "the royal priesthood," it includes also women. Today, when we talk about (ordained) priesthood, the unstated statement is "I am a priest and you are not." But even as the Catholic Church teaches, there is a common priesthood, every believer is a priest. An ordain priest's real function, is to remain the believers that we are all priest.
4. Thus, when read in perspective, the three readings today are all inclusive.
5. Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." This statement of Jesus' has been used by every denomination to defend its own unique validity. But when read more carefully, it leads to a more radical position than Luther's, more Luther than Luther as it were. Luther's famous claim: We are saved by faith along, and not by work. But Protestants today have made faith their work. Let's be reminded that it is only by Jesus that we are saved, not by our work, but neither as our faith (as work). We are saved only by Jesus. And the way in which he saves cannot be limited by any human determining.
