"Today is Mothers Day"
In a rather stark sense, our mothers (grandmothers, step-mothers, godmothers) are among the most significant people we will ever encounter in our lives. All our weekend Masses are being celebrated in memory and in honor of all our moms. Certainly, fathers are part of that level of significance, too, but today's her day.
We all carry, for the most part, the names our moms and dads gave us - the first time we were "called by name". There are other names and/or labels by which we are known as well. These are other ways of naming who we are: Catholic, American, parent, daughter, son, teacher, student, soldier, priest, laborer, health care worker, ethnic extraction, home schooler, public servant, sports enthusiast, movie goer, gardener, pet owner. Prioritizing that list would be as unique and different as we are. It might be quite a revelation, too. Did you ever think of listing in order of importance the top ten identities you give yourself? What would they say about what you value and who your are?
In Christ's time, words like Gentile and Jew held powerful delineation and authority over peoples' lives. In this case, two groups that didn't intermingle at all, and yet they were becoming the members of a third group - the Christians - whose most priceless activity was the table-fellowship of the Eucharist. Custom and religious exceptionalism kept them from sharing a table, which was fast becoming a serious dilemma in the early Church. Outreach was avoided before St. Paul came along, but also, as we see this week, St. Peter had a "wake-up call" about how silly it was to think that the Spirit's power could be contained.
His experience follows a dream where both kosher and unkosher animals are declared OK to eat, and then in this Gentile Romans' house, God's grace overwhelms the family, and they ask for baptism and are given a powerful measure of the Holy Spirit. What can Peter do but baptize them? This gospel is messy, right from the start, and what's clear right from the get-go is the lack of tidy distinctions and exclusions is just what Jesus intended. There is no attempt to rank church members by degrees of holiness, nationality, worthiness or preaching stamina. Paul later writes that there is no distinction between slave and free, male or female, Gentile or Jew.
Remember back in the gospel stories how Jesus reacts when asked "Who's the greatest in the kingdom of God?" He reaches into the crowd to draw a random child to himself rather than one of the Twelve. He doesn't put together a flowchart, but rather looks across a table and calls his followers "friends". There's a label to add to that list of top ten identities that shape who were are... and could become!