GOOD DEEDS – 4th Sunday of Easter, Year B
There is a popular saying that “no good deed goes unpunished”. It seems that people are put on trial in many and varied ways for good deeds, more often than people are put on trial for evil deeds. That’s strange! Do you wonder why that is? Perhaps because there are more good deeds than bad deeds done in human life. Perhaps so! Is it because good deeds make demands on others besides the one who carries it out?
People are not always ready to respond to good deeds, which call them to do good deeds too. Or they may not recognize the good deed, or they may want to do another good deed, or they may be jealous or proud or angry or selfish or any of the many motivations of human nature. The world of evil wants to prevent good from taking place. The devil will do all in his power to discourage people from doing good, and if possible enlist them in preventing others from doing good.
Doing good or the right thing may look like working against another’s good or right. And sometimes favoring a lesser good may give rise to opposition to a greater good. We see these struggles all the time. We need only to think of the mother’s right favored over the unborn child’s right to life; the state’s right over the Church’s right; a husband or wife’s right not to worship over a husband or wife’s right to worship; an employer’s right over an employee’s right; man’s rights over God’s rights.
All of us are constantly making decisions in the midst of conflicts or rights. And we have to explain good deeds, and sometimes a whole way of life. “Why in the world did you become a priest…a religious…a farmer…a doctor…a teacher…?
The history of the Church reveals the opposition some of the Church’s great saints had in carrying out the particular gift and mission they had received from God. “Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke up: ‘Leaders of the people…If we must answer today for a good deed done to a cripple and explain how he was restored to life, then you…must realize it was done in the name of Jesus Christ’…” Jesus Himself had to spend a lot of time explaining His good deeds as well. So it’s to be expected. Good deeds have to be explained more than bad deeds. Do people understand and expect bad deeds more than good ones? Or do people see in the good deeds of others a challenge to themselves? Some good deeds do amaze us, and raise questions about the power and source of them. The people wondered how Peter and the other disciples could do such good deeds of healing. It provided them with an opportunity to proclaim Jesus as the source of the good deed, and the salvation of all. “There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name in the whole world given to us by which we are to be saved.”
The Lord carries out for us the greatest of deeds. Many demands are placed on the Lord to explain His good deeds to us. Some of the Lord’s good deeds to us may not look like good deeds at the time. Some of people’s good deeds don’t always appear that way to everyone either.
Children can see the good deeds of their parents as not being good. Parents experience this from time to time, as do priests, ministers and teachers. The children of God can see God the Father’s good deeds as not being good at times. And the world of sin doesn’t see the saving deeds of God at all. “See what love the Father has bestowed on us in letting us be called children of God! Yet that is what we are. The reason the world does not recognize us is that it never recognized the Son!”
The Lord always acts out of love for us. He is a caring Shepherd. Those acting for our good act out of love as well. Love and faith are the major sources of energy for good deeds. The Lord proclaims: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep”. Sheep can be difficult, stubborn, and wonder off from the rest. They can be attacked by wolves. They have to be cared for, and can be very demanding of the shepherd. But the sheep have one good quality. They can recognize the voice of their shepherd. And the true shepherd is willing to lay down his life for the sheep.