Hey, everybody. This is Father John Ricardo with Acts 29. And in the middle of all the craziness

and the uncertainty that's going on right now, it seems from our perspective as a team that it's

worth using these days to reflect in a more deliberate way on the scriptures every day, which

for many of us now is the only spiritual food that we're receiving. And so we're going to do a special podcast series simply entitled, Be Not Afraid, God's Word in

Uncertain Times. And we'll try to post something every day, usually reflecting on the

scriptures, so that we can listen in on what God is trying to say to us in these days.

Today's gospel is a most sober one.

It's John chapter 15 versus 18 to 21.

The context is we're still in the upper room.

These are the final discourses between Jesus and the apostles

just before he's about to enter into his passion, and he's preparing

them for all that is to come. And so he says to them, if the world hates you, realize that it

hated me first. If you belong to the world, the world would love its own, but because you do not

belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world would love its own, but because you do not belong to the world,

and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. If they persecuted me, they will also

persecute you. All these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not

know the one who sent me. Now, it would be really easy from this passage to think that somehow the

response of the apostles is something like, okay, hostile culture. They're going to hate us. They're

going to hate us on an account of Jesus' name. So the response then is build some sort of ghetto,

kind of a fortress mentality, and do what we

can to stay safe.

But of course, that's not at all what Jesus' point was.

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