CONFIDENCE IN MISSIO AD GENTES - A: 6th Sun in Easter

First Reading: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 (14 May 2023)

“Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Christ to them” (Acts 8:5).

Based on the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles, it was Philip who made the first attempt to do missio ad gentes (i.e., mission to the people) among the apostles of Jesus. While Peter and company were busy spreading the good news to the Jews in Jerusalem (Acts 3 and 5), Philip was proactive enough to do the task of evangelization by initiating a foreign mission in the Samaritan region (8:5). Samaria is considered “foreign” in Roman times because of the negative stereotype given its inhabitants that they were allegedly descendants of pagans and practitioners of occult worship at the Assyrian occupation of Israel in the 8th century CE (cf. 2 Kings 17). In this thinking, the text of Jn 4:9 states that the Jews and the Samaritans would not interact with each other. This rift is evident when James and John asked Jesus to send fire from heaven to punish the Samaritans for their inhospitality (Lk 9:54).

Likewise, there are gospel narratives that hint at this prevailing rift between these two ethnic groups, viz., Jesus and the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:4-42), the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37), the Samaritan leper (Lk 17:11-19), and the Pharisees’ negative use of the Samaritan name (Jn 8:44).

Despite being well aware of this ethnic breach—which apparently had not been settled in the first century CE—Philip took courage to the endeavor that only Jesus had ventured so far (cf. Jn 4:4-42). Philip bravely entered Samaria, knowledgeable of the rejection that he could face. He could have done missio ad gentes somewhere else, but he chose to go to the proverbial “lion’s den”. Does it have something to do with the instructions given to them by Jesus to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth (Mt 28:19-20)? Or is it an offshoot of his personality as an amiable person (e.g., Jn 1:45)? Does it pertain to his mixed ethnicity, given that his name is essentially Greek?

Actually, the name Philip is a contraction of two Greek words, philō (“love”) and hippos (“horse”), which makes his name mean literally “a lover of horse”.

More than the identity and personality of Philip, which certainly affected his decision to go to Samaria, I think that his zeal for souls might have stemmed from the confidence and trust rendered to him by Jesus. At the Johannine version of the Feeding of the 5,000, it was Philip (along with Andrew) whom Jesus asked to find means to feed the crowd (6:5). At a festival in Jerusalem, it was Philip (again with Andrew) who welcomed and entertained the visiting Greeks to see Jesus (12:21). Before Jesus’ Passion, Philip was in conversation with him about finding the way to the Father (14:8-14). In the last resurrection appearance of Jesus, Philip was presumably among Jesus’ disciples who had breakfast with him at the shore of Tiberias (21:2).

All of these events that led Philip to take an active role in Jesus’ circle emboldened him to pursue missio ad gentes. His courage was backed up by the confidence he received from Jesus, who trusted him as one of his chief collaborators. His positive regard for the Samaritans in the Acts might be based on his cognizance that Jesus valued, too, the Samaritans when he stayed with them for two days (Jn 4:39-42). Philip’s boldness in conducting missions by himself is patterned after Jesus’ audacity in facing his executioners alone, amidst the departure of his trusted disciples. Providentially, like Jesus, Philip was warmly accepted by the Samaritans. Similarly, as missioners by virtue of our common baptism in Christ, we should not be afraid of embarking on the work of evangelization since the Lord has full confidence in our capacity to proclaim the good news. May we embrace missio ad gentes in all our capacities as Christians.

- Rex Fortes, CM