No faith without questioning

 ‘…peace be with you…’ (John 20:21)

From John 20:19-31 (Year A: Easter 2)

Twice Jesus declares ‘peace be with you’ before ‘breathing’ on his friends the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. So often we strive for the higher gifts of wisdom, courage and healing. Yet, to receive graciously that peace which surpasses all is the necessary first step.  It is more than just a question of sitting in the twilight, eyes closed and meditating on one’s breath or a word or a blank screen. It is about being at peace with others before entering into that deep inner peace where healing and forgiveness break out. But, which comes first? To be at peace we must savour something of the Holy Spirit who is already dwelling within us? It’s a two-way flow – from openness to the Spirit and others to inner peace and back again. The key dynamo is trust or faith. There can be no faith without serious questioning. Without the challenge of constructive doubt there can be no deepening of faith which sees doubt cast into a pool of trust where it serves to strengthen and not undermine trust. Ultimately trust is evidence of things unseen and the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11.1).  My favourite definition of faith ….

Rolling back the stone and going for freedom

(To the Sources)

‘…He is not here; he has risen…’ (Matt 28:6)

From Matthew 28:1-10 (Year A: Easter Sunday)

For people held in captivity and who have been suddenly released, freedom can be a daunting prospect. Adaptation takes time. Reconditioning may be necessary. This may be captured in a few lines of a poem by Gerald McFlynn.

‘On the morning of the third day I went to the tomb and rolled back the stone. Out came the poor and destitute, the prisoners, Travellers.. the old and forgotten… blinking in the sunlight all ready for a new birth’

Christ came that people may be free. However, nowadays Christ needs helpers to roll back some heavy stones. We might even find ourselves on the inside of the stone in need of pushing it out.

Easter signals a social liberation as well as a personal one. The two go hand in hand.

A day of rest

(To the Sources)

Holy Saturday – the day after Good Friday and before Easter Sunday (or its vigil which begins on Saturday evening) is, liturgically, something of a dead day. There is no Eucharist Gospel reading for this day. The cross is empty and the tomb where Jesus is laid is sealed up. According to the Apostles Creed the Lord ‘descended to the dead (or to hell in some versions)’.

Sometimes Christians are accused of dwelling in the past where stories and memories point, or, dwelling in the future where paradise awaits following this vale of tears. The reality is otherwise. Christians are called to live in the here and now – fully and alive. We don’t know when dawn will arrive on the Son-Day. Good Friday is behind us as that once-and-for-all saving event which we recall and relive day after day.

This day is a Sabbath day where we have permission to rest and to be.

A God who is passionate about us

(To the Sources)

‘…Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?’…’ (John 18:11)

From John 18:1-19:42 (Year A: Good Friday)

(March 2005)

You may know that the ‘Passion of the Christ’ by Mel Gibson is on general release again in cinemas – this time with a relaxation of its restricted rating.  Apparently the gratuitously violent scenes of the scourging have been cut back.  In all the controversy about this film and the memories that it evokes of various devotions and spiritualities across our various Churches I wonder if we might be at risk of missing the point. 

What was Jesus passionate about?  What drove a God of passionate love to endure – in the person of Jesus –  such depths of human violence and cruelty?  Was the ‘passion’ mainly about a series of horrifically violent physical events? Or was it about something much more?  In an unrestricted version of the passion we read in the Gospel of Saint Matthew:

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

These words echoes those of the Psalmist:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me,  so far from the words of my groaning? (22:1)

I am told that in near death situations, words, images, memories often by past in one’s mind in quick succession.  For some, the words of a Psalm can spring up almost unconsciously.  In the case of Jesus’s loud cry, there is no answer from Heaven as in the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan or at the Transfiguration.  We do not hear ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’ coming from Jesus’s lips but bluntly ‘Eloi’ or ‘God’.  Here is a truly remarkable saying. 

The Son of God cries out in a loud voice: God why have you forsaken me?  If God in Jesus – the sinless one – became ‘become sin’ to quote St Paul – separated from God the Father –  has he taken on all our abandonments, all our despairing, all our meaningless? Has he more than tasted our absence of God, of faith, of hope, or unity?  This narrative and this saying in particular has a striking effect.  Could it be that the saying recorded in the ‘original’ Aramaic was just too haunting to be captured adequately in any way other than the ‘original’?  Is this the ultimate point of the Passion – namely that God has so loved not just the world but every person who will live to such an extent that he sent His only Son to experience the full sense of abandonment?

Is Psalm 22:1 the ultimate prayer for atheists, theists and everyone else besides?  A cry to a God who doesn’t seem to answer in the midst of abandonment?

And abandonment is what we see all around us.  We do not need to be reminded of the painful scenes of children, women and men brutalised by wars, Tsunamis and other disasters.   In our own lives and experience, we know of loved ones abandoned in dementia, of people with incurable illness, of situations that seem to have no solution, of people who are assigned to the margins of our organisations, families, neighbourhoods – even our Churches – because they don’t quite fit in for whatever reason. 

From Calvary and over the centuries we see vicious cycles of cruelty – of Romans against Jews, of Jews against Christians and vice versa, of believers against non-believers, of non-believers against believers, of one group of Christians against another group of Christians followed by retaliation, not to mention ‘holy’ crusades and jihads, of those on the inside against those on the outside.  Into these cycles of cruelty enters the Forsaken Son of God lifted up on the Cross and drawing all to His side.

Rather than constructing a theory of Substitution-Atonement to appease an angry Father …

I find it more meaningful to believe in terms of …

Jesus as pioneer opening, demonstrating and facilitating a way for us in the midst of abandonment by becoming abandoned himself out of love. 

To be risen is to participate in the new life he gives us here and now.

In the beginning was the Word;

And the Word became flesh;

And that flesh became Bread;

Which has now become us;

Broken for a united world;

Returning to the Source from which it came.

The Psalm of abandonment turns into a Psalm of affirmation and hope.  It says:

‘I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you’ (Ps 21:21)

I was shocked and amazed some years ago to hear the words ‘Lema, Lema, Lema’ uttered by a former prisoner of a Nazi Concentration camp speaking, during a sub-titled interview, in Hebrew: ‘Why, Why, Why’. At the heart of every abandonment, a Why spoken or unspoken.  At the heart of every Why a Way forward.  That Way – for me and for us –  is faith in the Risen Jesus.

Somehow the longer I live the more uncertain I become about many things I thought were certain and the less many things make sense to me.  At the same time, I seek to cling, more than ever, to the simple truth of the story of Jesus’s abandonment and resurrection. 

Jesus was abandoned for me, for you, for everyone.  Jesus is risen now, here and now, in our midst wherever two or three are gathered in his name. This is Church, this is Christianity and this is all that I need to know and live by.  All other beliefs, dogmas and truths take their place from the central truth that:

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.

Brother Roger of Taizé has written:

A luminous Gospel insight has come to light after remaining under the dust of the ages for a long time: even if the Risen Christ is unrecognized, he is present, "united to every human being without exception.

He goes on to say:

Where would we be today if certain women, men, young people and also children had not arisen at moments when the human family seemed destined for the worst? They did not say: "Let things take their course! Beyond the confrontations between persons, peoples and spiritual families, they prepared a way of trusting. Their lives bear witness to the fact that human beings have not been created for hopelessness

I believe that we are created for hope and it is in this sense that we can say this Day is a Good Day a Good Friday – because in simple faith and trust we can recognise the Risen Christ walking with us and among us – here in Saint Andrews this evening, in Saint Sylvester’s, in Saint Anne’s, and also in other places and occasions where people have no thought or realisation of the fundamental reality that the Risen Christ is with us.  Despair and abandonment are, ultimately, a transition, a wound in which we can find our risen self in the Risen Lord.

Risen Christ – you are in our midst this evening.  In faith we entrust ourselves to you.  We may feel far from you but you are never far from us.  What you have started for us on the first Easter we can continue.  You are our pioneer.

(spoken on Good Friday, 25^th March, 2005 at the Church of St Andrew’s, Malahide, Dublin)

Kneeling room only

(To the Sources)

‘…This is my body, which is for you …’ (1 Corinthians 11: 26:22)

From 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (Year A: Holy Thursday)

One of the great mysteries of our Christian faith is how God became flesh. More than that, flesh was crucified before being raised again. A scandal to some and nonsense to others.  The mystery of the Eu-Charist – the giving thanks in communion of love challenges us to let go of our limited way of seeing things.  Not infrequently the disciples of Jesus have omitted the lesson of this holy meal – a lesson in service unto death, inclusion and communion.  Instead, disciples became curious and vain or exclusive in regards to who has a place as if the Host is not the one who calls and invites and nourishes. As if the One who is really present has not died for each and for all…

The author of ‘In the Imitation of Christ’ writing in the 1,400’s warns in the following terms: ‘Beware of curious and vain examination of this most profound Sacrament, if you do not wish to be plunged into the depths of doubt’ (Book 4).  The writer As Oscar Wilde wrote beautifully in ‘De Profundis’ in the following words:

Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus (Lord I am not worthy) should be on the lips and in the hearts of those who receive it.

Suffice it to say as John Donne (1572–1631) did:

He was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it; I do believe and take it.

Nil desperandum

(To the Sources)

‘…Surely, you don’t mean me?…’ (Matthew 26:22)

From Matthew 26:14-25 (Year A: Holy Week/Wednesday)

Yes I do mean you (name) is the answer!  There is a Judas, a Peter, a John, a Mary, a Martha … in all of us.  Judas has had a very bad press for the last 2,000 years. Some suggest (incredibly I would think) that he may have been trying to ‘out’ Jesus by forcing his hand to declare his Kingdom? Rightly, the Gospels are hard on Judas because of his conscious, treacherous act. But, Judas’ real downfall was his apparent despairing of any mercy. Later in the Gospel of Matthew it is written:

“When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. ‘I have sinned,’ he said, ‘for I have betrayed innocent blood.” (Matthew 27:3-5)

At least Peter did not despair. Neither should any of us. Yes, the warning from Jesus to one who will betray his trust is directed, at least potentially, to each one of us. We are at least as capable as Judas of going seriously astray. That’s why we need to be ever vigilant. The positive point is that as long as we breathe we can hope of doing better than yesterday and doing better tomorrow than today. Dum spiro spero – while I breathe I hope.

In his wounds we find healing

(To the Sources)

‘…Jesus was troubled in spirit…’ (John 11:21)

From John 13:21-38 (Year A: Holy Week/Tuesday)

To share in the life of any community is to be open to others – their plans, their hopes, their expectations, their values, their needs, their wants, their goodness..their malice. Facing betrayal was a hard trial for Jesus. He had lived and suffered and rejoiced with this band of friends for a number of years. The mystery of evil in our very midst is a hard cross. It leaves us speechless at times. Dumbfounded we can only set our faces like flint as in the Suffering Servant of Isaiah (50:7). Sometimes our greatest challenges come not from those unlike us or estranged from us but those who share are table, our offices, our homes, our churches… Let us take up this cross every day and follow in the steps of the One who went this way before us. In his wounds we find healing.

Destroying the evidence

(To the Sources)

‘…So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well …’ (John 11:44)

From John 12:1-11 (Year A: Holy Week/Monday)

Is there enough evidence to incriminate any of us for being what we proclaim to be? Lazarus had been raised from the dead and was now alive. This was disturbing evidence for the religious (and political?) authorities of his day. As Christians in the West enter upon Holy Week – this most special and beautiful of weeks in the yearly calendar – we do well to ask ourselves if we are credible, authentic, sincere and lasting witnesses to the great events recounted in this most special of weeks.

Why oh Why?

(To the Sources)

‘… My God, my God, why have you forsaken me…’ (Matthew 27:45)

From Matthew 26:14-27:66 (Year A: Palm Sunday)

Some year ago I watched a TV interview with a survivor of the Holocaust. In the course of the interview, which was evidently conducted in what I believed must have been Yiddish and sub-titled, I recall the interviewee declaring with great anguish three words that sounded very much like ‘Lama?, Lama?, Lama?’ I immediately recognised these words as attributed to Jesus in his dying moments and recounted in this Gospel passage. It was a haunting and plaintive please. Why, Why, Why?

Why indeed? Hearing the words of Psalm 22 on the lips of the dying Jesus is shocking. But, it must also be recalled that in the same Psalm there are these lines (22:24):

“For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”

That these words are reported in Aramaic might suggest a special status and originality to what was said? After all why not report them in the language in which the rest of the Book was written?

Whatever the context and meaning it is clear that this cry of despairing plea shows the depth of human suffering in the final moments of a terrible death.  There is no point in sanitising this. It is real life for many as they struggle with death, sickness and despair.  It also speaks to those who meet great trials in their lives where an inexplicable darkness, pain and anguish grip a person and overwhelm that person to that point that they cry out something very similar to what Jesus cries here.  This line could be understood as a type of prayer for all those struggling with emptiness, pain, hopelessness, defeat. Go one step further and think of it as the ‘prayer’ of an atheist or an agnostic.  And there is something of an a-gnostic in every theist and atheist (if we are all completely honest with ourselves). 

If there is one point that can be taken here it is that God has been put to death on a cross and God is forsaken. Now if that isn’t radical theology what is?

When faith fails

(To the Sources)

‘… Take off the grave clothes and let him go…’ (John 11:44)

From John 11:1-45 (Year A: Lent 5)

In this story Lazarus was dead: not just asleep. The exchange between Jesus and Martha was about faith understood as complete trust. This trust was the prelude to raising someone from the dead. Nothing is said about the faith of Lazarus. May be he died like his sister Martha – hoping in some resurrection some time in the future. May be not.

Perhaps there is a Lazarus to us some of the time. We find ourselves in tombs of doubt, guilt, anxiety or sadness. Faith seems absent. What is the point? But, the faith and solicitude of someone else is holding us and raising us.  The liberation happens more because of someone else than because of us. It took faith among two or three to precipitate the miracle. The unbinding (some translations use this term) means a lifting of the cloud of death.  A rising is the fruit of shared trust and we can be thankful. When faith seems to fail in us it is then the miracles happen. We just didn't realise a host of angels without wings had us in view all the time.