What level of evidence is sufficient?

‘Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves‘ (John 14:11)

The lie detector

 John 14:1-12 (Year A: Fifth Sunday of Easter 14^th May 2017)

A question: How do we know that God exists?  And does it matter?

That makes two questions, in a way: the how and the so what.

This Sunday’s gospel holds a key to answering these two questions.

In verse 11 in chapter 14 of the Gospel of St John Jesus is reported as saying:

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves

We like some degree of assurance, if not outright certainty, that what we believe to be ‘true’ is indeed ‘true’. Moreover, we like some degree of assurance if not outright certainty that what we do is ‘right’. 

Being ‘true’ and being ‘right’ are important regardless of what we say we believe or do. Among Christians and other believers in God, there can be an understandable frame of mind (usually kept quiet) that ‘non-believers’ and ‘non-practicing’ persons are more susceptible to being less ‘true’ or less ‘right’ than ….. well …. us/me (delete as appropriate). This sort of frame of mind is a deadly trap for ‘religious’ persons because we, all, like to think that we have the ‘truth’ (nothing like a devout and convinced atheist to preach his/her ‘truth’, religiously).  Presumption, arrogance and complacency are the hallmarks of bad religion and Jesus was scathing about bad religion.

If we are Christians in the full sense, we say that we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  We say that the right way to live is by treating others as we would like others to treat us (we would not like to be murdered, lied to, robbed or cheated on …. you get the picture). It helps or it should help to locate a system of values, beliefs and mores in the Jesus story. The Jesus story is about God sending His (strictly speaking God is neither male or female but it is customary to address God as ‘He’ or ‘Father’) Son to save us from our sins and to show us the way to Life in this world and in the next. The key to salvation is faith or trust in the God who shows us infinite love and compassion and is waiting every moment of our remaining life to welcome us on the basis of a free decision and choice on our part but always as part of a plan of Grace or Graciousness. But, to be true and to be effective this faith – alone – which saves us works through free actions and free works of compassion on our part. It is like God’s compassion flowing out from within and through us to others (and not forgetting ourselves either!).

But, how do we know that any of this is ‘really’ ‘true’ and really according to the way we should live?  The use of ‘inverted commas’ in this blog, so far, is not accidental. Every word we think or use is conditioned and shaped by meanings that can be difficult to pin down.  We might admit to ourselves when the children are gone to bed that, whereas there is no Santa Clause ‘there’, there is a truth in the story of free kindness and the notion that what ‘goes around comes around’. 

Now, it would be a travesty to suggest that religion in general and Christian religion, in particular, is a type of Santa Clause ‘true myth’ though many people assume this to be the case. Still, there is much that we cannot and will not understand about the mysteries of God, of God-in-Jesus as Son of God and in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus along with the place of sacraments, prayer and witness in this life.  One thing that a Christian can never be caught out on is believing and acting as Jesus would have us act. We might even be pleasantly surprised after our death!  Sometimes, this way of thinking is classified as ‘Pascal’s Wager’.

A serious challenge to religious faith is the charge that a loving God could not permit huge and unnecessary suffering in the world. This charge is not easy to address. Glib answers along the lines ‘from evil comes good’ or ‘suffering is redemptive’ or ‘its an excuse for human compassion’ and so on do not hold water with many today.  In my view, there is no completely coherent or convincing explanation as to why God-who-is-love allows suffering including unspeakable barbarities (and sometimes carried out in the name of some god). Rather than try to explain it away we might be advised to accept the reality of suffering but strive to cleanse this world of all unnecessary and human-made suffering.

Jesus has shown us a way to live as well as a way to deal with the great questions and sufferings of life. More than this he shows himself as The Way.  He points us to the best way of life which can be nothing less or more than love – love laid down for others.  By following in this Way of Love we are assured of the truthfulness of the Jesus story. In so far as any human being can know the truth Jesus is the Truth about God-who-is-love.  So, Way and Truth go together for us who follow Jesus as The Way and The Truth. But, that is not all.  Jesus is, also, The Life.  If we were to think that we had embraced the way and the truth of the gospel but had no ‘Life’ in us then we are good for nothing.  That life which was the light of the world has entered our darkness whether we see, feel or know it. That life is like the blue sky above those Irish clouds: it’s there always to be noticed or sensed regardless of the shifting cold fronts sweeping in from the Atlantic Ocean.

When Jesus says ‘..believe me because of the works themselves’ he is offering us a type of ‘Plan B’ approach to Christian faith. Some today might find a recitation of the Nicaean Creed a challenge (to be clear, this blogger doesn’t have issues with it).  A lie detector wired up to members of an average (even greying) congregation on an average Sunday in an average Church might emit signals of possible discomfort arising from private mental reservations as people rise to give intellectual assent to various important propositions. To these, Jesus, in the 14^th Gospel of St John, is saying ‘well if you have problems with the wording of this then believe me because of the works of kindness, compassion, healing, mercy, peace, joy and liberation going all around you in this loving community’ or words to that effect. Ah, but what if the communities in which we are planted are not on fire in such manner that the pagans are dazzled?  Writing a century after the gospel of John was written the North African theologian Tertullian (some of the best Christian theology, at that time, was coming out of Africa and Asia) wrote in The Apology (39:7):

See, they say, how they love one another, for themselves [pagans] are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves will sooner put to death.

If only!

(And, we wonder why are churches are emptying out and many people, especially, the young search for spiritual meaning, belonging and fulfilment somewhere else.)

None of the above is to be taken as a reason for laxity and indifference on areas of core doctrine (for middle-of-the-road Christians that means the authority of the scriptures, the truth of ancient creeds, the Gospel sacraments and the work of ministry at the service of the whole body of Christ). However, intellectual assent, alone, will never suffice to open the doors to the way, the truth and the fullness of life offered freely by Jesus. We need all three – a way of life, a body of truths and a life of honesty, integrity and genuine love.

Even still, among us are those who wonder and doubt some of the time or all of the time. To doubt is only to be human. To doubt and still carry on believing and trusting and living in love is to share in the divine.  Can anything stop us acting ‘as if it were true?’ Just try it and stick to it and you will see a continuation of miracles in your life. To believe (trust) in God is easier if we believe (trust) in the ‘works of God’ revealed through compassion in this often brutal but beautiful world.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews provides a very concise definition of faith as follows:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 – KJV)

What is that we hope for? We hope for one another life, peace, freedom and contentment in this life and, God willing, beyond this life.

What evidence is there that this hope is not in vain though we cannot ‘see’ God face to face? The evidence is written in our hearts as well as in the stars we gaze at on a clear night sky. It is all that we encounter every day – difficult and joyful, painful and glorious.  The ‘evidence’ is in front of us and within us if we could only open our hearts a bit more.

So, what level of evidence is sufficient for me or you? I turn, again, to Pascal to say it best:

‘Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas.’

("The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.")

More please

 ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10)

John 10:1-10 (Year A: Fourth Sunday of Easter 7^th May 2017)

This week’s blog is going to avoid cuddly lambs and soft-focus pictures of Northern European looking shepherds gently holding passive looking sheep. Not that the image of sheep and shepherds do not hold powerful relevance and meaning even today in our very post-modern, individualistic, urban and non-pastoral settings.  The image of a kind shepherd going after and bringing home the weak, the sick and the lost is a powerful one. The image of sheep listening to the voice of their shepherd has resonance. A careful reading of this story reflects the detail of a very Middle-Eastern situation where the shepherd waits for the very last sheep and then goes ahead (and not behind) the sheep.  Such is the trust and the mutual knowledge between sheep and shepherd.

This blog focusses, rather, on the ‘so what’ statement that follows the story about sheep, shepherd and sheepfold. It is the statement that Jesus came that we might have ‘life’ and have it ‘abundantly’. But what does this ‘life’ mean?  Surely, everyone who is alive is alive. Does ‘life’ mean something different or additional in this context?  Clearly, it does.   We may be alive but not alive. We may breathe and move but yet not be fully alive. We might have all our faculties and be world-class sports players and, yet, be dead or only half-alive in another sense.

So what is it – this precious and mysterious thing that Jesus calls ‘life’?

Being alive in Christ – which is what this story is about – is more than behaving in some predetermined ‘religious’ way – saying prayers, going to Church, hanging out with similar minded persons, avoiding the seven deadly sins and being a good son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father, spouse, partner, friend, colleague, citizen, etc. Being alive in Christ means entering a new relationship with someone who goes before us (like that nice cuddly European-looking shepherd). It means finding new life and a different life within us in a new relationship. Now, this is not the same thing as rolling up in a bubble of sanctimonious self-satisfaction. It means having our hearts broken open to others in whom Christ is really present and alive and moving. Perhaps one of the biggest tragedies of life – pardon the pun – is that some of us have never really ‘lived’. We may not have ‘lived’ ‘abundantly’.  The psalmist asks:

"Who is the one who will have life, and desires to see good days?” (Psalm 33:13)

The ancient Rule of St Benedict which has profoundly shaped monastic, religious and lay spirituality in Western Europe and beyond opens up with a concise and bold challenge:

Listen carefully, my child, to your master's precepts…

Ausculta fili – Give ear O Son (Proverbs 31.2) – the very opening words of the Rule (or the familiar phrase ‘Éist a Mhic’ in Irish) makes the point that we need to listen to the Voice of the One who can give life and give it to the full.

Too often we settle for less than the full life that is on offer because we don’t take time and space to listen  - really listen to ourselves, to others and ultimately to that continuing voice of Love which whispers to us every day in events, persons, emotions, thoughts, failures, joys and sorrows.

As one writer put it: ‘All that is asked of me is rapt attention, here, now, to others. And I’ll find the good life.’

But How do we know that Voice? How? It has three marks: Gentleness, Kindness, Inviting (more than compelling).

We have a sure foundation in Jesus who cares for each of us deeply and continuously as a mother does for a new-born baby and as a dying person does for those whom we have loved.  But, if we recognise the light and the life of God in the gentle, kind and inviting voice and face of Jesus who is the Face of God (another take on ‘Son of God’) then we, too, can be a gentle, kind and inviting voice and face for others who seek life and light.  We can choose to radiate kindness if we want and if we are serious about doing so. This is the life that God, in Jesus, has promised us and is available here and now.

The Christian singer Beckah Shae puts it so well in the song Life (lyrics here and music here):

More, more, more, more, moreThere's got to be so much more to this life….I'm gonna live the rich lifeThe full and blessed life..Exceeding and abundantlyMore than we could even ask or think,

A heart strangely warmed

‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?…..’ (Luke 24:32) 

Luke 24:13-35 (Year A: Third Sunday of Easter 30^th April 2017)

It was about 8.45pm on the evening of 24th May 1738 when John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had an ‘experience’ in Aldersgate while someone read from Luther’s Preface to the Letter to the Romans.  Wesley wrote of the experience, afterwards, that, "while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

We all know, from experience, that particular events, conversations and moments are special and stand out in our lives. These are moments of lived experience, insight and, sometimes (though not always) strong feelings. Perhaps, we sometimes distrust feelings as unworthy of consideration.  Indeed, any pattern of life or belief based mainly or exclusively on feelings will give way to some storm or shift in circumstances. However, feelings must be allowed to work in tandem with understanding, will and memories.  Feelings are, after all, part of the lived human experience and it is impossible to rationalise matters without bringing feeling into the picture.  Too often, our religion is rendered devoid of feeling as we go along with some pattern of words or thought. Indeed, our very idea of God may be tainted by notions of a passionless God (very much at variance with the God who reveals himself to us across the scriptures).

God speaks to us today no less than he did in the Person of Jesus Christ on the Road to Emmaus a few kilometres out from Jerusalem where two downcast disciples of Jesus were joined by what seemed like a stranger.

Jesus entered into a dialogue that was already underway on the way to Emmaus. The disciples were discussing those enormous events of recent days in Jerusalem. Having joined the conversation Jesus began to explain the scriptures to the disciples. We might assume that this was a two-way dialogue consisting of questions, answers, puzzlement, insight, surprise, joy and concern. We might also assume that the conversation lasted quite some time – maybe a few hours as the party neared Emmaus. At this time of the year, in Palestine, it might be around 6 or 7 pm when dusk begins to settle in.  Jesus was, in a certain sense, testing the two disciples who for some reason had not recognised him as the same Jesus who was at large in Jerusalem only a few days previously. Luke gives us a crucial clue about Jesus’ approach to his disciples:

Jesus himself came near and went with them (verse 15).

Jesus drew near to them and ‘went with them’. On this occasion, he did not stop them and say ‘you must stop going this way and come another way’.  Indeed the disciples would go another way. But, for now, Jesus accompanied them wherever they were going – like as if Jesus didn’t know the way and was a stranger to these parts.  Likewise, we, too, need to accompany others recognising where others are at and how their understanding has evolved.  For our part, we ourselves do not have all the answers. Our Teacher walks among us even if we do not readily see him or recognise him at first.

But feelings can trick us. Moreover, they do not or ought not to define us. In the Irish (Gaelic) language we do not say ‘I am sorrowful’ or ‘I am fearful’ etc. We say, rather, ‘there is sorrow upon me’ (tá brón orm) and ‘there is fear upon me’ (Tá eagla orm).

We may not ‘feel’ the presence of God. We might not ‘feel’ that God is there at all or that there is an ‘afterlife’.  Moreover, we may not ‘feel’ particularly positive about who we are and how we stand before God and others. We may even feel a loss of purpose, faith, reputation, respect and hope.  In these moments it is important to ‘keep going’ and ‘as if’ we had faith (‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ in Mark 9:24). The other side of this coin is, however, the reality that subjective feelings of ‘being saved’, ‘feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit’, etc. can also trick us.  One is not suggesting that these feelings are necessarily misleading or without truth. Perhaps, on occasions, we may need to ‘feel the absence of God’ in order to experience – in our feelings – the saving presence of God after ‘a dark night of the soul’.  Feelings remain important and any wise disciple will check in on his or her own feelings (the body and, with it, one’s own emotions are important messengers). Significantly, the wise disciple will know how and when to share these feelings with a trusted person and be open to a process of honest self-disclosure and discernment.

And so we should not travel alone. Where two or three are gathered – as on the road to Emmaus, there stands a loving presence – Jesus in the midst of us (Matt. 18:20) even if there is only two persons or three persons on the way of life. Church (‘gathering’) is everywhere if only we could open our eyes. The surest sign of God’s holy spirit is the joy that is placed in our hearts. It is like a burning fire that lights one step ahead and protects from the steps behind. However, discernment, care and spiritual companionship are essential to test every fire. Not every fire leads to God or comes from God.  The resurrection stories nearly all involve an encounter between the Risen Lord and a group of disciples. The Risen Christ is revealed in the new communion called and blessed by his Name.

We should never spiritually walk alone. We walk onwards with others and for others just as others do for us. That is the surest way that God’s holy fire enters into our human hearts and lightens the way forward – one step after another until we reach Emmaus. There we will be nourished and renewed with the Bread of Life. Have we had that strangely warmed heart experience yet? Don’t miss it for anything.

Amen, Insha Allah – the only way to lasting Peace

 ‘Peace be with you …..’ (John 20:21)

Pic: Monastère de Tibhirine vue des champs

John 20:19-31 (Year A: Second Sunday of Easter 23^rd April 2017)

The scene is set by John.  The disciples are afraid; very afraid. They might have been in a 21^st century church in Cairo on edge watching the loner in the middle of the pews with a slightly bulky jacket …. The mind imagines and freezes in terror. You get the picture.

Fear is terribly raw and terribly ‘in the gut’.

Then something out of the ordinary happens. Jesus walks among them again. As he says every time he shows up after the resurrection and even today: ‘Peace be with you’. Perhaps it was not just the words ‘peace be with you’ that impacted on the disciples but the way that this was said. It was like the way that Jesus uttered ‘Mary’ in the garden where Mary Magdalene was searching for her lost One and did not recognise, at first, who this mysterious ‘stranger’ right in front of her was. There was something powerfully peace-giving in the way Jesus spoke and acted throughout his years of ministry that when the disciples heard this same voice they recognised it completely. In his ministry Jesus said (Matthew 7:16):

‘You will know them by their fruits’

What fruits do I, you, he, she, we bring today?  Are we, as it says in that famous prayer of St Francis, ‘instruments of peace’?

Peace means the absence of violence and disharmony. But, more than this, it is life, wholeness and joy. It is brought to us ‘that that through believing you may have life in his name’ (John 20:31). Christ is our peace (Ephesians 2:14) speaks us today through the words of the psalmist:

When cares increase in my heart your consolation calms my soul (Psalm 93(94):19)

There are many, many other references to peace throughout the Bible and the Gospel of John is no exception. The peace that Jesus brings is no ordinary peace for he said (John 14:27):

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

The strong command not to be afraid is also strewn right across the Bible.  It is not easy to be at peace or without fear in moments of great danger. In possibly one of the best and most moving films ever made, Des Hommes et des Dieux, one can feel the fear and the peace side by side as events play out towards the final dénouement facing the brave Cistercian monks in the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria in early 1996.  Dom Christian Christian de Chergé OCSO concluded his last testament prior to the capture and execution of this small band of modern witnesses to peace as follows:

If the day comes, and it could be today, that I am a victim of the terrorism……And to you, too, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing. Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank-you, this "A-Dieu", whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it pleases God, our common Father. Amen! Insha Allah!

Insha Allah. God willing. Mary, the mother of Jesus would have used very similar words and sounds in Aramaic in her response to God’s call at the annunciation.

And when our time comes to pass from this world may we find peace in the Prince of Peace who alone can fully console our souls:

Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace – in peace because they trust in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

And though we may not be able to see or touch or reason in the way our ancestors in faith did we are no less vulnerable and called to the challenge of faith in a world crying out for the risen life of Jesus.  Grounded in the here and anchored to the present moment we, too, can taste this risen life to such an extent that we cry out as Thomas did, ‘My Lord and my God’. There we will find that peace, that joy and that freedom that stands out in all of the gospel stories of the resurrection.

Leaving empty tombs behind

 ‘the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy …..’ (Matthew 28:8)

Matthew 28:1-10 (Year A: Easter Sunday 16^rd April 2017)

It was early in the morning: cold and dark.  Something extraordinary awaited the two Mary’s. We need not bother or speculate too much about the details.  There was no CCTV to record exactly what happened or how. The accounts from the four gospels differ in detail but agree on the main facts.  What we know from the testimony of the disciples that first day of the week and later is that Jesus had risen from the dead and his body was no longer in the tomb where it had laid.

Easter presents a huge challenge to people today – at least those who consider these matters carefully and thoughtfully.  Modern-day rational and empirical ways of thinking and dealing with the world finds the Easter story puzzling. Even well regarded theologians and clerics find it hard to imagine a type of ‘bodily’ resurrection. Refuge is taken in the ‘spiritual’ message of Easter implying new life and hope relevant to people today and not in the ‘actually happened’ event of an empty tomb, clothes neatly tied together (hint for those in a hurry in the morning!) and a person who turns up like a ghost and yet can eat fish and bread.  All very fantastical and mythological, some will argue or suggest in the act of theological dodging.

Dismissing the Easter story as fanciful post-death imagination and handed-on story telling by the early Jesus movement is easy but based, ironically, on a particular mind-Set that deals in a limited set of empirical possibilities. 

That Jesus rose form the dead in all the meaning that this entails is a foundational principle of Christian faith and living.  Writing in a letter to the church in Corinth some decades after the death of Jesus, St Paul had the following very relevant things to say about Jesus rising from the dead:

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.    More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.    For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.    And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.    Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.   If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.(1 Cor 15:12-19)

The passage speaks for itself and does need commentary here.

And a very different type of story..

In short, if the resurrection is just a ‘story’ on the same level as a fairy-tale or a piece of fiction then we might hang up our boots, spend some time on a beach somewhere on Sunday mornings and find a life (not that Christians shouldn’t do such things as well on Sunday afternoons!).  Something happened on Easter Sunday that was so shocking, so profound and so capturing that the early eyewitnesses and disciples could only tell it the way they saw, heard and experienced it. Thus, Paul tells the brethren at Corinth:

 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,  and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.(1 Cor. 15:3-8).

A number of possible interpretations are on offer..

A number of possible understandings are possible including the following three (at least):

Uncritical realism – typified by a literalist, maximum reading of the resurrection narratives.  Some adherents of this approach insist on an objective approach that demands intellectual assent backed up – in case of any doubt – with historical ‘facts’.  Scripture is cited as in a law court and certainty with regard to ‘what really happened’ is part of the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’.  Moreover, great stress is placed on the physicality of the resurrection – not just spiritual rising but a resurrection of the ‘flesh’

Scepticism – typified by some strands of radical theology that sees in these narratives little or nothing more than the early Jesus movement trying to make sense of the experience of defeat, exclusion and new life in the immediate aftermath of the life and ministry of Jesus.  The notion of someone ‘coming back to life’ after death is excluded as impossible. Instead, the focus is on the meaning of resurrection as a story that inspires the followers of Jesus.

Critical realism – falls somewhere between the above two ‘extremes’.  Critical realism does not shy from the highly improbable ‘historicity’ of many of the details in the resurrection stories. However, it does not exclude the ‘realism’ of rising to new life which entails accepting the idea that ‘there are no bones around because the one who died is now risen’. This sounds like physical resuscitation. However, at this point the critical realist accepts that something extraordinary – supernatural – happened in the immediate aftermath of the death of Jesus.  These extraordinary happenings were witnessed by many people. Something ‘real’, ‘objective’ and ‘historical’ happened and that something ignited a revolution in the minds and spirits of the first disciples of Jesus.  Exactly, what happened and how it happened remains difficult to access and explain – especially at a distance of 2,000 years and the intervening world-view sea changes.  Put another way, we are not sure what a CCTV outside the tomb, at the time, would have picked up.  No Gospel account actually describes what happened during the key moment or moments.

The core issues

Adhering to both an objective and subjective view of the resurrection leaves the open the following points of doctrine and belief that are mutually compatible and reinforcing:

-          The impossibility of putting limits to the sovereignty of God and the world of rational, direct experience and observation.

-          The weight of tradition and wisdom of Christians down the ages who received the faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

• The importance of rising from death in the challenge to change an unjust world
• The importance of hope in life beyond this present sometimes beautiful, if very incomplete, world and with that the promise of fellowship here and now remaining and transforming into eternity.

In the words of the Nicene Creed, we say I or we ‘look forward to’ or ‘hope’ or ‘expect’ (expecto).  Not that I (or you) have seen, touched, proved, observed or established scientifically – rather I have entrusted my limited understanding to a higher order of truth. The point is that our faith may be two millennia old but our thinking doesn’t have to be.

To put it another way, I (note personal pronoun) think that when the authors of the Gospel report an empty tomb there really was a tomb and it was empty not because the body was stolen or imagined away but because something very extraordinary happened that goes beyond human explaining or witness. Even if many of the details of the narrative remain of unknown historical fact, they point to a deeper historical witness – that of individuals and communities resurrected, risen and transformed that the world may believe that Jesus is truly risen.

More to the point – writing in Eastertide 2017 – such experience has profound significance.  What is even more important than the historical question of the resurrection (important in its own right) is the significance of that event today. Hence, it is more important to say (while still passing the lie detector!) that We believe that Christ is Risen than merely ‘Christ rose from the dead’.  Christ is truly risen in me, you, us – if our lives shout out new life, freedom for the captive and bread for the hungry. Otherwise, intellectual assent to an orthodox formula is pretty dead – in a tomb somewhere.

We may leave behind our empty tombs of dead religion, dead relationships and dead ideologies and embracing the one true living and risen Lord in my life, your life, our lives.

And so what for us now?

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.

Therein lies a key to a living resurrection in today’s world.

Not what or how but so what.

But Jesus remained silent

 ‘But Jesus was silent…..’ (Matthew 26:63)

                                                        picture source

Matthew 26:57-68: 7:11-14 (Year A: Good Friday 14^rd April 2017)

First, Jesus was brought before Caiaphas the High Priest, ‘in whose house the scribes and the elders had gathered’. He was put through a gruelling and hostile questioning from the High Priest. Here was a self-styled ‘High Priest’ talking to the real ‘High Priest’.  Here was a case in which God was being put on trial for crimes against religion. Here was the mob fuelled up as if they had been absorbing their ‘news’ from 1^st century social media. Here were many false witnesses ready to testify against Jesus on whatever pretext or manipulation of the truth.

‘But Jesus was silent’

He remained silent on the particular question posed by the High Priest, Caiaphas.  Caiaphas along with the scribes and elders gathered in that place knew their theology thoroughly. Their theology was a fierce one –

• logical (so to speak);
• literal (when it suited them); and
• ruthless (as long as it applied to others).

Jesus answered a different question but remained silent on the specific one posed by Caiaphas.  Then, Jesus was brought before the Governor.  The Governor represented the Roman Imperium. He would have been anxious to avoid disturbances in Jerusalem and beyond. At the same time, he would have been anxious not to fall foul of his Emperor or other seniors in Rome and across the Empire. He was confronted with what seemed like a silly argument about local Jewish theology and claims to authority.  The best approach in these situations, according to the manual of keeping the natives pacified and ruthlessly stamping out any whiff of challenges to Roman authority, is to make a very public and clear demonstration of the consequences of such perceived impudence. The plan, as we know, backfired. Jesus and his community after his death and resurrection would turn the world upside down and inside out.  But how were Caiaphas and Pilate to know? At least Pilate become world famous ever afterwards since Christians recite the Creed every Sunday:

….He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate ….

Pilate puts a key question to Jesus: ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’. Jesus avoids the question by saying ‘You say so’ (or simply ‘I am not going to answer your question’).  Accusations followed, again, from the ‘chief priests and elders’.   Accusation after accusation followed but Jesus remained silent and gave no response ‘even to a single charge’. Matthew tells us that the Governor ‘was greatly amazed’. He was probably amazed and furious.  The episode from Matthew’s Passion narrative reveals a mind game and at the same time a power game.  The Governor had all the power to kill, forgive, release, detain or torture Jesus as he wished.  He played on this power to evade responsibility for Jesus’s death by appearing to put the ‘chief priests and elders’ in charge of the situation.  He presented choices to them and they called for the release of prisoner Barrabas instead of Jesus.  A well crafted case had been prepared by the enemies of Jesus to convict, punish and kill him. Yet, here was the real power of Love standing in front of a bunch of power-hungry, religiously obsessed and insecure people from Governor to chief priest to elders to the fickle mob who followed the Tabloid Press of the 1^st century: ‘Let him be crucified!’.

If this was the fate of Jesus then we should recognise two things:

1. Our unacknowledged part in judging and convicting others even possibly in the name of Jesus or religion.
2. Our role as disciples and human beings in taking the brunt of the anger of others – justified or not.

When accusations fly:

Jesus remains silent.

When others seek to exclude us:

Jesus remains silent.

When others ignore us:

Jesus remains silent.

When others misinterpret what we say or do or not say or not do:

Jesus remains silent.

When others twist the evidence or the truth:

Jesus remains silent.

When others speak ill of us and put us down in front of others or behind our back:

Jesus remains silent.

When others seek to control, blame or undermine us:

Jesus remains silent.

But, silence is not necessarily an act of surrender. Silence does not have to mean complicity in the wrong-doing of others. In particular situations, silence is power. Silence is love. Silence is peace because the Prince of Peace who gave his life for us on this Good Friday walked our individual paths before us and still walks those paths as we gaze on the Silent One.

With the prophet Isaiah (50:7-9) we can take a quiet confidence and say:

The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

The lesson of Jesus for me today is:

• to be rooted in quiet confidence of the here and now;
• not give way to, or respond to, aggression from others;
• not to judge anyone;
• to remain at all times kind, positive, hopeful and forwarding looking.

We need to talk about Peter

‘And he went out and wept bitterly …..’ (Matthew 26:75)

                                         Basilica of Saint Apollinare

Matthew 26:14-27:66 (Year A: Palm Sunday Sunday 9^rd April 2017)

To experience betrayal is a gutting experience. This is all the more when the one who betrayed us was, perhaps, the closest and most loved of persons.  To experience betrayal as one who has perpetrated betrayal is also a gutting experience. This is all the more when the one who does the betraying does it to the closest and most loved of persons. 

Jesus was the one person who never betrayed anyone’s trust. 

The history of church is built on betrayal and redemption from betrayal. We might need to rid ourselves of any notions of a pure church apart from Christ or, indeed, a pure life based on certainty of our own merit and superiority. Put another way, church is a refuge for sinners and persons who once betrayed our Lord and have found refuge and healing in a shaky field hospital known as ‘church’. (In a postscript to this blog I underline the need for discretion when dealing with betrayal).

There is a lot to chew on in this extra long Sunday Gospel reading taken, this year, from Matthew.  For me, one episode stands out in particular in my reading of the text this year. It is the well known story of the betrayal of Jesus by the leading apostle, Peter. Peter was a reckless, passionate and unstable sort of person at times.  He was given into jumping into water (literally) and making rash promises (such as the declaration by Peter, ‘even though I must die with you, I will not deny you’ in Matthew 26:35).  Poor Peter; even his soft Galilean brogue gave him away that night when Jesus was on trial!

Here was the ideal disciple who would be remade and redeemed by Grace and Grace alone!  Not given to half measures, he had a fatal tendency to walk himself into trouble, over-promise and under-deliver. Worst still, at the most crucial of times when Jesus was arrested and put on trial with an inevitable outcome Peter runs away and when confronted denies any association with Jesus. Mind you, he was not the only disciple who ran away when they were last with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Only the women disciples courageously stood firm and stayed with Jesus throughout. The perils of openly confessing our Christian faith and witness are known in some parts of the globe where a Sunday gathering can be the occasion of a terrorist bomb.  If presented with such risks or even captured and tortured to deny Christ which one among us would stand firm?  We should be gentle on Peter.

Caught like a rabbit in the glare of the light, Peter denies, three times, the Lord Jesus. He fulfils what Jesus had predicted the night before (Matthew 26:34):

 ‘Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’

But, just as Peter denies Jesus three times he would go on to affirm him three times after the resurrection according to the Gospel of John (John 21:15-17):

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.

But that is not where it ended for Peter.  Jesus goes on to declare (John 21:18-19)

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

Here is the man who betrayed Jesus multiple times. However, unlike Judas who despaired of God’s mercy, Peter turned and continued to recklessly, but not presumptively, throw himself into the merciful arms of God.  At the charcoal fire that night in the temple court he went out and wept bitterly. He was cut to the heart by his own betrayal. However, betrayal did not prevent him rising above this experience of utter failure and shame.  Peter would meet the Risen Lord again on the shore of a lake and once again beside a charcoal fire in the early morning. Peter had passed from the night of shame, terror and despair to the morning of a new beginning and commission that would take him, literally, to Rome.

This time Peter would find a supernatural strength which can find fertile ground in utter failure and utter incapacity. Grace alone wins but not without cooperation.  And the weakest of men found grace again. For his pains he would – according to tradition at least – be crucified upside down. Whether this is literally true is open to question. However, what is sure from various ancient sources is that Peter went to Rome where, along with other leading disciples, met martyrdom and death probably during the terror of Nero around the year 64.  The Church we know today was built on the rock of Peter’s faith, betrayal and redemption. It was sanctified by the blood of martyrs. So it was then and so it is today and so it shall be before all is brought to completion. Every step to what it is that we are, each, called to be starts with a simple step of recognition that we are nothing without God’s help and grace and mercy.

Postscript

It has been common place for some, including Christian ministers, to take advantage of Christian mercy and to continue betraying trust known or unknown. In any situation of life the ‘serial betrayer’ especially one who abuses trust at the expense of another needs to be mercifully cut off.  In some cases – such as betrayal of child safety it may very well be a case of ‘first strike and you are out’. 

In other cases such as in a marital situation it may be a case of a second or a third chance after betrayal comes to light. However, each case needs to be assessed by those directly involved guided by human compassion, common sense and prudence. Many the person or group of persons that were taken advantage of by the wily ways of the treacherous. We also need to be open to the possibility that we may have facilitated a situation of betrayal through lapse of trust in some way or another.