A Homily – The Second Sunday of Easter (Year A) Divine Mercy Sunday, A Holy Day of Obligation

A Homily – The Second Sunday of Easter (Year A) Divine Mercy Sunday,

A Holy Day of Obligation

 

First Reading – Acts 2:42-47 ©

Responsorial Psalm 117(118):2-4, 13-15, 22-24 ©

Second Reading – 1 Peter 1:3-9 ©

Sequence – Victimae Paschali Laudes

Gospel Acclamation – John 20:29

The Gospel According to John 20:19-31

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 In the early church, the first Christian communities flourished because they believed in one another, they trusted one another, they relied on one another; they held their possessions in common and lived according to the beliefs they professed, shared their food and their water, in their best approximation of the way.

 Their communities grew according to the example they set, in the earliest period of the church, between the crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem, this was uncomplicated.

 It was not their faith in the risen Christ that caused Christian communities to grow, though belief in the teaching was present among them, it was their faith in each other, living and working alongside one another, following the way Jesus taught them that allowed the early Christians communities to flourish, and persevere in the face of persecution.

 This is not to say that the risen Christ was not with them. According to the earliest teachings of the church, where two or more people are gathered in the name of Christ, Christ is present to them…with them. Christians in the early church believed in the good news of the resurrection. This was an ideological requirement for membership in the community, a Christian had to stipulate to this, whether they believed in it, in a literal sense, or not; this was a binding doctrine even in the early Church.

 However, ideological constructs, doctrine and dogma are often more like window dressing, most people relate to them as allegories and metaphors, and only resort to literalism when they are trying to win an argument, attempting to justify something and feel the need to resort to legalism in order to preserve tradition. What bound the early Christians even more closely than its nascent mythology was the living witness that each Christian and every Christian community brought to the ministry Jesus established the way his life and death pointed too, a witness they shared with the world, as far and wide as they were able to travel.

 That first generation of Christians bore witness to the fact that God, the creator of the universe, is kind, loving and merciful, and that Jesus taught this above all else. He taught that God is a loving parent, abba, and that God always approaches God’s children in the spirit of love, even when God is exercising judgment and administering justice, there is always love, always compassion, understanding and mercy.

 For a few short years this remained the principle teaching of the Church he founded.

 Be mindful.

 The Church, like God, has no enemies. God does not dwell, in a special way in any place: behind the walls of a city, inside a temple, a cathedral or a basilica. There are no gates barring access to God, there are no barriers in the world or in the mind, or in the true dogma of the Church, in the way that Jesus followed.

 Know this.

 God is in all places, at all times and in the hearts of all people. God is with us! God does not favor one child over another. God is a bringing of life, not death. God loves peace, not war.

 Remember!

 God is the parent of everyone, the creator of the universe and everything in it, and the resurrection of Jesus (if you believe it) if you hold it in your heart, it is hope, the light of grace shining in the darkness, reason to trust in what had theretofore been unseen, and to hold it out, like a beacon on hill, as a promise made to everyone.

 Whether we believe in the resurrection or not, does not matter. Possessing a particular ideological structure and holding it in your mind while consenting to its particulars is not the key to the afterlife. What you maybe certain of is this, your life in this world is a preparation for eternity, and whatever comes next…we are all in it together.

 God promised that not one of God’s children will be left in the dark, our numbers will be greater than the stars.

 Have no fear…all will be saved, this is the essence of Christian hope.

 Understand this!

 Faith in the resurrection makes it easier to live a good life. When your belief in God’s love for you is firm, it is easier to pray for those who persecute you, to love your enemy, to lead a just life, a life of humility and mercy.

 Faith will not protect you from evil, either from within or without faith will help you endure it.

 Be mindful of what Saint Peter taught, and know that Peter was mistaken about a great many things.

 Peter praises the faithful for their love and devotion to Jesus, for their belief in Jesus as the Christ, as an object of devotion, as an idea fixe, transforming our image of Jesus into an idol; calling Christians to give their love and devotion to an image, instead of to the way of life that he preached and taught.

 Do not tell people to be happy in their suffering, justifying it on the grounds that they are suffering for a great caus; Peter was wrong to do so.

 Do not tell them this!

 If a person is suffering and they have no choice, so be it, but do not tell them it is God’s will; rather boost them up, support them, give them hope. Do not speak to them about the honor and glory of their suffering, and do not promise rewards for their suffering in the next life, do not promise these things in the name of idols.

 When Christian faith moves away from the living tradition and ceases to be way of life, when it stops being about people, becoming instead a partisan thing, a thing of ideology and doctrine, then the way is lost.

 Consider the bankrupt theology present in the sequence from the mass today, it demonstrates much of what is wrong with Christian dogma and doctrine.

 Jesus did not die on the cross as a sacrificial victim. Blood does not serve to expiate sin, it never has and it never could, that is not how that the world works. Listen to the prophets who inform us that God desires mercy, not sacrifices; Jesus stood in their tradition, against the crooked priests in the temple and their bloody ways.

 Be mindful.

Only love transforms sin, doing so through the powers of mercy and forgiveness, both offered and accepted; compassion is the coin God desires that we pay in when we place our gifts in the altar basket, that is what transforms sin.

 Remember.

 God is not a general and Jesus is not a warrior, there is no war taking place between Heaven and the forces of sin and evil, there never has been and there never will be.

 All the powers of sin and evil, no matter how great they seem to you in your present suffering,  are infinitely less than the infinite power of God, there is no contest between them. From God’s perspective the trauma of sin is a mournful thing, each trauma is an occasion for sorrow, but they are not a manifestation of a cosmic struggle between the the forces of light and darkness, not demonic forces to fight against, or draw battle lines in some zero-sum game.

 Sin is not something you cleave with the sword of wrath but heal with the salve of grace.

 God is not a king and Jesus did not seek a royal station, these are human aspirations and we do a disservice to the way by clinging to them, and shadowing the divine with the trappings of royalty. Rather, God comes to us as a loving parent, and Jesus walked with us as a friend, be mindful of this when you are at prayer.

 Be mindful.

 Jesus led an extraordinary life and died at the hands of his political opponents in a rather ordinary way. Let us reflect on this and reject the lofty language that seeks to make more of it than it was…a political murder.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today.

 On the second Sunday of Easter the narrative moves us away from the ministry of Jesus and into the life of the early Church, which becomes the era of internecine conflict and partisanship.

 John’s Gospel was written roughly one hundred-twenty years after Jesus died. The reading for today contains some fascinating glimpses into the life of John’s community, and their partisan concerns.

 John says that on the night Jesus was crucified the apostles hid in the upper room for fear of the Jews, indicating the deep division that had already taken place between the nascent church and the Jewish people who were its founders.

 Jesus and the apostles were themselves Jewish, Jesus was in the rabbinical tradition, referred to as a Rabbi by the people; he read in synagogues, he was a Jew of the diaspora. And though his teachings may have originated among the Essenes of Qumran, their semi-monastic community was a part of the pharisaic tradition most commonly practiced by the Jewish people living outside of Judea itself.  

 Ninety years before John’s gospel was written, Saint Paul was active in his ministry to the gentiles, arguing with St. Peter about the notion that gentiles must first become observant Jews before they could join the Church.

 St. Paul won that argument and the church opened to the world, and ninety years later it would come to see the Jewish tradition, from which it had emerged, as anathema to itself.

 There was great concern for the Church and its authority in this time. The Church’s understanding of Jesus, the image the presented of him was changing in dramatic ways, becoming reimagined as a priest doing priestly things, instead of the prophet, which he was. Jesus is commissioning the disciples, instantiating them in office, empowering them to pass judgement on people, to forgive or not forgive sins as the disciples saw fit, and to pass on the powers of their office when they are done, establishing church government.

 This flies in the face of the historical Jesus, and his ministry.

 Jesus forgave sins, and encourages the disciples to forgive sins, not because they had the special power to do so, but because Jesus understood that God had already forgiven them. He taught us that when the prophet, or the minister of the Church proclaim absolution, they are not exercising a special power, they are proclaiming the will of God, they are announcing something that has already happened.

 The Gospel for today encourages the people to respond to mystical deeds and supernatural happenings; ghostly apparitions and visions, as if the claim that these supernatural events took place lent a greater authority to the work they were engaged in.

 Many are taken in by this sort of thing, it is an appeal to magical thinking, such appeals are always fabrications and lies…it is the theology of salesmen.

 In the final passage the gospel writers put forth the notion that the miracles were real, they were performed so that people would believe that Jesus is (in a special way) the son of God, and that through this belief they would become eligible to enter the Church named after him, making them candidates for eternal life.

 The construction of this ideology is this:

 Come to the church where the Gospel is given, learn the name of Jesus Christ, believe that he is the Son of God, receive that belief as an object or an article of faith, present that belief at the gates of heaven, and be rewarded with eternal life.

 The scheme presented here, familiar to most Christians, this scheme is mode of Gnosticism which the early church in its wisdom, formally rejected in the same era that John’s Gospel was written…and yet the ideas persisted.

 We should also reject now because they are not representative of the way.

 This is the meaning of faith: Trust; have faith, trust in God.

 The meaning of faith is not belief, it is not to believe in a proposition or an article of dogma.

 Christian faith is not: Believe in Christ so that you can be saved.

 It is: Trust God, you are saved already, you are saved because the divine is merciful and for no than reason than superabundance of God’s eternal love.

  

First Reading – Acts 2:42-47 ©

The Faithful All Lived Together and Owned Everything in Common

The whole community remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.

The many miracles and signs worked through the apostles made a deep impression on everyone.

The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.

They went as a body to the Temple every day but met in their houses for the breaking of bread; they shared their food gladly and generously; they praised God and were looked up to by everyone. Day by day the Lord added to their community those destined to be saved.

 

Psalm 117(118):2-4,13-15,22-24 ©

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love has no end.

Let the sons of Israel say:

  ‘His love has no end.’

Let the sons of Aaron say:

  ‘His love has no end.’

Let those who fear the Lord say:

  ‘His love has no end.’

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love has no end.

I was thrust down, thrust down and falling,

  but the Lord was my helper.

The Lord is my strength and my song;

  he was my saviour.

There are shouts of joy and victory

  in the tents of the just.

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love has no end.

The stone which the builders rejected

  has become the corner stone.

This is the work of the Lord,

  a marvel in our eyes.

This day was made by the Lord;

  we rejoice and are glad.

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love has no end.

 

Second Reading 1 Peter 1:3-9 ©

You Did Not See Christ, Yet You Love Him

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy has given us a new birth as his sons, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is being kept for you in the heavens. Through your faith, God’s power will guard you until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the end of time. This is a cause of great joy for you, even though you may for a short time have to bear being plagued by all sorts of trials; so that, when Jesus Christ is revealed, your faith will have been tested and proved like gold – only it is more precious than gold, which is corruptible even though it bears testing by fire – and then you will have praise and glory and honour. You did not see him, yet you love him; and still without seeing him, you are already filled with a joy so glorious that it cannot be described, because you believe; and you are sure of the end to which your faith looks forward, that is, the salvation of your souls.

 

Sequence

Victimae Paschali Laudes

Christians, to the Paschal Victim

  offer sacrifice and praise.

The sheep are ransomed by the Lamb;

and Christ, the undefiled,

hath sinners to his Father reconciled.

Death with life contended:

  combat strangely ended!

Life’s own Champion, slain,

  yet lives to reign.

Tell us, Mary:

  say what thou didst see

  upon the way.

The tomb the Living did enclose;

I saw Christ’s glory as he rose!

The angels there attesting;

shroud with grave-clothes resting.

Christ, my hope, has risen:

he goes before you into Galilee.

That Christ is truly risen

  from the dead we know.

Victorious king, thy mercy show!

 

Gospel Acclamation Jn 20:29

Alleluia, alleluia!

Jesus said: ‘You believe because you can see me.

Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.’

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John 20:19-31

Eight Days Later, Jesus Came Again and Stood Among Them

In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.

‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’

After saying this he breathed on them and said:

‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’

Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. When the disciples said, ‘We have seen the Lord’, he answered, ‘Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.’ Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them. ‘Peace be with you’ he said. Then he spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.’ Thomas replied, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him:

‘You believe because you can see me.

Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.’

There were many other signs that Jesus worked and the disciples saw, but they are not recorded in this book. These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing this you may have life through his name.

 

The Second Sunday of Easter (Year A) Divine Mercy Sunday, A Holy Day of Obligation