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

First reading: Acts 4:32-35

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 117(118):2-4,15-18,22-24

Second reading: 1 John 5:1-6

Sequence – Victimae Paschali Laudes

Gospel Acclamation: John 20:29

The Gospel According to John: 20:19-31

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

The readings for today move us away from the ministry of Jesus, into the life of the early church.

John’s Gospel was written roughly one hundred-twenty years after Jesus died, it contains some fascinating glimpses into the life of John’s community, but it is far removed from the way Jesus instructed us to follow.

John’s Gospel makes enemies of the Jewish people, it tells his audience that in the week after Jesus’ crucifixion the apostles hid for “fear of the Jews,” indicating deep division in the nascent church between the Pharisaic Jews who founded it, and the far greater number of gentiles in Palestine and the broader Mediterranean world who quickly became the majority of its members.

Remember!

Jesus and the apostles were Jewish, they were Jews of the diaspora; Jesus taught in synagogues, the people called him Rabbi.

Ninety years before John’s gospel was written, Paul was active with his “ministry to the gentiles,” arguing with Peter over the question of whether gentiles must first convert and become observant Jews before they could join the church. In this period the Jesus movement was a Jewish movement.

Paul argued against the notion that gentiles should first covert to Judaism before becoming Christians, Paul’s point of view ultimately prevailed. The Church, still in its infancy, opened itself to the world and over the ninety intervening years between the ministry of Peter and Paul and the writing of John’s Gospel a profound transformation took place, coming to see the Jewish tradition and its people, the tradition and people from which it was born, as anathema to itself.

During the period that John’s Gospel was written, the Church had great concern for its authority, this time was marked by persecutions from without and division from within. In this time the image of Jesus is changes from prophet to priest; he is less and less the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, and more the administrator of priestly functions. When he commissions the disciples he instantiates their office as a priestly office, empowering them to pass judgement on the people, to forgive or not forgive sins as they and the heirs to their authority saw fit, etc…so they told us.

This portrayal of Jesus as the Christ is a betrayal of the actual ministry of Jesus and his teaching on the way, it flies in the face of the historical account that lingers in the synoptic gospels (Mark, Luke and Matthew), a history almost wholly absent in John.

The historical record tells us that Jesus was not a priest; he was a prophet. Jesus forgave sin and encouraged the disciples to forgive sins, not because they had the sacred power to do so, but because God, the creator of the universe had already done so, and their role was merely to proclaim it, to teach this truth and help people to understand what that means: which is that sin is forgiven by the divine, and we are meant to honor God by accepting this forgiveness, and to emulate God by forgiving those who have done us harm…real or imagined.

When Jesus and the disciples forgave sins, they were not so much performing an act as they were proclaiming God’s intention for the whole of creation, teaching God’s abiding love for the creature, no matter how far they might have strayed.

When a prophet proclaims absolution, they are not exercising a priestly power, they are articulating the will of God.

John’s Gospel did a disservice to the early Church by encouraging the faithful to become believers, to respond to reports mystical deeds and magical happenings, to ghostly apparitions and visions as if they were true, in the hope that these supernatural events, if accepted would lend a greater authority to their position in the Church, and their own ministry within it.

Many people are taken in by this sort of thing.

Every appeal the Church makes on the conscience of the believer that relies on the super-fantastic for its authority, must always be understood as a fabrication and a failure of the Church’s ability to reason.  

It is our duty to uphold the notion that when Jesus called us he called us to serve in the Church, he called us to abide by the Spirit of Truth in that service, and that when we lie, we undermine its foundation, which is destructive of the faith.

In the final passage of the Gospel for today, the writer puts forth the notion that the miracles were real: he insists on it, he says that they were performed so that people would believe that Jesus was (in a special way) the son of God, and that through this belief (as if their belief-itself were the key to a secret door) they would enter the Church, becoming candidates for admission into eternal life…this is a false representation of the way.

The construction of the ideology is:

Come to the church where the Gospel is given, learn the name of Jesus Christ and believe in it; believe that Jesus is the Son of God. If you believe this, you will be rewarded with eternal life.

The scheme of this idiom is essentially Gnostic, it represents a system of belief that the Church attempted to reject in the same era that John’s Gospel was written. However, the Gnostic strain of thought had significant appeal among early Christians, and the teaching of the Church, even the liturgy and especially John’s Gospel, reflect the compromises that the Church made with those Gnostic movements in order to allow their adherents to join the mainstream.

It is my position that we should continue to reject those Gnostic strains of thought, the reliance on magic, the super-natural and the fantastic. More importantly, we should reject the notion that there is some kind of exchange that must take place before any one of God’s children can become the beneficiary of God’s saving will.

Understand this!

Grace is free and salvation is not transactional; what brings us to salvation is the natural movement of God’s will, flowing from the Divine out toward the creature, infusing each and every being from the moment of their generation with a divine force that culminates in the return of the creature to God.

Know this.

The meaning of faith is trust, and the faithful trust God. The meaning of faith is not belief, belief is an ideation that we hold in our minds, like a proposition or an article of dogma. A person may have faith in a belief, they may also believe in the things they have faith in. But faith and belief are not the same thing, and the distinction between them is important.

The proper content of Christian faith is not: believe in Christ so that you can be saved.

Christian faith is this: trust God, you are saved already.

Be mindful.

Everyone who is, or was begotten by God, is loved by God; we are called upon to love God in return, to love the ineffable, the transcendent and the infinite, to do so to the best that we are able.

The ministry of Jesus, the ministry that we are meant to follow as Christians, this ministry calls on us to act from our love for God, by loving all of God’s children, by loving them equally and without preference, whether or not they believe what we believe or have faith in the same things we trust in.

Note well: the profession of an ideology or the articulation of belief in a particular doctrine is not in itself an act of love.

Keep God’s commandment, as Jesus said: love your neighbor as you love yourself, care for them as you care for your own, do not equivocate.

Do not assume that just because a person professes to love God that this person actually has love in their heart. Such a profession is a good first step, but it is not proof of anything. The profession of love is not the act of loving…its proof is in the doing.

Know this.

Being a follower of Jesus does not confer any special benefit on a person, neither in this life, nor in the next.

Rather, being a Christian, having accepted the responsibilities of following Jesus, confers a special responsibility on the follower, the responsibility to treat all people as God would, as beloved members of the divine family.

Remember,

God is kind, God is loving and God is merciful.

Wherever God is present (and God is not, not present in any place), God’s kindness, God’s love and God’s mercy are also present. As Christians we are called to trust in this, to demonstrate that trust through our actions, and to encourage that trust in others.

Know this.

The Church, like God, has no enemies.

Know that God does not dwell behind the wall of a city, or within the precinct of a temple, neither in a cathedral, nor a basilica. There are no gates barring access to God, priestly intermediaries are wholly unnecessary, 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 bringer of life, not death. God loves peace, not war.

God is the parent of everyone, the creator of the universe and everything in it, and the resurrection of Jesus (if you believe in it) is a gift of hope for you. It is a reason to trust in what had theretofore been unseen, and encouragement to believe that you are included in what God has promised to do for everyone.

Whether we believe in the resurrection or not, does not matter, the return to God is the destiny set in place for you and everyone, not one of us will be left in the dark.

All will be saved, all will be well. God will be all in all…this is the hope of the church, and the true content of our faith.

Faith makes it easier to live the 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 orient your life toward justice, to fill it with mercy and express it with humility.

Faith is not an article of belief that we are meant to cling to, it is not the golden ticket that will grant a person access to paradise.

Faith will not protect you from evil, either from within or from without, but faith will empower you to persevere in the face of it, to endure it and remain whole.

Consider this.

The myths we tell about Cain and Able, Ishmael and Isaac, Essau and Jacob, Saul and David, these stories reflect the tribal and dynastic machinations of small minded and sinful creatures. They are not a reflection of the divine will.

Do not confuse victory in battle with God’s will, do not confuse human suffering with God’s will; God does not desire anyone to suffer.

Now consider the reading from the Book of Acts. The author of Acts is informing us of the way things ought to have been, rather than speaking of the way things actually were.

We know that the Church did not conduct its daily business according to its most lofty ideals. The letters of Paul confirm it. More importantly, we have the judgement of common sense and our own experience to tell us that this is always how things go. This reading from Acts informs us of what our aspirations for our communities should be, and it is good that the author directs people toward a unity of heart and soul. However, it is a disservice to hold these aspirations over the people of the Church today, as a factual representation of a “golden-age” that has been lost to sin.

Be mindful!

The apostolic era was a period in the Church that was rife with conflict, oftentimes bloody, and it was not always the party in the right that emerged from those internal conflicts victorious.

There was conflict and misunderstanding among the disciples, even those closest to Jesus, even while he lived with them and taught them; Jesus’ own disciples betrayed and denied him.

The conflicts of the apostolic era ended with the age of heresies, the age of heresies ended with advent of the Imperial church, after which, new heresies were persecuted through the power of the state, leading to centuries of war and bloody conflict, all the way to the inquisition and the protestant reformation, which has never ended.

The last two hundred years have brought us an ebb in the tide of those conflicts, but the structure of those conflicts remain…the unscrupulous could reignite them at any moment, and with the rise of Christian nationalism in America, we could easily experience those conflicts again.

Know this.

There is not a single teaching of the Church whose meaning has been agreed upon by all Christians, not a single teaching that has been held by all people, in all times and all places; even the teaching on the resurrection has been a point of division among Christians, going all the way back to the discovery of the empty tomb.

It is not the teaching we believe, it is not doctrine nor dogma that lifts us up and saves us. It is only the ever-present love of God that returns us to ourselves and to the divine. Our salvation is to trust in that…not that we will be saved one day, but that we are saved already

First reading: Acts 4:32-35

The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul

The whole group of believers was united, heart and soul; no one claimed for his own use anything that he had, as everything they owned was held in common.

  The apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and they were all given great respect.

  None of their members was ever in want, as all those who owned land or houses would sell them, and bring the money from them, to present it to the apostles; it was then distributed to any members who might be in need.

 

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 117(118):2-4,15-18,22-24

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.

The Lord’s right hand has triumphed;

  his right hand raised me up.

I shall not die, I shall live

  and recount his deeds.

I was punished, I was punished by the Lord,

  but not doomed to die.

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 John 5:1-6

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has already overcome the world

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been begotten by God; and whoever loves the Father that begot him loves the child whom he begets.

We can be sure that we love God’s children if we love God himself and do what he has commanded us; this is what loving God is – keeping his commandments; and his commandments are not difficult, because anyone who has been begotten by God has already overcome the world; this is the victory over the world – our faith.

Who can overcome the world?

Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God:

Jesus Christ who came by water and blood, not with water only, but with water and blood; with the Spirit as another witness – since the Spirit is the truth.

 

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: John 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 B) Divine Mercy Sunday, A Holy Day of Obligation