2 Easter Sunday Cycle C April 3, 2016
Lectionary Link
We need to remind ourselves continually that when we read the Gospels, we are reading more about the experience of the churches at the time when the Gospels were written and less about the events contemporary with the life of Jesus of Nazareth. This is sometimes difficult because the art of writing which time-lapses narratives about Jesus are effective in giving us a "sense" of actually being there. All good literary art gives us this "as if" we were there experience. But the effective literary art of the Gospels was used by the Gospel writers to address and deal with the issues in the early church.
The early church believed that Jesus was with them even after he could no longer be seen. They believed that the Spirit and Mind of Christ was within them. Even before the Gospels were written, St. Paul wrote, "I have the mind of Christ." This belief that Christ still could take identity with his followers long after he had gone meant that the churches wrote in the "first person" as though Jesus was speaking through them. They called it speaking in the name of Jesus. The Gospel writings mix actual oral traditions about Jesus with the writers' own writing and speaking ministries of being oracles of Christ within their communities. The Gospel narratives of Jesus then present the oracles of the Risen Christ within the early churches using the visualization and imaginative effects of the wonderful stories of Jesus.
The Doubting Thomas story deals with a major issue within the community which was responsible for writing the Gospel of John. And what this issue? We who did not actually see Jesus, talk with him, walk with him, eat with him during his time on earth or in his post-resurrection appearances; should we have an inferiority complex about our experiences of Christ? Are the eyewitnesses of Jesus on such a superior pedestal of experience that when those eyewitnesses of Jesus were dead and gone, the quality of the presence of Christ was diminished and impoverished? Now that all of the disciples of Jesus are dead, do we the church have to live on the second hand fumes of the hearsay of oral reports of Jesus or the third hand written reports? How intimate can I get with Jesus if I cannot see him, touch him or hear him or speak with him. How can I have a relationship with Jesus when there are only occasional dreams or visions of Jesus? And what if I do not have any visions or dreams about Jesus? How intimate can I presume to be with Jesus?
So has the church survived because we have lived with this inferiority complex about our real and intimate experiences of Jesus?
The belief of the early churches was to proclaim that the many, many different kinds of experiences of the Risen Christ were different from the physical presence of Jesus but they were equal in their meaning, validity and truth value.
The Doubting Thomas story is specifically framed to show that the physical presence of Jesus and the non-physical presence of the Risen Christ were different but equal, and maybe not equal because the non-physical presence of the Risen Christ was perhaps regarded as superior since it required the activation of that inner spiritual organ of perception called faith.
Have you noticed how all of the Gospels go to great pains to show how the disciples of Jesus who walked with him in his physical presence were basically clueless about the real meaning of his life? They only came into the fullness of the meaning and presence of Jesus after he had Risen and left the earth and was experienced as Spirit who brought them the effervescence of love and peace within their communities. St. Paul did not see Jesus even though he was contemporary with him; but he had an experience of the Risen Christ which he regarded to be equal in validity to the experience of the 12 disciples. This equality in valid experience of the Risen Christ is what the Doubting Thomas story is about.
The Gospel writers were trying to do what we people of faith try to do with persons today who doubt in matters of faith. Many people today want to limit the experience of real and true meaning to the scientific method. Something is real, valid, truthful and meaningful, if and only it can be empirically verified. Like Thomas, people are stubbornly limiting themselves to the experience of what is "out there" and can be externally validated by the common language of scientific reporting. What they forget is that what is "out there" is only processed by means of what is "in here" and everything which is "in here" cannot be empirically verified. You and I cannot actually see what is in us even when we are processing any experience of the external world. There were people who experienced Jesus "out there" but they still did not believe the meaning of his life; and some who physically knew him crucified him as a person of threat to their existence. The empirical experience of what is out there is always accompanied by the quality of what is in here. And what is "in here" is what the Gospel writers were trying to impart to their readers.
And how did the Gospel writers specify the "in here" presences of the Risen Christ? How did the early churches know the real and continuing presence of Christ? Jesus breathed on his disciples and said “Receive the Spirit.” St. Paul wrote that in Christ we are a new Creation. In the creation story, the Spirit or the Wind and Breath of God moved over the face of the earth in the creation events. In this Gospel story, Jesus was one who was saying, “My Spirit is your Spirit, my breath is your breath. My Spirit will recreate you. How close is your breath to you? That is how close I am to you. I am your breath.” Those who practice yoga and meditation understand the significance of the power and the reality and the godly energy of breath. Through his action Jesus was telling his disciples to know their breath as mingled with his and to know it as the re-creating power of the Holy Spirit.
Another way the church knew the presence of Christ was through the experience of peace. Peace is a state of equilibrium of living with oneself and with others. We don't pass the peace in the church because it is a cute ritual; we do it because as a command of Christ it has the power to effect what it commands. We have the power always to be both in the state of peace and the process of peace. Peace is both static and dynamic. We have peace but always are to be committed to the dynamic process of peace. This is a sign of the real presence of Christ, a sign proclaimed by the church and enshrined in the Eucharistic liturgy.
And what is a manifestation of dynamic peace? The experience of forgiveness. The disciples could have been angry at doubting Thomas; they could have been angry at Peter’s denial of Jesus. They could have been angry at the betrayal of Judas. They could have dwelled in the state of retaining each other’s sins. But Jesus said, "Don't retain each other sins; forgive them." What I don't like about what has happen to this forgiveness dynamic in the church is reducing confession and forgiveness to semi-magical liturgical actions of the church and priests. Forgiveness is really the evidence of Christ's presence. The Risen Christ is always saying, "You want to know my presence? Then do not retain each other's sins and faults, forgive one another."
Finally, one of most fascinating things about the Doubting Thomas story is that the writer is shamelessly promoting the value and validity of his/her own Gospel writing. You need not touch Jesus to believe, you can believe by reading my accounts of Jesus and his teaching. The Gospel of John begins by saying the Word was in the beginning and was with God and was God. And this Word created all human life as we know it. Further the writer of the Gospel of John indicates the words of Jesus were spirit and life. Breath, life and words are all internal processes. And in the doubting Thomas Story the Gospel writers tells us that even the written words about Christ have the power to enter us and to create belief in our lives about the presence of Christ to us. Why? Because the external written words on the page get inside of us and do the work of inward persuasion.
Today, all of us are invited to get out of our inferiority complexes about our experiences of the Real Presence of Christ. Don't let anyone intimidate you about the validity of your experience of Christ. The Doubting Thomases of religious experience would like to say that their kinds of empirical experience of Christ are better than yours. Even religious leaders for purposes of their own community control can unwittingly diminish or keep people in the dark about the discoverability of the many presences of Christ. It is my duty to tell you that we, the church have seven sacraments, not to limit or exhaust the presence of Christ, but to encourage each of us to find the presences of Christ inside and outside whenever and wherever we go.
People of faith, we cannot get away from the presence of Christ. It is real, valid, different everywhere and at all times. And I wish us all many delightful occasions of discovery and realization of the many presences of Christ uniquely tailor to the specifics of your experience and mine. Amen.
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