Homily - Second Sunday of Easter - April 18, 2004
The Scripture today talks about fear.
We have the fearful disciple locked and hidden. We have Thomas whose fear is exhibited in
stubborn unbelief. We have the fear of the many who
ran – it was just to hard to believe.
We celebrate this Easter Time.
Perhaps our fear is exhibited in our own lack of trust.
I was reading the other day about an organization called The
Nonviolent Peaceforce. This Nonviolent Peaceforce is currently working in
What the Nonviolent Peaceforce’ ambition is to have 2,000
active members, 4,000 reserves and 5,000 support personnel by the end of the
decade. In SriLanaka the group spent
three weeks training in third-party peacekeeping methods and then entered the
country where they began six weeks of deeper study of the country’s history,
culture, language and politics. They are
working with other peacekeeping forces and their presence among people from
different sides of the conflict is to try to build trusting relationships
within the communities in which they live so as to be witnesses for all sides
of the conflict.
Their work is to plan youth programs gathering together sixty
people from the opposite sides. They work at bringing together Christians and
Muslims in dialogue. They attempt to set
up monitoring situations to look for possible episodes of violence and try to
stop them from escalating.
Certainly the reaction of most sensible people – people who
look at the complexity of our world situation – people who study the conflicts
in places like Israel and Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan and Ireland and some of
the countries of Africa would be simply to say that the ideas of Nonviolent
Peaceforce are at best naïve. Well- meaning but useless
considering the magnitude of the problem.
And so instead we’ll build walls to separate us – and move
troops with all sorts of power to “keep the peace”. If we talk together at all it is about
boundaries and limitations.
But perhaps this is just our fear. Our usual way of acting is based on our fear.
And our fear is determined by our inability to trust – to
believe – to really know that the Lord is risen – that
God is present – that the kingdom is a possibility.
Like those locked in the upper room and the Thomas who
insisted that it was all a bit of craziness we can dismiss those who base their
actions and function on faith and tell them to just go back to church.
Our readings for this Second Sunday of Easter tell us of
people who did believe.
In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see the
continuing story of what the resurrection of Jesus did to the community and how
their belief in it, their faith in God’s powerful presence drove them.
Peter and John and the others had been preaching about this
Jesus Raised. They would walk about the streets and tell the story. And they
even healed the sick. But the practical
minded and those who lived in fear didn’t buy it. It sounded like just so much crazy talk and
they were riling up the others so that they were ordered to desist preaching
and teaching. They were censored. They were silenced. People in authority then as now don’t want
anyone to give a message that is counter to theirs – especially if people are
listening.
But Peter and the others just can’t keep quiet. They can’t be
contained. Their Word can not be chained
up and stopped. And so everywhere they went they effected change and growth and
goodness.
And in our second reading from the Book of Revelation, John
who is imprisoned – he’s is shipped away to get him out of the sphere of
influence knows just as well – and he expresses it in his vision – that God’s
reign will eventually win. But I’m sure his prophecies were counted as the
rantings of a lunatic.
The truth is – and it is a difficult one – that if we are
going to believe in the resurrection – in the fact that Jesus has overturned
things and given us a new way then we have to live this all the time. We can’t limit our trusting attitude to times
that it is convenient. We can’t contain and restrain the Word of God, the
Action of God the rest of the time.
The fact is that every aspect of our life has to be infused
with this life-stance that the risen one has changed it all – we have to trust
in that – or not.
In a book entitled The Gospel According to Barnabas, the
author and contemporary “evangelist” Graham Jeffery portrays one of the first
apostles encouraging another. “If there is one thing I like,” says Sammy,
“it’s a coal fire; it reminds me of what all Christians should be…on fire with
God and burning brightly with zeal …red hot for the truth and consumed with
love. Coal-fire Christians have Jesus in
their eyes and on their lips. It’s not
enough to have Jesus in your head; Jesus also has to be in the muscles of your
legs and in your arms and hands and in every part of your life…”
Do we know anyone who lives like that? Or do we more likely
act in a more reserved and practical way with our Christianity?
If we are going to live this crazy belief in a God who has
changed things – reinvented things and overcome the obstacles perhaps we need
to look at our own approach to people and things and see how much we trust and
believe – how much we have overcome out fears.
When we approach the ones who hurt us, for instance, do we
stay safe and hesitate to approach them for fear of being hurt again or do we
believe that the moment could be transformed?
When we see those who are homeless and dirty, sick or
addicted do we close down and decide that there is not hope for them or do we
see the possibility that Jesus offers of busting out of the tomb and rising to
new possibilities.
When we look at and study the horrible violence that is going
on in the world do we just figure there’s nothing we can do – that its beyond
us – that war will always be – that some death and destruction just has to
happen so that others can be spared or do we believe in the way Jesus lived and
loved and overcame the barriers that others imposed.
Can we attempt to live like those early apostles – so filled
with trust – so far from fear that even when their shadow – which must have
been bright – fell on someone there was change and newness and new life.
We say we are Easter people – it is what determines us.
Let us attempt to live it – believe it – Let us trust and
throw out the fear.
The stone has been rolled back. Now we just have to get out of the tomb.