Easter 2C, 2007
John 20:19-31
AFRAID OF DEATH OR TERRIFIED OF LIVE!
The storyteller we call John, sets the scene.
It is the evening of the first day of the week, Sunday,
and the doors of the room are closed. Locked.
Anxious and fearful disciples are shut tightly inside.
The suspicious world is shut tightly outside.
Then, all of a sudden, defying
locked doors, locked hearts, a dead faith is re-created.
A dead hope is born again.
I have always wondered…
Were Jesus’ followers afraid of death or terrified of life?
oo0oo
Last week on Easter Day I suggested in my short comment that
all we have of what is called the ‘resurrection’, are the stories.
No logical, scientific proof of a ‘bodily’ resurrection.
No videotape of an empty tomb.
No seismograph of an Easter earthquake. Just the stories.
And while Jesus’ death mattered to all those early storytellers,
his life mattered more. So they spoke of his death
in ways that affirmed his life.
And to be embraced by life, not scared of it.
Today’s biblical story from John,
probably written towards the end of the 1st century,
and certainly well after both Mark and Matthew, but probably not Luke,
presents us with a post-resurrection ‘appearance’ of Jesus.
And much of the interpretation around this story
has been to do with a bloke called Thomas – ‘doubting’ Thomas.
Well, I reckon Thomas needs to be given a bit of a break!
Because, one, there is no word meaning ‘doubt’ in the story.
And, two, doubt is not the opposite of belief.
Instead of swallowing all this traditional stuff,
I reckon we need to try and understand the mind of the storyteller, John,
and why only he tells this story.
So, with a fair dose of imagination, I offer
a few cameos I have collected along the way!
oo0oo
First, John claims, that our understanding and experience of God
has been forever changed, “by the sheer force of Jesus’ being.” (W Wink 1994).
“God was, in Jesus, taking on a human face. God would never be the same. In Jesus, one might say, God took on humanity…” (W Wink 1994. LookSmart web site).
Second, the experience call ‘resurrection’
did not happen in the temple or church,
but in the world, away from religious authorities.
Third, our storyteller seems to be making it fairly clear that
faith depends on accepting the witness of others,
not in securing a so-called ‘personal miracle’ (Jenks FFF Web site).
And fourth, something happened to the disciples.
Jesus' resurrection was not an event for the world-at-large,
but reserved for the disciples.
“What mattered was that his life continued through them, and through them his mission was advanced. The disciples extended the domination-free order of God that Jesus had inaugurated” (W Wink 1994. LookSmart web site).
Why do I make these suggestions, offering as my support,
primarily the thought of biblical scholar Walter Wink?
Well, it was Wink who first alerted me to the work of the ‘Q’ Collection.
I will be speaking on the ‘Q’ Collection in June
at the Centre for Progressive Religious Thought, Canberra.
But for now, just a few words of explanation…
The ‘Q’ Collection (from the German ‘Quelle’ meaning ‘source’)
is a very early collection of ‘sayings’ of Jesus,
used in common by Matthew and Luke,
and which are very important indeed.
Because this collection does not have certain things
said to be important about being a follower of Jesus.
“… their focus was not on the person of Jesus or his life and destiny. They were engrossed with the social program that was called for by his teachings. Thus their book was not a gospel of the Christian kind, namely a narrative of the life of Jesus as the Christ. Rather it was a gospel of Jesus’ sayings, a ‘sayings gospel’”
(Mack 1993: 1).
Or if you like: they lived with Jesus’ teachings ringing in their ears (Mack 1993:1)
Then their ‘voice’ was lost.
Now I invite you to listen carefully as I say some of that again:
their focus is not on Jesus as the Christ, but on his mission,
his sayings, his doing.
In time, however, the church made the ‘Christ’ rather than Jesus’ teachings the message, largely abandoning his mission.
And the various councils over time turned the resurrection stories
into an objective event of history:
the faithful believed it had actually and literally happened.
Our pursuit of ‘facts’ and so-called ‘truth’ encourages this thinking today.
But… all we have is the stories.
No logical, scientific proof of a ‘bodily’ resurrection.
No videotape of an empty tomb.
No seismograph of an Easter earthquake.
Just the stories.
Jesus’ death mattered to those early storytellers.
But his life mattered more. So they spoke of his death
in ways that affirmed his life.
And to be embraced by life, not scared of it.
Now I am helped further by an additional comment by Walter Wink.
Perhaps you might like to ponder it some more, sometime, yourself:
“The resurrection is not a fact to be believed, but an experience to be shared. It is not a datum of history, but divine transformative power overcoming the power of death. Resurrection is not a contract for a time-share apartment in heaven. It is the spirit of Jesus present in people who continue his struggle against domination in all its forms, here, now, on this good earth” (W Wink 1994: LookSmart web site).
oo0oo
John tells us a story of anxious and fearful disciples, shut tightly inside.
The suspicious world is shut tightly outside.
And I continue to wonder…
Are Jesus’ followers afraid of death or terrified of life?
Thus the resurrection stories, begun with the story
of when the stone is removed from the tomb,
is not complete until it is echoed and re-echoed
in the lives of everyday people, today (P Nancarrow. P&F web site).
That’s why, in my judgment and experience, John’s story about Thomas
is both helpful and important for us,
as we seek live in community on this good earth,
practicing belonging,
practicing hospitality,
practicing respect,
practicing humility,
practicing conversation and disagreement (Bessler-Northcutt 2004).
Notes: Mack, B. 1993. The lost gospel. The book of Q and Christian origins. NY: New York. HarperCollins.
Bessler-Norcutt, J. 2004. “Learning
to see God: Prayer and practice in the wake of the Jesus Seminar” in R. W. Hoover.
(ed). The historical Jesus goes to church. CA: Santa Rosa. Polebridge Press.