This “octave” of Easter Sunday is sometimes called “low Sunday,” because no one expects the liturgy to compete with Easter Sunday for ebullience and pageantry.
Others call it “doubting Thomas” Sunday because the Gospel passage from John chapter 20 does not vary from year to year.
The Roman Church has more recently dubbed it, “Divine Mercy” Sunday.
Preparation for this homily leads me to title it, “open to change” and “challenged to change” Sunday.
If you grew up in a muti-generational household, you know how different the perspectives can be from one era to another.
For instance, I grew up next door to my grandparents’ homestead in a rural area.
They understood horsepower in a way I will never be able to appreciate.
The first time my grandmother could vote she was in her thirties.
I take you along with me on this bit of reminiscence to make a point about our scripture today.
The passage from the Acts of the Apostles summarizes an early generation of Christian experience, interpreted through the lens of two generations later who had heard the stories of the Jerusalem Church and how it depended on the support of the gentile churches founded by Paul.
The sharing of goods in common and selling off property made sense as they fully expected the Second Coming of Christ in the very near future.
The later generation reading this is no doubt edified, but the new generation has moved on to issues of how to make the Christ life sustainable over the long haul.
The gospel account today represents a generation 50 or 60 years after the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.
The passage from the First Letter of John from about that same era is confronting interpretations of the Gospel tradition that threaten how church members will live out the Christ life.
The Gospel of John departed from the earlier gospel accounts of Mark, Matthew, and Luke by emphasizing that Jesus’ relationship to God existed even before his birth.
The gospel writer wanted the community to see that all the actions of Jesus, including his death on the cross were already part of his glory.
In this telling, Jesus was not a victim of circumstances; he is in control.
That emphasis set the stage for one of the earliest divisions in the Christian churches.
The first letter of John attempts to counter the division and clarify for new followers that Jesus’ actions were necessary for the victory over sin and death.
The first chapter of the letter presents an alternate set of imagery to the opening chapter of John’s Gospel.
You will recall, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God; 3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life,[a] and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” [RSV]
Note the parallels to the letter we heard today.
The opening of the letter is extraordinarily affectionate in tone.
The writer wants your joy to be complete!
The writer refers to the reader as offspring.
The writer wants us to be in community with God in Christ Jesus!
This brings me to a reflection on sacrament.
In 1963 Edward Schillebeeckx published the book, Christ The Sacrament Of The Encounter With God.
That book has had a tremendous influence on how theologians, liturgists, scripture scholars and pastors approach teaching and preaching ever since.
Sacrament as an encounter means a relationship is formed in which we have the opportunity to transcend that which seemed to limit us.
We have an openness to change that we did not have before the encounter.
The encounter is not individualistic.
It is not an “altar call” popularized in religious crusades.
Rather, the community of believers supports and challenges us as we venture more deeply into the life of the Spirit.
The “real presence” of Christ becomes clear.
The Eucharistic Prayer informs my life in such a way that I see more and more the presence of Christ Jesus in and around me.
The “Great Amen” we sing with such exuberance reverberates in us as we acknowledge our assembly as a spiritual entity, the very Body of Christ.
We look again at the first letter of John.
The challenging part of the passage has to do with acknowledging sin.
The writer counters a belief that had crept into the church.
The belief that Jesus’ actions were superfluous to God’s love for the followers.
The fall-out from the that belief had ethical implications.
Were our actions as followers also superfluous?
Are we carried along on a wave of divine light and have no agency?
The author of the letter tells us that cleansing from sin is inextricably tied to our life in community with one another, in the Spirit.
That requires us to open ourselves to the light and open ourselves to change.
We look again at our Gospel passage.
Thomas is stuck.
He experienced Jesus of Nazareth, the historical human person with whom he walked and talked.
We can only imagine his feelings of grief and loss.
Thomas resists the challenge of experiencing the “real” presence of Jesus in the Spirit that now emboldens a community of believers.
The Gospel writer puts Thomas forward as an example for each of us to open our eyes to the real presence of Jesus in a community enlivened by the Spirit of Jesus.
The author of the Acts of the Apostles summarizes the revered oral tradition about the early followers in Jerusalem.
This challenges every succeeding generation of followers to open themselves to change course from guarding possessions to trusting in the words we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
The author of the first letter of John knows that sin flourishes in darkness and challenges us, the community of the Beloved Disciple to bring the Light of Christ to bear on all our thoughts, words, and actions.
The Paraclete, our advocate, and our comforter will personally instruct us, the sacramental assembly, in the ethical consequences of the commandment to Love One Another as I have Loved You.
God of Abraham, As the holy month of Ramadan draws to a close we pray for all the members of that Abrahamic Faith, that they will be blessed with peace, particularly those struggling for survival in Yemen, in Gaza, and in other war-torn places – we pray …
Creator of all good things, help us as we commit ourselves to more sustainable ways of living on this blue and green planet, we pray …
In thanksgiving for the life of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton who spent his life as a prophet, promoting non-violent action for peace, civil rights, and equity, we pray …
All powerful and ever-living God, grant all of us invested in this Holy Wisdom Monastery with courage as we undertake transitions to prepare for whatever you have in store for us, we pray …
Come help us in our humanity. help us enjoy all the beauty that is here, the sweetness that comes to us unbidden. The light that gives us eyes to see. It’s not all up to us, thank heaven.
– Kate Bowler, “a blessing for when there’s no cure for being human”