Mass readings for the 2nd Sunday of Easter:
Acts 4.32-35 Psalm 118.2-4, 16-18, 22-24 1 John 5.1-6 John 20.19-31
In the run up to Easter, there were a number of stories about Christian revival in the United Kingdom, in Europe, among notable public intellectuals around the world. And we might say, ‘hallelujah!’ but for what we find when we delve a little deeper into what’s going on.
And what we find is that the motivation for a lot of them, isn’t so much that they’ve come to believe in the risen Christ, but rather, they’ve looked around at the degeneration of our civilization as it has moved away from its Judeo-Christian heritage, seen the rise of militant Islam, and come to the conclusion that the agnostic cum atheistic approach to society is yielding rotten fruit.
That is, they like “the idea of Christianity” but struggle to believe. Among the more noteworthy in this group is the avowed atheist, Richard Dawkins. The name might be familiar as he is the author of the huge bestseller, The God Delusion, that set off the “New Atheism” movement twenty years ago.
That “new atheism” is beginning to fizzle. And Dawkins in a recent interview said he thinks of himself as a “cultural Christian”; he says he likes Christmas carols, and would be alarmed if all those charming English countryside churches began to disappear, if the ancient cathedrals shut their doors. So, hardly a full-throated affirmation of faith.
Revisiting the story of doubting Thomas seems rather apt as a response to what’s going on. Here we have the apostle who has not seen the resurrected Jesus refusing to believe that Christ has risen. Yet, we still see Thomas showing up at the gathering of the apostles. That is, he regards himself as being part of this community. So, we have to wonder what is going on with him.
We might recall a few things about Thomas known from the gospels. He was fiercely devoted to our Lord. In the days before Jesus’ final trip into Jerusalem for the Passover, having told the apostles repeatedly that he was going to die there, Thomas seems to be the only one who took our Lord at his word and believed him. And insofar as the others heeded Jesus’ dark prophecy of impending death, they grew sullen and like Peter, probably tried to discourage Jesus in taking them into the Holy City. Thomas was alone in saying defiantly, “well, let us go and die with him!”
His conviction concerning Jesus’ message was that strong. He’d risk death to go to Jerusalem and support Jesus. Now, in the event, he deserted like all the others, but unlike the rest, there was at least an appreciation that courage was going to be needed, and he was doing his best to summon it within himself and the others.
I fear all these prominent, dare I say eminent, former skeptics who’ve become half-convinced converts to the faith, share a spiritual profile with our Thomas.
As I’ve mentioned before with respect to the spiritual and political climate of 1st century Jerusalem and Judea, there was a lot of angry, upset, depressed, anxious people looking for a solution. Thomas is going to be among the great many disaffected looking for a fresh alternative and found it in Jesus.
So, Thomas likes our Lord’s message; and he can perceive that Jesus’ approach, essentially a “holiness movement” that is about spiritual renewal far more than politics, and certainly not about armed rebellion, is the way forward. But Thomas fails to appreciate just what it’s going to take to make it work. I suspect he understood the need for sacrifice, even death on a cross – that we hear in his defiant words on the road into Jerusalem, “let us go and die with him!” Brave words, but the reality of it, the horror of it, could not be overcome by his personal convictions. No, he needed faith, belief, a conviction born of an encounter with God.
So, there are many people who are coming to see the virtues of Christianity, how it is indispensable to the civilization that has given them so many liberties, allowed them freedom of thought, of expression, banished slavery and made a society according to St. Paul’s edict that among us “There is no longer Jew or Greek… there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3.28) That is, our essential identity as persons is not rooted in anything of this world, but rather in our being in the image and likeness of God.
But how do we bring people into a place, a space of potential encounter? Well, we can get them to church. Maybe not Mass, maybe an ALPHA course, maybe twenty minutes at the Wednesday adoration; maybe the Knights’ Grey Cup brunch; maybe a fellowship evening in the parish centre – a cheap meal, games for the kids and inexpensive red wine and conversation for the adults.
Christianity is ultimately, and really only, an incarnational faith. It is encountered most fully by people in those who are true and faithful disciples. That is, not people looking to win an argument, or rack up an impressive number of converts, but rather those trying with humility and grace to be Christ to them, in service but also in word – we can give a cup of water to the thirsty man, but we shouldn’t shy away from saying in whose name we give it.
One of these celebrated public intellectuals who has declared her conversion, but again, in what strikes me as conditionally, is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Now she came to prominence as an immigrant to the Netherlands from Somalia. As a child she was subject to an Islamic culture she found quite cruel and particularly misogynistic. She describes the “god” she was taught about as a “horror.” She was fortunate enough to get to the Netherlands in her early 20s as an asylum seeker. She went to university, renounced the Islamic faith, and began identifying as an atheist. She became involved in Dutch politics and was elected to parliament and from there gained celebrity status. While her journey to reconsidering religion, and in particular Christianity has been a very public one, in many respects its not unique. There are so many people who’ve had really bad experiences of religion, Christianity, Islam, and others. Speaking to the matter as a Christian, I say that whatever god an atheist denies is one that I probably don’t believe in either.
The encouraging news about Hirsi Ali, is that she is going to church. Now, I don’t know if it’s a Catholic one, but she is on record saying, she’s going somewhere. And that’s so important, because this faith of ours does not live as just a set of theological propositions – it’s a living thing. We don’t say we’re the body of Christ for nothing. We are those who’ve been wounded, we are those who’ve been betrayed, we are those who’ve lost everything, but in Christ we’ve regained our hope, our trust, our sense of being loved, and our capacity to love others – we’ve been resurrected in this life with the prospect, that by our faithfulness, we will be resurrected to the next. So, we are the tangible, the touchable, what can be seen of Christ in the world today. Let’s hope the Hirsi Ali comes to know this; that the many who come here uncertain in faith do so as well.
Amen.
Links:
A Christian revival is under way in Britain