Fourth Sunday of Easter

Don't be afraid

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 2.14a, 36b-41; 1 Pet. 2.20b-25; Jn. 10. 1-10.

This week I propose what a theologian friend of mine has suggested, about where we are in history right now, we "would-be" Christians. My friend has said that we're still in Holy Saturday: Jesus is dead but signs of the Resurrection are fairly hard to come by. I didn't think this week would bear out his description so adequately. Anybody who has watched the news this week can't help but feel that that is a very apt description of things. One has thousands and thousands of refugees, buildings being bombed and then you have this monstrous event in Colorado. Two teenagers, murderously planning for a year to destroy their entire school and its population. Anybody who is attentive to the world, anybody who just simply watches the range of things going on today has to wonder, Where are the signs of the Resurrection? Well, we can take a cue, I think, from the Resurrection narratives. The risen Jesus, in these apparitions or whatever they were, says two things in all the four gospels: "Peace be to you," or the other thing, which I think is even more telling, put into the mouth of the risen Jesus is this, "Don't be afraid."

"Don't be afraid." An extraordinary statement, I think, because I believe it is true that basically fear makes the world go around. I don't think that's an exaggeration. It may be difficult to discern because we wear our fear as we wear our skin, I think, so familiar and natural is it. Well, if that's the case, then Jesus' injunction not to be afraid is extraordinary. It is, as so much of the gospel is, simply an impossibility, to put it most bluntly. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. So this points to those intimations of the Resurrection which do appear in our lives. And those are instances, I would like to suggest, of courage.

Courage is not not being afraid, but courage is a matter of being afraid and not being overwhelmed and paralyzed by one's fear. And so it is apt that we celebrate the memory of Bishop Gerardi today, the Guatemalan bishop beaten to death just after the Catholic Human Rights group in Guatemala had presented its report, that report accused the military and the wealthy factions of Guatemala of the murders of thousands and thousands and thousands of Guatemalan citizens. Nothing has been done of course. It's been a year tomorrow that he is dead. Nothing has been done. Two judges have withdrawn from the case by reason of death threats. So what I'm suggesting is in the presence of this man, and thank God he is not a totally isolated figure, we have some intimation of the reality of the Resurrection. In our world. In our time.

Central America has provided a whole crowd of witnesses. The nuns and the workers raped and killed. Oscar Romero. The seven Jesuits and their housekeeper in El Salvador. And then, of course, Steve Biko and the multiple Steve Biko's who were murdered under that murderous regime.

But it is very important that we understand what courage is. Courage is not some kind of Sylvester Stallone cold bloodedness or nervelessness. Courage, from the Christian perspective, is not for one's own sake. So, it's only half right to say "Oh, that one was really brave." Bishop Gerardi didn't run away. Oscar Romero didn't run away under death threats. Nelson Mandela did not turn into some venomous, vindictive monster after his treatment. But to see these people as a kind of virtuosi of virtue is to misunderstand courage from the Christian perspective.

What we have to understand is why they did what they did. It was not simply in the name of their own integrity or to show their coolness, their grace under fire. No. That's not it. In every single case that I've mentioned it is a matter of somebody upholding the humanity of other people. So we are celebrating the interconnectedness of us human beings. That's what courage is about. And of course, again in Littleton, Colorado we have precisely its obverse. What happens when people do not stand with each other? What happens when people really are excluded as these poor, sad kids were? We become murderous and the world falls apart.

So, are there hints of the Resurrection today? Yes, there are. Thank God. Otherwise I don't think the Resurrection would have any plausibility at all. We'd see Jesus as some great soloist, ascending skyward and we say "Well, that's all very nice for Jesus but what about us?" We have to carry on with business as usual. Covering our backsides. Looking out for number one in order to survive in this world. But, Nelson Mandela did not stay in jail for twenty-seven years for the sake of Nelson Mandela. Bishop Gerardi did not propose that the army, probably funded by the CIA , had murdered thousands of people and Oscar Romero did not espouse the cause of the poor and was killed for that – for their own sakes. That's where courage is to be found. In our interconnectedness and no place else. I mean we are not celebrating Sylvester Stallone, a Van Damme or Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne or these great, wonderful, solitary myths that we have created in North America and love so dearly. The self-improvement or self-fulfilment school of courage. No.

Their deaths and the measure of their courage is the measure of their interconnectedness. Their sense of responsibility. Their positive answer to the question "Am I my brother and sister's keeper?"

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