Resurrection as
Defiance
Reflections on
John 20.19-31
RCL Easter 2C
3 April 2016
Saint Faith’s
Anglican Church
On
Easter Monday I began my day as I often do.
I turn on my iPad and browse the BBC and Guardian on-line news
services. As I scanned the Guardian, the
title of an op-ed piece immediately caught my eye: ‘The resurrection isn’t an argument. It’s the Christian word for defiance.’ The author of this piece, published in the
Guardian on Thursday the 31st of March, is the Rev’d Giles Fraser, a
priest of the Church of England.
Dr
Fraser is the priest-in-charge of a small parish in one of London’s poorest
neighbourhoods and he is no stranger to controversy. He was a Canon of Saint Paul’s Cathedral but
resigned when the Dean of the Cathedral called the police to remove ‘Occupy
London’ protesters from the Cathedral grounds.
In his op-ed piece Dr Fraser wrote these words: 'The resurrection is not an argument, still
less a philosophical argument. . . . The resurrection is more an identity than
an argument. . . . It is who we are --- our word for how we go on in the face
of overwhelming odds. It’s the Christian
term for defiance.'
Later
he describes how his parish opens itself up to the homeless, offering a safe
place to sleep and breakfast. I loved
how he summed this up: 'Do I believe in
resurrection? Of course I do. And I believe in it by frying bacon and
refusing to give up. This Easter rising
is not just some fancy intellectual idea, it’s a form of praxis.'
On
Easter morning, almost two thousand years ago, a group of frightened and
confused people defied the authorities and gathered together. Rumours about Jesus of Nazareth were
circulating, but all those who were present that morning knew that they were in
danger. Proclaiming that a dead Jewish
rabbi, accused of sedition and executed by the Roman authorities with the
cooperation of the Jewish leadership, was not a wise thing to do. So they huddled together and probably were
discussing their options when the unexpected happened: Jesus showed up and the world was never the
same again.
When
Jesus breathes on them and empowers them to loose and bind sin, we need to be
very clear about two things. First, in
John’s gospel, sin is not a moral but a theological category. To sin, in John’s gospel, is to fail to
recognize what God is doing in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a form of blindness to the possibility
that God, in Jesus of Nazareth, is doing a new thing, unanticipated by traditional
religious teachings. It is a refusal to
acknowledge God’s actions in the teaching and healing ministry that Jesus has
undertaken for the past three years. To
loose people’s sins means to proclaim the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth
wherever we are and with whomever we share our lives. To bind is not to condemn other people; it is
to entrust them to God and to continue our own work of proclamation.
The
other thing we need to know is that this ministry of loosening and binding is
not limited to those who exercise ordained leadership in the Christian
community. Proclaiming the good news of
God is a baptismal ministry. Every
person who has been baptized promises to ‘proclaim by word and example the good
news of God in Christ’. [1] Each time we witness a baptism we reaffirm
this promise. Each time we recite the
Apostles’ Creed we proclaim the faith into which we were baptized.
In
today’s gospel the gathered community of Jesus’ disciples do exactly what Jesus
commissioned them to do. They do not
abandoned their ‘bound’ friend, Thomas, but bring him into their midst on this
Sunday, one week after their own experience of the risen Christ. Thomas’ bonds are loosened and he offers the
most powerful affirmation of Christ: ‘My
Lord and my God!’ (John 20.28) According
to legend, Thomas leaves Jerusalem behind and travels to the east beyond the
boundaries of the Roman Empire. To this
day an entire community of Christians who live along the south-western coast of
India call themselves ‘Thomas Christians’ after the one who brought the good
news to them.
I
like Giles Fraser’s description of belief in the resurrection as defiance. Christian defiance means doing justice, even
when injustice may be more convenient and self-interested. Christian defiance means loving kindness,
even when this may mean going beyond our ‘comfort zones’ to reach out to people
whose needs are far greater than our own and who are easily ignored. Christian defiance means walking humbly with
God, even when this may mean sacrificing privileges and aspirations in order to
serve God’s purposes.
I
like talking about the resurrection as defiance because I think that we live in
a world where decay and death fill our daily news. Rarely do we hear of the various acts of
defiance by good and faithful people throughout the world, such as Muslims who
help Christians in those parts of the world where oppression of minorities is
widespread. Resurrection is living a
life that affirms words that have become my Easter mantra: ‘Goodness is stronger than evil; love is
stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than
death; victory is ours through Jesus who loved us.’ (Archbishop Desmond Tutu as
quoted in Morley, Bread for the Journey)
Contrary
to popular thinking, living the resurrection as defiance is never futile. It is like water dripping on a stone; it is the
stone that shall be shaped by the water, no matter how long it takes.
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