2nd Sunday of Easter A

See Commentary on John 20:19-31 in John 20:19-23 & John 20:24-31


Homily 1 – 2005

Today’s Gospel passage is one of the special ones in my book.  John’s purpose in writing the gospel is made clear here:  that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing this, you may have life through his name.  His purpose, then, is not so much to prove that Jesus is the Christ - he was writing to the already converted - but that we might be led to deeper faith in him as the way to having life through his name.  He wished to make it clear what the fact of believing entails.

Thomas can be viewed as taking the act of faith seriously, because faith in Jesus is a total commitment to him: to his vision, to his mission.  It is not something to nod our heads to carelessly, thoughtlessly.

 What ultimately brings conviction? What leads from careless acceptance, to total commitment and to deep friendship?  What someone else says about another, even someone generally reliable? or is it more likely to be some personal experience - perhaps vague and hard to put words around - but that nevertheless convinces and motivates?  We can in fact have that experience, that inner conviction, without always being clearly aware of it.  It may need some jolt - some crisis or tragedy - that initially seems to lead us in the direction of doubt, but surprisingly doesn’t.

But there are other ways to come to awareness, other than through crisis.  Another way is to learn to know, to notice and to become familiar with our inner experiences.  But that takes effort and time.  It means trying to quieten down our active minds, to turn off our deliberate planning of our future, our revisiting our past, and to notice not what we are doing but what is already happening in us of itself.  It means pulling back for the moment from the future, cutting off from the past, and settling into the present, the right here and now.

John suggests, perhaps, that, as we do that, along with other things going on in us, we can get in touch with that deep sense of peace that Jesus constantly shares with us.

The first words of the risen Christ to the disciples were: Peace be with you.  The second words of the risen Christ to the disciples were: Peace be with you.  One week later, before focussing on Thomas, but including them as well, his first words were again: Peace be with you.

It is important, too, to be clear about the context on both occasions.  Jesus was wishing his peace to a group of fearful, weak, cowardly, guilty, messed-up and faith-challenged friends.  It doesn’t matter then where we’re at, what’s going on around us or inside us, whether we’re guilty, faithless, distracted, restless, or whatever - the Christ within us is now sharing with us his peace.

Today’s invitation from John is, like Thomas, to take our faith commitment seriously: to go deep, to notice the peace within that Jesus is giving now beneath the layers of hurts and hopes, of anticipating and planning, of licking of past wounds or re-living of past pleasures of keeping in control.  We don’t have to block out these noisier layers, but can let them be, take no particular notice of them, and move closer to the core of our being.

Though the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, Jesus came and stood among them, and said: Peace be with you.


Homily 2 – 2011

 It is so hard for us to grasp the impact of Jesus’ crucifixion on the disciples, because we can see things only in the light of resurrection.  None of them expected resurrection – at least any exception to the fairly general Jewish expectation of the resurrection of the just on the last day.  We tend to send up “poor old doubting Thomas”.  But, with the exception of the Beloved Disciple, none of the disciples could believe it until they saw the risen Jesus.  Even Mary Magdalene, who discovered the empty tomb, assumed only that the dead body had been stolen.

It is hard for us to get inside their skins on the Friday night and Saturday.  Jesus was dead.  Dead – that was it! – crucified.  He had been mercilessly tortured, dying in agony, degraded, dishonoured and utterly shamed.  To the Jewish mind, the horrendous death by crucifixion was seen as indication of the victim’s being abandoned by God – cursed by God.

He had been killed; and they had done nothing about it, [other than clear out and save their own skins].  He had been their idol, their guru.  They had left everything to follow him. He had fascinated them, set them dreaming and fanned their hopes.  They were good people.  They warmed to his message, and to his ways of going about things.  He had preached love, love even of opponents.  He had warned against violence, or any use of force, as a means to change, change for the better, for salvation.  He was firm about that – and refused to back off from it. That was why he was dead.  It had got him nowhere, and even God, apparently, had finally abandoned him.  He was dead.  It was all over.  They couldn’t believe it.  Their lives were suddenly empty. 

No wonder they weren’t open to resurrection.  It was totally off their radar.  He had died – cursed by God.  No wonder, eight days later, Thomas still thought that the other disciples were kidding themselves or seeing things.  No wonder he would be convinced that it couldn’t be an hallucination only if he saw the actual wounds of Jesus – that he was the one who had died crucified.  But, if it really were Jesus, then God had obviously not cursed him.  God was not involved only in his rising, but also must have been somehow present to him in his dying.  God played the same rules as Jesus.  God was on about love, especially love of opponents, on about the renunciation of all force or violence as the way to saving the world from its mess.

Of course, that realisation may have taken longer to sink in.  Perhaps, he needed to experience personally in the risen Jesus the obvious absence of blaming, of shaming or of scoring a point.  He needed to hear Jesus say to him, respectfully, caringly, gently, Peace be with you.  Touch my hands.  Touch my side.  I forgive.

Perhaps, only those who have confronted their own weakness, their own fears and their own betrayals are safe to let loose on the world to bring the message of forgiveness to everyone who is truly guilty – not to judge, but to love responsibly: As the Father sent me, I now send you. 


Homily 3 - 2014

I was watching ABC News the other night when Rosie Batty, the mother of Luke [who was killed some weeks back by his mentally sick father], was interviewed about a project she is getting underway to raise the profile within the general community of the reality of domestic violence. She impresses me, that woman. I remember viewing her on TV the night after her son’s murder. She was profoundly grieving, yet she seemed to me to show a genuine compassion for her former husband, the murderer, insisting that he was mentally ill. So different from what we more often see - people demanding revenge and baying for blood.

Forgiveness is a tricky business.  It is often confused with excusing.  By all means excuse when excusing is called for. But forgiveness essentially deals with what cannot be excused. It certainly is not a case of “Forget it and get on with it”. It cannot be automatic or quick. A number of other things have to be addressed first.

People have to allow themselves to feel the hurt.  That can be frightening, and perhaps for some impossible.  The hurt can touch into raw areas that are so deep and painful that the psyche is not strong enough to handle it. I think that people need to be somehow confident of their personal worth and identity – they need to know they are loved – before it is safe for them to look at the hurt and to accept it. They may need deliberately to go down the road of inner healing before ever they approach the challenge of forgiving; and sometimes they may even need professional help. If they don’t, they can fall into the trap of seeing themselves as victims and martyrs, and wallowing in that, instead of recognising their true worth and learning to love themselves.

Where there is hurt, inevitably there is anger, and sometimes fear. Both need to be noticed, owned and respected. Both are important energy sources.  If they are not noticed, owned and respected, they can easily degenerate into bitterness and hatred, and become destructive. But when properly understood and integrated, they can energise constructive action for change. Rosie Batty’s involvement in raising the profile of domestic violence is a wonderful illustration of harnessing the energies of anger and fear constructively.

And forgiveness? I think Rosie may already have moved there. Forgiveness involves surrendering the need for revenge. But it involves more than that. Without excusing the deed, hiding from the hurt, or denying the fear and anger, forgiveness moves towards eventual inner peace by letting go, too, of resentment. Reconciliation may even become possible; but for that, there is need for genuine sorrow on the part of the offender.

The risen Jesus is the perfect exemplar of what is possible.  Peace be with you!

And he sent us disciples on mission to show the possibility to the world   Us disciples! who are such babes-in-the-woods in this whole process of forgiveness.  Yet, essentially, that is what the Church is about. Love your enemies translates as “Forgive those who hurt you”.  We know so little about it, most of us. We struggle to put it into practice. We don’t know how to help each other.

We spend half our life pretending we don’t sin, pretending we don’t hurt others, pretending we don’t judge. Often we are defensive or into avoidance. We can’t admit our sin, our offences, to ourselves, much less to each other, if we don’t live in a community that clearly defines itself as a community of sinners, who are learning, prioritising and wanting to forgive. Face it! I’m a sinner! You’re all sinners! But let us equally balance our sin by taking on, wounded and all as we are, the mission given us by the risen Christ to exemplify and to offer forgiveness to ourselves, to each other and to our world. The Church is essentially a band of wounded healers; and we need to be clear about both, our woundedness and our empowerment by God’s Spirit to heal – to heal through love and forgiveness.