You are witnesses of these things. 3rd Sunday of Easter Yr B

by Ynot , Friday, April 17, 2015, 14:35

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3rd Sunday of Easter Yr B

April 19, 2015

Reading I: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19
Responsorial Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9
Reading II: 1 John 2:1-5a
Gospel: Luke 24:35-48

Reading 1 Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

Peter said to the people:

“The God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus,
whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence
when he had decided to release him.
You denied the Holy and Righteous One
and asked that a murderer be released to you.
The author of life you put to death,
but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.
Now I know, brothers,
that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did;
but God has thus brought to fulfillment
what he had announced beforehand
through the mouth of all the prophets,
that his Christ would suffer.
Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”

Gospel Lk 24:35-48

The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way,

and how Jesus was made known to them 
in the breaking of bread.

While they were still speaking about this,

he stood in their midst and said to them,
“Peace be with you.”
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have.”
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed,
he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
They gave him a piece of baked fish; 
he took it and ate it in front of them.

He said to them,

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me in the law of Moses
and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
And he said to them,
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.”


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041915.cfm



You are witnesses of these things.

There are three distinct attitudes we can have to 'these things': (1) we can find enlightenment and nourishment for our inner life, for the personal 'story' in which we explain to ourselves who we are and what we aim to become; (2) we can doubt them, challenge them, worry the daylights out of them looking for rational proofs that these things really happened; or (3) we can take them as handed down from the people who were primary witnesses - and then see ourselves commissioned as they were to be witnesses.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the first, of finding personal nourishment in these things. On the other hand it is all too easy to give too much importance to the second, spending too much energy and time on trying to unravel the elements that make these things extraordinary. The third we perhaps avoid, at least as a specific item in our self-image. We're shy of being witnesses.


You are witnesses of these things

It's such an easy little statement, and we don't pay enough attention to it, not nearly enough. I'm intrigued by this notion of being witnesses, "martyres" in Greek, "testes" in Latin.

What is the actual human experience of becoming a witness to the risen Lord? The accounts sketch 'these things' that they have to witness to, but have nothing on how to go about it:


"The author of life you put to death,
but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses."

“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day

and that metanoia for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.”

'Where do we start?'

I can hear some of the apostles asking one another, 'Where do we start?' The Acts gives a very succinct account of some outstanding 'sermons', but I imagine there must have been a lot of quiet reflection, not a little debate and a general slow awakening going on . In the end, probably one by one, they became totally convinced that in fact Jesus had risen and was living on after he had been so violently killed - and from that deep conviction they found they could speak about it in a way that somehow commanded respect. When someone speaks from real knowledge and with deep conviction you instinctively respect them and accept what they say.

Perhaps the apostles found themselves being witnesses simply by sharing their own conviction. But it must be a real, deep, personal conviction, without any Yes, No or Maybeabout it. Paul says somewhere that with him there was never Yes and No; his message was clear and well defined.

However the message was hardly something you'd toss around in the pub. If someone stopped you in the street and accused you of being one of the followers of that fraud from Galilee they crucified at Passover, you'd just quietly say, "Yes, in fact I still am his follower."Bit by bit you'd learned to speak about him in the present tense: "Yes, I'm still following him, trying to live the true and honest life that is pleasing to the Lord. I feel he is showing me the way." Sometimes if you thought they were listening you would say how he is really alive. God has raised him up.

You'd be very careful in the words you chose. This carefulness would be lost with time as Christianity became the dominant religion and culture. 'Resurrection' would become a word, a creed, a tag, a boast, mangled, misunderstood, misused, and the idea that you or I should be a witness to Jeshua who was raised up by God would be just another thing that Christians think they are doing in spite of the evidence that they are counter-signs in fact.

The church as an institution has great difficulty in witnessing to these things, and it is a mistake to expect the institution to impact the world in any meaningful way. Public displays of faith, conversion missions, teaching programs, even welfare works are of no more worth than moral warnings or fulminating condemnations. They will all be empty show until this question is asked and answered by each one: what does it mean for me to be a witness to these things?


One to another

If someone asks me, 'Do you believe in the resurrection?' I will respond with a very clear Yes, I do believe that Yeshua was raised up from being dead, came back from the grave in a new but real mode of life. My belief is based firmly on what the disciples said they saw, the empty tomb, Jesus visibly and tangibly present to them. They know what they saw, heard, and touched. I believe what they said. They are primary witnesses.

But of course I haven't heard it from their lips, but through a long chain of witnesses. Others came to accept the disciples' testimony, and others theirs in turn. The series of witnesses stretches down through time, one to another. My believing depends on someone, some others, who told me of their believing.


Who was he?

There is however another element: What the disciples witness to is not only that this man was raised up and was seen alive by many people. They witness also to who this man was, as we find in the first reading:


the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus,
whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence
when he had decided to release him.
You denied the Holy and Righteous One
and asked that a murderer be released to you.
The author of life you put to death,
but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.


The raising of this man Jesus is divine confirmation that he was the Messiah, the Servant of YHWH, the Holy and Righteous One, the Author of Life whom God could not allow to remain in the grave. This dimension of the disciples' testimony goes far beyond any parallel with human witnesses. In accepting their testimony we accept also their interpretation of the man, their conviction about who he was and what his purpose, his role is.


Being convinced

Hearing their testimony is only the beginning. Having heard what some witness says, conviction becomes established within me by some sort of inner experience of my own, a kind of strength, a sense of reality, a confidence [trust] that is deeply affirming. It feels true! In theological terms this is the effect of grace: to believe in Christ is a gift that goes beyond natural believing, yet it is paralleled by our natural experiences of believing.

I believe they did walk on the moon (incredible as this seems when I look up into the night sky), and all the above make up that act of faith - primary witnesses, a chain of secondary witnesses passing on their belief, confirmed by a sense of conviction in myself which this time is not a gift of grace but natural trust in – say - the integrity of the scientific community. I end up saying 'It is fitting. There is a congruence that makes it more than likely and I believe it is actually true.'

For our purposes, the important point is to realise that our believing is not solely a gift of God or an inspiration of the Spirit. Prior to that gift I have to receive and accept the actual witness of someone who came to believe an earlier witness, right back to the primary witness of those people who saw the empty tomb and 'saw' the risen Yeshua. So in time the one who asks me may arrive at the point where he says to me: 'You believe, and I find your witness truthful, so I too will believe.' And then the gift of faith may be given.


Coming back to real life

I hope this is not too theoretical. Now we need to return to the more simple notion that we are witnessing to truth by our lives. Our lives will be the first sign, the first thing people may notice, before we say anything. Every believer is a witness. We need to stop feeling that 'giving witness' is as artificial language or requires a specialist approach. There are teachers in the community of Christians, and there are leaders and prophets and presiders, but every least one is a witness to the Risen One. In fact for better or for worse we witness either to the truth or to a lie.


How do you witness to the Risen One?

I'm the last one to be able to explain what it takes to witness to the world, having spent the greater part of my life inside the church and holding the microphone. Here we're talking about being a witness, not a teacher and even less a preacher. A witness is someone you get to trust because you know he or she is for real. We've had a lot of talk about 'bullshit' through the week, and there was mention of the bullshit detector. In this context bullshit is a label you could give to any fabricated message of a religious nature. Pumping out a prefabricated message is not giving witness.

So where do we begin? I'm looking for some ideas from people with experience. I can only suggest that the first thing required is to be real. I would imagine other qualities may get a mention, like to be deeply convinced, to be concerned for the other person's well-being, to be kind, to take care not to force-feed anyone, to leave the outcome to God, and so on. The main obstacle is that people may think you're not for real.


Can you be real and be christian?

We've been stuffed with so much prefabricated religion dictated by dominant religious authorities over centuries that today 'religion' and 'real' seem to be opposites. Many these days have tossed religion aside and chosen to be real instead, and have found a great liberation. For some the very notion of a god creator, guide or judge has gone out the window too. For others the ties and binds of religion have been shrugged off for the sake of running free in quest of a vital spiritual experience of life. Some of us feel this brings us 'close' to God as never before. ("close to God": language is ever a problem, isn't it!)

In 'being real' you have to start in the natural. You must not start in the religious or spiritual sphere. You have to build on nature, on the real you. Looking around you might be able to identify one or two people you know that, if you were asked about them, the first thing you'd say is 'genuine', 'honest', 'true', 'real'. And others will come to mind who are full of themselves, driving, dominating, devious, ambitious, or maybe hard, self-opiniated, stubborn, or self-indulgent and lazy, presuming the world owes them a living. I only want to set the scene here, because if we are to give witness to the truth we have to be true ourselves, fair dinkum, genuine, honest - and this will include humble.

This is becoming an exercise in metanoia. To witness to the truth I have to be quiet, allowing what truth is there to be seen. Truth is not something you can push. You push a line in advertising, you push a policy in government, you push a lie in manipulating others. You do not push the truth. You can only be true and the truth will be seen by those who are 'of the truth'. This is the heart of witness.


Not only speaking truth but being true – and good

If we are determined to become true, then the next thing is to be convinced that we are a power for good in our world. There's no reason to deny this, no reason to back off and leave it to someone else. The good is there to be done, and we are simply to do what we can - for others, for family, friends and neighbours - for the truth. Being a witness requires that we be proactive. Real people know this. The trouble is that prefabricated religion has muddied the waters so that some feel they are worthless, or at least must never think of themselves as 'good'. That is how damaging BS is.

A good person who thinks they're no good is not being true - and that's no good!


To be true demands a total change in our thinking

There are two different 'things' we give witness to: first, to the fact that Jeshua is the Anointed One whom God has raised from the dead and, second, metanoia, that totally different way of looking at life that sees it the way God sees it, to discover that it is possible to live a fully genuine life if one follows the way that is right. The gospels end on that note. There is no plan of a campaign to convert the world, no schedule, no suggestion that the world should have become 'new' after 500 years, or a thousand, or two thousand. The witnessing goes on in the same simple way it did in Jeshua himself and in his first disciples, one person's conviction stirring the curiosity of another, enlightening the mind and and warming the heart until that one changes, transforms their life, and another 'christian' is born.

We know that some progressive churches work very hard to bear vocal witness to their faith, drawing people to declare their commitment for Christ through persuasive preaching, through music and through involvement in a community. Some churches witness door to door. Conservative churches on the other hand try to deepen the spiritual life of members and focus on the family in the hope that children will follow the example of parents and continuity of the church will be assured. Parents have even been encouraged to have large families to contribute to the growth of the church.

No one can become a follower of the Risen One other than by metanoia. After recognising the hand of God in the life of Jeshua of Nazareth, they will listen to his word. Over time they will grasp the change of thinking that he calls for and so become a new kind of person.


What would a true witness look like today?

I have put down some items that appear to me important in being a witness to the Risen One. I'm sure others will want to add to the list, perhaps with some anecdotes. I wonder is there anything more important for Christians to think about and discuss!


What about witness in small communities like Catholica?

The life of christians is essentially a community thing. All human life is normally lived in community with others. Apart from the town we live in and the people we work with, there's the neighbourhood, the clubs and associations, the special interest groups and our church communities. Each of us has a personal community within these of some 40 or 50 people whom we know more intimately and meet with regularly. None of these communities is a sealed unit. Any one of us belongs to a different group of communities in such a way that interests, values, goals are shared and to some extent entwined. We influence and nourish each other in and through these various communities.

If an internet community like Catholica contributes some enlightenment, encouragement or inspiration to its members, then they in turn will be sharing that in implicit ways with the many other communities they belong to. It will be the same in witnessing to the Risen Lord and his values. In Catholica much of the witnessing is in the form of questioning, investigating, even peeling away layers of BS to uncover original meaning. Members say their life is nourished in this process and they become more true, seeing their goal more clearly.

Not every effective witness statement needs to be a proclamation of our belief that Jeshua is risen from the dead. In fact that particular expression may rarely be heard. But our whole life is influenced by our commitment to that fact, and every contact we have in various communities will bear the quality of 'christian'.

In conclusion

I am now led to review the texts we began with. They are very compact and give the impression that the apostles saw themselves commissioned to go out and preach! To proclaim the word to all and sundry. To stick their neck out, and pay the price of witnessing when the authorities eventually put a stop to them. Perhaps there is a subtext here, the example and the teaching of Jeshua during his years in Galilee. I find myself back with that most telling metaphor: The reign of God is like a teaspoonful of yeast that a woman mixes into the dough, and left alone in a warm place it levens the whole batch. For me this is a most important standard to live by. My first priority is to be true in myself, and to allow that to influence others around me.