Texts: Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
Easter is and always has been the Season of Offence. Twice a year – Christmas and Easter – the Christian faith seems to impinge on our wider society, and the media pay us a little more attention. More people than usual feel prompted to share their religious, or more usually anti-religious, views in Letters to the Editor.
But there is a big difference between the two Seasons. Christmas is the Season of Sentiment. It’s considered bad form to offend anyone at Christmas, even Christians. It may be silly to believe in a virgin giving birth, but there’s no harm in it. He’s a cute little baby – and the angels and the shepherds and the animals are cute, too. Everything’s cute and cool. So don’t give or take offence – it’s Christmas, a season of goodwill towards everyone, even Christians.
But Easter’s not like that. Easter is a time for angry derision – and not just among the shopkeepers of Wanaka. The Letters to the Editor become quite apoplectic at Easter. It’s not so much a case of, how can people be so silly as to believe that a dead man came back to life? It is more a case of, how dare anyone say such a thing! In a bizarre sort of way, it sometimes seems that those who are not Christian feel more passionately about Easter than those of us who are.
The question arises, then – how should we react when people take offence? Should we bite our tongue and keep the peace, or should we plough on regardless, well aware that we might be adding fuel to the flames? Our instinct is to keep our mouths shut in the name of peace. Today’s teaching says that we should override that instinct.
We start once more with St Peter, no stranger to taking or giving offence, and the healing of the crippled beggar at the temple gate. It’s interesting that this is the second week in which we have a reading from this story, but in each case what we have before us does not include the account of what happened. The lectionary does not invite us to focus on the actual healing itself, but on the reaction to it.
And, of course, there were two distinct reactions to it. The crowd who were at the temple that day and saw what had happened were astonished, and rushed to Peter and John, wondering how on earth they had managed to heal the man. Today, we have Peter and John hauled before the Sanhedrin, the same body before which Jesus had been brought for trial. Two very different audiences, but in each case Peter takes the same approach – the approach of maximum offence.
He starts off by teasing his accusers. He pretends that the case is really about the healing of the crippled beggar perse. He says, “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple ..” Nice one, but that’s not why they were arrested, as St Luke has made clear in the preceding passage. He mentions that in the arresting party are the Sadducees, who dominated the Sanhedrin and the temple administration; and he says, “they were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.” So this isn’t about the mysterious healing of one lucky cripple – this is about resurrection – this is about the offence of Easter.
Peter knows it, and Peter responds accordingly. You want to know how this man was healed? Okay, get this, he says in his best offensive manner. “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.”
In short, he gave double offence. Not only did he offend them by insisting on the truth of the resurrection – which was an offence against their own beliefs – but worse, he accused them of being guilty of killing the Christ himself, the anointed one of God, the Messiah. That is exactly the approach he had adopted with the crowd, stressing their personal responsibility. The resurrection means that Jesus has returned to the guilty. To say that is offensive, but it is also true.
Where does Peter get this outrageous approach from? From his Lord and Master, the same Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I have to say, today’s gospel passage is not one of my favourites. There are all sorts of reasons why it doesn’t seem to quite work for us today. The image it gives of the shepherd doesn’t fit the New Zealand scene. Our shepherds don’t lead the sheep, they and their dogs get in behind; and they certainly don’t give their individual sheep pet names.
I have tried to adapt it to local conditions. I played with the idea of having the role of the shepherd played by a lifestyle block owner; she might have, say, four sheep, each a different colour for spinning and weaving, and each with names taken from Shakespeare’s plays, names like Ophelia and Portia and Juliet, and the black one could be Lady Macbeth, perhaps. And instead of a wolf we could have a marauding dog, not even registered let alone micro-chipped!
But it just doesn’t work, and the fault lies with St John , with all due respect, because he seems to lose interest in the parable himself, and suddenly throws in some Easter theology. He starts off with a contrast between a hired hand and an ideal or devoted shepherd. So far, so good. He says that when push comes to shove the guy who’s in it for the money puts his own safety ahead of the sheep’s. Faced with danger, he does a runner and abandons the sheep to the wolf.
By way of contrast, then, we expect to learn that the ideal shepherd stands his ground and deals to the wolf. But is that what we are told? Not really, because at this point St John suddenly changes the plot. The wolf is not mentioned again, and now we have Jesus talking about his relationship with the Father. Where does the Father fit in the story of the sheep and the wolf? He doesn’t, and St John only half pretends that he does. The Good Shepherd, now clearly identified as Jesus himself, doesn’t deal with the threat to the sheep – the wolf – he lays his life down for the sheep. What sort of shepherd does that – and what good would that do the sheep anyway?
Of course, we usually interpret this saying as meaning that the shepherd will do anything for the sheep, that he puts their welfare before his own, that there is no limit to his love and care for them, that if necessary he will make the ultimate sacrifice for them. But does that work? Why, if that’s what it means does Jesus go on to stress that nobody takes his life from him – not the wolf, not a bandit, not anybody? He lays down his life of his own accord. And why does he go on to say, that, having laid down his life, he takes it back up again? Clearly, what this is about is Easter, resurrection, and if we want proof of that we have only to look at the reaction.
It’s almost an exact copy of what happens at the Sanhedrin. His opponents are furious at him, and become abusive. “Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?” But even then there was a problem with their verdict. Just as the Sanhedrin could not deny a cripple had been healed and was now walking, so many of this crowd remembered that a man born blind could now see. And as we all know, it is jolly annoying when facts get in the way of our argument.
The fact is, Easter has always been offensive. I thought of this again this week when I heard an item about the sentencing of the 9/11 terrorist in the USA . I guess most people were expecting the death sentence, but the jury went for life imprisonment, and there was a predictable range of responses. Was the jury’s decision a proper legal response, based on the fact that the defendant had not in fact taken part in the actual atrocities? Was it unexpectedly merciful, or was it a punitive approach, the jury believing that life without parole was actually a tougher penalty than execution? And how did the relatives of the victims feel? Did they feel justice was done? Did it bring closure?
And now, following St John’s example, I want to change the story in mid-stream. Let’s suppose that, instead of being crucified Jesus died on one of those planes. And on the third day, he was raised back to life and appeared to the guilty, showed them his wounds and said to them, “Peace be with you. Peace be with you.” What would we and the rest of the crowd make of that?
That’s the closure Easter brings. It’s called forgiveness. It’s called Love. It’s called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And nothing is more offensive.
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