Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, A

"Who touched my clothes?" Jesus asks when surrounded by a crowd of bystanders. And the disciples are disrespectfully bewildered: "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?"' But no touch is anonymous to Jesus; he can easily make out the touch of yearning and trust of the woman suffering from hemorrhages.

I have Mass on Sunday April 12

at St. Isidore @ 9:30/11:30 am

at St. Andrew @ 5:00 pm

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. 

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst. He said to them, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."

Thomas, called Didymus one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the nail marks, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. Now a week later his disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, "Put your fingers here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my God."

Jesus said to him, Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may come to believe that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. 

The Gospel of the Lord.

 Jesus enters into the room where the disciples are locked in fear and speaks a word of peace, not just with words, but with a gesture. He showed them his hands and his side. God's beloved comes not as a military conqueror without blemish, but rather as a strong and peaceful shepherd bearing the wounds of the world, a child of God and a child of humanity. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and flesh means vulnerability. Flesh means wounds. 

This insight is at the core of today's Gospel. It's not that Thomas has doubts about the resurrection. It's that only a wounded and risen Savior could truly be the promised one. Thomas wants to know that the suffering of Jesus on the cross was not wiped away by the resurrection, that Christ's suffering was real, in some way permanent, and it mattered. In other words, it is precisely in woundedness, our own and others, where we find God. Thomas is incapable of uttering the words, my God, unless he sees the wounds. Jesus' resurrected body is still wounded, even though the wounds could have been healed without a trace, because it is through touching his wounds that we come to know God. 

There's a legend that the devil once tried to fool St. Martin of Tours by appearing to the saint dressed in fine clothes and jewelry and claiming to be our Lord. Martin spotted the devil's roost immediately, saying, Where are your nail marks? Where is the wound in your side? Without the wounds, Martin knew it was not Jesus. 

Simone Weil proposed this image. Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them, but it's also their means of communication. It's the same with us and God. Every separation is a link. In Matthew 25, Jesus identified himself with the poor and suffering. "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." The vulnerabilities, both physical and metaphorical, of all those suffering in our world are Christ's wounds too. Christians are called to know Christ by touching and helping heal the brokenness of others. 

St. Luke gives us an idealized picture of the early church in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. I love what Jesuit Father Greg Boyle says. "'See how they love one another.' That's not a bad gauge of health. 'There was no needy person among them.' A better metric would be hard to find. There is one line that stopped me in my tracks, 'and awe came upon everyone.' It would seem that, quite possibly, the ultimate measure of health in any community might well reside in our ability to stand in awe at what folks have to carry, rather than in judgment at how they carry it. 

When God fashioned the human from the dust of the earth, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being. In today's gospel, Jesus breathes God's life-giving Spirit into us. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. This is John's Pentecost, although the Spirit comes not with wind and flame, but with Jesus' own breath, the very life force of the one raised from the dead. Jesus sends them out to be God's peace and forgiveness in the world. This is the breathing of the church. We're gathered around the altar for communion and then sent out. God is filling and emptying the lungs of the church. This rhythm belongs to the oxygenation as lifeblood. Without it, the Church would stop breathing and die. 

In the Eucharist, we receive the body of Christ, and then we become the body of Christ. Where will we take it? What will you do with it? How will you make Christ present in the world? 

Touch has its own language that requires no words, as all tender lovers know. It is likewise known to wounded soldiers and people dying, and most sacraments are administered by touch. Who touched my clothes? Jesus asked, when surrounded by a crowd of bystanders. And the disciples are disrespectfully bewildered. You see the crowd pressing in on you. How can you say, who touched me. But no touch is anonymous to Jesus. He can easily make out the touch of yearning and trust of the woman suffering from hemorrhages. Even at its deepest, our theology can do no more than touch the hem of his cloak, to touch God. That's a contradiction in terms, isn't it? But the one who is the paradox of paradoxes, through the mystery of the Incarnation, permits and enables this touch. That is where we can touch him, where we can hold him in our hands like the bread during the Eucharistic feast.