4th Sunday of Easter (26.04.15)
Compelling Forthrightness
Forthrightness is not a word in common usage. Some may, mistakenly, associate it with being ‘in-your-face’ and somewhat aggressive. Yet, forthrightness can be expressed gently and with calmness. A truth-empowered forthrightness is compelling but, again, not necessarily aggressive. The Apostle Peter’s post-Pentecost forthrightness touched the consciences of those who heard him. The first reading for the 4th Sunday of Easter (Acts 4:8-12) tells us that Peter was “filled with the Holy Spirit”. At its core, this phrase describes a human person whose whole being is ablaze with the love God has for his creation. Peter, a recovering penitent who had earlier denied Jesus of Nazareth, challenges the unrepentant that schemed, lied and chanted to have Jesus crucified.
Being confronted by raw animosity, with the odds stacked against you, must be a terrifying experience. We can only imagine how it must have been for those 21 Coptic Orthodox Christian labourers beheaded by ISIS in Libya in February. Now named martyrs, those 21 Copts join so many other 20th and 21st century Christians, around the globe, who have been put to death for their faith. Many, unknown by name and therefore unrecorded on earth, are known to and loved by God.
To stand your ground, as did Peter and John in difficult circumstances, demands a depth of commitment not lightly found. Today’s first Reading presents us with the question, do we actively defend the holy Name of Jesus? Who fulfills the roles of Peter and John and of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Veronica where we live, where we work, where we shop, on the buses and trains and planes that carry us? If we only become visible Christians in church, then are we true disciples?
The holy Name, Jesus, can be frequently heard these days. Tragically, its use is more blasphemous or potentially so than praiseworthy. By way of adding insult to injury, many who use the holy Name, blasphemously, would claim that it was just a name, just as a word, without any particular affiliation for them. Yet there’s strong possibility that many making such a claim would tell you, if asked and presuming they knew, that they were Baptised as infants!
Over recent decades countless thousands of UK citizens received infant Baptism as a rite of passage. Christian church communities hold Baptism to be a Rite of Initiation welcoming children as new members. Parents and godparents were, hopefully, offered a preparatory catechesis on Baptism and the meaning of the parental promises. Whatever good intentions to reform were present at the time of Baptism, life’s unremitting pressures and habits have quite likely extinguished them.
The result is a UK adult and emerging adult population that, having been Baptised, is practically dissociated from even the basic requirements for a viable Christianity. The disconnect from regular Sunday church worship with its experience of community means that Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation have become social more than Sacramental occasions
When society rubbishes the holy Name of Jesus, the Son of God made Man, it rubbishes all that Jesus’ Name stands for. It also predisposes upcoming generations to continue the disrespect. Introducing Jesus’ name to people with no prior knowledge of it is infinitely easier than attempting to repair and reinstate what has already been, and continues to be, trashed.
The compelling forthrightness of a society that chooses to fearlessly belittle the God-of-Love-made-Man works strongly against a faith that endures. Peter had experienced personal failure in the face of concerted opposition in the courtyard of the High Priest’s house, where the captive Jesus had been brought after his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. Three times Peter was challenged for being one of Jesus’ disciples and three times Peter denied knowing Jesus. On the third occasion he employed oaths to drive home his denial. At that point Jesus walked by in silence to his imprisonment for his last night before crucifixion. When their eyes met, the cock crowed as Jesus had foretold it would. Peter’s tears began that night. One wonders if Peter’s tears have stopped, metaphorically speaking, when we read the impassioned pleas of Pope Francis in our day for those denied a voice and their rite to life. Pope Francis’ Christianity is the Truth forthrightly exemplified.
“The stone rejected – has become the cornerstone.”
(Psalm 118)
The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry building. Its importance is that all other stones will be set with reference to it. The cornerstone therefore determines the proper alignment of the entire structure. Europeans who daily align their lives on Jesus’ teaching and life stand apart. Their ‘apartness’ may well bring them ridicule and bullying as it did Jesus and the countless who followed him in the early centuries of Christianity. The Church’s Martyrology is a roll call of the women, men and children whose lives and sufferings illuminate the path of the true pilgrim. We come, historically, from a rich tradition of faith, Sacrament, prayer and love.
In some eras there were many faithful. In others, the faithful were relatively few and scattered. Sometimes they were underground in catacombs, often they were hidden away in dungeons and work camps and gulags. Despite persecution there was never a time when vibrant Christians did not exist and there never will be since that would allow Satan to claim victory. Just now the Christian church is on pilgrimage to Pentecost 2015. Each Baptised person can ask themselves, is this my year to stand in for Peter and John? On my pilgrim way to Pentecost I could pray not only to unreservedly welcome the Holy Spirit but also to be filled with a visible and audible (when appropriate) compelling, yet unthreatening, forthrightness. I could pray to be delivered from fear in representing Jesus of Nazareth, the One who heals and forgives me. May my representation evoke, in those who see and hear me, an attractive invitation to learn more about Jesus.