There are inherent dangers in knowing too much. Once upon a
time on reading that gospel passage I would have just preached on it straight.
But nowadays of course I know far more than I ever used to about Thomas and the
tradition that used him as a kind of standard bearer, and I know that in part,
John’s gospel was written to refute the ideas of the followers of Thomas.
I know that Thomas would never have said “My Lord and my
God” to Jesus because that is exactly what he didn’t believe, and having those
words put into his mouth was a kind of delicious revenge wrought upon him by
John, presenting as he did the ideas of catholic orthodoxy. I know John is more mystical and spiritual
that the other gospels because he is playing on the same field as the followers
of Thomas and trying to play them at their own game.
So what do you do when you know all those kinds of things?
Carry on regardless spouting stuff you know can’t be true – but doing it
anyway. Or do you man up and show a bit of integrity?
The church as a whole has become much more infantile over
this last century. Parts of it have tried to ignore all the advances in
scientific knowledge and understanding of the universe around us. All the
massive advances in textual criticism, context and interpretation are routinely
ignored. All the discoveries of other interpretations of Jesus by early
Christians are also ignored.
We end up wearing blinkers and living and preaching in
wilful ignorance of certain truths that have been known for a very long time. In
short I think that many clergy are terrified of challenging certain things,
terrified of upsetting long cherished beliefs, terrified that they’ll lose
their jobs or be subjected to public ridicule like Bishop Jenkins was. There is
a real existential dilemma here.
I have always been one for “keeping things real” as people
much younger than me might say. So I can stand here and
say that the gospel incident I just read never happened. It is not history – it is theology and
political polemic. Very clear and insightful theology – the point of which is
to refute and undermine the followers of Thomas.
The two sides had very different things to say. The ideas
that won the day and were rigourously enforced were a belief in a literal
virgin birth and a literal bodily resurrection, that Jesus was God and worthy
of worship, that authority was vested in a small male coterie and anyone
outside the discipline of this hierarchy was not saved. The problem of the
world was sin because we are utterly sinful beings and only belief in a
“saviour” would redeem us.
The other side thought that belief in a literal virgin birth
and bodily resurrection was ridiculous and called it “the faith of fools”. They
saw Jesus as intrinsically no more or less God that you or I – except that he was
more transparent to God’s Spirit than most of us – but that actually we all
have the potential to be the same as Jesus. In fact, we could be his twin –
which in Aramaic is Thomas. Thomas was a nickname that reflected his
theological views. His actual real name was Judas – though as the Gnostic
gospels are quick to note – “not Iscariot”. For the opponents of the catholics
the main problem of the world was not sin as such but ignorance and Jesus
brought enlightenment. Authority and
power was not vested in a small hierarchical male elite but was diffuse and
rested an whoever manifested the fruits of the Spirit.
So you see knowing too much has its downside. How do you
preach about the resurrection in these circumstances? I gave a strong hint in
my Easter day sermon when I talked about the Spirit of God being alive and
active and working though his children – the church.
You know my favourite gospel that related the truths of the
resurrection? It is Mark’s gospel.
Why? Because he says absolutely nothing about it. There are
no appearances in Mark. His gospel ends with the words “for they were afraid”.
Mark says nothing but to me, in that space he says everything.
The embarrassed church fabricated an ending and attached it
to Mark’s actual ending because they thought it was incomplete.
Yes , but it was
incomplete, but is was incomplete for a reason. Because the next chapter of
Mark’s gospel is not to be written in words on a page – the next chapter is written in the lives of his
followers. His ending is deliberate.
You, we, are the next chapter of Mark’s gospel. We are the
resurrection. What are we going to do with it – how are we going to live it? I
know the responsibility is almost too much to bear and as Mark says....for they
were afraid........ But we are writing it, so how the story develops is up to us.
Amen.
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