It is not unfair to suggest that for much of existence the Church has made a business of selling fire insurance. The origin of this practice can be found in the Johannine tradition which form two thirds of today's readings. The power of forgiveness is portrayed as the central prerogative of the church and constitutes the basis for its authority Initially, perhaps, this practice can been seen as an extension of Israel's insight that human failure was an action which threatened the health of the community and an offense against the righteousness demanded by God. It was a central theme in the yearly acts of Atonement at Yom Kippur. So, the death and Resurrection of Jesus in which God took on for all time an act of reconciliation required a means whereby the effects of this sacrifice could become a part of the very core of the new community in Christ.
The key question which was left to be answered was what difference this action would make in the lives of Jesus followers? Fairly quickly two traditions emerged which while not exactly incompatible, still made for a very different look to the life in Christ. The first of these employed the thought and symbols which became know as the apocalyptic tradition expressed most vividly in the Book of Revelation. The goal of this vision was the creation of a new heaven and a new earth which quickly became almost totally subsumed in the creation of heaven and hell as the ultimate destination for humankind. The church was the guardian of entry into this world seen as the real goal of human existence. The general precariousness of life on this planet and the lack of control over what was seen as the forces which governed events made the belief of a final outcome in which these forces were defeated a powerful incentive . Only the church had the power to make this outcome possible and ensure the evil forces were confined to eternal fire. This doctrine was in effect the basic structure of the sales pitch for a fire insurance company which could write policies for all eternity. One of the most effective tools in their repertoire was the guilt trip . Properly presented it could last a lifetime and insure that premiums were kept up to date.
One of the ironies of this legacy which dominated much of my work as a university chaplain in the 50's and 70's was the need to free students from their association of the Christian faith with the practice of laying on a guilt trip as the means for dealing with genuine questions of moral and ethical responsibility. The long term effect of this exorcism of false guilt was the general conclusion in secular society that all guilt was a bad thing. This legacy is still haunting the resulting society in which we live. We can attest this by the horror in which we view the corruption, greed and lying which those running our financial institutions seem to feel is a perfectly acceptable way of life.
Another response to Jesus death and resurrection can be discerned in this short excerpt from Acts which was today's first reading. It is one of the few glimpses we have into the ordinary life of his early followers. Much has been made of the apparent communism of this community. This is a minor point. What is apparent here is that these men and women felt suddenly free to live their lives in a new way. They felt united in heart, body, mind and soul to the extent that it was possible for them to commit to the formation of a new community. Elsewhere in Acts, we are told that another group was first called Christian because of the way in which they loved one another. The implication is that in addition to whatever worship activities they practiced the principal change was in the way they lived. Freed from the power of sin, they were now able to transform the ordinariness of their lives into an expression of living in Christ The time of God's triumph had come not as a great battle between forces of good and evil but inn their willingness to engage in living as it was given. Their understanding was that God's sacrifice in Christ was about this world not the next. This was has also been part of the Christian tradition and remains so to our day. Standing along side each other, these two traditions can s lead to significant contrasts as say between the message of Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Because he struggle to be free in Christ has very often found expression not in words but in action. there is clearly a line from St. Benedict to Albert Schweitzer which is recognizable in spite of the millennia between them. The same divine mystery which they sought to understand and express has had many guises. In our own day, Dahli's Last Supper explores dimensions which were previously unappreciated.
Flannery O'Connor may have been a conservative Catholic in her religious ritual and custom but nonetheless wrote
If the writer believes that our life is and will remain essentially mysterious, if he looks upon us as beings existing in a created order to whose laws we freely respond, then what he sees on the surface will be on interest to him only as he can go through it into an experience of mystery itself. His kind of fiction will be always pushing its own limits towards the limits of mystery...
When we sing in the great Easter hymns that "death hath no power over us" we are not talking of another time and place but who we are right now. No wonder that we recognize that even though Martin Luther King was speaking as leader of the movement to bring equality to Black Americans he was really proclaiming to the whole world another take on the power of the resurrection - Free at Last, Free at Last.
