Easter Week 2 Friday

Readings: Acts 5.34-42; Psalm 27; John 6.1-15

When I was a student our community had the privilege of a week-long retreat preached by Herbert McCabe OP. He was in his prime, a dazzling speaker, fresh (although practically everything he said came out of his sustained contemplation of the writings of Thomas Aquinas!), provocative, entertaining, stimulating. Whenever we got together afterwards those of us who had experienced it always spent some time recalling the high points of that retreat.

One of his talks ended with a reference to the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Herbert's memorable conclusion was that ever since then 'liberals have been anointing the bodies of dead revolutionaries'. Herbert himself wanted to be on the side of the radicals and revolutionaries, of whom Jesus was for him the most important, in fact the only really significant revolutionary in human history.

I suppose Gamaliel, who appears in today's first reading, would also qualify as a member of Herbert's 'liberal party'. I cannot remember now whether or not Herbert included him that day. But Gamaliel's intervention before the Sanhedrin - wise, learned, experienced, all that goes with the word 'sage' - facilitated the mission of the apostles and allowed it to go on, if only for a time.

The advice of 'sage liberals' often defuses situations that are in danger of running amok. But is it always only a temporary solution? We are in Chapter 5 of the Acts of the Apostles and very soon Stephen will be arrested and murdered (Acts 7) and a general persecution of the Christians will begin (Acts 8). So what Gamaliel managed to achieve was only a temporary reprieve, perhaps the fate of the advice of sage liberals always when more passionate forces have been unleashed and those bent on revolution or its prevention will not be restrained forever.

When Paul preaches at Athens, in Acts 17, to an audience of 'sage liberals', philosophers, his message is rejected by some, accepted by a handful, while others (the liberal majority?) say 'we will hear you again about this'. Keep the options open. Don't commit yourself.

One can image Gamaliel smarting at what probably seemed to him forms of fanaticism, whether coming from the enthusiastic Christian believers or their opponents. The social order was threatened. So his solution - diplomatic, political, wise in its way - worked. And in the end failed.

Because the Resurrection of Jesus calls us to a decision: yes or no? And whichever answer we give, will we have the courage to live with its implications? Mostly we want to settle into a way of life - fair, reasonable, secure. But the Resurrection is revolutionary. To believe in it means seeing this world running amok as it is in so many ways and yet saying 'nevertheless there is one presiding, the Risen Lord, who continues to feed the people with his revolutionary doctrines, continues to feed them with himself, continues to enable men and women to live his radical love'.

Rather than anointing his dead body he wants us to respond to the cry of his living flesh, his body that is suffering, and he wants us to be revolutionary in our response to that cry. He wants us to serve truth, justice and love, and to do that 'to the end'. Which of us is ready for that? Which of us prefers the apparently sage temporising of Gamaliel to the fanaticism of a Stephen or a Saul? Which of us is ready to preach - and to live - the gospel with boldness? The Resurrection is revolutionary - but have we tamed it, drawn its sting?