2nd Sunday of Easter, 2025. Year C.
Readings: Acts 5:27-32 & John 20:19-31.
I don’t know how many of you here today are amongst those who have driven the almost 300% reported increase in viewing of the film Conclave over the last week. If you haven’t you may yet come to it in the next couple of weeks – it is, as far as I can tell with just one irritating and probably irrelevant factual error, as good a documentary on the process of selection of a new Pope as you can get. And beautifully shot as well.
It is interesting to contrast the speed with which the Roman Catholic church moves to select a new supreme pontiff with the long deliberations that the Church of England is undertaking to select a new Archbishop of Canterbury, especially if you consider that Archbishops of Canterbury normally have a scheduled retirement date, and popes tend not to. Is speed of selection an advantage in this process, or a problem? It certainly emphasises the difference between the role of the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Church of England and Anglican Communion seem to think that they can happily function without Canterbury for 6 to 9 months, whereas the Roman Catholic Church, at least in modern times, keeps its periods of sede vacantia to a few weeks.
In both cases of course, the intention is that the Holy Spirit should point the way towards someone who is most suitable to lead this part of the church at this time. This is not a naïve expectation. Of course this is a group of human beings, with a greater or lesser degree of representation of the whole of body of Christ. These are people with agenda and politics. We no longer just chose at random who is going to lead the church, as the apostles did when they looked to fill Judas’ place on the twelve, although even they narrowed it down to two, presumably equally qualified, candidates. These are people who are of their time and place. But that is the whole point. The church exists in time, not in eternity, and the electors of the church are people of their time. Their role, at its best, is to discern the person whom the Holy Spirit is calling at this time and in this place to be the person who can best lead the church as they see it. Obviously they are not perfect – that would be two great a burden to place on anyone. Bad choices are made. But sometimes it is easier to see issues in hindsight and from outside than it is in the moment of history.
It is a process built on trust – our trust in our representatives that they will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and their trust in the person who they chose, that they will chose someone who will lead in humility and wisdom. Pope Francis, it seems to be generally agreed, was a good choice by this standard. He rewarded the trust placed in him, not by being perfect, but by being humble. Trust is a word we will come back to later.
One of my favourite scenes in Conclave is the sermon that Ralph Fiennes’ character delivers as Dean of the College of Cardinals before the conclave starts, where he says ‘Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.’ This is something that I have observed for myself in the debates that are currently raging in the Church of England. There are a great many people who are absolutely certain that they know what God’s will is, and that therefore there can be no compromise or accomodation.
He then goes on to say that ‘Even Christ was not certain at the end.’, which is something that I am not sure I do agree with, both trivially because to see crucifixion as Christ’s end is to completely ignore the resurrection and ascension and eternal existence, but also more fundamentally because while a superficial reading of the passion narrative might indicate doubt on Jesus’ part, a deeper reading of it shows that he is completely certain in his faith in God the father, and in God’s promises to him. He does not necessarily understand how those promises will be fulfilled but he is certain in his faith in God, and we ourselves are saved by that faith that Jesus has in the father. We are saved not by our own works or deeds or actions but by the faith of Jesus Christ.
How does this sit with our gospel account of Thomas that we just heard. It is common to have poor old doubting Thomas held up to us as an example of lack of faith. Is that what John is telling us here? He ends the chapter after all, saying that this whole account is so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Thomas himself, when confronted by the risen Jesus, acclaims him as ‘my messiah and my God’ – he becomes the first person to hail Jesus unambiguously as divine. And Jesus says that those, like us, who do not get to stick our fingers in his wounds, but still believe, as to be praised even more. Is certainty to be exalted over doubt?
Peter is similarly uncompromising when he declares in our Acts reading that “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” that might seem to be an uncontroversial position, that we have a duty as Christians to do what God commands us to do, rather than submit to human authority.
Indeed, a couple of weeks ago you would have heard me preach exactly that point, that we should be recognising Jesus Christ as our ultimate authority in all things. A single sermon though, like a single verse of scripture, is not something that necessarily allows for examination of a nuanced point of view. I agree with Peter that we must obey God rather than human authority, but we have to ask ourselves what does obeying God look like? Are God’s wishes always clear and unambiguous. Always certain? Should we allow ourselves room to doubt ourselves in how we hear God’s command?
I ask myself, does God order us to force our beliefs on others? Does God order us to loudly and ostentatiously demand the right to wear a crucifix at work? Does God order us to picket abortion clinics and demand an absolute right to harass vulnerable women making one of the most difficult decisions of their lives? Some would say that we should, that this is what Christian witness is all about.
On the other hand, did Jesus go to the cross raging and cursing? Did he stand before Pilate demanding his rights? Did he condemn those who condemned him?
Or did he go to his death humbly, but with certainty? Not certainty that he would not suffer. Not certainty that God would raise him. Not certainty that he understood God’s plans and mind. But certainty that God had called him to be faithful even if that meant that he had to suffer and to die, and certainty that he would be faithful to God’s covenant with him that by going to this death, God’s will would be done.
In Francis, the Holy Spirit gave us a pope who showed what humility can look like, even in the powerful, in life as well as in death.
Let us obey God, but let us do so in humble faith, always doubting in our own strength and certainty.
Amen