Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sixth Sunday in Eastertide
2020

Parish of Holy Cross—St. John the Baptist
Midtown Manhattan

“Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you,
yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” ¹ 
 

We have all heard them, haven’t we? 

Lawyer jokes, of course.  Exhibit A:  How do you tell the difference between a lawyer and a snake?  The briefcase.  Perchance you’d like to share a couple or three from your own hearing?  We love to tell jokes such as these as they vent our frustrations and misgivings.  They poke fun at the lofty.  The humor fades to wistfulness, though, when we actually find ourselves in need of a terrific lawyer, a compelling defense.  In brief, an advocate.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 
And I will ask the Father,and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always” ²

The Advocate.

Why would Jesus’ disciples need a lawyer?  Yet, that is precisely what Jesus promises: A Paraclete.  The Greek term derives from legal terminology for an advocate or defense attorney.  Other potential translations include mediator, intercessor, comforter or consoler. Specific to the gospel of John, the Paraclete is also a teacher and witness to Jesus.  So, the Paraclete is both a lawyer and a witness in the face of a court challenge, a legal prosecution.  What might the charges be?  What accusations might need to be countered?  What verdict lies in the balance?

The Accuser.

Let’s talk a little bit about Satan, shall we?  Before we get too far along, we need to rid our imaginations of a good many images that suffuse our popular culture.  Renditions that tilt toward the cartoonish:  red devils sprouting horn and tail; a ghoulish figure wielding a pitchfork; a gruesome, deformed creature brandishing fire and brimstone.  None of these helps us along the path of understanding.  In fact, as often as not, they distort our imaginations, confound our comprehension, blind us to an important truth.

In scriptural origins, Satan is the accuser.  One who wields accusation via deception and empty promises.  Accusations launched against unsuspecting, blameless targets.  Accusations hurled at innocent victims, capriciously chosen, deemed to be social threats, villains to be vanquished.  Accusations creating convenient scapegoats, along with empty promises asserting that their removal from the scene will restore harmony and calm.  

This satanic cycle of accusation run amok has tainted the entirety of human history, stained the full gamut of human cultures.  The cycle traces to our very origins.  Consider the witness of the Book of Genesis: Cain and Abel, offspring of Adam and Eve.  Dislodged from the Garden of Eden.  Clashing desires.  Quarrels over honor.  Rising rivalry.  Accusation.  

Murder.  

Abel removed from the scene.  Tension temporarily resolved.  Though till his death, Cain roams the earth uneasy, exposed.  Forever a potential victim to be sacrificed to the next group frenzy of entangled rivalries, feverish clashing desires.  The victim mechanism.  At our origins. ³

Accuser.  Advocate.  Adjudication.

Jesus of Nazareth is the first Advocate refuting the work and method of the Accuser.  The entirety of Jesus’ life, teaching and mission centered on the revelation and rout of this victim mechanism hidden since the foundation of the world.  In his life, he relentlessly restored those who had been cast out:  a shunned Samaritan woman, a man born blind, countless sinners gathered at his table, a lunatic roving a graveyard in Gerasene, a shamed woman hemorrhaging blood.  

In Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, we discover the culmination of the revelation, the full and ultimate rendering of the verdict.  G-D’s own verdict.  Life.  Life indestructible.  Death defeated.  Accuser cast out.  Advocate vindicated.

Of course, at the time of their baptism, all disciples of Jesus Christ share in that divine refutation:  Do you reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises? 4 

I do.  

How about you?

Why would Jesus’ disciples need a lawyer?  Because while the final verdict has been rendered, the accuser continues to attempt prosecution of the case.  Constant are the invitations to build a social life upon the tomb of a sacrificed victim. The identification and repudiation of scapegoats remain far too widespread within human cultures to ignore.  Furthermore, believers in the gospel enjoy no exemption from the temptation.  Hence, another Advocate.

The sending of the Advocate is meant to strengthen us, accompany us in our mission to announce the good news of the victory accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  To reinforce our comprehension of Jesus’ life, teaching and witness – so that our witness might remain authentic, unambiguous and effective.  That we be afforded defense against any impulse to participate in the murderous search for scapegoats.  

This, plainly not because we possess a moral superiority to others.  Rather, it is we who are possessed.  Possessed by the Spirit breathed out by the Risen One.  The Paraclete.  Another Advocate.  And in that embrace, we are entrusted with a holy, inimitable mission to assist others in glimpsing the truth about our human tendency to create sacrificial victims.  A charge to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The good news that we have been afforded a path out of the death-dealing.  No more victims.  

To evangelize.  To respond to the challenge announced in today’s second reading:  Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.  To offer a defense.  The defense taught us by the Advocate.

Gentleness.

Reverence.

Evangelization.  A task calling not for thunderous display, but gentle witness.  Not gruff judgement, but reverence.  Reverence for the G-D revealed in Jesus Christ.  Reverence for all those called into being by that same G-D of creation and covenant.  A mission, once and for all, renouncing any violence visited upon victims.  Reliance solely on the grace poured out by the crucified and risen Christ, whose Advocate is our sure defense.

In conclusion then, Exhibit B:  How do you tell the difference between a lawyer and a snake?

The difference between an Advocate and an Accuser?

An empty tomb.  A victim raised.  A communion forged in the forgiveness of the Risen Christ.

Your honor, the defense rests.  He has been raised.