A faith in touch

Acts 5.12-16 More than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.

Revelation 1.9-11a,12-13,17-19 ‘I died, and behold I am alive for evermore.’

John 20.19-31 Eight days later, Jesus came.

 

‘Put your finger here, and see my hands;

and put out your hand, and place it in my side’

(John 20.27).

 

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The papacy of the late Pope Francis, whose funeral took place yesterday, was marked by bold gestures.

One of the most moving and affecting moments of his papacy was when he reached out and embraced a very disfigured man who many others, myself included, might have passed by, looked away from or stared at.

In this he was consciously echoing the example of Christ.

Jesus’ ministry is one that is in touch with people.

When Jesus heals someone so often the gospel writer tells us that he touched the person concerned.

In our times, as people become more remote from each other, and buffered by suspicion, hostility or fear, the sense that we are in touch with each other diminishes.

Increasingly people of different opinions, views and perspective won’t go near someone who has differing opinions, views and perspectives out of fear for the consequences.

I was on the London Underground on Friday evening and mused how Covid seemed to train us to be more distant and less in touch with other people.

And then the word ‘touch’ is regularly prefixed by the word ‘inappropriate.’

Human beings aren’t in touch anymore, we are losing our sense of touch.

Increasingly we are losing touch with God too.

The WEIRD world - WEIRD being the mnemonic for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic – our weird world seeks salvation in the very technologies that drive us apart, that shield us off from other people.

The smartphone is the icon of this.

Social networks have created more loneliness, fear and suspicion than they have connection and sociability.

Experiencing something means having a photo of it.

An advert for cruises says ‘experience the world in comfort’: sitting back on an armchair on the deck of a cruise liner may be comfortable but it is not experiencing the world.

We have to ‘create memories’, rather than participate in something and thus remember it.

Virtual reality sounds exciting and fun, but it’s what it says it is: virtual; not real.

I could go on.

Little wonder we become disenchanted.

What Pope Francis did - in embracing the disfigured, showing a kind touch to the sick, washing the feet of prisoners, giving space to the homeless - imitated the Lord who is in touch with us.

That is experiencing the world: embracing its pain, not observing it mediated by others.

Our readings today, especially the Gospel, turn us away from the unreality of modernity and technology towards the real and embodied, to things that we can touch.

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles speaks of signs and wonders performed that bring healing.

This is an exercise of divine power, what the New Testament calls, in Greek, δύναμις (dunamis), it’s where we get the word ‘dynamic’ from.

It’s worth just pausing on that for a moment: the healing dunamis of Christ is transmitted and entrusted to his Apostles.

Is the Church dynamic today, in the sense of receiving and transmitting the healing power of the touch of Jesus Christ?

We believe in an Apostolic Church: do we really believe in the healing power of Christ? Or is it a half-buried memory or just a bit embarrassing?

I wonder.

Pope Francis embodied the mercy and healing power of Christ: he was utterly unembarrassed by it, and nor should we be.

Such is the power of the touch of Jesus that even the shadow of the apostles falling on someone brought healing.

St Teresa of Avila tells us:

Christ has no body on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

The dunamis of Christ is given to his Church: we just have to put ourselves in touch with it.

Don’t pray for world peace, without being a person who is a channel of peace.

Don’t pray for healing, if you are not ready to be a healed healer; someone who knows how to bring healing and to receive healing.

Do pray!

Payer is about putting ourselves in touch with the power of the living Lord.

The reading from Revelation describes a vision born out of the intensity of encounter with the Lord in prayer.

He heard a voice, speaking personally to him, he saw the one like a son of man, in heavenly brilliance, he fell down at his feet in worship and adoration.

Hearing, seeing, falling down in adoration are all actions of the body, in reality of experience and participating in the mystery.

And that takes us to Thomas.

Jesus, who touched the sick, allowed the spiritually sick Thomas to touch him: ‘put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side’ (John 20.27).

Our faith is one that is in touch; in touch with the visible and invisible realities of the world.

When, like Thomas, we are in touch with the Crucified and Risen Lord then we receive and transmit the power of being witnesses to the world that Christ is Risen, ‘the first and the last, and the living one’ (Revelation 1.18)

It’s not enough to hold general principles or ‘values’: the world needs a Christian Church in touch with the needs of the materially and spiritually poor: then we are the Good News the Gospel proclaims.

Our faith, the faith of Thomas and the apostles, is not a virtual reality faith, not a metaverse faith, it is an in touch faith, what we call an incarnate and sacramental faith made up not of ethereal spirits, but real bodies.

Real bodies that offer bread and wine to receive the presence and life of Christ; real bodies that are anointed with oil for healing and protection; real bodies that are drenched in life-giving water for washing away sins.

Our adoration and worship is not remote or virtual but intimate and a real presence in Christ’s presence.

Christ is risen bodily from the tomb. Come let us adore him: may we be empowered by the Spirit of the one of whom we say: ‘My Lord and my God’ (John 20.28).