Last Thursday I went to the one of the events of the Bedford Park Festival, a very entertaining and funny one, I have to say. It was called the Tome of the Unknown Actor with Christine Ozanne (writer and sit-com actress) and director Patrick Tucker, who talked about the secrets of the acting profession. Apart from being both very funny, there was something that Patrick Tucker said that was very illuminating for me. He asked the audience: “What is the difference between acting on stage and on Tv?” Someone replied back saying: “On stage actors have to project their voices, while on Tv they don’t”. Tucker then said: “Thank you. It was a nice try, but unfortunately the wrong answer”, and went on explaining why.
According to his experience, the main difference between Tv and on stage acting is the screen that effectively changed it all. On stage acting is fundamentally about exaggerating the reality, but not changing it, while the screen requires a complete alteration of the reality, when very often acting on screen forces actors to a very unnatural acting. For this reason, acting on Tv is full of lies and cheats, Tucker says. What you see in not what it is, but it looks great on screen, and that’s why they keep doing like that. The truth is a distraction and, therefore needs to be avoided, because it would probably take the attention of audience away from the story, which is what they want you to follow. I found this very intriguing. Now stay with me while I’m walking you through my reflection on today’s gospel and keep this in mind while you are listening to me.
As you may already noticed, this year we read the Gospel of Matthew. He is the evangelist who tells us about the Gospel of the Church. What we usually know about the four gospels is that the first three -Mark, Luke and Matthew- are essentially the same, while John’s gospel is different, very rich and profound in its theological meaning, but rather difficult to be interpreted and understood. You can then read Mark, Luke and Matthew from the beginning to the end and in parallel. This is why they are called “synoptics”, which literally means “in one view”, because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose content is comparatively distinct. You can actually place them in three columns on the same sheet and read them simultaneously without losing sight of Jesus’ story, and at the same time compare the differences.
It is true then. At a first glance they seem to tell the same story and follow the same narrative. However, especially Luke and Matthew, lay emphasis on two different but complementary experiences of who is Jesus and what relationship he has with the church. For instance, Luke makes it clear at the end of the gospel that the Ascension is the event that marks the end of the “time of Jesus” as a human being on earth, and, almost simultaneously, the beginning of the “time of the Church” with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. For Luke the Ascension symbolises a breakthrough: there is a before and an after Jesus’ time, while for Matthew there is no discontinuity. The risen Jesus remains rather than going away. There doesn’t seem to be a farewell in Matthew gospel. In Matthew’s mind then the Lord Jesus abides with his Church “to the end of the age”.
Also, Matthew alone of the Gospels uses the term ‘church’. It does not really refer to the universal Church, but rather to the local Congregation of Christians. Therefore, from Matthew’s perspective and experience as evangelist to his community, Jesus, the risen Jesus is in the midst of those who are the church and walk them along their journey to become the Church. He is with them when they rejoice and also with them when they suffer. In the light of it, we can understand that this is the church that is suffering because of persecution and to which Jesus is talking to in Today’s gospel. “Do not be afraid”, says Jesus, “because I’m with you”.
It is a powerful message that has a tremendous echo in Jeremiah’s experience of persecution as well. If you heard the story of Jeremiah, you would know that it ends really badly. His prophecy is not heard at all by the people of Israel. He preaches the destruction of Jerusalem, and more the once is persecuted, arrested, thrown in an abandoned tank in the middle of no-where, and eventually dies stoned by his fellow country men. In hindsight this is the man who we almost immediately identify with Jesus as an image of him in his experience of prophecy and suffering. But he is also the man, who in the middle of the most nagging persecution, is able to say: “But the Lord is at my side, a mighty hero; my opponents will stumble, mastered, confounded by their failure”.
It requires a strong dose of faith and stamina to say something like that when there is no immediately apparent proof of God’s support. What he was saying was true to him, but nobody else. Paraphrasing Jeremiah, we would probably ask: “How can we sing to the Lord, praise him and believe that he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hands of evil men, when what our eyes show us on a daily basis is quite the opposite?” It is really hard to believe it.
I don’t know about you, but from time to time my faith crashes against a wall of indifference, violence, and a huge idol of selfishness. My beliefs are at stake when the violence that surrounds me touches the most vulnerable people, wound them and leave them without any hope.
How do I answer the question from the people on the street about suffering, hatred and resentment that seem to overtake us?
My only answer lie on Jesus’ words: “Do not be afraid”.
What it is absolutely fascinating about today’s gospel is that does not answer the question of why we suffer or why Christians are persecuted, or innocent people die, but it rather offer a method to help us to deal with all that. Instead of telling the truth that should lie -at least according to our human logic- behind the suffering, violence and persecution, it show us how to get to the truth.
Think of the efforts we make to understand the violence behind the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester, London Bridge and now Finsbury Park, try to give some explanation to tragedy of the Grenfell Tower, but the truth is that we don’t know what to say and what to believe.
Influenced by our modern culture and literally inundated by real time news and information, we seem to know the truth or have the ability to get to know it. However, based on what director Tucker says about the Tv screen we must probably be bewildered, confused and suspect about what is true and what is false. Sometime the truth seem to be completely made up.
From the gospel, all we know is that “For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear”. What that means? Is it talking about discovering the truth or something else? This is perhaps more about our Christian method. The gospel is the way or the method, which actually means “the way”, or the “how”. It seems to be rather disappointing. I know what you are thinking: “All my life I have been told that the gospel is the truth, and now you are saying all I have got is “the way”? Now think for a moment of your experience of faith, go back in time to your childhood, and then your youth. Let your memories flow. Was your faith and love for the Church an idea you read in a book, listened in the news? Was it a fascinating theory about the world? Or maybe, it was something more related to the people you met, your dad and mum’s experience, your friends and community what really transmitted your faith to you? What do you really remember if not a story, a song, a hymn, a tune, words and people. Faith does not seem to come into our lives as a free-floating content. As Eugene H. Peterson would say: “Everything we know about God and are passionate about the church is always embedded in a form of some kind”.
Today’s gospel tells us that how we learn something is more influential that the something that we learn. Jesus tells us today: “Don’t be afraid, I’m with you”, in the hardest and darkest time of your lives. He shows us the way, but we may have to walk along his path and trust him.
Where do we find him? In the church -as Matthew says- our Christian community, the space where we shape our faith primarily through the Eucharist, and the proclamation of the Gospel, our worship and our solidarity towards each other -like we wonderfully did, and many people keep doing with the victims of Grenfell Tower Fire and their families.
With Matthew we preach the gospel of the Church, the symbol of our values, tradition and religious and social commitment to our local community. He tells us the way, and even more, he is the way, and because of that we have faith that he will lead us to the truth. There are no tricks, no lies, no screen cheats in him, but the way to the truth. “Don’t be afraid, I’m with you”.
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