The Sánchez Archives FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER YEAR A

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

MYSTAGOGIA, A TIME OF GROWTH

ACTS 2:14, 36-44
1 PETER 2:20-25
JOHN 10:1-10

From the early centuries of the church, the period after Easter was characterized as a time of ongoing formation and maturation in the faith for those who had been baptized and received into the community during the Holy Triduum. Called mystagogia (Greek), or postbaptismal catechesis, the goal of this period was to engage the newly baptized in a more profound experience of the paschal mystery both on an intellectual level as well as on the level of lived personal experience. Both the personal experience of the newly baptized and the community experience of the faithful were of crucial importance during this stage of the catechumenal journey. As Michel Dujarier has explained, “Personal faith needs the support of a faith community just as the faith community needs the presence of the catechumens to continually renew itself and to keep it from taking its faith for granted.” (The Rites of Christian Initiation, William H. Sadlier Inc., New York: 1979).

In reminding the faithful of their need for continual mystagogia, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (from 248-258 C.E.) developed a spirituality of becoming which was rooted in baptism as well as in the eschatological future. He called believers to preserve and to develop what they had already become by baptism and to grow more and more into what they were intended one day to be. “We who have been sanctified by baptism pray that we may persevere in what we have begun to be. . . regenerated. . . reborn in spirit. Let us imitate, therefore, what we will be.” (M. Reveillaud, St. Cyprien: L’Oraison Dominicale, Publications Universitaires de France, Paris: 1964).

Following the example set by the early church, many contemporary congregations welcome newly baptized believers during the Easter Vigil. In these weeks after Easter, both initiates and veteran believers are invited to enter into a period of mystagogia and thereby to be renewed in the dignity and challenge of Christian baptism. To that end, we must join with those who first heard Peter’s proclamation of the good news in asking, “What are we to do?”, and in accepting his call to reform our lives and to keep from going astray from the path of discipleship (first reading from Acts).

The author of 1 Peter (second reading) reminds his readers that baptismal commitment entails a careful, deliberate following in the footsteps of Jesus, whose way to the Father included: suffering for doing what is right; being insulted and threatened without offering insults or threats in return; and leading those who have strayed as well as those in need of healing and forgiveness back to the right path.

In the gospel excerpt from the Johannine Good Shepherd discourse, the evangelist counsels Christians concerning the necessity of being attuned to the voice of authenticity and truth: “the sheep hear his voice as he calls his own by name.” The integrity of the faith and of the ongoing formation of baptized believers is dependent upon its rootedness in the call of Christ as preserved in scripture and on the valid interpretation of that call by the Spirit-led church.

During this extended period of mystagogia, the scriptural texts call each of us personally and communally to attend once again to what we have already become, and to renew our focus on what we are intended to be. This is a time for listening, learning, deepening, mutual sharing, reform, healing and growth.

ACTS 2:14, 36-44

In 1891 the Irish wit, poet and dramatist, Oscar Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray, an intriguing fable about moral evil and its consequences. According to the story, an artist named Basil Hallward painted a portrait of the central character, Dorian Gray, and gave it to the young man as a gift. An excellent likeness, the painting captured the handsome youth and goodness of Gray, who did not exhibit it but locked it away in an upstairs room of his home. As time passed, it became clear that the painting was more than a work of art. Although Gray’s physical appearance did not age or change in any way with the passing years, the painting became a mirror, as it were, registering the progressive moral disintegration of his soul. Gray, who had squandered his life in unrepentant evil, eventually showed the incredibly altered portrait to Hallward who recoiled in horror remarking that the rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful a sight. When Peter and the other early disciples first preached the good news of salvation, their message centered on the figure of the crucified Christ, who suffered, died and was raised to glory for the sins of humankind. Like Dorian Gray, sinners are called to look upon the cross of Jesus as a self-portrait, to see therein a mirror of their own sinfulness and need. But the visage of the crucified Jesus is far more than a reflection of human complicity with evil; it is also a revelation of the love of God for sinful people. It was this dual realization that caused Peter’s listeners to be “deeply shaken” and moved to ask “What are we to do?” (vs. 37). Duly convinced of their own sin and of God’s immeasurable love, they were open to accept the good news and to alter their lives accordingly.

In addition to repenting of whatever sinfulness had separated them from God and from one another, those early recipients of the kerygmatic message were also invited to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, who in his resurrection was vindicated and made known as both Lord and Messiah (vs. 36). By declaring Jesus as Lord, the early church accorded to him the title traditionally reserved for God alone. The Greek term for Lord, or Kyrios was used in the Septuagint to translate the sacred tetragrammeton, YHWH, or Yahweh. By proclaiming Jesus as Messiah or Christ, the early church declared its acceptance of him as the long awaited, anointed one, viz. the Davidic savior (2 Samuel 7:12-14). These two titles, Lord and Messiah form the conclusion of an argument begun in Acts 2:17 wherein Luke has drawn together references from Joel 3:1-5, Psalm 110 and Psalm 16:31 in order to illustrate that: (1) the Day of the Lord has been manifested in Jesus’ death and resurrection; (2) salvation is available to all who would call upon Jesus as Lord; and (3) that it was through the outpouring of God’s own Spirit that the saving words and works of Jesus had been accomplished.

With those who first heard Peter’s proclamation of the good news, veteran believers are called to be “deeply shaken” by an awareness of personal responsibility for the cross but also moved to reform and renewal by the love of God thereupon revealed.

1 PETER 2:20-25

Several of the New Testament letters contain lists of instructions which scholars have called haustafel or household codes (as per Martin Luther’s term in the Deutsche Bibel). Today’s second reading is an excerpt from a longer section of haustafel which resembles a “domestic bulletin board” (Joseph Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology”, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs: 1990) in that it lists the obligations or duties of various members of a family toward God and one another, e.g. slaves (2:18-28), wives (3:1-6), husbands (3:7). As part of the author’s advice directed toward slaves who had become Christian, this particular text does not question or undermine the institution of slavery. Rather, slaves were exhorted to look upon the suffering which was inherent in their state of life and to “interpret their experience in the light of the Christian kerygma about Jesus: he too suffered, albeit unjustly.” (Jerome Neyrey, “1 Peter”, The Collegeville Bible Commentary, The Liturgical press, Collegeville: 1989).

At the time this letter was written, some scholars estimate that there were as many as 60 million(!) slaves in the Roman empire, some of whom performed the most menial tasks while others worked as doctors, educators, secretaries, managers and artists. By Roman law, slaves were not persons but things with no legal rights. Aristotle, writing about slavery explained, “There can be no friendship nor justice toward inanimate things; indeed not even towards a horse or an ox, nor yet towards a slave as a slave. For master and slave have nothing in common; a slave is a living tool, just as a tool is an inanimate slave.” Without abolishing the institution, Christianity imparted a dignity toward slaves by suggesting that the master/slave relationship be informed by an attitude of mutual brotherhood and/or sisterhood (see Philemon 16).

Like all Christians, slaves were called to model themselves on the example of Christ, presented in this pericope as both the suffering-servant-lamb-figure of Isaiah 53:1-12 (vss. 21-24) and the good shepherd and guardian of Psalm 23, Isaiah 40:11, Ezekiel 34:1-16 and John 10 (vs. 25). The word example or hupogrammos (in Greek) was a term derived from the method by which children learned to write in the ancient world. Hupogrammos can mean an outline sketch of letters which children had to fill in, or the copyhead in a writing exercise book which the child had to copy on the lines below. In either case, success was determined by how carefully and accurately the child reproduced the hupogrammos or example which had been set. So also in Christian discipleship, the example has been set by Jesus and believers are called to carefully and faithfully reproduce in their own lives the path he has traced from suffering to glory. In that way, just as Christ’s suffering brought deliverance and healing for sinners, so might the witness of the faithful Christian disciple cause those who have strayed to be reconciled to their shepherd.

JOHN 10:1-10

Knowing whom to follow and to whom to listen are important factors in the process of formation and growth called mystagogia or post-baptismal catechesis. If, as several Johannine scholars, including Stanley B. Marrow (The Gospel of John, A Reading, Paulist Press, New York: 1995), have suggested, the fourth gospel has gathered together and preserved “sermons” preached to a community by a believer in their midst, then chapter ten was probably intended to help Christians to discern which voice they should heed and which leader they could trust, viz. Jesus, the good shepherd, who knows his sheep by name and who is the gate to fullness of life (vss. 3, 9).

Unauthentic leaders, whose voice and whose direction did not lead to salvation, are referred to as strangers, thieves and marauders in this pericope (vss. 1, 5, 8); these false leaders were a problem for believers at each level of kerygmatic development. For example, in the 30s C.E., during Jesus’ earthly ministry, some of the Pharisees, scribes and chief priests attempted to deflect the attention of the people away from his saving message. For its part, the post-Easter Johannine community, which preserved and handed on the good news as preached by the Beloved Disciple, was plagued by dissenting voices within the church who tried to lead it in a new, albeit erroneous, direction. When their efforts failed, these dissenters withdrew from the community. For an excellent explanation of the christological and ethical views of these “secessionists”, see Raymond E. Brown’s The Churches The Apostles Left Behind (Paulist Press, New York: 1984). By the time the gospel reached its final form in the 90s C.E., the Johannine evangelist/redactor, who was sensitive to the difficulties experienced by his community, presented the most profound understanding of Christ and the church in all of the Christian scriptures. Lest anyone be confused, Jesus is portrayed in no uncertain terms throughout the fourth gospel as the only authentic Word, Way, Truth, Life, Light, Vine, Bread of Life and, in this gospel, Shepherd and Gate to life. True believers or authentic Christians are also identified as those who will hear and keep the Word, follow the Way, seek the Truth, accept his Life, remain on the Vine and bear fruit, be nourished by the Bread of Life, and, as is reflected in this gospel, listen to the voice of the true good Shepherd and enter by the Gate he has opened.

By describing Jesus as the authentic shepherd, the evangelist drew upon his readers’ existential experience as well as on the rich heritage of the Hebrew scriptures. Sir George Adam Smith, a frequent traveler to Israel, described the life of the shepherd in this way: “On some high moor, across which at night the hyenas howl, when you meet him, sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, leaning on his staff, and looking out over his scattered sheep, every one of them on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judea sprang to the front of his people’s history: why they gave his name to their king and made him the symbol of providence; why Christ took him as the type of self-sacrifice.” (as related by William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 2, The St. Andrew Press, Edinburgh: 1975).

Throughout the Old Testament, God is featured as the shepherd of his people, providing for their every need (Ps. 23), leading them to safe pasture (Ps 77:20, 79:13, 80:1, 95:7, 100:3; Isaiah 40:11) and stepping in to replace those who had been entrusted with the care of his people when these proved unworthy. Surely, readers of the Johannine gospel are intended to understand Jesus’ role and John 10 in light of, and as a fulfillment of the promises made in Ezekiel 34, viz. “I myself will look after and tend my sheep. . . I will rescue them, give them rest. . . the lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal. . .” (vss. 12, 15, 16).

In celebrating today, the blessings which are ours because of Jesus, good Shepherd and Gate to fullness of life, we are reminded of the necessity of carefully listening to his voice. Only deliberate and daily attentiveness will maintain the contact which is necessary to an authentic discipleship.

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