The emboldened disciples in Acts 5:12-16 perform signs and wonders of the risen Christ to a crowd gathered at Solomon’s portico in Jerusalem. Witnessing the good news of the Resurrection for the first time, astonished onlookers bring the sick and wounded for the apostles to heal through the power of God. “I just hope people feel some desire to get together with other people in their community and do a little Bible study on the Acts of the Apostles,” says Casey Stanton, co-director of Discerning Deacons, a project helping the Church listen more deeply as it discerns the role of women in the diaconate. “The church has given us this gift of a text that offers us a way to recover something that feels lost right now: a common life together.”
Joining host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., on this episode of “Preach” ahead of the Second Sunday of Easter, Casey connects the first reading to the current situation facing many immigrant and migrant Christians in the U.S., who live in fear of deportation and detention. “What will our testimony be in this generation in our time?” she asks. “We are called to be in community, especially with and as those who are called criminals. Those who are deemed unworthy, those who think they do not have a right to speak, those whose land is being stolen, whose waters are polluted, whose lives are under siege, who struggle for life and dignity.”
Casey Stanton has spent over a decade in ministry working on social concerns in parish settings, as well as engaging with broader faith-based networks focused on justice and inclusion. She lives in Durham with her husband Felipe and their three children—Micaela, Teddy and Oscar. Her work is rooted in Pope Francis’ call to a synodal Church—a Church that listens, walks together, and follows the lead of the Holy Spirit.
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Scripture Readings for the Second Sunday of Easter
First Reading: Acts 5:12-16
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
Second Reading: Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
Gospel: Jn 20:19-31
You can find the full text of the readings here.
A Reflection for the Second Sunday of Easter by Casey Stanton
On March 31st of this year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Department of Migration Refugee Services, in collaboration with the National Association of Evangelicals World Relief and the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, released a report. It was entitled, “The Potential Impact of Deportation on American Christian Families.” The report concludes by saying the findings of this report should be sobering to Christians of every background.
Roughly one in 10 Christians stands to be deported or have at least one family member deported, should the current administration or a future administration attempt to deport as many individuals as possible under existing law.
Friends, it is Eastertide, yes. And yet there is good reason for many of our brothers and sisters to be hiding out in locked rooms.
Some 10 million Christians in our country today are living under the shadow of deportation and the fear of detention. The law of the land is now such that if you find yourself accused, not tried and found guilty, just accused, you can be detained, your status can be revoked.
What the disciples know is that once you’re considered a criminal, when that sticky label has been applied to you, your life is marked in the world of Jesus and in our world today. It doesn’t really matter if you did or didn’t do what they are saying you did or did not do. What matters is they can mark you a criminal, label you a threat.
Peter was acting out of strong instincts for self-preservation when he denied knowing Jesus multiple times. Being accused is enough to have you stripped, abused, tortured, and executed.
Human dignity is not in the purview of the policymakers or the policy enforcers. Voters have abdicated the culpability for your treatment. Those who are criminals surely get what they deserve.
The disciples are living inside of a founded fear. Thomas’ doubt is justified. He speaks as one who has witnessed the execution of his beloved teacher, the miracle worker and healer. And Thomas is unconvinced by supposed visions of an afterlife of appearances. No, I’m going to need to see and touch if I am to believe. Amen. Thomas, Jesus respects your need, our need. And so he comes good news on his lips, the power of breath, which heals and unbinds. Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit.
A new power is being given here to discern what is to be forgiven and what stands against the God of life. And so what must be cast out and rebuked here in the upper room, the power of mercy streams from Christ’s side, flowing from the beating heart of a living God. It is mercy that emboldens the speech of those who were paralyzed by the trauma they had so recently witnessed in our first reading.
Today we meet these emboldened ones at Solomon’s portico. Here is a place they keep returning to. When they were last here, what they said and did got them arrested and beaten. Peter and John had extended a hand to the one who had been lame since birth. A person who was sure he was destined just to watch the goings on from the sidelines head down. When they meet him, they speak to him and they say: Look at us. I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.
Something new is taking shape in the life swirling around these apostles. They are acting the life of Jesus in their own flesh. Now they go where Jesus went, and they do what Jesus did. They speak as Jesus spoke, and they risk suffering the same consequence.
No sooner is the man up and rejoicing at his healing than the authorities are arresting Peter and John. Those who have the power to interrogate and execute, they have not had a change of heart. But the witnesses, they are moving in the Spirit now learning to trust in a way Jesus is making through them. Here they are back in Solomon’s portico, acting the life of Jesus all together.
I’m gonna nerd out a little bit here. There’s this Greek word homothumadon that should give us pause. The author of Acts uses it almost a dozen times, and it means more than just “altogether.” Now, the roots mean “rushing along,” “in unison.” The word has a musical connotation, as if each one is coming to know themselves as a sacred instrument, capable of playing signs and wonders in the world. Notes and whole scores they didn’t know they had permission to play. They’re learning to pray for boldness in the face of forces that would have them be silent. They’re learning. The power to heal is flowing through them where all can be cured.
We’re a large number of people joining them as believers in the risen Lord. This scene in Acts can feel so far away from our present, from the realities and the lived experience that many of us may have in what can feel like a crusty Church. But in Eastertide, we’re invited to draw close to these texts and let them claim us.
I grew up in the shadow of the sex abuse scandal in Boston. I was sure there was nothing but rotten corruption at the heart of this institution. It was through the witnesses of Catholic workers, prophets alive in our midst, practicing the works of mercy. And now under the leadership of Pope Francis, who’s been trying to peel back these crusty layers that stand between the baptized followers of Jesus and the power that’s at work here at the hands of the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection.
The Synod journey has always been primarily about this, this wonder that we are invited to place our hands here with Thomas’s and have a real encounter when we can feel in our own flesh as we join together, rushing along in unison as part of a new community formed in and through the mercy of God. We discover it’s possible at times to beat in rhythm, in unison, that we can learn a rhythm in the Holy Spirit. That there is in fact a resonance. A resonance which flows back rushing along together in unison at Solomon’s portico.
There is also a temptation hidden here in this slender passage of Acts, a warning about the cult of Peter, which is cropping up and which can keep us from knowing ourselves as a full member in this community. The cult of Peter attempts us to stay at arm’s length, kind of obscures our ability to discern what’s ours to take up responsibility for. Here we see the people are so moved by the signs and wonders of the apostles that “they carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.”
Friends, Peter’s shadow is not the thing that is curing the people. Peter isn’t curing the people. He’s trying to set folks straight about that. In Chapter 3, he says, “Why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? It is faith in Jesus’ name, his name itself that has made this man strong.”
Peter is not confused. Faith in the name of Jesus is curing all the people. But here’s the danger. If we expect Peter to do all the curing, we have put our hope in the wrong thing. If we expect Pope Francis to heal all that ails our Catholic church and bring about the magical renewal of the people of God, we are putting our hope in the wrong thing.
How often have I thought or heard on the Synod journey of the past four years, “I’ll get involved, but only so that Pope Francis will change his mind. If only the thing I care about will happen.” I confess, this is a temptation I have fallen for. Can’t Pope Francis just go on and like, sign women deacons into being? As if the Pope was a king to be worshiped, a sole ruler occupying the seat of Peter. But that isn’t the way authority is being shared and flowing here at Solomon’s portico.
It is the temptation hiding in Peter’s shadow. Pope Francis helps us to resist this temptation. He, even to this day, is reminding us that he is a mortal like Peter was. He’s showing us in his fragility that we have to resist making idols of our popes and our leaders, even the ones we love dearly. Pope Francis is pointing us to where Jesus is reminding us that the Holy Spirit is by our side sending us out beyond our fears.
So friends, we don’t need to worry. I get a lot of phone calls, people worried. What’s gonna happen when Pope Francis dies? Friends, when the Lord decides to call Pope Francis home, we don’t need to return to the locked rooms in fear worrying what will happen next to the church. Will the whole thing crumble? Will it fall apart? Well, maybe. But actually what happens next is up in some way to us, to our collective capacity to move together people of God all lay ordained bishops, young and old, to just keep going. Now is not the time to give up on this nascent, emergent possibility of communal discernment as a people of God to find our way into a common life as Christians around the world. So we’re just beginning to live through this Synod journey.
I feel like I can hear Pope Francis saying it right now. Have you learned nothing from my whole pontificate? Have you listened to any of my words? Have you witnessed my gestures? Jesus is with you. Jesus is the one.
We are the instruments upon which the Holy Spirit wants to play. And synodality is not about a rarefied group of 252 cardinals, or 368 voting delegates and observers becoming a synod. Church happens in every place where the baptized gather to try to discern how we are called to be in community, especially with and as those who are called criminals. Those who are deemed unworthy, those who think they do not have a right to speak, those whose land is being stolen, whose waters are polluted, whose lives are under siege, who struggle for life and dignity. The Acts show us the one who is the way, makes a way for us to walk even as those who have experienced the worst that human beings can do.
These disciples in the upper room are wondering: Is there some path beyond the despair and death that we have just encountered the Acts of the Apostles revealed? Yes. So if we’re not sure this morning, today, where we fit in the story, if you’re like me and you’re finding yourself occasionally paralyzed with overwhelm, we know where to go. We can go to the porticos in our own community. Wherever the people gather here, there are still signs and wonders being worked out. People from around the world, under the same roof with different mother tongues, where we receive Eucharist here offered for us to touch and to taste always in communion, calling us into that which we receive this Easter.
May we receive the cure that’s given for all together, rushing along in unison. May we be honest about our heart’s aches and overwhelms, and the fears that haunt us so that we can together pray for a loosening in our chest and wisdom in discerning a shared path forward. May we learn to pray, to do as Peter did when he boldly spoke, “You put the author of life to death, but God has raised him up.”
What will our testimony be in this generation in our time? That though the powers would divide and detain and deport, God has raised up a people 1 billion around the world, who in this Easter season are rising, taking a cue from this description of a life where it is possible to rush along, in unison together, strengthened by the proclamation of these Acts of the Apostles, this word of God that we proclaim throughout these 50 days, a story where no single strong man is the Savior, but a community of disciples cast their lots together. Men and women, again and again, risking their lives in every generation, learning to become instruments of peace.
The Acts are stories not of how 12 hold on to authority through every generation, but a vivid description of a community navigating the unknown in the grips of the Holy Spirit with a horizon of constant conversion, a constant opening to surprise and wonder at what the living merciful, risen God wants to get up to next.
