There are two stories that stand out for me from the events following the resurrection which I have been thinking about over the past week, each concerning touch and the struggle to apprehend a reality utterly new and yet materially embodied and present. The first is Mary Magdalene's mistaking the Master for the gardener on Easter morning. The story shows the truth dawning on Mary once she hears her name spoken by Jesus. She cries out the name of her beloved teacher with love and shock and then there follows the perplexing Noli me tangere scene in which Jesus wards off Mary's touch dispatching her instead on a mission to inform the disciples of her encounter with the Risen One. (So much for the text but rifle though archives though I have, I have not (yet?) been able to find any art done by a woman of this scene and this leaves me feeling a little wobbly about well, predictable things regarding gender.) Could the 'do not cling to me' message at this powerfully vulnerable point in the narrative be a message about the necessity of letting go, of Jesus' 'launching' Mary, of allowing, if in a rather forceful manner, a new form of relationship to emerge? Could it be about Christ's trust in Mary's ability to integrate the reality of who and what this encounter meant? Did keeping his distance cost Jesus as much as it must have done Mary?
I found this image by Sustris from the sixteenth century which I particularly liked because of the labyrinth, the archetypal symbol for the journey that takes place inwardly and outwardly that, despite what appears as a set of tangling paths, always and only leads home.
On the Church clock a week later, invisibility cloak shed once more, Jesus unexpectedly appears to the twelve within the four walls of a locked room. We learn that Thomas the Twin had missed out on some of the previous showings and had declared in an endearingly blockheaded way, with a swaggering bravado so instantly recognizable in the human family that, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." (John 20.25) The story is most memorably expressed in Caravaggio's arresting painting, The Incredulity of Thomas, (below) which has kept me company for some days now. (In the meantime, I have learned that this event is called in the Orthodox tradition, The Assurance of Thomas. A smile-worthy shift in the usual perspective regarding doubt, I find.) Who does not totally identify with Thomas' demands? The Church fathers found his doubt not at all unreasonable and we are given Jesus responding to him in effect saying, 'Here, let me show you'. I read Jesus as telling Thomas to get over himself and, commending those who 'have not seen and yet have believed', is surely subtly reminding him of all the things that Thomas had witnessed and experienced while Jesus was journeying fully in the same dimension as the apostles. To his credit, Thomas does truly see and know, his inner walls collapse, he remembers himself, says the Name and freely abandons all previous resistance.
The ascension - has it taken place, or not? Mary cannot touch him because Jesus says the ascension, though imminent, has not happened. Thomas, by contrast, is guided to the wounds (has the ascension happened? Is that still the point, or have things moved on in the sense that there is a different teaching for a different person and/or need?)
Are these stories about
• ways of knowing and believing - specifically, the involvement of the senses in knowing. Does perceiving Jesus' presence demand a heightening of the senses, as Suzanne Guthrie has suggested?
• the ability which some personalities have to be with uncertainty while others cannot stand too much;
• the foundations grounding relationship? In Mary's recognition of the Master her ripeness for mission is affirmed whereas Thomas' stubborn ultimatum points to an 'iffiness' that God reaches out for.
These stories are connected in my mind as I reflect on the current status of higher education in the Humanities, which finds itself in a skeptical and scientistic mood (called 'practical' by its supporters) by which I mean there are demands for 'concrete proof' (yaargh!) that what is real is real, worth-while (yes, indeed, in terms of 'silver pieces') and, and er, if it's not too much to ask, certain to bear predictable results. Like a building or a parking lot.
Or a gash to the body.
Looking at Caravaggio's painting and thinking about Mary's belated recognition, I wonder about prohibitions, invitations, commands, the relationship one cultivates with one's self, letting go, ultimata, matters of belief, knowing, the role of sense perception, the various strengths of women and men, art, the centrality of the body and our participation in relationship and the question: How to be a faithful incarnate?
No comments:
Post a Comment