The Synodal Way

Gospel: Mark 16: 9-15

Today's Gospel portion summarizes the various failures of the apostolic band in their disbelief.  It recounts their failure in believing the women, as well as the two men of Emmaus.  The passage notes how Jesus rebuked them severely for their refusal to listen to others in their experience of the risen Jesus.  We might surmise that these men may have refused to believe because they could not accept that Jesus would appear to these others and not to them.

In our own day we find similar patterns of disbelief.  A certain group with specific genitalia who are convinced of their ontologically changed status is convinced that God speaks only to them, that they need not listen to the experiences of others.  All truth is possessed by this elite group of sacerdotal men.  It is here where is found resistance to the idea of a synodal church, a church that listens and values the experiences of all her members.

The resurrection accounts are a foundational basis for the synodal way as a model for the church.  For it is within the experiences of all God's people that we encounter the risen Jesus, not only in the first Easter experience but in our own time.  It is only in listening to the experiences of all God's people that we arrive at a fuller and richer picture of the risen Lord and how that presence is at work in the world at all times and all places.