Third Sunday of Easter

Third Sunday of Easter
April 30, 2006

The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead..." (Acts 3: 13-19). "... He stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you" (Luke 24: 35 48)

Peter speaks to his own Jewish people about all that had happened recently, scolding them for being a party to his death even if it was done out of ignorance Until only very recently we Christians have taken this to refer to "them" (the Jews) instead of "us" (the people). This has allowed "us" to persecute "them" as the perpetrators and scapegoats. Not exactly what Peter or Jesus had in mind. We are all persecutors and all victims. As long as we project all the responsibility onto others, we perpetuate the situation which led to Jesus' death.

Peter also says something that would have astounded those who heard him, referring to Jesus as the "author of life". It was one thing to claim that he was the Messiah promised by the prophets but quite another to suggest his divinity. This would have been a very difficult idea for his audience to accept. If we really think about it, it is just as difficult for us. Nevertheless in the same breath he says that it was God who raised him from the dead.

The gospel again takes us into the midst of apostles who were dazed and confused by all these events of Jesus' death and resurrection. He appears to them with a blessing: "Peace be with you". They are terrified and think they are seeing a ghost of a dead man. It is not much different for us whenever we are threatened with the loss of someone or something precious. For example, I have discovered recently, as it requires more effort to speak, that there is some peace in letting go of my compulsion to have a verbal response to everything. Another friendly gift of ALS. We all have fears and terrors, resentments and hurts, which can be transformed by God's peace offering when we decide to accept it.

We exchange the sign of peace at mass, offering to each other a blessing extended from the altar, praying to be freed from anxiety. I wonder if the significance of these actions sometimes gets lost in the repetition, always a challenge in our liturgical tradition. Peace and anxiety are both contagious. Anxiety accompanies doubt and ambiguity. We want the certainty of definitive answers which sometimes do not exist. Like the one about whose fault is this or that, or who is right or wrong. The quest for this certitude often as not drives us further into blaming and violence. Peace follows acceptance of our human condition of fear, confusion and uncertainty about our future. When we receive and cultivate this gift of the Holy Spirit within our own hearts, we are able to pass it on as a blessing to one another.

Second Sunday of Easter

Second Sunday of Easter
April 23, 2006

"The community of believers was of one heart and mind...." (Acts 4: 32-35). "And the victory that conquers the world is our faith." (I John 5: 1-6). "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” (John 20: 19-31)

The apostle Thomas can't believe the news that Jesus has not abandoned them. Thomas is my hero. As a reward for his courage in speaking up with his questions about what he was seeing, Jesus does not scold him for his doubts. Instead he invites him to touch his body in a most intimate way. In this touch Thomas came to believe that God was actually still with them.

How difficult it is to accept what is right in front of us. Are we fools for maintaining confidence that life survives death? Perhaps "atheists" are actually rejecting an inadequate understanding of mature religion and faith which excludes human reason and compassion. I myself often wonder whether we are just making up all this stuff about God to make ourselves feel better. Maybe we really are alone in the universe. Usually I am most acutely questioning this when I'm alone, motionless, in my bed wondering what would happen to me if no one was there.

Then one of my many angels appears, touching me, and my doubts and isolation evaporate. How often each day I experience this touch from those around me who do so in love and care, physically, verbally, spiritually, from near and far away. This experience brings back to mind that faith is not a solitary experience. Like the first Christians (even in the idealized version in this passage) and the apostles, they experienced the risen Christ when they were together, loving and supporting each other. No wonder Thomas had a hard time when he was not there for Jesus' first visitation to the other apostles. When we are having a hard time with faith, we touch someone or (even better) allow ourselves to be touched and are brought back to reality.

Someone recently reminded me that belief precedes proof. We believe in order to see clearly. Thomas could not have touched had he not first accepted the invitation from Jesus and decided to believe. When belief seems impossible, we decide to accept the invitation anyway. Even only wanting to believe is the Spirit's invitation to faith. One of the great counterfeits of our age is that faith should answer questions. Thomas Aquinas knew that his "proofs" work only after we believe. Faith begets faith, doubt begets doubt. Faith is not always intellectually or emotionally consoling. As often as not it is "pressing against the darkness". When we ask for God to be with us during times of the darkness of unknowing our prayer is answered. If we wait for faith to come in the form of some great insight or wonderful feeling, we might be waiting a long time.

Easter

Easter
April 16, 2006

"I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD" (Psalm 118) "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." (Col 3: 1-4) "For they did not yet understand... that he had to rise from the dead." (John 20:1-9).

The gospel describes the elation and confusion of that morning of the "first day of the week" when Jesus' friends find that he has disappeared from the tomb in which his lifeless body had been laid. Mary Magdalene, going to anoint the body, sees the open tomb and thinks that someone has taken it away. She runs to Peter and "the other disciple" (John?) with the news and they have a foot race to the tomb to see for themselves. The "other disciple" gets there first (as if this made a big difference to anyone but him) but allows Peter to actually go inside to investigate. They find nothing but the burial cloth. Just as they do not understand why Jesus had to suffer such a terrible and shameful death, neither do they understand the significance of what they are seeing now.

We know from the history of the next several centuries, indeed down to our own time, that these events caused considerable discussion, conflict, mutual condemnation, even violence, among those who hear this story and take it seriously. What does it mean? What "really" happened? Was it just a hoax perpetrated to cover up the fact that Jesus simply was another victim hopelessly lost to power politics? Was it, as the recently discovered "Gospel of Judas" maintains, that Jesus' body was only an illusion or useless burden dragging down his spirit (and presumably our own as well)?

The resurrection story is far more than a proof that "Jesus was God". Our faith is with Psalm 118 and St. Paul. "I shall not die, but live." Christ is the central figure of cosmic history. What "really happened" is no secret reserved for a few spiritual elite. No special knowledge is required. Jesus' body was not stolen from the tomb nor was it just a shell disguising his divinity. He is the son of God, and a human being just like us, transformed from death to life in an unexpected outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This transformation makes ours possible. Like Christ, our lives and eternal destiny are permanently established within God's life, beyond all proof and out of the reach of destruction by any power on earth The "evidence" is in the way we, body and soul, live every day, in Christ, hídden in God.

During this sacred season of new life, we might do well to think about how we are privileged to participate in this resurrection event. All of us have our own passion story from which we long to be delivered. What happy ending can we imagine, beyond the difficulties and disappointments of this life?

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday
April 9, 2006

"Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear; and I have not rebelled, have not turned back..." (Isaiah 50:4-7) "He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2: 6-11) "His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him." (John 12:12-16)

Perhaps the best commentary on the events we recall and celebrate this week, the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, is our own immersion in it. We are not just remembering an historical event nor, as some of us did as children, feeling sorry for Jesus or guilty about what we may have done to cause his suffering. Participating in the story of Jesus' suffering and death necessarily includes our attention to and solidarity with suffering humanity. Dwelling on this mystery apart from Jesus' resurrection (and our own) leaves the experience incomplete if not pointless. We have an opportunity to allow this mystery of life, death, and return of life to permeate our being a little more this year than last.

The prophet, six centuries before Christ, has a vision of the Son of Man one who is willing and open to suffering for the sake of God's people, and yet determined to resist the forces of death. Although he accepts whatever suffering his cosmic role will be, he also "set his face like flint". St. Paul, our earliest witness to the events of Jesus' life and death, says that Jesus was "obedient" to death.

What is this mystery of resistance and acceptance in the face of suffering and death? The gospel tells us that even his disciples, those closest to him in time and space, did not understand all this until after they had time to reflect on what had happened from the perspective of the resurrection. We know that they also underwent their own personal sufferings and death as well. If even they were confused, how much more are we? Mature faith knows there is no easy answer to the meaning of human suffering. It is found in the experience of acceptance and resistance.

I have to do it, you have to do it: today, tomorrow, until the Son of Man comes in glory. The only question really is how we live in Christ, knowing when and how to accept our own passion. As we do, certainly part of this is to avoid inflicting unnecessary confusion and suffering on others. One way of attempting to avoid of suffering is by inflicting it on others, often in the name of our own version of the truth. Instead we will do as Jesus did, comforting our comforters. Perhaps during this sacred week we might spend some time reflecting on the status of our own acceptance and resistance to the experience of suffering.