Monthly Archives: April 2014

Easter Homily, 2014 – "Christ is risen! Very truly, he is risen!

20 Sunday Apr 2014

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(Homily given at the Easter Gathering of the Community of Sant’Egidio in the U.S.)
We have arrived at Easter after having followed Jesus in the last days of life.  He welcomed us at the table with great friendship, he bent down before us to wash our feet and he taught us to do likewise one to another.  He gave himself in the bread broken and the wine poured out.  When anguish and sadness weighed heavy in his heart, he wanted us at his side in Gethsemane.  He has indeed given all of his very self for our salvation and we have accompanied him, even to the tomb.  A heavy stone sits in front of the tomb; our Lord is on the other side.  We ask, “Who will roll it away?”
So often, we place too much trust in our own abilities and strengths.  “How might we remove the stone?” we ask.  But now is not the time to trust in our strengths and in our abilities.  Now is the time to trust in God.  Tonight, as family, we are invited to trust in the weak power of love.  It was as a family and in love that the women went to the tomb.  They did not know how the stone would be moved.  They just loved.  They just went.  Love and faith teach us not to trust in our own strength but to trust in God.  Love and faith teach us that life needs God.  Faith and love is to believe that I need God to roll away the stone – the stone that covered the tomb of Jesus and all the stones that cover the tombs of our world and even our own lives.  We need to go to the sepulcher, to go there just as the women did – in faith and love.  Without going to the sepulcher we will not meet the angel nor hear the angel’s message.
“Do not be afraid!” says the angel, “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, he is risen!”  Whoever seeks Jesus must have no more fear!  Jesus’ tomb was opened – the stone was rolled back – now all the graves will be able to be opened, all the stones of our lives can be rolled back!  There is a force of life and love that emanates from the empty tomb and it is a force that continues to transform all of creation!  
Tonight, we are once again reminded that the darkness of pain and suffering in the world, the darkness of my sin and your sin, has been overcome by the light of the Lord.  The light of our Easter candle is the light of the resurrection!  It is the light that does not diminish just as it is being shared.  This is the light that has entered the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it!  It is the light of the resurrection but in a sense it is a weak light.  For a moment, let us reflect on the entrance of this light into our community.  We held up the Easter candle yet then, one by one, we began to pass that light one to another.  One by one we shared the light.  The light depends upon us; it waits for us to share it. 
One by one, the light grew, one by one the darkness of sin, violence and isolation dissipated.  One by one the risen Lord enters our hearts and breaks the darkness of sin and expels the darkness of fear. 
As for those first disciples, so for us – one by one the light illumines our hearts and one by one, we carry that light back to our cities and towns to help scatter the darkness.  We shine the light of the resurrection through community and family, through friendship with the poor, through prayer, especially as we have been invited this Easter, prayer for the sick and for peace.  
Let us go quickly for we have an appointment to keep – in Galilee!  Tonight, at this gathering, we might as well say in New York, in Boston, in Washington, South Bend, Manchester, Chicago, Minneapolis, Oxford, Seattle, Johnson City, Chattanooga, Rome.  Jesus is waiting for us!  One by one, he is inviting us to find and meet him in these places where life is lived every day.  Where the people are – especially with our friends the poor – the Lord awaits us.  “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.”
This is a momentous time!  There is a decision to be made; we have an appointment that cannot be missed!  Tonight’s celebration marks a new beginning for our lives and the life of our community.  There are so many heavy stones and so much darkness – we all know this – but tonight we sing “Alleluia!” because Christ has risen!  Free from fear and free from darkness we sing, “Christ is risen!  Very truly he is risen!”  That is the song of the community and our song!  The sad logic of sin, death and violence is vanquished.  Let us live the joy of the Gospel!  
The risen one goes ahead of us to Galilee – to each of our towns and cities.  We must remember that we are never alone.  The risen one is already there, waiting for us, waiting to show us the way.  In the gospel we are told that the women left the tomb quickly and as they were running the Lord appeared to them.  Jesus comes to whoever runs toward him!  We need to move, we need to go, and we need to live for others and not for ourselves!  This is the love that can transform our lives and can change the life of our world – one by one.  
Chris is risen!  Let us rise with him and bring the good news to everyone!  Christ is risen!  Truly he is risen! 

Thoughts on the Sunday Readings: Fifth Sunday of Lent (A): Jesus as Saviour, not Superhero.

06 Sunday Apr 2014

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In this Sunday’s first reading (Ez. 37:12-14), God says, “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them…”  How does God open the grave and overcome death?  Does he snap his fingers?  Does he send a vast multitude of angels upon the earth?  We know that the answer is “no”.  God does neither of these two things.  Rather, the Word becomes flesh – fully human in all things but sin – and this Word died that we might have life.
There is much at work in today’s Gospel (Jn. 11:1-45) – Jesus is certainly suffering for the death of his friend Lazarus whom he loved very much, Jesus is certainly moved by the pain of loss expressed by Martha and Mary and their relatives.  But, I believe that Jesus is also, in the fullness of his humanity, wrestling with his approaching death and the Father’s will.  We all fear death.  This is a universal human reality.  Jesus, being fully human, would not have been exempt from this.  Right before this passage we are told that the Jews were looking to capture Jesus, this is why Jesus goes across the Jordan.  By going back into Judea at this time in order to perform such a public miracle of healing, Jesus was basically signing his own death certificate.  The religious authorities would not let this go unanswered.  This is why Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” 
He knew that death awaited him and he probably knew what type of death.  You know for the first few centuries of Christianity, Christians would not draw images of the crucifixion.  It was too recent and it was too brutal.  Crucifixion was in essence state sponsored terrorism.  It was Rome’s way of saying, “If you mess with us this is what will happen to you.  We will take you, beat you, strip you and hang you for all your family and nation to see until you die an agonizing death.”  This sheer brutality of violence was what awaited Jesus and he knew it.  Yet, he goes back into Judea but as a savior, not as a superhero. 
One of my favorite Lenten images is the painting “Christ in the Desert” by Ivan Kramskoy.  In the painting we have the “fully human” Christ.  He does not have a halo.  There is not a choir of angels around him.  He is not is some majestic pose.  Rather he sits alone in the hot desert.  There is a weariness and fatigue to his posture.  His shoulders are hunched and burdened.  In his expression it is easy to see that he is lost in his own thoughts.  The painting carries with it a sense of grave silence. 
I contrast this image with that of the superhero Iron Man.  In a movie poster I have seen this figure stands tall on his own two feet!  He is all metal and strength!  His eyes gleam forth in vision and leadership!  His weak humanity is completely covered over by a suit of iron.  This is the superhero who rights wrongs and triumphs over evil … or so we are told. 
But Iron Man is a myth and not a savior and Jesus is real and never pretended to be a superhero. 
In Scripture we are told that Christ is like us in all things except sin.  In fact, Paul in his letter to the Philippians tells us that Christ emptied himself and took the form of a servant.  He humbled himself even being obedient unto death.  (Philippians 2:5-11)
If Christ is like us in all things except sin then he is not a man covered in iron but rather a man living in flesh and blood like each one of us.  He knew limits and weariness.  He knew hunger and thirst.  He experienced disappointment, fear, anger and loneliness.  Pope Benedict XVI points out in his second volume of “Jesus of Nazareth” that Jesus knew the whole gamut of human reality even unto infinity precisely because he experienced the full human condition in all its fears, uncertainties and limits without reverting to sin.  The “except sin” of Christ does not shield Jesus from the fullness of the human condition; rather it leads him ever deeper into it.  We are the ones who shield ourselves precisely through our sins. 
Our sins, from the very beginning and even to today, remain a running away from the human condition. 
Why not a superhero?  Why not a man covered in iron to save us? 
Here a poem entitled, Letter to Genetically Engineered Super Humans by Fred Dings might instruct us:
You are the children of our fantasies of form,
our wish to carve a larger cave of light,
our dream to perfect the ladder of genes and climb
its rungs to the height of human possibility,
to a stellar efflorescence beyond all injury and disease,
with minds as bright as newborn suns
and bodies which leave our breathless mirrors stunned.
Forgive us if we failed to imagine your loneliness
in the midst of all that ordinary excellence,
if we failed to understand how much harder
it would be to build the bridge of love between such splendid selves,
to find the path of humility among the labyrinth of your abilities,
to be refreshed without forgetfulness,
and weave community without the thread of need.
Forgive us if you must re-invent our flaws
because we failed to guess the simple fact
that the best lives must be less than perfect. 
Throughout Lent we journey with the savior Christ – human like us in all things except sin.  He is not a superhero nor does he want to be.  In the fullness of the human condition, the much “less than perfect reality”, he turns again and again to God and he binds himself to the Father’s will even to the point of sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.  This is what makes him both savior and brother to us.  In his grace we are now invited to also bind ourselves to God not despite of but through our imperfect human condition and to be restored in relationship to God, to one another and to our very selves. 
Now, as always, we need a savior rather than a superhero.  God says, “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them…”  Jesus says to his disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.”