It’s the first Sunday after Easter – What do we do now?
CxUnited 16 April 2023
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-9
“ The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it; that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again exactly as Scripture says; that he presented himself alive to Peter, then to his closest followers, and later to more than five hundred of his followers all at the same time, most of them still around (although a few have since died); that he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent him; and that he finally presented himself alive to me.”
Richard Rohr in The Universal Christ writes “people who witnessed these apparitions of Christ seemed to finally recognize him, but not usually immediately. Seeing and recognizing are not the same thing. Every resurrection story seems to strongly affirm an ambiguous – yet certain – presence in very ordinary settings, like walking on the road to Emmaus with a stranger, roasting fish on the beach, or what appeared like a gardener to Mary Magdalene. These moments in scripture set a stage of expectation and desire that God’s presence can be seen in the ordinary and the material, and we do not have to wait for supernatural apparitions.
John 8:12 – Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me
stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”
Matthew 5:14 – You are the light of the world.
How are we going to be light to the world? I know there are quite a few people here who have spent time in third world countries – most of us as tourists, and some who spent time doing charitable or volunteer work. We are fortunate ‘first world’ people. I find it easy to donate funds to charities that help people in third world countries start small businesses (do you notice that these are almost always women centred?). I feel good about it; get a tax deduction and I’m well enough off that it is not a burden for me. We willingly contribute to ‘Sleeping Children Around the World’ as we share our celebrations. It is not hard to help ‘at arm’s length’. We are good people – why do I feel that I fall very short of what God expects of me?
So – how do I feel about this scripture “…Christ is all, and is in all.” [Col. 3:11]
Caryll Houselander – a 20th century English mystic describes how an ordinary underground train journey in London transformed into a vision that changed her life.
I was in an underground train, a crowded train in which all sorts of people jostled together, sitting and strap-hanging – workers of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them – but because He was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here too, here in this underground train; not only the world as it was at that moment, not only all the people in all the countries of the world, but all those people who had lived in the past, all those yet to come.
I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passer-by, everywhere – Christ.
I saw too the reverence that everyone must have for a sinner; instead of condoning his sin, which is in reality his utmost sorrow, one must comfort Christ who is suffering in him. And this reverence must be paid even to those sinners whose souls seem to be dead, because it is Christ, who is the life of the soul, who is dead in them; they are His tombs, and Christ in the tomb is potentially the risen Christ…
WOW!!
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples, “Truly, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.” It’s easy to see Jesus in those who show us love, kindness, and mercy. But how often do we truly see the face of Christ in those we disagree with?
Even more important - How often do we see the face of Christ in ourselves?
Fr. Bob Pagliari, a priest in the Archdiocese of New York, recently stopped by Morning Air® (a Catholic radio show) to discuss how we can recognize the image and likeness of God in each and every person we encounter.
“Look in the mirror. Start there. If you look in the mirror and you don’t like that person who is looking
back at you, you have to make some changes so you do like yourself. Because you are made in the
image and likeness of God.”
“Take the face of someone you disagree with, and instead of demonizing them, put that face in the mirror,” he continued. “Now you have something of yourself looking back at you. And what is looking back at you? It’s the image of God. They are made in the image of God, just like we are.”
I discovered Valarie Kaur on-line a couple of years ago. I’m reading her book “See No Stranger”. Valarie is a ‘Sikh’ woman – that is S-I-K-H – whose grandfather came to California from the Punjab in 1913. She is a civil rights activist, a lawyer, filmmaker and founder of The Revolutionary Love Project. I love books and find I learn so much from them. I now know that Sikhism is a religion that was founded only 500 years ago by a young man named Nanak who was deeply troubled by the violence between Hindus and Muslims. “Waheguru” is the Sikh name for God – ‘wahe’ is an
expression of awe, and ‘guru’ is the light that dispels darkness. So God’s name was an expression of wonder at the divine around us and within us.
Valarie speaks about ‘wonder’ – “Wonder is our birthright. If we are safe and nurtured enough to develop our capacity to wonder, we start to wonder about the people in our lives too – their thoughts and experiences, their pain and joy, their wants and needs, we begin to sense that they are to themselves as vast and complex as we are to ourselves, their inner world as infinite as our own. In other words, we are seeing them as our equal. We are gaining information about how to love them. Wonder is the wellspring for love.”
“It is easy to wonder about the internal life of the people closest to us It is harder to wonder about
people who seem like strangers or outsiders. But when we choose to wonder about people we don’t
know, when we imagine their lives and listen for their stories, we begin to expand the circle of those
we see as part of us.”
“The call to love beyond our own flesh and blood is ancient. Guru Nanak called us to see no
stranger, Buddha to practice unending compassion, Abraham to open our tent to all, Jesus to love our
neighbors, Muhammad to take in the orphan. They all expanded the circle of who counts as one of
us, and therefore who is worthy of our care and concern.”
• It is the ancient Sanskrit truth that we can look upon anyone or anything and say: Tat tvam asi, ‘I am that’.
• It is the African philosophy: Ubuntu, ‘I am because you are’.
• It is the Mayan precept: In La-Kech, ‘You are the other me’.
I try to put something from my own experience into each sermon so pulled out my file of sermons (I am an ordained lay minister in Community of Christ and have sermons back to 1996) and came to this one from 2011. At the time I was working in Gainesville, Florida.
One of my friends at work is someone I worked with on another project several years ago when we walked to work daily and shared a lot of our thoughts and our lives. Now we ride to work together and sit across a desk from each other. Carmen recently experienced some serious emotional difficulty and started making a concerted effort to include God in her life through reading and prayer. She is aware that I’m a lay minister and we’ve had several conversations about faith and how God helps us.
We work in an odd-shaped room that used to be a storage room and now has makeshift desks for 9 contract consultants. A few weeks ago Virginia joined the team. She came in on a rainy Monday morning soaking wet – she didn’t have an umbrella with her and had forgotten how to get to the building. She’s an older woman (mid-60’s) - I laughed out loud when I read this – who is not very attractive, seems to be confused frequently, and talks to herself. Because the room is small for the number of people, it’s important that we get along, and Virginia upset our equilibrium. Several of us made unkind remarks about her words and behaviour when she wasn’t in the room – we snickered when she talked. You get the idea. One day as another co-worker commented on something Virginia had done I jumped right into the conversation. I heard Carmen say quietly, “Marni..” and I felt like I’d taken a kick to my stomach. What kind of a representative of Jesus was I being? I have to accept that this will be a life-long quest to try to be like Jesus.
I would like to close with “When I Can Ache” – written by Danny Belrose, a friend of mine.
When I can ache with hunger pangs for those whose bowls are washed with tears
And thirst to quench the driest tongue and visit those who live in fear
And hold the hands of captive souls who sit alone when death is near,
I see in them Christ’s face divine and hope they see his face in mine.
When I can fill a stranger’s need with open hand and plant hopes seed
That bears love’s fruit and brings relief to heavy hearts weighed down with grief
And share Christ’s peace that brings release from burdens born by hurt’s increase,
I see in them Christ’s face divine and hope they see his face in mine.
When I can share another’s pain and bring to birth their joy again
With loving deeds that break each chain that binds their wounded heart’s refrain
When I esteem each soul on earth as blest by God with priceless worth,
I see in them Christ’s face divine and hope they see his face in mine.