Easter Ministry

The Light of the World came to us in the Christmas Season.   That was Good News. But that infant Light grew up. As a migrant on the run, as a home-town boy, as the son of a skilled laborer, Jesus was pretty incognito. Then the people of his time tried pretty hard to put out the Light altogether. But the Love that fuels the light knew what to do with sin and death. It becomes fuel for forgiveness and mercy.

Easter is a Sonburst that will never go out. Love has conquered sin and death. It’s done. Fragments, like the cut-up pieces of a snake, wiggle their way through history putting on a show of power. But don’t be fooled. It’s a lying seduction. Don’t be deceived when it shows up on the news. Shake your head when you hear about it in government or in business. No, the battle has been won. Now, what do we, who have that baptismal cross of oil gleaming on our foreheads, do about it? We settle in for the long haul doing Easter Ministry. We ‘put feet on the talk.’

Easter ministry is reconciliation. We reconcile. Watch the readings that come our way during the month of April this year. They are bathed in Easter light. That light allows for no division. That light unifies. It brings broken things together. It heals. The apostles were shattered and scattered. Easter brings them together. There is no shaming, no blaming. There is only forgiving and forgetting. There is truth-telling. Even winter itself yields to the green bursting from buds.

What do we need to reconcile? Do we need to speak with someone we’ve avoided? Can we disagree with someone and still respect them? Can we give them a sense that there is room for them in our heart even though we disagree with them? What is broken that we can mend? It’s time for Easter ministry. It’s time for healing, for mending, for binding up what is broken.

 We’re in pieces, Lord.

Broken hearts and broken relationships.

Broken cities and broken borders,

Counties that can’t be home anymore.

Women against men,

White against Black.

Asian bullying.

Shine on us

In all your risen beauty

Where every wound is healed.

Bind up our brokenness, Risen Lord,

Help us to shine.

The Victim

 Pope Francis gives us a pretty dismal picture in Chapter One of Fratelli tutti. In Chapter Two he offers us a familiar parable, that of the Good Samaritan. “A Stranger on the Road” is about a Jewish traveler on the road to Jericho, who gets mugged and left for dead. Jewish ritual leaders see him, look the other way and pass by. Along comes a despised Samaritan, a ‘mixed blood’ Jew who has intermarried with pagan heretics, and he stops and tends to the victim, all the while knowing full well that the victim probably hates him.

Aware that Francis has written this text for all the people of the world, we can only imagine its effect on peoples of other faiths who have never heard this parable before. Yet all of us know the Golden Rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But there’s the rub. Each of us has to decide whether to pass by or help what we see going on around us each day, says Francis. (#79) He wonders why “it took so long for the Church unequivocally to condemn slavery and various each day forms of violence.” He wonders why some Christians continue to “support varieties of narrow and violent nationalism, xenophobia and contempt, and even the mistreatment of those who are different.” (#86)

But for those of us who probe the Word, there is even more going on here. The ‘victim’ is humanity itself, wounded by the sin of the world and the violence of centuries. The Samaritan is another kind of ‘mixture:’ the One who has joined humanity to divinity in a union never to be broken. The beast of burden that carries the victim to the Inn is our humble humanity, the instrument of the world’s healing. The Inn is that beloved community, meant to be open to heal all the victims of the world. We’ve all been paid for with a precious coin. The beloved Samaritan has taken care of that. As Lent unfolds, this story leaves us with a knowing little smile. We know how the story ends. We know what happens to the victim.

Preview of Coming Attractions

We’ve just come down from the mountain. The Second Sunday of Lent presents us with the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor. But what goes up must come down, and this event is no exception. From Mount Tabor they go to Jerusalem. Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem where he will suffer and die. Why would the Church present us with the Transfiguration just as we begin the season of the passion?

 

I think it’s because we could never survive the rest of Lent if we didn’t know how the story will end. We’re given a preview of the ending. Jesus shines. He shows himself as the Light of the World. But all hell is going to break loose to snuff out that Light. These three poor apostles have no idea what they are in for. What they experienced on the mountain will be eclipsed: The Son will be darkened by death.

 

There is a method in the Church’s madness. Like the Beloved in the Song of Songs, she will go searching for her Lover. The sight of his face is fixed in her memory, and despite the darkness she will go looking for him. She will not be disappointed. She will find him, cling to him, and not want to let go.

 

The Church turns to John’s Gospel during these weeks of Lent, as it does each year. Ever wonder why? John writes as ‘the disciple that Jesus loved.’ Perhaps the Church is trying to say, “That’s you…put those glasses on as you read these Gospel texts.” The cleansing of the temple, the one so loved, ourselves as that little grain of wheat…how is this me?

 

If we look a little deeper, this really is our story…not just for Lent, but for life. In the first fervor of our newly found relationship with Christ Jesus, we too want to stay on the mountain and build our shrine there. But then all the lights go out, and he is gone…no sweetness in prayer, no emotional highs. Just the drab day-to-day slugging it out. Our faith is sorely tested. Maybe it was all an illusion…maybe I’m just fooling myself…

But we remember that face full of light, and we hang on, whistling in the dark of our faith. Now and then we have our little Easters. But for now we too will have to set our faces toward Jerusalem, and the horrors of Holy Week. What keeps us steady is the preview of coming attractions.

 

Jesus, you shine!

I need to take a long loving look.

The roller coaster of my life takes a downward dive,

often when I least expect.

Will I survive?

Yes.

Your face is a mirror of what I shall be.