Afterlife

This is a picture of another northern parula that I took several years ago.  It must have been  summertime because the tree is a miniature tangerine that I leave outside in warm weather.  The bird book I have shows northern parulas present in the East, though they're not very common here.
With death staring us in the face every day and Easter gifting us with eternal life, this might be a good time to meditate on the afterlife.  Like every important religious belief it is mystery which we can approach only through symbols and metaphors.
 A common metaphor is heaven, often imagined as "up."  Some people turn their heads "up" towards heaven to pray.  The Bible uses the symbol of a meal.  The prophet Isaiah says, "On this mountain God will provide for all people a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure choice wines. (25:5-9)"  All of humanity gathered together with God.
I believe that when I die God will receive me into a warm, loving embrace forever.  When I say "I believe," I don't mean "I guess."  I mean that my faith makes me sure that God receives us when we die into God's loving embrace forever.










We learned in our catechism the God is everywhere.  So God is

Revolutionize your way

This tiny bird is a northern parula.  It came to my back windows yesterday and again today.  I couldn't tell if it was attracted by its reflection in the window or by the hibiscus plant that was inside.  So today I took the hibiscus plant outside.  About 50 degrees.
We have no story in the Gospels about an appearance of the Risen Christ to Peter, though we are told that it happened.  It clearly revolutionized Peter's thinking.  In  part of his sermon on Pentecost (Acts 2:14, 36-41,) he so moves the crowd that they ask, "What are we to do?"  Peter's reply in the Greek of Luke's Gospel is "metanoeo" which our translation tamely translates "repent."  In her commentary, Mary M. McGlone, says that it means so much more.  She has "Revolutionize your way of thinking, acting, and being,"  or "Turn your thinking inside out and let your feelings and behavior follow suit."
What revolution in our life might God expect?
Now I feel bad that I have to bring the hibiscus back inside.  Night temperatures can't be trusted.

Abundant Life

I have been babying this hibiscus all winter, even carrying it outside on a not-too-cold afternoon and dousing it with water to rid it of aphids.  Right now it has six blooms and more buds.
In John 10:10 Jesus says, "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly." Jesus  promises us a rich relationship with himself as well as a full human life in every way.  In the lines before this, Jesus calls himself our shepherd who leads us out to rich pastures and the gate who who keeps us safe when we are in the pen.  We are to imagine several shepherds with sheep in the same pen.  Each shepherd knew each of his own sheep and called them by name.  Jesus says that his own sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.  I am reminded of Mary Magdalene's recognizing the Risen Christ by the sound of his voice speaking her name.
As we continue celebrating Easter through all of May we bask in the intimate way that he speaks to us.
  








keeps us sage to our sheepfold

Stay With Us

Carved into the stone over the exit from the chapel at Roland Park where I studied my last four years in seminary were two Latin words, "Mane nobiscum" (Stay with us.)  They are taken from the story of Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35.)  The two disciples, perhaps husband and wife, have reached their home in Emmaus.  It's getting dark and  they are feeling dark.  As this stranger talked with them on their journey, they felt their hearts "burning within them." A chance for light?  They invite him, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." Not only his words but now his actions stir their faith back to life and they find themselves in the presence of their much loved Christ.

"Stay with us," is a good quick prayer in this dark time of the virus.

Ecstasy

Today is the feast of St. Mark the evangelist.  He was the first Christian to get the idea of doing theology by telling the life of Jesus in story form.  One of his themes is the absolute failure of the male disciples to understand who Jesus is. Mark doesn't say much about the women disciples, but he has them at the crucifixion and also at the burial.  The male disciples have run away.  When the women go in the morning to anoint the body and find the tomb empty, they find instead a young man in a white garment and are struck with amazement.  Marie Noonan Sabin in her 2017 commentary shows convincingly that "The women come out and run away from the tomb, trembling with ecstasy and they say nothing to anyone for they are filled with awe" is a better translation of 16:8 than the more conventional translation of being "scared out of their wits." She says, "Their silence is more, not less, than words."
By ending his Gospel with verse 8, Mark challenges us his readers to think how we would have responded to the "young man in a white garment" with the message that Jesus had been raised.

Recognition

When I pray for those who are sick with this virus and for those who have died and for their families and for all of us who are keeping to our homes, it seems too much.  How can my puny prayers affect something that has our whole earth in its grip?  Eventually I remind myself that all my prayers are puny; they get their worth from the Spirit praying in me. 
Like the two disciples in Luke's Emmaus story (24:13-35)  the communities for whom he is writing his Gospel suffer from not being able to recognize the Risen Christ in the midst of their difficulties and persecutions.  We, too, may be having a hard time recognizing the Risen Christ in the midst of this pandemic.  I think of the old Irish wisdom, "Often, often, often goes the Christ in the guise of the stranger."  The Emmaus story can inspire us to stay alert to however Christ may be approaching us and sharing food with us.

God's Plan

"You foolish men! So slow  to believe all  that  the prophets have said....Then, starting with Moses and going through all of the prophets, he explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself (Luke 24:25,27.)  M. Dennis Hamm in The Paulist Biblical Commentary points out that Luke provides some of these passages in his Acts of the Apostles.
In Peter's sermon on the first Pentecost he quotes Joel 2:28-32, "I shall pour out my spirit upon all humanity....and all who call on the name of the Lord  will be saved....You will not abandon me to Hades or allow your holy one to see corruption (Psalm 16:8-11) The Lord declared to my Lord, take your seat at my right hand, till I have made your enemies your footstool (Psalm 110:1.)"
In a second sermon in Acts 3:22, Peter quotes Moses from Deuteronomy, "From among your brothers the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me; you will listen to whatever he tells you."  Defending himself against the rulers for healing in the name of Christ, Peter refers to Psalm 118:22: "This is the stone which you, the builders, have rejected, which has become the cornerstone."   "Princes plot together against the Lord and his Anointed."
From the beginning Love planned to become one of us and to die and rise to hold us in love.

Road to Emmaus

The early Christians called Mass "the breaking of the bread (Acts 2:42.)"  At the end of Luke's story about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (24:13-35,)  they tell the other disciples how they recognized the Risen Christ "in the breaking of the bread."  Luke has given this brilliant story the structure of the Mass.  When Jesus joins the disciples on the road he breaks the Scriptures open for them, as we do in the first part of the Mass.  When he joins them for their evening meal he gives them communion; he takes the bread and breaks it and gives it to them.  At that point they realize that this stranger is the Risen Christ and he vanishes from their sight.
Many of us are eager for the day when we can gather once again for Mass.  We will not see the Risen Christ but we will recognize him really present in one another and in the Scriptures and in the Bread and Wine.

Christian Leadership

This is the shore of the Sea of Tiberius (Galilee) viewed from a boat that is modeled after the boats the disciples would have used for fishing.
In the last chapter of John's Gospel (21) Peter is typically so impetuous that, when he sees the Risen Christ on the shore, he can't wait.  He jumps in and swims to shore.  Echoing the three times Peter denied knowing Jesus, he now three times tells Jesus that he loves him.  Three times Jesus tells him to shepherd his followers. Love of Jesus is the first requirement for being a leader in the community of Christ's followers.  Jesus says "Feed my sheep."  He doesn't give the sheep to Peter.  The followers always belong to Jesus.
While the community behind the writing of 4th Gospel want to be clear that they accept Peter's leadership, they seem to want a lot of love to soften Matthew's "on this rock I will build my church." (16:18)

The River Why

'Like gamblers, baseball fans, and television networks, fishermen are enamored of statistics.  The adoration of statistics is a trait so deeply embedded in their nature that even those rarefied anglers the disciples of Jesus couldn't resist backing their yarns with arithmetic:  when the resurrected Christ appears on the morning shore of the Sea of Galilee and directs his forlorn and skunked disciples to  the famous catch of John 21, we learn that the net contained not a "boatload" of fish nor "about a hundred and a half," nor "over a gross," but precisely "a hundred and fifty-three."  This is, it seems to me, one of the most  remarkable statistics ever computed.  Consider the circumstances: this is after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection; Jesus is standing on the beach newly risen from the dead, and it is only the third time the disciples have seen him since the nightmare of Calvary.  And yet we learn that in the net there were "big fish" numbering precisely "a hundred and fifty-three."  How was this digit discovered?  Mustn't it have happened thus: upon hauling the net to shore, the disciples squatted down by that immense, writhing fish pile and started tossing them into a second pile, painstakingly counting "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven..." all the way up to a hundred and fifty- three , while the newly risen Lord of Creation, the Sustainer of their beings, He who died for them and for Whom they would gladly die, stood waiting, ignored till the heap of fish was quantified.  Such is the fisherman's compulsion toward rudimentary mathematics!'
(The above paragraph is from David James Duncan's catchy novel, The River Why, which uses fishing as a way of  thinking about the meaning of life.  I read it in 1983.  Such a terrific read, a 20th anniversary edition was published.)

Spirit-Breath

Ice on the side of the road that I passed on this morning's walk.
The Greek word "pneuma" means both "spirit" and "breath."  That's helpful to know as we continue to meditate on the appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples on Easter evening.  "He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22.)  Resurrection makes it possible for Christ to share with them and with us his very own Breath/Spirit. In this way he gathers all of us into the life of the Trinity.  We are caught up in the Love that swirls among Spirit, Son, and Father.  Because of our new life Jesus is able to say to us "As the Father has sent me so I send you."  The Risen Christ really lives in us and through us continues to do the Father's work in our world.
During the evil virus, we ask the Holy Spirit to show us what  Love wants us to do and to give us the stamina to do it.

Peace

This is the 6th weekend with our churches closed.  We've been confining ourselves to our homes for about five weeks.  Some have been able to develop a routine that keeps them more or less content.  Some have found time for meditation and contemplation.  Others are bored, depressed, frightened, worried.  To all of us the Risen Christ brings peace  (John 20:19-29.)
With this evil virus ravaging us, as I meditate I am caught by "Peace," the first word the Risen Christ speaks to his disciples.  To make it clear that he's not just using the ordinary greeting, he repeats, "Peace."  The disciples must have felt an enormous relief, not only that their dear friend is not dead, but that he is not going to criticize them for running away and leaving him in his passion.  During the long talk that he had with the disciples at the Last Supper, he showed his great concern for them and for how they would get along with him.  On this evening of the resurrection it is clear again how much he cares for them.
Resurrection makes it possible for Christ to really live in our hearts and care for us in the midst of this pandemic.  He assures us that his resurrection brings us a peace that no evil can destroy.

Quest for a metaphor

Easter evening  "The disciples had locked the doors of the place where they were.  Jesus came and stood among them." (John 20:19)  The most common understanding is that resurrection made it possible for Jesus to walk through doors.  It makes more sense to me that resurrection made it possible for Jesus to move through dimensions. 

Now in all of this, the common way and the dimensional way, remember that we are dealing with Mystery and trying to find a metaphor that best helps us get some grasp of what happened.  We cannot nail down Mystery.

Science fiction helps us think about existing in various dimensions.  A character in some other dimension suddenly becomes visible in our dimensions of length, height, and depth.  Celtic spirituality imagines the other world as "woven into and through this world."  Those in either world can sometimes be easily accessible to those in the other.

Both the science fiction notion and the Celtic notion have influenced my search for a metaphor for resurrection.  Resurrection takes Jesus out of this world.  He is now beyond time and space.  What would prevent him from moving from beyond this world into the locked room with the disciples?

If he can suddenly appear in a locked room, couldn't he also have disappeared from the tomb with its entrance blocked by the large stone.  I like to think that the stone is rolled back, not so Jesus can get out, but so that disciples can see that Jesus is not still in there.

What makes this metaphor so appealing to me is that it makes the presence of the Risen Christ within us very real.

Suffering before glory?

Nighttime gives way to sunrise.
Luke, as early as chapter 9, just before the Transfiguration, has Jesus warn his followers, "The Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to  be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day."  Several more times Jesus predicts this, including very specifically just as they are starting up from Galilee to Jerusalem (18:31-34.)
Then three times after the Resurrection in chapter 24 Jesus repeats this teaching. To the women puzzling over the empty tomb the two shining young men announce,"Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee: that the Son of Man was destined to be handed over into the power of sinful men and  be crucified, and  rise again on the third day."  Luke adds that the women did  remember those words of Jesus.
To the two confused and hopeless disciples on the way to Emmaus the unrecognized Risen Christ says, "Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer before entering into his glory?"
Meditating on the necessity of suffering before glory can be rewarding in this time of the virus.

.

We Used To Hope

Many years ago when I was about 20 I heard a bishop give a homily based on Luke's story of the Risen Christ meeting the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (24:13-25.)   In a booming voice he repeated over and over throughout the homily, "We used to hope," quoting one of the disciples.  I don't recall what terrible contemporary situation the bishop was referring to or anything else he said in the homily, but this particular translation of verse 21 was powerful and effective enough for me to remember it as an 84 year old man.
"We used to hope," might be playing over and over in some minds as we face this evil virus.  The future looks so dim.  But what the bishop was assuring us and what the Risen Christ was assuring those two despondent disciples is that the resurrection has defeated evil.  With the two disciples we discover that the Risen Christ is right here with us as we walk and share a meal with him.
The broken trees were cleared away and have grown back so forcefully that they had to be pruned last fall.

The Living One

This tiny clump of tiny daffodils manages every year to push through the leaves of developing day lilies and rocks and breaking waves.
One of the differences in Luke's account of the resurrection (23:55-24:12) is that the name of Jesus is not mentioned.  The women stand in the empty tomb not knowing what to make of the absence of the body.  Suddenly two men dressed in brilliance appear to them and ask "Why do you seek the Living One among the dead?" That title tells us a lot about what the resurrection means for us.  Jesus is the Living One on that Easter morning and for forty days after that and for all the days after that down to today.  The crucifixion is a memory.  The Living One is a presence.
In the dying all around us and in the loneliness some experience confined at home the Living One is present with the comfort of his powerful love.
(The translation "living one" is from the revised edition of the New American Bible.)

Earth-Shattering

In his account of the Resurrection Matthew describes more dramatic events than the other Gospels. (28:1-10.)  An angel with a face like lightning rolls back the stone from the cave.  "Suddenly there was a violent earthquake."  Matthew wants us to realize that the Resurrection is of cosmic importance, shaking the foundations of our world.  Things will never be the same.
This evil virus is shattering our earth. Things may never be the same.  Even when it's hard to see him, the Risen Christ remains deep within us and within our universe.  We can let him draw us into a more loving relationship now and be ready to work with him as he loves our earth into new life.

He knows me by name

I have called you by your name, you are mine.  (Isaiah 43:1)

I wish you all the joys of Easter in the midst of this terrible evil.
I used John 20:1-18 today to meditate on my favorite appearance of the Risen Christ, his appearance to Mary Magdalene.  She is by herself, weeping, outside the empty tomb.  Jesus asks her, "Who are you looking for?"  Thinking he is the gardener, she begs, "Tell me where he is."  Jesus simply says her name, "Mary!" That's all she needs, to know who it is.
It's the intimacy of hearing the Risen Christ speak my name that touches my heart and enables me to surrender myself to him in faith.
(The picture is from a calendar that my nephew made!)

Empty Tomb

When Franco Zeffirelli was making the movie Jesus of Nazareth he decided he was going to show Jesus bursting out of the cave on Easter.  He and his film crew tried to get that on film, but he said that they kept running into problems, such as camera breakdown and sand storms.  He finally gave up and settled for the empty tomb as the Gospels describe it.
All four Gospels have only three things in common in reporting the Resurrection: Sunday morning, empty tomb, and Mary Magdalene.  Based on books I've read recently, I like to think that the stone was rolled back from the tomb, not to let Jesus out, but to show us that Jesus was not there.  Once risen, he was not longer bound by space or time.  For instance, the doors to the upper room are locked when he suddenly appears to the disciples.  It helps to account for the variety of stories about the appearances of the Risen Christ.
It also helps us to believe that the Risen Christ is really present to us and in us.

His Own

"Having loved his own who were in the world, 

 he loved them to the end (John 13:1)"

The love of Jesus for his followers, including us, colors all that that he says and does throughout the Last Supper and his Crucifixion.  The title that Pilate puts above Jesus on the cross is in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, the languages of the cultured world of the Roman Empire.  When Jesus is lifted up on the cross, he draws all humanity with him.

The soldiers throw dice for his seamless inner garment.  At the last supper Jesus asked the Father to preserve the unity of his disciples and of all those who have come to believe in him through their word (17-20-26.)  This garment which cannot be torn apart, even when it falls into the  hands of his crucifiers, is a symbol of those who have heard his word--the community of disciples.

From the cross Jesus speaks to his mother and commands her to accept the Beloved Disciple as her son and commands the Disciple to  accept her as his mother.  The crucified Jesus creates a new family and affirms the maternal role of his mother in this new family.

Jesus cries out "It is finished," an exclamation of achievement, almost of triumph.  He shows his love for his Father by completing the work the Father entrusted to him.  Jesus bows his head and "hands over the Spirit" to his new family gathered at the foot of the cross.

Love for his Father and for us flows freely from the cross.

Comm-union

A fairly modern church at the base of the Mount of Olives, built around the boulder where Jesus prayed the night before he died.
What many of us are missing most this Holy Week is gathering in a faith community to celebrate the important mysteries of our religion.  We long for communion with one another.
The oldest account of the Last Supper that we have is from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, written about the year 57 (11:17-34.)  Paul is concerned about the divisions among the Christians due he says to their not caring for one another when they celebrate the Eucharist.  When they are gathered together in a common meal, eating and drinking the Body and Blood of Christ, they are united intimately with one another by the Risen Christ living within each one of them.  St. Thomas Aquinas said that the main purpose of the Eucharist if to create the community of the Church. 
One holy thing that could come out of this evil is that we might look forward to gathering together every Sunday to build up the Church.

The Paschal Mystery

Tonight's full moon is the reason why Sunday is Easter.  Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring.
"Mystery" is something that our small mind cannot comprehend.  "Paschal" is related to Passover and to Easter and can mean something like God bringing good stuff out of bad stuff.  The Suffering Servant poem from Isaiah 52:13-53:12, which is used as the first reading on Good Friday, helps us to meditate on how victory comes through defeat, exaltation through humiliation, life from death.
As we deal with this evil that threatens all of us, it's a comfort to know that God has had lots of practice at bringing good out of evil.  We do what we can and finally surrender ourselves into God's powerful care.

Emptying

St. Paul gives us another way to think about how Jesus saves us (Philippians 2:6-11.)  To oversimplify, Jesus empties himself by becoming one of us even to death on a cross and God fills him up with the new life of resurrection.  "Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, human like one of us....For this very reason God lifted him high and gave him the name above all names."  That name is "Yahweh," the Hebrew proper name for God.
Jesus within us enables us to empty ourselves of selfishness so he can use us to create community filled with God's love.

Overflowing Love

You are Love Who lifted us to Love by hanging on a tree

Risen Love throughout the universe Whose passing set us free.

Today we begin the Week that is brimful of love.  It's the climax of God's loving union with us.  From all eternity our loving God wanted to be united with humanity.  The cross is the expression of God's love and compassion rather than an appeasement of God's anger or a form of compensation for God's injured majesty.  Such unearned love touches our hearts and draws us into God's embrace.

(Georgia O'Keefe painted a sliver of hope in the desert.)

Palm

These palm trees were outside my window in the Caribbean this January.  Palm branches always seem to me to have a majesty about them.  About the 4th century Christians started using them to celebrate the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  Matthew describes Jesus as a humble king riding a donkey (21:1-11.) With many of those who knew him spreading robes and branches before him, he would have made a striking appearance to the people of Jerusalem who had never seen him before.
Until now he had preached only in Galilee a considerable distance north of Jerusalem.  That's why the crowds at the end of the passage are wondering who he is and others are saying "This is the prophet Jesus who is from Nazareth of Galilee."  Placed as it is here at the beginning of Holy Week it's like peeking at the end of story to find that disgrace and abandonment are replaced by triumph and glory.

Why have you abandoned me!

My scripture meditations this week have been on successive parts of Mathew's Passion Account.  Today after reading 27:45-56, my attention went to "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me!"  After everyone else has abandoned and mocked him, now Jesus feels abandoned by God and cries out in the first verse of Psalm 22.  With the pandemic on my mind, I found myself wanting to pray the whole psalm.  Here are a few verses:

"By day, Lord, you are deaf to my prayers
  and at night you only answer me with silence.
 My tongue is like baked clay.
  It sticks to the roof of my mouth.
 Look at the holes they have torn
  in my hands and my feet.
 Each bone that I own is in pain,
  though their gloating is harder to bear."

God does intervene and the lament changes to praise and thanksgiving.

 "Those that hunger for you will be satisfied,
   those that look for you will find you.
  And out of their overflowing hearts,
   their joy will pronounce your name."

(The translation is from Gordon Jackson's Lincoln Psalter)

Mocking

Again Matthew (27:27-44) avoids emphasizing the physical pain of the Passion by simply saying, "When they crucified him."  Instead he emphasizes the mockery.  The soldiers mock him as their  king.  The passersby mock him, "Save yourself, if you are the Son of God."  The chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him, "He saved others; he cannot save himself."  The thieves crucified on either side of him mocked him in the same way.
Jesus is on the Cross because he loves all of them.  How bitterly disappointed we are when people we are helping mock us!  In Psalm 69 the psalmist cries to God, "Insult has broken my heart past cure.  I hoped for sympathy, but in vain, for consolers--but none to be found."

Inner family conflict

The only orchid to bloom in my home.
"All the people answered, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children.'" (Matthew 27:25)  Throughout Christian history this verse has been misinterpreted as a curse upon all Jewish people for all time. Matthew is writing around the year 70 for a community made up mostly of Jews.  They certainly are not including themselves in "all the people."
They are involved in a bitter dispute with their fellow Jews who did not become Christians.  Matthew puts this line on the lips of those Jews who called for the crucifixion of Jesus. Their children are alive in Matthew's time and still involved in the same bitter inner family conflict.  They maintain that the best way to be true to their Jewish tradition after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD is to gather in synagogues with their rabbis.  Mathew's Jewish community maintains that following the teaching of Jesus is the best way to be true to their Jewish tradition.  A family argument limited to that time.
As Jews prepare to celebrate Passover as we prepare to celebrate Easter we pray that God's unearned love will bind us together.