Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter
April 11, 2010
Acts 5: 12-16
Psalm 118: 2-4, 13-15, 22-24
Revelations 1: 9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
John 20: 19-31
Bobby was nearly four. One day, he got very, very sick and was sent to the hospital. A terrible bacterial infection, the doctors said. And within a day or two, Bobby died. His very good friend Chrissie, barely three, did not understand what happened to Bobby. One day, as she was sitting in the back of the family car, her mother heard her jabbering away talking to someone. Her mother asked her who she was talking to. She said she was talking to Bobby. Her mother thought that well, she is trying to work it out, in her child’s mind, as to what happened to her friend. But then Chrissie told her mother something that her mother would not forget. Chrissie said that Bobby told her that he was fine and that he was with his sister who was also fine.
As far as Chrissie’s mother knew, Bobby was an only child. Later, when Chrissie’s mother asked Bobby’s mother about it, Bobby’s mother said that she had had a miscarriage earlier and that she had never told anyone about it. Chrissie, in her child’s innocence, allowed in the possible, the unexplainable.She had not yet developed the cynicism of an adult and was able to communicate with her much loved friend.
There is so much more to being human than we can comfortably admit. How can we say that we know all about how this world works when there are new discoveries every day? When I studied astronomy in college back in the 1960s, scientists had not yet discovered black holes. Now scientists are talking about string theory and the results of experiments with invisibility.
It’s taken well over 100 years and we’ve only begun to move away from Newtonian physics, cause and effectthinking, reproducible experimentation and a mechanical worldview and to move toward the acceptance of the possibilities of Quantum physics,energy physics, in which the outcome of an experiment is effected by the attitude of the experimenter, in which prayer does influence the outcome of the sick, in which the manipulation of a cell on the East coast of the US will result in the manipulation of a twin cell on the West coast, in which the killing of baby shrimp in the ocean sends plant life nearby into shock.
Scientists are now beginning to show what mystics have always known, that we are all connected, that prayer and love are energy and are not limited by time and space and that we are all permeated by energy that some cannot explain and that others call God.
If we limit our understanding of the universe around us and of the nature of reality to that which we can see and that which is currently provable, we risk living in disharmony with ultimate reality. If we limit the possibilities of the reality of God,we risk loosing the awareness that, as Barbara Fiand says in her book, “Prayer and the Quest for Healing”,“…the Holy One pervades our lives, breathes through us, explodes in us, breaks out in us, aches in us, laughs in us and permeates every fiber of our being with relentless and passionate love….” We also risk missing the transformation of our bodies, minds, spirits and emotions promised to us in today’s gospel.
A transformed Jesus, not a resuscitated Jesus, visited the disciples who were hiding in fear in a locked room. Love moved beyond the walls and the locked doors to transform the spirits of those inside.This was the evening of the first day of the week. That morning, Jesus had appeared to Mary of Magdala when love moved beyond her grief and confusion to transform her spirit.
Jesus’ first words to the disciples were, “Peace be with you!”, as if to say, Do not be afraid. I come in peace. I do not come in anger at your betrayal of me. I do not come in retaliation for your abandoning of me. I come in peace; I come in love. There is no mention of forgiveness here. There is no need. There is only a sense of safety. There is only a sense of love. There is only a sense of peace. And this peace existed in spite of the woundsJesus revealed. Through the peace offered by Jesus, the disciples were set free to experience the joy of the resurrection.
Through these simple words, “Peace be with you!”, we see the life giving power of God at work in the intimate places of human life, even in places of fear, guilt and where transformation is waiting to be born.
“Peace be with you!”, with those words, Jesus’ disciples were freed from that which blocked them from continuing the work they were called, by Jesus, to do. As God sent Jesus, Jesus sent his disciples, not only to declare the good news but to be like Jesus in the declaring. With the words, “Peace be with you”, repeated by Jesus a second time, and later a third time to Thomas, Jesus commissioned the disciples, as he had commissioned Mary of Magdala earlier in the day.
Jesus then breathed on his disciples and said “Receive the Holy Spirit”just as God had breathed on the first humans in the garden bringing forth new life. With the reception of the Holy Spirit, the disciples’lives were transformed as we see in our first reading. Theyreceived the ability to forgive and retain sin, but the way Jesus had, with compassion, mercy and love and also with faith, justice and accountability.
Implicit in the “Peace be with you!” message, is another message. From the Book of Revelations, we hear Jesus say, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, the Living One. Once I was dead but now I live forever and ever. I hold the keys of death and the underworld.” “Do not be afraid” We have heard these words many, many times in all four gospels. “Do not be afraid” In other words, you are all right. You are loved. Death has been conquered. Death is not the last word. Death lies. Life is the last word.
Jesus announced,to the disciples as well as to us, the peace that removes all fear, including the fear of death. Jesus’ offer of peace, was an offer of a whole new reality, a whole new paradigm, a new way of seeing life and death and a new way of seeing God. No wonder peace, love and joy define the resurrection.
For the disciple Thomas, seeing was believing. For us today, believing is seeing.The disciples were transformed. But we too can be transformed. By believing, by suspending skepticism, by opening ourselves to the possible, we can begin to see that we already have eternal life.
If Jesus is the window through which we see God, we can begin to see that God comes into our lives in peace, without anger, without vengeance, with only profound love and the hope for our freedom, the hope that we will be able to let go of that which blocks us, including the fear of death,and begin to be who God has called us to be.
That Sunday morning, Mary came to the tomb where Jesus was buried. Because her grief and confusion did not allow her to be open to the possible, she could only see the empty tomb. Because she was not yet open to the possible, she did not recognize Jesus but took him for the gardener. At the moment her name was spoken, when she recognized the voice of Jesus, there was an intimate cosmic connection. Through the intimacy of Mary’s name on the lips of Jesus, the reality of the resurrection was revealed and her sadness was transformed into joy.
Can we let go of our preconceived notions, the limits we place on what is possible and embrace the limitless possibilities offered to us by Jesus? Jesus came to the disciples to say that beyond the story of fear, suffering and death, there is the story of new life, here and now, as well as after we die.
Now, how do we free ourselves from that which blocks us?How can we accept the gift of the Holy Spirit breathed into us at birth? How do we accept our commissioning to proclaim peace and to tell the sisters and brothers of the Good News, as the disciples were and as Mary of Magdala was?
As we find peace with our interior life, as we begin to unlock the room of our heart and allow Jesus in, we find peace with prayer, not the prayer of words, not the prayer of obligation to worship, not the prayer of desperation for healing or protection, but the prayer that envelops us in the love that surpasses all understanding, and holds us in this resurrection moment.
Through this kind of prayer, we can safely confront our doubts in the reality of God. Through this type of prayer, we will know that we are loved and that life does not end. Through this type of prayer we will begin to give birth to our own transformation. Through this type of prayer, we begin to believe and thus to see.
If we make prayer a continuous thanking for all of reality and a continuous thanking for all that embraces us, it will become a prayer that flows through our bodies and it will be as necessary as the blood flowing through our veins.If we see prayer as a necessity to life, as a constant surrendering to God’s love, prayer will become not what we do but who we are. We will begin to feel a gently serenity, uncompromised by our everyday life. We will know that we are in the Presence of the Divine always. We will begin to know that there is no death that we need experience that does not have life on the other side.
In Quantum physics, Albert Einstein’s formula E=MC2 says that matter and energy are inextricably linked, that matter and energy are transformed into the other. The energy of prayer is drawn from within our bodies and becomes the love energy needed to move beyond ourselves. When we are no longer in our bodies, the energy of our spirits remains. Prayer and love ground our bodies and yet help us to transcend our bodies.With prayer and love the boundaries of time and space are meaningless. Prayer and love can travel around the world and cross the veil that separates us from those we love who have died.
When prayer and love unite, just as we can not distinguish between the dancer and the dance, we will not be able to distinguish between the pray-er and the prayer. When we move beyond ourselves, through prayer, we will be whowe were called, by Jesus, to be, in peace, in the love of God, with life eternal, and commissioned to tell the sisters and brothers.
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