Fr. Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians
April 2016
Living the Resurrection
The Great 50 days of Easter this year
last from March 27 to May 15, commemorating the 40 day ministry of the risen
Lord, his Ascension, and the 10 additional days until the coming of the Spirit
at Pentecost. But every Sunday of the
year is a feast of the Resurrection, reminding us that we should live in light
of the Resurrection all year round. Here
are some suggestions of how to live into the resurrection based on details in
the stories of Jesus’ appearances after his death.
Touch
the risen Lord. “Look at my hands and my feet; see
that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke
24:39). In the story these words
underscore the concrete reality of the Risen Lord. In our lives, we have many ways of making
Jesus less concrete, less real: taming
him and making sure he never says anything that challenges us or makes us
question our lives and assumptions, thinking of him purely as “meek and mild,”
concerned only with spiritual or interior truth, and a place in a heaven by and
by after this life. To live the
resurrection, we must keep focused on the crazy Jesus of the Gospel narratives,
the one who demands social justice here and now, and advises radical hospitality
and welcome here and now, especially when it makes us the most
uncomfortable. We must listen to him as
he calls us to challenging and unexpected things.
Cast
away fear.
“Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for
Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised,
as he said” (Matthew 28:5-6). We often
say with our lips “I believe that Christ is raised from the dead” at the same
time that we cultivate the habits of fear and caution in our hearts. Forgetting the profligate, overwhelming love
of God that Jesus taught and that was proven in the resurrection, we often act
as functional atheists: we make
decisions and take courses of action as if death is the end of us, as if
there were no loving God at all. At the
least, we should remember from “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” that “in the
end, all things will be well” and know that if all things are not well, then it
is not yet the end. We should feel in our
hearts, with St. Julian of Norwich that “all things shall be well, all will be
well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
At the most, we should hear Jesus in the Beatitudes and know that with
God, there is blessing and happiness even in life circumstances seen as
misfortunes (“blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who mourn.”)
Cast
away worry. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
(Luke 24:5). Realizing that all will be
well relieves us of the need to worry about our lives. This is what Jesus taught on the Mount: “Therefore I tell you, do
not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about
your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more
than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow
nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are
you not of more value than they? … Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will
we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’” (Matt 6:25-31).
Know
that God deeply loves you and others. When the angels and Jesus say again and again
“do not fear” and “do not worry,” this is based on a firm experience of
God as loving and benevolent, not just to a few, but to all. Love casts
out fear.
Be
bold and share your experience and faith with others. Again and again in
the stories, the disciples are told “go and tell the others what you have seen and
heard.” Sharing the faith helps us
formulate it better in our minds and hearts.
Simply telling others what our experience has been is enough: that’s what the word witness means.
Prodigally
share with others and let others share with you. “When [the
disciples] had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it,
and bread. [The Risen]
Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught” (John 21:9-10). One of the signs of faith and confidence in
the risen Lord is a lack of stinginess, of concern for preserving one’s scarce
resources. “God gives the blessings of
rain and sunshine both on the righteous and wicked alike,” taught Jesus, “… be complete
in this, as God is complete” (Matthew 5:45, 48). Service, almsgiving, contributing to worthy
causes, and giving service, offerings, and tithes to build the Church without
fear of scarcity are all signs of a resurrection faith. So is
the ability to graciously accept gifts from others.
Admitting our dependence on God,
turning things over to God, giving up care and worry, and sharing in community our
possessions, energies, and our experiences are all signs of a life rooted in
the Resurrection of Jesus.
Easter may be 50 days, be we should
live as though it’s 365.
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
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