For some reason the Easter Triduum and subsequent celebration of the Resurrection has filled me with such a rich Scripture banquet that I have been overwhelmed these last several weeks. This is not the first year that I have felt nearly speechless by what God has done for me and for all of us in the Passion, Death and Resurrection, but it feels very near this year. My imagination of how those events might have changed people entirely is both inviting and terrifying.
Today’s readings really hauled me up short, however, not by the words that Steven or Jesus said but by what they mean for me when I pay attention to them. Can’t you just imagine the people going after Stephen absolutely insulted by his very undiplomatic statements (there might have been a gentler way to introduce people to the mystery of Jesus’ great gift) and grinding their teeth in frustrated anger? I am reminded of the way so many folks in the reporting of “news” these days have shrieked in horror at the way that Pope Francis has challenged them. The very idea that we are called to welcome and embrace sinners at the same time we are called to challenge some bad choices they are making and the damage they are doing to themselves and others seems utterly foreign to so many folks, and yet it is writ large across the Gospel. To love one other in the midst of our dangerous choices for evil seems out of the question and yet both Stephen and Jesus carry it off.
I can well imagine the people being utterly shocked at Jesus – even as we are today – by his statement that he is the bread of God come down from heaven and that we are to eat his body and drink his blood. Can you see some poor fellow tagging along and wanting to find happiness saying “Say what??? Are you crazy fella? And the folks attacking Stephen are saying “You can’t SAY that here – we know that which is truth and it isn’t what YOU are saying.” In both cases the hard sayings cut through any spiritual “fluff” we have wrapped ourselves in – this is not cotton-candy we are getting out of these men, but hard grain that has to be chewed and chewed again to be able to swallow.
Easter is not about stuffed bunnies and plush ducklings – Easter is about seeing the hard truth of embracing the Gospel and living within God’s mercy AND WILL. For me this year it is an invitation to open my heart to far greater generosity and compassion, while still risking popularity or “coolness”. In the end it is giving up (again) being the sun in my own solar system and acting like everything revolves around me.
I invite you to pray for the grace of hearing and knowing God’s invitation to you today – to be open to seeing the challenges that the Gospel poses for ourselves and our very broken and distorted human family.
May this glorious time of grace invite you to be willing and able to hear God’s voice and see the light of God’s face as he gazes on you with a love that is hard beyond imagining, even while it brings us to joy that we have never known before.
May this Easter time continue to be a great grace for those of us who can hear and see – even a little. |
