Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not
papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the
tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less
monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense
of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
The title of my homily is, “Love Laughs at Locksmiths.”
It’s an old English proverb. It’s also the name of an old
British comic opera from around 1800. I never saw it, but reading about it
once, I jotted down the title, because I thought it will be a great title for a
homily someday. It’s also the name of two short YouTube movies: one has 257 viewers and one has 16 viewers.
Interesting.
“Love Laughs at Locksmiths.”
We get that image.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Today’s gospel begins with the image of locked doors:
“On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked,
where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be
with you.”
God laughs at
locked doors.
Jesus comes
through the locked doors of the upper room – he comes through the locked doors
of the disciples minds – he goes through fear and says, “Peace be with you.”
They had to be feeling
various pulls of guilt and emotions – feeling stupid that they put all their
trust in Jesus and he gets arrested and killed – and they ran away when he
needed their presence the most.
IN EVERY PERSON
In every person
– there are locked doors.
In every person
there are doubts. Like Thomas we have
our doubts. That’s why he’s put in today’s gospel story.
In fact, up until
recently, today was called, “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” We all have faith hesitations. We want to see and know more. Wouldn't faith be easier, if we were there in that
Upper Room –way back when - and actually experienced the Risen Christ.
Today is also
called “Divine Mercy Sunday” and in every person there is also locked inside of each of us the down deep
cry for Mercy - forgiveness - hope.
Today – at this
time – we also have Earth Day! Like doubt,
like faith, like the cry for mercy, the reality of our earth should help us big
time with our faith. Who put the moon and Mars and the million stars in space
out there? And back here on earth a beautiful ocean, mountain, sunrise, sunset, seeing cherry blossom trees in bloom, seeing a baby’s smile or an old couple walking down the
street holding hands, should help us with our faith – and get us to evoke what
Thomas said to the Risen Lord Jesus in today’s gospel, “My Lord and my God.”
So we have lots of stuff locked inside of us.
In every person
there is also that secret, that hidden moment, that deep hurt or deep mistake or
deep what have you – and we keep it in a locked safe, box, closet, and Jesus
every once and a while - or we wish that every once Jesus would come to us and say, “Peace be with you.”
When we think of our past, we wish every once and a
while he would come to us and open up that closet – take out that locked box – shake out its
contents – lay it on the bed – and say to us, “Peace be with
you.”
There was a
famous old Redemptorist sermon where Jesus is pictured as a rag man or garbage
collector going through neighborhoods calling out, “Any old junk you want to
get rid of, here I am the Junk Collector.”
I remember stealing that
image for a sermon once. I noticed it hit home. So I also stole it for one
of my books. I had any of us standing there in the crowd listening to Jesus
preach.
Then standing
there deep in thought afterwards at the edge of the crowd, Jesus touches the edge of our coat
and invites himself into our house for dinner.
Then after
dinner, Jesus asks, “Are you going to invite me down into your basement?”
We take him down
there and he asks, “What’s in that old desk in the back?”
The desk is
locked and the drawers are facing the wall – and Jesus gets us to pull the desk away from the wall –
and open up the bottom drawer – and take out the book – the book with all the
sins of our life – and he asks us if we want him to take it away – and then he
asks us if he wants us to take away the other book.
And we nervously say, “You know about that one too?” And Jesus says with a soft
smile, “Of course, everyone has both books.”
And we know
this: the book that has the list of our sins and the book that has the list of
the hurts against us.
Love laughs at locksmiths.
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
This Sunday is
all about all of this. It’s called Divine Mercy Sunday – that our God is a God of mercy,
forgiveness, peace.
Jesus is the
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of our world.
Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the guilt of our world.
Jesus is the
Lamb of God – who helps us deal with the doubts of life – the here and the
hereafter.
Jesus came to
bring us Divine Mercy.
TWO SAINTS
This Sunday in Rome – two popes are being canonized saints.
Someone said, Pope Francis picked the canonization of both together to bring
together liberals and conservatives in our church.
Will Francis be
canonized some day with Benedict?
I’m sure he had
that thought – or if he did, I’m sure it evoked a laugh deep within Francis.
I saw some lady
on TV complaining that Pope John Paul II shouldn’t be canonized a saint because
of all the child abuse by priests during his time as pope – and he could have
done something or done more.
I’m sure there
are some thoughts about Pope John 23 as well.
I hope everyone
can have mercy and forgiveness and have the ability to laugh at times. You know St. Teresa of Avila's prayer: "From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, Good Lord, deliver us." So there is sin and silliness, stupidity and sour-faced people in life.
There are
mistakes. There are hurts in life. There are sins in life. People are hurt in
life.
And obviously we need not just forgiveness and mercy – compassion and understanding - but we also need to take the best
steps to avoid abuse and stop abuse of any kind.
But sin will continue – sorry to say – and hopefully we will continue with the
mercy and the forgiveness and forgiving one another each day.
CONCLUSION
The title of my
homily was, “Love Laughs At Locksmiths.”
A saint is
someone in heaven. So let me close with an epitaph on the tombstone of a Puritanical
Locksmith – somewhere in an English cemetery. It's dated 1637 and describes his arrival in heaven:
A zealous locksmith died of late,
And did arrive at heaven gate,
He stood without and would not knock
Because he meant to pick the lock.
WHERE PRAYERS GO
Poem for Today - April 27, 2014
I HAPPEN TO BE STANDING
I don’t know where prayers
go,
or what
they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep
in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses
the street?
The sunflowers? The old black
oak
growing
older every year?
I know I can walk through the
world,
along
the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with
things
of little
importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition
I can’t really
call
being alive.
Is prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does
it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe
that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.
While I was thinking this I
happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my
notebook open,
which is the way I begin
every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in
enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet,
why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
Or whatever you don’t. That’s
your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this b
Fractured cracked held together in wholeness completeness by the air of the Spirit the putty of trust the glue of friendship the cement of Scripture. Serving a purpose Beautifying the world Testifying to the power, strength, and possibilities of limitations embraced.
(c) Imelda Cooper Painting: The Broken Vase by Harry Wilson Watrous
CHRIST!
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!
Poem for Today - April 24, 2014
CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN
Christ will come again, God's justice to complete, to reap the fields of time and shift the weeds from wheat; then let us passionately care for peace and justice here on earth, and evil's rage restrain with love, till Christ shall come again.
(c) Brian Wren
Painting by Matthias Grunewald,
from the Resurrection Panel
of the Isenheim Altarpiece