(http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter3bfish.html)
After Emmaus… the disciples had heard from the two on the road about the mysterious encounter they had had, but they were still huddled in the upper room, bewildered, anxious, and afraid, wondering what all this would mean. And then there was Jesus, in the midst of them, assuring them he was real: Go ahead, touch me, I am not a ghost, I am flesh and blood. It’s me!
And then he ate a piece of fish. It really is him. Here and now.
Living God, your Son made himself known to his disciples after his resurrection: open the eyes of our faith, that we may see him in all his redeeming work; who is alive and reigns, now and forever.
To see him in all his redeeming work. That may mean the risen Jesus and it may mean his work in us as well. We are known to be Christians by our love for one another, for God, for all people, and indeed for all of creation. Our love for creation may come out of our love for God; our love for God certainly comes out of God's love for us. How do we manifest that love?
We show the love of God for creation and our share in that love when we enjoy and love the natural world around us, in its natural state, in how we interact with the world as we modify it with our buildings, our landscaping, our gardens and farms, our roads and bridges and water lines and utility poles and cellphone towers; and we show the love of God in joyful fashion in how we walk through the world alongside our Lord.
In our fellowship together, and our welcoming of others, we show the love of God. We show the love of God, we share the love of God, when we reach out beyond ourselves to the people around us, and when we welcome them inside our walls (real and figurative) as friends.
In "Contemplative Renewal and New Monasticism" an interview in the Lent/ Easter 2021 issue of the New Camaldoli Hermitage newsletter, Fr Adam Bucko wrote that:
"One thing that is clear to anyone who's listening is that young people are leaving our churches not because they are no longer interested in lives of meaning, purpose, and significance, not because they are no longer interested in God, but because, from where they are standing, it is increasingly difficult to meet God in the church. They tell us that, even if we do have a corner on the truth, the church resembles--in too many ways--every other broken system that organizes itself around power, wealth and privilege, rather than offering itself as a radical alternative to the status quo."
And yet, as Herb O’Driscoll points out in his commentary on this gospel, “We need to be wary of much contemporary Christian spirituality that is unwilling to acknowledge the validity and necessity of the church. We live in a time when spirituality is suspicious of structure and form and institution. Yet any spirituality, if it is to last through the vicissitudes of time and history, must take on form. It cannot remain a kind of ghost, but must assume a structure like ‘flesh and bones’”.
‘A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’
There are several useful and specific things that people of faith, connected to traditional religions, have to offer "spiritual but not religious" seekers who are less attached to a faith tradition.
Theological understanding, spiritual practices, reliable mentors and spiritual guides, and faithful communities, are among the gifts we have to offer the seeker, the bereft, and even the occasional and ancillary member.
Yet even more than our structures and traditional practices, whose external aspects, memories or associations may act as barriers, we have something to offer to people seeking a way to truth and sane living in an uncertain world, that is much more precious than the institutional containers we have used.
It is the all-embracing love of God.
When I was back in Tombstone last week, I looked for Mongo, who drove the old stagecoach. I didn’t see him. But then after all, when he met me somebody said, “Hey Mongo! He’s from your church.” And he said, “It’s my church - when I go.” “So it’s your church.” “When I go.”
Someone who knows us as "my church - when I go!" is a member. Someone who returns to bury a family member, or seeks to be married or to be baptized, is a member.
And someone who knocks on the door when they seek a light may find us to be a lighthouse, and a homeward beacon, is becoming a member.
What we have in the Gospel for today is a sense of the patience of Jesus, as his followers - cradled, converted, or seekers - slowly come to a sense of the new reality, the new life of Jesus that opens up new life for themselves and all to follow and learn what has happened. Resurrection, as Bishop Marian Budde pointed out on Easter morning, is for us who experience it in the risen Christ not a moment but a process.
Conversion turns out to be that way too, a process not just a moment (though there will be moments!): for it can be defined as a lifelong turning toward home, or to taking responsibility for an area of one's own growth and development. That can mean emotional, or intellectual, or ethical and moral development. In this case it means the development of our spiritual and yes religious life - life in Christ and in the Spirit.
What we have to offer is our experience of God, not just in ourselves, but in communities, through the aid of pastors and teachers, through prayer partners and anam cara (soul friends), through practices of prayer handed down to us within familiar structures and sometimes in surprising ways.
Resurrection, like conversion, is something we experience not just alone, once, but together, continually.
We know that resurrection is more than a momentary event; it is the first day of God doing something new. God is not resuscitating what was before but leading us into a new future with a new hope.
What this will mean for us in the times ahead, times not simply of a “return to normalcy” but the opening out of a new reality, is that we stand on solid ground, solid ground on which to build. We do not simply look back to 'golden days of yore' - we go forward in the name of Christ as the people of God, ever hopeful, ever renewed.
You may remember that the Israelites returning from exile in Babylon were some of them brought up short by realizing they were confronted not with an empty home temporarily left behind (like a house left intact while the owners are away for awhile) but with a place that had changed, and people who had changed, and themselves that had changed! The temple was in ruins and so were their houses.
We don't just build back better. In Christ, in his resurrection life, there is something better beginning.
"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43:19a)
God is at work in us doing more than we can ask or even imagine. What God is up to with us may be less obvious, less familiar, than our expectation. Our opportunity is to be open to it.
And so the challenge: What does it mean for you to participate in love’s redeeming work? What would you like to take on, or carry forward? What witness, what action? What new thing should be your expectation? Where do you see something better beginning?
Risen Christ, for whom no door is locked, no entrance barred: open the doors of our hearts, that we may seek the good of others and walk the joyful road of sacrifice and peace, to the praise of God the Father. Amen.
J
Post communion prayer for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year B, from Common Worship, Church of England.
Adam Bucko, https://www.contemplation.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/NCHnewsletter_0421.pd
Herbert O’Driscoll, The Word Today, Year B, Volume 2. Anglican Book Centre, 2001, p. 67.
18 April 2021
https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Easter/BEaster3_RCL.html
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