Late in her career O’Connor reflected that she was an author ‘with certain preoccupations,’ namely ‘that belief in Christ is … a matter of life and death.’ That conviction, she observed, ‘[has] been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence’…
Both the prophetic context of our theme and its echo later in the Gospel call us Trinitarians to become – ourselves! – a living prophecy: From These Stones we live as an embodied witness to God’s hopes, past and future …
No matter or situation or status, we identify ourselves as the hungry Jesus has come to feed – the captives Jesus has come to set free. Making a show of our suffering, we bring the world’s puritanical, polarized tactics to our altar … not for renewal but for retribution, anywhere we can get it.
“… As members of Christ’s Body, we can ‘strive for justice and peace among all people,’ first to inaugurate Beloved Community, and not any partisan outcome. Even when our actions appear identical, their roots in our faith matter …”
God takes up another approach to restore creation’s blessing and chooses one people to reveal what was and remains intended for all people. See, God calls Israel into being to bring the message of salvation to the rest of the world. God blesses Israel in order that Israel would become a blessing, and by Israel’s blessing, the whole world would be blessed and restored to its original goodness …
One of the twelve leans against the wall and rolls between his fingers a Cadbury egg’s foil wrapper left in the pocket of his suit pants. And in this room stuffy with humans and fear, grief and ambivalence, he searches the week’s events for meaning …
Jesus learns of all this carrying on, and he seeks out the man he gave sight. Note this reversal: Jesus seeking … Jesus pursuing … Jesus making appeal, rather than the other way around.
We have made delight dangerous and insulting, fit only for the foolish and the oblivious, the vulgar and the entitled. In these days, we fear joy more than death … yet, believe: there is only one Easter – One Easter! – and it is for you as much as it has been for anyone: for Nellie as much for Laura, for Judas as much as John … And if that can’t be true? Well, then none of it is.
Asking neither “How did it happen,” nor “What do the details represent,” but what does it mean for us who claim membership in a community of the risen Jesus to tell a story like that, during these days and in a place like this?
Jesus invites us to find grace in the magic of water flowing out of rock, to see in its steady stream God’s provision, God’s abundance, God’s hope, all enduring no matter the madness pressing in on us.
