Easter Sunday 2008

Sunday March 23, 2008

Too good to be true?

As children of Abraham, “our father in faith,”
we hold in common with believers
of every race and nation,
that God is the origin of life:
eternal blessing,
original blessing,
the one whose unconditional love knows no limit
and has no equal.

As childen of God
we believe that we were loved into being,
creatures of the earth but
“in the image and likeness of God.”
male and female, Jew and gentile,
black and white, yellow and brown,
Greek and Irish, Italian, French, Russian,
Indian, Latino, Korean and African
and therefore that God is our “progenitor”
and because God breathed life into the earth,
the earth is our “mother” and
in the words of St. Francis,
the sun and moon and stars and all the planets
are our sisters and brothers
and we are sisters and brothers to one another too,
each of us unique,
clay in the hands of the potter,
neither clones of God nor clones of the earth,
but deftly designed and carefully crafted,
no two of us alike on the surface
but all of us alike at the core where God dwells;
each of us destined for union with God
in mind and heart, soul and spirit.

Our first parents did not believe it.
“Too good to be true!” they said.
So they sought after another truth,
their own truth; fiction became their fact.
Their sin not that they wanted to be like God
but that they failed to accept their likeness with God.
They chose darkness over light, blindness over sight,
and banished themselves into the exile
of disillusionment and despair.

But that wasn’t good enough for God
who said, “That’s not what I intended
and it’s not what I want.
I loved you into my likeness to know me
to show forth my my goodness,
and to be happy with me forever.”
How could you have missed the point?
Uncreated love creating human love
hoping for love in return in human form;
infinite goodness wanting only the best for humanity
love without measure;
divine wisdom entrusting herself to human habitation
without recompense,
except for the joy that comes in giving.
Divinity and humanity—a perfect combination.

And through the centuries,
God never gave up on this progeny
but spoke to them relentlessly and eloquently,
offering a covenant through Moses on tablets of stone
But the people griped and grumbled,
preferring another exile to a new exodus.

Then God spoke through prophets and priests:
“I will establish a new covenant;
I will write my law on their hearts.
They will know instinctively
that they are mine and that I am theirs.”

Now go back home and rebuild your temple and your homes.
Enjoy the fruit of the land and the work of your hands,
but never forget that the earth is your mother
and I am your Father but we are one,
and remember that all your efforts
are also the work of my hands.

But the people could not feel the gentle beat of God’s heart
and turned again to the beat of their own hearts,
carving for themselves, different idols,
constructing other towers of Babel,
erecting new pillars of pride.

Then God said, “Enough already!”
and sent Jesus to model for the people
what undying love meant by dying for love.
Oh, it’s not that God willed the death of Jesus__
God is not a sadist and Jesus was not a masochist__
God asked only his faithfulness—to life.
so that we could see how compatible and incomparable
are faithfulness to life and freedom to live.
- Some people think ‘life’ is a magazine!-
How could Jesus be other than faithful
in the presence of infinite truth and ultimate justice;
unconditional love and perfect beauty?

The world could not bear such honesty;
“Too good to be true!” they said.

And so they did him in
thinking him at best a schemer,
or at worst a blasphemer,
lifting him up on a cross,
obedient to life unto death.
But God lifted him up in glory never to die again,
“Death has no more power over him.”
Some people think that to obey means to surrender to power,
but for Jesus it meant to succumb to love.
And so the end was just the beginning.

The earth proclaims the greatness of God
and all creation exalts in God’s glory.
Jesus remains the perfect exemplar and the everlasting covenant
who unites heaven and earth
and all humanity to the eternal Word.

May we succumb to the grace of the Easter feast
and be for all humanity,
a sign that Jesus is truly risen from the dead.

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