Micah, age 4, had been to Ash Wednesday services at church. Father had used the traditional wording as he signed him with ashes, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Micah had lots of questions on the way home about what exactly that meant.
A few days later, he came running to his mother. He had been playing in his bedroom and had just crawled under his bed to retrieve a ball. “Mommy!” he said. “Come quick! Remember how Father said that we are dust and to dust we will return? Well, there’s somebody coming or going under my bed!”
We know that dust bunnies do not turn into resurrections, and we laugh at the literalness of a four year old mind, but how literal are we?
I read a Twitter post Saturday by our bishop, Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv. He asked: “The dire circumstances of a pandemic surrounding this Easter prompt us to ask: Where do we see hope? How will we practice resurrection in the Diocese of Lexington?”
“Practice resurrection?” Those final words come from a Wendell Berry poem and frame our diocesan strategic plan. The plan generally says, “How do we replace crucifixions with resurrections?” A thought-provoking question before Covid-19. Now, more challenging. How does Covid affect how we live this Easter season?
Practicing Resurrection in Today’s Readings
Peter, John, and the emerging Jerusalem community are Practicing Resurrection in today’s first reading. For several days last week we followed the story of Peter and John healing the lame man “by the gate called Beautiful.” The man asked for alms, Peter and John healed him instead, and it got all Jerusalem in an uproar. It was one thing for this Jesus to heal people, but, what, now his followers were doing it in Jesus’ name? The Sanhedrin did its best to put an end to such a thing. But Peter and John were in Resurrection mode. We read their response on Saturday, “Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”
Today Peter and John return to their community, share their story and their fire, and “the house shook” with the intensity of their faith in the resurrection.
The Gospel tells of a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus early in Jesus’ ministry. Nicodemus had heard Jesus speak and was curious (in the Orthodox Church Nicodemus is the Patron Saint of Curiosity). He found a time at night to come to Jesus alone. Their conversation was a deep one. Jesus planted a field full of spiritual seeds in Nicodemus. It started with Nicodemus indirectly asking the same question John’s disciples asked Jesus about this same time: “Are you the Messiah?”
Jesus answer was not exactly straight-forward. He said, “Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
What kind of answer was that? Nicodemus was up to the challenge. He answered, “How can a man grown old be born again?”
Jesus bantered back, “Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”
That answer probably made more sense to Nicodemus than it would to me. Nicodemus would have been aware of John the Baptist’s baptism for forgiveness of sin—reference to being born of water. He also may well have been part of the group of serious Jews who believed that the Messiah would come when enough people were righteous, were fully committed to their faith—a reference to being born of the Spirit.
But then—then Jesus started talking about the wind. Nicodemus must have looked totally confused, because Jesus was very clear, as the reading goes on (in tomorrow’s Gospel) to have Jesus say to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son….”
In other words, “Wait, Nicodemus. Wait, and when the time is right, practice resurrection.”
Nicodemus did not become a disciple that night. He did stand up for Jesus in John 7, and he came with Joseph of Arimathea to claim Jesus’ body and bury it. Orthodox lore says he became a Christian after witnessing Stephen’s death. Eventually, the seed Jesus sowed bore fruit. Nicodemus practiced resurrection.
Practicing Resurrection Here and Now
Readers might remember that when the pandemic started, several of us in our parish created a phone-call structure to keep tabs on our older members. We made calls then. Most people expressed appreciation of the calls, but the general message was, “I’m fine. I will be fine. Bye.” Nonetheless, our structure was up and organized. We found no immediate needs, but some people wanted regular calls, and our callers have been calling them.
In a totally separate effort, another parishioner organized a project to sew masks for medical personnel. As she requested via parish communications for others to help sew, one person responded, “I don’t have a mask. Could I have one?”
Yet another person saw that response and thought, “I wonder how many of our seniors need masks?” She asked us to call our lists to find out. We did. We found a good number of people needed masks.
As I called my list, I realized that collectively, in community, we are practicing resurrection. The calls took much longer this time. Conversations that started, “How are you?” got real answers about the ups and downs of quarantined life. When I told people about the masks—free—and delivered to their doors, real faith sharing took over the conversations. It happened again and again. We laughed. We cried. We spoke of God’s Presence via mass online, via phone calls, via families and neighbors looking out for each other. We saw God working around us, through us, for us.
I had the privilege of witnessing this again and again Saturday morning. Not every call. But most. And I felt a groundswell of Resurrection.
No, we weren’t shaking the house. We weren’t healing anyone lame from birth. There was nothing extraordinary in anything that anyone did or said.
Then I realized, “That’s the glory of it. That’s the glory of our Resurrected God. That’s the Resurrection being practiced, the wind of God blowing where it will, emerging in us ordinary people doing ordinary loving things—together.”
Prayer:
“Lord, help me to Practice Resurrection today, this week, in the ordinariness of my quarantined life. Help me be fully grateful that I am healthy, I have the necessities of life, that I am part of Christian community, and, Lord, that You are with us in the midst of whatever this pandemic brings. Help me to see opportunities to Practice Resurrection every day. Help me to see You, Lord, for where You are, there is resurrection. Help me do what Nicodemus eventually did. Help me be fully born of water and the Spirit, born to Practice Resurrection as my way of life.”
