2nd Sunday of Easter: Divine Mercy Sunday, April 19, 2020
Readings: Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47; Psalm 118: 2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31
Abbot Lawrence – St. Gregory’s Abbey
On behalf of the monks, I wish everyone who is following this Mass by electronic means. We want to greet in a special way our dear Oblate community. We normally would be welcoming you to the Abbey today for our annual spring Oblate Day. We miss having you present with us and assure you that you are in our prayers. We appreciate the prayers that you are offering for us. And on this day, the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, we also pray in a special way for all who died in the tragic act of senseless violence, for those who lost loved ones in the bombing, for all those who responded so generously and courageously, and for all those whose lives were changed forever. May God continue the grant healing through the power of the Holy Spirit!
We might easily gloss over without much thought the description first community of Christians in the first reading for this second Sunday of Easter. We might be eager to pay closer attention to the beautiful gospel story, in which Jesus invites Thomas to deeper faith by probing deeply into marks of crucifixion that are part of his glorified body. There are, after all, so many questions that we ourselves might want to probe regarding those first appearances of Jesus, and why Thomas was not present the first time Jesus appeared to the other apostles. By the time we get to the homily, we might even have forgotten what was in the first reading. And if we do remember it, we might tend to think of the depiction of the early Christian community as being overly idealized and not particularly realistic to be of much assistance for us today. But whatever the reason we might pay attention to the first reading, to overlook it would be to miss something significant for us today: something that can bring together all of today’s readings and even our particular circumstances in 2020.
The image of the early Christian community given by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles has inspired to many Christian communities down through the centuries. It certainly provided a model for communal Christian life as the first monastic communities began to form in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Sharing a communal life grounded in the apostolic teaching, and expressed through the prayers, mutual support and the breaking of bread provided the essential elements of this new monastic form of intentional Christian community. The example of the Christians of the Acts of the Apostles was not seen as unrealistic or unattainable to those first monks and nuns; it was seen as the norm to which a community should and could aspire. And just as it was the inspiration for monastic life in its earliest expressions, so also it should and can be the inspiration and blueprint for our monastic life today. It also can be the inspiration and a model for all families and small groups of people trying to cope with the challenges of imposed “sheltering in place” behind locked doors during a time of fear and global pandemic.
We who live an intentional and at times intense communal form of life know well that doing so can be challenging. Even communities founded upon the Gospel can and do experience misunderstandings, tensions and conflicts. That even happens here at St. Gregory’s! But this should not surprise us. Nor should it cause us to dismiss St. Luke’s description of the Jerusalem Christian Community as being a type of “fake” news. After all, even though St. Luke repeats his ideal description of the community in chapter four of Acts, he also tells the story of the deceit and destruction of Ananias and Sapphira in chapter five, and then the story of conflict over the differing treatment of Hebrew and Greek speaking widows in the distribution of food in chapter six. St. Luke does not pretend that the Jerusalem Christian community was without problems.
The important thing to see in the early Jerusalem Christian community is not perfection, but that the lives of those in the community had been transformed by their experience of the resurrection of Jesus and the working of the Holy Spirit. Whereas division, self-preservation, casting blame and creating conflict had been the norm in human society after the fall of humanity, the redeeming love of God poured out upon the earth by Jesus and the Holy Spirit makes possible a new experience of being human. Jesus even gives to the community of believers the ability and authority to forgive sin! Through his suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus liberates us from the tyranny of oppression, violence and terrorism, and makes it possible for us to build a world of justice, peace and love. That first Christian community in Jerusalem testifies to us and to all the world that it now is possible for individuals of widely different backgrounds to come together in unity, to support one another in love, and to extend to one another the grace of reconciliation. To the degree that Christians embody this new grace-filled community, the more the message of Christ becomes visible so that others can be drawn each day to the message and experience of salvation. And if we as a monastic community embody this vision, our way of living will attract and sustain many new vocations.
But is it really possible for us to live authentically the type of community embodied by the first Christians? Well, yes – without a doubt. After all, Jesus Christ is as risen from the dead now as he was on the first Easter day, and as he was on the following week when he again appeared to the apostles when Thomas was present, saw and believed. It is in the risen Lord that St. Peter wrote these words from our second reading: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” St. Peter declares that it is in this faith and this hope that we find reason to rejoice, even in times when we must suffer for a while due to the realities of life. Even in the face of personal sins, persecutions or even pandemics, we still are able to experience the new life won for us in Christ.
Today we celebrate the “great mercy of God” that makes it possible for us to live in the newness of life and to experience authentic Christian community with others. In Jesus Christ, God offers to us the gift of mercy and all its fruits. But we must do our part. Unlike Ananias and Sapphira, we must place our trust not in ourselves, but in the providential love of God made manifest in the community. Rather than trying to hide and selfishly hoard this gift for ourselves, we must be willing to extend this “great mercy of God” to others.
This is the beautiful and challenging message of “Divine Mercy Sunday.” To experience, truly experience, Easter joy, we must also open our hearts to accept the free gift of Easter mercy. And to experience, truly experience, Christian community, then we must extend to others the mercy we have received: sharing what we have, forgiving one another, breaking bread with one another, and helping one another to be attentive to and live the message of life that Jesus Christ entrusted to the apostles. We must do this. After all, this is our calling in Christ Jesus our Lord!