Deacon Rick Lapierre
Stories about golfers' fanaticism are legendary. I personally have seen people playing golf down in Harmony in March with pockets of snow still on the fairways. There was once a golfer named George who hauled himself through the doorway of his home at 8 o'clock one evening, exhausted and disheveled. His wife berated him because he was supposed to have been home at 4 o'clock for dinner. "It was horrible," George said, "We were getting ready to tee off on the sixth hole when Fred suddenly dropped dead." "That is horrible," his wife said, "did you go to the hospital with him?" "No" George replied, "after he died it was hit the ball, drag Fred, hit the ball, drag Fred. That's what took so long!"
Our imaginary friend George knows what fanaticism is. His den at home is a shrine to his golfing prowess with trophies and plaques adorning his walls. His clubs are shined to a dazzling brilliance and occupy a place of honor in the garage, ready to be lovingly placed in the SUV at a moment's notice for a round of golf. His office wall proudly displays the picture of him and Chi Chi Rodriguez and his scorecard from the day he broke eighty is laminated and framed on his desk. Work is what George does when he's not playing golf. George is the sort who lives, eats and breathes golf. His wife had to get a television for the kitchen just to avoid watching the Golf Channel all winter long. Golf is very real to George and it takes a place of importance in his life. If George had hit a hole-in-one last Sunday, we would still be hearing about it.
What did happen last Sunday? Is the rising of Jesus from the dead important to us? Does it have any significance to us? We can tell George is a golfer even when he is not on the golf course. Can people tell from our actions that Jesus is risen? Can we tell that Jesus is risen when we are not here in church?
Jesus spent the three years of his public life doing the will of the Father who sent Him. He never flinched from His sense of purpose, bringing to all whom He met into the presence of God the Father. He preached constantly that the Kingdom of God was not about keeping rules, but was about a love that was so pure and overpowering that it was the very essence of God. And, it was a love that humans had a problem with: love without limit, love without condition, love without end. It's too much. Better to withdraw into the safety of rules and rubrics than to have to give and proclaim a love like that.
Do you remember when he tells the religious rulers of his time that prostitutes and tax collectors are going to be ahead of them in the Kingdom of God? From our comfortable vantage point 2000 years later we can silently cheer this, except for the fact that Jesus tells us today that drug addicts and those who never attend Mass may very well be ahead of us in the Kingdom of God! What! How dare Jesus say that! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
Do any of the words of this morning's gospel make you uncomfortable? They should. Do we identify with Thomas in our disbelief? No, not here in the quiet safety of our parish church. Do we see the wounded Jesus in those whom we meet as soon as we leave this building? Do we see the suffering Christ in those who have injured us with their words and actions? Are we filled with enough love to cry out to God to forgive them, as Jesus did?
Make no mistake about it, Jesus was a fanatic and they killed him for it. Fanatic in English means overly enthusiastic, but the Latin root word faniticus means inspired by the Divine. How I wish that the Resurrection of Jesus were so meaningful to me that I was half as fanatical as Jesus is! How I wish that I could speak the truth about the evils I encounter each day without having to worry about political correctness. I don't want people screaming "crucify him" at me!
In today's political climate, it's not easy to run against the prevailing wisdom. Our society has as many evils as Jesus encountered in His time, only with different names. They're in the newspaper every day: corporate greed, drugs and violence in our streets, war in countries throughout the world. These are not the Kingdom of God, but the consequence of humanity's (yours and mine) rejection of the ideals that Jesus taught us. The Resurrection happened, but it hasn't really sunk in.
If you read again the account in the Acts of the Apostles from our second reading, Peter and the apostles finally understood it, even if many of the disciples did not. They preached Jesus Risen from the temple steps, fully expecting to be crucified as Jesus was, but instead the sick were healed, the possessed were cured and people became believers. They did not preach political correctness, or what the majority of people wanted to hear about how evil the Romans were. They spoke about the importance of love! They spoke of Jesus crucified, not just an intellectual concept, but a very real love which forgives and uplifts.
And who exactly is this Jesus that challenges Thomas as to what he believes? He is not the warm and fuzzy Easter bunny, but the Son of God who comes with his broom to clean the threshing house floor. Jesus did not just talk about what people should be doing, He did it. He healed. He prayed. He touched. He counseled. He cajoled. He spoke the truth. He lived. And because He lived this life, faithful to who He was, they (we) killed Him.
But you cannot kill love, and that's why the tomb is empty today.
We can try to make Jesus into our own comfortable image of what He should be, and we often do. This is the Jesus we usually drag out for Baptisms, weddings and funerals, who tells us what we need to hear at those crossroad times, and then we can safely put this nice warm and fuzzy Jesus back into his tabernacle, until the next time we need Him.
But the Jesus we see today is much more than the Easter bunny. He challenges us to make His life our life; to forgive quickly and without reservation; to love without limit or cost; to decide at home and at work to follow Him. Because, you see, the real Jesus is about honesty and caring and concern for others. He's about a happiness that comes from within and not externals. He's about love that is not a slogan, but a way of life. You see, Jesus is a fanatic. He is radical, counter-cultural and challenging. But most especially, Jesus is Risen. Love never dies, and this love is not about Easter eggs, flowers and bunnies. They belong to Hallmark. Jesus is looking for fellow fanatics to hear his voice and follow Him. These are the ones who belong to Him.
