Kent Beausoleil, S.J.

Homily: Second Sunday of Easter

April 19, 2009

My dad, an LCDR in the United States Navy, was retired by the time I was born. During his 29 year navy career he spent most of his time on ships and so was full of stories of his life on the sea. He often spoke of the more unusual goings on that happened on board, the salty tales, the gossip, the practical jokes, the comradery, the tales of bravado and daring do, the tales of war injuries and brothers in arms there for one another, and I was always fascinated. In fact, as some of you know, not much has changed – I still love salty tales, gossip, practical jokes, puns, and sharing life stories, so as the saying goes ‘if you have something juicy to share come sit next to me’.

My dad would sometimes tell me of weird and strange optical illusions on the sea, shifts in the landscape, of land masses thousands of miles away, that appeared to them, due to the refraction of sun on the tomblike massive and empty waters, to be just off the bow of their ship. Or, he spoke of foggy days, when the mist rose off the calmness of the ocean as they approached their next port. He spoke of how that mist and the curve of the earth made it look like the land was actually floating in the sky hundreds of miles above the water.

These shifts in the landscape my dad spoke of to me as a young child changed my view of things, called me to see the world with new eyes, called me deeper into the mystery of questioning what I am really seeing and experiencing. His stories moved me to have a healthy curiosity of the world around me, and made me a discoverer for what is really true. Illusion and Truth. And it seems the message of our scripture this Sunday evening calls us to see beyond illusion as well, to hold firm to the risen Christ alive in our hearts, in our community, and in our world as not some mirage but the real reality that we are called as Christians to embrace and embody.

It has only been one week since we were here celebrating our belief in the risen Christ’s presence in our hearts – Christ’s spirit alive in community and our world. Yet, today, one scant week later we are presented with readings that kick us in our proverbial pants. So easy is it I think for us to fall back to the default position of illusion and doubt along with Thomas. We forget and doubt the hope-filled reality that the risen Christ can have in shifting the landscape of our being. We can so easily dismiss that Jesus Christ’s spirit is alive and not believe, not let that risen love, rest in our hearts. We doubt, that together with Christ, we can ever, in love, transform and transfigure our communities and world. It’s so easy, I think, for us to be like Thomas, doubting in Christ’s real presence among us.

The illusion that Thomas perpetuated, and that we too perpetuate, is that the way the world is – with hearts that feel unloved, with communities of violence and hatred, where structural injustice in society thrives – is a world that is not only tolerated but accepted. We doubt the reality of the resurrection’s transformative power and trust only in what the world offers. So, that being the case, we can’t fault Thomas for holding on to the illusion that the only world he lived in was harsh and beyond redemption. People lived under the influence of governance of Roman and Jewish leaders who were not always just and did not always act in non-criminal ways. People lived in communities filled with the awful reality of violence and crime, of money-changers and corruption.

So immersed in that world was Thomas, that this world was reality for Thomas. He could not see beyond the mirage nor believe, without proof, that God’s way in Christ Jesus resurrected, was the real world. Buffeted by disappointment after disappointment it was hard for him to see anything but Jesus’s crucifixion being another in a long list of disappointments. And so, with our own world and communities being not that much different, it’s easy to side with him in his doubt and trust in the mirage of the world as it is and forget that the risen Christ is alive. Yet, on the other hand he was a first-hand witness, disciple, and apostle of Jesus’ – he heard Jesus preach, teach, heal, and raised to new life first hand -- and so I have much less charitable understanding for the man. He saw Jesus and did not believe and so we who did not see Jesus we’re the ones expected to believe and have perfect faith? Yet, really if we stop and pray about it, haven’t we too seen Jesus, through Jesus’ Spirit alive in word and sacrament, truly alive here in our community, present here in healing and loving support of one another, in touching each others’ wounded sides with care. Christ is alive and this is not illusion. We all have experienced the truth of love resurrected. We too have seen Christ and we too are called to believe in the power of that love. Truth and Illusion.

Yet, too often we embrace Thomas’s doubt and continue to live on under the mistaken illusion that were not good enough, not lovable enough, worthless. We embrace his doubt and say well the violence, injustice, war, corporate greed, communal negativity, racism, sexism, war and the like, well that’s just the way it is and will continue to be. In doing so, believing so, we negate the true transforming power of Christ’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and justice that were given to the world through the resurrection.

The illusion, the mirage, are sadly, all of those worlds we give life to. We give life to the world of self-hatred, sister and brother hatred. We give life to a world where unequal distribution of goods and resources give way to the reality of Somali pirates. We give life to a world where any possibility of living in Christ’s peace is denied as hatred percolates and boils over through skeptical foreign relations and ultimately war. We give life to a world where we no longer affirm but prejudge, condemn, rip apart and deny another’s gifts even before they have had the chance to let those gifts shine (that Scottish singer that has been widely viewed on the internet, anyone) nor believe in our own goodness and gifts.

We rest in the illusion that this is reality and forget that, as Christians, Jesus, has changed our landscape. If we truly are people of the resurrection we need to fathom the depths of our hearts and remove any hatred – for Christ came to bring life and life to the full. We truly can become, if we lived out the truth of the resurrection, people that live in communal love, people of no need, people of peace and mutual care and concern, people, which our reading from Acts of the Apostles describes. This is the reality we are called to. We need to look out to our communities and world and bring the promises of the resurrection to those areas where crucifixion, persecution and injustice still reign. We are called to make a stand. The real truth is that the resurrection of Christ and his spirit alive among us has indeed conquered the world’s illusions.

Yes, it has been only one week since we celebrated Easter, and our readings indeed kick us in our pants asking us to hold fast to the real power of being people of the resurrection. Christ’s presence, and our belief in the risen Christ’s life as the revelation of God’s saving and healing love, can indeed transform the landscape of our lives, turning anger into forgiveness, self-loathing into self-loving, pain and anxiety into healing and peace, despair to hope. No longer will war, famine, genocide, oppression, or inequality block our way of seeing the Lord at work in the world and at work in and through one another. The Lord’s resurrected presence alive in the world moves our heart to bring that just love to the world. God’s love moves us out. The resurrection of the Lord has graced us with new possibilities, possibilities that make manifest the love of God, as Jesus did, in new and powerful ways, for ourselves, for our community, and for our world. And this is indeed good news, news that our hearts cannot doubt, so indeed let us rejoice and be glad.