Easter II
I sometimes think of this as the 'Now What?' Sunday. Also called 'Low Sunday' (after the big feast last week), the texts give it the informal name 'Thomas Sunday' in our tradition -- generally the day for skeptics to have their day (like Thomas!), and for us all to welcome the fact that 'doubt' and 'faith' are two facets of the same reality of God.
But, seriously: now what?
The power of God said and says no to Love's being killed by the powers and principalities of this world, and stood Love back up, and welcomed in a new reality, in which all creation is being made new -- beginning with the resurrected Body of Christ, and including the whole cosmos. God is that 'making-all-things-new' One. And, we get to participate. In fact, participating with this is where we may find our deepest being, and come fully alive.
How, then, shall we treat one another, and all other creatures with whom we share this planet, this ecosystem, this economy? In light of this revealed reality for us, with us, within us: now what?
The lectionary, in its wisdom, pairs these post-Resurrection appearances and sayings of Jesus (taking place in the Scriptural time between the disciples' experience of Resurrection and the powerful coming of God's Spirit among them) with the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, which tells this time in parallel to some of the Gospel accounts.
Now what? This week we read that they were all so overpowered by the power of Resurrection among them that they gave away all possessions, and held everything in common, "...and there was not a needy person among them."
We still live each day in the light of Resurrection. What does this light reveal, and indicate in our relationships -- our social, intimate, economic, political relationships? God shows us that Resurrection is for this world, not some other time or place. The Body of Jesus that Thomas needs to touch for reassurance (and bless him!) still bears all its scars. Resurrection does not do away with the effect of the violence of this world on created things. We bear the scars, in our body. Resurrection makes all things new, beginning with what is, and pointing our eyes and our energies to what shall be.
This is a time to live in the world as it is, and the world as it is becoming in God's hand, both at once. Even the dead are carried along in this tidal shift of God's renewing presence. How, then, shall we live? Now what?