Last month I told you the Parish Council would be meeting the end of March to discuss the results of our Social Justice survey and to decide how we might use our collective resources to support the hungry, isolated and suffering people of our region. That meeting took place 3 weeks ago. Sophia led us through the forest of different points of view on a path that led to a surprising outcome.
In this first year each location—Eugene, Portland and Battle Ground—will identify an organization where one of our members is currently volunteering. We will begin an informal ministry partnership with that organization, developing a relationship between Sophia Christi and that particular group through our member volunteer. Our involvement might include collecting food, other material goods or financial assistance as needs arise with the intention of engaging all of us in one way or another as time goes on. At the end of the year the Council will decide what portion of our year’s income to divide equally between the three ministry partners. Next year’s budget, however, will include a line item for this purpose. As a community we will share our resources with those in need in a deeper and more extensive way than we have before.
During the potluck after Mass we will discuss this plan more fully, weigh one of the options for our Portland/Eugene ministry partner for this year and, hopefully, make a decision before we leave today. Our collective mission to those absent from society’s table widens this Easter with this decision.
It IS still Easter in our Gospel and in our Church. Mary Magdalene met the risen Jesus outside his empty tomb just this morning. Now it is evening. The disciples have locked themselves in the upper room fearing the Temple authorities will come for them next. All, that is, except Thomas. He isn’t there. When building community, the absence of one member MATTERS. It matters to Jesus that Thomas isn’t there. So, as the Gospel continues it is a week later, and Jesus returns to the upper room for the sole purpose, it seems, of connecting with Thomas. Thomas, the absent one. For all the absent, inclusion is especially important.
Let’s remember what the disciples have just been through…the angry mob calling for Barabbas and yelling at Pilate to crucify Jesus, and the horrifying crucifixion itself. As followers of Jesus, the disciples fully expected they would be next. Huddled in fear, their hopes as well as their embryonic faith dashed to smithereens, they are in shock. They haven’t believed Mary’s story, or they have chalked it up to her own grief and wishful thinking. They are terrified and lost.
Then Jesus appears. He not only shows them the marks of crucifixion in his hands, feet and side, but he commissions them to go out among the people they are hiding from. After all they’ve witnessed he sends them out into those same streets with the mission to FORGIVE. Without an infusion of the Holy Spirit, there is no way they could have done it. Without ‘seeing’ him, without SEEING the larger, COSMIC picture, through his eyes—his Spirit—they would not have had the courage, the vision or the passion to go out into the streets of Jerusalem preaching the Good News of the risen Christ and the coming of the reign of God.
And that Good News is meant for everyone. Thomas represents the margins. He represents those outside the locked doors, the closed inner circle. He represents all the ‘absent ones’ as we look around the table. Mostly they are poor, misfits, those who are different from us, outside our tribe and culture, with beliefs we don’t agree with, languages and behaviors we don’t understand. Jesus makes a point of going to them, showing his love for them, including them in his circle and his ministry.
In his doubts and in his veiled demand for a personal experience of his own, Thomas stands for all those waiting to see for themselves that the message and the promise of the Gospel is not only REAL, but it is meant for THEM. Jesus knows this. So he sends his disciples out to touch and heal, to love and tend the absent ones, to live that message of hope, acceptance and full, radical inclusion in the streets of their world.
It fell to Peter, James, John, Stephen, and perhaps Mary and some of the other women (though we have no word about the women) to take the message and teachings of Jesus through Jerusalem and beyond. And it falls to us today. Care for one another, and especially care for the needs of the most vulnerable members of the community, was a value held from earliest times in Jewish tradition. And it was a constant teaching of Jesus, by word and example.
The earliest followers of Jesus lived their belief that this world and all it offers will not last, that the highest value is love of God and neighbor. They lived that value by sharing what they had with the poor so that all were fed, clothed, housed, accompanied and cared for in times of illness. Those early communities saw their responsibility in relation to others within the expanding circle of believers. For them, reaching across the divide between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus was a huge step. Recognizing each other as part of the same community, part of the one, unified body of believers, was a challenge they were eventually able to address with some measure of success. However, the common bond was still religiously defined to include believers and exclude non-believers.
We now live in a different time. Our challenge is to include all people of the earth in our care. Our landscape is global. All of our systems are now interwoven and interdependent—financial institutions, communication networks, political, economic and business structures. We are intricately connected with everyone and everything around us. This can be overwhelming. It can also be inspiring.
Sophia Christi is one, tiny part of this overarching systemic reality. This Easter season we enter a new phase of our development as a community, extending the reach of our ministry and as well as our collective commitment to the cause of justice. Let us pray for our sisters and brothers in Eugene, Portland and Battle Ground as they, too take steps toward choosing their ministry partners in the next few weeks, partners we will all collectively support with our combined resources and our prayers.
As we deepen our communal commitment to those absent from the table, we renew our dedication to the path of justice and radical inclusion of the entire family of God. May we generously share what has been given to us and do our small part in bringing hope and sustenance to those most in need. The table is large and growing larger. All are welcome. All are children of the one God.
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