Msgr. Bill Lyons was the third director of the Newman Center.  Bill had a unique way of approaching the understanding of scripture.  His explanation of one of the great mysteries of the resurrection accounts perhaps typifies his approach.  In response to the question “How come the disciples never seemed to recognize the risen Jesus?”  Bill’s explanation was:  “Perhaps he was dressed like the Easter Bunny.”   

It is a legitimate question.  If the disciples had spent all that time walking with Jesus, praying with him, have supper with him, following his teaching and hanging on his every word, HOW could they NOT recognize him?  The honest answer is probably they didn’t recognize him in the same ways that WE DON’T recognize him.  The disciples could not imagine a world where death does not have the final say, where good triumphs over evil.  In our own time, where the greed a few has brought misery to so many on the economic front, it is hard to believe that sacrificial love triumphs over greed and self interest.  It is hard to know that there is a different reality, a different world, a different way of being than what we know.   That world is only made possible through the saving cross of Jesus and the power of his resurrection.  How come they and we can’t recognize the risen Jesus?  I wonder if it is more a failure of the heart and not the head. 

A failure of the head says I don’t know how to repair a lawnmower engine.  A failure of the head in faith says I don’t know this kind of world – I lack the skill or ability to see or vision something different.  I don’t know this risen Jesus and the life he might bring.  The failure of the heart says I WON’T know this kind of world, this kind of living.  I won’t know – I won’t look, I won’t risk.  This is the harder ignorance to address.  I can recognize in my head what Peter talks about in that second reading – that Jesus came among us, suffered, died and then rose.  Ignorance of the heart won’t recognize what that truth will mean in my life.  It means a whole different way of living and loving.   

What is interesting in today’s reading is how Jesus confronts the ignorance and doubt in the minds/hearts of his disciples.  Instead of saying to his disciples (and us) study some more, read the Scriptures some more, learn some more about who I am and what I am about – he says something completely different:  REPENT!  That same message is repeated in Peter’s address in the acts of the apostles.  “I know that you killed Jesus, not in malice, but in your ignorance.  Repent, therefore, and be converted…”  Sounds like an odd cure for ignorance and doubt, doesn’t it.  Or at least the ignorance that comes from what we don’t know.  But it is a sure fire cure for the things that we WON’T know – that hardness of heart or laziness that chooses not to know the things we need to.   

I attended a half day workshop for the Good Leaders Good Shepherds program on Friday.  It was all about listening skills.  One of the introductory questions to engage us in the topic was: “Why might leaders be tempted not to listen to parishioners and staff well?”  One response:  “We sometimes don’t listen because we sometimes DON’T want to know.  We want to avoid the knowledge, because if we know then we have to do something about what we know…”  If I choose not to find out how my roommate did on her comprehensive test, when every bit of her body language is screaming HELP, then I don’t have to do anything.  When we won’t know that which we should…  the only cure is to REPENT.  

Concretely:

• What won’t you ask questions about?  A roommate’s abuse of alcohol because if you mention it, you’ll be in another battle?  A friend’s struggle in an unhealthy relationship? 
• What call to generosity might you be avoiding?  -The Annual Catholic Appeal begins this weekend. Part of living the resurrection means that the lives of our sisters and brothers in need lay claim to our financial support. 
• Part of good triumphing over evil means that the structures which keep people in poverty also need to be addressed.  What letter to the senate or congressmen haven’t you written, or perhaps, won’t you write – that really needs to be written by you if you are to witness to the resurrected Jesus?

 

I somehow doubt that the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus because he was dressed like the Easter bunny.  I do believe that it is a matter of the heart.  Dear Lord, break our hearts or break open our hearts – whatever it takes, to move us from ignorance to faith, from darkness to light.  Amen…