Because of the devastating flooding in the Ottawa region since Easter weekend, many conversations have turned toward the unprecedented levels of water in the Spring run-off. In 2017, we surpassed the 100-year levels. And just two short years later in 2019 we surpassed even 2017 levels. What’s going on?
When 16-year-old Greta Thunberg began demonstrating last year at the Swedish Parliament about climate change she rapidly gained worldwide attention. Among others, she inspired a whole generation of girls to be politically active.[1]
In Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian federal government, we are never short of political talk. We engage in daily debates over backyard fences, at the hockey rink and in coffee shops about the goings on in and around Parliament Hill.
We’ve heard the story before. This is not new, we say — the issues, the players, the opinions, the debates, the conflict. It’s par for the course.
Even as politics has taken a nasty turn in recent decades. It has become intensely personal. Conversations about politics now start with degrading remarks about the person and their character. Election campaigns have become platforms for disputing a candidate’s moral character. Scandals thrive on mudslinging and disparaging the ‘likeability’ factor of the major players. Never mind the views represented by these political players.
And you know we are sinking into a deeper moral hole when teenagers like Greta Thunberg are bullied by those who don’t share her political views—not with arguments about climate change but because she has autism. Neuro-typical people opposed to her politics have seized upon autistic traits Thunberg exhibits, “such as her ‘monotone voice’ and forthright manner, to liken her to a ‘cult member’ in an attempt to delegitimise her message.”[2]
Yet, we’ve heard the story before, we say. It gets replayed in different times and places by different characters and situations in history, no? Human beings will behave this way. In this day and age especially when information is shared immediately and globally.
It’s not a new story to us. We experience it on a daily basis. We can’t help ourselves. It’s either a joke. Or, we despair. And then we turn away.
For one thing, why can’t we distinguish the person from the issue? Maybe we don’t want to. Why do we so easily walk into the minefield of legitimizing the truth of something based on whether or not we like whomever represents the vision, the values, the policy, the idea? When the medium is the message?
We’ve heard this story before. It’s not new. People haven’t changed. We haven’t changed, we say.
When Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection, they don’t recognize him. Mary thinks she sees a gardener at the empty tomb.[3]The disciples at first don’t know it’s Jesus standing on the shoreline calling out to them.[4]Their vision is clouded, myopic.
We’ve heard this story before. I’m not the only one, I am sure, who has experienced not seeing someone while walking in a crowd. You know, you are in the mall going past so many people. Then I happen to be ‘looking’ at someone I know, but I don’t really see them. The only way I do is when they see me and call my name. And then I become aware that I am seen by them. That’s when it changes.
So, if that ever happens between you and me, you could always just say you thought I was my identical twin brother whom you don’t know!
The recognition happens when I see that I have been seen.[5]That’s when relationship starts. When you know you are seen by the other. When Mary, Peter, Thomas, John and all the other witnesses of the resurrection know that they are seen by the resurrected Jesus and recognized for who they are. Then they know and appreciate that they are part of the resurrection story, not distant from it but very much involved in the story we know.
The resurrection of Jesus means that not only have we heard this story before, not only armchair, arm-length critics of the story. But we are participants of it. Ourselves. We see that we have been seen.
We are Greta Thunberg. We are Doug Ford. We are Justin Trudeau. We are Jody Wilson-Raybould. We are Jane Philpott. We are all those people –whomever you first like to scrutinize, criticize, even demean and disparage. Because the person you first point a finger at is really about you, about your woundedness. When we judge another, we need to be aware that this judgement only exposes our own moral disparity. What we judge in the other reveals something in our shadow side, our weakness that we want to hide, suppress and deny for some reason. A part of ourselves that we have not been able to come to terms with and accept.
And yet, despite that dis-arming truth, the resurrected Jesus does not ignore us and walk by us in the crowd. Just as Jesus called out to Mary at the tomb and said her name, “Mary.” Just as Jesus called out to the disciples to let them know that they are seen and recognized by the loving, penetrating, all-knowing gaze of a gracious God – Jesus calls out to you and to me.
The resurrection story from the bible is not just a story we know, or think we know. The resurrection story is not really just a story about believing in the fact of the resurrection. It is believing that someone, starting with Jesus but not ending with Jesus, could be wounded and also resurrected at the same time.[6]
Resurrection is not merely about some perfected, other-worldly state that only few people achieve by their own strength or moral righteousness. That is the story the world believes. Resurrection is not some fanciful state of being, occupied only by Jesus, the Son of God. But because of Jesus’ resurrection, we all now can be seen for who we are. Like Christ we are all ‘little Christs’ (Martin Luther’s term) – wounded and resurrected at the same time. When we see that we are seen by loving eyes looking on us despite the woundedness therein. Despite the scars, the hurts, the ongoing struggles.
There is the hope.
“Put your finger here,” Jesus invites Thomas to touch the wound in his side on his resurrected body.[7]“Come and see,” Jesus invites the first disciples.[8] “Come, and have breakfast,” Jesus invites his post-resurrected disciples for a meal he offers to them on the lakeshore. Jesus turns to us, in our ordinary, broken, common lives, and sees us. Whether or not we at first see him.
That’s the miracle of Easter — not just a resuscitated body, but that this resurrection body still bears the marks of woundedness at the same time and in the same place!
We are seen, and are invited to follow Jesus. As we are. We need not be intimidated nor held back by our imperfections. Those first disciples bore the woundedness of their own lives: tax collectors (not a good job), fishers (lowest class), even political agitators like Simon the Zealot.[9]These were people on the fringes of mainstream, privileged society. Not perfect by any stretch.
The miracle of the resurrection is not saying that life in Christ is perfect, or should be, or should be for some others. The miracle of the resurrection is saying that new life can be experienced right in the middle of all the dying, suffering, and pain of our own lives. Now, because of the resurrection, we don’t have to wait for ideal circumstances before we can really live. We, too, can discover the grace, the joy and the life of God in us, and in the world around us. Now. And no matter what.
In the coming week, try turning off your cell phone for an hour each day—you determine the time. If you don’t have a cell phone, unplug your landline or turn the ringer off each day for a certain amount of time. Practice not being available to the distractions and expectations of others. Practice this uncomfortable state of not being attached to the latest gossip, the latest market fluctuation, breaking news or a friend’s reaction. Practice not responding right away to a message or text or call.
And, in that discomfort, close your eyes and breath. And remember that God sees you. And that, in the silence and uncomfortable disconnection you are fundamentally and eternally connected.
Perhaps, in that moment, you can see that you are seen by the living Lord.
[1]‘The Greta effect? Meet the schoolgirl climate warriors’, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48114220
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/greta-thunberg-autism-spectrum-critics
[3]John 20:14-15
[4]John 21:4; forming part of the assigned Gospel text for the 3rdSunday of Easter, Year C, Revised Common Lectionary
[5]Laurence Freeman, “Discipleship” (Meditatio Talk Series 2019A, Jan-Mar), Track 1
[6]Richard Rohr, “Jesus’ Resurrection”, Daily Meditation 23 April 2019, http://www.cac.org
[7]John 20:27
[8]John 1:39
[9]Acts 1:13, Luke 6:15
Raspberryman 