I read an interesting book a few weeks ago, yet another mystery detective novel which I seem to have become addicted to. In this story the villain actual sets up a scenario so that he arranges a bomb for a victim set to go off after he himself ( the villain ) is dead. It is up to our protagonist to save the final victim.
The Risen Jesus is not content to give us all the answers we need while he walked as a human. He sticks around a while to make somethings crystal clear to his Apostles. But rebel that Jesus is, his very first 'act' as the Risen Christ is yet another zinger from beyond the grave.
'He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve' is really not true in so far as it is a half truth. Who is it that first discovered that Christ had risen? It was not the manly, male centric church, those Apostles or Peter. The first witnesses were women. They may have followed Jesus with as much if not more gusto than the Apostles. The fact remains though that in that period of time women were not the real power brokers or ones called to be witnesses for any real purposes. It is so incredibly interesting to me that it is the women who are the first witnesses to the Resurrection. Yet another swipe by Jesus that the fringe, the lowly are the ones that He speaks to. It seems to me Jesus continues to speak to the marginalized, the lowly and the ones looked down upon.
There is drama aplenty these days because 'Mayor Pete' claims his Christian faith and holds it high. He says if you don't like him, don't take it up with me, take it up with my creator because God made me this way. Wow! Powerful stuff for sure. Mayor Pete is vocalizing what so many of us already know but are looked down upon by the faux Christian right religious 'elite' that adhere not to Jesus' message but their own myopic view of their own.
Is this that much different than when the women proclaimed to the Apostles that Jesus had risen and they refused to believe it? How many of those fake Christians and even others, really reject one message or another that Jesus is speaking to us? While I challenge and chastise those fake Christians of the religious right, how many of us cherry pick what we want t believe of Scripture. We can see where 'they' fall short of the message, where they have bastardized Scripture passages but can we see where we fall short?
I recall a time where we were radically campaigning for marriage equality. In our celebration of our victory in the State of New York, we held a gathering of our neighbors and friends, all members of the LGBTQ community. When someone had casually discussed our bisexual brothers and sisters, there was a muffled guffaw that they were a joke. Pick a side already, will ya? And there we were, victimizing our own community. As with being gay, it is not about the parts. It is a horrible thing for a gay man or lesbian to reduce someone from our own community to some kind of sexual addict that in some hedonistic way wants every person to be subject to their sexual desires. And that is the furthest from the truth. Just as gay men and woman do not want to be reduced to sexual acts that we are condemned for, neither should a bisexual person. All that is being said is that a person can be sexually attracted to male or female, that what is most important is the hearts, not the parts. It is a dangerous, ignorant leap to say that sexual attraction equates to rampant, mindless sex with unlimited partners. Can someone simply say they are open to a deep meaningful relationship with a 'person'?
As faithful people, we are called to respond to Jesus' message by looking inside ourselves and digesting the full message of his life, the Gospel and the gracious gift of new life in the Resurrection. It is easy to see where some have gone astray but let us also know that we ourselves are quite capable of going astray without help from those that might seem willfully ignorant.
Jesus rose for all of us, every one of us, the likable, the not so likeable, those that agree with us, those that do not. We are not called to judge or reject, but to love with the same reckless abandon that we are graced with.
For clearer vision and conversion of our hearts, we give thanks and pray.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
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