When I was in Rome a few years ago, I went looking for a painting entitled "Madonna of the Pilgrims" painted by the great artist Caravaggio. It wasn't in a vast museum collection, but was actually in a dark, dusty church with peeling paint (sound familiar?) down a side street far from the Vatican (also familiar… ) The church was almost completely empty and unattended each of the three times I visited, except for people like me and my mother who sought out this painting. What was even more strange was that this work was hidden away in a side chapel that wasn't even lit, and in order to see it, even in broad daylight, I needed to pump some coins into a little box to make the lights turn on. When enough money clicked through a bright light would turn on with a big "thunking" sound and we could see an image of an Italian looking Mary in a doorway holding Jesus who's about a year old. Jesus is being worshipped on bended knee by two very dirty and bedraggled looking people — an old man and an old woman - the pilgrims — who are not only barefoot, but their feet are dirty.

Just as I'd become mesmerized by a detail or color in this beautiful and strange work, the lights would turn off with a thunk, and another visitor would take a turn feeding the machine. Sometimes there were 6 or 8 of us gathered in this small dark chapel to see this one painting. Now, I don't know what drew the other art lovers to this painting — I expect Caravaggio has a lot of gay fans since he's famous for the homoerotic quality of many of his works, but I was drawn to the magnificent co-existence in one painting of the human and the divine, and the unvarnished, unglamourous side of humanity, I might add. In this painting, Jesus is held by a quite ordinary looking mother, by Renaissance painting standards, especially, and adoring, believing pilgrims are presented not just with dirt on their feet, but wrinkled skin, and human frailties of every kind. The painting was controversial in late 16th century for the dirty feet of the pilgrims, and it still is unconventional today.

While our church has no trouble telling us how much dirt we have on our feet, how unworthy we are, especially if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, that church doesn't often demonstrate for us that we are created by God to share the frame with Jesus, with the divine, with the eternal. I believe one of the most powerful messages of Easter is, in fact, come to Christ as you are, in your frailty, with the dirt of the world on your feet as it has accumulated on your journey, and bring with you the best and the worst of humanity. It is certainly how Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome arrived at the tomb!

Tonight we began with the Genesis reading that supposedly offers the last word of God's opinion of creation, including humanity: "And so it was. God looked at all of this creation, and proclaimed it good — very good."

As a Catholic school child, I learned that Jesus died to save us from our sins (or as I understood it, save us from the evils and failings of humanity) so that the gates of heaven could be open to us, and we could die to live eternally with God.

I hate to say it, but I heard very, very little about living with God right now, and I believe the "hereafter" is my next challenge, not my present challenge. My present challenge is to live with God in this life. I can't believe that this life I've been given is my "waiting room" for eternal life, or even my "test" for whether I can earn the right spot in the afterlife. And perhaps the hardest part of the present challenge is to meet God in humanity. Almost everyone can see the splendor of the Creator in a waterfall, a sunset, the ocean, a forest, a storm, and believe God is in all those things, and as Christians we're told to see the face of Jesus in the homeless person, the refugee, the drug addict. How much more challenging, even than that, is it to seek out and meet God in the frail, fractious people around us — the family member who grates on your nerves, the colleague who lies and gets away with it, the broken people we all are on the inside? It's a great mystery that those aspects of humanity are acceptable to God, even lovable to God, when they are so unlovable to us… and yet from us broken, frail, flawed people, come the finest gifts of humanity — the pilgrims with dirt on their feet stir the heart of the child Jesus, of Mary, of each other, and of God — somehow especially in their frailty and humanity. The person who has known sorrow can reach out the hand of compassion, the person who has been frozen by fear finds a way to calm the frightened; those who have been hungry — metaphorically or physically - find the way to feed those around them.

The ultimate message of the resurrection of Jesus — I believe this is the thing God is MOST trying to tell us — is that God has deemed us worthy of redemption — in all of our fragility, in all of our faults — and since it's God's belief, God's choice for us, we need to try to get our minds around it too — no small task.

What does the resurrection mean?

-It means a promise made by God to the entire world and every generation, and a promise kept — It's a truly immense, really an infinite God, who can make a promise for all time, no strings attached, no loopholes, no fine print, no hidden clauses. Presented with this promise by a God vast enough to make and KEEP a promise for all of time, and who is yet small and intimate enough to join each secret tear we cry as they leave our eyes and roll down our faces — what are we to do? How must we change to meet and embrace that God?

Just like Jesus had to be both fully human and fully divine every minute that he was here on earth (something personally I find completely mindboggling) I believe we must do two things at once, also. We must grow and stretch our minds and our hearts and our souls around the concept that not only is humanity completely beloved and chosen by God, we've been deemed worthy of this love, and worthy of eternal life. That's the message of the resurrection, in as eloquent and profound an expression as can ever be made. That's the first thing we must do. It's a tall, tall order — it'll be a challenge, but I am ready to try to believe that God has written the words "loved" "chosen" and "worthy" and "eternal" into my DNA in this life and onto my soul for all time and has done the same for every person who has ever lived or will live.

The second thing I think we must do might be a little easier, especially if you're a cradle Catholic like me, well-acquainted with your own unworthiness. And that second thing is to begin to see and meet each other as beloved, worthy and chosen and redeemed forever by God. This is a qualitatively different idea than the command to "love one another," although no less difficult. I don't know about you, but I don't think I can love everyone in the way we understand the love we have for those closest to us, our lovers, partners, family members, dearest friends. But wouldn't our approach to any situation change a lot if the starting point was an acknowledgement, down at the soul level, that the person before me, in any interaction, is "loved," "chosen," "worthy" and "eternal" too? How precious would each person's dignity become if we truly believed this? Perhaps that's the view from God's eyes into each of us, and if it's more than we can ask ourselves to do every day at all times, we must strive for the moments in our lives that we do attain it. Then, I believe we'll be seeing with EASTER eyes, we'll be glimpsing what Jesus — both human and divine, who lived, died and lived again for eternity - was trying to tell us in the simplest, most profound way with his resurrection.

I believe we as a community took a very important step on this journey on Ash Wednesday when we answered the question, "Now is the acceptable time for…" I was very moved by what was written on the slip I selected and I carried with me throughout Lent. It read, "Now is the acceptable time to deepen my relationship with God through prayer and meditation."

I'd like to borrow that idea and suggest this about the message of Jesus' resurrection. Now is the acceptable time to know that you and everyone around you and every person for all of time are:

LOVED

CHOSEN

WORTHY

And

ETERNAL

How are we, as Easter people, going to live it?

TOP OF PAGE