Lectionary: Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18
En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo Amen.
We gather today as the family of God to hear our family story, the story of how we became who we are, Christians… followers of Jesus Christ.
One of my family's stories was about my Poppa, who came to the US from Ireland and kept his family fed by bootlegging whiskey and being chauffeur to a rich family in NYC. This and other stories taught me of my Poppa's ethic for hard work and devotion to family.
And there's the story of my Puerto Rican Mamacita, who would snap green beans in the local market to test their freshness. When the store owner would try to stop her, this tiny but fierce woman would respond with the only sentence she knew in English. It started with "Shut up you…" but it ends a cuss word, so I won't finish it.
Mamacita was a mother bear, fiercely protective of her daughter who emigrated with her, and she was tough as nails, even though her life as an immigrant was difficult and lonely.
Our family stories fascinate, educate, and delight us. Some of them make us laugh, others make us cry, but they all help us understand who we are, where we came from, even why we look or act like we do.
These stories ground us in the present, give meaning to our past and point us toward our future. It's why we tell them over and over, generation after generation.
And that is exactly what we do every time we gather as the family of God in church. Each time we gather for worship and re-tell the stories of our faith, the words and images in them become part of our very essence.
Over time, they begin to live deep within us. This is why I encourage the presence of our children in church.
At every celebration of Holy Eucharist we hear the stories of our forebears in the faith who are the source of our identity as a people of God, followers of Christ, and pilgrims on an eternal divine journey into unity.
These stories show us how those who came before us did their best -succeeding AND failing in their "growing up" in the faith. They weren't perfect, and neither will we be, but when we fail God redeems and another generation witnesses it and is transformed.
The family story in today's gospel from John carries us once more on that journey we've been practicing all Holy Week: from shock and horror to joyful songs of praise.
When Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb before sunrise and sees the stone already rolled away, we share her moment of panic, then her devastation and helplessness as she weeps outside the empty tomb.
Then, when Jesus approaches Mary but she doesn't recognize him, we hear our inner voice call out to her: 'He's there, Mary! It's OK. Look - It's him!'
We know the story, though. We know that Mary is going to recognize Jesus once he speaks her name, but we still share her surprise which leads to joy, and we exhale our relief with Mary as she prays his name: "Rabbouni."
Connected once again to the love that is the life of the world, Mary suddenly understands everything differently. Her emptiness is filled. She has been prepared to serve, and when Jesus sends her to tell the others, which flies in the face of all the norms of their culture, she goes anyway - trusting in the path Jesus is setting before her and her part in it.
In this new covenant inaugurated by Jesus our Savior, those who, like Mary, were excluded and marginalized in the world are now included, respected, even honored in the household of God. All of the privileged hierarchies of the world have been brought low and leveled out by this new covenant.
Even privileged Peter finally came to understand, albeit a bit later, as we heard him preach to the Gentiles saying: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality."
No one is excluded in the kingdom of God and nothing on earth can hold us bound anymore …except us. We can refuse to go where God sends us. We can take the new thing God is presenting to us and re-form it into that old thing we know and want to have again.
That's why Jesus immediately cautions Mary not to hold on to him. It isn't about my returning to you, Mary (he says) it's about my returning you to God.
In Jesus' resurrection humanity is reconciled to God in a new and everlasting unity.
Theologian and Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr says: "In Jesus, matter and spirit were presented as totally one. Human and Divine were put together in his ordinary body, just as in the rest of humanity. That's Christianity's core and central message!"
Teresa of Avila describes this divine unity as complete and permanent, saying, "it is like rain falling from the heavens into a river or spring; there is nothing but water there and it is impossible to divide or separate the water belonging to the river from that which fell from the heavens." ("Interior Castle," 235)
It is a simple, profound, impossible truth - and it is our family story.
So, as we celebrate this holiest of feasts today, remembering how we came to be who we are and trusting Jesus and the path he is setting before us, let us renew the vows of our Baptism - found on page 304 in the Book of Common Prayer.
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