A homily for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 11, 2021
Acts 4:32-35, 1 Jn 5:1-6, Jn 20:19-31
The bumper stickers are plentiful. The sentiment should be universal.
Live simply so that others may simply live.
The quote is credited to Mahatma Gandhi, whose life is a shining example of walking the talk.
The bumper stickers are a shining example of portable theology, and their sales (mostly) support activist groups walking the talk.
Truth via SUV.
There’s a lot of that on the highways and byways if you have the eyes — and heart — to see it.
In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we learn of an early community that walked the talk. These early Christians shared, allotted their resources in common, received from each according to their abilities and gave to each according to their needs.
Marxism.
Communism.
And … wait for it …
WWJD — What Would Jesus Do.
Now, to be sure, we in the West have spent the last century defending against Leninist Bolshevism that was communist in name but totally non-communal in nature. And because those lying dictatorships made us see red, and rightly so, we came to despise the ideals — and the truth — as we stood against the system.
Dictatorships and denial of each of our God-given gifts and talents and individual personalities and creativity are great evils. If they’re not officially mortal sins, they should be.
But sharing? Community? Cooperation and interaction? Systems that promote our cherished Catholic social justice teachings? They’re blessings full of grace.
And if true justice and charity are systemic, where do they come from? How are they sustained? How do they grow?
They start, they thrive, they grow from each of our hearts.
Not from some imagined “top” down but up from each member of the community, each of us who knows down to the core of our being that we — the “comm” part, acting in unity — can do much for each other.
To each according to their needs and from each according to their abilities.
Now, it’s true that our American way of life, based on a consumer economy and the notion of rugged individualism, can stifle putting the greater good of the whole ahead of fulfilling the wants and desires of only one of us.
And, individually, it is OK to enjoy the fruits of our labors. We’ve earned our leisure and our possessions.
As long as they don’t possess us.
And I’m the first to admit that I like having tech toys and a couple more pairs of shoes than I truly need.
Want. Not need.
Want is luxury. Need is necessity.
Jesus puts necessity ahead of luxury. That’s God’s truth.
So I’m jolted with humility, joy and a reality check every time our youth group starts a clothing drive or collects groceries — for the community food bank.
Community. Unity.
Because there are needy people among us. Many — too many — of them are the essential workers we praise and pray for but whom we often do not see as they do the necessary jobs that have sustained us throughout the year-plus of the coronavirus pandemic.
Jesus sees them.
The Christ we become must see them.
The Christ we become when we share in the Eucharist — in comm-union. We as Christ to others, to our community, to our beautifully diverse human family of brothers and sisters, can share Christ’s word, Christ’s truth by living that truth. By being that truth. By ensuring that the needs of the many are satisfied before the wants of the few are.
By living simply …
As St. Francis did.
As Gandhi did.
As Dorothy Day did.
As Jesus did.
So others may simply live.
P.S. It ain’t easy. Nothing good God asks us to do or to be ever is. But it’s always worth the effort, and the rewards from God are great.
