I need all the kids to come up here and help me with the homily. [Kids come up]. Now you have all heard about bunnies at Easter time, right? And I don’t have one today. We don’t know exactly why a bunny is associated with Easter . . . partly from the Anglo-Saxon goddess named Eostra who had a bird that would lay colored eggs and she turned the bird into a rabbit, partly it is from the notion that rabbits have lots of little bunnies and spring is a time for new life.
But anyway, what do rabbits and bunnies like to do? [Elicit answers until ‘hop is proclaimed. Reveal the word HOP on the altar]. So let us practice some being like a bunny and hop.
[All hop.]
-now hop on one foot
-now hop on the other foot
-now hop and turn in a circle
OK, now hop back to your place in the pew.
Many people would say that hopping is useless, it’s a waste of time. There are certainly better ways to travel from here to there. It might be good exercise, but there are safer ways to get in shape (for in hopping one could twist an ankle or fall over and get injured). The funny thing about hopping is that is serves NO purpose. The unique thing about hopping is that it is simply FUN!
Most of us don’t have time for fun, for there are serious things to be done . . . e.g. prayers to be said, arguments to be won, people put in their place for bad thinking, work to be done. Some of us even grind ourselves through faith, trying to get to heaven, which can only occur by believing the right doctrine, or never missing Mass, or obeying all the purity codes.
Yet remember what Jesus said in Matthew 18:3, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” A defining characteristic of children is that they know how to play and to have fun . . . often times with no goal in mind, no score to achieve, no performance to improve upon. Play is not so much an activity, as it is an attitude.
And Easter is all about celebrating a playful attitude with life AND with God. There’s famous saying that goes, “Jesus died to save us from our sins.” Now, one way to look at that is that God didn’t like any of us until Jesus died. Then God said, “Oh hey, I now like those creatures I created, since Jesus died.” It’s called Atonement Theory, i.e. Jesus needed to atone for Adam and Eve’s sin and the all of our sins.
Well, I prefer to interpret the phrase ‘Jesus died to save us from our sins’ is that Jesus modeled for us a new way to live. He saved us (modeled for us) that we don’t have to stay so grumpy, wanting revenge, wanting pay-back, needing for that person to fess-up, coming crawling back asking forgiveness for the wrongs that they did.
If anyone had wrongs done to him it would be Jesus. And Easter is not some magic act that got Jesus to change God’s mind about us, Easter is changing our minds about God and about life.
Fr. Richard Rohr writes, “Jesus in effect, showed us how evil is transformed into good. As if Jesus said, I am going to take the worst thing and turn it into the best thing, so you will never be victimized, destroyed, or helpless again! I am giving YOU the victory over death.”
His death and resurrection was as if to say “choose to live, let it go, start over, choose another technique, try forgiveness, try play.”
I know that for myself, I get so tired of holding onto grudges. I get so worn out being angry. If you are like me, I get so exhausted being perfect (while everyone else is so imperfect). I get so tired of hanging on the cross all day . . . or all year.
You see, we don’t have to be God, we don’t have to be perfect, we don’t have to have all the answers, or have everything figured out or be in constant control. For when we act differently, for example being like children and learning to trust, to trust God . . . and not make life so serious but to put on the attitude that God is in charge and not us. We are invited to add Easter to our life. [Add an E to HOP to create HOPE]. And hope in goodness, in playfulness, in joy.
Spiritual pioneer and scientist Teilhard Do Chardin says that “joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Olympian sprinter Eric Liddel is quoted in the film Chariots of Fire saying, “When I run I feel God’s pleasure.”
Maybe it’s time for you to go feel God’s pleasure, go waste some time, go have some fun, go be joyful . . . . perhaps go do something that makes no sense, because God’s got this, not you . . . go hop. [I hop back to my chair.]