Love God. Live the Eucharist.

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Easter 5C, April 28, 2013, by Fr. Kevin Anderson

So . . . do you think Jesus was like-able or was he not like-able? I mean, I think that he was a
great guy. He always had kids hanging on to him (and kids can sense a stinker). He was always
invited to people’s homes for a meal (and we usually don’t invite jerks into our homes). He
drew big crowds, he used props when we was preaching (um, great idea) and he was always
looking out for the little guy. My image of Jesus is not the stiff looking, perfectly combed hair,
always serious guy. Instead I imagine him to be a joyful person . . . and I believe that joy is
contagious.

So why did people not like him? Well, he often did things that were not “status quo.” He was
always putting people above the religious norms and practicesw. Here are some of the things
Jesus did:
-healing on the Sabbath
-touching a dead child
-talking to a Samaritan woman
-dining with tax collectors and sinners
-saving an adulteress woman

And there’s more . . .
-holding up a common person as more righteous than a Pharisee
-holding up a Samaritan as more virtuous than priests and Levis.
-declaring that a Roman soldier had greater faith “than all in Israel”
-touching a leper (which really would have upset the churchy people because touching a leper
makes you unclean, and Jesus does the opposite . . . he makes lepers clean)

Of course, scholars speculate that all this hostility was growing for years and the “tipping point”
was when Jesus cleaned out the temple. “That did it; we’ve got to get rid of him.”

So in the gospel story today, which occurs at the Last Supper with Judas going out to hand Jesus
over to the authorities, it probably wasn’t tough for Judas to make a deal with them. For Jesus
was really getting the religious leaders angry.

But I think the real reason that Jesus was hated was that preached that love needs to be
unconditional. In the gospel Jesus says it clearly . . . “I am giving you a NEW commandment:
love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” Remember that
Jesus consistently loved the outcasts. The old way of loving was to love only those who think
like us or act like us . . . or to love someone because of what they do. But Jesus comes along and
says, “Nope, I want my disciples to love ALL people and to love them unquestionably.”

Lots of people couldn’t handle that. Lots of people today still can’t handle that. The mission of
Jesus was very clear: to show that God’s love, forgiveness and mercy are available to all, Jew
and Gentile, slave and free, women and men. We could probably add to that list: the lesbian
couple, the woman who had an abortion and even the Boston bombers. Wow, that’s tough for I
don’t want to love. But what does “new commandment mean?”

It’s funny, God’s love for all people was both the reason for and the result of Jesus’s
crucifixion. Christ becomes the cosmic outcast so that all sinners, misfits and outsiders (i.e. all
of us) might be included among God’s people.

Fr. Joseph Veneroso, former editor for Maryknoll magazine, said, “As Christians, we are
obligated to mirror this scandalous love to others. To do this this we must let our egos “be
crucified” with Christ (which is a rendering of Galatians 2:20) and willingly accept the
consequences of violating arbitrary laws and customs that serve only to exclude and divide
people into “us” and “them.”

Lots of you have a cross on your person . . . e.g. around your neck, at the base of a rosary, even
tattooed on your body. Some of your think that it’s just a nice piece of jewelry.

When we wear a cross, we are proclaiming our faith in love . . . the love that caused God
to create the world (the trees, the freedom to choose sin, and all that followed.) We are also
taking sides in the world’s power disputes, throwing in our lot, just as Jesus did with the
suffering of the world,
with the poor,
the starving,
the landless,
the prisoners,
the victim,
the sick,
the weak.

When we take up our cross . . . we take up the negative consequences of our positive
choices.

Blessed Pope John 23rd said, “The secret of my ministry is in the cross you see opposite my
bed. It’s there so that I can see it in my first waking moment and before going to sleep.
It’s there, also, so that I can walk to it during the long evening hours. Look at it. See it as
I see it. Those open arms of Jesus on the cross have been the program of my pontificate:
they say that Christ died for all, FOR ALL. No one is excluded from his love and from his
forgiveness.

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