7th Sunday of Easter, C May 20, 2007
Jesus prayed, "Righteous Father, the world does not know you." A glance around will prove Jesus’ words as true today as when he first uttered them. Look anywhere and you'll see human activity and economic greed causing the gradual disintegration of God's creation. We seem to be facing global environmental disaster from the warming of the planet due to unrestrained human activity that puts profit and comfort and convenience first. Daily brutality and carnage continues in Iraq and the Sudan. None of this is the work of people who know God.
Look at the lack of respect for human life in our own country, the unborn, the illegal immigrant, the forgotten and abused in prison, the elderly warehoused in so many substandard nursing homes. Look around our college campuses and you'll see racial tensions, intolerance, and prejudice simmering just beneath the surface. Are these the hallmarks of those who know God? I don’t think so. The term "human community" sounds nice, but it doesn't exist yet in our world. Jesus and we are still praying "that all may be one."
The absence of world community means that people look for an experience of oneness in other places. Many people, hopefully, find it in the family. Others look to the Church for community. Can you expect to find community here in the Church? Yes, but not automatically, because community is not something that is guaranteed to exist wherever Christians gather. This struck home most dramatically on various sabbatical visits I have made to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Constantine built the original church over the rock of Calvary and the tomb of Christ. Christian monks have controlled the Church for centuries. They are Catholic Franciscans, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox, three groups who actually live in the Church. But they can't agree on anything. In the 1850's they couldn't agree on who would get the keys to the building, so the British gave the keys to a Muslim family who to this day has sole control over opening and closing the doors. For many years scaffolding was up inside the Church, but no work went on because the monks couldn't agree on what was to be done. Meanwhile the building was falling down around them. Every inch of floor space is jealously guarded by the group in control of that particular area, and God help the monk whose garb brushes against the wrong altar step.
No, community doesn't automatically exist wherever Christians gather, even at the tomb of Christ. Community is a common bond that we must build up by our efforts. Some Catholics are in a perpetual search for the right parish... you know, one where there's a good sense of community. They have difficulty finding it because they expect that when they walk into Mass, if community is there, they'll absorb it by osmosis. Sorry, that doesn't happen. Community is what occurs when you join the construction crew. It takes time and effort to build up, and constant activity to sustain and keep from disintegrating. It should be easier to build community here than out there in secular society. After all, here we hold the same values and we have the best resource at our disposal, the Holy Spirit, the very life breath of God as the source of our strength and the guarantee of the success of our efforts. I look at the Church as a laboratory for building community. Here we practice, learn the tricks, and sharpen our skills. From here we proceed to the vastly more difficult task of building a world community. But, in this, too, we are guaranteed success someday. When Jesus says "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end," that's exactly what he means, the end is guaranteed. It's called the kingdom of God. When all people are in one community and all creation is in harmony, then, the kingdom of God is at hand.
As Christians we have the privilege of building community, an essential part of building the kingdom. We now prepare to be nourished once again with the life of God for this challenge, to help make "thy kingdom come."