Easter 2007
Dare I Eat a Peach?
Once again we are dramatically caught up in the sacred liturgy that is central to our Christian faith and which also lies at the heart of all human history. The question of life and death lies at the depths of all our consciousness. We can face this reality or avoid it at our cost. Is this all there is? That is a question that haunts everyone yet as Christians we demonstrate clearly in our Easter celebrations our belief in the person of Jesus who was seen to be both human and divine.
He is the one who so challenged the systems of his day, both political and religious that his presence could not be tolerated by those in power at the time. The only way they could deal with him and his perceptive was by arranging his execution. But that was not the end. The resurrection is a testimony to the fact that the way of Jesus is a way that can be trusted even when it is opposed by the most death-dealing systems. This is the way that we can follow with the assurance that we will never ultimately be annihilated. Notice that we are to follow the way and not merely to believe in the facts about Jesus' death and resurrection. It is right to believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead but that is not enough. We are to believe in or rather entrust ourselves to the person of the risen Christ. We are, as the early church reminds us, to be "Followers of the Way." Remember Jesus says, "I am the Way, the Truth and Life." To follow the Way is to be caught up in that Truth and Life. For this Truth and Life are the gifts which have been shared with us and are rooted deep within every one of us as part of our human nature and are the very Ground of our Being. To be a follower of the Way then means to live one's own inner truth, engaging in life to the full.
Fifty years ago in a book entitled Leave thy Country Leonard Johnson remarked "God doesn't want our deeds of heroism or our comfortable feeling of righteousness." So what does God want? Surely the gospels show us that the Way of Jesus was always life-giving to the entire cosmos and for ourselves to experience the enrichment of creatively living life to the full. I rather like the image conjured up for us by T.S.Eliot's poem The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." Regretfully the old man Prufrock bemoans his lack of initiative and now he feels he has been stingy in the way he has partaken of the super abundance of God's gift of life. Prufrock goes on in the same poem to ask "Do I dare to eat a peach?" Do you see that the old man Prufrock is challenged to risk life- to trust his inner voice and to live fully his life? Yet he fails and loses out. Perhaps God's message to us this Easter is to "dare to eat a peach" to dare to grasp life in all its fullness and live it, liberated from the fears that imprison us by Christ the Liberator who sets us free. .As People of the Way then we are summoned to take the leap of faith - a leap into the gift of life- and the quality of the life given to us is described in John's gospel as Eternal. The Greek word that John uses points out that this word Eternal is not speaking of something that happens after we die but a quality of life to be lived right here and right now.
Like so many poets and writers W. H. Auden recognises the challenge of risk-taking for the sake of life. He writes:
"The sense of danger must not disappear
The way is certainly both short and steep.
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
