STAY WITH US
April 12, 2010
But
they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is
almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”
~ Luke 24: 29
It is Holy Saturday 2010. At the front of the small
parish Church
of St. Therese of the Child Jesus in the town of Kipushi, Democratic Republic of Congo, a large
paschal fire is already burning as the members of the
Congregation gather to celebrate the Easter Vigil. They come
dressed in bright, beautiful and celebrative colors and carrying
the candles they have purchased in the small shops around town.
They fill not only the benches of the Church but the many small
plastic chairs that have been added along the sides of the
church and down the main aisle, as well as into the foyer and
out onto the front porch. The Church is decorated with strings
of colored and flashing lights, many hand cut and fashioned
decorations, even an electric lantern that will flash with the
other smaller lights during the singing of the Gloria. In the
excitement of meeting and conversation as friends and family
gather, there is already not only an air of expectancy but a
sense of deep life, love, and hope that already manifests the
truth of Resurrection.
Shortly after 8:00 pm the fire and the Easter Candle are
blessed, and the procession enters the Church. First comes the
deacon carrying the Easter Candle, three times chanting “Light
of Christ”. As he does so the servers share the light from the
candle with the members of the Congregation who light each
other’s candles. Then the music begins and the cross bearer,
the thurifer, and the other altar servers, dressed in white
cassocks with red crosses enter dancing rhythmically to the
music. They are followed by the young people to be baptized, who
are dressed in white and also dancing, along with their
catechists. Then come all the various ministers of the liturgy
and finally the parish priest who will preside.
For the next three and a half hours in song, dance, prayer
and proclamation the new life of Jesus in and among us all is
celebrated. In this believing community in this small town in
one of the world’s poorest countries the reality of the victory
of life over death and hope over despair is expressed by people
who not only believe it but seem to know it to be true. In
commenting on Luke 9:9 (“Say nothing until the Son of Man is
risen from the dead.”) Oswald Chambers says that the Lord told
his disciples and is teaching us that one should not speak or
teach “until the life of the Risen Christ so dominates you that
you understand what the historic Christ taught. When you get to
the right state on the inside, the word which Jesus has spoken
is so plain that you are amazed you did not see it before. ”
For those of us raised in the Christian faith tradition
the Resurrection of Jesus is often a belief, an idea, a
doctrine, and a hope. Yet, as a stranger in this place so
different from where I live out my life, I sensed that among
these people the Resurrection was not merely idea, doctrine or
even a vague hope, but that it was rather a living personal
reality. They didn’t just think about or even just believe the
words they were hearing and the event they were remembering,
many of them understood and knew it.
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was
talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures
to us?” (Luke 24: 32) How is it in the midst of lives of such
deprivation and want that the life of not only the suffering
Jesus but of the resurrected Jesus is so recognized and lived?
Perhaps it is somehow actually due to the very pervasive and
acknowledged experience of want and need which constitutes the
lives of the people in this Church. Life here is concerned with
the needs of day to day existence. As a result it is a life
that is very simple. There is always time here to walk outside,
to speak to and welcome friends and share conversation with
them, to share whatever food one has with those who arrive to
visit, to hear and recognize the sounds of all the forms of life
that surround us , and to experience joy in friendship, beauty,
and the surprises of each moment. For all the difficulty of
life here, there is great attentiveness to what is given as it
is given. And this includes, so it seems, the deepest gift, the
life of the Risen Jesus that is our deepest identity.
The life of the people of Kipushi is not to be
romanticized. It is very difficult and it is filled with all
the conflicts and contradictions that constitute the human
experience in every time and place. But, because the very basic
needs are so great, there is no denying the fact that to be
human is to be lacking, it is to be in want. And this
recognition of lack potentially evokes our capacity for a
disposition of hospitality: “Stay with us because it is almost
evening and the day is nearly over.” There is no pretense of
self-sufficiency but rather recognition of the need for each
other, the need to welcome the stranger in his or her hunger but
also to recognize that the stranger’s presence assuages my own
hunger. This is the experience of the Disciples on the way to
Emmaus who not only welcome but urge the stranger to stay with
them, to eat with them and thereby discover that this is the
Lord.
In the developed world of plenty, we can live lives of
dissociation from our basic human reality with its pervasive
lack and neediness. Perhaps this is a part of the reason for
the lack of vitality in our lives, our relationships, our
prayer, and our worship. Our goal is to be self-sufficient, and
so we are wary of whomever or whatever might disturb us and the
lives we have created. The cost of this for us is not only a
diminished life of relationship with others, but also a distance
from “the right state on the inside”. That right state is no
less than the reality of the Resurrection, it is the Christ form
within.
On Easter we celebrate the triumph of a life that
is our origin and destiny. Much of our lives, however, we live
an alternative life to this Risen Life, one that is of our own
making. For this alternative life, the Resurrection is but an
idea, a belief, or at best a hope. But, we can know not only
the truth but the life of the Resurrection the more we make a
space within us for that Life. If we do so, our deepest identity
in Christ may, in time, begin to dominate our lives. As the
people of Kipushi teach us, making that space requires that we
awaken to our inner poverty and pay attention to the riches that
are offered to us in the presence of the stranger who appeals to
us both from without and within.
