Now What?

Alleluia! Christ is risen!                                 

Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

Then all the people said,
“Now what?”

Last Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. We decorated the church, sang songs, words were spoken, and we shared a meal we call communion or eucharist, which means, “thanksgiving.”

Then we left the building and went out into the world. It’s now Wednesday. What difference does last Sunday make out here? That depends. Do you and I believe what we heard on Sunday? Is resurrection an event that happened only once, for Jesus, or is it a sign of God’s continuing work and movement in our world, now?

How might our lives be different if we acted on what we celebrated and said we believed last Sunday? To jumpstart your thinking, here are a few words from Wendell Berry.

“So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

Practice resurrection.”

(Excerpted from: “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” from The Country of Marriage, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1973. Also published by Counterpoint Press in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1999; The Mad Farmer Poems, 2008; New Collected Poems, 2012.)