Who are the gardeners in our lives, the ones we mistake for someone else but who are truly the presence of Christ?

Following up on the post from last night which excerpts the sermon by Fr. Jack Lynch, I was reminded of a passage from the end of Elizabeth A. Johnson's talk about rediscovering Mary Magdalene and what her ordained vocation, ordered by the highest of all highest of all authorities in the Gospel of John, means for the future of Christianity.   Again, this is my transcription from about this point in her lecture.  Beginning with a line from the Easter hymn Victimae Paschali Laudes she started her lecture with,

"Tell us, Mary, what you saw on the way?" 

The way we decide to tell her [Mary Magdalene's]  story can become  an impetus for growing an understanding of  the possibilities for women in the church today.  In rendering her visible women also become visible.  In reclaiming her she reclaims women who witnessed to a God who calls forth life out of death.   And for women and men, alike, there are questions she asks that can frame our own lives and ministries.  

How do we continue her courageous solidarity with those who suffer and her apostolic witness to new life?   

Where are the crosses of our day that others run from and we are called to stand by?  

Who are the gardeners in our lives, the ones we mistake for someone else but who are truly the presence of Christ?  

How does our name have to be called for us to recognize the Voice of God? 

Which ways of living are we called to leave behind in order to live the Gospel? 

Of course it was the provocative question about which faces of Christ we are mistaking for gardeners - really for any menial or least among us - which I recalled in the context of Jack Lynch's beautiful recounting of his rediscovery of the same thing. 

Like a good teacher, Elizabeth Johnson gives us questions to answer, questions that could take papers and books to come up with an adequate response to, or they could be answered even better by just living the answers to them.  I am going to try to take them to heart and if I do, I expect there will have to be a lot of changes in my life starting as soon as Christmas is over.   When the real work of Christmas starts.