Christmas Eve - Dec 24, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
Christmas Eve – Thursday, December 24, 2015

Isaiah 9:2-7 
Titus 2:11-14 
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Adoration of the Shepherds - Guido Reni (Italian Baroque painter 1575 – 1642)

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we prayCast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.O come to us, Our Lord Emmanuel.
(from the hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem, written by Episcopal priest Phillips Brooks)

Emmanuel. God among us. God around us. God within us.

Tonight, we celebrate the nearness of God in remembering the birth of his only begotten son, Jesus of Nazareth. It is an amazing event that marks the beginning of a great Christian mystery; the Incarnation. God takes on a human destiny to manifest God’s deep engagement with humanity and to make us understand divinity in a new light. And this starts with the birth of a baby named Jesus.

Jesus is source of all there was, is and is to come. Jesus is the Word that brought forth creation. Jesus is the Messiah. And eventually, he will also be the One crucified, risen from the dead and exalted to God in heaven. And later still he shall come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead.

Jesus is all of that and more. And yet in the stillness of that night, he came to us in the vulnerable and lovely form of a baby. The fullness of God chose to be made flesh in the particulars of a little baby born to parents of modest means in a backwater of the Roman Empire. The embodiment of God in human flesh is amazing enough. God had no need to highlight it by choosing an important, famous or rich person to do it. 

On the contrary, the nativity story as it is told to us by the evangelist Luke shows clearly how God loves the humble, the simple and even the marginalized.

Mary and Joseph come from a small village in Galilee. Joseph is a craftsman not a wealthy merchant or landowner. They are not important or prominent people.

God chooses to come to us in the precarity of a temporary dwelling for Mary and Joseph, a simple Bethlehem building shared with animals. 

And God chooses to announce the glory of the incarnation to simple shepherds, a reviled group in the society of their time. Shepherds were regarded as dishonorable because they were not home at night to protect their family. And they were considered of dubious morality since they let their flocks graze regardless of property boundaries.

Yet it is to these lowliest of lowlies that God chooses to announce the birth of the Savior. Angels and shepherds are celebrating together. Heaven and earth are rejoicing in wonderment. 

The birth of Jesus Christ shows us the humility of our God and God’s solidarity with all of humanity. God cares for the poor and simple. God’s glory is found among them. Let us not forget that when our Christmas celebrations recede into fond memories of great food and gift-giving.

*****

But the advent of Jesus, the arrival of Christ does not limit itself to an historical event in occupied Palestine twenty centuries ago. 

The very good news of tonight is that the advent of Jesus is a continuing event that happens in each one of us as we continue our journey with God and towards God. 

As announced, the advent of Jesus will happen again when he will manifest himself to us at a time unknown, when we will all, living and dead, be transformed by self-knowledge, deep acceptance of our reality and a more total embrace with God. 

This is to happen at some time in the future. We do not know when. We don’t need to know when. Good and bad will be fully revealed and Jesus will again be with us in the flesh.  It is a promise our God has made to us and it is coming.

And then, there is now, the in-between time. The time of already and not yet. Jesus has already lived, died and risen from the dead in our historical time.  And Jesus has not yet returned to us in glory.

This in-between time is where we live and love and die. And Christ himself promised to be with us in that in-between time. In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ post-resurrection meeting with the disciples, he tells them: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20b).

So how is Jesus here with us today, now, in this very instant and in this very place? It is not only in the representation of baby Jesus in the creche; although that is a lovely way of making visible and tangible a presence which otherwise often eludes us.

There are four ways in which we may experience Emmanuel, God among us, tonight.

One is to look around you. Please give a friendly glance to your neighbors. They may be strangers, they may be friends or loved ones; no matter. Each one of them is a manifestation of the Divine in your life. You may not readily see it, but in our daily dealings with one another, we are invited into Christ among us.

Two, if it feels good, close your eyes for a few moments and focus on your inner being. The life within you, is also a manifestation of God among us. If you take time for prayer or meditation on a regular basis, you know that a sense of the divine can be glimpsed there at times. 

And if you’ve done prayer or meditation often enough, you know that the Divine presence is at work within us whether we glimpse it or not. God is never absent from you. Even if you don’t feel present to God; God is there anyway, closer to you than your very breath.

Three, God wants to give godself to you through the sacrament of creation. Nothing that the Creator initiated is absent from the grace of God. The material world also manifests aspects of the divine Love. Even the work of humanity’s hands participates of this divine momentum towards revealing what Teilhard de Chardin referred to as the Cosmic Christ.

So Jesus - God - is with us here today, manifested in each other, in ourselves and in both the ordinariness and awesomeness of creation.

And last but not least, Jesus gave his life that we may receive mercy, life abundant and love overflowing. It may be hard to imagine when we celebrate baby Jesus’ coming to us in human flesh tonight. But at the end of his historical presence amongst us, Jesus gave us a visible sign of his ongoing flowing grace for us in life and beyond death. 

And this visible sign, this sacrament is the Eucharist, the bread and wine that we will soon get to share as Jesus’ flesh and blood. When we come forward for the Eucharist, we reinforce our willingness to be part of Christ in the world. When we receive the consecrated bread and wine we incorporate Christ into us and us into Christ. Christ is receiving you into his cosmic body.

*****

Tonight, let us rejoice on God’s generosity in sharing his Son.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

And let us remember that Jesus is with us always to the end of times. Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors! (Luke 2:14)

Merry Christmas!

Advent 4 C - Dec 20, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Peter Rostron, OHC
Advent 4 C - Sunday, December 20, 2015

Micah 5:2-5a
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

The Visitation

I’ve been struck over the past three weeks by the severity of some of the readings we’ve heard here at the monastery during Matins and the Eucharist. It’s been like an ongoing one-two punch for me: the prophets at church and then Donald Trump in the news. John the Baptist warned about trees being cut down and thrown into the fire. Jesus spoke of distress among nations and of people fainting from fear and foreboding for what is coming upon the world. Isaiah told of a voice, crying out in the wilderness. A voice, as I imagined it, that was filled with urgency and yearning and anguish. There was, in particular, one reading, from the prophet Amos, that grabbed my attention. I’ll share a bit of it with you.

“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake...I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”

Amos spoke this message almost 3000 years ago, so it can’t possibly apply to us, can it? But I’m increasingly afraid that it does.

I look around, and I see a world filled with material excess and enticing advertisements and numbing distractions. Distractions that help us avoid looking at all the real pain and suffering and injustice that exists. A world, as Amos described, that we have filled with festivals and solemn assemblies and the noise of songs. I have been lamenting, also, how much our perceptions, our desires, and our choices can be so heavily influenced by superficial, appealing packaging, by what looks good on TV or online or on the shelf at the store. How much our opinions and beliefs can be so heavily influenced by the attractively packaged words of a newspaper, a blog, or a captivating politician. Our society seems fueled by a desire for quick, easy, off-the-shelf, feel-good solutions and entertainments. What we like, how we behave, what we wear, what we buy, what we believe - is too often the product of a bombardment of seductive advertising and images. We are at risk of our selves becoming defined purely by outside inputs and losing our own inner, grounded, holy selves. The world seems to be on very shaky ground these days.

There was an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post a few weeks ago by Anne Applebaum in which she talked about the terrible damage done to democratic debate and civilized discussion by our reliance on the Internet for news and our immersion in various forms of social media. She wrote, “Nevermind that Donald Trump’s claim that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the collapse of the World Trade Center is false; it is now possible to live in a virtual reality where Trump’s lies are acclaimed as the hidden truth that the mainstream media have concealed from the masses. The long-term impact of such disinformation is profound: it creates cynicism and apathy. Eventually it means nobody believes anything. People aren’t bothered by Trump’s lies or Vladimir Putins’ lies or the Islamic State’s lies because they don’t believe anything they read anymore. It’s impossible to know what’s true.” Shaky ground, indeed.

But finally, I find some relief upon hearing today’s gospel, welcoming Mary into my Advent experience. After a steady stream of harsh words from the prophets, I at last feel some hope and solid truth in Mary. Her world, like ours, was fraught and dangerous, and she was faced with an unsettling and risky decision, as we often are. She could have played it safe and stuck to the social script of the time, conforming to her role as Joseph’s young betrothed, and simply said “No” to God. “Maybe someone else would be a better choice, God.” Or, “Maybe later, God, after Joseph and I have gotten married and settled down.” But, she said “Yes.” She chose to trust in God, to turn herself completely over to God’s truth, to not succumb to fear, to step, in faith, into the unknown.

And just after making this great decision, she spent three long months visiting with her cousin, Elizabeth. To connect deeply, not just exchange text messages. To share her joy, no doubt, but also to share her anxiety. To find comfort with a friend and to have the companionship of a woman who also was pregnant. Imagine those two together. Both had very good reasons to be anxious and fearful. Mary had been visited by an angel, Gabriel, as had Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, who told them of surprising things that were about to happen, and to not be afraid. Right! I suspect both Mary and Elizabeth were quite afraid. Mary, wondering how her husband Joseph might react, what might happen to their planned marriage, what could happen to her if she ended up an unwed young woman with child. And, what this child might bring. And Elizabeth, barren and older in years, suddenly and unexpectedly pregnant, who had been in seclusion for five months with a husband who had been struck mute. Yet, they had each other - and more. The Holy Spirit was with them, having come upon Mary and through Mary to Elizabeth and to her child, John, who leaped in her womb. In a way, I can see this as a beginning of the church: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit present where two or three have gathered together. What an amazing scene, an amazing focal point of God’s power there in that small house with Mary and Elizabeth and Jesus and John.

And there is in that scene great hope for us, today, too. We, as they, live in troubled times. The prophets had repeatedly warned Mary’s ancestors, the people Israel, of their sinful ways, as they continued to turn away from the Lord. They would return, and God would forgive, but it happened again and again. And our situation seems no better. Mary and Elizabeth lived under the weight of imperial domination, and we have our own, 21st-century version of forces with great wealth and power oppressing many of us. Amos’s words do ring true today. But, in the midst of the mess, across time, sits Mary. Through her, God became human to save us. Through her, we have Christ with us, within us. Even so, with Mary as our inspiration we still have to say “Yes.” Like Mary and Elizabeth, we must join together and offer each other our mutual love and support and comfort. Like Jesus, we must be free of the seductions and false securities of the world and do the hard work of living out God’s will for us. We must reach out to the tax collectors and prostitutes and Pharisees, the citizens and prisoners being mistreated by our criminal justice system, the immigrants being vilified by our leaders, the foreign peoples being killed and maimed by our bombs, our own friends and neighbors being left without adequate food or shelter or health care.

Ultimately, I believe humanity will encounter the day of the Lord. We will celebrate Christmas in just a few days, but Jesus’s birth is ongoing. He is being born within us, and God’s kingdom is coming, slowly but surely, in God’s time. It may be, as Amos said, that the day of the Lord will be darkness, not light, but that is because it won’t be - it is not now - easy. As we heard just this morning in the Revelation to John, birth pangs can be agony. There is evil in the world, and it won’t go quietly; it is systemic evil. We are called to feed the poor and visit the prisoner, but we must go further and work to eliminate poverty and create true “justice.” In the Magnificat, Mary says God has done great things for her, God’s lowly servant. And that, in his mercy, God will do good things for all who are hungry and lowly, forever, in fulfillment of his promise to the entire family of Abraham. Which means us. Even Amos, after all his harsh words, concluded, Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. So, let us say “Yes” and know that after the darkness, there will be light. And know that Mary is our companion in the birthing of Christ.

Advent 1 C - Nov 29, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Roy Parker, OHC
Advent 1 C - Sunday, November 29, 2015

Jeremiah 33:14-16
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36 

The Advent wreath in the church

I need to preface my remarks by saying that they’ve been influenced by a sermon preached by Harvey Guthrie at the National Cathedral last October at the dedication of the Jonathan Daniels Carving in the Civil Rights Porch, and also by the writing of Maria Boulding in her book entitled The Coming of God. 

Some of you may be familiar with the weekly cartoon contest which appears in the New Yorker: a cartoon without caption is printed, giving readers the opportunity to invent a caption appropriate to the drawing. Three submissions appear in the following issue of the magazine and in the week after, the winning caption is printed. 

Several weeks ago the contest depicted a bearded patriarchal God in therapy on the clouds of heaven, an angel seated alongside, taking notes. The winning caption has the angel asking, “When did you first realize you were really a woman?” 

That this caption won the poll seems to me a cultural indicator of a kind of sea change in the popular religious imagination regarding God, a change from what might be called ‘metaphysical masculinity‘ to something like ‘compassionate solidarity.‘ That is, a movement away from masculine images of God, images not easily understood nor much in tune with actual experience, images even uninviting and repelling to our sensibilities; a movement away from those sort of descriptions to a more feminine imagery characterized by the Hebrew word chesed, which appears significantly in God’s self-description to Moses in the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation . . . 

That key word is variously translated ‘kindness, loving-kindness, mercy’, and ‘steadfast love.‘ No one English word captures its meaning. It seems basically to have to do with loyalty in relationships, loyalty that is considerate of and affectionate toward the sharer of a relationship. It is not used in Hebrew of ‘kindness’ in the abstract. It bespeaks actual steadfast, loving, merciful, kind loyalty toward another. It is rooted in God’s commitment to God’s people, in God’s steadfast, loving, merciful, kind loyalty toward God’s human colleagues in the doing of justice. It is about the kind of relationship God wants people to have with God, and with each and all of their human sisters and brothers. 

It is indeed about sensitivity and responsiveness to the needs and rights of others, indeed about respecting others, but, at root, it is about affectionate, unswerving commitment to others. Which, by the way, will remind us of St. Paul’s gold standard of this in the Letter to the Romans: “(In the utmost adversity) we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come . . . nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Attending to today’s Gospel, we’ll note that the signs in the sun, moon and stars, the distress of nations confused by the roaring of the sea, the waves, and so forth were originally stage props to bolster the endurance of first century Christians under persecution who were encouraged to raise their heads and greet their approaching redemption. As if those on the way to salvation need not be that concerned about the surrounding chaos. 

Because the femininity of God is about God’s affectionate, unswerving commitment to God’s human colleagues in the doing of justice toward all persons and toward the environment, it signals the realization that now the distress of nations and the roaring of the sea and waves are no longer merely stage props, encouraging signs of redemption, but have become warning signs of imminent global collapse summoning humanity to radical action. 

At the moment, for example, the Pacific is a troublesome place, creating storms and causing problems for people and marine life across the Pacific rim and beyond, including the strong El Nino system that has formed along the Equator, and another unusually persistent zone of warm water sitting off the North American coast, called the Blob. The warming of the Pacific due to greenhouse gases has been linked to unprecedented harmful algal blooms that have toxified shellfish and shut down fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. It’s really worrisome. If this is a window into the future, it’s not a good future. 

Advent is the celebration of three comings: God’s self-gift to the world at the incarnation, God’s self-gift to each believer, and the final coming which is still outside our experience, expressed in the New Testament hope that Christ will come again in some way earthed in our own expectations, fears and desires. If we are to be more than simply agnostic about the long-term prospects for our race, our most fundamental hope must be that it will not end in meaningless destruction.

If we are going to blow ourselves out of existence or make the planet uninhabitable, there is little point in hoping for anything else. To believe that the human race will eventually reach the end of its earthly pilgrimage is one thing; to equate the end with total destruction is another. The hope that we are traveling towards a destiny, rather than a mere collapse, is linked with the faith that our origins were already purposeful. 

If there is a Creator who stands outside the whole cosmic evolutionary process and yet works God’s will within it by a wisdom and love that are present in its every movement, then human life has a purpose. It begins from God and is on its way to a goal which, however unimaginable, will give meaning to the whole adventure. 

We cannot comfort ourselves with wishful thinking. Though we may admire the courage of those who face the possibility that human life is simply absurd, that there is no future, and that the only option is to live with dignity and kindness as we await our meaningless extinction, this view is not convincing because it leaves too much unexplained. Deeply rooted in our experience is a certainty that our best intuitions will prove to have been the truest. We also want justice, however we may fear it or fall short in practicing it ourselves.

Our hearts demand that the very rough and uneven distribution in this life shall be redeemed within a larger justice. We are radically convinced that good, not evil, will triumph in the end. The assurance of the classic fairy tales that the wicked are defeated and everyone else lives happily ever after is reached only through suffering, danger, courage and endurance, and these stories so appeal because they strike a chord in us. 

Perhaps you know the phrase deus ex machina, that originated in the theatrical device of placing a contraption just off-stage to manufacture a god figure who would enter the play at the last minute to save a hopeless situation. Literally: God from a machine. Part of the sea change in the popular religious imagination is that no deus ex machina solution, no machine-made god who simply eliminates problems can be the coming one to satisfy our deepest desires, but only the one who promises to come and be with us especially in the midst of our struggles and uncertainties.

I suspect another part of this sea change is the information I’ve gotten lately from my Jesuit network to the effect that the idea of the priest as one with special powers is not very popular today in theology. Rather the priest is the sacramental minister whose presence in the liturgy ties the individual worshiping community to all the Christian communities, making it possible for the fullness of the church to be present in the local assembly.

Our calling is to go along with God in doing what is right toward all persons and our planet home, in having a passion for lasting human and humane relationships with God, our sisters, brothers, and the entire creation, and to be open to new and unknown and surprising and scary and devastating things that may involve.

Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington - Nov 25, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Magliula, OHC
Feast of James Otis Sargent Huntington - Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Galatians 6:14-18

John 6:34-38

James Otis Sargent Huntington, OHC

Fr. Alan Whittemore wrote an unpublished work entitled O.H.C. He describes it as “candid camera shots…honest, unadorned impressions and memories of men with whom I have been intimately associated” In the concluding chapter he wrote:

The real reason, the only truly sufficient reason, for becoming a monk is to be crucified. That is what happens. The Religious Life is a contrivance of Divine ingenuity whereby a soul may be crucified with Christ. The vows are the three nails with which we are nailed to the cross. It sounds grim, but it’s true. Do not attempt to become a monk or nun unless you intend from the bottom of your heart to surrender yourself wholly to Jesus, to hang with him on his cross with perfect submission to the will of the Father on behalf of human souls.

Robert, our Superior, gave me this manuscript while I was looking for material on the Founder. It was written between 1947-49.His intention in writing it was to give the youngest members of the Order an intimate glimpse of the men who formed us, we read it aloud in novitiate class. It’s not surprising that Fr. Whittemore, in the concluding chapter, draws from the words of the Rule our Founder wrote and lived in describing our life.  He conveys the flesh and blood reality of the Founder. This is crucial if saints are to serve as models for us in this life, not just for those in authority, but for the whole community. It’s the most moving, humorous, and loving works I have read on the Order. Much of what I want to hold up for us on this feast rests on Fr. Whittemore’s reflections. 

Even though there are photos and paintings of the Founder throughout the monastery and guesthouse, for me, they have never really conveyed James’ physical presence until I read Fr. Whittemore’s description. Physically, he describes our Founder as having a large body with big strong hands. “His head and features were beautifully molded. His lips were full and extraordinarily expressive. His large eyes looked through yours into the depths of your soul.’ For an experience of those piercing blue eyes, stand before the Founder’s portrait in the crypt. 

James Huntington was a born leader. He was holy. His self-discipline contributed an iron element to his sanctity. He had a massive intellect. Reason was his predominate faculty. His every thought and action was expressive of a deep well-integrated thought. As a result, one could always reason with him. In fact, he encouraged the brothers to express their ideas and deepest thoughts and helped to develop them. He had a great respect for liberty. He never tried to compel one to his opinion. He saw the positive element in either side of a question. Even when he presided at Chapter meetings as Superior, he withheld his opinion afraid of smothering the ideas and free choice of others.  

Even as he aged, he was forward reaching, interested in the future, looking for enriching change and development He was more abreast of the latest books, ideas, and gadgets than the youngest brother. His instinctive reaction to a plan or project was affirmative. He led; he never pushed. His ideal for the Order was that of a family, fostering cooperation and teamwork. He welcomed suggestions and criticism. He not only consulted, but also accepted feedback on his sermons, speeches, and articles from the youngest men in the community. He encouraged self-expression allowing individual brothers to develop and contribute their fullest personality to the life and work of the Order. He inspired affection and loyalty in all sorts of people. He never talked down to them, even children, and was skillful in presenting truths to them simply. His memory was inexhaustible, quoting long poems and sermons. His work ethic was strong and focused, working painstakingly to get a thing done. 

Lest we despair of our own shortcomings, let’s not lose sight of his. We must remember that he was a New Englander raised in a privileged Victorian family. He had an austerity that was described as coming dangerously close to arrogance. He was cursed with a scrupulosity against which he struggled for most of his life. He was rigorous with himself, with a dread of anything too personal. There was loneliness there, and although he may have discouraged expressions of affection, he didn’t despise them. There was also an aloofness, due in part to his shyness, although he struggled to be gracious. He seemed a little afraid of having too good a time. He was very conscious of his background, his breeding, and his Harvard education. His keen mind could be contemptuous of weaker ones. There was also a streak of weakness in dealing with the more strong willed. 

His exaggerated fear of disease from his youth translated into concern for others even with the slightest malady. It also made him wonderfully understanding in the confessional. His deep sense of filial relation to God was full of love and tenderness, mirroring the attitude toward his human father who was devoted to him. His sense of humor was quiet, reflecting his early training, which discouraged loud laughter. He even developed a way of laughing noiselessly, appreciating jokes, even on himself. Over against these traits of nature was his tremendous humility. Fr. Whittemore wrote: “He was the most utterly pure and innocent adult I have ever known.” 

James believed that the chief hope of helping people was through religion. He never allowed his profound interest and extensive involvement in the economic and social issues of his day to overshadow his evangelistic work. He felt that his prime vocation was to establish Religious Life in the American Church, subordinating his social and political views to that end. For him the spiritual life was understood in terms of organic growth and development. This related to the Order as well. He believed that life and growth involved adjustment to changing conditions. If the time ever came when the Order ceased to change, he believed that it would die. To him, no amount of apparent piety could substitute for the virtues of courage, generosity, joy, and kindliness. He would refer satirically to “a good religious  as a person who never whispers in halls nor is late to an office but whose heart is filled with fear, scrupulosity, indignation, and bitterness”.

For years the leadership of the Order passed back and forth between Fr. Huntington and Fr. Hughson. Each was ablaze with zeal, sincerity, and love for the Order. Their practices, their policies, and their whole outlook on monastic life were diametrically opposite. I believe that it was to the very tension between them, as well as to the positive principles for which each stood, that our Order owes a vast deal of its richness and strength.

No leader is perfect, and there is often a season when one particular set of skills and gifts are required for our common life. Our history proves that the Holy Spirit has a way of bringing life out of our most fearful and less than perfect choices. No leader frees us from accountability or daily responsibility for our own conversion. The best we can hope for is that they inspire, challenge, encourage, and assist in our transformation. Certainly we would not be gathered here today had it not been for James’ faith, courage, and perseverance. For that we give thanks.

Fr. Whittemore, concludes this work, inspired by what he witnessed in the Founder’s life and death:

There is a beautiful secret which I have saved for the last and which makes all the difference in the world. It does away with the grimness and renders the Religious Life the dearest, sweetest, and blessedest thing in the world. The Religious Life is a Love Affair. All souls are invited to become the brides of Christ but the Religious does not wait for the life beyond the grave. He steels a march on the others. They have heard in their hearts the whispering of the Perfect Lover. And it has been their dearest passion and their joy to surrender themselves to him unto death, even the death of the Cross.”

Blessed James, pray for us. +Amen.

Christ the King B - Nov 22, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve, OHC
Christ the King - Sunday, November 22, 2015

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Revelation 1:4b-8

John 18:33-37

Jesus before Pilate

They can’t even agree on the meaning of the word.  

Pilate: “Are you, yes or no?”  
Jesus: “Why do you ask?”
Pilate: “I don’t, but your own people say you are.”
Jesus: “But not in the way they or you think”
Pilate: “So ‘yes’?”
Jesus: “That’s your answer, not mine.  How much clearer can I be?”
It’s a strange exchange.  Pilate wanting the answer to a question he has no way of understanding.  Jesus unwilling even to use words that Pilate will misunderstand; Pilate vaguely curious, maybe sarcastic, about this peasant prophet accused of being a king yet without an army, weapons, or seemingly any intent on ruling much of anything.  Jesus is guarded, perhaps knowing that anything he says will just be twisted against him.  The word is king – is Jesus one or isn’t he - seems easy enough.  A king has a kingdom, servants, some military force to defend the kingdom and himself – all the usual stuff that goes with being a king.  That’s a reasonable definition of a king.  One is not a king by wanting to be one or in theory, but one either is or is not.  But if those are the criteria, is Jesus or isn’t he?

In the synoptic gospels the only words Jesus ever says to Pilate are “you say so” when asked if he is a king.  John uses that cryptic and loaded response and builds this exchange that is between two individuals but is really a dialog, or the lack thereof, between kingdom and empire.  In claiming to be some kind of king, Jesus is implicitly rejecting, or at least resisting the Roman Empire and Caesar’s claim to be the only divine power on earth.  For Pilate and all the rest of the empire, Caesar is lord, plain and simple.  Question or challenge that claim and you may well end up beheaded or up on a cross.  The world is clean, neat, and simple.  Just fit in, go along, obey and everything will be fine.  The reign of God of which Jesus speaks introduces big trouble into the picture.
  
We still live within empire, although it is usually more subtle and unconscious, it is no less real.  Whenever you hear a politician or business leader or thinker of some sort touting the real solution, their solution, to our social problems as the solution that will lead to happiness and prosperity for all, you are hearing the voice of empire.  While our social life is important, the belief that our identity and security can be ultimately located in taxing the rich or building a wall or in more weapons or higher wages is alluring but delusional.  And of course when someone opposes an idea as ideologically defective, the blame and suspicion begins.  Suspicion of other’s motives, suspicion of those in my religion who are not like me or agree with me, prejudice toward those who are different, whose ideology does not line up with mine, whose image of empire conflicts with my image of empire.  Pilate is unable to encounter Jesus with objectivity because once he hears the word “king”, all he can imagine after that is rival, threat, insurrection, danger that must be eliminated, even if reluctantly, for the sake of the good of the empire.

Empire not only comes with political or military force but also comes in the form of atheistic scientific rationalism.  Richard Dawkins, famous atheist and author of The God Delusion says this: 
“The god of the Bible is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”  

No Christmas card for Professor Dawkins this year  I quote that to demonstrate that in his hatred of god and religion he is very religious – he goes about debunking the existence of god with righteous zeal for his own cause, his own little empire of science and mind and self.  Life within empire is continually conflict and struggle because my only sense of identity and purpose comes in opposition to or control of the other.  

What both Pilate and Dawkins tell us about the human condition is that we need and seek out someone or something, some kind of authority, some ultimate source of truth to which we can look for our identity and security.  The appeal of empire is to be on the winning side, to make a world that makes sense, to defeat our enemies, whether people or ideas, and to use our brawn and brains to create the society that we want.  So the question is not whether I’m going to live under some rule or not, it’s whose and what kind, which leads us back to our original question, is Jesus a king or not?

Yes, but… Yes, because Christ is King;  “but”, because his existence and relationship with the world upends and upsets our imperialistic reflexes.  His rule is not with force, manipulation, fear, or threat.  This is a voluntary kingdom where everyone is invited.  “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice”, Jesus says.  He rather calmly and confidently says, “Yes, I know that empire will misunderstand, manipulate my words, oppose my way of peace, use me to advance an agenda of dominance, but that does not negate its reality or make it any less true.”  This king wields a power far greater than any puny thing we can manufacture - his voice - which is what defies and ultimately defeats the empire – the power of truth.  Jesus is speaking to the depths of the soul.  Beneath the impulse to be right, to gain control and dominance, is an ache, a longing for a bigger story, a deeper communion, a greater purpose than just what my side can achieve against you here and now.  This longing finds its home and identity in the voice of Jesus – belonging to it, abiding in, listening and watching for it in all the amazing ways that it appears and calls to us.

This kind of feast is rare, Holy Trinity Sunday being the only other of its kind, in that we are not celebrating an event like Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost, but a mystery of being.  There was never a time when Christ was not already King and there will never be a time when he is not King.  We are celebrating an “is”, an eternal reality into which we get glimpses and hints and flashes in this life as we await its closer apprehension in the life to come.  In some ways monastic life is the gift of being a sign to the mystery of being, to the “is”.  Our rhythm of life – of prayer, work, and study in this community and in many other monastic communities is a particular and consecrated response to this mystery of the “is” of Christ the King.  All empire can offer is an “if only”, a fleeting wish that always needs more money, more control, more support.  The Church’s “is” is absolute.

Our prayer nurtures the strength of soul to unmask the “if only” of the empire and embrace the “is” of God’s kingdom.  Thus we fulfill and embody Christ’s words to belong to the truth in listening to his voice.  As we are faithful, our own temptations toward empire become less attractive as we set our hearts toward the time when we shall see Christ face to face on his throne of glory.  While God knows the day and hour when kingdom will be fully revealed, we proclaim the truth of it and choose it through our love and service.  Every prayer, word, and act of reconciliation, of peace, of justice, of invitation is not just about being nice but is an affront to empire and an embrace of Christ’s rule. 

At one of the memorials to the victims of the attacks in Paris, a father and his young son were interviewed about why they had come.  The boy was straining to grasp some understanding of what had happened and the outpouring of these tangible signs of remembrance.  The father was gently prompting him with the words he thought the child might be searching for – evil and pain and grief mixed with caring and togetherness.  Finally, the father spoke not only to his son, but to the church and the world when he said, “They have guns, but we have flowers.” Amen.

Proper 28 B - Nov 15, 2015 - Grahamstown

Mariya uMama we Themba Monastery, Grahamstown, South Africa
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
Proper 28 B - November 15, 2015


Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25
Mark 13:1-8

I struggled this week with what relevance our Scripture texts might have for us and our world. And then I opened computer yesterday morning to read about the terrorist attacks in Paris and I began to see the connection for today.  But really, almost any day it's the same: wars and rumors of wars, political turmoil, mass migration and displacement of peoples, earthquakes, poverty, famine, illness, drought, climate change...  Jesus really wasn't being very supernatural in speaking of such things; he was simply being realistic. It is the stuff of the 24-hour news cycle.  And it is precisely in such a world that we live out our faith.  

In today's readings, these hard realities are spoken of and about in the language of  apocalyptic.  It is a style or genre of writing and speaking common in the Ancient Near East both immediately before and after the time of Jesus.  The Book of Daniel, parts of the the Gospels, including this whole chapter of Mark, and the Book of Revelation are written in a dramatic story form accompanied by strong, sometimes lurid, images guaranteed to capture the attention and the imagination of the hearer or reader.  They are marked by talk of cataclysmic struggles and cosmic battles between good and evil.  The figures are often thinly veiled symbols of then current political powers or social forces.  And though not always easily understood in our time, they spoke to the oppressed believers of their day, encouraging them to stand firm, to not give up hope.  They reassured their hearers—and us—that though history may be bloody and violent, God is the Lord of time and of history, appearances to the contrary not withstanding.  God is at the start of time and of history, and God is its author and its end.

Indeed, this kind of biblical literature is much concerned about the “end times” and the end of time.  And people have seemed to take a perverse fascination in it, especially when the going gets tough for us, either individually or nationally or as a whole human race.  When will this be over, we wonder.  How will it end?  What are the signs? What, if any, are the grounds for hope?

Today, at the beginning of the 13th chapter of St. Mark's Gospel, Jesus brings his disciples up short.  One of them blurts out his astonishment at Herod's Temple. And he had every right to be astonished.  Started about twenty years before Jesus and taking many years to complete, the Temple of Herod was one the of the wonders of the ancient world.  Breathtaking in its size and architectural complexity and in the sheer amount of wealth that was poured into it, it would make even a contemporary tourist's mouth drop open.  Built high on a mountain it was literally covered with gold, so much so that ancient  Jewish historian Josephus says that pilgrims couldn't look at it directly in the sunlight.  And what wasn't gold was of the finest white marble. The foundation stones, now part of the so-called Western or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, still astonish.   It seems something worthy of, say, a Donald Trump.       

But what was also supposed to be the meeting place of God and humanity—the ultimate thin place—had become, as we heard in last week's reading, a place where widows and others were exploited and where a cadre of religious professionals controlled what was, in point of fact, a very big business.  Jesus saw this plainly, as did many others: the place was magnificent...and corrupt.  And Jesus didn't need to be divine to see that it was also doomed.  The gap between the ideal and the real had grown so wide, the disparity between appearance and reality so great, that a violent end seemed inevitable.  And it was. Within a generation, the Temple was leveled to the ground.

I wonder if it is that gap between the ideal and the real, between appearance and reality, that is the seedbed of violence and ultimately of the type of extremist terrorism that we saw in Paris.      

There is, of course, always a gap.  What we proclaim or desire in and for ourselves, what we say we value:  this is rarely, probably never, fully realized or actualized.  For one thing, we are easily deceived by others. Or worse, we deceive ourselves: we don't know ourselves or what we really want, and so we become prey to what our culture holds out to us as desirable.  And because ideals are usually slow in being actualized, it is often difficult to accept the gradual or partial. We become impatient—sometimes with good reason—and push things forward in destructive ways.  And finally, we become disillusioned and lose hope.  Then anything goes.  One Bible commentator noted that perhaps there is so much interest in the Second Coming of Christ among so many people because deep down, they are profoundly disappointed in his First Coming.  All that hard ethical teaching, and what do we have to show for it?  Though they might never admit it, I wonder if those terrorists who caused such havoc and destruction and murder in Paris yesterday were disillusioned in their religion, in their society, in themselves.  Was the gap between the ideal and the real too much for them?  I wouldn't be surprised.   

What then shall we do?  How shall we live in such terrible times?  The Bible is not an answer book, but it does offer us some helpful direction.  

Further along in Mark's narrative, Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that, alas, nobody knows the time frame for the end of all this turmoil.  But in the mean time, he says, 

--Be a people of endurance.  Hang in there.  Persevere.  Don't give up.

--Don't be naive. Don't believe every new messiah, every new scheme, every news flash or internet posting.  Be wise.  Be people of discretion.

--Be awake, be alert, be aware.  You may not be able to do anything right now, but you can see what's going on around you and you can name it.  And that truthful naming will be infinitely more powerful than anything the Father of Lies or the powers of darkness can do.

And then that strange Letter to the Hebrews exhorts us:

--Have confidence in God, for in Jesus Christ, God has in fact broken open a new and living way through his own life and death.

--Be people of hope, for “he who promised is faithful.”

--Be people who do not neglect to meet together...that is, be part of and live in community.  We will, none of us, get through these days—whatever they are—alone.  This is not a solo journey. It is a pilgrimage we make together.  And as is often said of pilgrimages:  the important thing is not to get there first but to get there together.  Live in solidarity with each other, with all others of good will and who act in good faith.

--And finally, be agitators.  Be those who “provoke one another to love and good deeds.” Encourage one another.  Challenge one another.  Irritate each other...though only when necessary.   But when necessary, be that holy gadfly, the irritant that leads to holy action.

St. John's Gospel would simply say:  Let us love one another.  And let us do it now, for : “...you see the Day approaching.”

Even when the world is falling apart and the the center seems not to hold, there is work for us to do.  Sometimes big, more often small, but always of great value.  Let us provoke each other, challenge each other, encourage each other, support each other, nurture each other, love one another.  Let us be church.

Let us live into what we pray:  You kingdom come. Your will be done. Your dream become.  

So be it.  Amen.

Proper 28 B - Nov 15, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Joseph Wallace-Williams, n/OHC
Proper 28 B - Sunday, November 15, 2015

Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
Mark 13:1-8

“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love, and good deeds, encouraging one another.” Heb10: 25

Morning-by-Morning faithfulness.  

Hope in God

In the very early stages of my discernment as to whether or not God was calling me to ordained ministry, and well into my time in seminary, I found myself faced with that dreaded question that inevitably any young seminary student who is not married or partnered is faced with on a date.  Yes!  That great dreaded question: “So tell me, what do you do for a living?”

In an attempt to come up with some witty response that would not be a flat-out lie I did a non-scientific survey of clergy I knew. I asked them for their response to the question “what do you do for a living?” Here are some of the responses:

• I’m a teacher.
• I'm in the service industry.
• I am a firefighter.
• I am a museum curator.
• I am into antiquing.
• Oh me? I work for a really old nonprofit.
• Oh, I am in the insurance industry.
• I do weddings.
• And a Rabbi friend said:  I'm in the funeral industry.

But here is the one that jumped out to me: “I am a consultant. My specialty is helping to get people out of bankruptcy.” I asked my friend to explain why she used this. She said, “Think about it. As clergy we help individuals and the Church get out of a type of spiritual bankruptcy. Like a good consultant, you speak the truth to your ‘clients’ about how they got to this place without judging them. You empower them to develop, implement, and carry out a plan that will help them immediately to begin to find their way out of un-health, and you help set them up for success in the days and years to come.”

I think my friend was spot-on. You and I, as the body of Christ, are a royal priesthood, and we are to encourage each other to live more fully and boldly our commitment to Christ.

In the letter to the Hebrews we hear, “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love, and good deeds, encouraging one another.” (Heb10: 25)

You and I know all too well that there is no such thing as life without struggle. I have met it, from one end of life to another. Over and over again, what I thought were the foundations of life have shifted and slid away from me, sometimes only changing my mental and emotional typography a little, and at other times completely shattering every given I've ever assumed into a kind of kaleidoscope of deep pain, despair, and hopelessness.

I have come, like you, through the death of loved ones, life-shaping disappointment, and rejection. When tragedy strikes, when trouble comes, when life disappoints us—as Jesus reminds us that it surely will—we stand at the intersection of hope and despair.

To go the way of despair not only colors the way we look at things and makes us suspicious of the future and those around us. It also makes us pessimistic and downright negative about the present.

It is this pessimistic, distorted view of reality that leads us to ignore the very possibilities that could save us, and worse, it leads us to want to inflict pain and hurt as we have been hurt ourselves.

But when I am in my right state of mind and can think more clearly, I realize that when I say that I am in despair and feeling a sense of hopelessness, what I am really saying is that I have given up on God. That I really don't believe that with God all things are possible. And that God really doesn't care.

Think about it—despair at its core says that I am God and if I can't do anything about this situation, then nothing and nobody can.

But if we go the way of hope, and take life on its own terms, we come to know that whatever happens God lives in it! Hope and hopefulness come from the knowledge that we do not belong to ourselves. I think the Heidelberg Catechism puts it well when it says, “Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death?" The answer begins: "That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”

You see, contrary to popular belief, hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. Hope is all about getting better on the inside about what is going on outside.  It is about becoming open to the God of Newness. It is about allowing ourselves to let go of the present, and believe in a future that is soon to be but not quite yet, trusting in a God whose power working in us and through us can and is doing greater things than we can ask or imagine.  It is about holding on when life seems pointless and perhaps even a little absurd.

Yes, it is hope in things not yet seen that will bring us to the point of personal transformation, which is found at the intersection of maturity and stagnation.
Every dimension of the process of struggle may in fact be an invitation to draw from the well that is God’s deep love for us.  Hope is not grounded in the future. Christian hope—our hope knows at the core that God did not look down from a distant heaven and say, “There, there, it's all right.” But, in Jesus, God entered into the full range of our human suffering and tragedy. Jesus walked right into the fire of pain, while we ordinary human beings allow the troubles of life to twist and distort us into victims, oppressors, or a combination of the two. Jesus’ suffering shaped him into a perfect offering. And so we hope, because we have His hope.

An ancient people tell the story of the elder who was talking about struggle. The elder said, "I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one.  The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one." And the disciples asked, "But which wolf will win the fight in your heart?" And the holy one answered, "It depends on which one I feed." The spiritual task of life is to feed hope.  Hope is not something to be found outside of us.  It lies in the spiritual life we cultivate within. To wrestle with life is to be transformed into the self we are meant to become, to step out of the confines of our false securities, and to allow our creating God to go on creating in us.

Now if you have found yourself squirming and uncomfortable with my words this morning or the thought has crossed your mind, “What does he know?” Or “how sophomoric or naïve of him.” Or “how overly simplistic of him. My situation is so much more complicated than that.” Perhaps you are correct and perhaps you are actually standing at the intersection of hope in God's abundance and the darkness of despair and hopelessness. Perhaps you are in the very place right now where you need to make the decision to change your perspective and live in the abundant life God invites each and every one of us to.

Some days and long nights we cannot see the victory of Christ with the naked eye, but we can hear it with the naked ear. Beloved, the psalmist says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will not fear, for you. O God, are with me.”

In other words, if you want to know the truth, pay more attention to the Gospel you hear than to the obsolete evil you and I see.

All Saints B - Nov 1, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Will Owen, n/OHC
The Feast of All Saints - Sunday, November 1, 2015

Isaiah 25:6-9,
Revelation 21:1-6a,
John 11:32-44

All Saints Day candles in Poland

⧾ In the name of God our Mother, who sings the universe into being and calls it beautiful.  Amen. ⧾

"All things
are too small
to hold me.
I am so vast

In the infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated

I have touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide

Everything else
is too narrow

You know this well,
you who are also there"

That’s from Hadewijch of Brabant, a 13th-century Flemish beguine who wrote a cadre of mystical love poems to God that boldly convey the union with the Uncreated that is the birthright of all creation. The oneness of creation with the Uncreated is the heart of holiness and the goal of the sanctified life.

It’s quite the task to speak to the glory and witness of all the saints, by which I mean those people, known and unknown, living, dead, and yet to come whose lives, like Hadewijch’s poetry, hold up for us a model of holiness. To speak of all of the saints is really to speak of the huge and incredible—really the impossibly innumerable—ways that God’s grace moves through and in each of our lives to draw us and the world toward a more perfect wholeness and unity. To speak of all the saints is to speak of the vast and glorious work of redemption—not only of humanity but of the whole creation.

That’s why I find it particularly appropriate that we hear the apocalyptic readings from Isaiah and Revelation today. Apocalypse, as most of you probably know, simply means “unveiling,” in the case of the apocalypse in today’s texts, the unveiling of the reality of the new creation. Narratively we conceive of this unveiling as something that will happen in the future when Christ returns to make all things new. It is then, as John says, that the first things will pass away and that the heavenly Jerusalem will descend to earth. And although narratively it makes sense to speak of this unveiling as something that will happen sometime in the future, it would be more accurate to say that the new creation is a reality at all moments in time.

All creation and all redemption are one eternal movement of God’s Spirit, a movement that exists and has existed in every moment—from the creation of the universe at the beginning of time; to the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord; to the new creation at the apocalypse—all are part of one eternally present movement of God’s Spirit. Revelation and unveiling—these are the moments when this reality announces itself to us in the midst of our human lives, when we can see, if only for a brief moment, the luminosity of our own selves and of all the created world—the shining garment of God’s body that is present in all people and all things, if we only have eyes to see.

With God’s help, those we call saints unveil this new creation in their bodies and their lives. They themselves are an apocalypse. And they show us that the new creation is born in us, not in spite of our struggles, shortcomings, and sins, but—unbelievably—through them. For the saints did not become holy despite their humanity. They became holy through that humanity. To put it another way, struggle, pain, limitation, finitude, and sin are not barriers to grace—they are gateways to new life. For our struggles connect us with our need for mercy and grace. They remind us, often painfully, sometimes humorously, that we are not self-created or self-sustaining. The more we engage our shortcomings with integrity and contrition, the more room we create for God to flood our lives with her love. The painful places in our lives are the places from which we cry out to God in longing for new life. And because of this movement, it is specifically from our so-called vices that our virtues are drawn out of us.

Saint Augustine strikes me as a poignant and powerful example of this dynamic. He struggled his entire life with his sexuality. It was the means he used to resist the influx of grace into his life. And ultimately it became the doorway to his salvation. By struggling with his sexuality Augustine came to see that below the craving for sex and companionship was a powerful, aching longing for union with God. As he allowed himself to inhabit that longing more and more fully, he allowed God to draw out of him extraordinarily moving descriptions of union, wholeness, and love. His longing, which seemed like the absence of God’s love, was actually the seed of that love’s presence. For longing contains within it a foretaste of its own fulfillment, and it draws that fulfillment nearer.

In her first novel Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson offers a scene that reads like a contemporary gloss of the biblical apocalypse:

Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden. Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water—peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need of slaking. For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know anything so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing—the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries.

In the end I believe we will come to see that all is grace. Everything—the heartache, the laughter, the love, the longing, all our sinfulness, all our shortcomings, all our resistance—all are a part of God’s loving call of return to us. Every atom of our lives can draw out of us a yearning cry, like Augustine’s, a song of longing for God that joins with her own song of longing for us, a song that like the song that brought the universe into being, calls forth the new creation here and now. With the saints we will come to know that God’s redemptive work is being accomplished, and has been accomplished, that we are already holy, even and especially in the midst of our humanity. 

Luminous moments of apocalypse occur all around us and within us, all the time. The saints themselves are such moments. They are the living stones of a New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven to declare that God’s place is among and within her creation. We are those stones, too. With Hadewijch and Augustine, with Holy Mary and Benedict, with Blessed James our founder and Alan Whittemore, with you, and you, and you, and all of you—with the whole of creation we reach out to the Uncreated. She undoes us. Wider than wide. Everything else is too narrow. We know this well. We who are also there.

Proper 25 B - Oct 25, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Sr. Shane Phelan, CMA
Proper 25 B - Sunday, October 25, 2015

Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Hebrews 7:23-28 Mark 10:46-52

Job

Today’s readings seem so reassuring.  They offer us the promise that we long for.  God rewards Job for his righteousness.  Jesus heals Bartimaeus, who then follows him on the way.  What good news!  God is faithful and powerful.  Happy days are here again!

Our passage from Job comes at the very end of the book.  Commentators agree that the beginning and the end of the book were written separately from the long contest that occupies most of the book.  In the beginning, God bets Satan that Job will be faithful no matter what.  He lets Satan take everything from Job: his children die, his livestock dies, he contracts painful diseases.  He is bereft.

Job’s friends come by to “comfort” him, to be “helpful” by telling him what to do.  They insist that he must have sinned, and that if he confesses he will be restored.  Job stands in the truth that he has done nothing to deserve what has happened.  He will not curse God, but he will also not pretend a repentance he does not feel.  God eventually overwhelms him, reminding him who is God and who is dust, but the issue of justice is not resolved.  God never answers Job’s challenge.

Clearly, someone could not stand this dangling ending.  So we get the final chapter, where Job’s fortunes are restored.  Ironically, the author apparently agrees with Job’s friends about what God is like.  He wants us to forget the mysterious, awful, even capricious nature of God in favor of a Disney God.  

That Disney God is always around to tempt us.  When we focus on Jesus’ healing and teaching and forget the cross, we’re in Disneyland.  When we celebrate the messiah and reject the despised and rejected one, we’re in Disneyland.

But I’m not in Disneyland.  I’m in a haunted house, surrounded by ghosts.  Job’s sons and daughters crowd in around me.  With them are all the victims of trauma, all those who can’t forget or be forgotten.  What sort of restoration, what sort of healing, follows from trauma like Job’s?

On the way to raising four children, my mother had five miscarriages.  We carry a genetic defect that causes this.  My sister has two living children, but she has never forgotten Benjamin, who she lost at five months.  Her daughter has not had children yet, but she has lost one.  And I, when I was young, miscarried the only child I was to carry.  For years after that I would imagine my daughter.  I would count the years and think, “she would be in high school now.”  Then college, then law school.  (I don’t know why law school, it just showed up.)  Finally I stopped counting.  I eventually had a liturgy to put her to rest, the child I never knew.

Do you think Job was restored as good as new?
Do you think his wife recovered, having ten more children?
Do you think that Holocaust survivors got over it, that veterans get over it if they come back and find good jobs?

Are you over it?

29 months after Hurricane Katrina, Deacon Julius Lee stood in his yard in New Orleans and said  “The storm is gone, but the “after the storm” is always here.”  Already residents were feeling pressured to move on, to get over it, to show the world that things were normal.  But trauma does not just move on.  Trauma lives on.

In her book, Spirit and Trauma, Shelly Rambo listens to trauma in Scripture and in theology.  Following the growing field of trauma studies, she looks at the ways that trauma lingers and asks how that might shape our understanding of Christian life.  She suggests, I think rightly, that our resurrection story can too often become like Job’s happy ending, suppressing the memory of trauma that the disciples would have experienced. 

Resurrection can’t just meaning getting over the cross.  The cross haunts the Christian imagination, as it must have haunted the disciples even after seeing the risen Christ.  And Bartimaeus’ healing would not mean that his years of suffering were erased.  We do not simply get over our histories.  Bartimaeus has built a whole world around the loss of his sight.  He has spent years shunned or ignored; in fact he is told by the crowd to be quiet even when Jesus appears.  He has strength of will and desire, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t scarred.

So what is his life like on the road, in the wake of his healing?  I imagine he might be a bit suspicious of those who suddenly warm up to him.  Like the friends who return to Job, these new friends might have some work to do to prove their friendship.  And in the midst of their shared excitement and joy on the road, Bartimaeus will have fears and anxieties that the others will not share.  He has knowledge of the world in a way that those who have always seen do not.  Like Jesus, he has scars to mark his trauma.  They just aren’t always visible.

So the happy ending may not be the faithful ending.  It’s not faithful to the reality of human life, or of the ways we encounter God.
Where is God when children are gunned down at school, or die of drug overdoses?  
Where is God when some have no food or shelter, and others walk by them on their way to their BMWs?  
Where is the resurrection in our inner cities?  

Rather than a story of triumph, perhaps the story we need is a story of remaining, of enduring and sustaining.
We are in the hands of a God who is beyond our understanding.  

Job’s story reminds us that creeds and doctrines are not the heart of our faith.  At the heart of our faith is an experience, an encounter with God in Christ.  This encounter can be exhilarating, but it can also be terrifying.  
And, like any true encounter, it is transforming.  The real presence of God exceeds our Disney imagination, even the imagination of our worst fears.  

God is beyond comprehension, but not beyond relationship.

Job’s strength lies in his authenticity.  He does not pretend or try to “be good.”  He does not mouth pieties in order to placate God.  What, after all, can happen to him now?  Job is out on the vast sea of God, beyond nice phrases, and he has nothing but his fidelity.  
But out there, with nothing in the way, he can find God’s presence.  He remains, he endures, and he is transformed.

We owe it to ourselves, to one another, to our children to speak the truth about God. God stands with us in suffering and injustice, but not as one who would magically erase the effects of sin.  God endures with us, and promises to abide with us if we abide with Her. Better than a fairy tale, this opens us to real healing, real insight, real discipleship.  

May we never settle for easy answers, but demand mercy and healing.  
And may God grant us more than we can ask or imagine.