Seventh Sunday after Epiphany- Year A - Sunday February 19, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Josép R. Martínez-Cubero,OHC
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany - Sunday,  February 19, 2017

Br. Josép R. Martínez-Cubero, OHC

Today’s gospel, which is a continuation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, contains several statements that could be seriously misunderstood if taken out of their cultural context, and if the translation is not carefully analyzed. So let us look at some of these statements.

“Do not resist an evil doer.” Considering that Jesus resisted evil every time he came face to face with it, we can feel a bit suspicious about this translation. The late North American biblical scholar and theologian, Walter Wink, made a case that the Greek word translated as resist, antistenai, has to do with violence. He notes its repeated use in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) as a word for "warfare." Likewise, it appears in Ephesians in a context of warfare (6:13). Josephus, writing in the time of Jesus, continually uses antistenai to mean armed struggle.

Therefore, the sentence should be translated: "Do not violently resist the evil one."  This is entirely consistent with the over-all sense of the text, especially as Jesus then gives some examples of how to resist evil non-violently. It is important to remember that Jesus gives examples that make sense within his own culture.

“If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” People in ancient times did not initiate action with their left hand because it was considered unclean. If they were going to strike someone, they would do so with their right hand. The only way to strike another person on their right cheek with the right hand is by backhanding the person. This was considered an insult, and an expression of dominance.  In the first century, the people most likely to be backhanded were slaves, women, children, and people considered "lesser" than their Roman overlords. Jesus does not counsel passivity in the face of insult. On the contrary, he suggests lifting up your head and exposing the left cheek as well. Slapping someone with the palm of the right hand on the left cheek put the receiver on equal stature. Jesus suggests to stand there with head held high, and not letting someone else define you as "lesser."  We wouldn’t endorse putting up with this kind of physical violence today, but in the context of that culture it points to staying true to one’s integrity.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” In ancient Greek culture and philosophy there are four main words that define love. Storge means affection such as the love of family. Phileo means friendship; the kind of love that develops between people who share common interests, beliefs or activities. Eros means romantic love, which includes the desire for emotional as well as physical connection. And then there is agape: unconditional, self-less love, which C.S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, described as a specifically Christian virtue.

Agape is the love about which Jesus is speaking when he calls us to love our enemies. More than just a feeling, agape also involves actions. It is our choice of one set of behaviors over another. Agape is intentional. Whenever we choose a response that is bigger than the treatment we receive, we are being true to our identity in Christ. And we pray for those who want to do us harm not as if God were some grand-puppeteer in the sky whose mind we can change, and so that God will intervene on our behalf. We pray because prayer changes us. The act of prayer has the power to make us more compassionate even toward those we experience as our enemies.

We can begin to practice agape with our closest relationships, with the agape we ourselves have experienced, and then, we work outwards to others. Dr. Maya Angelou often talked of the African-American nineteenth century song that goes like this: “When it looked like the sun would not shine anymore, God put a rainbow in the clouds.” She spoke about having had many clouds in her sky, but there were also the rainbows. When she had to stand up on stage, or teach classes, or direct movies, she would bring in her heart everyone who had ever been kind to her, even if they were long dead. Like Maya Angelou, we have all had times when it looked like the sun would not shine anymore, but I would dare say that we all here today have also had rainbows in our clouds, people who have shown us kindness and compassion, even when we least expected it or even when we did not earn it. And we can carry those rainbows in our heart wherever we go and spread them. We can choose behavior that does not retaliate, even if we still feel anger. We can look to affirm what is good rather than focusing only on what still needs work. When, in his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. (1 Cor. 13:1-6), he was speaking of the practice of agape.

Brother Phap Dung, a Buddhist monk at Plum Village in southern France, points out that people we perceive as our greatest enemies can be our greatest teachers because we have elements of those enemies in us. And in fact, we cannot practice affirmative compassion and unconditional love toward others until we can treat with agape those parts of ourselves that we cast out as undesirable or shameful. When we witness vulgar self-absorption we are invited to examine our own selfishness. Witnessing ignorance calls us to attend to our own blind spots. Witnessing fears being stirred up, and the promotion of isolation can stimulate us to be braver, and more generous. The practice of agape is a different orientation of the heart from everything we are hearing around us these days. It is a life long spiritual journey, often costly, but always transformative.

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” A better translation would be: “You all, therefore, will be consummated ones (teleioi) as your Father in heaven is consummation (teleios)." The Greek word teleios means balanced, whole, complete, fully developed. Jesus is talking about becoming who God has created us to be, in every situation, without being sidetracked, and with life-giving truth as our best tool. Truth-speaking that is steady, persistent, patient and brave.

If we live our lives according to our deepest calling, and live that calling with complete integrity, and we know, not only who we are, but whose we are, we can never be victims. No matter what the powers-that-be choose to do, there is an untouchable, eternal reality at our center. That reality is love, and it is our birthright, and it cannot be ruined by human hands or denied to us by anything that comes to pass in this lifetime. ~Amen

References:

·      Walter Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way (Fortress, 2003).
·      C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Geoffrey Bles, 1960)
·      huffingtonpost.com, A Zen Master’s Advice on Coping With Trump (February 16, 2017)
·      Walter Wink, The Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millenium (Doubleday, 1999)

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany- Year A

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. John  Forbis, OHC
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany- Year A - Sunday, February 5, 2017

Br. John  Forbis, OHC

Since November, I have been falling deeper and deeper into a trap, and I feel particularly penitential about this preaching to “agents of peace”. I engaged in some violent rhetoric that was bandied about for the last year and especially in the last few weeks. This behavior continued in the preparation for this sermon, with the initial conviction that being contentious and full of rage meant being salty and full of light. As one placard said during the protests that occurred a few weeks ago, “love hates Trump”. Now think about the statement … love hates? 

My voice joining that one is just all part of the cacophony of the last year only adding bitterness and rubbing into wounds that have cut deep and been open for millenia. This use of salt kills taste, and causes victimization. Thus, I have thrown it out and trampled it under my own feet through accusations and scapegoating while avoiding looking at my own role in perpetuating injustice and toxicity, thus rendering salt as nothing because it restores nothing.

This morning’s text from Matthew is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which we have been looking at over the last few weeks. If we examine what Jesus is saying in this context, we are presented with a very different and distinctive image.The Beatitudes are a direct contradiction to what I think I know and believe. Blessed are the meek, the poor in Spirit, the persecuted, and yet, blessed are those who are peacemakers and show mercy. Blessed are the marginalized, the dependent and those who live the kind of life that some in positions of privilege and power reject and despise. He throws our expectations of what is acceptable on its head. 

And yet, James Allison, the Girardian theologian, wrote,“the beginning of a Catholic moral life is a stumbling into an awareness of our own complicity in hypocrisy, and a becoming aware of quite how violent that hypocrisy is. Starting from there we can begin to stretch out our hands to our brothers and sisters, neither more nor less hypocritical than ourselves who are on the way to being expelled from the “synagogue” by an apparently united order, which has an excessive and militant certainty as to the evil of the other. Let us then go and learn what this means: “I want mercy and not sacrifice.”

It does go both ways, and that is the difficulty of the distinctive, seasoning saltiness that Jesus is talking about, that enhances taste and not smothers it.  Salt has been a precious commodity for many centuries because of its restorative and preservative powers both for food and human beings.

Also, light is to shine, not burn. Burning only creates more darkness. The Epiphany is an eternal light shining into darkness without flickering shadows.

Despite all that surrounds us at this moment in history, despite the division that is between us in this country, Jesus’ life and preaching show us a very distinctive way of being, an illuminating way of life that is seasoned and ignited by love that can be seen and tasted by all.

In the passage from Isaiah, the fasting and sacrifices of the people of Jacob mean nothing to God.  It is not what God seems remotely interested in.  God longs for bonds removed, freedom of the oppressed, the hungry fed, the homeless to have a home, for the naked to be covered.  And even more so, God longs for us to do this.  In this we become people of light, people of salt,  people who have not lost our humanity.  God longs for us to be “repairers of breaches and restorers of streets to live in.” This is the criteria by which God accepts our covenant relationship with him, the fast that he chooses.  God is interested in our very salvation.

Following Christ does come at a cost.  It means that we must give up our desire to oppress, “quarrel and fight”, “pound with wicked fists”, and brace ourselves to receive the relentless, unconditional reconciliation and forgiveness that God offers and thus offering them to others.

What Jesus tells us is that we are salt and light. Jesus gives us our identity through his own example of being merciful, compassionate and sacrificial even to the cross, where he forgives the people who put him there.  He neither calls for nor tolerates violence.  His own distinctiveness is the love he shows us daily as we remember his passion and rejoice in his resurrection, the love stronger than death itself. 

God does not consider us as nothing.  We do.  Jesus comes not to abolish the law but to save it, to fulfill and take it to another level beyond what the scribes and Pharisees and any other leaders, who might believe that they are beyond reproach, can consider.  By our bestowed identities, Jesus seems to think we are capable to exceed their righteousness.  Jesus gives us the Great Commandment.  He gives us the grace to love as God loves, the power to be just, merciful and compassionate even to those we might consider our enemies.  Our survival, humanity and salvation may very well depend on this.  Amen.       

The Feast of The Presentation of Our Lord

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve, OHC
The Feast of The Presentation of Our Lord -  Thursday, February 2, 2017

A number of years ago when I was a youth minister, I took a group of youth on a summer mission trip from Charleston, South Carolina, to Lexington, Kentucky.  We stopped along the way in Knoxville, Tennessee and spent the night at Ascension Church.  There had been a severe thunderstorm a few hours before we arrived and the power was out. The summer days were long and then as night fell we settled in with flashlights and a few candles. Emergency lights illumined the corridor outside the classroom where we were sleeping. During the wee hours, the power still out, I got up to go to the bathroom without a flashlight, cleverly thinking that I could prop open the door and achieve enough light from the hallway to see.

The world began to go dark. I glanced back just in time to see that the door stop was slipping.  The only other time I remember utter darkness was during a tour of Mammoth Cave when the guide, having led us sufficiently far into the cave, turned the lights off.  This is not an “Oh, it’s hard to see in this dim light” kind of darkness, but the total absence of light.  Meanwhile back in the bathroom, what was the easiest few steps of entry in the light, as muted as it was, became, upon leaving, a bumbling, stumbling groping around. Standing in what looked just like Mammoth Cave in the dark, which is to say it looked exactly like nothing, I said to myself, “I remember where the door is, I’ll just retrace my steps.” After bumping into walls and doors that I would have sworn were not there a minute before, I finally broke free into the welcomed embrace of the emergency hall lights. Salvation.

We take light so much for granted.  It is at our fingertips with the flip of a switch, press of a button, or turn of a knob.  We organize our days from light to light, pushing back the disorienting darkness.  Light is control, a reassuring connection to the world. Without light, there is no seeing, and in that blindness and helplessness we are momentarily shocked by our dependent creatureliness.Were the world to go dark, chaos would instantly fill the void left by the absent light and we would spend our time groping around, wondering how we might survive.

Because light is so important it makes sense, then, that salvation, light, and glory are closely linked images in the Gospels for Christ and why Luke especially illustrates the spiritual significance of Jesus’ birth with scenes of light shining and glory declared and characters naming this reality in exclamations that celebrate the move from spiritual night to day.  Could there be a more dramatic way to communicate that in Christ’s coming something important has happened in the world?  Luke reintroduces the image in reverse on Good Friday.  The last verse before Jesus dies on the cross; “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole earth until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” The very heavens that sang in joyful light in a star at his birth cry in darkness at his death.

Salvation and light and glory inspire celebration and gratitude; positive words of hope and new life, which indeed they are. Christ has come, but then I am invited to respond, to receive him, and that is where things get interesting.  It would be nice if our souls were as clear about discerning light and dark as our eyes, but they are not.  I have said and continue to say, “yes”, I do indeed want the light of Christ to continue to shine in me more and more. I have said and continue to say “no” - not too much light, thank you, and only where I want it to shine. Within the mystery of the human condition, within my soul and your soul, is the reality that as much as we desire to have the light of Christ shine in us, we also resist and avoid it.  What I experience in my heart as the life that I most deeply desire is the very life that at times I run from and reject.  We invite the light to shine and then it does and then we recoil at all that is illuminated.

It just is not pleasant to be totally exposed, to have the fearful, secret, shame-filled parts of me seen in all their unavoidable reality.  Not only do I find that I venture into the dimly lit bathroom of my soul, but sometimes I close the door myself. So strong is my avoidance of God, and thus myself, that the darkness of isolation is safer than the exposure of the light. The light shining in me is the very reality that reveals my duplicity.   Transformation always burns before it changes us because if we open to being lit up, God shows us to ourselves and invites us to offer the fullest and most intimate gift of our selves – all of us.

Simeon comes to the Holy Family in the Temple as the witness of the joyful coming of God among us and with us in the Christ, but he is not naïve or ignorant about what that means.  The Gospel says, 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

I want the light of God’s love to be warm, reassuring, and safe.  And by those words I really mean I want a trouble-free shortcut to happiness by doing what I am already doing.  Because God loves me better than I love myself, the light of Christ is challenging, but good news that does not bend to my desire for mere selective sight.  Simeon is honest in his description of what this light means.

The light he describes is piercing and penetrating and revealing – and therefore also uncomfortable and unsettling and dangerous and even painful.  That is the nature of light.  It does not narrow, it is not selectively adjustable. The aperture does not close.  It will not let me be God.  I do not control it, but undergo it.  His canticle, together with his words to Mary, forms a unit that names our own inner contradiction, our own simultaneous “yes” and “no”. The falling and rising, the opposition, the exposure of thoughts, the soul-piercing sword are realities within the life of Jesus.

They are also realities within me – to the extent that I participate in the light of conversion.The hope-filled news here is that the Gospel does its work of exposing me in the light of Christ’s love so that I can know and give myself to Christ and my neighbor. Like the sun, I can see the effects of Christ’s light better than the light itself. If I find myself scurrying for the shadows, it is because somewhere light is shining.  Conversion is my willingness to stop and be illumined.Conversion is my willingness to see like Simeon. My eyes have seen your salvation.  

Light has shone on reality.  When the light shines I know and can declare to God that my desire for comfort is not your salvation, my attachment to security is not your salvation.  Our darknesses – be they in caves or bathrooms or the darkness of our own hearts – are to teach us, to show us to ourselves, to orient us to the direction of the light, to beckon us back into glory and salvation.  The invitation is to see what God illuminates, to let the exposing light be a gift that I receive from the heart of a loving and caring God.