Lent 4 C - March 27, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC

Lent 4 C - March 27, 2022

Joshua 5:9-12

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

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In the name of the One God, who is Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing. Amen. One of the great gifts of monastic life is being able to see God’s mercy at work in your brothers. It’s very easy to see other people’s faults. They have a way of glaring at us. But to see their virtues—and more, to see those virtues grow slowly and eventually flower—that takes time, patience, and an attentiveness borne of selfless love and gratitude. Michael Casey, one of the great contemporary commentators on Benedictine spirituality, writes that one of the chief goals of monastic life is to teach us monks mercy. But in order for the monastery to be a school of mercy, there have to be folks around us who need mercy shown to them. Sometimes—actually, quite often, I’m afraid—I'm the one who needs to be shown mercy. That flow of mercy back and forth is one of the forces that binds the monastic community together in the bonds of love. This morning’s gospel reading invites us to explore God’s mercy—and our own—from at least three different angles. First we have the younger son, the eponymous prodigal. Conversion is relatively simple for this brother. For all his maddening irresponsibility, he is so loveable. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. I’m sure, like all conversion, it hurts like hell. But his life is so out of control that it presents him with countless opportunities to wake up. When he comes to himself and makes the journey home to his father, we get a scene that can soften the stoniest heart. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Before the son can get out the speech he has prepared, the father puts a robe around him and orders a feast. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found! Then we have the older son, who gets less time on the page. Of course he does—his father never gives him anything! He is the dutiful one. The A-student, who goes to law school or medical school or founds a non-profit. He's the one who never makes a mistake, who follows the rules, who takes care of his parents as they age, who does everything right. He’s the good one. He’s also full of anger, resentment, and self-righteousness. It’s so easy to dismiss him, as we usually dismiss the Pharisees, whom he represents. What’s wrong with him? Doesn’t he get it? Doesn’t he realize that God’s love flows abundantly? That grace isn’t a zero-sum game? Doesn’t he see that everyone wins in God’s economy? Well, no, he doesn’t see that. And really, do we? Do we live as if God’s mercy were earth’s most plentiful resource? Or do we try to hoard it up, and parcel it out to those we think deserve it, when we think they deserve it, and only as much as we think they deserve it? Or maybe I’m drawn to this son because I relate to him. I know this person. I have been this person, and sometimes I still am. Perhaps you are, too. For all his goodness, he is trapped in the prison of himself. Never having left home, he does not know the first thing about conversion, compunction, or return. Because he has remained at home, he denies himself the possibility of forgiveness and embrace, which comes through our failures, not our righteousness. Here we find him standing outside the party, refusing to go in and celebrate, because he would rather be alone and right than to be like everyone else and to dance. Deep joy requires surrender, and surrender is near impossible for those of us who think we’re good. Don Bisson says that so-called good people avoid the need for conversion, because we think it means more work. Like Martha, we’re already working so hard that we can’t imagine doing more for God, our communities, our families, or our workplaces. It’s extremely difficult for us so-called good people to become aware of our deep need of God’s mercy. Unlike the younger son, the older could live quite comfortably the rest of his life without seeking his father’s love and forgiveness. After all, he has the entire property now, and with it the cold illusion of self-sufficiency. Until he can see that he, too, is starving in the wilderness, he will never find the road back home. He will remain forever trapped outside the party, because he can’t surrender enough to laugh or to cry, much less to dance. I think that’s why we don’t get the end of this brother’s story. We don’t know whether he goes into the party or not. I’ll confess that even though I wish he would relent and embrace his brother, I find it hard to believe he allows himself that freedom. In my difficulty seeing the possibility of conversion for this older brother, I see reflected my own doubts of God’s grace and mercy and my own need of further and deeper conversion. O Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief. I notice, too, the compassion I feel for this older brother and my deepest wish that he would allow his father to love him and, in so doing, allow his own heart to turn from stone to flesh. Here we stumble on the deeper invitation of this text, which is not only to see and perhaps identify with two different roads to conversion and surrender, but also to notice and accept the invitation to love as God loves, to show mercy as we are continually shown mercy. A few days ago, Br. Robert left for me the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem, which goes like this: O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of indifference, discouragement, and despair, the lust for power and empty speech. Rather, grant to me, your servant, the spirit of purity of heart, humility, patience, and love. O my God and King, grant me grace to see my own sins and not judge what others say or do. For You are blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. I particularly resonate with that last line: grant me grace to see my own sins and not to judge what others say or do. It anticipates Julian of Norwich, who encourages us not even to notice the sins of others, unless we do so with deep compassion and love for the suffering which their sins cause them. This is the movement of the prodigal father, who sees the hurt of his sons, who grieves for their hurt, who loves them deeply, and who is filled with joy beyond measure at their return. This is how we are called to love one another: deeply, without reservation or judgment, and with joy at the rebirth of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Mercy is something we have to learn, but we can learn it. As we ourselves follow the journey of either or both of these sons, as we surrender and return and repent—and more importantly, as we allow God’s love and mercy to flow into us and to soften our hearts, to celebrate that we were dead and are now alive again—we can learn to allow God’s love and mercy to flow through us to our brothers and sisters who are hurting, trapped in their own prisons of sin or despair, and also to the world crumbling around us. Mercy is not a private gift, given for us to hoard or to cherish for ourselves alone, much less to hand out only to those we think worthy of it. It is food to strengthen us so that, in imitation of Christ, we can lay down our lives for one another, without reservation. Having returned home ourselves, we are called to run out into the fields to welcome others back. Even more, we are to be like the watchman watching for the tiniest hint of the morning’s light, raising the call of celebration that one of God’s children—our very own brother or sister—was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found. None of us will be saved in isolation. And to the extent that any of us is in bondage, none of us is truly free. The good news is that God waits for all of us to return, no matter how slowly or imperfectly. We will have to make the journey home again and again and again, because we are a forgetful lot. But, each time we do, God is already there waiting for us before we’ve taken the second step, running out to meet us with a robe—the best one!—and a ring and a party to welcome us home.

Annunciation - March 25, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku, OHC

Annunciation - March 25, 2022

Isaiah 7:10-14

Psalm 45

Hebrews 10:4-10

Luke 1:26-38

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InIn his book This Monastic Moment, incidentally written to commemorate the arrival of our brothers at Volmoed, the Rev. John De Gruchy, in Chapter 4 entitled In This Time & Place, sub topic, Open to the world: Hidden in God, while quoting Bonhoffer has this to say…

‘this worldly’ interpretation of the Bible which was intergral to the church becoming open to the other was intended to make concepts such as repentance, faith, justification, rebirth and sanctification, accessible to secular people; he was not suggesting that these concepts be discarded any more than he was jettisoning scripture. Even so, there are terms that speak from ‘faith to faith’ - that is, they make sense within the life of the Church where the language of faith is understood. By analogy, there is no reason why cricket-lovers should ditch words like goooly, maiden-over, or leg-before, just because the uninitiated do not understand them.

They are code words essential to every lover of the game. The same would apply to doctrines like the Trinity, Virgin birth, etc,which should not be thrust on to the world in a take-it-or-leave-it manner but taught and celebrated in the life of the Church as mysteries of faith. In this way, prayer, worship, the sacraments, and the creed remain hidden at the heart of the church. That is why Bonhoeffer says that all Christian talk must arise out of prayer and be expressed by doing justice in the world. The church would then be known by its penultimate witness to the reign of God through its service to the world rather than by the disciplines and doctrines that sustain its life of faith, hope and love. And it is in that service to the world that the church shares in solidarity with people of other faiths and those of no faith at all.

I am, therefore, unfortunate enough to stand before you this morning to preach when we commemorate one of the major doctrines or mysteries of the Christian faith, that is the Incarnation, as we celebrate this feast of the Annunciation. Although it is crucial for us to understand how God came to be human, it is also confusing at times because rarely does God, the author of nature, contradict nature but usually works with nature to achieve God’s ends… but in this case he did. I will therefore disappoint some of us by not going into the depths of the mystery of the Incarnation. That I will leave to the realm of the terms that speak from ‘faith to faith’. Instead the Spirit leads me to speaks about the motivation behind the incarnation, which hopefully will qualify as a ‘this worldly’ interpretation.

Now, the motivation behind the incarnation was nothing but pure love! God loved us from the beginning and when we failed decided to come be born, live like us and redeem us like one of us. Our salvation became God’s project throughout the Old Testament times and the message of redemption became even more intense with the prophets especially Isaiah, the prophet of hope. In the passage we heard from the first reading this morning (Isaiah 7:10-14), Isaiah is preaching to King Ahaz of Jerusalem who was under an imminent threat of attack from Israel which had aligned itself with the ‘pagan’ kingdom of Aram. King Ahaz responded with unbelief to God and His prophet that God will deliver Judah. Isaiah asks Ahaz to ask God for a sign as proof but he refuses; not so much becuase he didn't want to tempt God(because he was an evil king), but because he was trying to align himself with the king of Assyria, another ‘pagan’ king for protection. This frustrates Isaiah and he tells Ahaz that despite his refusal, God is going to give a him a sign anyway! It is in this context that the promise of a savior is given a name for the very first time (the second time during the annunciation as we heard in the gospel passage)!…The young woman shall bear a son Immanuel. Although this did not happen in the time of king Ahaz, it at least assured him that Judah will have a future, a sign of the perpetuity of the nation.

We are celebrating this feast a few weeks before the Easter triduum, when we celebrate the mystery of Christ’s suffering and death and later resurrection. At times it impossible to not wonder whether these two mysteries we are celebrating within weeks of each other, one evoking sorrow and the other joy are conflicting. The truth, however, is that they compliment each other and are explicitly brought together in today’s second reading from the letter to the Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews put words in the mouth of Jesus… “see God, I have come to do your will” and in this statement both are shown as expressions of the perfect obedience Jesus gave to his father’s will.

The question however remains why all that was God’s will. Why should the eternal son of God lower himself so much to attaining our human nature with all its limitations? Why should he begin life dependent on his mother, then undergo the whole process of growing up which includes the discomforts and inconveniencies of life that we all go through, and worse in the household of a lowly laborer and not in the comforts of a palace? Why subject himself to tempatation, hostility, rejection and betrayal? Why at the conclusion of it all go willingly and knowingly to his passion, to suffer an unjust judgement, mockery, blows and spitting and the humiliation of being stripped naked, then agree to nails being drilled into his flesh and bones? Why hang on the cross for hours, have his heart torn open with a spear and eventually end up in a tomb? Why would a loving God will all that on anyone, least of all His beloved Son?

The answer to that can only be Mercy driven by Love. Jesus did that in order to raise us with him to God. It was the price for forgiveness, out-poured love, an assuarance that we have become sons and daughters, and heirs of divine glory. It means that we are not just adopted or co-opted. We are owned, we are bought at a price and the price was, and still is, the life and blood of God Himself!

The world however has not changed an inch despite this unwavering love. I am writing and preaching this sermon during an unnecessary war being fought in Europe out of pure aggression and “big boy” or bully mentality! Innocent children and adults who just want to live their daily lives have been uprooted from their homes and lost their livelihoods and will most likely be traumatized for the rest of their lives, that is, if they live to tell the story. This is coming from a nation that has a quasi state religion that lays claim to orthodoxy, and the largest at that, the Russian Orthodox church, whose patriarch is rumoured to be a friend of the ‘Russian big boy’ and I can't help wondering if he has tried to tell him what he is doing is wrong! Forget about the current war if you can and open any newspaper or television and what hits you on the face is a confirmation of the negative judgement found in Romans 1:29-30… “they are steeped in all sorts of injustice, rottenness, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite; libellers, slanderers, enemies of God; rude, arrogant and boastful; enterprising in evil, rebellious to parents, without prudence, honor love or pity”

So, are we doomed as a species and the rest of creation with us? Have we tested God’s patience and endurance to its limits? The answer to this is no because we have an example still stemming from the incarnation event. In Mary, God’s love found an answering love. The obedience of Jesus to his father found a corresponding willingness in the maiden who was to be his mother. His goodness and purity of intention, generosity, selflessness, perserverance and humility found their reflection in Mary.

Mary, however, was not your naive or ignorant every day girl. At least she was aware that for a woman to give birth, she must have been with a man. “How can this be since I am a virgin” …she asks in Luke 1:34. She did not get involved in the project blindly. She engages the angel in dialogue and sought clarity. She knew God as the creator and author of nature and hence her question is not so much an expression of doubt but a surprise and an amazement at the extent God can go to communicate his love for us and for creation. Spiritual masters tell us that God’s love is for us as individuals and that if there was only one person living on earth, Jesus would have still come to die for the redemption of that individual. For Mary alone who said yes, God the Son would still have undertaken the incarnation and accepted his sacrificial death for the sake of her alone. Mary however represents the church as the bride of Christ whose profession of love is explicit in the responsorial Psalm for today which we did not read. I would recommend you read this Psalm 45, during your personal spiritual reading or Lectio. It is a love song that would be helpful to situate in the context of the love of God and God’s people the church.

Despite our struggles and despite the sinfulness of the individual members of the church, she still remains Holy, all beautiful, all pure and united in baptism all of us become worthy recipients of God’s enduring love and mercy. We also receive grace in abundance and the Lord is with us. This enables us to respond to the obedience and love of Christ with an answering obedience of our own.

We should therefore pray hard and always so that we may in obedience and love come to know the will of God for us, and the portion of the Letter to the Hebrews that we read this morning tells us that… “God’s will is for us to be made holy, by the offering of his body, made once and for all by Jesus Christ”. Hebrews10:10.

William R. Newell, a Bible teacher and a Commentator on the Book of Romans summarizes our life with the Incarnate Son of God with the following hymn that he composed one day in 1895 on his way to teach a Bible class….

Years I spent in vanity and pride Caring not my Lord was crucified Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! By God’s words at last my sin I learned Then I tremble at the law I’d spurned Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary! O the Love that drew salvation’s plan O the grace that brought it down to man O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! Now I’ve giv’n to Jesus everything Now I glady have Him as my King Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! (William R. Newell, pub.1895)

Lent 3 C - March 20, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC

Lent 3 C - March 20, 2022

Exodus 3:1-15

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

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At the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded of our mortality; “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And Saint Benedict, in his rule, enjoins his monks “To keep death daily before one's eyes” (RB 4:47). These instructions are given out of love and not morbidity. They are to remind us of our need to turn around towards God and make progress in that direction while we have a chance. ***** Today’s gospel reminds us that we do not get to choose either the time or the manner of our death. Death comes to us on its own terms. In today’s gospel, Jesus also warns us that the time and manner of our death says nothing on how good we are in the eyes of God. We all shall die some day and we are all sinners. We all fall short of how we could love God and neighbor. But as long as we are alive, we are given new opportunities to turn to God and to consent to God’s healing action in our lives. ***** An “act of God” is a legal term for events outside human control, such as sudden natural disasters, for which no one can be held responsible. It’s convenient shorthand in legal language to name it an act of God, but it is theologically unsound. No act of evil whether natural, political or personal can be imputed to God. God does not cause evil or hurt. Evil causes evil and hurt. Sin happens all the time and sin, by definition, is not God’s will. So whether natural or human-caused, I do not believe that hurtful occurrences are God’s retribution for our sin. It would be tempting to want God to act as a comic strip superhero stopping every evil act or hurtful phenomenon. But in that case, we would no longer have free will. We would no longer be able to freely do what is good. We would no longer be able to embrace God with a love that we voluntarily initiate and direct to God and neighbor. God tolerates evil because he wills that his children freely will or choose to live with him and according to his ways. Being free children of God requires our freedom of choice and our being exposed to all the risks that being alive implies. We are not a puppet on a string and that comes with the risks of having autonomy of will; one of which is the ability to sin and even cause evil. ***** So catastrophes and evil do happen. Bad things happen. The news cycle makes sure we never forget about that. And those things happen to all kinds of people. Good people and “bad people” alike are the victims of catastrophes. We do not need to ask whether they deserved what came to them. And attributing their ill fate to sin is just a way of making ourselves feel superior. We are all sinners anyway. Victims of catastrophes are not worse sinners than we are. They are sinners as we are; on average, no more, no less. When we escape catastrophe, we are not morally better than those who perished or got hurt. We are just lucky. And we receive the grace of living a little longer to bear good fruit in our lives. ***** And that is what the parable of the fig tree can teach us; bear good fruit while you can. We do not know the length of our life. In the light of eternity, our lives are short. We should use every moment well. We are called to live every day as fully as we can. If we lose sight of eternity we can be lulled into thinking that we have plenty of time, that we can reform later, and that for now we can do as we please. Procrastinating is not a good idea though. In the end, God may not look kindly on parasites. The fig tree that year after year produces nothing good, but only takes up space, time, and natural resources is a symbol for willfully unproductive human beings. These are the takers, the consumers, the parasites. They take out resources from the environment, but put nothing useful back in. The world and people exist simply to meet their needs. Does this paint the picture of a society we know? The parable teaches that nothing will survive that merely takes out and gives nothing in return. That is the definition of a parasite. True, we all draw strength and sustenance from a soil not our own by God’s grace, but we are to bear fruit so that others may draw from us. The parable teaches that we may get a second chance, or a third, or more, but eventually comes the final chance. *****

On a personal note, I am an adept of the doctrine of universal salvation. Universal salvation, or Christian universalism, is the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God. I imagine that our triune Godhead, through the living experience of Jesus, has a deeply human yet divinely infinite mercy and love. In the end, I believe, we will be judged and found lacking, but God’s mercy will prevail. Jesus will be our advocate. He will show how we availed ourselves of his help in our life. He will point out the good fruit we bore. And he will ask for forbearance for our shortcomings. When I was growing up as a little Roman Catholic boy, I was taught about Purgatory. I do not believe in a purgatory, where the souls of sinners suffer in expiation of their sin. But I imagine something like remedial classes in loving like God loves. I imagine that being in the presence of the all-loving God will be enough to make us regret our sins and finally fully turn towards God; call it ultimate conversion, ultimate metanoia. I hope, for the benefit of obdurate sinners, that God will give us our last chance at conversion even beyond death. Those who, even at that stage, will adamantly want to further reject God’s abundant and free love will indeed be removed from the presence of God. And an eternity of that will be hell indeed. But the biblical record is mixed on this issue of salvation and there is also plenty in the bible to support the idea of damnation of some, or even many. So conversion in our lifetime could be a prudent choice. Don’t you think? But even more compellingly for me, we should tread the path of conversion out of sheer love for the God who showers us with his grace and mercy in this life and beyond. So I enjoin you, repent and turn towards the God who loves you beyond all human knowing while you still have your living. It will give you a full and abundant life, even now. Amen.

Feast of Saint Joseph - March 19, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

The Rev. Suzanne Guthrie

Feast of St. Joseph - March 19, 2022

2 Samuel 7:4,8-16

Romans 4:13-18

Luke 2:41-52

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Your vision will only become clear when you look inside your heart

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.                                 -Carl Jung 1875-1961

Joseph must have known, in his dream of dreams, that Mary carried the Word in her womb.

That Joseph trusted his dream, that Joseph accepted the non-rational unknown, ennobles him in humility, courage, and integrity. That Joseph changes direction overnight in a dark conversion, makes him both a mystical icon, and an icon of hope.

Because Joseph is awakened by his dream, those of us looking on can take heart. I can change direction. I can take risks. I can learn to see in new ways.

How did Joseph know to turn aside from supposed “righteousness” as he knew it, that is, to put Mary away quietly, the less violent alternative according to law, and instead, follow a dark, non-rational,  alternative kind of righteousness? Something in his life – a practice of hope, perhaps - must have prepared him to pay attention to that particular dream that night:  do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Such a statement can make perfect sense in the context of a dream. Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. AND you will take her to Mediterranean Disneyland in Alexandria and take a ride on a flying elephant called Dumbo.
Then that baby of hers will walk on water and you'll have to go fetch him, but you too, will walk on the water and then you'll help the king of Egypt shell chickpeas.

How do you find the prescient dream within the silly dream? Joseph, like his ancestor Joseph, the beloved son of Jacob, must have trusted his dreams. Okay, maybe Dumbo and the king with chickpeas was too silly.

Dreams make sense while you're in them. But not upon waking. What is more likely, really, that Mary experienced sexual relations (most likely unwelcome) OR that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit? I mean, really.
 
But the Messenger in the dream sweetens the message with a scripture passage pregnant with hope, already deeply familiar to the dreamer: “Look, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."  Isaiah 7:14

But even more than his dreams, in order to embrace Mary's unusual pregnancy Joseph must have trusted not only the voice of God in the prophets, but the “through-line”  tales of reversals of power throughout story narratives from Abraham onward. First, he chose not to blame the victim – Mary, which put himself at risk of being forever an outsider. Second, he chose wild, illogical HOPE. Hope flies to hope. Hope implies action.

Rebecca Solnit, the multifaceted activist and writer says, 

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency.  Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”
                                                                                    Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Joseph is the embodiment of hope.  He means to pass this hope on to his son. Imagine him cradling the little one, and singing, [first, burp the baby, then play with the baby]

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry.
            The Lord sets the prisoners free;
            the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
            The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
            the Lord loves the righteous.
            The LORD watches over the strangers;
            he upholds the orphan and the widow,
            but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.                                       Psalm 146:5-9

If Joseph could believe and hope in the Lord God's promise to execute justice for the oppressed, give food to the hungry, set prisoners free, open the eyes of the blind, lift up those who are bowed down, love the righteous, watch over strangers, uphold the orphan and widow, then he probably had the potential to believe his espoused girl could be pregnant by the Holy Spirit rather than by a bullying Roman soldier.

See Joseph's nobility in today's passage from Luke. Children are the cruelest of critics. But here is Joseph, the opposite of toxic masculinity, with the opposite of arrogance, Joseph swallows the insult, I must be in my Father's house. For his own son's sake. For his son's own emerging sense of identity. To protect  Jesus' own belief in  that “through-line” of reversals of hubris and hate.

Rebecca Solnit again,

“I believe in hope as an act of defiance, or rather as the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance, those acts necessary to bring about some of what we hope for while we live by principle in the meantime. There is no alternative, except surrender. And surrender not only abandons the future, it abandons the soul.”
                                                                                            ― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

A poor man laboring as an artisan, no doubt working for the Roman oppressors in nearby Sepphoris, Joseph drew hope from the texts of his tradition, and saw in them the opportunity to act within the crack of business-as-usual, this promise, this dream of all dreams.

Lent 2 C - March 13, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Randy Greve, OHC

Lent 2 C - March 13, 2022

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

Philippians 3:17-4:1

Luke 13:31-35

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

The Gospel readings for the Sundays in Lent typically constellation around Jesus’ injunctions to self denial and self sacrifice - laying down our lives, taking up our cross, believing in him and in the meaning of his death. Jesus is making his way fatefully toward the final confrontation with the religious establishment as the completion of his work. This completion is his death in Jerusalem. He has set his face and nothing and no one will deter him from his mission. The narrative tension builds as Holy Week casts its shadow over each step closer to the climactic conflict with the powers. While those around him are concerned with the realities on the ground, especially about Jesus’ opponents and how to respond to them, Jesus is altogether uninterested in the Romans, their puppet kings, what they think of him, what they think they can do to him, or what suffering will befall him if he continues his radical and subversive ways.

His focus is on the cosmic unfolding of God’s redemption of the world. He sees across the span of Israel’s history, how often they have failed to heed the call to amend their ways, and laments what has been and what is coming. His people’s suffering is a greater cause of sorrow than his own. Two saying fragments are brought together in this reading - the response to Herod and the lament over Jerusalem. They may appear at first glance unrelated and awkwardly connected, but the contrast, the turn that happens in this short reading is very important, especially for our understanding of a holy Lent. We do well to note carefully our Lord’s near approach to Jerusalem, to Holy Week, so that his mind becomes our mind, his concerns our concerns.

Much of the language I internalized and still hear about Lenten discipline is individualized - the giving up or taking on of something as the practice for the forty days. I remember years when Lent for me was little more than a project of my will, a contest against my flesh, the enemy, in the battle with its sinful desires and passions. As good Americans steeped in the ways of individualism and capitalist need-fulfillment, we invariably hear in the invitation to a holy Lent the insistence to try harder. I recently led a Zoom session on prayer for a diocese where participants were asked to share their desires about their prayer practice. Words like “deeper”, “refocus”, “more”, “better”, and “closer” appeared repeatedly. The observation is in no way to demean the sincerity of the desire to pray wholeheartedly. But the distortion in such descriptors is in how prayer is interpreted - the self-criticism of not doing enough becomes the solution of praying more and better prayers to measure up the holiness. It is as if what God desires is always just out of reach, beyond my grasp, and so I must strain farther. Having thus filled myself with piety I will be a better person and Christian. In this view a holy Lent is a measurable and achievable goal of accumulated good works. What if the repentance God invites in Lent is neither achievable nor measurable? What if my individual good work is not the point at all?

Our Lord here in this text is reorienting our individualism, widening our horizons into the realm of the communal and systemic. The theological words relevant here are “principalities and powers” from Ephesians 6. The Baptismal liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer asks the candidates if they “renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God” and if they “renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.” A holy Lent concerns more than just me as if in a vacuum. I exist within systems of thought, language, and behavior that act upon me and shape the ways I see myself and the world in profound ways. Jesus names Herod Antipas, but Herod is a symbol for spiritual forces and evil powers. Jesus names Jerusalem, but Jerusalem symbolizes all of Israel, all of its history of violence towards the prophets and those sent to it. Between the violence of oppression and the violence of corrupt hard-heartedness stands Jesus answering both, exposing both, grieving the suffering of both, keenly aware of the end result of the grasp for power and control. The Romans and their co-conspirators believed that violence was the ultimate power and the fear it instilled the ultimate justice. Violence was necessary in the service of the greater good of order. The temple establishment believed that the preservation of customs and rituals exempted them from the prophetic correction. Violence was necessary in the service of the greater good of purity. Jesus will not be swayed by Herod’s threats or deceived by the temple system’s entitlement. By exposing the evil danger of these forces, he can then offer us a way of true community and peace.

A holy Lent, indeed God’s very mission for the Church, is contained in the alternative to both of these suicidal models of community. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”. That’s it. That’s Lent. And God’s mission for us. So much of what so many churches and ministries do is so important and needed. I know many Episcopalians who welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, comfort the lonely. We are serious about the dignity of every person, the call to justice, the care of God’s creation. May God give us the means and grace to sustain all of that and share the good news with all people. But here, in these words, our Lord’s desire is not for a food drive or a march or a meeting. He is asking us to allow ourselves to be gathered close to him for love’s sake - because he wants us together and close to him. The temple establishment dutifully kept the laws and traditions, carefully observed the sacrifices and festivals and sabbath, were serious about purity and cleanliness. Yet when the prophets declared God’s judgment, they scoffed and when the Messiah - the very Messiah for whom they have waited and hoped these many centuries appeared - they mocked him as he hung on a cross. In their quest to get the outer goodness right, they neglected the purpose of the covenant life, the heart of God’s faithfulness and mercy. They would not be gathered to Jesus because they made the project of holiness their own and believed they could manage it themselves. They succumb to the spiritual forces of self-sufficiency and a spirituality of measurements.

In consenting to be gathered - not based on our own merit or goodness, but in the wonder and poverty of our inherent sacredness as the beloved children of the Lord, we are faced with the loss of our masks of success, the anguish of our pride, the lament for our satisfaction with ourselves in our own eyes. We may finally be given the freedom for our deepest desire - the abandonment of our attachment to our exterior self and the peace of complete surrender, of rest in the wings of Christ. There kept close and loved in the perfection of Christ’s love and the emptiness of our selves, we encounter God’s mercy without condition and without explanation. We love Christ by letting Christ love us, gather us to himself. Doing good works for Christ is not a substitute for being gathered to Christ.

During Lent, it is good to hear a word from St. John of the Cross, so I conclude with this passage from the Dark Night:

“Therefore, O spiritual soul, when you see your desire obscured, your affections arid and constrained, and your faculties bereft of their capacity for any interior exercise, be not afflicted by this, but rather consider it a great happiness, since God is freeing you from yourself and taking the work from your hands. For with those hands, how’s lever well they may serve you, you would never labor so effectively, so perfectly and so securely (because of their clumsiness and uncleanness) as now, when God takes your hand and guides you in the darkness, as though you were blind, to an end and by a way which you know not nor could ever hope to travel with the aid of your own eyes and feet, how so ever good you may be as a walker.”

Amen.

Lent 1 C - March 6, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Ephrem Arcement

Lent 1 C - March 6, 2022

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4:1-13

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To the God who was, who is, and who will be forever. Amen. Even if your glass is always half full and you wake up each morning with a big smile on your face ready to conquer the coming day, there will no doubt be times in life when you’ll find yourself where the light has dimmed and where the oppressive threat of doom closes in upon you. The ebb and flow of life has its own logic. As a person of faith, though, I refuse to believe that this logic is in any way outside the influence of God. On the contrary, no matter how impersonal, sporadic, chaotic, or even cruel it may sometimes seem, my faith assures me that God is imminently present and at work in every ebb and flow of life’s journey working all things together for good. In today’s Gospel reading we find Jesus brought by the devil to the mountaintop of Jerusalem, indeed, even to the pinnacle of the temple. The pinnacle of the temple, scholars suggest, is likely a reference to the southwest corner of the temple mount. It’s the location overlooking the Kidron Valley where the priest would blow the trumpet to call the Jews to worship. It was the place where the divine called out to the human and where both would commune together. So, when the devil tries to get Jesus to force God’s hand by saving him after throwing himself off the pinnacle of the temple, he is testing Jesus’ faith–seeking to sow doubt into Jesus’ heart and mind about who he is as God’s Beloved and thereby thwarting his mission in destroying evil and ushering in God’s kingdom of peace where heaven and earth are one. As we should recall, the three tests of Jesus follow immediately after his baptism where God declares that Jesus is “my beloved in whom I am well pleased,” followed by the genealogy where Jesus’ identity is reinforced: he is not only the son of Joseph, son of Eli, he is also son of Adam, son of God. Everything Jesus will do from here on out will flow from this intimate knowledge, or you can say “faith,” that he is infinitely loved by the one he calls “Abba.” The devil knows this and so seeks to rupture the relationship by sowing seeds of doubt, “If you are the Son of God….” If he can only cause Jesus to doubt that he is God’s Beloved, then maybe Jesus would, when things got tough, lose faith and take matters into his own hands. The text leaves us wondering, “Will Jesus prove to be another Abraham who doubted God’s fidelity and power to save, or will his inner conviction reveal a different kind of faith and a new kind of union between human and divine?” The text won’t answer this question until the story has reached its end and not before Jesus’ faith is tested over and over again. Lent, like the spiritual life in general, is all about this journey of faith and how it allows the good in us to overcome the evil. And today’s lessons show us that the only way that progress is made, that we become more and more grounded in our identity as God’s beloved and so fulfill our mission of conquering evil is by undergoing the testing of our faith. As it was for Jesus, so it is for us. Faith not tried is faith not realized. At our baptism, we are all made daughters and sons of God. Eternity now dwells within us or as St. Paul’s says, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” The reason we come to a monastery is to allow this truth to become more apparent…to silence the chaos of the visible which is transitory and passing away and to allow the hidden, eternal truth of God’s word to be heard and believed once again…or maybe for the first time. But, even then, it’s often not until we have some sort of crisis of faith that we begin to finally ask the deeper questions that can awaken within us who, in fact, we are in God and reveal to us that God is not aloof or distant to the chaos of our lives, no matter how much it may seem, but is right in the middle of it seeking to remind us of what we have perhaps forgotten, “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” As a human family we find ourselves at this particular historical moment in a dark valley where the oppressive weight of doom presses down upon us in unprecedented ways. For many…we find ourselves in a crisis of faith. Two years in a global pandemic which has claimed nearly 6 million lives. Ecological disaster that now seems to be irreparable, according to the latest UN report released last week. And now the devastating war in Ukraine that has the world on edge. If there is any one temptation today that we must guard against, it would have to be the temptation to despair. But let us remember that this dark valley is part of life’s ebb and flow and that this temptation is better understood as a test…a trial of faith…God using it to waken us ever more to the divine presence and power at work right in the midst of all the mess and seeking to create something beautiful out of the rubble. Luke concludes his account of the testing of Jesus by saying, “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until the opportune time.” That “opportune time” points to the days leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion when the devil will appear again now in Judas to betray his Master with a kiss and when the devil will test Peter and the other disciples as he seeks to sift them like wheat. But it also points to a time when Jesus will mount another mountain and confront the devil face to face and receive one final test, this time through the voice of a criminal hanging beside him, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us as well.” Jesus refuses one last time to force God’s hand and instead, this time, from the pinnacle of the cross takes the leap throwing himself in total faith and abandonment into God’s embrace…“Into your hands I commit my spirit.” And yet, precisely there, when all hope seemed lost and the earth was engulfed in deep darkness, the light of the resurrected Christ made of death not an end to dread but a means for an ultimate transformation. Let us, then, be resolute and fearless in our Lenten pilgrimage to Calvary. The Holy Spirit goes before us leading us through the dark valley. There will be trials. Maybe we’ll even be sifted like wheat. But there are also precious lessons to be learned, perhaps the most important being learning to hear the constant whisper, “You are my Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” May we daily awaken with our inner eyes and ears wide open and ready ourselves with constant vigilance, always guarding against despair, always choosing the path of faith. Terrence Malick’s 2001 film The Tree of Life begins,

“The nuns taught us that there were two ways through life…the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. It accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. It accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself; get others to please it too. It likes to lord it over them; to have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy, while all the world is shining around it…and love is smiling through all things. They taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end. I will be true to you whatever comes.”

Ash Wednesday - March 2, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC

Ash Wednesday - March 2, 2022

Joel 2:1-2,12-17

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

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In the name of the One God, who is Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing. Amen.

You only are immortal, the creator and maker of [hu]mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song. (BCP, 499) 

So goes the commendation of the body in the burial service from the Book of Common Prayer. 

Today marks the beginning of another Lenten journey through the desert. Today we undergo a kind of burial, marked with ashes as a reminder of our mortality. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Remember. 

 

Memory, as we all know, is capricious and unreliable. We remember only in part—usually the part that most affected us emotionally—and our minds fill in the details of the past in ways that often confirm whatever biases we already have firmly in place. And often, we remember what we wish—or fear—were true. 

 

We might call this phenomenon denial. As the saying goes, it ain’t just a river in Egypt. Nor is a bad thing, really. Denial is a gift that allows us to set aside painful truths, memories, or events that we are not strong enough to look in the eyes just yet. 

 

Then, of course, there are all the truths we know intellectually but that have still not sunk down into our hearts. Like the truth of our mortality or of our need for God’s goodness and grace or of the overflowing abundance of God’s love for us. These are some of the truths this season asks us to recall in order that we might return to God and live. I’m sure there are other truths yet more personal that await our invitation to plant themselves in the soil of our hearts. 

 

In the last year, I have had the privilege of accompanying someone through a rare and usually terminal cancer. For months, she was sharply aware of her mortality, and it seemed likely that she would die this year. Having had surgery, she now has a good prognosis, but she can’t unsee the possibility of her death. I recently said to her, “You have looked death in the face, and now you know it is not a question if you are going to die; it’s a question of when you are going to die. And that has to change how you live the rest of your life, whether it is one more day or twenty more years. Your denial of death is over, and that has changed everything.” 

 

The truth is perhaps a bit subtler and more complex for most of us. We all accommodate ourselves to the daily getting on with things. We adapt, survive, and learn to forget the pain, or at least to live with it more or less companionably. Our own collective forgetting is largely responsible for the political, ecological, epidemiological, and economic disasters that have been piling on for the last several years. But today, and this season, call on us to remember.  

 

The remembrance to which we are called is a full body and full-hearted experience. This remembrance is not the reading of pious books that fill our minds with nice ideas about God. It isn’t fasting from chocolate so we can fit into our skinny jeans again. Remembrance of the kind that Lent invites us into is the drawing together of all the shards of ourselves, all the fragments we have flung into the corners of our lives so that we can come to greater wholeness and integrity in God. So that, in that beautiful image from Jeremiah, our hearts can turn from stone to flesh. 

 

This process can be a painful one, but it isn’t one we have to go through alone. Several years ago, I was in a process of deeper healing in my relationship with my father. We’d come a long way, but there were some painful memories that just wouldn’t let go. One morning, as I was praying, without knowing where the question came from, I asked God to show me what had happened. I saw the scene unfolding in front of me. Only this time, I was watching events unfold from God’s perspective, and I felt God’s love so powerfully, both for myself and for my father. A part of that love was the tearing of God’s heart, and the pain of silent, loving witness. God didn’t intervene. God didn’t stop me or my father from being hurt. God stood there, loving us both beyond loving, witnessing to the totality of that moment, which was so much more than the events taking place. 

 

That moment of prayer was powerfully healing. God remembered me, and my father, and every detail of that moment. God held us all together, all the broken, sharp-edged parts of us. God fitted together the fragments and made whole what once had been broken. 

 

Perhaps this Lent, we’re called to learn to witness as God witnesses. Witnessing requires patience. It requires attention. It requires us to stand there, feeling powerless, allowing our hearts to break open at the pain or the beauty of another’s life—or our own—so that we can learn to love as God loves.  

 

We all know there is more than enough to witness these days: the shattering of world order, the atrocity of war in Ukraine, the unmooring of our lives in the recent pandemic, and surrounding it all the continued and accelerating collapse of the climate, all in addition to whatever smaller but no less important moments fill our daily lives. In this witnessing is a kind of martyrdom—a laying down of our lives as a testimony to the power of God’s love and God’s life to make all things whole and new again in Christ. 

 

If it is true, as I told my friend with cancer, that having looked into the face of death, we can no longer live in denial of our mortality, it is also true that having known life, we can no longer fully deny its reality. Christ died once, for all. And each of us in this room has heard, in our various ways, Christ’s calling in our hearts, drawing us on to seek the life that really is life. We have all responded, however imperfectly, to that call, or we wouldn’t be here today. Just as we cannot fully ignore the reality of death, however much we try, we cannot fully ignore or forget the reality of Christ’s resurrection. Today we are called most especially to remember our redemption in Christ.  

 

As the burial rite hovers in the background of today’s liturgy, so, too, does the baptismal rite buoy us from below. The mark of the ashes on our foreheads sits on the same spot where, however many years ago, we were sealed with chrism and the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Buried with Christ in his death, so that we might be raised with him in his resurrection. 

 

We needn’t fear the darkness of the Day of the Lord of which the prophet Joel reminds us. For while it is the darkness of the tomb, it is at the same time, the darkness of the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters at the Creation, and it is the blinding light of Christ’s coming in glory. 

 

And so, even at the grave—and yes, even in Lent—we make our song.