Saint Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero OHC

Saint Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2023

Genesis 28:10-17

Revelation 12:7-12

John 1:47-51

 

Oración al Angel de la Guarda
Angel de mi guarda
oh mi dulce compañía
no me desampares ni de
noche ni de día hasta que
me entregues en los brazos
de Jesús y de María. Con
tus alas me persigno y me
abrazo de la Cruz y en
mi corazón me llevo al
dulcísimo Jesús.
Amén.

I used to pray that prayer to the Guardian Angel every night as a child growing up in Puerto Rico. The translation goes something like this:

Guardian Angel, my sweet companion, do not desert me during the night nor during the day, until you deliver me into the arms of Jesus and Mary. With your wings I make the sign of the cross and embrace it, and in my heart, I carry my sweet Jesus. ~Amen

The belief in guardian angels comes from various Gospel passages that tell us that one of the functions of angels is to guard and protect, especially the safety of “the little ones”. So, when I was a child I was taught that each of us has an angel appointed by God to accompany and protect us. I still believe it.

In an article for “Seasons”, a short-lived Dominican magazine in the sixties, Thomas Merton describes angels as “our…fellow servants in a world of freedom and of grace… [T]hey come to us as invisible messengers of [Christ’s] divine will, as mysterious protectors and friends in the spiritual order. Their presence around us, unimaginable, tender, solicitous and mighty, terrible as it is gentle, is more and more forgotten while the personal horizon of our spiritual vision shrinks and closes in upon ourselves.

The much advertised "death of God" - that "absence" which is one of the most significant features of our modern world - is no doubt due in large part to our incapacity to hear the voices of heavenly messengers. We have forgotten how to trust these strangers, and because of our suspicion we have denied them. Mistrust of the Lord begins therefore with mistrust of his messengers. And how easy it is to mistrust those invisible ones who speak more by sudden and significant silences than by clear and probative statements.

For the angels "prove" nothing, not even themselves. They efface themselves entirely in their messages. Yet it is by the silent power, the all-embracing clarity of their messages that we know them. God speaks to us in and through them, and in so doing he also speaks to us their identity, revealing in them strange and sacred personalities which bear witness to [God] in [God’s] utter hiddenness.”

Although it is difficult for the post-modern mind, with its rational sense of reality, to conceive of them, we all have either talked about or heard someone talk about angels. I personally have experienced times when I have been saved from some danger or have been spared the consequences of my own foolishness because God was there acting through some person I did not know and never saw again, or some force or energy I could not see or understand.

The idea of these mysterious beings was introduced to the Hebrew imagination (very likely from the Zoroastrian tradition) around the time of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), when it is generally believed the books of the Pentateuch were composed. So, there are many accounts in both, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, of created beings other than humans who are sent to earth with different roles, functions and orders. They are usually identified by the word for “messenger”, in Hebrew malach, in Greek, angelos, from which the word "angel" derives. In the scriptures, angels have appeared to Abraham, Jacob, Lot, Daniel, Zechariah, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and to those at Jesus’ tomb on the morning of the Resurrection. Angels have spoken to prophets, closed the mouths of lions, forced a donkey off their path (remember that one?), appeared in dreams, guarded a garden, and killed off enemies of God’s people.

There are specific kinds of angels identified in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Cherubim (who apparently are not cute chubby babies!)– one of whom is placed with a flaming sword to guard the gateway to the Garden of Eden in chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis. The Seraphim – whom Isaiah describes as having “six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew,” and who sing God’s praises at the heavenly throne. We know the names of the archangels who, while appearing as separate beings, have been understood in strands of the Jewish mystical tradition as the modes through which God, who is infinite, interacts with the finite world. So their names are attributes of God: Raphael literally means "God heals"; Gabriel means "the strength of God"; Uriel- "the Light of God"--and so on. It is mythology. It is beautiful. And it is true!

The lectionary today treats us to three familiar scripture stories about angels: the story of Jacob’s ladder; the story of the war in heaven in which Michael, leading the angels (the good ones!), beats the dragon, Satan, the deceiver of the whole world and his angels (the bad ones!); and finally, the gospel story of Jesus telling Nathanael that he will see something like Jacob’s ladder, “ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

In the Genesis story, echoed in Saint John’s Gospel, Jacob’s dream shows us a liminal space, an edge that shades into another space. In Celtic spirituality it is called a “thin place”. In the three-tiered universe of the scriptures, the spiritual realm was up in the sky and the realm of evil and death was “down”. The significance of the angels ascending and descending is a way of describing a connection between the unseen, spiritual “above”, the realm of eternity, and the tangible world, the realm of time, space and matter. The ladder is Christ, through whom the angels connect the finite with the Infinite, linking and maintaining a continual exchange between realms. And this continual exchange between realms, which we actually access through prayer and contemplation, is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of our hearts and our world.

The story from Revelation reminds us that we are part of an eternal drama that is described in metaphorical language yet also says something concrete about our world and our lives. While there are angels continually climbing up and down the ladder, which is Christ, the dragon and his angels remind us that the higher we are the lower we can fall. The greater our gifts and talents, the greater the damage if we use them with the wrong intentions and without humility.

In his book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, a phrase taken from the conclusion of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address in 1861, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker names four “better angels:”

•    Empathy, which “prompts us to feel the pain of others and to align their interests with our own”.
•    Self-control, which “allows us to anticipate the consequences of acting on our impulses” and thus to regulate those impulses.
•    Moral sense, which “sanctifies a set of norms and taboos that govern the interactions among people”.
•    Reason, which “allows us to extract ourselves from our parochial vantage points”.

These are a sort of modern merging of the nine attributes St. Paul called the “fruits of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) It is through these fruits and gifts that human conscience is informed, and conscience, as Thomas Merton said in his book “No Man Is an Island”, “is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.” So, as our beloved the late Brother Andrew Colquhoun once said, if you don’t believe in angels, then for Christ’s sake become one. Become a healer, and a proclaimer; become a warrior against hunger and hopelessness and evil; be a Light Bearer in the darkness around us. And remember to always “show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:2) ¡Que así sea, en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

Proper 20 A - September 24, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Delcourt OHC

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20 A, September 24, 2023

 

Exodus 16:2-15
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

With this verse, each time we pray the Lord’s prayer we ask God to act as the affirmative action employer we have in today’s parable. We ask God to give us enough just to live today. We commit to depend on the mercy and grace of God.

In the Exodus story, God teaches God’s chosen people to learn to rely on him one day at a time. OK; two days at a time on the morning before the Sabbath. But that is two days at most. The manna even wastes away when you hold it longer.

God’s beloved people are trained by God not to hoard resources. They are to trust in God’s faithfulness to God’s children.

Jesus tells us that today’s parable resembles the kingdom of heaven. The landowner in this parable is adamant to find the very last person available to work in his vineyard. The harvest is plentiful and he needs all the laborers he can find, even at a late hour in the day.

The landowner considers that everyone deserves a living wage, even those who are late to the game. The wage agreed for with the first laborers he hires is a denarius.

It is nigh impossible to know exactly how much of an equivalent USD amount a denarius would be. But the consensus is that it was enough to live by for a day. Contemporary equivalent might be between 80 and 100 USD a day; nothing to get rich by, but enough to feed modestly a small family.

The second, third and fourth hires of the day (the 9 o’clock, noon and 3pm folks) are promised a pay of “whatever is right.” To most people of back then or of today, they would have expected a pay proportional to the part of the day that they actually worked (not the full day’s pay).

The five p.m. laborers are not even promised a pay at all but must have hoped for some remuneration. They probably didn’t expect much.

But when pay time comes around, everybody receives the same daily wage, a denarius, regardless of the amount of time they have actually toiled under the sun in the vineyard.

This is a landowner who affirms the right of all his workers to a living wage. It is in contradiction with society’s expectation of equal pay for equal work.

But what if you can’t find work till the eleventh hour of the day? The landowner does not put his workers in competition for a living wage. He makes no difference according to performance. This goes beyond justice for those who can get it. Instead, it demonstrates solidarity for all.

There are no winners and no losers in this vineyard. Although, those who worked hard the whole day would argue otherwise. Don’t they deserve more than the others?

But Jesus seems to say that in the kingdom of heaven, access to resources is not a question of merit but a question of need.

So, how do we let God’s kingdom of heaven break into our world? Where can we start to demonstrate solidarity for all, regardless of economic (or other) performance?

Primitive christian communities operated that way. Acts 2: 44-45 tells us “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” How can we live together ever closer to that ideal?

Monastic communities approximate this way of sharing resources. Individual monks are precluded from holding anything more in individual use than what is needed for their daily living. Even so, it is understood that the clothes I wear belong to my community. We often joke to another brother showing up with a new shirt: “that’s a nice shirt we have there, Brother!”

However, everything I need is provided for by my community: room and board, healthcare, transportation, leisure, eldercare. I need not hoard anything for my future needs.

But also, the institution of the monastery owns a great deal of things necessary for the community to function today and we even hold reserves for future healthcare and eldercare.

One could argue that those communal belongings are held by the grace of God. What we don’t provide much for as a community is the superfluous. And God forbid that we should indulge in the extravagant. Our vow of conversion to the monastic way of life encompasses the directive of living simply.

Legend has it (or is it historical) that our founder, James Otis Sargent Huntington, would gather whatever money we had from our communal bank account at the end of the month and go give it away to the poor.

We nowadays have a different understanding of prudential care of our community. We show care and forethought to the men who are in the community today and those, who by the grace of God, will join us in the future.

So, how can we encourage and enable initiatives that support the provision of enough for every one in our family, country, on our planet?

Some politicians have suggested enacting laws towards the provision of Universal Basic Income. It is also known as guaranteed income. The payments are unconditional and do not require a means test or work requirement. The payments are made independently of any other income. It is a concept well worth investigating.

But even less ambitious endeavors could bring us closer to the proper care for all regardless of competitive merit.

What about the massive increase of public transportation? What about affordable housing for all? What about affordable childcare and healthcare for all?

Next time, you are enjoying the right to vote, consider how your democratic entitlement supports the provision of enough to live well to everyone.

So today’s parable opens us up to what living in the kingdom of heaven might be like here today.

We might be called late into God’s vineyard, but we are all called to contribute in whatever ways we can.

We will all be provided for by God’s grace. We Christians are called to embody that grace and provide for those who lack resources.

We can advocate for ways our families, communities and our society at large provide enough out of pure solidarity.

We are not to compete for more than what is enough. We are called to enjoy God’s grace in our everyday life.

We don’t deserve God’s grace according to our own merits. We deserve God’s grace because God is infinitely merciful and loving.

All we enjoy is by God’s grace. All we can be thankful for is ours to enjoy because we are God’s beloved, each and every one of us.

Thank you, Beloved God, for your abiding love. Amen.

Proper 19 A - September 17, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky OHC

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19 A, September 17, 2023

 

Genesis 50:15-21
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

   The themes of forgiveness and reconciliation feature prominently in today's scripture readings, particularly in the Old Testament story of Joseph's encounter with his brothers who had tried to kill him and Jesus’ teaching in Matthew's gospel about forgiveness.  Like all scripture, these passages occur within a particular context and story. This is especially true of the gospel passage which presents an ethic for the emerging Christian community as it struggles to understand and distinguish itself as it develops in and out of the rich soil of Jewish practice and the surrounding pagan classical culture.

    What makes Christian forgiveness distinct? How different is it from so-called run-of-the-mill human forgiveness? It's not easy to say. There is a growing interest among psychologists, philosophers and theologians in the process and possibility of forgiveness, and it turns out to be very complex indeed. Just this past week I was passing our sales table outside the bookstore and spotted a volume written by a Jesuit priest and scholar titled: “Rethinking Christian Forgiveness: Theological, Philosophical, and Psychological Explorations.” It looks like a great study, but at over 400 pages it did not turn out to be very helpful, at least in the short term. And yet all these dimensions--theology, philosophy, and psychology along with so much more--are part of the experience and challenge of forgiveness human and divine.   Given this richness and complexity, this may sound more like a lecture than a sermon, and I ask in advance for your pardon and patience. Because all I can offer are some thoughts, not terribly original and rather unrelated, but that I think important as we hear these scripture lessons and think together about forgiveness.
    In today's gospel Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses, and his gospel has five sections of teaching which correspond in a way to the five books of Moses. And what Jesus does in today’s passage, as he so often does, is to turn the tables on our customary thinking about such things as forgiveness. Last week we heard him talking about fraternal correction and mutual accountability and how that might take shape in the Christian setting. Peter, wanting clarity and definition, immediately steps up and asks how often he should forgive his brother or sister, meaning a member of the Christian community. As many as seven times?  Peter, I imagine, thinks he's being quite generous here, perhaps even radical. But Jesus answers: not seven times but I tell you seventy-seven times or, as some manuscripts have it, seventy times seven. What kind of answer is that? Well perhaps it's an answer which says: there's no limit. Or better: perhaps it's an answer which says that forgiveness is not a numbers game at all. Forgiveness is not about arithmetic or counting but about conversion. If there is repentance and apology on the part of the wrongdoer--and I think we must acknowledge that condition in the text--then we must enter a process of availability and exploration that can lead to reconciliation and the healing of a ruptured relationship.
    But again, this is a Kingdom ethic and is specifically directed to the members of the early Christian community in their dealings with each other. Can we expand it to include our families, our friends, our community, our world? And should we? I don't know. I'd like to think we can and should, but here I truly don't know. What I do know is that this teaching of Jesus is not a formula for exploitation or for avoiding accountability or for excusing intentional harms as if they did not happen. Dean Andrew McGowan of Berkeley Divinity School, put it well in his recent reflection on today's Gospel:
“Jesus is not offering a formula for codependence, but for relations in the church community itself, and he is not allowing for a longer chain of repeated misbehavior than Peter, but suggesting that Peter and we consider the issue altogether differently.”
I'm also certain that this is not advice from the Ancient Near East to forgive so that we can, as we say today, get on with our lives, though that is how we often hear forgiveness spoken of in our current therapeutic culture. There is a truth in it, but not the main point as I see it.
    Today's gospel reading is mostly a parable about forgiveness and the refusal to forgive in turn. Despite its somewhat gruesome ending, the parable reminds us that we have been forgiven by God and probably also by many others and that we are invited, encouraged, and maybe even required to mirror that action in our daily lives. To conform our lives to God's model is to act according to our own deepest identity. It is to forgive as God forgives, which is rather indiscriminately. I think of an antiphon which we sing during the season of Lent: “If we forgive others the wrongs they have done, God in heaven will also forgive us.” But let’s be clear: we're not talking about arithmetic, we're not talking about give and take, we're not even talking about effort and reward.  We're talking about relationships and we're talking about reaching deeper within ourselves to touch that of God within us, whether we think we have it in us or not.
    Indeed, sometimes forgiveness can seem to be impossibly supernatural. Many of us are familiar with the recent incident when a white supremacist named Dylann Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston SC and murdered nine church members. Though Roof displayed no obvious repentance, many of the victims’ family members offered Roof forgiveness. Similarly, in 2006 members of an Amish community in Pennsylvania rallied in support of the family of a man who had killed five young Amish girls, wounded five others, and then killed himself.  It sounds and looks like a miracle. But is it possible for us, and is it good for us or our society? Would I, would we be able to do that? My fear is that frequently our religious traditions push us to places where we're not ready to be, refusing to recognize that grace is more often a process, a very long process, sometimes a lifelong process rather than something that happens overnight.
    And beyond that, in the political realm, what does forgiveness mean? And who has the right to forgive? Can I forgive Hitler for the Holocaust? Or Pol Pot? Or Vladimir Putin? No, I cannot. Or at least not formally, largely because I don't have skin in that game. I don't have standing, as we might say in courts of law, as one who had been directly harmed by these people. We need to be careful that in our desire to make things nice we don't stifle the voices and the agency of those who have been grievously harmed. I cannot and should not speak for them unless they have commissioned me to do so.  Nor can I forgive on their behalf.
    So, where does this take us, where does it take me and you as Christians? First, it takes us to the recognition that forgiveness, unilateral or mutual, is rarely easy. It is hard work, it can be scary, and it can and often does leave scars. It is rarely, if ever: “Forgive and forget.” Rather it is and should be: “Forgive and remember” without holding the offense against the other whom we forgive but letting them and us become freer and more able to enter into a new relationship, even with those who have departed from us. After all, as we say in our creeds: we believe in the communion of saints. Forgiveness and reconciliation are still possible. Even after many years.
    My final word may sound a bit shocking. Aside from today’s teaching about the Christian community, Jesus never asks us to forgive our enemies. Yes, you heard that correctly: Jesus never asks us to forgive our enemies. But what he does ask of us is something even more revolutionary and paradoxically perhaps even easier.  Nicholas Wolterstorff writes in his book “Journey Toward Justice”:
“Nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus reported as enjoining his listeners to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. We are instructed to love our enemies, including those who have wronged us and are unrepentant. We are not instructed to forgive our enemies.”
Not forgive but love. Even those who are unrepentant. Even those who continue in their harmful ways. Even those in the household of Faith. To love, to listen, to remain open to the possibility of a breakthrough, to welcome the smallest light that comes through the crack which leads to conversion of heart and mind and behavior.  Love is different from forgiveness, to be sure, but it is the ground and the soil from which the mystery of forgiveness can sprout and grow and flower and bear fruit.
    Unlikely? Maybe. Impossible? As a Christian I must say no. With God all things are possible. We live in hope. Daily we pray: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” And daily I pray for those whom I hate, people such as Vladimir Putin who continues to wreak such havoc on the land of my ancestors. I pray for him and for all the Vladimir Putin’s of this world so that my hatred might be turned to some kind of love, a love that wills the true and deepest well-being of the other, and that this love, tiny as it may be, can lead to the conversion of hearts, theirs and mine. I can hope for no less. 
    “Listen, listen, love, love.” That’s the motto of the Kairos prison ministry, a type of Cursillo for the incarcerated that our brother Allan Smith was deeply involved in until his passing in 2006.  He lived that motto.  And I think that that may be the perfect summary of Jesus’ teaching today: “Listen, listen, love, love.”  Perhaps forgiveness and reconciliation and salvation begin there for us all.  In fact, I’m pretty certain of it. 
Amen.

Holy Cross Day - September 14, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Mr. Samuel Kennedy p/OHC

Holy Cross Day, September 14, 2023

 

Isaiah 45:21-25

Philippians 2:5-11

or Galatians 6:14-18

John 12:31-36a

Click here for an audio of the sermon (not available for this sermon)

 In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“Crux est mundi medicina” “ The cross is the medicine of the world.”  These words are engraved in stone and rest over the entrance to the guest house here at the Monastery of the Holy Cross — they are hard to miss, and they are a bold claim.  A very bold claim. And I’ll confess, on some days, I feel that they may be too bold a claim.  There are days when I walk past that inscription, sigh, and shake my head, wishing we’d toned the message down just a bit.  Is the cross the medicine of the world?  Really?  How?  I imagine that each of us here can immediately call to mind examples of how the symbol of the cross has been co opted for the purposes of imperial expansion or selfish gain, or can call to mind examples of well-intentioned efforts by the church that have resulted in great harm -- all in the name of the cross.  But the claim persists, etched in stone, even when I struggle with it — that somehow, in spite of all of that, the cross remains the best medicine for the world.  

Before we think a bit more about how the cross may be the medicine we need, it might be good to consider the malady for which the cross is allegedly the cure?  There are about as many answers to that question as there are people who have asked it, but I want to spend time together this morning exploring one way of understanding our human problem and how the cross might be the best medicine for that ill.

I’m going to start somewhere we might least expect for thoughts on our diagnosis — the arena of U.S. politics — but please don’t panic, we’ll only stay there for a moment.  

In the the lead-up to the 2020 Presidential election, an short-lived contender in one of our major parties’ primary processes shared his diagnosis of our national malady as he understood it — he shared that he believed we were in the midst of a “crisis of belonging” and that our extreme political polarization as a nation and tendency to demonize those on the “other” side of the political aisle were, at their core, symptoms of this “crisis of belonging.”  I think he was onto something.

This crisis of belonging has “ailed” us since the dawn of our human story — this sense of estrangement coupled with a longing to belong —to belong within our community, to our God, and with ourselves.    We see these tensions echoed in our sacred texts as early as the story of Cain and Abel.  One of our primary problems as humans is that we tend to conceive of belonging as a limited resource, and we tend to turn our striving to obtain that limited resource into a zero-sum competition with those around us. 

One of philosopher René Girard’s key insights was that we humans tend to build social cohesion on the back of exclusion. And these dynamics work themselves out no matter how large or small the community is — be it as large as a nation state or as small as a family, a group of friends, or if we are not careful, even a religious Order.  As rivalry and competition grow within the community (along with their attendant social tensions and, in some cases, violence) human societies will often select a scapegoat —a person or group who is blamed for the turmoil and conflicts within the community. The scapegoat becomes the target for all of that collective blame and hostility, and is often subjected to violence or expulsion as a means of purging the community of its tensions and conflicts.  

This often happens subconsciously, but the striking thing is that this process works — at least temporarily.  For a season, social cohesion and sense of safety in belonging are restored, but in the long run, this mechanism only perpetuates cycles of violence, as the social order, the “sense of safe belonging,” is maintained via cycles of ritual expulsion and violence.  The irony of building community by this mechanism is that one is never actually ever safe — subconsciously we all know that we might find ourselves selected for expulsion at the next round of sacrifice— and this leads to deep, subconscious anxiety at both the group and individual levels.

This mechanism for social cohesion is at work around us all the time.  And we participate in this way of being together all the time, I participate in this way of being together all the time.

My go-to example for how this dynamic might play itself out innocuously is to ask, “What is the fastest way to bond with a group of Rotarians?  Well, crack a joke about the Lion’s club!  And what is the fastest way to bond with a group from the Lion’s club?  Crack a joke about the Rotarians!”

We can laugh at relatively harmless examples like this, but they point to darker outworkings of this mechanism.  History, of course, is filled with more insidious examples of what happens when particular groups are made the scapegoats for social ills and unrest.  The repeated scapegoating of Jewish people in the early 20th century led to the Holocaust, the scapegoating of Native Americans peoples led to the genocidal policies of our own early government and those across the Americas.

Over time, our mechanisms for sacrificial expulsion have become increasingly sophisticated, a bit better hidden, but they are still there. We may not have religious structures in this country that engage in ritual murder to reestablish social cohesion, but we do have a criminal justice system rife with systemic injustices that provides us with scapegoats all the time — typically in the form of black and brown young men. 

On the smaller, more intimate scale of our personal lives, gossip and shaming, the identification of a group “problem child” within our small communities — all of these actions participate in that same system of violence that, in the short run, make us feel safe and as if we belong, but ultimately contribute to the cycles of violence that tear our world and our hearts apart.

Now, you may be reasonably asking at this point, what in the world does this have to do with the cross?  How is the cross medicine for this illness?

“The Gospels show us that Jesus understands this mechanism,” of inclusion via exclusion; (Allison, 152-153) of maintaining social cohesion and order through expulsion, and Jesus understands that the religious and political structures of this world depend on this mechanism and therefore often unconsciously shore it up.  Through his life and ministry, Jesus lures the mechanism and these institutions into behaving according to their usual patterns, and that, predictably, gets him killed.  He dies a death of shame and suffering on the edges of the City —lifted high on the beams of a cross.  Jesus dies, as countless others have and will continue to die; in fact, he’s surrounded by two others dying the same death that he is— on the fringes of society, sacrificed to the idols of shaky cohesion and fragile peace.

But Jesus does this precisely in order to reveal that the whole exercise is unnecessary — that there exists the possibility of another way of being together.  And as we come to understand that it was God’s very Self that died on the cross that day, we discover that God is in no way involved in these mechanisms of inclusion via exclusion — stripping them of any imagined divine imprimatur.

The Way of Jesus that is the undoing of this Way of the World, was described for us in our Epistle reading this morning — it is the way of self-emptying love, the way of kenosis.  It is the way of a love that is grounded in the unending flow of the life and love of the Trinity, and as such, it is a love that is secure enough to not grasp for belonging as if it were a limited resource acquired at the expense of others.  As such, it is a love that is grounded and secure enough to actually inhabit the places of exclusion on behalf of others, and as Jesus does this as the Innocent Victim, he reveals this victim mechanism for what it is, and breaks the cycle of violence with forgiveness, exposes the injustice of scapegoating, and opens up for us a  New Creation — a new way of being human — a new way of being together.

This New Creation springs from the Way of the Cross, where belonging is not governed by zero-sum rivalries, but by the boundless, ever-flowing, fearless love and mercy of God.  This is the way we are born into through faith and the waters of Baptism.  This is the Way we are invited to walk at the foot of the cross.

The Way of the Cross runs counter to how we are conditioned to behave and to how we see the world around us functioning each and every day. And when we are faced with the opportunity to walk the way of the cross it can very much feel fraught with the risk of death — though for those of us who are protected by layers of privilege, we are usually only facing some form of social death — nonetheless, it is a death.  

But this is the way we are invited into.  It is the way we have been inaugurated into by Jesus’ work on the cross.  And as we come to trust a bit more in the boundless love of God for us, perhaps we can begin to grasp and strive a bit less.  As we let that love flow through unclenched hands and hearts, perhaps we can learn learn to stand in the places of exclusion on behalf of others, to break the cycles of violence with forgiveness when we experience it, and in so doing, in fits and starts, and however imperfectly, we can participate in ushering in this New Creation.

“Let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on the cross.”

In the name of God: Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing, Amen.

Proper 18 A - September 10, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham OHC

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18 A, September 10, 2023

 

Exodus 12:1-14
Romans 13:8-14
Matthew 18:15-20

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O God, my sustainer and my comforter. Amen.

Lectio divina – the slow, deliberate, and prayerful reading of a passage of scripture or other edifying text – is a wonderful thing. You should try it! It’s one of the core practices of Benedictine spirituality. That’s because centuries of experience have taught that through the prayerful engagement of God’s word, the blinders can be pulled back from our eyes (if only momentarily), allowing us to catch a (usually) fleeting glimpse of what the Spirit is continuously inviting us to see. When we’re faithful to our practice of lectio, what was previously hidden is suddenly cast into light; what was troubling before becomes reassuring; and what seemed at first to be utterly baffling and ambiguous begins to become clear, it’s message often shockingly simple yet profound.

For example, one might reasonably ask, “What in the world does God’s instructions about preparing the Passover in Egypt have to do with Jesus promulgating a corrective-action policy in Palestine like some sort of messianic HR director?” I’ll admit that, during my first pass with today’s readings, I found myself wondering if the lectionary committee hadn’t mixed its metaphors. But if I’ve learned anything since becoming a monk (and this very well could be the only thing), it’s that it’s precisely when things seem to make the least sense that I need to pay the most attention. Initial confusion, I have found, is often the signal that there’s something important here, and I’d better take notice. Thusly did I commence lectio with our accounts from Exodus and Matthew, invoking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and, as always, the Spirit came through.

In fact, within a surprisingly brief span of time, I began to see that a common thread running through our readings today is the simple – yet immutable – message that in God’s vision for the world, we are all in this together. We always have been, and we always will be. The human experience is a group assignment. We pass or fail together. The choice of whether to follow the path that leads to life is ours. It always has been, and it always will be.  

In the story read to us from Exodus, God makes this point to the Israelites in no uncertain terms. From the sober, urgent tone of the passage we immediately understand that this is no time for going it alone. Something serious and unprecedented is about to happen, and anyone who does not carefully adhere to the instructions being given for the Passover will be doomed. They will be seen by God as being literally outside of the community, counted as one of Pharaoh’s. And even those wishing to carry out God’s instructions must do so carefully. Indeed, many will have no choice but to band together. Households too small to consume an entire lamb in one night must join forces with another. Whatever differences people have – whatever disagreements, rivalries, or grudges – will have to be laid aside in the name of survival. And God doesn’t intend for this teamwork exercise to be a one-off event. God tells the people, “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.”

In other words, God is telling the people they can’t cooperate and get along for just this one meal and call it a night. This is how God expects them to take care of one another forever.

Jumping ahead quite a few centuries, we find ourselves in Matthew’s Gospel. To be more precise, we find ourselves in what those who know a lot about these things call the “fourth discourse,” the section of Matthew dealing with Jesus’ expectations for the Church. In the passages immediately preceding and including today’s gospel reading, Jesus explains how God’s vision of unity is to be carried forth into the kingdom – a point of order that would have been very clear to Matthew’s Jewish audience.

Beginning a few verses back, Jesus has just told the disciples that to enter the kingdom of heaven, they must first humble themselves, embracing faith as openly and fully as small children do. That is to say, whenever any of us thinks we’re better or holier than anyone else, we’re actually resisting God’s unifying vision by telling ourselves that we know what’s best and can do it better on our own. This wouldn’t have worked well in Egypt, and it doesn’t work any better today.   

Jesus then cautions against putting stumbling blocks in the way of anyone desiring to join in the Way and follow him. That is to say, Jesus is trusting us to make room for all who are seeking Truth, and not to turn anyone away or make them feel unwelcomed.

Then Jesus tells the disciples that if one lost sheep from a flock of one hundred is found, there will be more rejoicing over that one than over the ninety-nine who never left, and that such is the will of God that no one should ever be lost or excluded. That is to say, whenever anyone is left out, it is our sacred responsibility to approach them and make them know how much they are valued and missed.

And this brings us to the passage we heard today, where Jesus outlines how we should be present to those who are struggling in the Church – which, frankly, is every one of us at some point or another. First, Jesus makes clear that each of us must be willing and ready to be personally available, to see through the defenses someone may be putting up in order to mask pain, fear, grief, guilt, trauma, or who-knows-what, and simply to try to love them and make them feel seen and heard right where they are in that moment. That is to say, by virtue of our baptism, we are perpetually on-call to be the understanding gaze, the gentle voice, and – most important – the listening ears of Christ.

Sometimes we’ll need help in doing this. God may place us in situations where our role is to be a first responder of grace rather than the person who can definitively “fix the problem,” and in these times we look to the gifts and expertise of others to help in a more comprehensive way than we are capable of on our own. God’s vision as expressed in Exodus and reinforced here in Matthew should serve as a reminder that we must always be careful not to inadvertently worsen a situation by trying to go it alone. That is to say, whenever two, three, or more come together in Jesus’ name out of genuine love and concern for others, it is none other than Christ’s own lovingly transformative presence that we experience.

But what if a personal conversation or even a wider show of support aren’t enough? It is here that Jesus goes on to tell us that it may be time for the Church to exercise its healing ministry a bit more explicitly. This may include offering the sacraments of anointing and reconciliation (or confession). Depending on the circumstances, it may well require clergy and lay leadership to consider what role the institutional structures of the Church may have played in causing or exacerbating the problem. That is to say, we must never consider ourselves detached from the struggles of anyone, because we are all members of the same Body of Christ.

And of course, as many of us have personally experienced, there are times when the most effective way of beginning to deal with our struggles seems to be simply breaking out and walking around the block by ourselves a few times. Jesus understands this, telling the disciples to let them be to them as Gentiles or tax-collectors. That is to say, sometimes we just need to give people their space, ready to be there for them in their own good time.

But being as a Gentile or a tax-collector isn’t the same as being as one of Pharaohs. As Jesus himself tells us, even tax-collectors can – and do – enter the kingdom of heaven. After all, God’s vision for the world is that none of us should ever be lost, excluded, or alone, but rather seen, accepted, and loved for who we are, right where we are. That is to say, we are all in this together – just like we always have been, and we always will be.

May peace and all that is good be with each of us and those we love today and always. Amen.

Proper 17 A - September 3, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku OHC

The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17 A, September 3, 2023

 

Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

We gather this morning to worship God, to be taught by His Word and to be fed at the table of communion. The theme of being called to loving service seems to stand out in our readings today but more than that we are presented with encouragement and strategy on how to live our lives of faith as we offer joyful service to God by serving our neighbor.

In the first reading this morning from the book of Exodus, we hear the call of Moses who was going to be God’s instrument of delivering the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. Now, Moses would be the most unlikely candidate for the job, if I were the one doing the calling or if I were to have been a member of the selection committe. He was arrogant, temperamental, a murderer, a doubter on top of having a stutter. He did not seem to have the right qualifications that we earth dwellers consider important or essential for such an important ministry. God however called him from the ordinary circumstances of every day life despite his shortcomings.

Moses was minding his business of tending his father-in-law’s flock and not looking for an encounter with God or some spiritual experience. Despite who he was and where he was, God broke through to him with some drama that involved a burning bush to draw his attention. Instead of running away in fear, curiosity drew him closer to the bush to investigate what was really going on. The holy can only break through to us when we drop our defenses, and this happens when we are caught off-guard but not necessarily by something as dramatic.

First and foremost, God wanted to establish a relationship with Moses and that is why He tells him He is the God of his ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God wanted Moses to not only know Him, but to know Him personally. This is crucial in the sense that it is only when we have had a personal encounter with God, that leads to a personal relationship with Him, that we are able to serve Him whole heartedly. That personal relationship is what gives us conviction that we are personally called for this or that mission. It gives us the courage to soldier on when our motives are questioned otherwise we will be easily shaken or discouraged from taking the direction that God wants us to go.

Knowing that God is in our hearts gives us the courage to risk, and sometimes the courage to fail, because we know that even in our failure as persons, God can still bring success for His plans. Knowing God is with us transforms our whole perspective on life. It helps us look at our imperfections differently and helps us understand that in spite of them, God still wants to establish a relationship with us.

For humanity, God has only one master plan which is salvation. God desires us to be freed from whatever that enslaves us and causes us suffering. We are enslaved by sin, by addictions, by pride, by friendships and so on, but whatever we call it, it is most often an enslavement of our own making. God wants to free us from all these and to use us to free others.

Moses attempts to resist God with a lot of seemingly valid reasons but God promises him help and offered to provide all he needed for the specific task that he was being given. God never told Moses that it was going to be easy. He just promised to be present. Moses was to act in faith. Faith does not make things easy but it makes them possible. The call of Moses is therefore crucial in helping us understand the call or mission of Jesus and our own calling as is made evident in our Gospel reading today.

“From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life”. (Matthew 16:21) In these few powerful words Jesus reveals the whole purpose of his earthly ministry, that is, the father’s divine plan for the salvation of all Human kind and the good news or gospel if you like that he, the Christ, had come to suffer, die and be raised again for the forgiveness of our sins and the sins of the whole world.

Peter, the one who had a few verses before proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God(Matthew 16:16) could not comprehend what Jesus was revealing to them and tells Jesus that that will never happen to him. I understand Peter very well. In fact I empathize with him. He was Just being like all of us who at times practice what is called selective hearing. We either hear what we want to hear or pick a word or two in a sentence and draw a conclusion out of context. Peter seems to have only heard the words ‘suffering’ and ‘death’ but never heard or at least never paid attention to ‘being raised on the third day’ or even the reason why the death, suffering and rising were happening, that is, ‘the forgiveness of our sins and the sins of the whole word’! Peter and the other disciples were looking for another kind of Christ. One who preferably would dramatically enter on a horse and some shining armament, coming as an earthly savior to free them from the tyranny of their Roman oppressors. In other words, Peter and company were looking for power and glamour and were therefore not ready to hear the truth of the matter.

Jesus, however knew who he was and why he had come. He was also wise and discerning enough to look through Peter, see the devil, who was trying to discourage him from his mission and rebuked the devil and cast him away… “Out of my sight Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men!(Matthew 16:23).

There will always be well-meaning“Peters” in our life of faith who will try to “speak sense” to us when we embark on our journeys of doing the will of God. In 2010, several months before I left Kenya for an Abbey in the high desert of New Mexico, I was invited out for lunch by a Canadian Missionary Sister, a member of the Congregation of Sisters I was working for, who was also a colleague at the program I was in charge of.

A few weeks earlier I had handed in my resignation so that they could hire a replacement for me so that I could hopefully get time to train him on the job to ensure a smooth transition. The sisters were of course very sad that I was leaving and employed several tactics to make me stay. When we finished our lunch, the sister told me that she took me out to get a chance to speak to me privately and honestly. I told her to spill.

She told me that she had gotten to know me very well for the time we had worked together, and that I was making a huge mistake leaving a stable and very well paying job to join a monastery in the middle of nowhere. She told me she understands the pull most people from the “third world” have to go to the United States and the West in general, but life there can be challenging or outright miserable. She mentioned my personality, the severe winters and cruel summers, racism, isolation and individualism, culture shock, food, and lack of a close-knit support system among things that should make me reconsider my decision. I, on the other hand, was burning with the desire to be a Contemplative Benedictine Monk and therefore could hear none of what she was saying and jokingly told her to “get behind me Satan.” We laughed, toasted with a whiskey and that was the end of the conversation.

I, of course, got to New Mexico and almost immediately all of what she had predicted to me happened! However, despite the struggles and difficulties involved, I do not have any regret because monastic life has provided me with a mirror that helped(and that continues to help) me face my inner self that was broken, traumatized and burdened with self-hate despite the happy facade that I was presenting to people. Monastic life put me on a journey of self discovery and self love which is one of the many crosses that I carry to this day. Had I heeded the well meaning advice of the sister, I would have cancelled my date with destiny and would most likely be a rich but miserable human being. I am not the happiest person on earth yet…that prize has already been taken by a Buddhist monk somewhere in the Far East. All I am trying to say is that a strong God given conviction is crucial in keeping these well meaning “Peters” at bay.

Jesus knew he had come to fulfill the will of his heavenly father and that included literally taking up his cross and following this will wherever it led to. It was absolutely necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, suffer unjustly at the hands of the wicked and hateful men who in fact thought they were holy; die a cruel death on the cross and on the third day be raised again to life by the power of God who is almighty. By doing so, he took my sins and yours, redeemed you and me from the grasp and hold of the evil one and by this forgiveness restored our relationship with the father.

Having set an example, he calls us to take up our cross and follow him. So often we misunderstand this call, mistaking at times our daily struggles as  crosses. Our cross is not something common to all people, both believers and non believers. Difficulties at work, illnesses and diseases, death of loved ones, difficulties in relationships, separations or divorces and so on, are not necessarily crosses by the fact that they are common to all human beings.

Our cross is something that is placed before us as individuals to willingly endure or suffer because we are Jesus’ followers, because we are believers, because we are his disciples! Things like forgiving those who we would otherwise better not forgive, loving the unlovable, caring for the lonely and forgotten, hugging and visiting the untouchables of our world, helping those in need without favor or discrimination, speaking truth to power wherever injustices happen, are just a few examples of crosses that individuals take up or could take up and follow Christ.

We should take up our crosses out of love. Love is also the major distinguishing mark of a Christian and as we heard from the second reading this morning from the letter to the Romans, Paul exhorts us to let our love be genuine(Romans 12:9). Genuine love is characterized by hating what is evil and clinging to what is good. The images that Paul gives are very powerful. He tells us to…let our love be heartfelt; be eager to show each other honor; be set on the fire by the spirit; be devoted to prayer; contribute to the needs of the saints and to pursue hospitality. True love is therefore fervent, relentless and practical.

Now, is following Christ closely in vain or self serving? In Matthew 16:27, Jesus reminds us that he, the son of man, is going to come in his father’s glory and he will reward each person according to what he has done. He does not promise us eternal life because of ‘what we do’ but rather because of ‘how we do’ it, that is, how willingly you and I take up our cross to follow him. The level or degree of willingness demonstrates our faith and our loving response for all that Jesus has done for us and asks of us. It is this faith that will be rewarded with the gift of eternal life.

Our work as followers of Jesus, be we monastics or not, is to individually discern the workings of the Holy Spirit in me, what cross Jesus is placing before me today and how to respond in joyful service to our Savior. The golden question this morning is… How will I take up my cross to follow Jesus…how will you take up your cross to follow Jesus?

May God in His graciousness and love give us eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts filled with compassion as we take up our cross to follow Jesus!

Amen