Saint Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2024

 Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky

Saint Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2024

• Genesis 28:10-17
• Revelation 12:7-12
• John 1:47-51

Click here for an audio of the sermon

We don't get to preach all that often here at Holy Cross Monastery.  With seven or eight or more brothers preaching on Sundays and major feasts, opportunities are limited. But here I am again assigned to preach on this feast of Saint Michael and all Angels.  It turns out that I've preached on this feast at least three times in the last decade or so. What more is there to say? I've looked at all our past sermons for this feast which are on our monastery website, including three by me, and all these sermons are interesting and provocative. It's very tempting to want to lift one and just read it.  And that would be fine…except that was then and this is now. The world has changed and we have changed, and once again we have to ask what angels have to do with us today.

Probably most of us aren’t aware of it, but we are in what is called in church circles the Season of Creation. This is an annual observance for Christians endorsed by the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch and Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the World Council of Churches and many other church bodies inviting us to focus our attention on the created order and the many environmental crises we face, particularly the climate crisis, and to reflect on what it means for us as people of faith to care for creation. The observance began on September 1st, which is the first day of the church year for the Eastern Orthodox Christians, and concludes this Friday on the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi who for us Western Christians--indeed for all Christians--draws our hearts and minds to reflect upon our embeddedness in creation.

The theme for this year’s Season of Creation is “To hope and act with Creation.”   The brief official publicity for this year’s observance reads:

“In the letter of Paul the apostle to the Romans, the biblical image pictures the Earth as a Mother, groaning as in childbirth (Rom 8:22). Francis of Assisi understood this when he referred to the Earth as our sister and our mother in his Canticle of Creatures. The times we live in show that we are not relating to the Earth as a gift from our Creator, but rather as a resource to be used.

 

“And yet, there is hope and the expectation for a better future. To hope in a biblical context does not mean to stand still and quiet, but rather groaning, crying, and actively striving for new life amidst the struggles. Just as in childbirth, we go through a period of intense pain, but new life springs forth.”

 

I admit that I have been slow to catch the import of all this while many of our brothers and sisters, particularly the younger ones, have been painfully aware of how we have abused and damaged our mother earth and how that abuse and damage threatens our own existence, the existence of a people made in the image of God. For me it has been the reality of climate change which impacting us so directly that is bringing me and many others to awareness, but of course the issues go beyond climate.  Maybe my reluctance has something to do with what Al Gore called an inconvenient truth: that as we become aware, we realize sooner or later-- some of us much later--that we must act and that this will mean change, change in the way we live, change in the way we consume, change in the way we relate to each other and to the whole created order. Yes, in our foundational story we are given stewardship of the world. But stewardship does not mean exploitation, especially not for personal gain. Nor can it be bought at the expense of distant and powerless others.  It means rather a gentle tending with mutual respect and the sharing of burdens.

There is so much to be done in this arena, and the threats that we face are so grave, that it is easy to lose hope, to feel that that we simply can't make the necessary adjustments to our lives, nor can we convince those who wield power to make those hard and costly choices. And we labor as if it were all up to us; that we must bear this burden alone, and that there is no help outside of us. It is of course accurate to say that the demands and the responsibilities are very great, and we must, each of us, begin to come to terms with them. But we are not alone in this. And here's where the angels come in.

Whatever they are, the angels represent powers greater than ourselves who work for good, who defend and protect, who serve, who promote the divine purpose, furthering God’s dream not simply for us but and for the entire universe. The angels fight for right, they are hidden messengers who both warn and encourage, who seek the good of God's creation. And they are with us in this emerging task of responsible stewardship, a task which oftentimes seems impossible. Their message to us is: “This is possible. And we are there to help.”

Over the last weeks we have been reading the Book of Job at morning prayer. There's a wonderful passage towards the end where God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind and asks: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?  Tell me if you have understanding. …On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7) These morning stars, these heavenly beings, have long been understood to be angels who comprise a kind of chorus encouraging God on in the primal process of creation. I like to think that they have a similar role to play today in overseeing that same creation, making sure that we don't mess it up hopelessly, that we don’t make an end of it or destroy it and ourselves. Perhaps today our invitation is to call on the angels to help us in the work creation care, calling on their aid as we begin, however haltingly, to hope and act with Creation and not over against it. That in a nutshell is my message for the feast of Saint Michael and all Angels in this year of our Lord 2024. 

I conclude with two quotations which I find helpful. The first is from the Anglican Church of Canada’s resource for feast days titled For All the Saints. It says of today’s feast:

Many good and faithful Christians find it difficult to accept the existence of angels; for them, angels have no more reality in fact than unicorns, griffins, or the phoenix. It may be true that the existence of angels is not one of the things in which Christians must believe if they want to be saved. Yet whenever Christians say the Nicene Creed, they confess that God has created “all that is, seen and unseen.” Entertaining the possibility of angels may be one way of acknowledging the sheer diversity of life, visible and invisible, that God has ordained in creation.

The second quote is a little grittier. It comes from the conclusion of a sermon our late beloved Brother Andrew Colquhoun preached here in 2011 on this very feast. Never one to mince words, Andrew says:

“Maybe I’m verging too far on superstition.

“But I don’t care. If you don’t believe in the 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.

“Do that for Love’s sake and believe me, you will find yourself on the side of the Angels…you will be Messengers of God, bearers of good tidings, protectors and lovers of God and God’s people. And the angels will rejoice!

“That’s probably good enough!”

You bet it is, Andrew. You bet it is.

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost B - September 22, 2024

 Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20, September 22, 2024

 

Jeremiah 11:18-20
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Mark 9:30-37

 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.

Late in the summer of 2021, as I was preparing to leave Pittsburgh to enter the Order of the Holy Cross, an unexpected series of events began to happen. Seemingly at every turn during those final weeks in the Steel City, I was confronted with reminders of experiences I’d had during the six-year stint I was wrapping up there – not only reminders of actual events and interactions that had taken place, but also of feelings, emotions, and even ideas I’d had there.

 I suppose it’s not strange to reflect on a chapter of one’s life as it’s in the process of closing, but this seemed a little different. It was almost as if my residency in Pittsburgh had had a life of its own this whole time, and now it was going for one final hang-out session with me, wanting to reminisce about all the good – and ‘other’ – times we’d shared. I had the distinct feeling of being “seen off” by an unseen companion.

Now, what was especially interesting about this little walk down (or, ‘dahn’, as they say in Pittsburgh) Memory Lane, was that most of the memories were drawn from the hundreds of actual walks I’d taken through the surrounding neighborhoods during those years. There was, for example, the time I’d been strolling along Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield and, for some reason, happened to glance up into a brightly lit window of a big new apartment building. It was evening and, through this particular window, I could see maybe five or six young professional types, holding wine glasses and laughing. They were engrossed in their own merry little world, the kind that probably involved group artisanal cider tastings and weeknight visits to the rock-climbing gym. Meanwhile, I was standing out on the street, caught up in my own little world, one in which I could only wonder at what it would feel like even to know four other people to invite over for drinks and dinner.

I was projecting, of course. I didn’t actually know anything about the people in the window, and I had no idea what their lives were like. Maybe they couldn’t stand the taste of cider. Maybe some of them couldn’t stand each other. It’s possible they preferred jogging along the Allegheny River trails or down in Panther Hollow over working out in a gym. I wasn’t resentful or jealous of them. I was just aware of how seemingly different our lives were. But something in that scene stirred up a complicated concoction of emotions, regrets, doubts, and weird memories deep within me. I didn’t understand why, and I didn’t take the time right then and there to try to figure it out. I just turned and kept walking toward the old, beige brick building where my quiet, sensibly priced apartment sat waiting for me.

This experience, along with so many like it during that ‘winding-down’ time, gradually made me aware of something: Now in my early 40s, I hadn’t achieved most of the culturally prescribed standards of materialism and success – an overpriced residence at a trendy address; dental veneers; a partner and kids of my own who were perfectly quaffed and Instagram-ready at all times – and I was never going to. The reason? Despite how much I knew I was supposed to want all those things, I simply didn’t want them. And, apparently I never really had, or, at least, I hadn’t wanted them badly enough. I lacked sufficient ambition for them.

“Good,” I thought to myself while reflecting on these memories later. “Choosing not to pour my energy into getting things I don’t want is a sign of moral strength. Stoicism, even. I’m glad I was content not to be like those people in the window.” If this sounds like sour grapes, I assure you it’s actually much worse. It’s competition by comparison. In my head, I was competing with people who had never wronged me in any way just to assuage doubts I had about my own life choices. In this limited mindset, shaped by the world’s ‘wisdom’ rather than God’s, either they or I could be right, but we couldn’t all be.

Eventually I would come to understand that my judgmental attitude in this and other situations flows from the insecurities and hurts that reside in the shadowy corners of my ego’s cellar. The real damage isn’t so much that I had compared myself to others, but that I had assigned worth to them as human beings based solely on how their external circumstances – either real or perceived through clouded lenses – stacked up against mine. This is a long way from practicing the virtues of humbleness, service, and welcome we hear about in today’s readings.

In the Letter of James, we’re encouraged to live fully out of our authenticity, performing good works with “gentleness born of wisdom.” The worldly values of ambition and competitiveness, the writer of James warns us, will only ever serve us “disorder and wickedness.” I’m sure we can all think of times when we’ve recognized this tendency, along with its effects, in ourselves and others.

Living in a way that is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” may seem like a mighty tall order, but the author of  James offers us an important insight that can help. Indeed, it’s absolutely critical: We must first get to know ourselves, and know ourselves well. “Those conflicts and disputes among you,” James asks, “where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?” Yes, James, they do.

They are the things that stir within us when we’re peering through apartment windows, observing the lives of others. And even though we can usually ‘walk them off’ pretty easily in the moment, they don’t leave; they only sink back beneath the surface again. If we want to keep them from returning, or at least stop them from driving our life choices, we have to identify them, name them, and address them. This is not easy work, but it is necessary if we want to live the kinds of lives of service and peacemaking described in James, or to use our gifts in being a generous and uplifting presence to others like the Wisdom Wife in our reading from Proverbs.

But here’s the thing. There’s more to all this than simply wanting to be nice people who go around doing nice things (and maybe being noticed for them, just a tiny bit). Our motive, first and foremost, must be a genuine desire to share in the Love that is born of God. Otherwise, we’re still being driven by ambition to compete against others to see who’s the best at being nice. Jesus recognizes this in his own disciples in our reading from Mark this morning, so none of us should think we’re immune from falling into this trap ourselves.

As they walk along the road to Capernaum, Jesus is aware they are competing with one another for status, even though he’s just finished teaching them about the need for total self-emptying, even if it ends up getting you killed. Like most of us when we know we’re resisting grace, they feel a sense of shame. They have nothing to say for themselves when Jesus asks what they were arguing about. It must be frustrating for him, but he bears their stubbornness with patience because he understands human nature from his own, personal experience. Plus, this is exactly why he’s with them, to show them how to love, no matter what it takes. So, he sits down, calls them to himself, and helps them understand that they must focus on being welcoming to each other – as welcoming as one would be to a child, in fact.

But why welcoming? Consider for a moment what happens when we commit ourselves to making someone feel truly welcome. We want them to be at ease, to feel accepted, safe, and cared-for. So, at least in that moment, we place them ahead of us. We’re not thinking about ourselves, we’re wholly concerned with their needs. And this, in turn, leads to gratitude on the other person’s part, creating a channel for love to flow between us. To put it simply, we can’t compete when we’re creating welcome, because (whether we’re consciously aware of it or not) it’s the presence of God within of us recognizing the exact same presence of God present within the other. We don’t even want to compete. We simply love.

As has been the case for so many people over the past one-hundred twenty-two years, it was a desire for this welcoming love that brought me to the monastery. Indeed, this fundamental need for belonging, free from having to compete to be valued, has drawn untold millions to religious communities for thousands of years. The founder of Western Christian monasticism and author of our own Rule of Life, Saint Benedict of Nursia, makes it clear that “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.” He continues, saying, “Once a guest has been announced, the superior and the [monks or nuns] are to meet [them] with all the courtesy of love.” (RB 53).

Beyond this, we as monastics are called to model the radical Way of Love and welcome that Jesus extended to all who desired and needed it, not only in welcoming guests, but in the very living of our lives together, in community, day in and day out, for the rest of our lives. Again, Saint Benedict tells us, “This, then, is the good zeal which monks [and nuns] must foster with fervent love: They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior … Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life” (RB 72).

The ability to live out this vision of radical hospitality, acceptance, and valuing of human dignity is available to everyone. Monks and nuns may have a particular responsibility to model it, but literally anyone can – and, I dare say, should – do it. We can all welcome others as we would welcome Jesus in the person of a small child (or of a coworker, spouse, bus driver, homeless person, cashier, barista, addict, you name it), and in doing so help to reverse the human value systems around us that are built on competition and comparison. After all, it is the love of the same God which dwells within each and every person.

May peace and all that is good be with us, and all whom we love, today and always. Amen.

 

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost B - September 16, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen

Proper 19 B - Sunday, September 15, 2024 

Isaiah 50:4-9a
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38

Before I came to the Monastery I used to go to an Al-Anon meeting on Friday evenings. It was quite an eclectic group of people, the kind you can get in a 12-step meeting in New York City, and I loved it. At the end of the meeting, we’d all gather in a circle in this cramped church basement room, hold hands, and say the serenity prayer. Then we’d boisterously shout “keep coming back. It works if you work it, so work it—you’re worth it!” The last cheer is meant to end the meeting on a high note, an energetic encouragement against despair and a reminder that the program is the solution.

But there was one old-timer who didn’t like this tradition. After the serenity prayer, still holding our hands, she would chant along, “keep coming back.” Then she would say, “it works fine,” and rather forcefully drop the hands of those on either side of her. Curious, I asked her why she ended the meeting that way. She said, “we all work hard enough.”

As I prayed throughout the week with this Sunday’s gospel reading, that woman kept coming into my prayer. “It works fine,” she kept telling me, as she dropped my hand. “What works fine?” I pleaded in my prayer. What does that even mean?

We all know this story very well. It appears in all three synoptic gospels. With a few variations it follows the same pattern. Jesus asks the disciples who people say that he is, and they tell him one of the prophets. Then he asks who they say that he is. Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. Then Jesus goes on to tell them what being the Messiah actually means: he will be betrayed, tortured, and killed, and on the third day he will rise again. In all three accounts Peter rebukes Jesus and is then rebuked in turn.

There are, of course, so many layers to this story. We must all ask ourselves throughout our lives, who Jesus is for us. If we’re really wacky and creative, we might turn the question back on Jesus and ask him, “who do you say that I am?” We might meditate on what it means to take up our cross and follow. But the simplest layer of the story may be its most profound.

We watch Peter, in real time, face into the fracturing of his illusions, and in that witnessing we are invited to do the same. Peter is perhaps the best example of this process in the scriptures. He follows Jesus zealously from the beginning. In the synoptic gospels he is the first to call Jesus the Messiah (Thomas gets that honor in John). The text makes clear that Peter has a definite idea of what being the Messiah is all about—an idea that certainly does not look like betrayal, torture, and death, even if that passion leads to resurrection. Even as Jesus rebukes and corrects Peter, Peter will have to deny and betray Jesus himself, to watch his friend and teacher die on a cross, and to see him raised to life again before he can finally relinquish his fixed ideas of who God is to and for him and the world.

Like Peter, we are all invited, throughout our lives, to a process of disillusionment. We live, most of us, with fixed ideas of who God is and how God works. We are blinded by our obsessions and illusions, many of which appear to us as good and holy.

I once had a spiritual director who pointed out that we are afraid to pray dangerously. To pray dangerously, he said, was to pray for God to rid us of our obsessions and illusions. Most of us stick with very nice prayers—prayers for people’s health and wellbeing that are, in themselves good prayers, but that fall far short of praying for our own transformation in whatever ways God wants us to be transformed.

One of the great gifts of monastic life is the opportunity to be freed from the tyranny of desire. Most of the time we talk about desire as a positive force in the spiritual life, and our heart’s deepest desire for wholeness in God is a very good thing indeed. But we are all plagued with much smaller and pettier desires—wants, if you will. We want to feel comfortable. We want things to stay the way they’ve always been. We want to be certain about who we are, who God is, how the world functions. We want, we want, we want—and we allow all these little wants to guide how and who we are in and for the world. And so we make our decisions and evaluations based, not on a discernment of God’s will for us, but on what we want in any given situation. In other words, like Peter, we set our mind on human things.

Monastic life will teach you that you can get on perfectly well without having things the way you want them. Indeed, any mature Christian life will be dictated by higher ideals than what we want in any particular moment. That isn’t to say that our wants and desires are bad. Unless we allow them to dictate our lives they are rather neutral. I would love for God to be the kind of God who gave me everything I want, but that isn’t reality. Fortunately, reality is so much richer than what we want. Fortunately, God promises us transformation, freedom, wholeness, and the life that really is life—whether we want that or not.

In his book My Bright Abyss, the poet Christian Wiman warns that “What you must realize, what you must even come to praise, is the fact that there is no right way that is going to become apparent to you once and for all. The most blinding illumination that strikes and perhaps radically changes your life will become so attenuated and obscured by doubts and dailiness that you may one day come to suspect the truth of that moment at all. The calling that seemed so clear will be lost in echoes of questionings and indecision; the church that seemed to save you will fester with egos, complacencies, banalities; the deepest love of your life will work itself like a thorn in your heart until all you can think of is plucking it out. Wisdom is accepting the truth of this. Courage is persisting with life in spite of it. And faith is finding yourself, in the deepest part of your soul, in the very heart of who you are, moved to praise it.” (29-30)

I think this is the deeper meaning that that old-timer was trying to convey in her cranky way. The spiritual life works fine. Our images of God, our methods of prayer, our beliefs and practices, and our wants and desires—they’re all just fine, but they’re also all a beginning, not an end. Peter had to undergo a painful process of disillusionment in order fully to give himself to God for whatever God willed. I’m sorry to say that the process is no less painful and no shorter for the rest of us. In order to become the mature, surrendering, loving people that God wills us to be, we must let go of anything at all that is not God.

There will be grief in this process. Hopefully there will also be moments of laughter, when we can see the absurdity of our self-will. It may, at times, feel like we have loaded our backpack with stones. We will certainly hear the groan of the cross as we drag it along. But if we persevere, we will find ourselves living a life freer than we could ever have imagined possible. We will find ourselves filled with the life that really is life, the life of Christ welling up within us. So keep coming back. It works fine!

Holy Cross Day - September 14, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. David Bryan Hoopes

The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - September 14, 2024

Isaiah 45:21-25

Galatians 6:14-18

John 12:31-36a

The official title of today’s feast includes the lord Exaltation. On occasion I have been asked why that word is used in connection with the Cross on which our Lord was crucified. A question might be asked if Christians were worshiping a cross, an object used to humiliate, torture, and cause death. The cross is not to be worshipped but to be remembered for the One who gave his life so that others may have eternal life.

In Christian circles the cross is the most prominent symbol of the Faith. It is seen on church buildings, walls, altars, vestments, paintings, jewelry, and even on tattooed bodies. Many Christians male the sign off the cross in blessings, baptisms, and even in times res of joy, fear, or sorrow. Religious habits of monks, nuns, and religious often include a cross. 

History of the Cross

Scholars indicate that crucifixion as a means of Torture and death was invented by Phoenicians or Persians. It was adopted by the Roman Imperial Government as an extreme means of enforcing Roman authority and law. Such was not a Jewish custom. The Jewish way was stoning or hanging.

Jesus was crucified by Roman authority in collaboration with the Jewish religious leaders of Jerusalem. The charge was blasphemy (Jewish) and sabotage (Roman). Pilate, the Roman governor did not believe that Jesus was a saboteur and was not interested in the religious authorities’ charge of Jesus being a blasphemer (because Jesus’ claim to be Son of God, Messiah). Hower, Pilate was insecure in his position of governor to a hostile, occupied populace and did not want to incur the anger of the populace represented by the Jewish religious establishment. Pilate thus gave into their petition. Jesus was crucified and died. The Pax Romana was maintained for a time; The religious establishment were rid of one who had greatly disturbed their power. Life would continue as before. Yet, such did not happen. There was Jesus’ resurrection from death. The Christian movement would continue to grow. The Roman Empire would eventually collapse. The Temple and its cult would be destroyed. The holy city would be levelled. 

The Christion movement would become a dominant power in much of the world and a cross the most familiar symbol of the movement. However, such was not so in the first three centuries Of the Christian movement. The usual symbol then was a fish (Icthus, its Greek name). Its letters would stand fer Jesus Christ, Son of God. I expect that Christians in those days would regard a cross as a symbol of Roman oppression and cruelty.

When Constantine became the first Christian emperor (306-337) the cross became the dominant Christian symbol. It was emblazed on flags, shields, and buildings. Constantine chose his mother Helena to oversee the Construction of a great Church on Calvary Hill. During the excavation, a large beam used for a cross was discovered and deemed to be part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Thus, the cross become part of a cultic teaching of the Christian faith. 

Sadly, too often, the cross which should symbolize God’s grace which triumphs over human sin and wrong, is used as a symbol of oppression e.g. Nazi symbolism centered on a swastika, a form of a Greek cross. The Ku Kluk Clan still burn crosses to terrify Black people and others whom they despise. The cross was the dominant symbol of the Crusaders whose zeal is still felt today in Christian - Muslim interaction.

For Christians who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the cross must never be used as a symbol of terror, hate, or exclusion. Jesus reminds us: "and I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.”  Jesus the Christ invites all to a life of love, compassion and justice.

Some time ago I was asked to co-officiate at a Christian - Jewish wedding. The bride was an Episcopalian, my parishioner, and the groom was Jewish. It was agreed that the wedding would be in the bride’s church. The rabbi and I had a very cordial relationship. The wedding counseling was done jointly. The day of the wedding rehearsal came. It was in the church. Much to my surprise, the rabbi asked if the large cross on the wall behind the altar could be removed or covered. I asked him why the request. He, somewhat embarrassed, replied that, some of the groom's elderly relatives would be attending and for some of them the cross represented pogroms, concentration camps, repressions, exclusions. Sadly, I understood. However, the cross remained in place. The wedding took place without incident. The reception that followed was joyous, and the couple after 24 years are still happily married.

At Holy Crosstide, I remember that incident and resolve that my witness to the Christisn faith must always be that of compassion and welcome. The Order of the Holy Cross endeavors to be welcoming, compassionate, and encouraging. As Benedictive, we are enjoined "to welcome all as Christ." 

At the beginning of daily Chapter, this prayer is said 'O Lord, you called us to take up our cross and follow you: Guide. and sanctify us that by our prayer and service we may enrich your church, and by our life and worship may glorify your Name. " 

An object, the cross, which was designed to be an instrument of torture, became an instrument of Christ’s gift of himself showing the immensity of God’s generous love which transforms humans's wrong into divine grace, Such is its "exaltation."

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost B - September 8, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Ephrem Arcement
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18 B 
Isaiah 35:4-7a
James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17
Mark 7:24-37

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

Proper 18, Year B

To be open:

adjective: allowing access, passage, or a view through an empty space; not closed or blocked up.

"the pass is kept open all year by snowplows”

Verb: to unfold or be unfolded; spread out.

"the eagle opened its wings and circled up into the air”

Noun:a championship or competition with no restrictions on who may compete. “Today is the men’s finals for the US Open”

Ephphatha, “Be opened.” This isn’t just a call for unstopped ears. Like so much in Sacred Scripture, words contain multitudes and so is the case here. It is a call to access, passage, and freedom. It is a call to fullness…to being unfolded and spread out. It is a call to soar unhindered…a call to transcendence. It is a call to full inclusion and a call to belonging.

In this particular context an unnamed man is deaf with a speech impediment who can’t even beg Jesus to heal him himself but depends on others to get Jesus’ attention. He is not free and has little self-autonomy…and is trapped in his own silent, speechless world. He can’t express himself and can’t hear others express themselves to him. He lives a stunted existence, blocked from the fullness of life God designed for him.

In juxtaposition, we have Jesus, “the Opened One,” who, ever since his baptism and confirmation in the Spirit’s gentle descent and the Father’s affirmation of love, is driven by the sole mission of making God’s loving presence known. He knows who he is, God’s Beloved, and this knowledge opens him to the world without partiality and with dogged determination. Scene after scene in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ open spirit allows him to move freely in the love of God and to freely make this love known. To those bound by demons, bound by paralysis, bound by deformities, bound by sickness and disease, bound by hunger, or bound by the debilitating prejudices of others. Jesus’ openness confronts a bounded world and those whose spirits are bound meet a power to release them and to become just as open as this “Opened One.”

But, the Gospel is clear, Jesus’ open spirit did not pave a way for him

without obstacles. The same open spirit that drove him to the oppressed also caused deep concern from the religious establishment (you can say, the other oppressed who didn’t realize they were oppressed or, the “closed” ones who had no room for the radical openness of Jesus). Such a confrontation occurs immediately before the passage we hear today. So, at this point in the Gospel, Jesus is becoming acutely aware that his open spirit and the transformation that it is causing in the community may very well become his downfall. I imagine Jesus spending much time in prayer, at this crucial point of his life, reflecting on how to proceed. We don’t get much of a glimpse into his inner deliberations, but what we do get is his inner resolve that is evidenced in his continual commitment to bringing God’s transforming presence to those who need it most. And we see his strategy: to minimize the attention that these transformative encounters are causing so that he can open as many people as possible before he is captured, if that was, indeed, to be his destiny. “Tell no one” he tells the man newly released from his deafening silence. Does the man listen? Would you if the same thing happened to you? Which is precisely the point! The kind of openness that Jesus brings cannot be contained or constricted. It’s that place where you just can’t help yourself!

I see at work in this passage, and the Gospel of Mark as a whole, a

dynamism of elements that come together to create this openness, this spiritual vitality that is free and fearless. They are: the priority of silence, contemplative observation, desperate faith, judicious speaking, and transformative power. Each of these elements play a vital role in the life of Christ and characterize his spirituality of openness and how he goes about making others open.

The priority of silence. It all begins with listening…with hearing the gentle Spirit of God pronounce the divine belovedness over us. And not just once…but in developing a life of listening and hearing until this God of love resounds from within and our lives begin to reverberate this divine sounding. Like the Open Christ who possessed such self-determination to so freely and fearlessly make God’s love known in the face of such existential threats, we too follow in his way by hearing God’s solemn mantra in the silence of our hearts: “You are my beloved, you are my beloved, you are my beloved.” And as for the deaf mute, it was because he was first silent that he was able to find such boundless, open joy in being able to hear and speak.

Contemplative observation. The Open Christ was on the search. His openness was characterized by a particular way of seeing, of gazing into the reality of things and recognizing hidden pain. He read souls and, moved by an alert compassion, called those hidden pains to the light. He saw what others couldn’t because of the silent centeredness of his life and his acute attunement to the Father. Like Yahweh, he looked upon the heart and allowed himself to be determined solely by the condition of those hearts he encountered. And with the deaf mute now before him, Jesus, with his fingers in the man’s ears and his saliva on the man’s tongue, locks eyes with him and communicates everything that needs to be known through his penetrating gaze.

Desperate faith. The condition of being oppressed usually solicits one of

two responses: desperate faith or desperate self-assurance. The religious establishment had fallen into the latter and mistook their religiosity for true spirituality. Those with desperate faith, though, like the deaf mute, take what little openness they have and cry out for more. And when desperate faith encounters the penetrating gaze of God, openness happens.

Judicious speaking. In the percolating convergence of silence, contemplative observation, and desperate faith sounds the word of life. The word cannot be heard without the previous silence, it doesn’t know what to say without the observation, and it meets no fertile ground without the desperate faith. But at just the right moment your “Ephphatha” comes. Whether it was a word of affirmation or consolation, a word of correction or rebuke, or a sound of command as we hear in this instance, Jesus spoke with judicious discernment and precision. Nothing was spared or superfluous. Cor ad cor loquitur, “heart speaks to heart,” was Jesus’ personal philosophy long before St. Augustine coined the memorable phrase.

Transformative power. This spoken word releases power. As the proverb states, “To make an apt answer is a joy to anyone, and a word in season, how good it is!” And how good it is when someone who sees our hearts and feels our pain speaks our “Ephphatha!”

These elements to a vital spirituality of openness are, you may have noticed, particularly monastic. Monks and other contemplatives should be among the most open of us all, and, maybe, we should consider such openness as being one of our most precious gifts to the world. It’s seen in our radical hospitality and open doors. It’s experienced in our priority for silence and our listening with open and hungry hearts. It’s internalized in our attunement to the divine heartbeat and our observant lectio or reading of all that is around us. It’s practiced in our judicious and timely speaking. And, hopefully, it bears fruit in the transformation of our lives through our common fidelity to this resolute and radically intentional way of life.

The Cistercian monk, Thomas Keating, in his classic work on centering prayer, Open Mind, Open Heart, teaches us how to grow deeper into this open and full way of being in the world. In his Introduction, Fr. Keating sites Matthew 6:6: “If you want to pray, enter your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” On this foundational verse for a deeper life of prayer, he comments: “Notice the cascading movement in this text into ever deeper states of silence: 1. Leaving behind external tumult, the environment we may be in, and the concerns of the moment by opening the door to our inner room, the spiritual level of our being, the level of intuition and the spiritual will. 2. Closing the door, that is, shutting out and turning off the interior conversation we normally have with ourselves all day long as we judge, evaluate, and react to people and events entering and leaving our lives. 3. Praying in secret to the Father, who speaks to us beyond the sound of words.” The truth of the matter is that there are worlds within each of us that now exist behind closed doors. But through the silence and attentive prodding of our wills in love, God’s Spirit gently, sometimes dramatically, opens doors and invites us in. And from these secret places we discover new depths of being and a quality of life begins to manifest itself that is open and free—like the Open Christ—to live by the law of liberty, the unrestrained, unstoppable law of love that just can’t help itself.