Holy Cross Monastery Sermons : Advent 2

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Sunday, December 8, 2024

The Second Sunday of Advent C - December 8, 2024

Br. Randy Greve
The Second Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2024

Click here for an audio of the sermon

Every year in early November, a local radio station changes its usual music format to Christmas music. I know this because when I am driving somewhere, I will occasionally surf the radio and land on this station. I scan the stations based on what is not commercials. It may just be me, but since the presidential election and in the context of ongoing political division, as the fabric of civility is tearing and many relationships are fracturing, I feel more dread than usual (and I usually feel a lot). When I lit upon this station a few days ago, I was surprised to note that not only was I cheating by listening to Christmas music before Christmas, but I did not even enjoy cheating. I was actually repulsed by it. Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole singing to me about mistletoe and tree tops glistening and sleigh bells in the snow made me want to drive the car into a light pole. It is like having a DJ at a funeral reception. Perhaps in more optimistic times the themes of abundance and togetherness, peace and goodwill that come through so many of these songs are in harmony with the cultural moment, but not now. At that moment it all rang hollow and empty. I pushed the power button and turned it off.
Pumped into our blood from every media entry point is the lure of commercialism that promises we can conjure the emotions we believe we are supposed to feel - “be merry”, “celebrate”, “holly jolly”, the songs hypnotize us over and over. Their prescription for our discontent is that if we are experiencing grief or loss, fear or dread, conflict, strife, anxiety about the future of our families, churches, politics, then another cup of cheer will fix everything - or at least we can forget about our and the world's problems - at least for a while. And that is the best we can hope for. The capitalistic system is a dealer in Christmas as escapist fantasy. Sorry, Bing, but not all our days will be merry and bright, nor will all our Christmases be white. Life does not work that way.
If we are to faithfully prepare room in our hearts for the coming of God incarnate, and if that preparation can open us to welcome that coming with great joy, then we are in need of something more substantive than nostalgia and sentimentality. Divine discontent, which is what I think I was experiencing at that moment, is discontent at quick and shallow fixes. This is a good thing and can actually prepare us for deeper conversion. Advent is the opposite of escapist fantasy. That is why it is usually awkward. Primed as we are for the standard fare of instant gratification, the church sets us unflinchingly inside the tension, the contradiction of the reality of hope and salvation alongside the reality of sin and suffering. Can joy come from a contradiction? The proclamation of salvation ought never ask us to cheer up, get over it, feel what we do not feel, deny reality, believe what we cannot quite believe - that is mind control, not good news. What is on offer is the invitation to dwell in Christ with all our thoughts and emotions, our doubts and pains, our expectations and hopes and to be fully, deeply, knowingly engaged in our actual life experience.
What, then, does joy really mean? Am I doomed to be Scrooge forever, or could my association with joy as an external mood, mere emotion, be inadequate? The Collect and the epistle lesson for today give us some profound wisdom on this question. The Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent asks God for the grace of repentance which prepares the way for greeting with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. In the reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which is included for this Sunday because of its mention of joy, Paul writes, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.” Both the Collect and Philippians root joy in God’s activity and our choice to recognize and participate in good work blooming in and around us. Joy is the gift of the glimpse of God’s goodness which has begun to set the world right. We receive joy when we stop; stop acting, numbing, avoiding, or pretending and start opening, anticipating, and receiving.
Saint Paul’s joy for the community in Philippi came from his care for them and his trust in the power of the gospel. What he saw and knew was the triumph of the grace at work in their hearts. No Caesar, no empire, no violence, no persecution or chain or martyrdom (try as they might across the centuries) no division, no scandal, no heresy could thwart the power of God to effect good in willing hearts. Those things harm and are tragic, but they are no obstacle to Christ. When he saw that, joy flowed up out of him in the lavish, unbounded love of Christ who will never leave us or forsake us. He never denies or minimizes his suffering, he is still in prison. He never presents life in Christ as a program to escape reality. His joy is in the truth that the suffering cannot, will never, quench the power of that presence and mystery. “This present suffering is not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us”, he writes to the Romans.
Joy is the effect of offering and entrusting our lives and the life of the world to the one who is its source and end. Our source intends our flourishing and growth and our end is bound up in an end to all suffering and crying and pain. Let not the power of joy be cheapened by its cheap imitations - it is a gift much richer than mere cheerfulness and positivity. It is honest and real, includes melancholy and sadness, grief and loneliness, but gathers up our longing and cries, our blessings and riches - indeed our whole lives - into the promise of the redemption of the world. The deepest, most soulful peace and fulfillment we can experience is that the unstoppable goodness of God in our lives is more wondrous and beautiful than we can imagine and will be ours for eternity.
So, we may not feel as cheerful this year. The groanings of the world - in creation, in our bodies, in our care for each other - these groans and sighs and tears last for a time. We must groan when we need to groan. But only new creation is ultimate and is our hope and home. In the foretaste of that promise now and to come, we rejoice. In our patient endurance, in our faithful witness, joy beckons in and over it all. Grieve, but refuse to despair; be discontented, but continue to bear witness to the gospel; lament, but guard against becoming bitter. Welcome joy when it emerges in you - do not stifle it. But know that it may come at a time and in a way that does not follow a schedule. It may surprise you. Greet it openly and humbly when it appears - it is a precious gift from God. Amen.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Advent 2 B - December 10, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Ephrem Arcement OHC

The Second Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 10, 2023

Isaiah 40:1-11

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

Click here for an audio of the sermon

Last week we heard the anguish of the people of God bellow out of the prophet Isaiah: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” giving voice to the desperate hope for divine intervention. Today we hear God’s compassionate reply, “Comfort, O comfort my people…the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together….” The book of the Isaiah, one of our main guides through the season of Advent, takes us through a roller-coaster panoply of highs and lows…of hopes and despairs…of sin and redemption. These pages echo those of Ecclesiastes, “For everything there is a season…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance….” Israel’s time of punishment is now complete, she has served the term for her transgressions and it is now time for comfort. Though she had wondered if her subjection would ever come to an end and if her torment would ever cease, the voice is now heard, “Here is your God! He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom….”
   By the time we come to the end of our Isaian roller-coaster ride and close the book, we are left with one overriding sense: that no matter how desperate and hopeless we may at times have felt along the way, God is Emmanuel, right here with us, and everything will be okay! But this is only part of the truth. The biblical testimony goes further…not only will everything will be okay but everything will, in the end, be far greater than it ever was before. The glory to be revealed is not a restoration of a mythical paradise of the past but an entirely new revelation which would not have been possible without the journey through the highs and lows of the roller-coaster ride of our lives. The pain and suffering of Israel, as well as our own, have not been for nought…they are birth pangs of a new creation.
   So, if last week’s answer to Israel’s cry was depicted in the tearing open of the heavens in a sudden divine intervention, this week’s answer offers us a fuller expression for our hope. Taken on its own, last week’s parting of the clouds may lead one to see the divine intervention as a kind of “deus ex Machina,” “a god from the machine,” a phrase used in Greek tragedies of an actor portraying a god being lowered by a crane into a scene or raised from a trap door. It was a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly resolved. Its function was to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, and to bring the tale to a happy ending. This scenario, taken on its own, may lead one to question…Is our Advent hope purely a projection…a kind of naive wish, a baseless hope…one ultimate deus ex Machina to bring the tragedy of life to a final conclusion? Certainly, many since the tragedies of the twentieth century have thought so. But today’s scenario of a God who is actually encountered in the here and now and effects true and lasting change offers a fuller vision for our hope than some sudden escape route and a surer foundation for our future fulfillment and justifies why we have every reason to remain full of hope and expectation.
   Instead of placing all of our hopeful energy on one final apocalyptic cataclysm to right all wrongs and usher in a new heaven and a new earth, today we hear of the role played by God’s chosen ones: Israel, Isaiah, John the Baptist, and ultimately by Jesus and his disciples. Rather than wallowing in misery and self-loathing, holding out for the final day, these chosen of God seized upon their call and vocation and became divine agents of transformation and birth which helped hasten this new heaven and new earth. And in Christ and his disciples, even helped make it visible in their own flesh.
   The temptation whenever we suffer and find ourselves in an existential crisis is to wallow in the questions and never reach a resolve to do anything about them. Why do anything, we reason, if none of this makes any sense and life seems to be just one tragedy after another? The answer that God’s chosen ones offer us is not to evade or ignore the problem. They were all very much in touch with their own pain and sorrow. What was different about them was that they had the faith to see that their pain and sorrow was not the last word but served a greater purpose. In the haunting words of Second Peter, the fire of God is a purifying agent so that “everything done on [earth] will be disclosed”…it serves to ground us in the truth. It’s the baptism of fire that John the Baptist preached which would lead, not to our end, but prepare us for something far greater, a new beginning where all things become possible. With God, pain and sorrow, rather than being sterile and debilitating, can become a fecund womb capable of being impregnated with a divine seed and, with faith, can give birth to something astonishingly new.
   What would happen if we channeled all the energy that we put in the hope of a future divine intervention and focused it on the God who is present birthing the new creation in the here and now? What if instead of worshiping the “sky god” far removed from us, we worship the God of Incarnation who seeks at every opportunity to erupt with the brilliant blaze of glory from within to conquer the dark places of our lives and our world? The evidence for this God of Incarnation, unlike the absent “sky god,” is all around us. I see it in the multitude of lives once bound by sin set free by this grace of divine Presence. I see it in the multitude of saints whose lives exude an aura which attests to a transcendent realm of peace and joy now accessible. I see this God of the new creation present in the evolving world of which we are a creative part…and in the astonishing variety of species we are still discovering. I encounter this birthing God in an expanding cosmos that has no end in sight…and in the overwhelming beauty of it all that reminds me just what a privilege it is that I exist. I encounter this God of Presence in the random acts of kindness that are making real differences in people’s lives each day and in the righteous indignation felt when the most vulnerable of us are cheated or degraded or ignored. The welling up of this love and of this kindness and of this anger is the welling up of the divine within us incarnating itself in our flesh and transforming us, and the world through us, into what God has desired us to be all along, and we, like God’s chosen ones, are hastening the coming kingdom. Maybe the metaphor is misplaced and outdated and God may not break through parting clouds, but the breaking-in of God into our world remains true and, perhaps, more realizable than ever…not from outside our world in a distant future but from the deepest dimensions within it right now.
   How does this new orientation…this new focus on the “what is” rather than on the “what may or may not be” affect the way we live our lives and the way we live this season of Advent? Much in every way! To live in the future is to worship the god of the “what if only” which leads to frustration and anxiety because it is not grounded in reality. The only way toward the ultimate fulfillment of what Jesus called the “kingdom of heaven” is to bring the vision of our future hope into the living reality of the present which is the only place where the God who makes all things new can be encountered. The present, with all of its crosses to bear, is the only way to the future. Too much of Christian spirituality through the centuries has tried circumventing this straight and narrow path and preferred a spirituality of escapism and rapture and has lost what is most profound about the God of Incarnation: the mystical possibility of bearing God in our own flesh!
   Teilhard de Chardin once said that “joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” For Teilhard, authentic Christian spirituality is about vitality…what he called “the zest for life.” To be truly Christian is to quite literally be alive with the creative force of the God of evolution, who through divine grace and spiritual vitality, is using us to fill the world with Christ and bring the world to fulfillment. He called this process, Christification…making all things alive in Christ…and amorization…making all things alive in love.
   The humble maiden awestruck at the wondrous and disturbing announcement of an angel remains the archetype for our involvement with this God of Incarnation. Our common Christian vocation is this Advent journey of encounter, impregnation, gestation, and birth. But unlike Mary, we are not giving birth to a separate existence outside ourselves. Through the gift of the Spirit, Christ is birthed into his new body, which is you and me, and makes his appearance upon the joyful, the peaceful, and the loving countenance of our own faces. And he then acts to bless the world and transfigure it through our own hands. “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together!"
   Malcolm Guite, the Anglican poet and priest, perhaps captures best this truth in his poem Annunciation:

We see so little, stayed on surfaces,
We calculate the outsides of all things,
Preoccupied with our own purposes
We miss the shimmer of the angels’ wings,
They coruscate around us in their joy
A swirl of wheels and eyes and wings unfurled,
They guard the good we purpose to destroy,
A hidden blaze of glory in God’s world.
But on this day a young girl stopped to see
With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;
The promise of His glory yet to be,
As time stood still for her to make a choice;
Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,
The Word himself was waiting on her word.

So, as we continue our Advent journey with this God of Incarnation, let us awaken to the fact that it is not so much we who wait on God, but, rather, it is God who waits on us! And not from a secure abode somewhere far away out of reach but right here in the tenacious, obstinate, relentless spirit of our own lives ever knocking until Spirit is joined with flesh and all of life is caught up in the swirling shimmer of God’s glory.

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Advent 2 A - December 4, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku, OHC

Advent 2 A - December 4, 2022

Isaiah 11:1-10

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

We gather again with joy this morning to celebrate the second Sunday of Advent. Advent as we know is a season in the church calendar dedicated to the hopeful anticipation of the arrival or ‘coming’ of Jesus. This advent can be a commemoration of his coming as a baby, 2000 plus years ago, which culminates with Christmas; or the second coming in glory that we hope and wait for, our salvation. During this period, as a young Christian, we were encouraged to engage in meditation, prayer, and scripture study that emphasizes hope, peace, love and joy.

From the first story in the Bible to the last, we see narratives, poetry, prophecy, biographies and personal letters that inform our understanding of the Advent of Jesus in unique ways.

One such passage is what we heard from in the first reading today. The prophet Isaiah speaks of a Messianic King who will manifest the characteristics of the great people of Israel up to David. It claims that life will spring forth from the injured stump of Jesee and a branch shall grow out of his roots. This reference is very important to Israel’s history because of the many exiles they had experienced, although the text specifically speaks of or imagines a new beginning for the monarchy of Judah.

In this hopeful future, the Spirit of God will descend upon the ruler resulting in Justice for the poor and lowly of the land as we hear in verse 4 of the text. The text also speaks of the re-ordering of creation’s priorities in verses 6-9, where life emerges from death and a return to the original harmony of Paradise.

The concrete expression of this new future is a person, a ruler on whom the Spirit will rest; a human being who embodies what is best in the traditions of Israel. This ruler will be wise and understanding, powerful and effective in war, able to judge for the benefit of the poor, and obedient to God. So glorious is the reign of this king that he is literally clothed in righteousness and faithfullness.

As Christians, it is not hard to see ourselves as the nation ruled by this monarch, Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish descendant of Jesee through David. A close comparison though, between the expectations of the king described in our passage and the ministry of Jesus reveals some strong differences. Jesus had a strong ministry and continues to minister graciously in the present through Word, Sacrament and through works of mercy carried on by his faithful disciples. However, evil still flourishes in the world, the poor and meek remain afflicted, predators continue to kill their prey and violence is still done on God’s Holy mountain. The earth is still very far from being full of the knowledge of the Lord. Christ’s victory therefore falls short in human terms; it remains a hidden victory or an unacomplished victory which is disappointing at times.

Bruce Springsteen in his song “Reason To Believe” expresses this disappointment in song….

Seen a man standing over a dead dog
By a highway in a ditch
He’s looking kinda puzzled
Poking that dog with a stick
Got his car door flung open
He’s standing out on highway 31
Like if he stood there long enough
That dog’d get up and run

Struck me kinda funny
Seemed kinda funny, sir, to me
Still at the end of every hard day
People find some reason to believe

Now, Mary Lou loved Johnny
With a love mean and true
She said, “Baby, I’ll work for you every day”
And bring my money home to you
One day, he up and left her
And ever since that
She waits at the end of the dirt road
For young Johnny to come back

Struck me kinda funny
Funny, yeah, indeed
How at the end of every hard-earned day
People find some reason to believe

Take a baby to the river
“Kyle William” they called him
Wash the baby in the water
Take away little Kyle’s sin
In a whitewashed shotgun shack
An old man passes away
Take the body to the graveyard
Over him they pray

Lord won’t you tell us
Tell us-what does it mean?
At the end of every hard-earned day
People find some reason to believe.

Congregation gathers
Down by the riverside
Preacher stands with a Bible
Groom stands waiting for his bride
Congregation gone and the sun sets
Behind a willow weeping tree
Groom stands alone and watches the river rush on
So effortlessly

Wondering
Where can his baby be
Still, at the end of every hard-earned day
People find some reason to believe

Can we therefore conclude that Jesus was a failed Messiah? I would say No…but we need to agree that his ministry is still fundamentally incomplete. It is fundamently incomplete mainly because we misunderstood the message and failed to see our role in it. We took it literally that when he comes things will change and decided that we are passive observers rather than active participants. The mess in the world is mostly of our own making either by omission or by commission, through blatant disobedience, ignorance or misinterpretation of scripture.

This passage from today therefore reminds us Christians that we should still long for the Messianic completion of creation, the so called second coming or parousia. We therefore should not judge the Jews who have historically struggled to see Jesus and his ministry as Messianic because we too are looking forward to it’s completion. Our waiting for the second coming, however, should be an active waiting. Since it will be a kingdom of Justice, we must right now work for justice…it will be a Kingdom of equality, so we must now work for the equality of all…A kingdom of harmony, then we should right now strive to live in harmony with one another…a Kingdom of friendship, then right now we must try to become each other’s true friend in the Lord…a Kingdom of brothers and sisters, then we must right now start coming closer and closer to our neighbors. This in other words means that we must reform our lives for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

We are invited by this text to celebrate the ministry of Jesus in the past, and especially in the present, but also keep in mind the important place of intercession and work so that creation may arrive at its promised destiny as a place where peace, Justice and grace have the final word.

Advent is about hopes and longings. We all yearn to be with people dear to us and especially with Jesus, whose second coming we so look forward to. This is because the world we live in is fractured and needs healing and peace, a healing and peace that only he can give.

The delay of something much longed for can result in angst and pain but when the desire is fulfilled, it is like we have accessed the tree of life, an oasis in the desert, something that allows us to feel refreshed and renewed.

During the waiting and longing times, praying and pondering the wisdom of the Bible has at times helped me greatly as a person. Paul reminds us in the second reading that we heard from Romans 15:4-13 that whatever was written in the scriptures is for our instruction so that by their steadfasteness and encouragement we may find hope. That is why I recommend the wisdom of our religious educators that I mentioned at the beginning, that we read scripture texts that emphasize hope, peace, love and joy.

Some of our hope and desires might not be fulfilled right away. Some, in fact, might only be met through God when we die. Whatever our longing, we can trust in Him knowing He loves us unceasingly, and that one day we will be reunited with Him, behold Him as He truly is, and praise Him with Thanksgiving. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”[Romans 15:13]

Let us pray:

God our creator, you fulfil our deepest longings. We give you our hopes and our desires, asking you to grant them according to your wisdom and love

Though Jesus who comes.

Amen.

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Advent 2 C - December 5, 2021

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Advent 2 C - Sunday, December 5, 2021

Baruch 5:1-9

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

Our biblical tradition is one of God acting in history in relation to specific people, times, and places. In Luke the word of God comes not to those in seats of political or religious power but to John, in the scary and confusing place of the wilderness, where God had spoken to the people in the past and through which God had led the people to a new and promised life. Quoting from the prophet Isaiah, John challenges us with a message of personal and corporate self-examination of our lives, values, and priorities. He announces the opportunity for personal change by the baptism of repentance so that all may see the salvation of God.

The imagery John employs is that of making, opening, and clearing a way for God. His invitation to repent is a door to forgiveness. Forgiveness comes from the Greek word meaning “to let go”. Repentance is not the same as remorse or regret. It is not wishing you were a better person, or that some things had never happened. It’s not feeling guilty, ashamed, or afraid. It’s not something that leaves us stuck or standing still. Repentance is about movement, letting yourself be grasped by God, getting new bearings, and relying on God for direction. The new life that follows repentance, the new direction that comes with a fresh start is what John is proclaiming in the wilderness. His message is a call to action: repent, turn around, accept help. God is coming to meet you.

Repentance can come in many ways. It can happen when you are confronted by remorse, disappointment, or regret, or maybe the sense that you’re spinning your wheels. Maybe it comes from something as small as wishing you hadn’t said or done something. Maybe it comes when you realize other people are with you on your journey and that your decisions affect them too and that the wilderness is not a good place to be forever. When God turns us around, offers us a way to get unstuck, to move ahead with a new way of life, our response can look like the description from Baruch: a widow who puts away her mourning clothes and instead puts on a beautiful garment. It’s not that sorrow has never happened or that there was not a reason to grieve. She accepts the robe of righteousness and a crown of glory because she trusts that her wholeness and joy lie ahead of her in some future that God is constructing.

All the lessons for today reflect the unique character of our faith in the way in which it is constantly tied to specific times and places and people in history. We not only have Luke’s carefully dated notice of the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist, but Baruch’s prophecy of a very concrete return to Jerusalem for those in exile, as well as Paul’s letter to the congregation he founded at Philippi, with its prayer that their love may overflow with knowledge and insight, which will have produced “a harvest of righteousness.” Our lessons today are directed to us, in this time, in this place as well.

Every Advent we hear the story of John calling us to a recognition of our brokenness and to the Baptism of God’s forgiveness. Every Advent we’re called to the recognition of our failures, our self- righteousness; not in the abstract, but in the concrete daily acts of our lives. The “harvest” Paul refers to is the rightness of the way in which we live and deal with one another. If we’re looking for some spiritual or intellectual way that devalues the importance of our daily acts, then we have no business looking forward to the feast of the Incarnation. We are called to be Christ-like, and that likeness is in terms not of what we believe, but in terms of our concrete action in the real world in which we live. An orthodox theology has its place and its value, but only if it serves as the source of the knowledge and insight to do the work of God in the world. The call to us is the same as Paul’s call to his old congregation. We too are to produce in our lives the same “harvest of righteousness.”

Only when we know the reality of our need for forgiveness, for the action and the grace of God in our own lives, can we be prepared to understand the reality of Jesus’ coming into flesh like ours. God never waits for us to know enough, or to be good enough. At all times and in all places, God comes to us as we are, where we are, and being who we are. Salvation history is rooted in the tangible history of the world. God comes to us not in some spiritually perfect or abstract relationship, but in the day-by-day business of our lives. Every time we act, whether out of love or fear, out of concern or self-protection, out of our responsibility for each other or self-interest, we are showing the harvest of our lives. The harvest we reap is determined by how we act in relation to others.

We’re so afraid to lose the control that we think we have over the life that we think we’re living. Ego identifies with entitlement and individualism. We associate our ego with all our being. This distortion of reality is a lie which removes us further from ourselves, God, and each other. This illusion is insatiable, making our need for security, affection, and control lead us to addictions. It is nearly impossible to heal isolated individuals inside of our unhealthy and unhealed society, or inside any version of Christianity that supports exclusion and superiority. As we see so clearly in our day, individuals who remain inside of an incoherent and unsafe universe fall back into anger, fear, and narcissism. God’s unconditional love destroys our ego’s assumptions. This feast we’re preparing to celebrate is about being liberated from this illusion of an ultimately isolated self that must make it on its own.

The deepest question of our life is not what our father or mother or anyone else thought of us, but what we think of us. Our most difficult challenge is self-acceptance. If we take a loving look at ourselves, we will see that behind our restlessness is our longing. The problem is that we feed the restlessness instead of the longing. Without the capacity to go within, because of our fear that there is nothing there, we will only experience brokenness. When we dissect ourselves in perfectionism, we only find our flaws. We are more complex and there is more to us than we think.

Creatureliness is the root of our spiritual life. If we are not rooted in that reality we cannot grow. Roots give us humility. Without roots we become inflated causing us to overemphasize where we want to be instead of where we are. Jesus wrestled with what it was like to be a creature and struggled, like us, with the reality that there is always a pull to regress as we move forward. The human temptation is to equate our experience of God with God. But being present in the moment opens us to perceive the real Presence, to let the mystery encounter us, God on God’s terms, not ours.

God is the source of all creative expression. We do not even create ourselves. Our true self is revealed to us. Our choice is to be receptive and participate, to live into our potential. We anticipate and participate in God doing the work because God will do nothing in our lives without our consent. We must give permission for grace to be received.

This season invites us to slow down, be alert, attentive, and learn to gaze at and welcome reality. To do this, we must let go of our present way of seeing things. Reality is filled with risks, but only in taking a long loving look at the real can we uncover the transcendent in the imminent, the divine in the human. Our unresolved conflicts and issues are no obstacle to how infinitely precious we are to God. Let us look mercifully on ourselves and others. Let us try to see ourselves as God sees us as we prepare for the coming of the one who took on our humanity.

+Amen.

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Second Sunday of Advent B - December 6, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bob Pierson, OHC

Advent 2 B - Sunday, December 6, 2020

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

Each year, on the second Sunday of Advent, we are introduced to the figure of John the Baptist, that strange fellow who runs around in the desert, dressed in camel's hair, and eating locusts and wild honey. And on this year, Year B of the three year lectionary cycle we are also given the treat of hearing this first reading from Isaiah 40:

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.”

We know that the original context for these words of Isaiah was the post exilic prophet proclaiming the good news that the exile was coming to an end. That God was coming to bring the people back to Jerusalem. So, it's time to “prepare the way of the Lord,” to fill in the valleys and cut through the mountains, to construct a super highway through the desert to allow God to bring the people home.

This was extremely good news for the people of Israel. How can it also be “good news” for us? The past few months have found us wandering in a desert exile of our own as we respond to the presence of the coronavirus in our midst. And while the exile is not over yet by any means, we know that it is coming to an end with the advent of several vaccines that, if people allow themselves to be vaccinated, will bring this plague to an end. But if that is the only thing we think we need to be “saved” from, I think we are ignoring another “disease” in our midst that has been around for much longer, and can be just as devastating as any respiratory illness.

I am talking about the “disease” of rancor that exists in many parts of the world between good people who are so convinced that they are right that, in fact, they are wrong. People on every side of our political divides have become so rancorous that it seems we have forgotten about the command to “Love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” Many of us have become so comfortable with ranting and raving against “them” that we have forgotten that “they” are our brothers and sisters, fellow human beings in need of the same respect and dignity that we hope to obtain for ourselves.

What kind of vaccine can save us from this illness? During the past few days of silent retreat I have been reading a book that has sat on my shelf for years. It was a gift from a directee of mine back in Minnesota, and I have been putting off reading it until just this week. The book is entitled, “Left To Tell,” and it's the story of a young Rwandan woman, Immaculee Ilibagiza, who survived the genocide that took place in her country in 1994. Along with five other women, she hid in a bathroom that was 4 feet by 3 feet for over three months. During that time she experienced such fear, and anger, and hatred for those trying to kill her and her family, that she knew she had to turn to God to save her soul from being consumed by the evil around her. After they were rescued, which is an amazing story in itself, she knew that God had saved her life so that she could tell her story while working for the healing of the soul of her country and people. She refused to give in to hatred and revenge, and learned to pray for her persecutors who had killed all of her family and were hunting her by name. The conversion that she experienced in that tiny bathroom over those three months enabled her to be Christ after the war ended.

I am convinced that we, too, are called to reject the invitation to “demonize” those with whom we disagree and to pray for them as our brothers and sisters in the Lord. That is not to say that we don't need to work for truth and justice, but more than revenge we need healing and reconciliation. It's hard work because people will not be easily brought together after such serious divisions have been encouraged by many around us, but it IS the way of Jesus, and bringing healing and reconcilation is the way to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

In the selection we heard today from the second letter of Peter, he reminds us that “the Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” He asks, “what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming day of God...? Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.”

As we gather around the table of the Lord at this Eucharist today, let us promise to live the healing and reconciliation that Jesus offers us in this sacrament. Let us refuse to give in to the pressure to “win” or “get even,” and rather work for all to be reconciled in Christ. We can be examples of Christ's love and mercy as we refuse to give in to the need to write off those with whom we disagree, and work to love them as God loves them. What a wonderful way to prepare the way!

Sunday, December 8, 2019

The Second Sunday of Advent - December 8, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Advent 2A - Sunday, December 8, 2019

Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12
Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

It is my great pleasure to preach on a psalm today.

As a monastic community we are psalm-drenched on a day by day basis. Maybe that is the reason we have not used psalms in our Sunday liturgy in a long time.

But the Sunday liturgy offers a psalm in a smaller morsel than the platefuls of psalms we are used to. You can savour it in a different way.

My brothers and I have decided to experiment with a Sunday psalm again for this season of Advent. So I had to preach on the psalm before they might disappear from our Sunday liturgy again. “Quick, quick, preach me!” cried the psalm.

More seriously, I have thought a lot about judgement in the past few years. And I want us to visit with judgement for a bit.

Divine judgement is a perennial undercurrent of Advent. Part of Advent is to wait for Christ’s return at the end of time as we know it.

A lot of the scriptural passages that form a basis for this event speak of judgement. Often the judgement is presented as retributive; a painful sentence is doled out to those found lacking and there does not seem to be further redemption from it. The sheep get paradise and the goats get hell, forever one would assume.

I am afraid of such kind of categorical judgement. For one thing, I am not so sure that I may not be found lacking myself. And for another, I know several people whom I love and whom I fear might be found lacking as well. Would nothing save them from eternal retribution at the final judgement?

Don’t get me wrong. I think God is fully entitled to judge us. And I think it would be a good thing for us to be presented with a fair and just judgement of our actions, motives and character. I am just hoping that the judge would be extremely lenient in the sentencing.

You see, I have a grave problem with letting God be presented as a retributive, vindictive judge with a strictly dualist mind. My reading of scripture, and of the gospel in particular, has the arc of God’s desire for creation landing in the neighborhood of peace, justice, righteousness, prosperity.

And that’s without dwelling too long on love; as in “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44) or “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).

Psalm 72 speaks of a King. Is it an earthly King or a heavenly King? I think it speaks of both divine authority and earthly authorities. And it asks God to enable the earthly leaders to emulate the divine king.

Psalm 72 focuses on justice and righteousness. In Hebrew, the word for righteousness would be tzedakah, a complicated noun that has elements of charity and “social justice” woven into it. Tzedekah as social justice means that no one should be without the basic requirements of existence.

Of course, food, safety and shelter are basic requirements. But as an advanced and wealthy society, it behooves us to consider the basic requirements of a just and fulfilling life for all. What common good constitutes righteousness for our country today?

We might want to think about what are some basic requirements of a righteous life in these 21st century United States. Does it include access to education and healthcare without getting into crushing debt? Does it include fruitful livelihoods that support a serene life? Does it include an economic system that preserves the ability of nature to sustain us?

I think that the Lord Jesus, the embodiment of the king that psalm 72 called for, came to bring us peace. And that Christ’s peace is to be sought through nonviolent justice.

This is opposed to peace through victory of a violent kind. That latter kind of peace, is the peace of domination systems, of empires.

I believe that nonviolent justice is what Christ will deliver at the final judgement. I hope he will want to yet again give us the option of repentance from our sins and transformation of our hearts at the final judgement. I believe in an infinitely merciful and loving God who seeks the redemption and restoration of the greatest number of his creatures.

That still leaves unrepentant die-hards who will in fact choose punishment rather than redemption by refusing to be swayed from their belief in the superiority of evil. My hope is that there will be very few such die-hards.

But when will Christ’s return in glory usher in the final judgement? No one knows. Despite some who regularly make firm predictions on the timing, they always seem to get it wrong.

No matter, until the final judgement comes, we need to live as Christians. We are called to do our best to embody the justice and righteousness of God here and now. We are called to be just and righteous leaders in our spheres of influence, no matter how small they may be.

And we should endeavor this in both our personal lives and our corporate lives, including the life of our nation. In the coming election year, this means we should continue to hold candidates, elected officials and other leaders to the highest standards of justice and righteousness.

To that effect, do we choose leaders that encourage justice, social justice, hope, adequate shelter, care for all creation, including the non-human?

As for us, as John the Baptist enjoins us, we should bear fruit worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8). Like him, we may not be worthy to carry Jesus’ sandals, but we are worthy to carry on the work of righteousness to empower the poor, the suffering and the needy.

As the prophet Amos thundered in yesterday’s matins reading: “...let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Advent 2 C - Sunday, December 9, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. John Forbis, OHC
Advent 2 C - Sunday, December 9, 2018

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

Luke more than the other Gospel writers seems to place curious emphasis on who the political and religious leaders are during certain events that take place in his Gospel. You will hear him do this again not too far from now on Christmas Eve when he also names who the rulers are at the time of Jesus’ birth. One possible reason for this is Luke’s desire to make sure that what he deems important is placed in a concrete historical time and place, as if you could place a point on the timeline when the good news takes place as if to say that this is real folks, it has really happened!

But Luke also lists no less than seven names and their positions. These are people who perhaps warranted the attention, who were feared even and many followed their every word. And in history, what we also know about them from other passages in the Gospel and from other histories is that they were authoritarian, corrupt and oppressive. They had the privilege and therefore, they called the shots. They were the closest thing to being a god or even to being God himself. Especially, in the case of the religious leaders, Annas and Caiaphas, (for let’s name them as Luke does), in their own minds, they were at least the voice of God.

However, God seems to have passed them all by and came to the wilderness. The Word did not come to those we all would have expected. They were mentioned only to provide a glaring contrast to the true recipient of the Word, a very strange man baptizing and making ominous proclamations in the barren land of the River Jordan. One rather visceral description of John the Baptist from the New Hampshire, Congregational Church minister, Nancy Rockwell, may help us get a picture for our imagination of who he might be:

“Wildman John leaps into Advent’s second Sunday, taking my breath away with his matted black dreadlocks, that camel skin he wraps around his bony body, gnarled bare feet sticking out below. His eyes seize me the way his rough hands seize the locusts he eats, the honey he snatches from wild bees. He roars warnings: dire times, dereliction of duty, the brink of doom. Advent seems too small a stage to hold him.”

God chooses to place his Word firmly in the hands of this fanatic. And thousands flocked to him. The people have not heard anything like this before as he preached his message of baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. If we were to read on in the Gospel, we would hear how John is calling the crowds who come out to him a brood of vipers who have nowhere to run with the wrath that is to come. Not even their descent from Abraham can save them.

As the quoted passage from Isaiah tells us, mountains will be leveled, valleys will be filled in, rough places made smooth like a plain and paths will be straightened. Dramatic even violent shifts are going to take place, and all of this seems to be equated with John and his message.

We could certainly look at John as a figure of doom or we could see John as a prophet of hope for us. The passage from Baruch has a very similar image to Isaiah’s only it is not God’s coming to us but God’s leading us to himself. Yes, the high mountains and hills will be made low, the valleys will be filled up and there will be level ground but it is so that the children of Israel in exile can come safely home, so that the community can be whole and be at home in God. Nothing will get in the way of God’s calling his children home and he will enable this journey to take place easily and joyfully.

The language of Advent is seen as a language of doom and gloom only when we try to see ourselves as gods or even God, consumed by trying to control the world around us, by privilege, by power and even more by entitlement. God does not stand for this. God does not tolerate the oppression, the constant debt that we supposedly owe each other and even ourselves. Whether it is external or internal it is still oppression.

What God offers is the gift of forgiveness. No debts are to be paid. It is only the freedom of repentance and forgiveness, to turn to God and receive unconditionally. God wants to offer this so much, he will level mountains and hills, fill in valleys, make rough places smooth and straighten paths to ensure this happens. And to prove it even further, he will shove kings, princes and even high priests aside to bring the message to a wild man out in the wilderness so that there is no mistake of the meaning. Only a wild man, an outlander, can speak it in truth.

What is coming is unheard of, perhaps to many even unlikely. And to a certain extent it is terrifying because nothing or no one can stop it. This is one thing we cannot control.

Even death is not enough to stop it. Death has no power against the love of Christ, the Messiah who will transform the world, who will give his life away to show us exactly just how potent love really is. Yes, we have much to celebrate this Advent season. We have a good reason to repent, to turn to God, to anticipate with eagerness the gift that is to come and to come home. What is approaching is inevitable, universal and freely offered.

What the Philippians are learning from Paul only reaffirms the celebration of losing this control. We have an opportunity to live and I do mean “live” a life that expresses the abundance and generosity of this gift. We can be partakers of grace in Christ. We can love with all the fullness and wisdom of Christ, bringing each other home to the “beauty of the glory of God”. We can be prophets for each other proclaiming this good news. This message is given to us as much as it is given to John. We may feel like we are nothing more than voices crying out in the wilderness, but it is here where the Word of God comes and the preparation begins. Not to the great political and religious structures and ideologies of the world. It comes to us when we are at our most vulnerable, when many might deem us crazy and outsiders, a powerful force that could seem quite threatening to some, a parade towards salvation as Eugene Peterson would put it.

We can make our way living in the grace of God’s love and God levels the landscape to come to us. At the meeting point is the coming of the Christ child into the world, and we can never go back. Amen.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Second Sunday of Advent, Year B: December 10, 2017

Christ the King , Frankfurt, Germany
Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Second Sunday of Advent – Sunday, December 10, 2017

Br. Scott Borden, OHC

First, let me say how glad I am to be here – and how grateful I am to John for the invitation to be part of your Advent season. Christmas, and the season that leads us to it, Advent, are inevitably joyful times. We contemplate the great mystery of Jesus taking on human flesh and coming into our world – how could it be anything but joyful?

Well... I don't want to take all the joy out of the season, but if we experience this season as entirely joyful then we are missing something. As we prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Jesus, I want to complicate the emotions a bit.

First, a little history that may seem tangential, but bear with me. Way back in the 1300s a hospital opened in London to serve the mentally ill. We know it as Bedlam Hospital and its reputation for chaos and despair became so great that its very name entered the English language. Bedlam is the word for uproar, confusion, mayhem... and for most of us the notion of Bedlam Hospital is frightening.

Where can this tangent lead us? Well if you were to search on a map for Bedlam Hospital (you have to use an old map) you wouldn't find it. Bedlam was not the name of that hospital. The English have a particular penchant for modifying the way words are pronounced. Bedlam is one of those agreed on pronunciations. But the hospital was properly known as the Bethlehem Royal Hospital. And that is how the tangent leads back to Advent...

Our tradition teaches that Jesus is born in Bethlehem. And then our tradition fills in some ideas of what that must have been like – O Little Town of Bethlehem, how still we see the lie... It came upon a midnight clear... In the bleak mid-winter... all these familiar hymns (which I must say I dearly love) fill our minds with an image of that stable in Bethlehem filled with starlight, crystal-clear air, and a sense of hushed anticipation of the great mystery about to unfold.

But let's be honest... That stable in Bethlehem was certainly more like bedlam. Stables were, to put it politely, fertile places. The air would have hardly been crystal-clear – it would have been pungent and filled with dust and insects. It's nice to think of all the animals in hushed expectation, but they didn't come to witness the event... Mary and Joseph invaded their space.

That stable in Bethlehem stood in a cultural context that was anything but peaceful and beautiful. Social order was falling apart. The so-called Peace of Rome was purchased at a very high price economically and socially. Within the community of faithful Jews, things were particularly difficult – unstable and corrupt government leaders maintained a society in which things were just-not-quite-bad-enough to provoke revolution. In that hostile space, a small and relatively powerless Jewish community had to try to get along.

We could argue that the conflation of bedlam with Bethlehem didn't start at a hospital in London, but at a village in ancient Palestine on the outskirts of Jerusalem... To torture an old Christmas hymn, how far is it to Bedlam? Not very far... Part of our work of Advent is to get our hearts ready for the coming of Jesus – to level the rough places, to make straight the highways, and prepare the way of the Lord. And when we get everything set than Jesus can come...

If that is true, then we have a very long Advent ahead of us. Our present world, like Bethlehem, is bedlam in many ways. Our rough places may be a little less rough than the Roman's, but only if we choose to tell ourselves that much of what is happening in our world is somehow somewhere else.

In Bethlehem, when Jesus was born, injustice happened at a very personal, local level. In our time injustice has become less personal – but we cannot look at the way our economy favors some and deprives others, or the way our justice system favors some and punishes others, or the way our educational favors some and fails others, and say we have had much success in building God's Kingdom on earth.

And that, believe it or not, is good news. Jesus doesn't come because we are ready. Jesus comes because we need salvation. In the good old days (which means 2 generations ago) Advent was a season of penitence... of repenting. Advent and Lent are the two big penitential seasons. It’s a bit hard to feel too penitential when every shopkeeper in the world, including the virtual world, is pumping us full of retail endorphins in order to convince us to purchase copious amounts of stuff. We're told it's how we show our love... the more we spend, the greater our love...

I find it remarkable and bizarre that "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving Thursday, has found its way into the larger world as, more or less, a holiday. Its history is that this day of shopping could make or break a retailer – literally, their bottom line would flip from red, meaning loss, to black, meaning profit, hence black Friday. I don't know about Germany, but all around Great Britain shop windows were filled with Black Friday sales announcements – though there is no Thanksgiving Thursday anchoring it.

It is in this cultural context that we keep Advent... that we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus.

But here is the thing – one of the great pieces of our Christian tradition is that it allows us to hold conflicting thoughts at the same time. When Mary is rubbing Jesus' feet with nard and some dour Scrooge says how dare you – we could have sold that stuff and had lots of money to help the poor – Jesus reminds us that this is not a binary world. We can always help those in need and, when the Bridegroom is with us, we can celebrate.

We don't have to choose just one... In fact, we must not choose just one. Jesus comes into our world in part to give us a vision of God's Kingdom. Starting in that stable in Bethlehem where representatives from all of God's creation gather to worship the creator we begin to see a world in which the powerless are not oppressed, in which widows and orphans are not forgotten, in which the humble, rather than the mighty, inherit the earth.

In this penitent season, it is good to look around and take note of where the peacemakers are not blessed, where those who mourn are not comforted, where the hungry are not fed, where the merciful not shown mercy.

But that is only half the task. We must also take note of where the peacemakers are blessed, the sorrowful are comforted, the hungry are fed, and the merciful do receive mercy.

True penitence is not just looking at what is wrong and finding ways to feel bad. It is finding ways, to tell the truth – the whole truth. The truth is that our failures of faith are great and vast... and at the same time our demonstrations of faith are also great. Our ability to share love is limitless.

As dark as this world may sometimes be, hope abides. This is not a hope that everything wrong in this world will be better in the next. This is a hope that God, in the flesh of Jesus, comes into this world.

Saint Paul tells us, the Kingdom of God is very near. We can see it. We can feel it. When we break bread together, when we share joys and sorrows, when we look at a newborn child, or for that matter a mother cat with kittens, we can see glimpses of God's Kingdom very near indeed. Whenever we see the action of love, we see glimpses of God.

Illusion keeps us trapped in the status quo, a place of greed and self-interest. And Jesus comes to set up free, to shatter our illusions. True and honest repentance in this penitential season is our best tool.

And so, Lord Jesus quickly come.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Second Sunday of Advent, Year B: December 10, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Second Sunday of Advent – Sunday, December 10, 2017

To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC

Pre-e-e-pare ye the ways of the Lord.

Pre-e-e-pare ye the ways of the Lord.

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.” Mark the Evangelist comes right out with it. Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the anointed One of God, the Son of God. This latter is also a title of the Roman Emperor that Mark is subverting to identify Jesus instead.

And Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are very good news indeed. They were gospel in the first century of our era when Mark wrote. And they are good news in the first century of this third millenary, where we receive this good news.

Peter in his epistle tells us that “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” So, in God’s time we are at the very beginning of the Christ saga. We still are the newborn church, learning to walk in the world and learning to be what God desires of humanity. We are still coming to terms with all this good news of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. Mark starts his gospel with an adult John and an adult Jesus. He does not need to build a genealogy or a childhood narrative. He comes right out and tells us; Jesus is the Son of God, end of genealogy.

And the John the Baptist that Mark presents is a little different than what you may recall of John the Baptist’s personality. This John doesn’t breathe fire and brimstone on his audience. He is about repentance, forgiveness and baptism. And even more, he is about pointing to the One who comes after him. His baptism is a start.

John’s baptism, is the precursor of our own baptism. And as far as we can tell, it was a novelty. Some Jews did a ritual self cleansing that involved bathing but it was an event one did alone and recurrently. There was also a baptism of proselytes, Gentiles who converted to Judaism.

But John’s plunging people into the Jordan was a baptism of repentance that happened only once and was open to all those who came forward for it (whether native Jew or proselyte). It was a baptism of transformation, healing, and belonging.

We are also told that John’s baptism happened in the wilderness and in the Jordan, two symbolic markers for Jews. The wilderness is those areas beyond the zone of influence of cities and villages. It can be equated to the desert. It is both a positive and a negative place in the culture of John’s contemporaries.

It is a positive place of God’s saving acts and betrothal with the people. It is the place where God delivered the people from Egypt and entered into covenant with them at Sinai. It is a negative place where Israel’s testing and rebellion against God took place.

The Jordan also is a symbolic place. It is the boundary between the wilderness in which the Jewish people wandered through their Exodus and the promised land in which they cross to live their covenant with God.Today, we still need to go the wilderness sometime to hear God more clearly. We need to retreat to places like this monastery or we need to retreat in the inner room of our heart to let the usual busyness of life recede and to dwell in the silence that feeds our relationship with God.

Though for most of us our baptism took place a long time ago, we still need conversion of life (you may call it repentance too). Conversion of life does not end at baptism; it starts in earnest at baptism and continues to our last breath.

John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. For our sins to be forgiven, we need to acknowledge them and turn our lives around from sinful ways.

You may or may not feel you have sinned. You may feel guilt at errors and omissions of your life. But dwelling in guilt does not in itself turn your life around to God. You need to give up your sins by giving them to God and letting them go to focus on the business of living your life in God’s unconditional love, as God’s instrument of love in the world. Action is needed for repentance; new action, graced action, love in action. "Love must act as light must shine and fire must burn" as James Huntington, our founder, wrote.

Or you may not feel guilt at particular actions or non-actions of your personal life. But guess what? That does not exonerate you from repentance. We each are involved in corporate sins committed in our name or with our active or passive complicity.

Let’s ask ourselves a few questions. Have we turned a blind eye to sexist, racist or exploitative behaviors? Have we made our peace with a political system that consistently favors the richest and most powerful classes of our society at the expense of the least privileged? Have we given up on protesting the death penalty, the solitary confinement of hundreds of thousands prisoners, the mass incarceration of non-white folks? Have we decided that our way of life is non-negotiable regardless of how greedy in resources and unsustainable for the planet it is? Have we decided that climate change is for future generations to worry about?

So you see, repentance is probably never over for any of us. There is always more conversion of life possible. But Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. We still use the symbol of water in our baptisms, but the real action comes from the Holy Spirit who graces us with our lives and in our lives. That is good news for today too.

With the help of the Holy Spirit there is no end to the conversion of life that can occur in us individually and as groupings (from our families, to our nation and the world community). Our late Br. Ronald used to wear a t-shirt that said; “God is not done with me yet.” And God is not done with us either. And with today’s gospel, Mark is just getting started with the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God is helping us in our conversion. Get ready for more good news in the weeks to come.