The Fifth Sunday in Lent - March 29, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Maximillian Esmus, n/OHC 

The Fifth Sunday in Lent - March 29, 2020 

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 8:6-11

John 11:1-45

Click here for an audio version of this sermon. 

He’s back! Your brother is really returned! He stumbles toward you, tearing away his burial cloths. As the initial shock subsides, he catches your eye and gives a huge smile of delight and surprise. He throws open his arms and draws you and your sister into a joyful, if somewhat smelly, embrace. Your family, torn by illness, premature death, and grief, is once again restored. By God’s healing power, all has been made well.

Or so it seems for the moment. It’s worth recalling how the story continues. We left off hearing that many of the Judeans who witnessed this sign believed in Jesus. But in the very next verse we read that “some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done.”¹

This raising of Lazarus, Jesus’s ultimate act of healing, proof that God’s life-giving power reaches even beyond the grave, is, for the religious authorities of Jerusalem, the very last straw. In short order, a council of hand-wringing Pharisees is called, a price is placed on Jesus’s head, and the deadly machinery of betrayal, indictment, and crucifixion is set in motion. The council also makes a plot to kill the now famous Lazarus. They’ll do anything to halt the ongoing spread of Jesus’s ministry and message.

They thought to themselves, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”² The Pharisees likely were not wrong in this calculation; oppressive imperial regimes tend not to favor large-scale popular movements such as the crowds following Jesus. In all honesty, if I, like the Pharisees, were faced with the potential destruction of everything I hold dear, my home, my livelihood, and my most cherished religious practice, would I act any differently? Would I really hear with the ear of faith, and discern the word of God in Jesus and follow him? Or would I, too, be busy plotting a strategy for my own survival? I don’t know.

These readings bring up for me the fundamental question of faith: What does it mean to be faithful? To be faithful is to follow where God calls, and to do as the Lord commands, as best as I can discern it in this present moment. Faith is the abolishment of fear. Not abolishment in the sense of the denial or elimination of fearful feelings, but the choice to let God alone be the guide of my actions, not my felt needs or wants or doubts.

We have an example of faithfulness in Ezekiel. God challenges him, “Can these bones live?” and he gives an endearingly tepid response: “O Lord, you know…” Not exactly a electrifying statement of faith. Ezekiel seems not quite ready, at the intellectual level to say “yes” to the impossible, but his true faithfulness lies in the fact that he spoke God’s word to those bones anyway. Imagine how silly it would feel, prophesying to the inanimate; that is, until they actually start to come alive. Imagine announcing to an exiled people their impending restoration, when no evidence of any such thing is forthcoming. As impossible as it might have seemed, Ezekiel spoke the prophecy.

Turning back to the start of the Gospel, we have an example of faith in Thomas the disciple, who said, “let us go and die with him.” He doesn’t seem swelling with hopeful belief here. Yet it doesn’t matter – he went, and got the others to follow.

Examine the faithfulness of Mary, and of Martha, who, when told her brother will live again, mutters, well yes, there is the resurrection at the end of time. It’s relatively easy to believe in a distant, far off vision. But today? Here? Jesus says, “Yes, right here and right now. The resurrection and the life is standing here talking with you. Do you believe that my followers will have life?” Again, she gives a kind of sideways answer: “Yes, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” She stops short of expressing hope in seeing her brother again. The sisters do not doubt Jesus’s power, but remain wedded to the quite true fact that no life can reenter a body which is already stinking from the processes of nature.

At least, those are their expressed beliefs. But look at the sisters’ actions: Mary does lead Jesus to Lazarus’ tomb. And despite her complaint about the stench, Martha does have the stone removed. They cooperate with Christ’s saving acts anyway.

And look at the faithfulness of Jesus himself. His heavenly Father intends him to reveal God’s glory, and Jesus lets nothing get in the way of letting God guide his actions to this end. Let’s go back to the beginning to the story. Why do you suppose, after hearing of Lazarus’s illness, Jesus stayed two days longer where he was? He could have gone right away in secret and ministered to him. He actually tells us plainly why he delayed: That God’s glory might be revealed. Waiting two more days allowed time for word of the death to spread throughout Judea, time for a large number to travel from Jerusalem to Bethany to offer their condolences. I think Jesus paused to ensure that the maximum number of people would be there to witness his ultimate sign.

Jesus must have known that the crowd would include people who would report him to the authorities, that this act would greatly increase his notoriety and hasten his death sentence. He also must have known that before long, Lazarus would become a target as well, and grief would once again visit upon this beloved family of Bethany. Jesus knows that their lives, like the lives of all his disciples, will be marked by pain and trial. So he weeps with them, and for them. How easy it would have been to turn aside in order to preserve his life, in order to avoid endangering the earthly lives of his disciples! But no. Nothing would dissuade him from acting in complete faithfulness to his call to speak God’s Word to Lazarus, to his sisters, and to the crowds.

Faithfulness is about the choices we make. Belief, in terms of intellectual beliefs or even gut intuitions, may or may not be present at the moment faith is called for. I’m learning that those sorts of felt certainties are a rare gift from God which, in any case, I am ready to receive only after I’ve made the choice to act in faith.

I, for instance, feel no certainty at all that everything will work out to God’s greater purpose in this viral epidemic. I cannot at present see how God is going to bring new life out of this experience of disease, which is ravaging bodies, ravaging families, and in the necessary steps taken to reduce its spread, ravaging our economy, leaving many wondering how they will make ends meet in the coming months. I, sometimes, can accept the world as it is as part of the gift of life. And sometimes, I struggle to understand how a world that features deadly viruses, cancers, and a host of natural disasters, is the same world that God created and called “very good.” My capacity to articulate belief stops short of saying, “all shall be well.” I just don’t know.

I think God is teaching me, in today’s lessons, not to be overly concerned that I do not feel God’s presence, that I cannot see how God is working, or that I cannot make myself believe in seemingly impossible outcomes. My lack of understanding God’s ways does not preclude me from faith. Faith means choosing to act in a way that demonstrates trust in God. To act under the assumption that God loves me more than I could possibly know or feel.

Faithfulness means not waiting for God to take away all my fears and set the conditions just right before I agree to respond to his call. Faithfulness means discerning and doing God’s will while experiencing fear and doubt. And upon doing it, faith means not clinging to the outcomes of my efforts. Our model in this is Jesus himself, whose efforts to inaugurate the Reign of God, when judged by human standards, ended in utter failure. We are called to the kind of poverty of spirit that commends into God’s hands the fruits – or lack of fruits – of every work, grasping at nothing.

So my prayer today is not for the right mental states or for the comfort of emotional security. I pray for the grace to love what God commands and to do it. I pray we all may have the strength to discern what is the will of God, and respond accordingly. Where does this strength come from? From love, the love of Christ that dwells in you by the power of the Spirit. Richard Rohr put it this way:

"Love has you. Love is you. Remember that you already are what you are seeking. Any fear ‘that your lack of fidelity could cancel God’s fidelity, is absurd.’ Love has finally overcome fear.”³ 

Grounded in love, may we answer God’s call, the same call given Ezekiel: to speak forth God’s holy Word to one another, inviting the Holy Spirit to come enflesh our dry bones and breathe new life into our world.

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1. John 11:46
2. John 11:48
3. Richard Rohr, "Love is Stronger Than Death," Friday, March 27, 2020

The Second Sunday after Epiphany - January 19, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Maximillian Esmus, n/OHC
The Second Sunday after Epiphany - January 19, 2020

Isaiah 49:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

We have here an “Epiphany moment.” The glory of God is glimpsed in Christ, discipleship begins, the foundation of the Church is laid. And it all happens so quickly! The Baptizer points at Jesus and says, Behold, the Lamb of God! Two of his disciples get the message and go after him. Jesus looks at them, says, “What are you looking for?” and they reply, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He simply says, “Come and see.”

They spend the rest of the day with him, and the gospel community is born.

The very first act of Jesus in this Gospel is to turn and look at these two disciples. I speculate that they became fully convinced this was the bona fide Anointed One at that moment when Jesus looked them in the eye. Just then, they caught a glimpse of the eternal, and they knew that the salvation of Israel was at hand, that the Lamb of God was here, taking away the sin of the world.

And Jesus, in turn, saw the image of the Divine reflected back to him in their eyes. This is one of Jesus’s greatest superpowers: his ability to look at you and see you for who you really are, and to love you for it.

When Jesus asks what they seek, the disciples don’t request from this Rabbi a word of wisdom, nor a Messianic holy war manifesto. They seek to know where he is staying. It is about being with Jesus, and Jesus being with them, mutually beholding each other.

The initiation of this community of mutual beholding is almost shockingly direct. I want to know, How is it that these two are able to see Jesus for who he really is? How is it that they are able to respond so unreservedly to Jesus’ equally unhesitating acceptance?

I think that the disciples were able to see and respond because they were well prepared for this moment by a good teacher: John the Baptist, the preacher of repentance. John, who it was said would “go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”

I believe the disciples’ eyes were open to Jesus in part because they had acknowledged their human frailty and received God’s promise of forgiveness in those cleansing waters, and in so doing, had received the gift of humility. They had set aside all pretense. Humility, the honest acknowledgement of my situation as a beloved, broken, sinful, forgiven child of God, is a crucial element in my readiness to behold the Lamb of God.

What does the path of repentance – the path toward humility – look like? The Gospel does not give us any details about the paths that originally brought those two disciples to the Jordan river to be cleansed. We can imagine and speculate about that. We can think of our own stories of forgiveness and repentance.

I’d like to share one such story that comes the realm of legend and myth. It comes from one of the greatest epic myths of Western Culture, or at least, one with great influence on me from my childhood. As in all myths, the characters in this story are archetypes, whose experiences are universally relevant.

The story begins:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a young Jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker. He was a skilled Jedi, strong in the force, and advancing well in his training. He and his wife, Padmé, a formidable politician, were expecting their first child. One day, Anakin had a nightmare, a prophetic vision that Padmé would die in childbirth.

Anakin became greatly distressed, and began acting out in anger at the unfairness of this fate. How could this happen to him? How could Anakin, so strong in the Force, be dealt such a devastating loss? In his desperation to resist Padmé’s fate, Anakin abandons the ideals of his Jedi masters and begins to seek the security of cultivating power and control.

When the time came, Padmé gave birth to twins, and named them Luke and Leia. Then, tragically, she died.

Anakin acted out in anger and frustration yet again. His fellow Jedi knights, fearing for the safety of the twins, took them away into foster care. In the darkness of Anakin’s grief, the Evil One came to him with sympathy on his face and said, “Oh, my dear Anakin. What a tragedy. If only you had been strong enough to save Padmé. If only you had loved her enough. If only you hadn’t been so angry.”

In his pain Anakin believed these words. He didn’t think he could bear the shame of what he had done, and what he had failed to do. He started to believe himself incapable of love, to believe that he was in some way defective. He had to hide. And so, he crafted a mask for himself, a dark mask and a cloak that would project strength, power, and invulnerability. He called this mask Darth Vader. For many years, Vader lived a kind of half-life, almost more machine rather than man, and allied himself with the Evil One.

Then, one day, Darth Vader’s son Luke, now grown to adulthood, returned to him, and said to him, “Father, I know there is good in you. I see the good in you. Won’t you take my hand and come back home to yourself?” And Vader felt so threatened by Luke’s compassion, more threatened by this than by any who had ever raised a sword against him, that he swore to destroy Luke.

But Luke said, “I will not fight you, Father. There is good in you.” Vader didn’t believe it, he said it was too late for him to have such hope. But then he saw Luke do a remarkable thing. Luke was so determined not to jeopardize his relationship with the one he loved, that he chose even to surrender to the most destructive forces of the Evil One, rather than draw a sword against his own flesh and blood.

Seeing this, Darth Vader – Anakin – finally understood something about love he had long forgotten. He at last was able to face the guilt over the wrong he had done, and the shame – the unearned guilt – over what had been beyond his control. In receiving Luke’s acceptance of him, he accepts himself. He casts the Evil One into the abyss, and repents. He turns around to face his son.

The first thing he says is, “Luke, help me take this mask off, so that I can see you with my own eyes.”

“Help me take this mask off, so that I can see you with my own eyes.”

The black helmet is lifted off, the twisted mask is peeled away, and behind it we see a broken man whose eyes are filled with nothing but love for his son. The deep shame of past hurts, failures, and losses has fallen away, and with it has fallen away the need to armor up, puff up with pride, and protect himself.

And we see that all along, behind the mask of Vader have been the eyes of a man desperate to love, desperate to give himself in love. Luke had said over and over, “I know there is good in you.” And Anakin’s final words to Luke are, “You were right about me. You were right.” Thus ends the story of Anakin Skywalker.

I, like you, wear a variety of masks – personas – that disclose a curated version of myself to myself and to the world. They obscure a deeper me, the “me” who I’m not so sure is lovable, or capable of love.

But God knows — God knows that your point of origin is not sin, it is love. He sees the goodness in you. He says to you, in the words of the Psalmist: “Princely state has been yours from the day of your birth; in the beauty of holiness have I begotten you, like dew from the womb of the morning."

When you undergo repentance, and let go of your mask, you see Christ afresh. And then you can Look! Behold – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! And you find yourself adoring him, overflowing with love that spills over into every relationship, into every hurt that needs healing.

Christ notices you beholding him with these new eyes of love and says, “What are you looking for?” And you say, “You, Rabbi. I’m looking for you! I have seen you with my own eyes, and I wish to abide with you. Tell me, Where are you staying?”

And he says, “Come and see.” He guides you along the way to where he abides. He says, Come here to where two or three are gathered in my name. There I am. Come and see – in the face of this little one who comes from a distant land seeking a cup of water to drink. Give it to her, and in so doing, you give it to me. Come and see. In the fragile and majestic beauty of this world my Father made. Come here to the table and see the broken bread; there I am. Abide with me and I will surely abide in you.

Jesus knows that my attention is fickle, my resolve is weak, and the old habits of shame and self-rejection are not overcome in a day. I find myself hiding, holding back, losing sight. So again and again, I turn back to the one I love and I say, “Rabbi, teacher, open the eyes of my heart. Help me take this mask off; so that I may see you, where ever you are staying.”