The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost B - October 20, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Delcourt

The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, October 20, 2024

Job 38:1-7, (34-41)

• Hebrews 5:1-10
• 
  
• Mark 10:35-45

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

In the name of God, the Creator, the Liberator and the Comforter.

In the gospel according to Mark, we find a three-part cycle repeated three times. 

Three times, Jesus predicts his rejection and his resurrection (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34). The third time is in the two verses just before today’s gospel passage.

Three times, the Twelve promptly misunderstand or reject Jesus’ self-understanding (8:32-33; 9:32-34; 10:41). In today’s passage, James and John, the sons of Zebedee whom Jesus affectionately nicknamed Boanerges, the sons of thunder, ignore Jesus’ prophecy and proceed to try to get a heavenly kingdom promotion. Talk about narcissism and insensitivity! And that comes from two of Jesus’ closest friends.

Three times, Jesus immediately corrects these mistakes with teaching about genuine discipleship (8:34-9:1; 9:35-40; 10:42-45). In today’s gospel, Jesus insists on the vocation of servant leadership amongst his followers.

The cycle of prophecy, misunderstanding and teaching is repeated three times through the gospel. Mark wants us to know what kind of Messiah Jesus is and to know what following Jesus requires. Humility and serving our neighbors are a good start.

James and John, together with Peter, were Jesus’ closest disciples. Lots of gospel scenes are between the four of them. Did James and John think it earned them special status in the kingdom of heaven?

The Boanerges are falling prey to very human biases here. 

James and John have compared themselves to their fellow disciples and decided that they are above them. They want rank and honor when Jesus will come into his glory. Their focus on self-promotion enables them to conveniently bypass and deny Jesus’ prediction of his passion.

And Jesus alludes to the disciples future suffering by referring to their drinking his cup and undergoing his baptism. He is not directly referring to the future sacraments of the Christian church here. But still that resonance works on us too. He is referring to withstanding resistance, confrontation and aggression unto death from their current domination systems: the Roman empire and the Temple religion.

As a matter of fact, the other disciples instead of reacting to Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and resurrection, react forcefully to James and John’s upmanship. They too, want privilege, or at least to rank ahead of someone else.

Now, do we sometimes compare ourselves with others and decide that we are ahead of them in whatever ranking matters to us? Am I more beautiful, rich, intelligent, able or spiritually developed than those ones over there? Am I not more worthy than those I have made “other” so I may ignore or offend them?

It might be subtle and implicit in our words and actions, but it happens to most of us.

Come to think of it, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not to mention Moses, might have a claim to sitting on both sides of Jesus in his glory.

As it is, the gospel of Mark will mirror the Boanerges’ request in the account of the crucifixion. Verse 27 of the penultimate chapter of the gospel reads:

“And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.”

I have a suspicion that no one has precedence over anyone else in the Kingdom of heaven. And that comes to light in Jesus’ patient teaching to the disciples today.

He teaches them for the third time about the importance of humility and service in the life of his followers. He teaches them about servant leadership. And to do that, he contrasts who they need to be to who the Roman overlords are in their domination system.

He is basically disavowing any domination system. He never exercises power over anyone, and he urges the disciples to do as he does. If you must use power, make it power with others, not over others.

Even today, it is important for Christians to identify current domination systems. And once we know the power system we are dealing with, we are to be wary of aspiring to a prominent or convenient place in it. 

How do we serve our brothers and sisters rather than participate in their oppression? Is there anything I want to withhold from others that I do not want withheld from me? Who do I consider OK to dominate and in what way?

Jesus wants us to be slave to all. We are not to be enslaved to any single master, whether it be money, fame or power. We are to seek for all others to rise to the glory of the kingdom of God together with us; no one ahead of the other. And we do it best by lovingly serving them.

Jesus knows this is not always easy and that it is sometimes painful but that need not stop us from perseveringly attempting it. But he nonetheless wants us to offer “agape,” the highest form of love, of charity. He wants us to embody sacrificial love that is unconditional, selfless and persists regardless of circumstances. Whether it be convenient or not.

We may close today’s eucharist with the following dismissal: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” The Lord is present to you in every other being on your way. No one is to be beyond the reach of your love. The journey to loving as Christ is loving is ahead of us.

“Buen camino,” as they say on the way to St James’ shrine in Compostela.

Amen.

Proper 24 A - October 22, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku OHC

The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 24 A, October 22, 2023

 

Exodus 33:12-23
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

In our first reading this morning, we hear Moses having a dialogue with God. Like most people who want a sign to believe or confirm something, Moses despite numerous Scripture passages before indicating that he spoke with God face to face, wanted God to show him a sign. He wanted another indicator. He had had many along the way. He had witnessed some very remarkable and unusual demonstrations of the divine; the burning bush, a staff that became a snake, the Red Sea parting in two, tree twigs that cleaned up polluted water, a pillar of cloud leading him and the people by night and a cloud by day, manna falling from heaven like dew and numerous other wonders. He still wants further clarity and he prays cunningly like I do, first trying to justify his position and kind of blackmailing God by reminding God of God’s part in the deal as we heard in verses 12 and 13.

Moses also asks God to guide him clearly along the way, to teach him His ways; a good thing indeed! Most of us like being guided. We crave to be taught God’s ways. We like to know the paths we are to take, to be shown the right way. We are a people hungry for guidance. We long for direction. We are like wanderers lost in a jungle or in a desert who cry out to God to show them the way or even to give them a sign in the sky! God however created no sign for Moses in the sky, nor laid a blue print down on how things will proceed. He did something better.

God replied Moses’ prayer, his request for a sign, by assuring him that God’s presence will go with him and that God will give him rest(Exodus 33:14). God personally and providentially led Moses and the nation of Israel. He offered to be the guide as opposed to offering guidance. He promised to accompany them and to be with them. He was not going to be an isolated God who lived in some heavenly domain but rather a God who chose to come down and live among His people. He would walk with them side by side as a friend.

Guidance for a Christian comes from an ongoing relationship with God. God wants us to know Him. Being guided by Him is part of that relationship. It is better than signs in the sense that signs are temporary whereas a relationship is permanent. Signs can be misread, misinterpreted, and in some cases not seen at all. God wants to lead us in our journeys, every step of the way through rain and sunshine.

In the verse immediately preceding the start of our passage today, verse 11 of Exodus 33, we are told that “the Lord spoke with Moses face to face just as a man speaks with his friend.” This verse speaks of the reality and depth of communion between Moses and God. Moses was God’s friend not because he was perfect, gifted or powerful. They were friends because friends trust each other and talk to each other on top of sharing common interests. God did not always provide a signpost or send Moses memos to direct him but that did not matter. He knew with whom he was going and that was all that mattered! We as Christians must get to know God first if we want to know God’s will. The guidance revolves around the relationship. If we seek the guide more that guidance, we will see the sign we are looking for and on top of that wonderful benefits.

The greatest of the benefits that comes from being in a relationship with God is His enduring presence. God, the ruler and creator of the universe walks with us, He is our companion, our friend. The whole world may walk out on us but God never will. We have His word on that. God also promises us rest as He promises Moses in verse 14…“and I will give you rest!” The rest promised here is a rest that happens while we are still on the journey, a rest that reaches down to the inner depths of our being. It is not like our weekly Sabbath rest, our annual vacations or family visits, or even the retreats that we do. It is not a mere cessation of our activities or struggles but a calmness, a fulfillment, a security that only comes from knowing and walking with God. It is solitude…a solitude that gives us wisdom to find God and His ways. It comes to us as a testimony of trust, the knowledge that gives us feelings that make us confident, secure and victorious.

God’s presence makes us a holy people, a people set apart and distinct. This distinguishes us from the rest of society, not because we are special or better than they are. We are different not because of what we do but rather because of what God does in and through us. We are holy only when we take God’s accompanying presence seriously. When we are consciously and continually aware of God’s presence, it will impact our talk, our behavior, and our thoughts. It causes us to think differently, act differently, love differently and serve differently. It calls us to stand out in the crowd, to be distinct, to be separate and even to be unusual.

In verse 18 of our text, we hear Moses pleading with God to let him see His glory. This glory accompanies God’s presence because of God’s majesty. The heavens declare this glory, creation testifies to it and authentic Christians reflect it. The glory of God is all around us. We come to understand and sense it, not in its entirety just like in the case of Moses because of our human condition.

God also promises Moses His goodness. The goodness of God is a concrete manifestation and experience of what God has done and is still doing in the lives of His people. God also promises to be gracious to whomever He is gracious and to have compassion on whomever He chooses to have compassion. The grace of God is therefore an unmerited favor…It is a gift. Many times on our earthly journey we may deserve justice but God instead grants us favor. This is because God’s heart is of love and compassion.

God’s glory, goodness and grace are however interesting in the sense that we mostly see them afterwards not when they are happening. We mostly see them when we look back and see how God has shown up and worked for us. We see bad situations having worked for our good. We see the misfortunes and tragedies that befell others and say “it is only by God’s intervention that I survived!”

Moses wanted to see the glory of God. He wanted to see God’s face but God knew it would overwhelm him and kill him. God therefore hid him in a crevice of a rock and covered him with God’s hand until God has passed and  then removed the hand so that Moses could see the back of God. Moses did see the visible appearance of God, not God’s face but back. We too like Moses are being led by God if we have developed a relationship with Him. We do not see God’s face but His back. We do not see His face because we cannot see Him coming. We see His back because we see where He has been and what He has done. God does not point the way but He leads the way.

This is the point that Jesus is making in the Gospel today when he tells us to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God, what is God’s. We belong to God who never abandons us. We can only lose God if we turn our backs on him which then means that we are no longer following Him. We give to God what belongs to God, in other words, ourselves. We take the trust of God and invest it in lives of worship. Sometimes that worship is in private, at other times it is corporate and the rest of the time it occurs in the sphere of our daily work and service. Ultimately, giving ourselves to God means that we give ourselves to the world but there is a caveat to giving ourselves to the world, that is, we should only give ourselves to serve the world but not to its ‘values’ which most of the times turn out to be vices.

Most of our denominations, especially the so called Liturgical or High Churches, have exchanged the message of repentance and salvation with the pursuit of Human Rights and Social Justice in their attempt to fit in the world or being ‘woke’ as it is being called nowadays, and this is not a bad thing, but it is not THE thing. It is difficult at times to tell the difference between some denominations and human rights organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. Unfortunately not every right that is claimed by people is morally upright or in accordance with God’s will, or leads to a relationship with God. The church in the world is called to stand as a moral compass, a sign of contradiction; and that we cannot do by baptizing evil or blessing evil and convincing ourselves that it is now holy. We deceive ourselves and mislead others in the process and only repentance can save us from the wrath of God that we heard is coming from the second reading. The Evangelical and Pentecostal Churches are also fairing no better. They have exchanged the true gospel with prosperity gospel and fake miracles all in the pursuit and service of wealth and fame…and what about monasteries that are supposed to be a prophetic voice, first to the church and then to the world? Most have been sucked in by denominational values and principles, by self-preservation efforts, and by working for financial security and stability henceforth rendering to Caesar instead of giving God what is God’s.

The call this morning my brothers and sisters is for us to offer ourselves afresh to God, to receive Him in our lives and to allow Him to guide us in all that we do and are. He sent His son Jesus to facilitate this relationship. It is that Jesus who is inviting us this morning to come to him just as we are. It doesn't matter where you are at, what you have done or how worthy or unworthy you feel. Signs are increasingly becoming evident that the end of the world as we know it is here and if we are true believers of the Word, then we know that there is judgement coming followed by eternal life or eternal damnation. Choose wisely, choose life.

AMEN

Proper 24 C - October 16, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku, OHC

Pentecost, Proper 24 C - October 16, 2022

Jeremiah 31:27-34
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

We gather again this morning to encounter God in Word and Sacrament, as well as to give thanks to God for the far he has brought us and to offer ourselves, our petitions and intercessions for others to Him. This we do with faith, hope and trust that He is with us just as He has been with us in the past and that He will never abandon us in the future.

A woman in Kenya got married around 1965 and like every other woman of the time was expected to immediately bear and rear children to carry on the family name. She however stayed for 6 years before she gave birth to her first born child, a son. After that her womb seemed to have been closed again because she kept trying to conceive but could not. When the boy was 9 years old, he fell gravely ill with appendicitis which in the late 70’s and early 80’s was a killer illness in Kenya. Her life was crashing and her fear of being childless returned all over again. While the boy was in hospital recovering from the appendectomy and a co-infection picked up in the hospital, the mother decided to keep herself busy and went to work in her small scale farm with some ladies who were working for her as casual laborers. As is usual in my culture, as people work together they talk and sing. 

At some point, this mother overwhelmed with sorrow sat down and wept bitterly. One of the casual laborers a lady who had a horrible speech impendiment came and sat next to her, broke a twig from a branch that was laying nearby and on the ground drew a Cross. She then stood up and went back to continue working with the others without saying a word. The mother slowly got to her feet, picked up her hoe and joined her workers. Although outwardly nothing had changed, she had received hope inwardly and an assurance that she could not put in words. To cut a long story short, the boy recovered and when the mother went to fetch him from hospital, she had a vomiting episode followed by diziness and when the doctors tested her, she was found to be pregnant and not just with one child but with a set of twins. After that set of twins, she went on and gave birth to 6 other children and she is the proud mother of one of the larger families in my village. This story had a happy ending…most don’t. We shall come back to this in a moment.

In the first reading we heard this morning from the prophecy of Jeremiah, We hear the prophet speak a reversal of Judgement. Israel had to suffer exile for her sins but God intends to reverse the exile, restore them to their land and gives the promise of a new covenant. Israel will become a new People of God in some day to come. They will get to know God to the fullest sense and will have God’s law written in their hearts. Finally and most important of all, they will experience a complete and total forgiveness of sins. 

Our first reading gives the first sign of God acting to restore the covenant as re-population of the land with offspring of both people and animals. This Verse (Jeremiah 31:27) is important and relates to the story I gave in that while my friends mother was crying to God for children, she kept reciting this verse and claiming it for herself and she claims God heard and fulfilled this promise to her personally.

The exiles were lamenting in their misery, and being human like all of us, were most likely asking ‘why me’ in an effort to make sense of their situation. The end result was blaming God for punishing the wrong people although we do realize the truth of the fact that God occasionally punished the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation in scripture. 

This we can relate with today when we see the intergenerational consequencies on children, of parents, especially those sent to jail for commiting crimes. The fact that the sins of one generation has consequencies on another is however not the same as saying that God punishes an innocent group for the sins of another group that is guilty. The problem with sticking to this understanding of generational curses or punishment, however, is that when bad things like exile, war and the like come, people have a tendency to think they are facing the consequenscies of the behaviors of others and often fail to admit culpability for their own situation.

Verse 30 of our text, however, tells us that people will be punished for their own sins, not the sins of others. I, and hopefully I am not wrong when I say most if not all of us, have enough sins in my own life to justify any punishment from God. To blame someone else will not work. The old order has been turned over and a new maxim is put in place that, whoever eats sour grapes will have their own teeth set on edge… his and nobody elses!

God also promises a restoration of relationship with the people with a new covenant that will be characterized by the knowledge of God being planted in people’s hearts. This time will be an era where the people of God will include more than the inhabitants of Israel and Judah. The knowledge of God will be for all nations and languages. We know that although the restoration begun with the return from exile and the rebuilding of the Temple, it was not fully established until the coming of Jesus  who established a covenant not based on the law or ancestry, but purely on faith in him, whose death paid the price for our redemption and inclusion.  It is this Jesus whom we hear in the gospel today instructing us on how we ought to relate with God and others.

If we go back to the story we heard at the beginning, what the stuttering woman did to my best friend’s mother that morning in her small farm, Jesus does for us today in the Gospel through the story of the widow and the Judge. My friend’s mother so much needed a renewal of hope and so do we! We need encouragement time and again in our life of faith and especially in regards to prayer. The stuttering woman communicated her message by drawing a cross on the ground but Jesus tells a story. 

Two characters feature in Jesus’ parable… a Widow whom we have baptised Insistent and a judge baptized Unscrupulous. The Judge according to Jesus has neither decency nor a conscience. He is corrupt and only interested in amassing more for himself rather than serving justice. On the other hand the woman is a widow, she must be childless or a mother of girls only and that is why she is appearing to speak for herself in a culture that respected young boys more than their mothers; but what she lacks in money and male relatives, she has in courage and not just courage but persistent courage! She keeps returning to court until the judge acts, not because he decided she deserved justice but to spare himself from further annoyance. 

By giving this story, Jesus was not telling us of how God operates because that would depict God as a petty bureucrat or a reckless abusive parent. God, as we heard in the first reading, is not hard hearted or uncaring. God is the author of all justice and compassion and a reverser of curses. 

The person we are to immitate in this story is the persistent woman, and when we are in positions of authority should avoid the character of the Judge like a plague! Infact, the woman is a representation of God despite her ‘loud mouth’, or because of it!…God is ever attempting to break into our closed selves to draw us into a relation with Him and others. God is shouting to our ears and into our hearts yearning for justice for those we oppress, those we exclude. He is shouting to the unjust Judge in each of us and the purpose of our insistent prayer is to wear out our hardness of heart, to force us to do justice to ourselves and others. Our prayer is the widows voice, loud but sane insisting that things be different.

Most of us give up on prayer because we put God as the primary focus and keep thinking because he is an all knowing being, we are telling God what God already knows, or persuading God to do other than what He would not otherwise do, or even attempting to change God’s mind. However the primary focus and effect of prayer should be on me, on us. This is because God’s love is unconditional, His justice perfect, His mercy and compassion boundless. God Knows of our needs way before we do. We therefore ought to pray not to inform or change God, but to change ourseleves to fall in line with God. Prayer then becomes our declaration that we want to be opened up,  that we are not dependent on ourselves and that we do not know it all. In this we need to be confident, persistent and unconcerned with what others think about us. 

Prayer will help us check our attitudes, our doubts that make us feel unworthy, and misplaced humility. This morning Paul reminds us through his letter to Timothy that we should continue in what we have learned and firmly believed knowing from whom we learned it; God himself who writes His law direclty into our hearts. He reminds us that all Sacred Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for all good work. 

Paul goes ahead and urges us to proclaim the message, the goodnews, and be persistent while at it, whether the time is favorable or unfavorable. The stuttering woman in our story could not let a fellow woman and mother continue in anguish knowing there is something she could do. When a person is in pain or anguish, that would not be regarded as a favorable time to speak to them about the goodness of God as per conventional wisdom but not for this stutterer! Her love of neighbor, her empathy, her compassion, her firm conviction and her knowledge that the God of the good times is still God in the bad times, emboldened her! Because she lacked words…literally, she used the earth to proclaim the message of hope, the message that the Cross symbolizes! Paul urges us to convince, to rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching and why? Because these are evil days. The time is coming and is already here when people do not put up with sound doctrine but have developed itching ears and have accumulated teachers to suit their own desires. We have turned away from listening to the truths and have wondered away to myths. We have abandoned the discipline and blessings that come from perserverance for quick fixes!

God On The Mountain - song by Lynda Randle

Life is easy, when you're up on the mountain

And you've got peace of mind, like you've never known

But things change, when you're down in the valley

Don't lose faith, for you're never alone

For the God on the mountain, is still God in the valley

When things go wrong, He'll make them right

And the God of the good times

Is still God in the bad times

The God of the day is still God in the night

You talk of faith when you’re up on the mountain

But talk comes so easy when life's at its best

Now it’s down in the valley, of trials and temptations

That's where your faith, is really put to the test

For the God on the mountain is still God in the valley

When things go wrong, He'll make them right

And the God of the good times

Is still God in the bad times

The God of the day, is still God in the night

The God of the day, is still God in the night

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 24 A - October 18, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Magliula, OHC

Proper 24 A  - Sunday, October 18, 2020

Isaiah 45:1-7
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

Over these last weeks, our readings have expressed how the circle of God’s embrace expands to include more people in God’s unfolding story of salvation. This portion of Isaiah was probably written toward the conclusion of the Babylonian Exile, before Israel returned to rebuild Jerusalem and reclaim its identity. Isaiah names King Cyrus of Persia, as God’s own anointed, the only place in Hebrew scripture where a foreigner enjoys the sociopolitical title of messiah. The reason is that when Cyrus conquered kingdoms, his policy was founded on tolerance and understanding, permitting local cultural and religious identity and autonomy. 

As we are learning in this pandemic and foreign political climate, the experience of exile and return deepens self- understanding for all of us. The prophet invites us today to affirm the utter mystery of God and of divine action in the world and to perceive it in unexpected times and places. We get in trouble when we attempt to domesticate God---when we dare speak of God as part of our group alone. God cannot be owned and never will be.

 

Today, Matthew, continuing to recount the dispute between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day relates a deceitful plan to trap Jesus in a no-win situation. As a colony of the Roman Empire the Jews were paying taxes that supported the occupying army and government. They were required to use a special coin bearing the image of the Emperor which the Pharisees saw as a violation of the first and second commandments. If he advises not paying the tribute tax, he will be accused of sedition. If he advises paying, he sets aside the law of God.

 

Jesus widens the question by placing it in the context of identity by asking “Whose image is on it?” None of us are exempt from discerning what belongs to whom. Tertullian, writing in the early third century said, “Render to Caesar Caesar’s image, which is on the coin, and to God God’s image, which is on the human.” 1 Coins bearing Caesar’s image belong to Caesar. Human beings bearing God’s image belong to God. 

Caesar will get his coins, but the coin of our flesh and blood is the image of God. Every life is marked with the inscription of the One who is its source and destination. The theological point that Jesus makes about God’s interest has nothing to do with power, as Caesar’s does.  The God to whom we render our days is the God Isaiah describes from the midst of exile. The tender compassion of God for God’s children is the product of the inspiration for all the rendering we do, and the taproot of our politics. For Christians, baptism is the watermark of our true currency. At our baptism we are marked with the sign of the cross. Even so, all of us walk a fine line in negotiating the currency of our identity: collaborators some of the time, subversives some of the time. I find a sort of comfort in Jesus not making this an easy question. The answer is easy only for those who regard Caesar as god or as the devil.

Our true image can sometimes be difficult to recognize. Virtually all great spiritual traditions share the conviction that humanity is the victim of a tragic case of mistaken identity. When we look at each other, or in the mirror, we tend to see the inscriptions that our business with the world has left on us: you are what you look like, what you have, what you wear, what you do, the company you keep. There is a “self” with a small “s” and a “Self” with a capital “S”, and our fatal mistake lies in confusing the two. The small self is how we define ourselves outside of love, relationship, or divine union. After spending many years building this small self, with all its labels and preoccupations, we become very attached to it. Existing outside the reach of God’s will and love—outside of reality and life, it cannot help but be an illusion. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves. For most, there is no greater subjective reality than this small self. Sensing its fundamental unreality, it clothes itself in myths and symbols of power. It begins to convince itself that it is what it does. The more it does, achieves, and experiences, the more real it becomes. It frames reality in a binary way: for me or against me, totally right or totally wrong, my group’s or another group’s opinion. That is the best the small egotistical self can do, yet it is not anywhere close to adequate, and hardly mature wisdom. The small self is still objectively in union with God, it just doesn’t know it, enjoy it, or draw upon it. For most of us, this objective divine image has not yet become the subjective likeness. To move beyond it always feel like losing or dying.

The question of our ultimate loyalty and deepest allegiance can only be discerned through our true identity. Our lives are God’s, and all that we do is to be marked by that conviction. There is no higher claim upon us, nor can there ever be. All claims and allegiances are evaluated and understood in the light of whose we are and whose image we bear. The challenge is what to do when allegiance to God and government pull us into a situation of divided loyalties where both entities have a rightful claim and neither side can be dismissed.

 

As this election approaches and tensions and divisions deepen, the issue for us isn’t about paying taxes. It’s about paying attention to what our government is doing, and whether or not, in good conscience, we can support those actions. The neurotic news cycle is increasingly driven by a leader whose words and deeds incite hatred, sow discord, and amplify the daily chaos. The pandemic that seems to be returning in waves continues to wreak suffering and disorder with no end in sight, and there is no guarantee of the future in an economy designed to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and those subsisting at the margins of society. It’s no wonder the mental and emotional health among a large portion of the American population is in tangible decline. We have abandoned any sense of truth, objectivity, science, or religion in civil conversation; we now recognize and can no longer deny that we are living with the catastrophic results of centuries of systemic racism. 

We are, without doubt, in an apocalyptic time. Our spiritual bankruptcy has robbed us of our shame. We need to become human again. We need to see that what has led us to pretended moral power has really led to our peril. Power has become our national obsession. Even as churches, we have given more energy to our institutions, than we have to the gospel. We cling to the image of the Warrior God in the face of the God of Love. We mix the national religion and the Christian religion as a matter of course. We presume this country is especially favored by God, under God’s singular protection, and distinctly chosen to do God’s will. We abhor violence but we do not study nonviolence. We are stricken with a fear of sharing that closes our borders and deports the defenseless. 

The fulfillment of the law is that which grows out of complete devotion to God, expressed in love of one’s neighbor. The opening of Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians is a powerful statement of what that looks like. As with Isaiah, God is active, empowering, encouraging, and persistent, illustrating an intimate connection between the life of God and the life of God’s people, who have come to know this God by coming to know and appreciate one another. 

Our occupation and vocation as monastics and believers at this time must be to first restore the Divine within by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves. The spiritual effect is to become a people of peace, too strong to be intimidated even by our own, too involved to be silenced. The function of the peacemaker is not to shirk combat with evil. The function of the peacemaker is to find ways to confront evil without becoming evil. God cannot abide with us in a place of fear, a place of ill will or hatred, inside of so much angry noise and conscious deceit. God cannot be born except in a womb of Love. So, we must offer God that womb. In these coming weeks, we need to stand as a sentry at the door of our senses so that the toxicity cannot make its way into our soul. Our life’s goal is to illustrate both the image and the likeness of God by living in conscious loving union with God and each other. 

+Amen.

Pentecost 19C - Sunday, October 20, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. John Forbis
Pentecost 19C - Sunday, October 20, 2019

Genesis 32:22-31
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
Luke 18:1-8

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

Well, I have come to this morning to preach this sermon, and I’m still wrestling with this parable.  Nothing like a deadline to bring some kind of truce between me and Jesus … even if it is an uneasy one.

I just have to come out and say this:  This parable infuriates me.  I find it confounding.  I’ve heard it used in so many destructive ways.  The primary one is, well, you’re not getting what you want or need because you’re not praying enough for it.  Such a damaging interpretation gives Christianity a bad name.  And those who do think that way, against them, I would like to have justice.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where too often justice involves a widow with little power and influence losing her decorum and dignity to attack an indifferent, unjust judge who only cares about himself and his friends  She has to attack him because she’s desperate.  Perhaps what she’s asking of the judge is for her own survival.  The NRSV, the translation for this morning, tones down the full intensity of what is happening.  The judge does not rule in her favor just because she won’t stop bothering him.  The judge’s ruling comes from a fear that he might receive a black eye from her as the Greek expresses the action.

Although, she may have already given a black eye to his reputation.  She perhaps remembers one thing that the unjust judge forgets.  The Hebrew scriptures insist that widows, orphans and the poor are to be given particular care and preference.  So if we were to imagine Jesus’s disciples listening to this parable, they were likely scandalized by the man’s behavior.

As she keeps coming after him tenaciously; she is exposing him for who he really is.  To save his reputation, he will have to grant her wish.  This world’s justice often provokes anger and violence to come out of one who has become desperate enough to pummel even a man who has the power to rule over her life or death.  It also compels a judge to rule in one’s favor just to preserve his own skin and reputation.   

In this brief passage, the word justice appears four times.  So perhaps the question, I have to ask myself is the following:  What am I praying for exactly?  If I challenge Jesus and his parable about God, I better be clear about what I want before throwing God over for my own righteous indignation.  Such a righteousness becomes nothing more than self-righteousness, much like the unjust judge who has no fear of God or respect for people.

So what do I want?  Well I want the widow heard and given justice the first time.  I want an end to racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-semitism.  I want those who perpetrate it to have to pay some consequences, certainly be removed from their jobs, from positions of power and influence, to be thrown in prison or even be killed if necessary.  Then, the victims can take over and bring justice to this earth.  It’s time for some payback, for them to get a taste of what they themselves have dished out, for them to get what’s coming to them. 

Oops!   Well, now I’m exposed.

It’s so human.  We see justice as punitive, payback, who wins, who loses.  But God’s justice is about forgiveness, peace, healing, reconciliation and love.  It unites us, helps us to see who we are, human, God’s own children.  No one wins, no one loses.  In God’s justice we’re all one, persecuted AND persecutors, victims AND victimizers, just and unjust, all unified by love, a love that would go as far as to endure inhumanly cruel torture and a horrible, shameful death as a criminal to expose the horrors and atrocities resulting from our version of justice.

Jesus once said, if you do it or don’t do it to the least of these his children you do or don’t do it to him.  This saying gives some precedence to the possibility that there’s much of the widow in God.  She is trying to bring us to not just cry but act for justice as well … His justice that will prevail, that has prevailed again and again and again.

Just recently, I viewed the testimony of Gwen Carr, a widow and the mother of Eric Garner who was choked to death by a police officer, at a judicial hearing on police oversight.  She appeared in a large room before many people in power, probably some just and some unjust, and expressed her experience of losing her son.

Her outcry was strong, forceful and persistent before and after that hearing.  Yet, all she asked for was for that chokehold to be made illegal again and for the police officer who did it to be removed from his job and to face criminal charges in court.  It took a long time, but eventually the officer was removed from his job.  She relieved her community of at least one killer who swore to serve and protect.

Against tremendous opposition, heartache and anger, she spoke and kept on speaking, and people throughout the world heard her.  Her granddaughter was doing the same thing until she died of a heart attack at the age of 27.  Their cry was not calling for vengeance but just simply safety and accountability.

They have become a galvanizing symbol to expose the violence and injustice of police officers who abuse their authority looking for scapegoats.  They have become the women who stood up against unjust judges in New York who did not charge the police officer for murder.  They are the voice of God who so longs and desires for a home where love prevails and not suspicion, racism and violence.

“They have taken my son’s voice away, but his mother still has a voice, and I’m going to use it as long as I have a voice.”

When the Son of Man comes, will he still find faith on earth?

Proper 24 B - Sunday, October 21, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Roy Parker, OHC
Proper 24 - Sunday, October 21, 2018

Isaiah 53:4-12
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45

CHRIST CRUCIFIED, THE POWER & WISDOM OF GOD

The gospel passage is about the disciples James and John trying for a power grab at a time when Jesus has given clear warning of his fate and the only appropriate attitude for a disciple must be related to that described by the prophet Isaiah, the scenario to which Jesus alludes by saying “Among you, anyone who wants to be great must be your servant, and if anyone among you wishes to be first, they must be the slave of all. For the Human did not come to be served, but to serve and to give himself as a ransom for the community.” These words of Jesus tie him to the description of the Servant of God in the first reading, a description long revered by the community of faith: Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases . . . He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole ... By his bruises, we are healed. . . The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all ...

CHRIST CRUCIFIED, THE POWER & WISDOM OF GOD

He was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of the people ... It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain ... When God makes his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days; through him, the will of the Lord shall prosper ... Out of his anguish, he shall see light ... The righteous one, God’s servant shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities ...

CHRIST CRUCIFIED, THE POWER & WISDOM OF GOD

Adds the Letter to the Hebrews: Because he poured out himself to death, he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors, offering up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death ... Having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

It would be appropriate here to cite the remarks of the Biblical scholar Joachim Jeremias who calls our attention to the placard over Jesus’ head stating that Jesus was King of the Jews, but in fact describes our transgressions — so many that they must be written in letters so tiny that one must draw very, very close to making it out, so close that one begins to realize:

CHRIST CRUCIFIED, THE POWER & WISDOM OF GOD

It would be important to dwell a bit on the opening sentence of Isaiah’s Servant Song on account of certain niceties in the Hebrew text, for whose understanding I’m indebted to Harvey Guthrie, professor of the Hebrew Bible at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To put it colloquially, the vocabulary and syntax of the verse “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases” gives the verse something like five Good Housekeeping Seals of Approval for verity and reliability. Professor Guthrie comments that even without the introductive affirmative Surely, the verse would be extremely strong in its expression of the unexpected new thing which has taken place.

This Servant Song occurs in the portion of the Book of Isaiah which describes God’s new thing and the role played in it by the conquests of the Persian king Cyrus, but the most exquisite newness of the new thing trumps conquering Cyrus and lies in the Servant’s suffering and death, bringing God’s new thing to its final completion. God’s new thing is finally not “victory” or “conquest,” but the outlasting of all victory and conquest and power by a powerless suffering and dying Servant.

The perennial struggle throughout the Bible between the description of the Servant’s fate and the desire of God’s devotees to use the imagery of kingship and victory and conquest has apparently contributed to a confusion in the text of the concluding two verses of the Song, evident in the footnotes to the Hebrew and in those of the New Revised Standard Version which comprises the lectionary. One can wonder if these final verses haven’t suffered at the hands of the happy-ending tendencies of those who transmitted the text, and of all of us, including James and John who, despite Jesus’ repeated warnings about his fate, clearly belong to the happy-ending segment of the Twelve.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED, THE POWER & WISDOM OF GOD

Proper 24- Year A- October 22, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bob Pierson, OHC

Proper 24 - Sunday,October 22,2017


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Br. Bob Pierson 

I have often heard it said that if one wants to avoid contentious conversation, one should avoid the topics of “religion” and “politics”.  Both topics can lead people into a defense of their very strongly held opinions, and when there is a disagreement, it’s very hard for some people to “agree to disagree.”

That might be true, but today’s Scripture readings really don’t allow us to avoid talking about religion and politics. In Jesus’ statement, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s,” we are led to the obvious questions, “Just what does belong to Caesar, and what belongs to God?”

The situation in which Jesus finds himself is a classic trap.  The strict religion of the Pharisees teams up with the Herodians, who are Jewish collaborators with the Roman occupation.  A direct answer to the question they pose to Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes or not?” will get him in trouble with one group or the other.  They think they’ve got him; there’s no way he can get out of this one.

Surprise!  Surprise!  Jesus responds brilliantly to their question by asking to see a Roman coin.  He knows who’s head in depicted on the coin, and he knows the inscription, which is a declaration of the divinity of the emperor.  No good Jew would even carry such a coin, but the fact that someone is able to produce one already compromises his opponents.  In saying “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” Jesus is acknowledging the legitimate right of the state to collect taxes, while at the same time reminding his listeners that no human government has unlimited power and control in the reign of God.

The debate over people’s loyalty and allegiance between God’s authority and human authority has been going on for centuries.  Many rulers down through the years have tried to claim a “divine right” to their authority, alleging that the fact that they are in power is a sign of God’s support of them and their authority.  Obedience to the ruler is in fact obedience to God.  It almost sounds like that’s what going on in the first reading we heard today from the prophet Isaiah.  Cyrus, the king of Persia, defeated the Babylonians, and decided to let the exiles from Israel return to their own land.  Isaiah saw God’s hand in all of it, acknowledging that God was using Cyrus to save the people of Israel, even though Cyrus knew nothing about their God.  Cyrus was a pagan ruler, but he was acting according to God’s purpose.

Even today we find people who allege that their rulers are really appointed by God.  Some evangelical Christians believe that our current administration is empowered by God to clean up America and get us back on track.  Of course, there are just as many, if not more, people who believe just the opposite.  How do we discern where authority comes from, and what we are obligated to do as a response?  Is “My country, right or wrong,” an appropriate response for Christians to take?

I believe the answer to that question is “no” because we have plenty of evidence from history to show that governments can really get it wrong, and sometimes people need to stand up and resist the people in control if they want to be doing the right thing.  The most obvious example from history, of course, is Nazi Germany.  How different things may have been if enough people had refused to go along with what their government was doing.  Just because something is legal does not mean that it’s morally right.  And today, we hold in esteem those who risked their lives to resist the Nazi regime as heroes.  There were several people who resisted, either behind the scenes or directly. 

One of those who resisted behind the scenes was Irena Sendler, who smuggled 2,500 Jewish children out of the ghetto before they could be sent to the extermination camps.  Eventually she was caught, and sentenced to death, but she managed to escape.  And she continued to work to oppose her government and its immoral laws.  She died just a few years ago.  A second person who resisted openly was Franz Jaegerstaeter, an Austrian husband and father who refused to serve in the German army.  Even after his wife and his bishop tried to convince him that it was OK to serve, he refused, citing his belief that war was wrong, and as a Christian he could not participate.  He was arrested and killed, but he did not capitulate to the fear that moved so many others to fight rather than be killed themselves.

So where does that leave us today?  The point that Jesus is making is that no human government can claim absolute authority over our lives.  While we have an obligation to be law abiding citizens, working for the common good of all, we also have an obligation to resist when governments make unjust laws, laws that hurt people rather than promote the common good.  It takes discernment to figure out when one is called to resistance, and we don’t take that position easily. But in the end, “giving God what is God’s” means obeying God’s law of love when human laws are against it.  When you get right down to it, what could belong to Caesar that does not already belong to God?  As the psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all it holds, the world and those who dwell in it.”  Psalm 24:1

Proper 24 B - Oct 18, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Reinaldo Martinez-Cubero, n/OHC
Proper 24 B - Sunday, October 18, 2015

Job 38: 1-7, 34-41
Hebrews 5: 1-10
Mark 10: 35-45

Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left in your glory

“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand, and one at your left in your glory.” Just in case you don’t know, this is what happened before that little display of obtuseness: “…he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, and spit upon him, and scourge him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise.” (Mark 10: 32-34) To that James and John say: “Hmm, so, is there any way that you could grant us to sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory?” Real sensitive!

I have read many commentaries about this gospel lesson since I started preparing for this sermon. Not surprisingly, I’ve read references about James and John being dense, not very smart, clueless. “Those poor disciples, they just didn’t get it”, wrote one commentator. True, they didn’t. But, how easy it is to point the finger, and to place the problem elsewhere. It seems to me that the question should really be, do we get it?

These gospel stories have been around for two thousand years, and we still don’t get it. One only needs to look at what happens during presidential campaigns in this country- the millions of dollars that candidates raise in order to be on top and have more power over the other. And how about TV shows where titans of business are the stars, judges and lawyers flex their muscles, the rich and famous boast about their lives of excess and show us their luxurious gigantic homes, or the many “reality” shows where those who want their five minutes of fame are exploited, and often, their materialistic behavior, or their vulgarity is glamorized. Do we get it? It can even happen in more subtle ways, when we look for clout, prestige, authority, and status in our lives or when we believe we are above rules because of our sense of entitlement.

Of course the disciples didn’t get it! “…whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” Jesus’ message was a radical one in the ancient world, and it is still a radical one in our world today. “‘Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’ They replied, ‘We are able.’”

Many years ago I held auditions for a musical revue I was directing at the youth theatre that I founded and managed in NYC for fifteen years before entering the monastery. The musical revue was Tintypes, a chamber piece that provides a history lesson focusing on the period in the United States between the turn of the 20th century and the onset of World War I. At the audition was thirteen year-old Nik, who seemed to have more enthusiasm than any other kid auditioning, and who specified on his audition form that he wanted to be considered for the role of T.R., a very demanding role. While Nik had great determination, he had very little musical theatre experience, which was a concern given the complexity of the role for which he was auditioning. There were other older, and more experienced kids at the audition, although they did not have nearly as much enthusiasm.

After the audition I pulled Nik aside and said: “So, you want to be considered for T.R.?” “Yes”, was his serious and assertive response. So I said: “Look, if I cast you in this role, you are going to have to work really, really hard. I will be very tough on you, I will demand a lot from you, and I may not always be very nice. On top of that, I can’t really guarantee to you that you will have great performances because I can’t really predict that. If you do it, you have to embrace the process. Are you sure you want to do this?” “Yes, I can do it”, was his very determined response.

So Nik was cast as T.R. in the production of Tintypes. It was a bumpy ride. He worked very hard. He made many mistakes. Sometimes, when things became scary, he wanted to run away. As promised, I was very demanding, and not always very nice. The work was not about achieving status, or power over anyone because in fact, all the roles in Tintypes are equal in terms of their level of difficulty and complexity. What I didn’t promise because I could not have known, is that, Nik’s performances were wonderful, and thankfully, the experience in the end was a meaningful one for him.

James and John may not have fully grasped to what it was that they were agreeing. And they surely lived into it very clumsily, often missing the mark, especially in the beginning. But they did eventually get it, and gave their lives fully in love, to discipleship, James, even onto death by martyrdom. From my experience this last year I can say that the reason why one says yes to that call, keeps evolving, sometimes even every month. For us who choose to answer the call of Jesus, the act of following the path can be quite clumsy at times, and as humans, like James, and John we make mistakes and miss the mark time and time again. And following Jesus also means struggle, and pain, and suffering. It means the cross. Jesus guarantees to his disciples that suffering is inevitable. “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized”. But the glory of sitting at the right or left hand of Jesus, that’s up to God. I couldn’t guarantee to Nik that his performances after so much hard work were going to be great, and Jesus couldn’t guarantee to James and John positions in his glory.

What Jesus does do is to give us a perfect example of how to live today. He liberates us from the bonds of sin, and lifts us onto true communion with God. He came “to give his life as a ransom” for us. His life, death and resurrection transform us, and lead to our salvation. When we mediate on his teachings our consciousness is raised, and through our raised consciousness we enter into communion with God.  This is the way in which Jesus’ death raised humanity’s collective consciousness and brought humanity into communion with God.  This is salvation, the cosmic awareness that we are all one with God. Salvation is not just about what happens after we die.  It is about the here and now.  It is about how we experience God, and our relationship with God.  It is about how we are to live in the world today.  It is about service and transformation. It is not about where we will sit in heaven. Otherwise, it would simply be a commercial transaction and not spiritual transformation.