Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
Sermon preached at the Initial Profession of the Monastic Vow by
the Brother Bernard Jean Delcourt - Friday 03 November 2006
Not long ago I had the great privilege to be present in South Africa as a new building was dedicated at our monastery there. It was an occasion of great celebration and an expression of great optimism. It was a day in which God's love flowed over all who were there.
As great as that day was, in a deep sense it pales next to this day. Buildings are lovely... But people are more than lovely. People are Godly. The only point in a monastic building, however modest or magnificent, is that it a place where a community lives. Today is not about a place to live, it is about life itself.
Normally this is the time for reflection on how the scripture readings we heard help us encounter the good news of Jesus. But I want to reflect on the living word rather than the written word. How might we encounter the good news of Jesus through this profession?
In a few moments Bernard will sign his vow, a commitment for one year. That vow calls for stability, obedience, and conversion of his life to the monastic way of life. The vow is not about arriving in "monk-dom" - wherever that may be... Its about traveling. Bernard will be vowing to keep growing. At some future date, if and when Bernard takes the life vow, it will be just the same - a vow of conversion, a vow to keep growing, a vow never to arrive.
This creates a mixed message. Today is of great symbolic importance, but in a practical sense very little unusual happens today. It is a day when Bernard, and all of us, will take some steps forward (and perhaps some steps backward) in our conversion of life. Not just monastics, but all of us. It is a day, in other words, like any other.
For years now Bernard has been exploring a call to life in the Order of the Holy Cross. He has been coming to the realization that God calls forth from him gifts that mean this vow will give him life.
For Bernard there will be glorious days ahead... there will be painful days ahead... some boring days ahead... average days... The monastic life is not an insulated, sheltered, easy life. St Benedict uses the term "battle" to refer to this life. I don't find the term battle very helpful. Modern weaponry has turned the nature of battles into something far more horrible and perverse than Benedict could have imagined. There is truly nothing horrible about the monastic way of life. Though some days it can be a bit perverse...
But it is a struggle - a struggle that does not end. Jesus may describe that struggle best when he says "Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence." That's a big enough struggle... but there's more... "Love others as well as you love yourself." Obviously this is not a unique monastic struggle. Jesus addresses it to everyone. All faithful people struggle to answer this call. In slightly different terms we might describe it as the struggle to become whole - whole with God and whole with God's creation.
In the popular romantic imagination, monasticism is a path that involves giving up many things. It is a path of stony silence, hard beds, grim food, and general deprivation. But as is always the case, romantic notions and reality have little in common. As you look around Holy Cross Monastery, its hard to find too many signs of deprivation.
Monastic life is not about giving things up. Monastic life, believe it or not, is about falling in love - falling in love with God and falling in love with God's creation, especially God's children. In order to make space to do this we do give some things up. Falling in love always means some sacrifice, some giving up. When Bernard takes the vow he will be saying that yesterday he fell in love, today he is falling in love, and tomorrow, with God's help, he will fall in love even further. You see what a joyful vow this is.
There are two other key words in the vow: Stability and obedience. Without them the vow is empty.
Without stability love has no meaning. It is just a superficial and occasional illness from which you can easily recover (OK - sometimes the recovery is not so easy...). Unstable love is also known by names such as infatuation, obsession, romance, lust. It can be a great deal of fun, but it is shallow and cheap. It lasts while the weather is fine, but evaporates when the weather turns foul. Stability allows love to endure through sickness and health, through sorrow and joy, through good times and bad. Only with stability can love become whole. This is true for all of us.
Without obedience Bernard would not be here at all this day. God calls and Bernard is obedient in answering. Saint Irenaeus says "the glory of God is the human person fully alive." I think this is God's call to Bernard and to all of us: "find a way to become fully alive."
In faithful obedience Bernard is finding a way, a vowed way within a monastic community, to become fully alive. Its not the best way, or the most holy way, or the deepest way to wholeness. Its just the way some of us are called. The witness of the vow is to call all of us in the direction of God's boundless, gracious love.
With deepest gratitude we give humble thanks that we can be part of the way and share the struggle with Bernard. And we bless him on his journey.
Amen.
Friday, November 3, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
BCP - Proper 21 B - 29 Oct 2006
Holy Cross Monastery,
West Park, NY
Brother Randy Greve, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 21 B - Sunday 29 October 2006
Isaiah 59:(1-4)9-19
Hebrews 5:12-6:1,9-12
Mark 10:46-52
The main fall ritual in Texas for my family when I was growing up was a trip to the Renaissance Festival in Magnolia. I would eat a roasted turkey leg while browsing the shops, taking in the shows (especially jousting), and generally people-watching. Part of the atmosphere of the Renaissance Festival is a roaming band of actors in character who take the whole Renaissance theme maybe a little too far and interact with the patrons as a variety of colorful period personalities. Beggars were to be avoided because they would revel in humiliating some poor, unsuspecting soul and then pepper them with Renaissance-themed insults if they didn’t get a dollar or two - all in good-natured fun of course. One beggar I remember hearing from a distance had bandages over his eyes and was calling out in a loud British accent: “I’m blind. I’m blind! I’m so blind I cannot see that I cannot see.” That’s pretty blind.
Because I find this story so challenging and inspiring, I’d like to touch very briefly on several truths that come out at me rather than focus on just one.
The blind were, like the very young and very sick, among the social cast-offs of the New Testament culture. Poor Bartimaeus was perceived to have no value, no place, nothing to add to the social system. Many would have believed that he was a sinner and is in his sorry state paying for some evil deed by being made blind by God. He is told to be quiet by the crowds because he, an unimportant person, is bothering the Lord, an important person. And so he is doing the only thing he can do and survive - sit and beg for a few coins to eek out a subsistence life. What appears on the surface to be a simple healing story is, on a deeper level, full of mystery and symbolism. Again Mark presents us with the ironic contrast between this blind man who perceives Jesus as Messiah by calling him Son of David, and the disciples who can often be inwardly, spiritually blind. It is the blind man, the one perceived to be worthless and excluded who rightly addresses Jesus, eagerly runs to him in his blindness, and has faith to be healed and become a follower on the way. Jesus does not go to Bartimaeus, Jesus calls him to himself. Bartimaeus must, in his physical blindness, come out of his cloak and make his way groping through the crowd to our Lord’s presence. Jesus invites him to trust him that he’ll be there, he’ll wait for him. During moments in my life when I seemed to be groping in darkness, I believed the only way to move was with the light of purpose and confidence. Bartimaeus tells us that we can cast off what hinders us and make our way to Jesus before we see fully or at all. It is first and foremost our readiness and confidence that guide us toward our opened eyes.
This story immediately follows the request of James and John to have the places of highest honor next to Jesus in his glory. Contrasted with the desire for prestige and power among some of the disciples is this startling encounter with a poor blind beggar. Though blind, he sees more than the disciples. Though a beggar, he is rich in faith. Though a social outcast, he takes his place along the way with the wealthy and educated. Indeed the kingdom is breaking in if the disciples would just see it.
Bartimaeus teaches us who often believe we see all we need to see just what passionate longing for sight is all about. Surely there were other blind folks in Jesus’ path. Bartimaeus was unsatisfied with his state. He wanted something more. He wanted to find meaning and community and let in the beauty and ugliness the pleasure and pain of life. He wanted to see so much that he yells at the Son of God even when people are telling him to be quiet. He shouts at the incarnate deity in such a way that Jesus stops what he’s doing and pays attention to him. This story reminds us that while we may be blessed with physical sight, we may still be blind to the whole truth of our world and our own life and the needs of those around us. We can become like the Renaissance Festival beggar so blind that we cannot see that we cannot see. In the spiritual life, to gain sight I have to confess that I’m blind in some way. And then I have to want to see. Bartimaeus’ physical blindness and healing becomes a model for us in how to give ourselves fully to asking for help with our need to be illumined and enlightened to the gift of truth. The lectionary picks up the theme of sight in that both the Isaiah reading we heard earlier and the Psalm appointed for today use sight as a symbol for a clearer relationship with God which is lived out in community. Isaiah illustrates the effects of sin and injustice on the people when he says “We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.” Psalm 13, a cry of lament, says in the third verse “Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God; give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death.”
Do we really want to see? Our first reflex would be to answer “of course. I’m blind and I want to see.” But to be given sight carries the responsibility of responding to what we see within us and around us. When healed we don’t have the luxury of an excuse or the convenience of turning away - we’re called to really look at reality. I’ve known people and I suspect you have too who would rather stay in their known and comfortable blindness than undergo the stretching of asking for and being given sight. To open ourselves to the healing of those attitudes, habits, or thought patterns that block our growth in relationship with God and each other is rarely easy. Often we would rather do anything than name the reality of our blindnesses. Do I really want to see?
Bartimaeus is an example of spiritual passion, hunger, and focus in seeking out Jesus despite the barriers. When in our prayers we ask for mercy as Bartimaeus did, we are not imploring God for something we must earn by our goodness or that God is slow to give, but reminding ourselves of the attitude of Bartimaeus who was bold and humble, persistent and needy. Mercy is God’s favor even though we deserve punishment. While God would be justified in treating us as our sins deserve, God would rather offer forgiveness and favor and the embrace of relationship. Mercy describes God’s desire to restore us which is often blocked only by our unwillingness to ask and then be open to receiving. May the cry “Lord, have mercy” be our deep and sincere cry which stops our Lord in his tracks as he hears us. When we are blind and cannot see that we cannot see, may God’s light shine through to us and awaken us to our value and place. May our desire for mercy be a reminder to us of the gift of asking for and then accepting with gratitude new sight to live in holiness and justice and to see the way we are called to walk.
West Park, NY
Brother Randy Greve, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 21 B - Sunday 29 October 2006
Isaiah 59:(1-4)9-19
Hebrews 5:12-6:1,9-12
Mark 10:46-52
The main fall ritual in Texas for my family when I was growing up was a trip to the Renaissance Festival in Magnolia. I would eat a roasted turkey leg while browsing the shops, taking in the shows (especially jousting), and generally people-watching. Part of the atmosphere of the Renaissance Festival is a roaming band of actors in character who take the whole Renaissance theme maybe a little too far and interact with the patrons as a variety of colorful period personalities. Beggars were to be avoided because they would revel in humiliating some poor, unsuspecting soul and then pepper them with Renaissance-themed insults if they didn’t get a dollar or two - all in good-natured fun of course. One beggar I remember hearing from a distance had bandages over his eyes and was calling out in a loud British accent: “I’m blind. I’m blind! I’m so blind I cannot see that I cannot see.” That’s pretty blind.
Because I find this story so challenging and inspiring, I’d like to touch very briefly on several truths that come out at me rather than focus on just one.
The blind were, like the very young and very sick, among the social cast-offs of the New Testament culture. Poor Bartimaeus was perceived to have no value, no place, nothing to add to the social system. Many would have believed that he was a sinner and is in his sorry state paying for some evil deed by being made blind by God. He is told to be quiet by the crowds because he, an unimportant person, is bothering the Lord, an important person. And so he is doing the only thing he can do and survive - sit and beg for a few coins to eek out a subsistence life. What appears on the surface to be a simple healing story is, on a deeper level, full of mystery and symbolism. Again Mark presents us with the ironic contrast between this blind man who perceives Jesus as Messiah by calling him Son of David, and the disciples who can often be inwardly, spiritually blind. It is the blind man, the one perceived to be worthless and excluded who rightly addresses Jesus, eagerly runs to him in his blindness, and has faith to be healed and become a follower on the way. Jesus does not go to Bartimaeus, Jesus calls him to himself. Bartimaeus must, in his physical blindness, come out of his cloak and make his way groping through the crowd to our Lord’s presence. Jesus invites him to trust him that he’ll be there, he’ll wait for him. During moments in my life when I seemed to be groping in darkness, I believed the only way to move was with the light of purpose and confidence. Bartimaeus tells us that we can cast off what hinders us and make our way to Jesus before we see fully or at all. It is first and foremost our readiness and confidence that guide us toward our opened eyes.
This story immediately follows the request of James and John to have the places of highest honor next to Jesus in his glory. Contrasted with the desire for prestige and power among some of the disciples is this startling encounter with a poor blind beggar. Though blind, he sees more than the disciples. Though a beggar, he is rich in faith. Though a social outcast, he takes his place along the way with the wealthy and educated. Indeed the kingdom is breaking in if the disciples would just see it.
Bartimaeus teaches us who often believe we see all we need to see just what passionate longing for sight is all about. Surely there were other blind folks in Jesus’ path. Bartimaeus was unsatisfied with his state. He wanted something more. He wanted to find meaning and community and let in the beauty and ugliness the pleasure and pain of life. He wanted to see so much that he yells at the Son of God even when people are telling him to be quiet. He shouts at the incarnate deity in such a way that Jesus stops what he’s doing and pays attention to him. This story reminds us that while we may be blessed with physical sight, we may still be blind to the whole truth of our world and our own life and the needs of those around us. We can become like the Renaissance Festival beggar so blind that we cannot see that we cannot see. In the spiritual life, to gain sight I have to confess that I’m blind in some way. And then I have to want to see. Bartimaeus’ physical blindness and healing becomes a model for us in how to give ourselves fully to asking for help with our need to be illumined and enlightened to the gift of truth. The lectionary picks up the theme of sight in that both the Isaiah reading we heard earlier and the Psalm appointed for today use sight as a symbol for a clearer relationship with God which is lived out in community. Isaiah illustrates the effects of sin and injustice on the people when he says “We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.” Psalm 13, a cry of lament, says in the third verse “Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God; give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death.”
Do we really want to see? Our first reflex would be to answer “of course. I’m blind and I want to see.” But to be given sight carries the responsibility of responding to what we see within us and around us. When healed we don’t have the luxury of an excuse or the convenience of turning away - we’re called to really look at reality. I’ve known people and I suspect you have too who would rather stay in their known and comfortable blindness than undergo the stretching of asking for and being given sight. To open ourselves to the healing of those attitudes, habits, or thought patterns that block our growth in relationship with God and each other is rarely easy. Often we would rather do anything than name the reality of our blindnesses. Do I really want to see?
Bartimaeus is an example of spiritual passion, hunger, and focus in seeking out Jesus despite the barriers. When in our prayers we ask for mercy as Bartimaeus did, we are not imploring God for something we must earn by our goodness or that God is slow to give, but reminding ourselves of the attitude of Bartimaeus who was bold and humble, persistent and needy. Mercy is God’s favor even though we deserve punishment. While God would be justified in treating us as our sins deserve, God would rather offer forgiveness and favor and the embrace of relationship. Mercy describes God’s desire to restore us which is often blocked only by our unwillingness to ask and then be open to receiving. May the cry “Lord, have mercy” be our deep and sincere cry which stops our Lord in his tracks as he hears us. When we are blind and cannot see that we cannot see, may God’s light shine through to us and awaken us to our value and place. May our desire for mercy be a reminder to us of the gift of asking for and then accepting with gratitude new sight to live in holiness and justice and to see the way we are called to walk.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
BCP - Proper 10 B - 16 Jul 2006
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park
Brother Randy Greve, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 10 - Sunday 16 July 2006
Amos 7:7-15
Ephesians 1:1-14
Mark 6: 7-13
Imagine that you are one of the Twelve disciples. At the call of Jesus you have left your family, your livelihood, your familiar and safe world to follow a man who somehow captured your imagination and who performs miracles and preaches and teaches with authority about the Kingdom of God. Clearly God is with him but who or what is he? Could this be the Messiah? You’re not entirely sure. He has told you that this talk of the kingdom is no mere show that begins and ends with Him - this is the beginning of the end of the old era of sin and evil and the ushering in of a world reigned by God. Not only that but he says you will share in his works and participate with him in bringing new life. This eclectic mix of men and women - who would surely not be hanging around each other except for Jesus - suddenly finds itself entrusted and empowered with the authority of the kingdom. Jesus has begun to transform you and give you a vision of what life with God can be like. After time observing and beginning to understand what Jesus is talking about and what his actions mean, you’re sent out to preach repentance, cast out demons, and cure the sick. You’re partner is Philip or Andrew or Peter or Judas… Where do you go? What do you do? What would this power in action look like? You immediately encounter a world of danger, opposition, and mystery. Not everyone is warm and welcoming. Yet as much to your surprise as to the amazement of those you encounter - Diseases are cured, demons cast out, and new life is embraced. And despite being chased away from an unfriendly house or village, some trust you and listen, some are open to the possibility of hope and a future.
Bringing us back into the present, I would like to stop on the idea of unclean spirits; how the disciples might have engaged such spirits and how we might know and respond to them ourselves. To the ancient, pre-scientific understanding of things, the world was a battlefield where good and evil forces and influences were locked in combat within and between peoples, cultures, religions, and beliefs. Suffering, disease, and other demonically-inspired pain was the outward evidence of what was unseen but no less real. The ancient world understandably attributed spiritual origins to what they did not have the knowledge to explain by any other means. Diseases like depression and epilepsy, for example, which have biological origins, were assumed in their world to be the relentless attack of these unseen forces. So does the technology to diagnose and treat mental and physical illness solve the problem of unclean spirits? Because we can scientifically explain a condition previously attributed to unclean spirits, does that totally negate their existence? Not completely, because uncleanness and evil are still spiritual realities.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, writing in the Spiritual Exercises, sheds some helpful light on a more modern way of understanding the inner nature of what is going on here. For St Ignatius a spirit may be called an inclination, an attraction, a motivation which is either God-centered or self-centered. God-centered inclinations can lead us to our best, most authentic self in the love of God and neighbor which is new life in the kingdom. Self-centered inclinations, if followed, can lead to the bottomless pit of self-protection and self-gratification, making us numb to our real self and unable to love God and others fully. St. Ignatius then asks us first to examine our own inclinations in the light of our best self, moving us toward the God of love. To recognize evil means paying attention to what is going on inside us and around us with great sensitivity and care. We recognize the evil or unclean spirit by listening for the lie or truth in the words and actions, the inclination toward reality or unreality. In the face of evil within us or around us, we ask how the kingdom of God break into this moment, change my closed heart to one of openness, my hardness to receptivity to light and truth. As Brian McLaren says in The Secret Message of Jesus “Jesus must draw out, expose, name, reject, and banish this systemic, transpersonal evil…”
Discernment, which is the process of examining where our inclinations are coming from and where they intend to take us, is only possible by living a holy life. Discernment is not the acquiring of skills to detect good from evil spirits; it is living in Gospel humility, faith, purity, obedience, and patience so that we will see with clarity the nature of the inclinations within us and around us.
For the disciples to have had the insight and wisdom to distinguish good spirits from evil, they had to have been willing to listen and test at a deep level. Jesus himself is the model discerner who is described in the Gospel of John especially as knowing the thoughts and inner inclination or spirit of those around him. Jesus often responds to what he sees of the inner, real self rather than only to outer words and actions. He recognizes great faith in those who display simple trust, humility, readiness, and receptivity and is able to strike at the heart of the hypocrisy of religious leaders who claim to be models of faithfulness but inside are smug, arrogant, hard, and dead.
Nowhere in the New Testament do we find the “how-to’s” of discernment, but it does tell us the conditions for discernment to happen. Living in the truth and obedience of the whole Gospel, especially where that truth is not popular, easy, or pleasant, is the starting place. As we are sent out into the world, into our lives - how will we use the authority given to us? Are we attentive and awake enough to expose and reject the evil that opposes God’s best? Every day we are sent out to confront the reality of evil and suffering and, using the authority we have, to bring healing, goodness, and wholeness. We may not be sent out far. Perhaps the person most in need of our empathy and kindness is in our own house, our own family or church. The sending out is more about our breaking out of the inclinations of self-protection and self-gratification than a physical distance. The longest mission trip is often from one heart to another.
To accept the offer of healing given by another is also important. I am grateful for those times when I have been the one with the unclean spirit and been met by friends who exposed and banished the uncleanness that lurked in me. As the disciples came face to face with the fallen, broken nature of the world, I can’t help but imagine it turned them inward. Perhaps it was in their reflection on the reality of the coming Kingdom that Peter learned lessons about grace and forgiveness that Judas did not.
The authority given to the Twelve was not just a weapon used to zap demons and cure illness; it was the gift of seeing the world as Christ saw it beginning with their own transformation. To be given the authority of Christ is to share in the interests, attitudes, and affections of Christ himself, to be motivated in everything by his loving compassion. We are invited to live in such a way that we become more aware and awake to the uncleanness that besets us and to name, expose, and repel it. We are invited to embrace the deepest good for the building of God’s reign by offering hope and healing to those who need it - which is all of us.
I close with this reflection by St. Theresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours
Brother Randy Greve, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 10 - Sunday 16 July 2006
Amos 7:7-15
Ephesians 1:1-14
Mark 6: 7-13
Imagine that you are one of the Twelve disciples. At the call of Jesus you have left your family, your livelihood, your familiar and safe world to follow a man who somehow captured your imagination and who performs miracles and preaches and teaches with authority about the Kingdom of God. Clearly God is with him but who or what is he? Could this be the Messiah? You’re not entirely sure. He has told you that this talk of the kingdom is no mere show that begins and ends with Him - this is the beginning of the end of the old era of sin and evil and the ushering in of a world reigned by God. Not only that but he says you will share in his works and participate with him in bringing new life. This eclectic mix of men and women - who would surely not be hanging around each other except for Jesus - suddenly finds itself entrusted and empowered with the authority of the kingdom. Jesus has begun to transform you and give you a vision of what life with God can be like. After time observing and beginning to understand what Jesus is talking about and what his actions mean, you’re sent out to preach repentance, cast out demons, and cure the sick. You’re partner is Philip or Andrew or Peter or Judas… Where do you go? What do you do? What would this power in action look like? You immediately encounter a world of danger, opposition, and mystery. Not everyone is warm and welcoming. Yet as much to your surprise as to the amazement of those you encounter - Diseases are cured, demons cast out, and new life is embraced. And despite being chased away from an unfriendly house or village, some trust you and listen, some are open to the possibility of hope and a future.
Bringing us back into the present, I would like to stop on the idea of unclean spirits; how the disciples might have engaged such spirits and how we might know and respond to them ourselves. To the ancient, pre-scientific understanding of things, the world was a battlefield where good and evil forces and influences were locked in combat within and between peoples, cultures, religions, and beliefs. Suffering, disease, and other demonically-inspired pain was the outward evidence of what was unseen but no less real. The ancient world understandably attributed spiritual origins to what they did not have the knowledge to explain by any other means. Diseases like depression and epilepsy, for example, which have biological origins, were assumed in their world to be the relentless attack of these unseen forces. So does the technology to diagnose and treat mental and physical illness solve the problem of unclean spirits? Because we can scientifically explain a condition previously attributed to unclean spirits, does that totally negate their existence? Not completely, because uncleanness and evil are still spiritual realities.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, writing in the Spiritual Exercises, sheds some helpful light on a more modern way of understanding the inner nature of what is going on here. For St Ignatius a spirit may be called an inclination, an attraction, a motivation which is either God-centered or self-centered. God-centered inclinations can lead us to our best, most authentic self in the love of God and neighbor which is new life in the kingdom. Self-centered inclinations, if followed, can lead to the bottomless pit of self-protection and self-gratification, making us numb to our real self and unable to love God and others fully. St. Ignatius then asks us first to examine our own inclinations in the light of our best self, moving us toward the God of love. To recognize evil means paying attention to what is going on inside us and around us with great sensitivity and care. We recognize the evil or unclean spirit by listening for the lie or truth in the words and actions, the inclination toward reality or unreality. In the face of evil within us or around us, we ask how the kingdom of God break into this moment, change my closed heart to one of openness, my hardness to receptivity to light and truth. As Brian McLaren says in The Secret Message of Jesus “Jesus must draw out, expose, name, reject, and banish this systemic, transpersonal evil…”
Discernment, which is the process of examining where our inclinations are coming from and where they intend to take us, is only possible by living a holy life. Discernment is not the acquiring of skills to detect good from evil spirits; it is living in Gospel humility, faith, purity, obedience, and patience so that we will see with clarity the nature of the inclinations within us and around us.
For the disciples to have had the insight and wisdom to distinguish good spirits from evil, they had to have been willing to listen and test at a deep level. Jesus himself is the model discerner who is described in the Gospel of John especially as knowing the thoughts and inner inclination or spirit of those around him. Jesus often responds to what he sees of the inner, real self rather than only to outer words and actions. He recognizes great faith in those who display simple trust, humility, readiness, and receptivity and is able to strike at the heart of the hypocrisy of religious leaders who claim to be models of faithfulness but inside are smug, arrogant, hard, and dead.
Nowhere in the New Testament do we find the “how-to’s” of discernment, but it does tell us the conditions for discernment to happen. Living in the truth and obedience of the whole Gospel, especially where that truth is not popular, easy, or pleasant, is the starting place. As we are sent out into the world, into our lives - how will we use the authority given to us? Are we attentive and awake enough to expose and reject the evil that opposes God’s best? Every day we are sent out to confront the reality of evil and suffering and, using the authority we have, to bring healing, goodness, and wholeness. We may not be sent out far. Perhaps the person most in need of our empathy and kindness is in our own house, our own family or church. The sending out is more about our breaking out of the inclinations of self-protection and self-gratification than a physical distance. The longest mission trip is often from one heart to another.
To accept the offer of healing given by another is also important. I am grateful for those times when I have been the one with the unclean spirit and been met by friends who exposed and banished the uncleanness that lurked in me. As the disciples came face to face with the fallen, broken nature of the world, I can’t help but imagine it turned them inward. Perhaps it was in their reflection on the reality of the coming Kingdom that Peter learned lessons about grace and forgiveness that Judas did not.
The authority given to the Twelve was not just a weapon used to zap demons and cure illness; it was the gift of seeing the world as Christ saw it beginning with their own transformation. To be given the authority of Christ is to share in the interests, attitudes, and affections of Christ himself, to be motivated in everything by his loving compassion. We are invited to live in such a way that we become more aware and awake to the uncleanness that besets us and to name, expose, and repel it. We are invited to embrace the deepest good for the building of God’s reign by offering hope and healing to those who need it - which is all of us.
I close with this reflection by St. Theresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours
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