Palm Sunday - 17 Apr 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC Superior
Palm Sunday A - April 17, 2011

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11

Next week at about this time we will gather around a bowl of water in our Chapter Room and be asked several questions:

Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil and renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?
Do you believe in God the Father?
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?

And we will answer the first question with the words: “I do.” And the others we will answer with the words of the Apostles’ Creed, which constitutes the ancient baptismal confession of the Christian faith. They also constitute the first part of what we have come to call the Baptismal Covenant, about which we hear so much nowadays in the church. Unfortunately, most of the time the Baptismal Covenant is discussed, these first four questions that comprise the greater part of that covenant are ignored in favor of the final questions about what we shall do and how we shall live, thus ignoring the fact that our actions are based on and are a response to our faith, rather than vice-versa, though of course the influence ultimately goes both ways.

We have had a bit of a conversation over the past few years here at the monastery about what exactly this sixth Sunday in Lent, this last Sunday before Easter, is and how we ought to observe it. There seem to be varying or competing emphases. On the one hand, we all know today as Palm Sunday, the day that celebrates the triumphal and rather ironic entry of Jesus into Jerusalem several days before his death. He does enter triumphantly, acclaimed by the populace, but riding on an ass…not your usual imperial symbol of authority, though one freighted with prophetic meaning. It is an ancient commemoration.

But today is also known as the Sunday of the Passion, the day on which the narrative of the suffering and death of Jesus is solemnly read in the churches. This, too, is an ancient observance. And as is often the case in the history of Christian worship, meaning gets layered onto meaning and ritual onto ritual. The strong emphasis on the entry in Jerusalem can be traced to the churches of Gaul and Spain. The equally strong emphasis on the solemn reading of the Passion story goes back to the Roman church. Over the course of centuries, they were combined into what is, for some, a profoundly moving emotional juxtaposition and for others, an impossible liturgical conundrum.

Let me suggest yet a third way to approach this day that inaugurates our entry into Holy Week. It too is ancient, so ancient in fact that it has pretty much disappeared. It goes back to the early days of Christianity, when converts to the faith were prepared for up to three years for Holy Baptism, which generally took place at the all-night Easter service. In those days, worship was usually secret or at least guarded, often for very practical reasons given the real threat of persecution in a hostile world. Only baptized Christians were admitted to the weekly Holy Communion service itself. And even those preparing for Holy Baptism would be dismissed immediately after the biblical readings and sermon. Only the faithful were to be present for the celebration of the sacred mysteries.

After a very long and demanding process of screening and instruction, those ready for Baptism would gather on the Sunday before Easter—today—and would be formally taught the Apostles’ Creed in a ceremony known as the traditio symboli, the delivery of the creed. The text of the creed was carefully guarded in those days, and there were all sorts of prohibitions against writing it down or sharing it with the uninitiated. But on this day, the bishop would teach it to the baptismal candidates phrase by phrase and expound on its meaning, so that when next week came, they could make their public profession of faith and be baptized.

What I find interesting is that this is likely the one and only time that most of these converts to the faith would ever hear the creed said aloud. The creed was not a part of the Sunday gathering or daily worship. It was, if you will, too sacred. The candidates were expected to commit it to memory then and there and then meditate upon it daily henceforth in their hearts. It was to be the framework by which all their subsequent life experience was to be understood.

We’ve come along way from that ancient practice. We say the creed daily, we print it in our service books and leaflets, and of course you can Google it and read all about it. I suppose that’s a good thing.

But the truth is many folks just don’t like creeds. They find them intrusive or exclusive, and perhaps they make them uncomfortable. Many see them as tests: you sign on here, you assent, or you don’t belong. And that, I think, is an unfortunate, and at best, a partial understanding.

Our friend Martin Smith in his book Compass And Stars has a wonderfully brief and solid reflection on the nature of creeds. I have shared it with countless people.

In the first place, he reminds us that the creed is the baptismal symbol, a Latin word that means a token or counter: “…like the stub of a theater ticket which is not the performance but will take us to where the performance is” in the words of Northrop Frye. The creed may be the entrance ticket to the Christian world, the Christian life, but we must not confuse the ticket with the performance itself. At best it is a good reminder of just what play we’ve chosen to be part of and what theater and what stage is ours.

Secondly, Martin suggests that the creed can be best understood as something like the list of first lines that you might find in the table of contents of a book of poetry, a kind of collection of first lines or chapter headings of our faith. They are not the final words, but the first words, words that have the power to set us off on a remarkably creative journey of spiritual discovery.

Finally, as Martin says: “The creeds are not official confessions of faith or catechisms so much as songs of defiance and the jubilant celebrations of tremendous mysteries.” In that regard, creeds are better sung than recited.

Today is the Sixth Sunday in Lent, the beginning of Holy Week, the Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday. But it is also the Sunday of the Creed, the day when our ancestors in the faith were given the words of the baptismal profession to memorize and then to use as the container and interpretive framework of the new life into which they were being ushered. We today could do worse than to enter this Holy Week with the words of the Creed that we will profess next Sunday echoing in our ears, opening us to their fulfillment in our individual and shared experiences during this Holy Week and in the coming years. They are words that give us the barest outline of a cosmic drama that will take us an eternity to comprehend. They are the first lines of a story that we will be editing and revising throughout our lives this week and the next and the next. They are our song.

And since they are our song, please stand now and join me in rehearsing again and singing aloud our baptismal faith. Harmonize if you’d like. And know that God will bring us to his Easter. He always does.

The Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

Lent 5 A - 10 Apr 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Lent 5 A - April 10, 2011

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

This Gospel story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is a challenging story in a number of ways. There are any number of miracle stories in the Gospel, and they are usually told in a specific way – the miracle occurs and then there is a discourse about it – in modern parlance, we get to process it.

In this story, we get all the discourse before hand, then the miracle happens. The ending of the story is abrupt and unsatisfying. There is no processing. Lazarus comes out of the tomb... the end... It appears we are meant to “pre-process” the miraculous raising of Lazarus.

Jesus is informed how sick his dear friend Lazarus is, but in spite of the fact that he loves Lazarus very much, he is unconcerned. The illness does not lead to death, he says. Eventually Jesus decides to return to Judea, where Lazarus lives, or by now we should say lived... All the disciples know its dangerous. Thomas offers the helpful suggestion that they should all go to die with Lazarus – foreshadowing? Sarcasm? Gallows humor? Or just a way of adding to the uncomfortable nature of this story...

We arrive at Bethany to learn that Lazarus is not just dead, he is, as the Munchkins say in the Wizard of Oz, really most sincerely dead... 4 days dead. The common cultural understanding at the time was that the soul departed the body on the 4th day, so John is making sure we understand that not only is Lazarus dead – his soul has gone to heaven. He's completely gone.

Jesus meets Martha – the active sister of the Mary/Martha duo, who has, true to form, come to meet him. Mary, true to form, has stayed home... Martha pretty much accuses Jesus of letting Lazarus die. “If you had been here, he would not have died... but nonetheless, we're happy to see you...” And in case we didn't get it the first time, Jesus has the same conversation with Mary when she comes to him.

The disappointment, the anger, the frustration of this encounter just keep growing. Jesus seems to have wanted a private time with Mary, Martha, and the disciples. But instead he now has a crowd of strangers following Mary to share this intimate moment. And, as they say... it will all end in tears... Mary is crying... the crowd following her is crying...

It gets to Jesus. In the translation of the Bible we use, we're told that Jesus is greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. In most English translations the nature of Jesus' disturbance appears to be sorrow – after all his beloved friend has died. But if we were German Lutherans, we would be learning that Jesus became angry and indignant, not sorrowful. Roman Catholics would be learning that Jesus was perturbed and troubled.

Jesus wept – that much we know. But what was the nature of those tears?

Jesus knows that Lazarus will live. When he was telling the disciples that Lazarus was dead, he said he was glad for their sakes – this was a chance for their faith to be strengthened. Tears of sorrow for Lazarus don't make sense.

John, adds another detail that argues against a sentimental interpretation of those tears. The crowd that has gathered around Mary, John calls them “the Jews” – though we must remember everyone in this entire story is a Jew – the crowd says “see how he loved him.” They interpret these as tears of sorrow for Lazarus – and for John, the crowd always gets it wrong, always misinterprets, always misses the truth. If they believe that Jesus is crying because he loved Lazarus, who is now dead, then we can be pretty sure this is not what John wants us to believe...

Jesus wept. As I reflect on this, the shortest sentence in the Bible, I find another thought enters my mind: Jesus still weeps. I may not know exactly why Jesus wept with Mary and Martha and the crowd, but I know lots of reasons why Jesus still weeps. Many of them were in the litany that opened our service.

Jesus weeps because after 2,000 years of Christian worship, we are still fighting wars, still beating our plowshares into ever more fantastic swords, still making war, not peace.

Jesus weeps because we are still neglecting widows, orphans, the unwanted, the marginalized. Jesus weeps because justice is denied to many of God's children, education is denied to many of God's children, medical care is denied to many of God's children, food is denied to many of God's children.

Perhaps Jesus looks at the tomb and measures the crowd around him, including his disciples and his dear friends Mary and Martha, and thinks “these people just don't get it, they do not know my ways... they are too attached to the things of this world.” And he weeps bitter tears, tears of frustration and anger... the same tears that Jesus still weeps.

There is a hymn, one of my favorites, “O Master let me Walk with thee.” We sang it here just a few days ago. But the version in our hymnal has been sanitized... four lines have been omitted:

The first two:

O Master let me walk with thee before the taunting Pharisee;
Help me to bear the sting of spite, the hate of men who hide thy light.

Well that is a pretty good hymn verse – at least I think so... but its not so different from many others. It don't mind that it gets omitted. But the next two:

The sore distrust of souls sincere who cannot read thy judgments clear,
The dullness of the multitude who dimly guess that thou art good.

This verse, especially the last line, arrests me: who dimly guess that thou are good. This dull multitude that has gathered around Mary and Martha have made some guess about Jesus, about God, but they don't really know. They are not prepared to change their lives, let alone lay down their lives, for the Gospel of Jesus. Those souls sincere, that multitude – that's us... that's me...

When Martha and Jesus have their encounter Jesus assures Martha that Lazarus will live. And Martha says, sure, in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus responds “I am the resurrection and the life...” I hear that as a compound thing, but its really two things. Jesus is future, the resurrection, and present, the life. Martha is trying to look ahead to the future, to resurrection, and Jesus is bringing her back to the present, to life; just as Jesus is bringing Lazarus to life.

Certainly a great deal of Christian thought is tied up with salvation, with resurrection, with the future. Jesus is the resurrection. Jesus is also the life, the here and now, the present. We do OK with the resurrection part... its life where we get into trouble.

I can't help but reflect on the other Lazarus – we meet two in scripture. The other Lazarus is the miserable beggar outside the rich man's house. He has nothing but suffering in this life, and is rewarded in the next. Its easy to dimly guess that things will be made right in the next life and so we can slide a bit.

But that is not what the other Lazarus is telling us. The other Lazarus is telling us that how we live our lives is terribly important. That other Lazarus is directing our thoughts toward how we live in this world. It is not OK that we allow our present-day Lazaruses to suffer assuming that they will be rewarded in the next life.

This Lazarus, the one we meet today, is pretty much absent from his own story – he's dead for most of it, right up to the end... but its life, not resurrection, where this Lazarus is directing our attention. It is the living who give God praise, and at the end of this story, Lazarus is again among the living.

I find Ezekiel pointing us in the same direction. He prophesies to the dry bones and says God will open the graves, breathe life back into the bones, and they will become not just living people, but God's people – as Ezekiel says, “you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.” If God will act, than so must we. We must act in ways of Godliness and righteousness.

The future is never in doubt – not for Lazarus and not for us. Jesus is the Resurrection. But Jesus is also the the life – will we live in that life? Will we do more than dimly guess that God is good?

The season of Lent is about asking questions, about examining ourselves, about challenging assumptions. It is through introspection, through self examination, through honest prayer, and through community, that we can step out of the dim multitude weeping with Mary and stand with Lazarus, alive in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Br. Charles/Julian's First Profession - 06 Apr 2011

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC, Superior
First Profession of the Benedictine Vow of Br. Julian - Wednesday April 06, 2011
Br. Julian Mizelle was previously known as Charles

In just over two weeks we will celebrate Easter. There are, of course, many ways to celebrate that great feast, from sunrise services at the Hollywood Bowl to ancient and competing liturgies in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

Here at Holy Cross we will celebrate it, as we always do, with the traditional Western liturgical rites. It will begin in darkness with the kindling of a new fire and the lighting of the Paschal candle.

Just before that great wax pillar is lit, the celebrant inscribes a cross on the candle and says the following words:

Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega. All time belongs to him and all the ages. To him be glory and power through every age forever. Amen.

It is, for me, a deeply moving moment, the very sum and substance of the Easter proclamation.

Our lives, our vocations are each written out over a brief period of years, but it is a time, a period, inscribed in a larger drama, in that eternal span of time that goes from everlasting to everlasting and which belongs wholly and entirely to Jesus Christ. It is with the proclamation of this truth that we begin our Easter observance.

Timothy Radcliffe, OP, once commented that:

The religious life [the monastic life] is perhaps in the first place a living Amen to that longer span of time. It is within the stretch of the story from Alpha and Omega, from Creation to Kingdom, that every human life must find its meaning. We are those who live for the Kingdom when, as Julian of Norwich says, ‘All will be well, all manner of thing will be well.’

And so it is for you today, Charles. Today, this day, this event, this hour finds all its meaning within that greater time and that greater story that is Jesus Christ’s and Jesus Christ’s alone.

And what a wonderful day it is. It is a day when so much of your fifty-four years comes together in a new and exciting way, in a way wherein nothing is lost and all is redeemed and set upon a yet firmer foundation and a renewed path. It is a day when all those graced choices and experiences that make up your life, that are you, are now offered to God to be transformed yet more: that experience as a young man welcoming Christ into your heart as Lord and Savior, that day where you were plunged into the cleansing waters of baptism, that day when you first fed on the Bread of Life, when you were confirmed, when you claimed the truth about your adult self, when you reached out to others in ways that went beyond your accustomed ways… and found God reaching back.

And these are only the public moments. How many more hidden, private, graced events do you bring with you to this ceremony? Each is an Easter moment, each a little resurrection. Indeed, the God who chose you long ago has done great things in you, and he is again doing something new in you… and through you, in us as well. In you, each of us is reminded of similar graced moments in our own lives, similar eastering times of resurrection and new birth. Today is a feast day for all of us.

Br. Julian signs the Benedictine Vow written in his own hand

But as we know, Easter comes only after Good Friday with its focus of the mystery of the holy and life-giving Cross. It is an event that is too little understood today, yet it is a reality that is widespread, indeed one that is everywhere.

Even as a symbol, the power of the cross is easily lost on us. Because it is everywhere around us, on our walls and towers and necks, it often becomes invisible. We get used to it. We fail to see it for what it is. We lose out on its power to shock, to challenge, and to convert.

One example. Just a few weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights ruled that crucifixes are acceptable in public school classrooms throughout the forty-seven countries that comprise the Council of Europe (an international organization with a broader membership than the European Union). The reasoning they gave for this decision is, to say the least, troubling. Quoting from the Guardian:

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that crucifixes are acceptable in the continent’s state school classrooms, describing them as an ‘essentially passive symbol’ with no obvious religious influence. In its judgment… the court found that while the crucifix was ‘above all a religious symbol’ there was no evidence that its display on classroom walls might have an influence on pupils.

One is left breathless or despairing—or both—at this claim. But the sad thing is: it may be true.

I think of the story that circulated a few years of the English girl who went into a jeweler’s shop seeking to buy a cross for her necklace, at that time an essential element of punk rock couture. She was shown some very simple crosses in gold and silver. But she demurred. She wanted one, as she put it, “with the little man on it.” That little man… Jesus.

We have in many places and in many ways entered into the post-Christian era.

And yet the cross of suffering is everywhere, and it is everyone’s lot. It has been yours, Charles, as you well know, as it has been mine, and it has been and is that of every person present here today. And yet we know that our Lord Jesus accepted the cross—his cross and ours—so that he might taste most deeply our human pain and bear the shame, and take away the sin and redeem the suffering. How he does this is, of course, the great mystery of our faith. That he does it is the great hope on which all our other hopes are founded.

In the intersection of those arms of the cross, all contradictions meet and are reconciled: time and eternity, the vertical and the horizontal, here and everywhere, past and future, now and eternity. But it is a reconciliation that is bought at great price, where the old is sometimes gently, but no less often vigorously, refashioned and sometimes yanked out, where our many defenses are disarmed and the heart is opened to the endless work of reformation. It is frequently dirty work, hard work, humbling work, amazing work. It is God’s work in us and through us. It is the precious fruit of our obedience and surrender to that eternal story that stretches from Alpha to Omega.

In his Rule written in 1900 for the Order of the Holy Cross and referencing the story of Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28, our Founder says:

The ladder of the cross is planted firmly within the walls of a religious house and angels pass up and down that stairway. Our house is a house of God; let us strive to make it for ourselves the gate of heaven.

What a wonderful image. The cross as ladder, as stairway, as bridge, as passageway, as a royal road, indeed the royal road. Angels are indeed on it, but oh, in what strange and often disturbing disguises. And there too is God, waiting expectantly and patiently and joyfully for you and me and each of us here today to climb that ladder. Let us climb it together. Let us climb it as brothers and sisters.

One more thing. Charles, you have elected to adopt a new name. In the community from now on you will be known as Br. Julian, at least after we get the hang of it… though I imagine you will always be Charles to your family and old friends. Taking a new name is a sign, a sacrament, and a reminder of the change and growth that God is working in you and through you, a sign of a new emerging identity. Many cultures and societies and faith traditions do this. But always remember: this is not your final name or even your true name. Hold dear the words of Revelation 2:17: “To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” God, and God alone, knows your true name, and in God’s good time that too will be revealed to you.

So we receive today your solemn vow to follow the monastic way of life for one year. But of course your intention—like ours—is that, unless it becomes strikingly clear over the next several years that this is in fact not your path, we are headed together for life. Bound for life. Life with Christ. Life in Christ. Life through Christ.

Charles/Julian… God is with you in this adventure. Your family is here with you. Your friends are with you. Your brothers are with you.

Come, let us climb that ladder. Let us together embrace that cross. Let our faces and our hearts be turned toward life… fullness of life, life lived in faith and joy and courage and peace and risk.

The Father delights in such a life. So do we all. May it be yours and ours, each of us here today. Always.

Amen.