Ascension, Year A - May 18, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero, OHC

The Feast of the Ascension, Year A - Thursday, May 18, 2023

 

Acts 1:1-11

Ephesians 1:15-23

Luke 24:44-53

Click here for an audio of the sermon

In his book, The Big Questions in Science and Religion (2008), Anglican theologian and priest Keith Ward writes: "We now know that, if [Jesus] began ascending two thousand years ago, he would not yet have left the Milky Way (unless he attained warp speed)." The Ascension is one of those scriptural stories that can spark all sorts of heated debates between those who passionately say they believe it happened, and in bodily form, and those who dismiss it as literary fiction or an embarrassing example of an antiquated cosmology. I tend to think these kinds of arguments miss the forest for the trees.

I am sure must if not all of you have seen depictions of the Ascension in paintings, such as the one by von Kulmbach at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in which the amazed and confused crowd looks up and all that can be seen at the top of the painting is Jesus' feet dangling through the clouds. And there’s the one by the Italian Andrea Mantegna in which Jesus is surrounded by cherubs as he is ascending. These two paintings and hundreds of others like them contrast heaven "above" and earth "below," with Jesus hovering in between.

Our ideas today about space and time are different from those in the first century, when there was a three-tiered understanding of the universe- earth in the middle, hell down below us, and heaven somewhere up above the clouds. It's tempting to contrast the out-of-date cosmology of St. Luke with the updated cosmology of contemporary physics. But I think that is misguided and not helpful. I don't expect the writer of the Gospel to have known modern cosmology. He described the Ascension within the context of the best cosmology of his day, an imperfect cosmology, which has since been supplanted by our own imperfect cosmology. It's misleading to privilege any cosmology, whether ancient or modern, as a final picture of the world for all time.

We do best to ponder the stories meaning and how we are to experience it. Before we do so, though, we must ask, “which story”? The same writer wrote slightly different versions of the story. In the Gospel, he places the Ascension just after the resurrection appearances; maybe a day or two after Easter. In the Book of Acts, he places the Ascension “forty days” after Easter. Now, I seriously doubt that the writer forgot what he had already written in his gospel when he began to write the Acts of the Apostles. But it is an indication of how these details are to be thought of symbolically rather than factually. The story serves as the bridge between the two books. It closes the book concerning the life and ministry of Jesus (the Gospel of St. Luke) and opens the book concerning the life and ministry of the early Christian church (the Acts of the Apostles).

Throughout the scriptures the number “forty” symbolizes a period of fullness or completion. In the days of Noah, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights; the Israelites traveled in the wilderness for 40 years before they reached the promised land; Moses was atop Mount Sinai for 40 days and forty nights; and Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness. So when the author writes that Jesus appeared to the apostles for forty days after the resurrection, he is indicating the completion of something. The apostles are now to let go of the old way of knowing Jesus so that his empowering presence can now be experienced in a different way – from his physical presence with them, to the divine Presence of Christ with and within them.

St. Luke seems to be using symbolic space and time to describe a reality that could not at that time be expressed otherwise. A closer reading of the twenty or so allusions to Jesus’ Ascension in the New Testament seem to indicate that the writers understood the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and even the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as a single multifaceted mystery that the apostles seem to have experienced in chronological stages.

So, knowing what we know today, it is not helpful to think of Jesus having ascended "up" as in really far away above our heads in space. It is a beautiful story pointing to a deeper meaning. We might better understand Jesus' Ascension not as a change of location, but as his movement to a deeper dimension of reality. Jesus moved in the Ascension from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity, in the transcendent heavenly realm, and as he tells us in the Gospel according to Matthew, to be with us always, “to the end of the age.” And how are we to experience the Ascension today? I leave you with the words of Thomas Merton:

“[The Ascension] is the feast of silence and interior solitude when we go up to live in heaven with Jesus: for he takes us there, after he has lived a little while on earth among us. This is the grace of Ascension Day: to be taken up into the heaven of our own souls, the point of immediate contact with God. To rest on this quiet peak, in the darkness that surrounds God. To live there through all trials and all business with the ‘tranquil God who makes all things tranquil.’”

¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

Easter 6 A - May 14, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC

The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A - Sunday, May 14, 2023

 

Acts 17:22-31

1 Peter 3:13-22

John 14:15-21

Click here for an audio of the sermon

First things first: Happy Mother's Day.  Whether you are a biological mother or an adoptive or foster mother or someone who has nurtured and helped another person grow, we salute you and celebrate you today.  And I say this no matter how blessed, complicated, or disappointing your relationship with your own mother or mother figure has been or is.  Because it is very likely all three.  Nevertheless, Happy Mother’s Day.

 

The last time I preached on Mother's Day, the long first reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles was about the Ethiopian eunuch. I later remarked to my sister about how improbable it was to have a reading about a eunuch on Mother's Day. She thought for a moment and said, “Well he had a mother too.” So do we all.

 I’m relieved to say that the readings appointed for this Sunday are quite a bit more appropriate and indeed beautiful. But I'm not going to talk about the readings, at least not directly.  Rather, I want to focus our attention on the collect, or prayer, with which we began our liturgy:

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love towards you that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

 Whenever I offer this prayer, I think of a brief Friday morning reflection which the late Bishop Daniel Corrigan gave to the congregation at our monastery in Santa Barbara many years ago. He talked about the power of a few little words. If you were around in the Episcopal Church before about 1976 or so you would have heard this prayer from the 1928 version of The Book of Common Prayer where it was appointed for the 6th Sunday after Trinity. It was essentially the same prayer as we heard this morning except it said: “Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises…” and so on. And this was good as far as it went. It was a reminder that we are called to love God above all things, to choose God above all things, as the royal road to fullness of life. But during the revision of the liturgies in the 1970s, three little words were added, or more accurately restored, to this prayer making it at once both richer and more relevant. And those words were: “in all things.” So that the prayer asks not simply that we love God above all things, which I hope we do, but that we love God in all things.

Think about this for a minute.  Truthfully, I find it challenging to understand or grasp what loving God above all things means concretely. I suppose there are dramatic points in life where this is clearly presented, and an opportunity is offered for us to act on this aspiration or this demand. I think, for example, of the experience of martyrs or of people who are called to choose God's way of justice and love in the face of social or political opposition, ostracism or worse. For most of us, thank God, that's not a regular occurrence. But daily, perhaps hourly, we are each asked or invited or counseled to love God in all things…in ourselves, in others, in our societal relationships, and in the whole created order: in nature, in birds and animals, in sunrises and clouds, in rains and maybe even in earthquakes and floods and volcanos.  And that is because our Christian faith teaches that all these are the creation of a good God and are themselves intrinsically good, marked by and stamped with God’s creative power and divine purpose. And this includes you and me, each one of us. No one of us exists outside of the web of this created order with all its facets of interdependence, fragility, and sacredness. Rather it and we coexist as one.  It can’t be otherwise.

It's always good to be reminded of this fundamental truth, but especially on this Sixth Sunday of Easter which, besides being Mother's Day, is also traditionally known as Rogation Sunday. Beginning in the fifth century, this Sunday and the three days that follow it preceding the great feast of the Ascension (which we will observe on Thursday) have been devoted to the blessing of crops and fields and of nature generally. In medieval Europe, and still in living memory, there were on these days processions through the fields and farms asking God to bless and provide food for the earth, for us and for all creatures. These processions also served a social purpose. In England they were known as “beating the bounds.” The procession would go to the farthest corners of the territorial parish so that people who did not have easy access to maps would know where property and authority started and ended. Today really is the Church’s Earth Day when we are invited once again to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the whole created order in which we are but a part, albeit a central and increasingly destructive part. For the threat of ecological disaster is very real, and in the face of our reluctance to confront this threat, we are brought up short by this Rogationtide.

Over the last quarter century there has been much written about the relationship of religion and ecology, and specifically Christianity and ecology. They are worth studying. But you would do well, if you have the time and energy, to read Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical letter Praise Be to You (Laudato Si’) subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.”  It is a brave, compelling summons to reflection and action on the part not only of Christians but of all the peoples of the earth in the face of ecological degradation and climate change…though I must admit that it's a bit of a slow read at times. I was particularly drawn to Chapter Two of this encyclical letter on the Gospel of Creation which sets out a theological framework for climate care. The Catholic Climate Covenant summarizes this chapter with the following bullet points:

·     God created everything with intrinsic goodness.

·        Humans are uniquely created and called to exercise responsible stewardship over creation on behalf of the loving Creator.

·        All creation is a mystery the diversity and unity of which both reflect and mediate the Creator.

·        The right to private property is not “absolute or inviolable” but “subordinat[ed]…to the universal destination of goods."

·        “[The] destiny of all creation is bound up with the mystery of Christ.”

Pope Francis stresses that God's command for humans to have dominion over creation expressed in Genesis 1:28 is not exploitative license but rather, as he puts it, a vocation to cultivate and care for God's good gift of creation.

There is much else in this letter that bears mention. He critiques ‘anthropocentrism’ and the prevailing technocratic paradigm which encourages an unreflective acceptance of every technological advance based more on profit than on its effects on human flourishing.  He reminds us that while creation manifests God and may be a privileged space for encountering God, it is not itself God and it is a mistake to divinize or worship the earth and its creatures. And true to his Jesuit tradition, Francis affirms a preferential option for the poor who are most harmed by ecological degradation. He urges both public policy change as well as an individual change of heart, expressed in our willing adoption of a lifestyle driven not by “extreme consumerism” but by a vision of a simpler lifestyle where less is more. And all of this is in service of what the Pope calls ‘integral ecology,’ seeing the whole interconnected picture through, as it were, the eyes of the One who is creator and sustainer of it all.

This Rogation Sunday, this Earth Day, is an opportunity for us to take stock. Look around and give thanks for God’s creation. And as we do that, may we in our own way commit or re-commit ourselves to the cultivation of our common human vocation of caring for the earth and each other that is at the very heart of our Christian faith.  It is the very best gift that we, nurturers nurtured by our Mother Earth, can give to the generations to come.  Maybe it’s the best Mother’s Day gift ever.

Easter 5 A - May 7, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A - Sunday, May 7, 2023

Acts 7:55-60

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

Click here for an audio of the sermon

The lectionary readings for the Sundays after Easter are full of instructions for disciples about how to live as Jesus taught without his physical presence in their midst. Jesus is preparing believers, including us, to consider not only his journey through death to life, but our own as well.

The setting today is the upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus and his closest friends are at the supper that will be their last together. Their hearts were torn with anxiety and fear. How does the heart feast at a banquet of disappointment and loss? What could possibly free the human heart from being troubled at such a time?

Jesus instructs: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Given the context, it’s not hard to understand why this text is so often used in the burial liturgy. Death troubles our hearts and we want to find some balance, stability, and harmony in the face of it.  This text, however, is about more than the afterlife. It has something to say right here and now. It’s speaks to the very circumstances that trouble our hearts. At the edge of his own grave, Jesus means to reassure his disciples that his death is not the end, but the beginning of the room he is making for them in God. The disciples are incredulous. So are we, much of the time, especially when we are frightened or threatened by change or loss in whatever form it takes.

Jesus recognizes that their hearts and our hearts are already troubled. He is not warning them or us about a future condition. He knows the troubling has already begun. None of us get through this life without a troubled heart. I don’t think we can look at the pain of the world, the suffering of those we love, or our own wounds and not have a troubled heart. At least, I hope we can’t.

 Even as he was telling the disciples to not let their hearts be troubled, I suspect that he was telling himself as much as them.  By naming what’s going on between them, he’s reminding them and us that not letting our hearts be troubled begins with looking into our hearts to see and name what troubles it? That means facing ourselves, our lives, our world. That may be the first and most difficult thing Jesus asks of us in today’s gospel. He also reminds us  that our lives and the world are not defined or limited to what troubles.

Throughout these final discourses, Jesus speaks of the experience of abiding, of indwelling: Him in the Father, the Father in Him, Him in us, us in the Father. He is telling them and us that we are not the center. It is not our success, accomplishments, position, or power. God is our center, abiding within us. So wherever we go, whatever we face, whoever we are, God is within. Regardless of what troubles, God abides in us.

He encourages them and us to not lose sight of this truth in the midst of what’s going on. When hearts are troubled and we don’t know the way we start living outside of ourselves, and when we do life is defined by and focused on external things. He’s inviting us to live from the inside out, instead of from the outside in. That’s the promise of Easter in the midst of whatever troubles our heart. It won’t take away our worries or fix our problems, but it gives us a place of stability and helps us know what to hold on to and what to let go of. It connects us to abundant life and to each other.

The world has a multitude of answers as to what will relieve our hearts. Jesus has only one: “Believe in God, believe also in me”. When John speaks of believing in his Gospel, it is almost exclusively as an outward, active, and intimate commitment with Jesus. It is a giving over, an entrusting of our whole self to God, independent of outward circumstances. Belief requires self-surrender. As those first disciples at that table were sharing the feast of loss with Jesus, he attempts to assure them that even in the face of what lies ahead, they will not be forgotten, they will not be separated. The place he is preparing for them, for us, is God’s own life.

With our post-Easter eyes, it might seem easier for us to skip to the end of the story. If we do that, we lose sight of the fact that something always dies for something new to be birthed. Birth and death are repeating cycles in the narrative of our lives. In both the delivery room and the hospice room, those present are changed. Birth and death are the bookends holding our stories of transformation. Visions of who we are and are becoming give us life, even as a previous sense of ourselves dies. In these moments we often echo Thomas in asking how we can know the way if we do not know where God is. With Philip, we claim that we will be satisfied if we can just see. As hospice chaplain and midwife to ourselves and each other, our role is to be fully present, even as we cannot see and do not know what comes next in our life.

God’s promise to abide in us, within us, to love us, to make room for us, to know and be known by us, never ends. Nothing can undo us because God has claimed and named us. That is enough to sustain and support us. That is enough to empower us to live as witnesses to that love.  

+Amen.