Christmas Eve - Dec 24, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
Christmas Eve – Thursday, December 24, 2015

Isaiah 9:2-7 
Titus 2:11-14 
Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

Adoration of the Shepherds - Guido Reni (Italian Baroque painter 1575 – 1642)

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we prayCast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.O come to us, Our Lord Emmanuel.
(from the hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem, written by Episcopal priest Phillips Brooks)

Emmanuel. God among us. God around us. God within us.

Tonight, we celebrate the nearness of God in remembering the birth of his only begotten son, Jesus of Nazareth. It is an amazing event that marks the beginning of a great Christian mystery; the Incarnation. God takes on a human destiny to manifest God’s deep engagement with humanity and to make us understand divinity in a new light. And this starts with the birth of a baby named Jesus.

Jesus is source of all there was, is and is to come. Jesus is the Word that brought forth creation. Jesus is the Messiah. And eventually, he will also be the One crucified, risen from the dead and exalted to God in heaven. And later still he shall come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead.

Jesus is all of that and more. And yet in the stillness of that night, he came to us in the vulnerable and lovely form of a baby. The fullness of God chose to be made flesh in the particulars of a little baby born to parents of modest means in a backwater of the Roman Empire. The embodiment of God in human flesh is amazing enough. God had no need to highlight it by choosing an important, famous or rich person to do it. 

On the contrary, the nativity story as it is told to us by the evangelist Luke shows clearly how God loves the humble, the simple and even the marginalized.

Mary and Joseph come from a small village in Galilee. Joseph is a craftsman not a wealthy merchant or landowner. They are not important or prominent people.

God chooses to come to us in the precarity of a temporary dwelling for Mary and Joseph, a simple Bethlehem building shared with animals. 

And God chooses to announce the glory of the incarnation to simple shepherds, a reviled group in the society of their time. Shepherds were regarded as dishonorable because they were not home at night to protect their family. And they were considered of dubious morality since they let their flocks graze regardless of property boundaries.

Yet it is to these lowliest of lowlies that God chooses to announce the birth of the Savior. Angels and shepherds are celebrating together. Heaven and earth are rejoicing in wonderment. 

The birth of Jesus Christ shows us the humility of our God and God’s solidarity with all of humanity. God cares for the poor and simple. God’s glory is found among them. Let us not forget that when our Christmas celebrations recede into fond memories of great food and gift-giving.

*****

But the advent of Jesus, the arrival of Christ does not limit itself to an historical event in occupied Palestine twenty centuries ago. 

The very good news of tonight is that the advent of Jesus is a continuing event that happens in each one of us as we continue our journey with God and towards God. 

As announced, the advent of Jesus will happen again when he will manifest himself to us at a time unknown, when we will all, living and dead, be transformed by self-knowledge, deep acceptance of our reality and a more total embrace with God. 

This is to happen at some time in the future. We do not know when. We don’t need to know when. Good and bad will be fully revealed and Jesus will again be with us in the flesh.  It is a promise our God has made to us and it is coming.

And then, there is now, the in-between time. The time of already and not yet. Jesus has already lived, died and risen from the dead in our historical time.  And Jesus has not yet returned to us in glory.

This in-between time is where we live and love and die. And Christ himself promised to be with us in that in-between time. In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ post-resurrection meeting with the disciples, he tells them: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20b).

So how is Jesus here with us today, now, in this very instant and in this very place? It is not only in the representation of baby Jesus in the creche; although that is a lovely way of making visible and tangible a presence which otherwise often eludes us.

There are four ways in which we may experience Emmanuel, God among us, tonight.

One is to look around you. Please give a friendly glance to your neighbors. They may be strangers, they may be friends or loved ones; no matter. Each one of them is a manifestation of the Divine in your life. You may not readily see it, but in our daily dealings with one another, we are invited into Christ among us.

Two, if it feels good, close your eyes for a few moments and focus on your inner being. The life within you, is also a manifestation of God among us. If you take time for prayer or meditation on a regular basis, you know that a sense of the divine can be glimpsed there at times. 

And if you’ve done prayer or meditation often enough, you know that the Divine presence is at work within us whether we glimpse it or not. God is never absent from you. Even if you don’t feel present to God; God is there anyway, closer to you than your very breath.

Three, God wants to give godself to you through the sacrament of creation. Nothing that the Creator initiated is absent from the grace of God. The material world also manifests aspects of the divine Love. Even the work of humanity’s hands participates of this divine momentum towards revealing what Teilhard de Chardin referred to as the Cosmic Christ.

So Jesus - God - is with us here today, manifested in each other, in ourselves and in both the ordinariness and awesomeness of creation.

And last but not least, Jesus gave his life that we may receive mercy, life abundant and love overflowing. It may be hard to imagine when we celebrate baby Jesus’ coming to us in human flesh tonight. But at the end of his historical presence amongst us, Jesus gave us a visible sign of his ongoing flowing grace for us in life and beyond death. 

And this visible sign, this sacrament is the Eucharist, the bread and wine that we will soon get to share as Jesus’ flesh and blood. When we come forward for the Eucharist, we reinforce our willingness to be part of Christ in the world. When we receive the consecrated bread and wine we incorporate Christ into us and us into Christ. Christ is receiving you into his cosmic body.

*****

Tonight, let us rejoice on God’s generosity in sharing his Son.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

And let us remember that Jesus is with us always to the end of times. Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors! (Luke 2:14)

Merry Christmas!

Advent 4 C - Dec 20, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Peter Rostron, OHC
Advent 4 C - Sunday, December 20, 2015

Micah 5:2-5a
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

The Visitation

I’ve been struck over the past three weeks by the severity of some of the readings we’ve heard here at the monastery during Matins and the Eucharist. It’s been like an ongoing one-two punch for me: the prophets at church and then Donald Trump in the news. John the Baptist warned about trees being cut down and thrown into the fire. Jesus spoke of distress among nations and of people fainting from fear and foreboding for what is coming upon the world. Isaiah told of a voice, crying out in the wilderness. A voice, as I imagined it, that was filled with urgency and yearning and anguish. There was, in particular, one reading, from the prophet Amos, that grabbed my attention. I’ll share a bit of it with you.

“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake...I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”

Amos spoke this message almost 3000 years ago, so it can’t possibly apply to us, can it? But I’m increasingly afraid that it does.

I look around, and I see a world filled with material excess and enticing advertisements and numbing distractions. Distractions that help us avoid looking at all the real pain and suffering and injustice that exists. A world, as Amos described, that we have filled with festivals and solemn assemblies and the noise of songs. I have been lamenting, also, how much our perceptions, our desires, and our choices can be so heavily influenced by superficial, appealing packaging, by what looks good on TV or online or on the shelf at the store. How much our opinions and beliefs can be so heavily influenced by the attractively packaged words of a newspaper, a blog, or a captivating politician. Our society seems fueled by a desire for quick, easy, off-the-shelf, feel-good solutions and entertainments. What we like, how we behave, what we wear, what we buy, what we believe - is too often the product of a bombardment of seductive advertising and images. We are at risk of our selves becoming defined purely by outside inputs and losing our own inner, grounded, holy selves. The world seems to be on very shaky ground these days.

There was an interesting opinion piece in the Washington Post a few weeks ago by Anne Applebaum in which she talked about the terrible damage done to democratic debate and civilized discussion by our reliance on the Internet for news and our immersion in various forms of social media. She wrote, “Nevermind that Donald Trump’s claim that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the collapse of the World Trade Center is false; it is now possible to live in a virtual reality where Trump’s lies are acclaimed as the hidden truth that the mainstream media have concealed from the masses. The long-term impact of such disinformation is profound: it creates cynicism and apathy. Eventually it means nobody believes anything. People aren’t bothered by Trump’s lies or Vladimir Putins’ lies or the Islamic State’s lies because they don’t believe anything they read anymore. It’s impossible to know what’s true.” Shaky ground, indeed.

But finally, I find some relief upon hearing today’s gospel, welcoming Mary into my Advent experience. After a steady stream of harsh words from the prophets, I at last feel some hope and solid truth in Mary. Her world, like ours, was fraught and dangerous, and she was faced with an unsettling and risky decision, as we often are. She could have played it safe and stuck to the social script of the time, conforming to her role as Joseph’s young betrothed, and simply said “No” to God. “Maybe someone else would be a better choice, God.” Or, “Maybe later, God, after Joseph and I have gotten married and settled down.” But, she said “Yes.” She chose to trust in God, to turn herself completely over to God’s truth, to not succumb to fear, to step, in faith, into the unknown.

And just after making this great decision, she spent three long months visiting with her cousin, Elizabeth. To connect deeply, not just exchange text messages. To share her joy, no doubt, but also to share her anxiety. To find comfort with a friend and to have the companionship of a woman who also was pregnant. Imagine those two together. Both had very good reasons to be anxious and fearful. Mary had been visited by an angel, Gabriel, as had Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, who told them of surprising things that were about to happen, and to not be afraid. Right! I suspect both Mary and Elizabeth were quite afraid. Mary, wondering how her husband Joseph might react, what might happen to their planned marriage, what could happen to her if she ended up an unwed young woman with child. And, what this child might bring. And Elizabeth, barren and older in years, suddenly and unexpectedly pregnant, who had been in seclusion for five months with a husband who had been struck mute. Yet, they had each other - and more. The Holy Spirit was with them, having come upon Mary and through Mary to Elizabeth and to her child, John, who leaped in her womb. In a way, I can see this as a beginning of the church: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit present where two or three have gathered together. What an amazing scene, an amazing focal point of God’s power there in that small house with Mary and Elizabeth and Jesus and John.

And there is in that scene great hope for us, today, too. We, as they, live in troubled times. The prophets had repeatedly warned Mary’s ancestors, the people Israel, of their sinful ways, as they continued to turn away from the Lord. They would return, and God would forgive, but it happened again and again. And our situation seems no better. Mary and Elizabeth lived under the weight of imperial domination, and we have our own, 21st-century version of forces with great wealth and power oppressing many of us. Amos’s words do ring true today. But, in the midst of the mess, across time, sits Mary. Through her, God became human to save us. Through her, we have Christ with us, within us. Even so, with Mary as our inspiration we still have to say “Yes.” Like Mary and Elizabeth, we must join together and offer each other our mutual love and support and comfort. Like Jesus, we must be free of the seductions and false securities of the world and do the hard work of living out God’s will for us. We must reach out to the tax collectors and prostitutes and Pharisees, the citizens and prisoners being mistreated by our criminal justice system, the immigrants being vilified by our leaders, the foreign peoples being killed and maimed by our bombs, our own friends and neighbors being left without adequate food or shelter or health care.

Ultimately, I believe humanity will encounter the day of the Lord. We will celebrate Christmas in just a few days, but Jesus’s birth is ongoing. He is being born within us, and God’s kingdom is coming, slowly but surely, in God’s time. It may be, as Amos said, that the day of the Lord will be darkness, not light, but that is because it won’t be - it is not now - easy. As we heard just this morning in the Revelation to John, birth pangs can be agony. There is evil in the world, and it won’t go quietly; it is systemic evil. We are called to feed the poor and visit the prisoner, but we must go further and work to eliminate poverty and create true “justice.” In the Magnificat, Mary says God has done great things for her, God’s lowly servant. And that, in his mercy, God will do good things for all who are hungry and lowly, forever, in fulfillment of his promise to the entire family of Abraham. Which means us. Even Amos, after all his harsh words, concluded, Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. So, let us say “Yes” and know that after the darkness, there will be light. And know that Mary is our companion in the birthing of Christ.

Advent 1 C - Nov 29, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Roy Parker, OHC
Advent 1 C - Sunday, November 29, 2015

Jeremiah 33:14-16
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Luke 21:25-36 

The Advent wreath in the church

I need to preface my remarks by saying that they’ve been influenced by a sermon preached by Harvey Guthrie at the National Cathedral last October at the dedication of the Jonathan Daniels Carving in the Civil Rights Porch, and also by the writing of Maria Boulding in her book entitled The Coming of God. 

Some of you may be familiar with the weekly cartoon contest which appears in the New Yorker: a cartoon without caption is printed, giving readers the opportunity to invent a caption appropriate to the drawing. Three submissions appear in the following issue of the magazine and in the week after, the winning caption is printed. 

Several weeks ago the contest depicted a bearded patriarchal God in therapy on the clouds of heaven, an angel seated alongside, taking notes. The winning caption has the angel asking, “When did you first realize you were really a woman?” 

That this caption won the poll seems to me a cultural indicator of a kind of sea change in the popular religious imagination regarding God, a change from what might be called ‘metaphysical masculinity‘ to something like ‘compassionate solidarity.‘ That is, a movement away from masculine images of God, images not easily understood nor much in tune with actual experience, images even uninviting and repelling to our sensibilities; a movement away from those sort of descriptions to a more feminine imagery characterized by the Hebrew word chesed, which appears significantly in God’s self-description to Moses in the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation . . . 

That key word is variously translated ‘kindness, loving-kindness, mercy’, and ‘steadfast love.‘ No one English word captures its meaning. It seems basically to have to do with loyalty in relationships, loyalty that is considerate of and affectionate toward the sharer of a relationship. It is not used in Hebrew of ‘kindness’ in the abstract. It bespeaks actual steadfast, loving, merciful, kind loyalty toward another. It is rooted in God’s commitment to God’s people, in God’s steadfast, loving, merciful, kind loyalty toward God’s human colleagues in the doing of justice. It is about the kind of relationship God wants people to have with God, and with each and all of their human sisters and brothers. 

It is indeed about sensitivity and responsiveness to the needs and rights of others, indeed about respecting others, but, at root, it is about affectionate, unswerving commitment to others. Which, by the way, will remind us of St. Paul’s gold standard of this in the Letter to the Romans: “(In the utmost adversity) we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come . . . nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

Attending to today’s Gospel, we’ll note that the signs in the sun, moon and stars, the distress of nations confused by the roaring of the sea, the waves, and so forth were originally stage props to bolster the endurance of first century Christians under persecution who were encouraged to raise their heads and greet their approaching redemption. As if those on the way to salvation need not be that concerned about the surrounding chaos. 

Because the femininity of God is about God’s affectionate, unswerving commitment to God’s human colleagues in the doing of justice toward all persons and toward the environment, it signals the realization that now the distress of nations and the roaring of the sea and waves are no longer merely stage props, encouraging signs of redemption, but have become warning signs of imminent global collapse summoning humanity to radical action. 

At the moment, for example, the Pacific is a troublesome place, creating storms and causing problems for people and marine life across the Pacific rim and beyond, including the strong El Nino system that has formed along the Equator, and another unusually persistent zone of warm water sitting off the North American coast, called the Blob. The warming of the Pacific due to greenhouse gases has been linked to unprecedented harmful algal blooms that have toxified shellfish and shut down fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. It’s really worrisome. If this is a window into the future, it’s not a good future. 

Advent is the celebration of three comings: God’s self-gift to the world at the incarnation, God’s self-gift to each believer, and the final coming which is still outside our experience, expressed in the New Testament hope that Christ will come again in some way earthed in our own expectations, fears and desires. If we are to be more than simply agnostic about the long-term prospects for our race, our most fundamental hope must be that it will not end in meaningless destruction.

If we are going to blow ourselves out of existence or make the planet uninhabitable, there is little point in hoping for anything else. To believe that the human race will eventually reach the end of its earthly pilgrimage is one thing; to equate the end with total destruction is another. The hope that we are traveling towards a destiny, rather than a mere collapse, is linked with the faith that our origins were already purposeful. 

If there is a Creator who stands outside the whole cosmic evolutionary process and yet works God’s will within it by a wisdom and love that are present in its every movement, then human life has a purpose. It begins from God and is on its way to a goal which, however unimaginable, will give meaning to the whole adventure. 

We cannot comfort ourselves with wishful thinking. Though we may admire the courage of those who face the possibility that human life is simply absurd, that there is no future, and that the only option is to live with dignity and kindness as we await our meaningless extinction, this view is not convincing because it leaves too much unexplained. Deeply rooted in our experience is a certainty that our best intuitions will prove to have been the truest. We also want justice, however we may fear it or fall short in practicing it ourselves.

Our hearts demand that the very rough and uneven distribution in this life shall be redeemed within a larger justice. We are radically convinced that good, not evil, will triumph in the end. The assurance of the classic fairy tales that the wicked are defeated and everyone else lives happily ever after is reached only through suffering, danger, courage and endurance, and these stories so appeal because they strike a chord in us. 

Perhaps you know the phrase deus ex machina, that originated in the theatrical device of placing a contraption just off-stage to manufacture a god figure who would enter the play at the last minute to save a hopeless situation. Literally: God from a machine. Part of the sea change in the popular religious imagination is that no deus ex machina solution, no machine-made god who simply eliminates problems can be the coming one to satisfy our deepest desires, but only the one who promises to come and be with us especially in the midst of our struggles and uncertainties.

I suspect another part of this sea change is the information I’ve gotten lately from my Jesuit network to the effect that the idea of the priest as one with special powers is not very popular today in theology. Rather the priest is the sacramental minister whose presence in the liturgy ties the individual worshiping community to all the Christian communities, making it possible for the fullness of the church to be present in the local assembly.

Our calling is to go along with God in doing what is right toward all persons and our planet home, in having a passion for lasting human and humane relationships with God, our sisters, brothers, and the entire creation, and to be open to new and unknown and surprising and scary and devastating things that may involve.