Easter 4 B - April 21, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky

The Fourth Sunday of Easter B, April 21, 2024

• Acts 4:5-12
• 1 John 3:16-24
• John 10:11-18
• Psalm 23

Click here for an audio of the sermon

There are four Scriptural readings or texts appointed to be read on this, as on every Sunday, in our eucharistic lectionary. But we have heard only three. The fourth is almost always a selection from the Book of Psalms and is traditionally said or sung between the first and second readings. I'm not sure why we no longer observe this practice. We did for some years, but that was decades ago. Perhaps we felt that our worship had become just a bit too wordy. And since as monastics we are committed to the recitation of the entire Book of Psalms, all 150 of them, over a two-week cycle, it may have been obvious that this is the place to cut back. And maybe we simply felt that we were overdosing on psalms. It's not hard to do. It strikes me as odd though that in my almost 40 years in the monastery I don't remember ever hearing a sermon on the psalms. Normally the focus has been the gospel passage or on occasion one of the other readings. But today I do want to speak about the appointed psalm. And that, of course, is Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd.”

After the Lord's Prayer, Psalm 23 is arguably the most familiar text in the Christian tradition. Many people grew up memorizing it, as did I. It was read regularly in the public schools that I attended, and always in the translation given in the King James Version of the Bible.

If you know it by heart, please feel welcome to say it with me:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

This text is so familiar that it risks becoming a cliché…except of course when it isn't. Said in the middle of the night when sleep eludes us and we are gripped by anxiety or fear. Said at the bedside of a dying friend or parishioner. Or said at the grave side. It has the power to lift us beyond ourselves into a space that's wider than our fears and brighter than the darkness of our minds and hearts.

The psalms, as most of you know, are a mixed bag of ancient Hebrew poetry, often achingly tender and beautiful but also at times deeply troubling. Some are easy to pray or sing. I think of psalms that give praise to God, those that offer thanksgiving for creation and for God’s deliverance, those of offer consolation, and even those laments which give voice to our sorrows when we have no words to say, no other way to express them. These are all welcome parts of our psalm repertoire. Other psalms are a bit odd: royal enthronement or coronation anthems, wedding songs, psalms filled with obscure geographical or historical references. Still others are not so easy to engage. I think of those psalms that are violent and vengeful, those that are militaristic or chauvinistic, those that are celebrations of a complex and sometimes imagined history which are ripe for contemporary misuse. In fact, here at Holy Cross Monastery there are several psalms or verses of psalms—the so-called imprecatory or cursing passages—that we never use publicly.

The Christian tradition has from its inception developed creative ways of reading and praying the psalms, what I sometimes term “intellectual acrobatics,” to make them more in tune with our understanding of the Christian revelation and of our own developing ethical standards. For example, the bride in a wedding psalm becomes for me the Church or my own soul being united to the Holy One. And the king in an enthronement psalm may be understood to be a prophetic or symbolic reference to Jesus Christ. And the enemies, a term which appears repeatedly in the psalms, may be understood as the evil forces in our world or our own sins which need to be overcome by a power greater than ourselves. Whatever the literal or original meaning of the psalm—and we cannot ignore that—we all must do this kind of translation at some level if we're going to pray with them with any integrity, if they're going to give voice to our deepest aspirations even when the text appears strange and even repugnant.

But Psalm 23 doesn't require quite the acrobatic agility of so many of the psalms. For us, the 23rd Psalm is primarily about God’s power to console, to comfort and to provide for us, to guide and lead us in right ways and to our right end and to keep us safe along the way.  And the psalm does this personally.  It speaks to God directly in the first-person singular and offers us the image of a shepherd who is neither distant nor absent but lovingly present as a fellow traveler who both understands and protects. There is much to be said about this psalm. Let me simply draw our attention to two sections.

The first revolves around the phrase: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” This is a phrase dear to us all because, as the old spiritual reminds us, “You’ve got to walk down that lonesome valley.” The critical word here is the word ‘walk’. Our temptation when faced with death, either literal or metaphorical, is to run…to run in the other direction or if we're brave or foolish, to run headlong into the death-dealing situation. The psalm, however, counsels us to walk, to take our time, to move step by step into and through the difficult places. Why? Perhaps because when we walk, we're less likely to stumble. And as we walk, our eyes have time to adjust to the dark; we begin to see more clearly where we really are. Perhaps we will see a pathway that we did not know was there. Perhaps we will catch a glimpse of a light ahead, faint but calling us onward. And as we give our eyes time to adjust, perhaps we'll see that there are other travelers on this road and that we are not in fact alone and that there is indeed one Traveler who has walked it before and will walk it with us and show us the way. 

The second area I would draw our attention to is the conclusion of this psalm where it says that we sheep will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, or for length of days as some translations have it. That sounds fine and good until you realize that the ‘house of the Lord’ refers to the temple in Jerusalem. And if you know anything about the temple, you'll recognize that it was not exactly a safe place for sheep. The principal act of worship there was the sacrifice of sheep and other animals followed by a banquet to consume the sacrifice. The 23rd Psalm suddenly but strongly subverts that image. Instead of being on the menu, we sheep, the flock of this shepherd, will sit at table and feast in the house of the Lord: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”  That's consoling…especially for the sheep among us.   

We may be tempted to read or pray this psalm with an attitude of naïve religious optimism. But we must rather hear this psalm within the framework of the history of God's people. We know that there is always trouble and tragedy, sadness as well as joy, defeat as well as victory. The psalmist knows this as well. I believe it is no accident that Psalm 23 immediately follows that psalm that begins with the words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Perhaps these psalms ought never be recited or prayed apart from each other.  

Psalm 23 does promise that there is One who journeys with us, a good shepherd. And in today's gospel passage Jesus identifies himself as this Good Shepherd, that is, the true shepherd whose power finds its strength in weakness and in emptying himself out for his sheep. Three times Jesus says that the Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. This was not something expected of either shepherds or rulers in the ancient world. But this is what Jesus did. He laid down his life so that you and I may take up our lives again more freely in through him. In that sense, Psalm 23 is the perfect Easter psalm.

Have you ever picked up one of those Gideon bibles when you were staying in a hotel? They sit hidden in the nightstand next to your bed. And they almost always offer upfront some advice or guidance. Feeling weary? Read Matthew 11: 28-29. Feeling fearful? Read Hebrews 13: 5-6. Feeling lonely? Read Psalm 23. This is good advice, but my advice is, I think, better. Don't wait till you're lonely. Read it now. Read it tonight. Memorize it. 

“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.”  May those words be on our lips and in our hearts always.

Amen.

Easter 3 B - April 14, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham

The Third Sunday in Easter B, April 14, 2024

 

Acts 3:12-19

1 John 3:1-7

Luke 24:36b-48

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O God, my sustainer and my comforter. Amen.

In his 2002 novel Kafka on the Shore, Japanese author Haruki Murakami writes,

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same
person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

Murakami is writing in the context of a fantasy novel, but to my mind, he might just as well be writing about the experience – the storm – of the Easter journey.

And what an experience it is! Such a rich mystery with so many layers. It’s a lot to take in, and one hardly knows where to begin in processing and understanding all the pieces, let alone the fuller picture – including its meaning for us, and what we’re supposed to do with it.

There was Lent, for a start, where we saw Jesus preparing the disciples and himself for the great work of Holy Week, where his earthly ministry reached its culmination, the words of the prophets were fulfilled, and the hopes of Israel were (temporarily) seemingly dashed.

Then Easter morning dawned, with those holy sisters coming out to the tomb from Jerusalem, prepared to perform what they thought was going to be the final task of a failed, finished saga, only to discover that what had seemed to be the death of a dream was, in fact, merely the opening scene of its second, even more thrilling, act. Through all of it, we experienced a whirlwind of characters and events including
fasting; ominous warnings of betrayal (and the acts of the betrayers themselves); triumphant donkey rides; a night of fellowship and feasting followed by unbearable loneliness and anguish; mocking and abuse at the hands of soldiers; perversions of justice and the cowardice of religious and government leaders; state-sponsored murder and the silence of the tomb; and just when all seemed lost, the surprise and
disbelief of the Resurrection.

Little wonder, then, that over the following weeks the disciples – and we – might struggle to make sense of it all. Our hearts know one thing, our minds perceive another, while all around us rages a storm of events unprecedented in all of history, filling us with awe, sorrow, wonderment, and confusion.

And so it is that we find the disciples this morning, still uprooted, disheveled, and reeling from the experiences of such an emotional – and, indeed, traumatic – storm, back inside the Cenacle as they struggle to understand “all of the things that have taken place … in these days.” They aren’t holed up there because they don’t want to carry on proclaiming the Reign of God; rather, they’re simply unsure now
of how to do it.

Before, they had Jesus with them. They were active partners-in-ministry, boots-on-the-ground, drawn to the movement by their shared love of God and desire to serve. But now, things are different. The disciples are different. Like the speaker in Murakami’s book, they aren’t sure what has even happened, if it’s really over, or what they’re supposed to do about it. So, they gather and wait for a sign.

I suspect it’s what most of us would’ve done. In fact, it’s exactly what I have done during seasons of uncertainty and unsettledness. When we know that what has worked in the past – be it a job, a city, a relationship, an identity, even a religion – will no longer be useful to us on our journey because of some shift in the lived reality of our lives (but long before a vision of how to move forward becomes
clear) we often find ourselves returning to our own Cenacles – our places of previous divine encounter and nourishment – to shelter, reflect, contemplate, integrate, and await answers.

So then, it’s no surprise that Jesus, working out of his own experience of earthly Life, Death, and Resurrection, decides to pay the frightened and discouraged disciples a few visits, first with two of them on the road to Emmaus, and then with everyone gathered in the Cenacle – the place of their last happy supper together before everything (and everyone) was going to change forever – to offer comfort,
assurance, and understanding:
“Peace be with you,” he begins. He has come to replace their disquietude with calmness.“Why are you troubled? Look at me and see for yourselves. You know ghosts don’t have flesh and bones. It really is I, myself. You know me.” He has come to replace their fear and doubt with confidence and certainty.

“Have you anything to eat?” He has come to replace their feelings of loss with a sense of familiarity and communion through memories of the meals they shared. Then finally, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you. I’d already told you that all these things were going to happen – it just all seemed abstract until now.” He has come to replace their confusion with the knowledge that God is still in charge, and has been this whole time, even if it hasn’t felt like it.

These reassurances are important because, for the disciples, the real work was just about to begin, though not quite yet. In the verse immediately following today’s Gospel reading, Jesus promises them they won’t have to take the next step until they’re ready – and that God will make them ready through the power and
presence of the Holy Spirit: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Having visited and reassured them, Jesus knows they’ll still need a bit more time to process everything if they’re going to be his ‘body, hands, and feet on earth’ as so beautifully imagined by Saint Theresa of Avila.

There was a time (not very long ago) when I thought that fifty days of Easter was a little much. “Okay, I get it,” I thought. “Easter’s a big deal, but all these extra ‘alleluias’ in the Daily Office are starting to get really old.” Now I’m beginning to understand that, just as Jesus couldn’t expect the disciples to be ready to charge headlong out of Easter Sunday into Pentecost, neither are we able to fully recognize, appreciate, and integrate the Resurrection into our own lives without taking time to rest in it, have it remembered and re-explained to us over six more Sundays, and begin to form a vision of how we’re being invited to use our newfound insight and wisdom in proclaiming the Reign of God when the Holy Spirit draws us from our Cenacles at Pentecost.

We, like the disciples, have journeyed through the tempest of Holy Week and Easter – and, no doubt, many other storms as well – and are now gathered, discovering how we’ve been transformed and made new, and waiting for a sign of what to do next. It is now that Jesus reminds us of the mission we were born to undertake: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all.” And we’re just the people to do it, because we’re all “witnesses of these things.”

May peace and all that is good remain with us during this Eastertide, and always.
Amen.

Annunciation - April 9, 202

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Ephrem Arcement

The feast of the Annunciation (transferred), April 9, 2024

Isaiah 7:10-14

Hebrews 10:4-10

Luke 1:26-38

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

She was not young, nor was she a virgin. She was married with children. She was not poor but wealthy. She was not of the first century but of the

thirteenth. She was widowed, and she buried all of her children. Then, at the age of 40, in the small Umbrian town of Foligno not far from Assisi, just before the turn of the fourteenth century, her Annunciation occurred. Little is known about

the circumstances of the events. What is known is that this Franciscan tertiary named Angela began to receive revelations from God whose content draws a direct line to the original Annunciation of the maiden of Nazareth.

 

If the Feasts that we Christians celebrate are not just commemorations to be remembered but mysteries to be lived, then St. Angela of Foligno may be called the patron saint of the Annunciation. Through her divine revelations she received

what I would estimate as the heart of this particular sacred mystery we celebrate today. She recounts once such revelation thus:

Afterward [God] added: "I want to show you something of my power." And

immediately the eyes of my soul were opened, and in a vision I beheld the

fullness of God in which I beheld and comprehended the whole of creation,

that is, what is on this side and what is beyond the sea, the abyss, the sea

itself, and everything else. And in everything that I saw, I could perceive

nothing except the presence of the power of God, and in a manner totally

indescribable. And my soul in an excess of wonder cried out: "The world is

pregnant with God!" Wherefore I understood how small is the whole of

creation — that is, what is on this side and what is beyond the sea, the abyss,

the sea itself, and everything else — but the power of God fills it to

overflowing.

A few nights ago, as I was drifting off to sleep, my phone roused me with the vibrating sound of an incoming DM. It was a good friend of mine who was asking if I had ever experienced an existential crisis. I assured him that I had…but that it had been a while. He was, and likely still is, going through his own. What confounds him is the question of why we exist when we were not first consulted

about it, which would seem to deny our freedom. Does God have a right to create me without my permission? The implications of this question are immense, and I did my best to try to provide an adequate response based on the goodness and giftedness of being created at all; that to be is better than not to be; that to be is to be desired by the Infinite Love of the Creator; and that to know that we are God’s beloved gives our lives meaning and purpose and direction and assuages the dread of all the unanswered questions that may still remain.

But what my friend is experiencing is the experience that we all, at least on some level, have known: to be is to be entrapped, to be caught in circumstances where there seems to be no way out—where our lives seem…and dreadfully feel… determined toward an outcome that we would not have freely chosen for ourselves.

I think of Israel caught in an existential desert for forty years. I think of Moses and Jeremiah caught in roles they didn’t ask for and out of which they did everything they could to escape. I think of all the psalms of lamentation…and the Book of Lamentation itself…that express emotions of dread, despondency, and doom. Why exist if life is like this?

And I think of the young maiden, Mary, who found herself caught in her own existential crisis…coming face to face with the inexplicable and alldetermining will of God.

Life is full of existential crises we wish we could bypass and circumvent and of which we feel the Holy Spirit driving us right into. The mystery of the Annunciation is not just a mystery about the birth of a new born child and the joy that this child will bring. It’s also about the sword that will pierce the heart of the one who bears this child and about the scandal that this child will cause to many.

We do not know why a good God would allow such pain to happen to someone so innocent, whether that is Mary or Jesus…you or me. And we will likely never come up with an adequate answer. But God does not remain silent in the face of such existential crises. The good news is that God is not aloof to our crises, our suffering, or our feelings of powerlessness and dread. Our God is Immanuel, right here with us in the middle of our entrapment.

The grand narrative of the Hebrew Bible is this story of entrapment and freedom and the creative life that is generated from the tension between the two. Whether it was from Egypt of from Babylon, the people of God staked their lives on a promise of freedom but all too often only experienced entrapment. In the midst of one of these crises, the Syro-Ephraimite War, the context of today’s passage from Isaiah, God is begging the King of Judah to ask for a sign to reassure him that freedom is guaranteed—that there is no reason to fear the allied Israel and Syria from conquering them. The sign given is the son of a young woman whose name will be Immanuel.

In light of the cosmic events of Jesus Christ, Luke widens the scope of this Isaian prophecy and sees Mary, and the child in her womb, as its ultimate fulfillment. Jesus is God with us in a new, definitive way to assure freedom and hope and to cast out fear and dread once and for all. Of course, Luke knows how the story will end and here, already in his Infancy Narrative, we hear intimations of the story’s climax.

Ultimately, the Annunciation is a Feast of the Lord and is about God’s saving work accomplished in Christ. In fact, the Annunciation is the very beginning of God’s final saving work. Mary’s existential crisis is a type of programmatic prophecy pointing to its fulfillment at the end of the Gospel where Jesus will undergo his own existential crisis on the cross—where he will know first hand the pain of being in this world…the pain of being Immanuel…the pain of feeling the dread of abandonment, even by God, and the utter hell that life can sometimes unleash. Yet, even then, his faith remains to his dying breath as he releases his spirit to the one he feels abandoned him.

His “fiat,” his “Yes” to God, in the midst of such pain and doubt, like Mary’s foreshadowed over thirty years before, is the very act which leads to the breaking open of the new creation. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s ultimate answer to the Son of God’s existential crisis on the cross and becomes the answer to our own.

What does it mean, then, to not just celebrate the Annunciation but to live it? It means that we are like Mary, the archetype of all who are chosen to bear God into this world. We can balk at God and explain to God how unfair this choice may be. We know that bringing anything to birth demands great sacrifice and much suffering. Indeed, Mary’s name literally means “bitterness.” But her name can also mean “beloved.” And our lives contain both of these realities: bitterness and belovedness. The pain of life does not mean that God has forsaken us but that God is more intensely present to us. The pressure weighing down upon our shoulders that may seem to crush us is the very pressure fashioning our lives into the sparkling diamonds that nothing in this world will be able to obscure.

Brothers, our common call to the monastic way of life may, like Mary and so many others, feel at times like a summons to the impossible. In the face of the vocation and its demands, we may see only our very limited resources and ask, “how can this be?” But the genius of this vocation is found exactly there…where we come face to face with our own inner poverty and discover God’s all-sufficient

grace…that place where all things become possible.

Like Mary of Nazareth…and like Angela of Foligno…we are pregnant with God…and are called to birth God through gift of our lives to one another. And we’re also called to serve as midwives of this birthing in each other. It won’t always be fun and exciting and will at times be dreadfully burdensome. This is to be expected. But what God is doing in this place is using us to birth a quality of life…a way of being…which only our common struggle an birth: an irrevocable peace and joy that proclaims, “Alleluia, Christ is risen indeed! Behold him standing in our midst!”