Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev’d Elizabeth R. Broyles
Proper 7 Year C, Sunday 24 June 2007
Zechariah 12:8-10;13:1
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 9:18-24
Who aren’t you?
We ask each other questions about who we are all the time.
We answer them with one degree of certainty or another,
one degree of truth or another.
Yet how often does someone ask us who we aren’t.
How often do we ask ourselves?
I am not a flawless, completely kind person. I also am not a louse.
I am not always an honest person. I am not a worthless person.
[There is, of course, much more that I am not.]
Who aren’t you?
This is precisely the question Jesus answers today in the Gospel. It looks, on the surface, as if he is asking a question and getting the “right” answer from Peter:
Who do you say that I am?
You are the Messiah of God.
Then Jesus commands them–sternly, to tell no one. Again, it looks like a reasonable follow up on Peter’s right answer.
It is not. What Peter would have meant by Messiah is not what we understand it to mean today. Peter would have expected a king or a great warrior, one who would have a huge impact in the political arena–like David. Messiah = Anointed One = King. Peter would have expected one who would concretely save Israel from all who would oppress her, but especially the Romans.
Jesus is saying to Peter “The Messiah is not what you have heard or have been talking about.” That Messiah I am not.
Who isn’t Jesus? Jesus isn’t a political leader or an earthly warrior or a King like David. He is the one who MUST undergo great suffering. He is the one who must be rejected. He is the one who must die and, thanks be to God, the one who must be raised.
P.S. You must be willing to go through this suffering and rejection and even death if you are to be my followers. There is an essential self-denial and a cross to be borne.
This is a bit daunting, to say the least.
Self denial? Yes. deny, let go of, your plans, insistences, demands of how live should be. Deny your will as separate from God’s will.
Surrender earthly safety: There is a cross to be borne. Your own cross. Taken up daily. Take up your cross may be synonymous with “Take up your life” for us as Christians. Live faithfully. Listen constantly to the inner and outer yearnings and callings. Listen for God speaking through the Holy Spirit in all we encounter.
And follow Jesus.
It occurs to me that Jesus was a follower too, right from the beginning. Led by the Spirit into the desert or driven, he lived by following the lead of the Holy Spirit, by praying to know the will of the Father, by connecting deeply with who he was and what he was called to do.
I would say Jesus was not a map carrier:
He did not have a map that outlined the way specifically.
He didn’t know exactly what would happen next.
Rather, he lived faithfully, stepping out faithfully, doing the next right, sacred, honest thing. Teaching, healing, casting out demons, feeding, praying, disturbing the religious leaders of his time, spending time with the outcast–each one was the next right step when he did it.
This is how we can take up and carry our cross daily: praying and listening and God willing, identifying the next right step. The next honest, faithful, and yes, grace-powered step. The invitation is to seek to live a life infused with the will of our loving, empowering, creative God.
The heart of taking up the cross is not only about dying. It is about living full out, following the Spirit, trusting in the one who leads us.
Mechtild of Magdeburg puts it this way:
How shall I live?
Live welcoming all.
Each step is another moment of welcoming all that is required of us in the journey. This is possible because the Lord of Life lives within us, bearing us up as we bear the weight of our cross.
Now there are some fine tuning points to this “one step at a time” way of living, of carrying the cross:
The step we take does not have to be the perfect one. We don’t have to wait until we are one hundred percent sure. If we did we might never put a foot out. One woman journeyer said that she does it like this. She discerns as best as she can, steps out, takes one step and kind of looks up to heaven and says “Is this OK, Lord?” Yes? Another step.
This can cause us to bristle with impatience–with the desire to move along at a better clip. Wisdom, though, advises against it. As we step ahead, we learn to wait, to walk, to wonder what will be next.
This call to patience also informs us that sometimes the steps are really very small ones. Like getting out of bed as the first step to facing a painful meeting with someone, or to face the day at all if depression is an aspect of your cross. Small steps are not only alright, they are sometimes necessary to move forward with prudence and compassion.
Then there is a caution: We must try not to be so focused on what step is next that we are not here, ever, not in the present. We meet God in the present. We meet others in this moment. We know who we are–and who we aren’t–in the now.
So we go. The danger of journeying this way–and the adventure–is that we never quite know where we will wind up. We can have an inkling, but not the certainty we often want. Sometimes the inkling is strong that if we take this step, this right step, and the next and the next we are going to find ourselves in very hot water.
Sometimes the awareness is that step by step we are being drawn into more beauty, delight and wonder.
Whichever is the case, Life and Love and Freedom are ultimately our end.
Now, who aren’t you?
May God bless us with the courage to keep stepping out, the wisdom to know how to proceed and the desire to be part of God’s step by step healing and freeing of all.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
BCP - Proper 6 C - 17 Jun 2007
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
BCP – Proper 6 C - Sunday 17 June 2007
2 Samuel 11:26-12:10,13-15
Galatians 2:11-21
Luke 7:36-50
I want to focus on the Gospel reading today because its such a wonderful and rich story. Luke never wastes details. So its worth examining all the things that are in the picture. And one of the most important details, of course, is this weeping woman at Jesus’ feet. But we’re not ready for her just yet...
First things first: Why on earth is Jesus dining with Simon the Pharisee? When Jesus encounters a pharisee its not generally a comfortable, social encounter. In the story leading up to today’s reading, Luke tells us that the pharisees have rejected God’s purpose. Yet here are Jesus and Simon sharing a meal. This has to be a tense meal. As a friend of mine used to say of such meals, forks on the left, knives in the back... This is where we start - its an uncomfortable situation.
And this woman, apparently a notorious sinner... what is she doing in the middle of everything. But as I said, with Luke, no detail is wasted, and the word sinner is one of those details. Employment opportunities for single women of her day were pretty limited - starvation, begging, or prostitution - or a combination of those. Sometimes she is described as a harlot - a prostitute. But Luke is more concerned that she is a sinner - in other words, she is just like us. She’s not here to represent prostitutes, or really bad sinners. She’s just your garden-variety sinner.
The fact that she is a sinner is important, but the fact that she has wandered into a private dinner party isn’t terribly important. There was something of public spectacle to an event like Simon’s dinner party. There would have been curious onlookers in the courtyards and doorways. She’s perhaps a little more brazen, but it isn’t remarkable that she is there. She’s not an intruder... she’s just a sinner.
But look what she does. Its OK for her to look, but not to touch. Yet here she is washing Jesus’ feet and massaging them with perfumed ointment. Now if you’re thinking this is a purely innocent act with no sexual overtones, think a little longer. And just in case we don’t get it, Luke turns up the heat. She lets down her hair and uses it to dry Jesus’ feet. Put these things together and it’s pretty scandalous.
Especially for our gracious host, Simon. Sensible, reasonable, people don’t have contact with this kind of woman - at least not in public. Yet here sits Jesus allowing himself to be touched... allowing her to rub his feet with her free-flowing hair. Simon the Pharisee must be furious - its like a guest at big fancy formal dinner party becoming extremely, loudly, gregariously drunk. It’s a nightmare.
Its also an opportunity for Simon the Pharisee. He, like his fellow pharisees, is just looking for a way to discredit Jesus and Jesus has just thrown open the window of opportunity. Jesus is supposed to be greater than a prophet - yet any prophet of any distinction at all would know enough not be touched by this woman. Yet here is this Jesus supposedly greater than a prophet being touched in a disturbingly intimate way. Obviously he’s not greater than a prophet - he’s no prophet at all.
Simon must be thrilled... But only for a minute...
Jesus lets all of us know that he knows exactly who this woman is... And he lets us know that he knows what’s on Simon’s mind. We can feel the rug slipping out from underneath Simon’s feet. In the foreground Luke is telling us a story about Jesus and Simon and this woman. But in the background he is putting a great big underscore under the fact that Jesus is greater than a prophet.
Poor Simon. Just when he though he was winning... But Jesus doesn’t leave it there. Riddles were a part of dinner entertainment in the pharisee class and Jesus presents Simon with a riddle. Who is more grateful, someone who has a small debt forgiven or someone who has a great debt forgiven? The one with the great debt, Simon supposes. He has to be wondering what is going on, because this isn’t much of a riddle. Jesus, no doubt, has a reputation as a tough customer, so this riddle can’t possibly mean what it appears to mean. Its too obvious. It must be a trick.
And it is a trick in an odd sort of way. Simon the Pharisee thinks this is a riddle about being forgiven. But the woman at Jesus’ feet has already figured it out. Its not about being forgiven, its about having already been forgiven. Its already happened.
This is why this crying woman is so important in the picture. These are not tears of sorrow. They are tears of joy. She isn’t kissing Jesus’ feet as a condemned person trying to placate an angry god. She’s kissing those gracious feet in gratitude - for this is the God of love. Simon is looking forward to something that she knows is already in the past.
Simon could be weeping with joy as well if he weren’t so stuck in thinking that he has to think his way to salvation. And there, at least for me, is the message of the story. God’s grace is freely given. I have to get out of the way. When I can give up thinking my way to salvation then I can get on with living the loving and grace-filled life that God calls me to live.
I’ll be living that humble and grace-filled life along side prostitutes and other sinners. That’s a bit of a challenge. I want God’s Kingdom to be at least a little exclusive. I’d like to know I’m in and others are out. But that is not God’s kingdom.
It was a challenge for people in Paul’s day as well - particularly Cephas who we heard about in the letter to the Galatians.
Cephas was getting the Gospel message. He was growing into Jesus’ way. He was eating with the gentiles, the outcasts - just like Jesus who ate with prostitutes and tax collectors and other marginal people. He was living in the faith that this was OK, that all people are God’s children.
And then the ominous sounding “circumcision faction” put the fear into him. Suddenly he’s backsliding. He has to eat with the right people. He’s building up the things he once tore down. Its an odd thing, because normally when I think of a Christian backsliding, I think of someone hanging out with the wrong people. But that’s backward. Hanging out with the “wrong” people is what God calls us to do. Cephas is backsliding by hanging out with the “right” people...
Cephas is a sinner, like the woman at Jesus’ feet. But he’s rejecting Jesus’ plan and acting more like the Pharisee. He’s living in fear rather than rejoicing. Paul has no time for it - because its not the way Jesus calls us to live.
Now there was one more reading this morning - from the book of Second Samuel. I have to admit I’d just as soon ignore it because it ends in such a disturbing way. Nathan tells David that God is going to cause his child to die because of David’s wicked behavior. That just utterly derails me. I truly don’t believe God kills children as a way of punishing their parents. I just don’t believe it.
But when I stop fixating on the end of the story I see there are some other things along the way. God has richly blessed David - just as God richly blesses us all. But its not enough for David. He wants more and he takes more. More than he needs and more than God gives him. And for this God punishes him.
When I look at this through the lens of that weeping woman at Jesus’s feet what do I see? I see someone who is arrogant and greedy. And if I look hard enough I see someone who is fearful. Even in his great abundance he doesn’t have enough. He must have more.
So much of our relationship with God is driven by fear - fear that we are not good enough, or that we are hanging out with people who are not good enough. Fear of punishment and fear of failure. These fears spill over into all our relationships and do tremendous damage.
We need to look at that joyful, weeping prostitute as she caresses and kisses those gracious feet. She isn’t good enough. We aren’t good enough. Our friends aren’t good enough. And it just doesn’t matter at all.
It isn’t that what we do doesn’t matter. We can’t love God without loving our neighbors and ourselves. We can’t love God without loving justice. And that love will spill over into every aspect of our lives like the mighty river that Isaiah speaks of - which waters the whole earth.
God of all creation, make our hearts open so that we too may weep with joy at your feet and that our love may pour forth like a river.
Brother Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
BCP – Proper 6 C - Sunday 17 June 2007
2 Samuel 11:26-12:10,13-15
Galatians 2:11-21
Luke 7:36-50
I want to focus on the Gospel reading today because its such a wonderful and rich story. Luke never wastes details. So its worth examining all the things that are in the picture. And one of the most important details, of course, is this weeping woman at Jesus’ feet. But we’re not ready for her just yet...
First things first: Why on earth is Jesus dining with Simon the Pharisee? When Jesus encounters a pharisee its not generally a comfortable, social encounter. In the story leading up to today’s reading, Luke tells us that the pharisees have rejected God’s purpose. Yet here are Jesus and Simon sharing a meal. This has to be a tense meal. As a friend of mine used to say of such meals, forks on the left, knives in the back... This is where we start - its an uncomfortable situation.
And this woman, apparently a notorious sinner... what is she doing in the middle of everything. But as I said, with Luke, no detail is wasted, and the word sinner is one of those details. Employment opportunities for single women of her day were pretty limited - starvation, begging, or prostitution - or a combination of those. Sometimes she is described as a harlot - a prostitute. But Luke is more concerned that she is a sinner - in other words, she is just like us. She’s not here to represent prostitutes, or really bad sinners. She’s just your garden-variety sinner.
The fact that she is a sinner is important, but the fact that she has wandered into a private dinner party isn’t terribly important. There was something of public spectacle to an event like Simon’s dinner party. There would have been curious onlookers in the courtyards and doorways. She’s perhaps a little more brazen, but it isn’t remarkable that she is there. She’s not an intruder... she’s just a sinner.
But look what she does. Its OK for her to look, but not to touch. Yet here she is washing Jesus’ feet and massaging them with perfumed ointment. Now if you’re thinking this is a purely innocent act with no sexual overtones, think a little longer. And just in case we don’t get it, Luke turns up the heat. She lets down her hair and uses it to dry Jesus’ feet. Put these things together and it’s pretty scandalous.
Especially for our gracious host, Simon. Sensible, reasonable, people don’t have contact with this kind of woman - at least not in public. Yet here sits Jesus allowing himself to be touched... allowing her to rub his feet with her free-flowing hair. Simon the Pharisee must be furious - its like a guest at big fancy formal dinner party becoming extremely, loudly, gregariously drunk. It’s a nightmare.
Its also an opportunity for Simon the Pharisee. He, like his fellow pharisees, is just looking for a way to discredit Jesus and Jesus has just thrown open the window of opportunity. Jesus is supposed to be greater than a prophet - yet any prophet of any distinction at all would know enough not be touched by this woman. Yet here is this Jesus supposedly greater than a prophet being touched in a disturbingly intimate way. Obviously he’s not greater than a prophet - he’s no prophet at all.
Simon must be thrilled... But only for a minute...
Jesus lets all of us know that he knows exactly who this woman is... And he lets us know that he knows what’s on Simon’s mind. We can feel the rug slipping out from underneath Simon’s feet. In the foreground Luke is telling us a story about Jesus and Simon and this woman. But in the background he is putting a great big underscore under the fact that Jesus is greater than a prophet.
Poor Simon. Just when he though he was winning... But Jesus doesn’t leave it there. Riddles were a part of dinner entertainment in the pharisee class and Jesus presents Simon with a riddle. Who is more grateful, someone who has a small debt forgiven or someone who has a great debt forgiven? The one with the great debt, Simon supposes. He has to be wondering what is going on, because this isn’t much of a riddle. Jesus, no doubt, has a reputation as a tough customer, so this riddle can’t possibly mean what it appears to mean. Its too obvious. It must be a trick.
And it is a trick in an odd sort of way. Simon the Pharisee thinks this is a riddle about being forgiven. But the woman at Jesus’ feet has already figured it out. Its not about being forgiven, its about having already been forgiven. Its already happened.
This is why this crying woman is so important in the picture. These are not tears of sorrow. They are tears of joy. She isn’t kissing Jesus’ feet as a condemned person trying to placate an angry god. She’s kissing those gracious feet in gratitude - for this is the God of love. Simon is looking forward to something that she knows is already in the past.
Simon could be weeping with joy as well if he weren’t so stuck in thinking that he has to think his way to salvation. And there, at least for me, is the message of the story. God’s grace is freely given. I have to get out of the way. When I can give up thinking my way to salvation then I can get on with living the loving and grace-filled life that God calls me to live.
I’ll be living that humble and grace-filled life along side prostitutes and other sinners. That’s a bit of a challenge. I want God’s Kingdom to be at least a little exclusive. I’d like to know I’m in and others are out. But that is not God’s kingdom.
It was a challenge for people in Paul’s day as well - particularly Cephas who we heard about in the letter to the Galatians.
Cephas was getting the Gospel message. He was growing into Jesus’ way. He was eating with the gentiles, the outcasts - just like Jesus who ate with prostitutes and tax collectors and other marginal people. He was living in the faith that this was OK, that all people are God’s children.
And then the ominous sounding “circumcision faction” put the fear into him. Suddenly he’s backsliding. He has to eat with the right people. He’s building up the things he once tore down. Its an odd thing, because normally when I think of a Christian backsliding, I think of someone hanging out with the wrong people. But that’s backward. Hanging out with the “wrong” people is what God calls us to do. Cephas is backsliding by hanging out with the “right” people...
Cephas is a sinner, like the woman at Jesus’ feet. But he’s rejecting Jesus’ plan and acting more like the Pharisee. He’s living in fear rather than rejoicing. Paul has no time for it - because its not the way Jesus calls us to live.
Now there was one more reading this morning - from the book of Second Samuel. I have to admit I’d just as soon ignore it because it ends in such a disturbing way. Nathan tells David that God is going to cause his child to die because of David’s wicked behavior. That just utterly derails me. I truly don’t believe God kills children as a way of punishing their parents. I just don’t believe it.
But when I stop fixating on the end of the story I see there are some other things along the way. God has richly blessed David - just as God richly blesses us all. But its not enough for David. He wants more and he takes more. More than he needs and more than God gives him. And for this God punishes him.
When I look at this through the lens of that weeping woman at Jesus’s feet what do I see? I see someone who is arrogant and greedy. And if I look hard enough I see someone who is fearful. Even in his great abundance he doesn’t have enough. He must have more.
So much of our relationship with God is driven by fear - fear that we are not good enough, or that we are hanging out with people who are not good enough. Fear of punishment and fear of failure. These fears spill over into all our relationships and do tremendous damage.
We need to look at that joyful, weeping prostitute as she caresses and kisses those gracious feet. She isn’t good enough. We aren’t good enough. Our friends aren’t good enough. And it just doesn’t matter at all.
It isn’t that what we do doesn’t matter. We can’t love God without loving our neighbors and ourselves. We can’t love God without loving justice. And that love will spill over into every aspect of our lives like the mighty river that Isaiah speaks of - which waters the whole earth.
God of all creation, make our hearts open so that we too may weep with joy at your feet and that our love may pour forth like a river.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Feast of the Holy Eucarist - Thu 07 Jun 2007
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother Adam D. McCoy, OHC
BCP – Corpus Christi - Thursday 07 June 2007
during Chapter 2007 of the Order of the Holy Cross
When David (Br. David Bryan Hoopes, Superior of OHC) asked me to say a word on the Feast of Corpus Christi this morning, the first image that came to my mind was that of sacrifice. Not the sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple. Even with texts familiar to us chanted in the background, the carryings on would have seemed strange -- the blood flowing off the corners of the altars, priests whose practical liturgical training encompassed animal dismemberment. No, the image that came to me was of pagan sacrifice, the type that most of our ancestors practiced in one form or another, and which at some residual level remains in our cultural template.
The communion sacrifice in many cultures was the way ordinary, non-high status people got to eat meat. In Roman society, when a Really Big Sacrifice was called for, at a time of great need, or a celebration of good fortune, a well-favored person would buy a bull, which would cost about as much as a small car would for us. The preparations would be made, the invitations would be sent out, and a day or so before, the bull would be gorgeously and gaudily decorated and servants would lead it through the town crying out an announcement so that everyone would see what a splendid and expensive beast was being given to the gods, and, of course, by whom, and so that all would know, even if they were not invited (perhaps especially if they were not invited) that a communion sacrifice of immense cost was shortly to be held.
The day would come, the donor and his family and friends would dress in their finest and would form a parade from their house to the temple. The priests would do the proper thing and kill the animal in the proper way. No doubt a verdict of "Most acceptable to the gods" would be rendered. The beast would be cut up, the blood and entrails and stench of the act would fill the altar space. The temple would receive its tithe, which would probably be sold to the local butcher shops, providing income to the temple and meat for the market. Then the temple kitchen would swing into gear, the rest of the meat would be cooked, people would open their baskets with bread and wine and other food, and the invited guests would settle into a communion banquet, which would probably look like an especially elegant parish potluck supper. Those not invited would look on, hungry or excluded, and go home and plot and plan their own sacrifice, if they could afford one.
And if they couldn't, well, too bad for them. Filled bellies and happy times for those inside the circle. Exclusion, envy, sadness for those not invited.
As Scripture says in a not dissimilar context, "Happy are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." Did you get your invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb?
Yesterday we ended the afternoon, at least in our small discussion group, talking about Carl's (Br. Carl Sword, OHC) vivid image of free-floating fear, and how fear has paralyzed us in various ways. I would not be surprised to hear that other groups pursued that image as well. And we just spent the morning listening, listening, to each other, to a lot of fear. Often we feel unable to speak or act in loving honesty because of fear. Here I will speak only of my own fears, but I invite you to ponder yours. My guess is that I am not entirely unique. My guess is that Carl is right, and that we all participate in the ways of fear.
I am afraid of exclusion, of rejection, of being cast out. These fears are deep in me. Prayer, therapy, spiritual direction, and experience have helped uncover the roots of these fears. I have learned to name some of them and to some extent to reassign meanings to them. More often now than in the past I recognize these fears as I see them approaching, and from time to time I am able to welcome them, give them their proper place, not in the front parlor, but more like the back bedroom, of the household of my mind, and then get on with whatever I need to do. But sometimes there they are, out in the front room, talking to the guests again.
In order to cope with these moments, I have learned some strategies. Shutting down emotionally. Clamming up and not saying what needs to be said. Looking for approval. Or the opposite -- rolling over the situation like a piece of large construction equipment flattening a road before it is paved over. Perhaps these responses are not unknown to you as well.
"Perfect love casteth out fear", as the first Letter of John reminds us. Which is helpful and hopeful, until I consider that my love is not, and likely will not ever be, perfect. Perhaps it is not my love, but someone else's, that casts out the fear.
Which brings us back to the Holy Eucharist, to Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, to sacrifice. The Christian religion is built on paradoxes. Not every religion is, but ours is. A savior who is both Human and Divine. A God who is both One and Three. A communion sacrifice in which the priest is the victim, offering himself as food and the drink. Bread which is flesh, wine which is blood. A meal for his closest companions to which the whole world is invited, to which exclusion comes only if we exclude ourselves. How more perfect could love be, to turn your own body into food, to be yourself the sacrificer and the sacrificed, the cook and the food? To wrap a towel around your waist and wash the feet of the unworthy and unlikely guests you -- the high status donor -- have yourself invited into discipleship, with the expectation that this new way of entertaining will become the fashion for your followers?
George Herbert – that wonderful seventeenth century priest and poet – George Herbert’s wonderful poem, Love (III), envisions just such a situation. He, sad, feeling excluded, and rejected, is invited into this meal. He does not know how to respond to Love’s generosity, just as we - I - often do not know how to respond when Love breaks through our - my - well-accustomed fears and defenses. But Love will not accept his refusal, and draws him in, and makes him - us - his honored guest.
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
We are compelled by Love's invitation. Love brings us to His banquet table and serves us His own life. Inadequate as we are, we are Love’s honored guests. Put away fear. Sit and eat.
Brother Adam D. McCoy, OHC
BCP – Corpus Christi - Thursday 07 June 2007
during Chapter 2007 of the Order of the Holy Cross
When David (Br. David Bryan Hoopes, Superior of OHC) asked me to say a word on the Feast of Corpus Christi this morning, the first image that came to my mind was that of sacrifice. Not the sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple. Even with texts familiar to us chanted in the background, the carryings on would have seemed strange -- the blood flowing off the corners of the altars, priests whose practical liturgical training encompassed animal dismemberment. No, the image that came to me was of pagan sacrifice, the type that most of our ancestors practiced in one form or another, and which at some residual level remains in our cultural template.
The communion sacrifice in many cultures was the way ordinary, non-high status people got to eat meat. In Roman society, when a Really Big Sacrifice was called for, at a time of great need, or a celebration of good fortune, a well-favored person would buy a bull, which would cost about as much as a small car would for us. The preparations would be made, the invitations would be sent out, and a day or so before, the bull would be gorgeously and gaudily decorated and servants would lead it through the town crying out an announcement so that everyone would see what a splendid and expensive beast was being given to the gods, and, of course, by whom, and so that all would know, even if they were not invited (perhaps especially if they were not invited) that a communion sacrifice of immense cost was shortly to be held.
The day would come, the donor and his family and friends would dress in their finest and would form a parade from their house to the temple. The priests would do the proper thing and kill the animal in the proper way. No doubt a verdict of "Most acceptable to the gods" would be rendered. The beast would be cut up, the blood and entrails and stench of the act would fill the altar space. The temple would receive its tithe, which would probably be sold to the local butcher shops, providing income to the temple and meat for the market. Then the temple kitchen would swing into gear, the rest of the meat would be cooked, people would open their baskets with bread and wine and other food, and the invited guests would settle into a communion banquet, which would probably look like an especially elegant parish potluck supper. Those not invited would look on, hungry or excluded, and go home and plot and plan their own sacrifice, if they could afford one.
And if they couldn't, well, too bad for them. Filled bellies and happy times for those inside the circle. Exclusion, envy, sadness for those not invited.
As Scripture says in a not dissimilar context, "Happy are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." Did you get your invitation to the wedding supper of the Lamb?
Yesterday we ended the afternoon, at least in our small discussion group, talking about Carl's (Br. Carl Sword, OHC) vivid image of free-floating fear, and how fear has paralyzed us in various ways. I would not be surprised to hear that other groups pursued that image as well. And we just spent the morning listening, listening, to each other, to a lot of fear. Often we feel unable to speak or act in loving honesty because of fear. Here I will speak only of my own fears, but I invite you to ponder yours. My guess is that I am not entirely unique. My guess is that Carl is right, and that we all participate in the ways of fear.
I am afraid of exclusion, of rejection, of being cast out. These fears are deep in me. Prayer, therapy, spiritual direction, and experience have helped uncover the roots of these fears. I have learned to name some of them and to some extent to reassign meanings to them. More often now than in the past I recognize these fears as I see them approaching, and from time to time I am able to welcome them, give them their proper place, not in the front parlor, but more like the back bedroom, of the household of my mind, and then get on with whatever I need to do. But sometimes there they are, out in the front room, talking to the guests again.
In order to cope with these moments, I have learned some strategies. Shutting down emotionally. Clamming up and not saying what needs to be said. Looking for approval. Or the opposite -- rolling over the situation like a piece of large construction equipment flattening a road before it is paved over. Perhaps these responses are not unknown to you as well.
"Perfect love casteth out fear", as the first Letter of John reminds us. Which is helpful and hopeful, until I consider that my love is not, and likely will not ever be, perfect. Perhaps it is not my love, but someone else's, that casts out the fear.
Which brings us back to the Holy Eucharist, to Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, to sacrifice. The Christian religion is built on paradoxes. Not every religion is, but ours is. A savior who is both Human and Divine. A God who is both One and Three. A communion sacrifice in which the priest is the victim, offering himself as food and the drink. Bread which is flesh, wine which is blood. A meal for his closest companions to which the whole world is invited, to which exclusion comes only if we exclude ourselves. How more perfect could love be, to turn your own body into food, to be yourself the sacrificer and the sacrificed, the cook and the food? To wrap a towel around your waist and wash the feet of the unworthy and unlikely guests you -- the high status donor -- have yourself invited into discipleship, with the expectation that this new way of entertaining will become the fashion for your followers?
George Herbert – that wonderful seventeenth century priest and poet – George Herbert’s wonderful poem, Love (III), envisions just such a situation. He, sad, feeling excluded, and rejected, is invited into this meal. He does not know how to respond to Love’s generosity, just as we - I - often do not know how to respond when Love breaks through our - my - well-accustomed fears and defenses. But Love will not accept his refusal, and draws him in, and makes him - us - his honored guest.
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
We are compelled by Love's invitation. Love brings us to His banquet table and serves us His own life. Inadequate as we are, we are Love’s honored guests. Put away fear. Sit and eat.
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