BCP - Proper 23 C - 14 Oct 2007

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Daniel Ludik, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 23 C - Sunday 14 October 2007

Ruth: (1-7) 8-19a

2 Timothy 2: (3-7) 8-15

Luke 17: 11-19

When I applied for my visa to come to the US, there was a separate form that men have to have to complete that deals with military involvement.

One of the questions asked is whether you have been involved in a war as an aggressor and in what capacity and whether you have been involved in a war as a victim. The official at the Embassy was quite bemused when I answered yes to both these questions.

Even though I am a born and bred Namibian, we were administered by South Africa until the 24^th of March 1990, when we became independent. Prior to that we were part of the whole South African apparatus and as such we were involved in South Africa’s fight to maintain apartheid. Anyway, I was conscripted into that, but that is another story.

Then, in 1995, I had the opportunity with two friends to go and farm in the Republic of the Congo. Africa being Africa, we did our homework as well as we could. We visited the Congo three times to investigate all possible pro’s and con’s. We tried to get a feel for the country and its people, how comfortable we were with their government and structures, how willing the people were to receive us on the terms their government stipulated for us, the markets, etc.

We tried to plan for every contingency and eventuality; some of us even prayed about it – not me though, I was not in the praying mode then. Like Timothy exhorts us, we tried to follow all the rules!

We have eventually convinced ourselves that it was a good deal and we converted everything we owned into cash: cars, houses, pensions, policies, and bought the supplies we would need to get started. Then we shipped the whole toot to Ponte Noire and flew up to meet our destiny. Despite all the usual bureaucratic hiccups, we were eventually settled on the farm and started doing what we came there to do: to plough and plant and be independent.

All went well; we had cleared hectares of virgin soil and planted maize (corn in this part of the world) and vegetables and were calculating our profits, when the civil war broke out. There was a dispute between the sitting president and the previous president over the tiny problem of a private army of 5000 men belonging to the ex-president. The two could not see eye to eye on having this army roaming the countryside in the build-up to elections. The rest is now part is now part of history.

Anyway, one night while we were in hiding in the provincial capital, Dolisie, the three of us with the wives and child got together and that was when I said to God: get us out of this and I will reconsider. Reconsider what? Well, I was to find out big time!

When we eventually returned to the farm, it was cleared out, so my friends, being married, eventually decided to return to South Africa, but I stayed behind to work in the Congo, and like the one healed leper, I got more that I bargained for!

Just like we had the goal to become rich and independent, so the ten lepers of the Gospel had the goal to be healed. They have heard about this man, Jesus, who can heal the sick and do other wonders, and when they heard he was coming their way, they made sure they got close enough to him to ask him to heal them. They cried out for healing, probably also promising to reconsider, as I did, and Jesus tells them to go show themselves to the priests. As we know, in those days, the priests had to declare them clean and healthy before they could rejoin society.

This time Jesus did not touch them, he called on them to have faith, and in believing they were healed. They must have been overjoyed, and I would imagine a bit gob smacked; imagine being a smelly, filthy wreck of a person one moment and the next we are clean and able to move freely, and even more importantly, we are not outcasts anymore, but once again we are part of society!

I also see the healing from leprosy of the lepers as a visible demonstration of sin and what happens when God forgives us our sins. Just try and imagine what these poor lepers looked like, covered in sores and most probably limbs and digits missing, and then they were healed and whole! What a wonderful image!

Yet, even though all of them were healed, only one of them, the Samaritan, turned back and, prostrating himself, thanked Jesus. Jesus then told him to get up and go, his faith has healed him.

Of course the others were also healed by their faith. They did not have a relapse of leprosy because they did not go back, at least I do not think so. They did receive the blessing of healing, but they missed out on the blessing of a relationship with Jesus.

And that was part of the blessing that I did not bargain on when I said I would reconsider! Like Ruth, I was wandering without much in a foreign land, and yet God was there to comfort me and guide me. And this experience eventually gave me the courage to, once again, risk everything to follow God. When I became a monk, I did it willingly, and in gratitude, because I knew if I wanted healing, I had to have faith! Once we have freedom from worldly anxiety and fear and trust in faith, we have amazing freedom for God’s work.

Another blessing in this Gospel is the knowledge that God is available for a relationship with all of us; not just a chosen few. If the Samaritan, who was considered a double outcast: he was from the wrong tribe and had leprosy, if he could be healed and brought into a relationship with God, that means we all have a place; BUT the choice is ours.

WF Arndt, a Lutheran scholar writes: “The faith of the Samaritan had not only led to his physical health, but had brought him full salvation, the forgiveness of his sins, a place among God’s children. In the case of the nine, faith had gripped their hearts in the hour of their bitter need, but it had evaporated when the misery was gone!”

It is like our coming to church, week after week; what is it that we want or look for? There will be as many answers as people you put the question to, but I think the important thing is to keep our central goal in focus; knowing Christ and building a relationship with him, and to make our home in him. To know God is to serve God, we cannot separate the two. And to serve God is to act. As Christians we are called to conversion and to act is to convert; believe, forgive, repent, serve, LOVE.

Amen.

BCP - Proper 22 C - 07 Oct 2007

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Magliula, n/OHC
BCP - Proper 22 C - Sunday 07 October 2007

Habakkuk 1:1-6(7-11)12-13;2:1-4
2 Timothy 1:(1-5)6-14
Luke 17:5-10


No wonder they longed for and asked for increased faith. On their own, the disciples knew they had no chance of doing what Jesus had summoned them to do: leave home for his sake, love enemies, bless persecutors, judge not, lay up no riches, carry no possessions, give to whoever asks, be servants, wash feet, catch people like fish, heal the sick, never worry, don’t cause others to stumble, forgive endlessly. That last one is what they were told just before they gasped: “Increase our faith.”

The disciples, like the rest of us, knew their limits, at least some of the time. Then there were those other times---those mountain top times---when they felt capable of so much more, when they were certain that they could go so much further. We know these moments---the ones when we feel so loved and accepted that we feel capable of almost anything. In those moments things come together just right, things make sense, they work.

Why do we find ourselves slipping from what feels like increased to little faith? How can we be so trusting one moment and so not the next. The human condition looks like a sieve when it comes to faith. We leak. We hemorrhage. Faith drains from us in any number of ways: sin, routine, distraction, fatigue, depression, anxiety, boredom, laziness. I’ve come to realize that for me, faith fades most through the rigors of daily existence. The dramatic and the traumatic certainly take their toll, but at such times, I feel faith oddly strengthened. It’s the daily living that wears me down.

The point that Luke is trying to make is that disciples’ need outside help if they want to live the life Jesus calls them to live. Faith for Jesus was radical trust in God---in all things and for all things. It was personal and intimate, childlike in its simplicity. It was marked by a wholehearted willingness to trust God in every dimension of life---anywhere and everywhere, in things great and small. For those who place themselves in this sort of position, who yield their deepest selves to God, for them, all things are possible. This is the place from which flows abundant life. The power of faith has less to do with moving mountains than it does with empowering us to live the life God desires us to live.

We need not wait, as the disciples thought, for large faith before we tackle the practical problems of living. We need only act on the small faith we already have, faith small as the tiny mustard seed. If we pray, trusting God’s will for salvation, for healing, for grace to love someone unlovable, or to forgive an enemy, even small faith can result in unbelievable things.

A contemporary image of faith compares it to a muscle. You use it or you lose it. Living morally, having conscious contact with God on a daily basis, loving our neighbor, are ways of exercising and developing our faith. Look at the prophet Habakkuk. The people of Judea are about to be crushed by the fierce and cruel Chaldeans. He laments to God, “How long shall I cry out for help and you will not listen?” Yet despite the confusion, the frustration, and the ruin that is all around him, he remembers that his God is faithful, that God will have an answer. However long it takes, he will wait. Keeping faith with God in difficult times, keeping faith with what sometimes feels like a difficult God, lies at the heart of our Gospel for today. God’s faithfulness is more important than our faith. Jesus knew this, but it is something that we easily forget. That’s why when we come together as a community on Sunday, we recite the creed---we remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness by recalling our salvation history in the Eucharistic prayer.

Action elicits faith. Trust grows when it is nourished even in the face of what seems unlikely and impossible. The power of faith is as unlimited as the power of God because it is of God. It is not based on our strength, our intelligence, our achievements, our influence. Like the disciples, we need not wait for an infusion of faith in order to live our lives. We need not be more than human with our fears, anxieties, and doubts. We have all been or are in the place that Habakkuk was---not hearing, seeing, feeling God’s presence in the midst of our lives. It is not a place that inspires trust. But God does respond. “Look and see”, God says, “be astonished, be astounded”. God gives an insight, a vision, that gives us the courage to trust, to wait, to look more deeply into ourselves, into our God. It is already within us, whether we can recognize it or name it. By uncovering our longing to trust, to be faithful in the place we find ourselves at this moment, we unearth the astonishing reality of what is already there. In effect, Jesus turns the disciples request around on them. "Increase our faith", they ask, and he points out to them that they have enough already. In spite of their fears, anxieties, inadequaties, they have what is needed. We have what is needed, and we are encouraged to live as though we do. David Whyte has a poem called Faith which speaks to this place where we so often find ourselves. It begins.

I want to write about faith,
About the way the moon rises over cold snow
night after night,
faithful even in its fading from fullness.
Slowly becoming that last, curving, and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.
But I have no faith myself.
I do not give it the smallest entry.
Let this then my small poem
like a new moon
slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

+Amen

The poem "Faith" is from "Where Many Rivers Meet", by David Whyte

BCP - Proper 21 C - 30 Sep 2007

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Reginald Martin Crenshaw, OHC
BCP - Proper 21 C - Sunday 30 September 2007

Amos 6:1-7
1 Timothy 6:11-19
Luke 16:19-31, in The Message version, as read and preached by Br. Reginald.

Let us pray: No matter what you’re going through You don’t have to worry and don’t be afraid because joy comes in the morning, troubles they don’t last always for there is a friend in Jesus who will wipe away your tears. You don’t have to be afraid and if your heart is broken just lift your hands and say, I know that I can make it, no matter what may come my way, My life is in your hands. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (The words are a portion of Kirk Franklin’s-“My Life is in your hands” from his CD entitled--God’s property)


Begin: I want to begin this morning’s reflection on the Gospel with the prophet Amos. I begin here because Amos as usual comes to the point, He wastes few words and his words opens us to this mornings Gospel with clarity. He says, “Alas for those who are at ease in Zion and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria…who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp…who drink wine from bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile. The reference “to the ruin of Joseph” means lack of concern for the welfare for the people of Zion- the people, the masses- one’s fellow human being. If you ignore the people, reject them oppress them because you can because of your wealth, or if you ignore the concerns and welfare of the people as you bathe in your privilege and wealth, you will be the first to be sent away.

Amos is listening and articulating the community’s groans and giving them a voice. A groan is different from a mere complaint or gripe. By definition, a groan is inarticulate. It is a cry of deep distress or pain that does not always reveal its source or cause. Amos is sensitive to groans-the inarticulate cries of a people’s distress—because such groans are the initial and indisputable signs which announce: “all is not well!! Something is terribly wrong. This is not how God wants things to be.

This is the context for understanding this morning’s gospel story about Lazarus and the rich man. We are presented with a situation in which wealth, power and privilege is set against oppression, pain, and suffering. Each world, the world of wealth, privilege, and power and the world of oppression, pain and suffering are magnified in this morning’s gospel and are brought together for dialogue and reflection by the concurrent deaths of the rich man and Lazarus. This gives us the opportunity to confront these two worlds with all they represent and with all the realties these two worlds reveal so that we can learn to respond with the light of faith. That is with righteousness, godliness, endurance, gentleness, and love. Well, there it is, all we have to do is follow it. It is all so easy to do but is it?

In our novitiate Bible study on Friday, Br. James reminded us of this. It is so clear, he said, that we are told what to do and it really is that easy, what’s the problem but, the issue is is it that easy? Do we get it? What gets in the way of us not getting it? And why didn’t the rich man get it. What was in his way? And Brother Robert reminded us about the issue of entitlement of the rich man that even in Hades he didn’t get it. He was still trying to negotiate with Abraham when he saws him with Lazarus. Clearly from his perspective there was a resolution to his torment without a change in either his behavior, consciousness or attitude.) He even goes so far as to request that Abraham work a miracle. He was to come back from the dead and tell his remaining brothers that they ought to live differently. (so maybe he did get it at least partially) Abraham refuses also recognizing that he doesn’t get it enough by saying to him that if they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, that is, to pay attention to God’s dream for humanity as revealed through the prophets, the Torah and Moses, a miracle is irrelevant. Their minds and hearts won’t be changed by the extraordinary entrance into their lives of the dead. It would be viewed as another form of entertainment.

The point is that power and privilege often results in a fundamental dis-ease that I call “lack of awareness.” This “lack of awareness” puts one in isolation and out of relationship with the rest of humanity. It is an inability to see and understand that the human person is formed, shaped, affirmed and identified, through a complex organic relationship among and with other human beings in which compassion, mercy, love and justice are the threads that make the human organism of relationship so profound and holy. Therefore, human beings are not commodities that can be bought sold, or ignored at will. To commodify other human beings is a supreme act of atheism. You have set yourself outside of everything, outside of God’s creation. This is a profound ignorance this “lack of awareness” that affects your ability to love, to be intimate, to seek peace and justice Let alone to show compassion and mercy. Lack of awareness also means that one takes no responsibility for the process of restoring, repairing or making satisfaction for restoring harmony to the human community. It prevents one from achieving that purity of heart by which we see and commune with God.

The point of the Gospel is that this dis-ease of “lack of awareness” is a particular temptation for persons with wealth. This dis-ease is not just the problem for the wealthy but the comfort of wealth and power enable “lack of awareness” to run rampant and undeterred.

The antidote for this dis-ease is found at the end of today’s second lesson, 1 Timothy 6:11-19. It reads: “ As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.
If you failed in this The Rev. James Cleveland sums up the results this way in His Gospel hymn “It’s goin' be too late”. The hymns says: “Won’t it be sad, so sad if my Jesus comes and you won’t be ready, sad, so sad, its goin' to be too late…Don’t let him catch you with your work undone. It will be sad, so sad, its goin' to be to late.” Amen.