A double First Profession of the Monastic Vow - Joseph & Randy - 17 Apr 2008

Here we are gathered for a most wonderful event - not just a profession, but a double profession. It is truly a day in which joy overflows.

Joseph and Randy's professions - Randy vested with the cowl

The sermon is normally a time to reflect on our encounter with God through scripture. But I’m more interested today in reflecting on our encounter with God through community.

In fact, I was so certain that I wasn’t going to talk about today’s scripture readings that I was hardly interested in knowing what they were. But I thought - maybe I just better at least read them over once before today... and I’m rather glad I did...

When monastic life and scripture are talked about together, one story, the story of the rich young man who must sell everything and then follow Jesus, is generally at the center of the discussion. But today’s Gospel reading gives an even more fundamental description of the call to life in a monastic community.

You may have missed it since it went by rather quickly, so let me review... “My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me.” There you have it.

This particular chapter in John’s telling of the Gospel is full of references to sheep and the care of sheep. Just before this particular passage, Jesus has given a discussion on sheep and gatekeepers. The gatekeeper opens the gate - the sheep hear his voice. The gatekeeper calls the sheep by name and leads them. They follow because they recognize the voice.

This, in a nutshell, is what a vocation is all about. God calls. We recognize the voice and we respond to that call. That is vocation pure and simple.

There are infinite ways in which God may call us; the monastic life is just one peculiar way. But it appears to be the way in which Randy and Joseph are called. And so we are here today to celebrate.

The monastic life has its idiosyncrasies. Brothers within the Order of the Holy Cross have their own idiosyncrasies... some might even suggest that I have one or two idiosyncrasies... but this passage from John hints at that as well. The shepherd knows each sheep. Each sheep is called by its own name. Each sheep has its own identity; its own personality.

The way that God calls Randy and the way that God calls Joseph is unique, because they are unique. They are addressed specifically - not generically... all of us are - not just monks and nuns. Each of us is called as an individual. If you want something that marks a hard line between a Godly vocation and a cult - there it is.

We are not generically called to some homogenized life. Jesus brings to us unending life - abundant life. St Iranaeus tells us that the glory of God is the human person fully alive. The full flowering of our individual personhood is an essential part of our faithful response to God’s call. The rich and abundant diversity in that call is a reflection of the abundance of life that Jesus talks about - that Jesus calls us to.

This is important today because in just a few moments Randy and Joseph will vow stability, obedience, and conversion of their ways to the monastic way of life - the Benedictine vow. And at various times that vow has been understood to mean uniformity, conformity, inflexibility, and the giving up of individual identity.

But Jesus doesn’t know us by our species, or by our race, or even by our community or family... Jesus knows us by our own name. Even as we are called into community, we are called to honor the gifts that define us as individuals. We are called to a life that is abundant and whole.

The Orthodox have a wonderfully annoying way of always talking about God in terms of contradiction. It’s a way of reminding us that our knowledge of God is always incomplete, inadequate, and partial. God is always beyond human language and understanding. Some contradictions are Godly.

It is a Godly contradiction that joining a community is a way of becoming a whole individual. Just as losing our lives is key to having life through Jesus.

And what do we do with that life - monastic or otherwise? What does God call us to do?

The words of Jesus as he washes the disciples feet are still fresh in our ears from Holy Week. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you are to love one another.” The monastic life is just another way of living our baptized life. The monastery is, in its way, a school of love. As is parish life, as is all Christian life.

Another Godly contradiction - God calls us each by name and in a unique way to do exactly the same thing: Love one another as God loves us.

I said at the outset that I wanted to focus on our encounter with the Gospel in the lives of Randy and Joseph, but I do so with at least a little caution. For if there is one person in this room who would like to be the center of attention even less than me, its Joseph. And if there is one person in this room who would like to be the center of attention even less than Joseph, its Randy. Its would be astoundingly easy to traumatize them both - and therefore it is a great temptation... but I don’t suppose that is a Godly temptation...

Nonetheless, we are not a community of hermits. We are called to love and be loved in a public way. Our light is not meant to be hidden.

It would be much more comfortable if it were the case that we always got everything right and were always good models and examples. But we are human and all the weaknesses, prejudices, ill tempers and misdemeanors that are part of us follow us into the monastery just as all our strengths and gifts do.

Moreover, in a profound way, struggling with our shortcomings is a more helpful example for others than doing well at things that come easily.

As I have grown to know and love both Randy and Joseph over these past several years I have watched them struggle in difficult and inspiring ways. The willingness to struggle is one of the gifts they bring to community.

One lesson stands out in particular - because it is my struggle too. In this school of love we learn to love God, to love our neighbors, to love ourselves, and here comes the problem: to let ourselves be loved.

It seems counter-intuitive. Being loved - letting ourselves be loved - should be the easiest of things. What, after all, could be bad about being loved?

And yet as I have watched these two men and seen my own struggle reflected, I am aware that accepting love is not easy. Loving God is easy. Loving others is easy - at least some of the time. Loving ourselves - well at least I understand the challenge. Letting myself be loved...

To let myself be loved is to let myself be known... For those of us who don’t welcome the attention, that is a problem.

So Randy and Joseph - fellow sheep... you have heard God’s voice and recognized it and now you are ready to follow another step; to move to the graduate program in this school of love.

I hope you will experience it as a warm and loving step further into the embrace of this community and, ultimately, into the embrace of God.

But keep in mind the fact that as much as you are embracing, you are also being embraced. It is nothing less than faithful obedience to God through your vow to accept that embrace, to let yourselves be loved.

Amen.

Randy's Monastic Vow in his own hand