Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
RCL – Easter 3 C – Sunday 18 April 2010
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
Here we are in the third Sunday of Eastertide and an interesting pattern in the scripture readings has caught my attention. Week by week we are learning that recognizing Jesus isn’t so easy...
Last week we heard the story of Thomas, who, when he comes face to face with the risen Jesus, needs tangible proof. He can’t see Jesus even when he’s standing face to face with him. He has to look for wounds.
And even before that, on Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus at the empty tomb. She looks at Jesus, but all she can see is a gardener. Not until he calls her by name does she recognize him.
This week we find some of the disciples still having trouble recognizing Jesus. At the Sea of Tiberias they have an unproductive night of fishing. In the morning they see Jesus, but they don’t recognize him. Jesus says “Children, you have no fish.” and they still don’t catch on. He tells them to give the net one more try, and for some reason they obey. When the net comes back unexpectedly full they finally recognize Jesus.
What if that net had come back empty, or with just a few fish... Would their encounter with the risen Christ have gone unnoticed? Just another inconsequential encounter with a stranger?
When we are face to face with someone, what do we see... and what do we fail to see?
Today we also have the story of Saul, who is just being made over into Paul. We tend to think of people coming to faith, but in Saul’s case, faith comes to him - aggressively. Saul is literally blinded by faith.
Being blinded by faith is not all that uncommon. And it's frightening - both to those who are blinded and to those who have to live with them.
Religious zealots, blinded by their faith, are willing to sacrifice themselves to the god of terror. They can fill pickup trucks with explosives, or wear their bombs as garments. They are willing to die for their faith - which is admirable. But they are also willing to kill for their faith - which is evil.
Sometimes religious blindness is much more intimate. I heard the story of a mother, a fundamentalist Christian, who’s sixteen year-old son told her he was gay. Believing that God hates homosexuals, including her son, she kicked him out of the house. A teenager, left to fend for himself and feeling utterly worthless and unlovable, he fairly quickly contracted AIDS and died. This mother now lives with tremendous sorrow. Her eyes, like Paul’s, have been opened. She dedicates her life to working with other parents to build bridges between them and their children.
If Paul’s story tells us anything about being blinded by faith, its that it is passing condition. Saul’s blindness gives way to Paul’s vision. Paul serves God with his eyes wide open. Faith in Jesus, the risen Lord, is a journey of vision, not of blindness.
The prophet Amos tells us that without a vision, we perish. Faith that lacks vision, blind faith, is deadly. The faith of Saul is blinded and blinding. The faith Paul is filled with vision.
There is a parallel between the disciples and Paul. The disciples having trouble seeing and Saul is completely blinded. Saul recovers his sight in a moment and the disciples seem to gain the ability to see clearly bit by bit. Lack of vision is followed by vision.
Saint Benedict tells us that we are to look for Jesus in the face of strangers. It's not so easy - clearly the disciples struggled. So we will struggle too.
So then what?
The little private chat Jesus has with Simon Peter at the end of today’s Gospel reading may be one of the most important conversations in the history of conversation. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks... Not once, but three times.
When you keep asking the same question, its usually because you don’t believe the answer. And clearly that’s the way Simon Peter interprets it, because by the third time he’s hurt.
But there is another circumstance when we ask the same question several times - and that’s when life depends on it. For example: sky divers, when they are getting ready to jump from the plane, check the parachute... several times... I think the reason Jesus repeats the question is because life depends on it.
If you love me, feed my sheep. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
Notice what is and what is not asked. Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep.
As modern people we don’t tend to spend a lot of time with sheep - or with any type of livestock for that matter. If you love me, pet my cat doesn’t sound quite so transcendent...
Feeding and caring for animals is a very earthy, humble enterprise. It is not deeply intellectual, though it surely requires intelligence.
Most of all, it requires presence. You can’t tend sheep from the comfort of your home. To tend them, to attend to them, you have to be with them, observing them, seeing what their bodily functions are telling you.
Jesus is not calling Simon Peter to some rarefied and elevated work. “If you love me, be a priest in my temple...” Shepherds were at the low end of the socioeconomic scale. Jesus is calling Simon Peter down the ladder of society. And of course we recall that Jesus frequently spent time with the people at the bottom.
Jesus could have asked Simon Peter to lead his sheep... or teach his sheep... or to separate the good sheep from the bad... or to guard his sheep... or to hunt down the predators of his sheep... and Jesus is not asking for any of that.
Feed the sheep. Pay attention to them.
Jesus is speaking metaphorically. We know he’s not talking about actual sheep. He’s talking about our brothers and sisters... About us...
I think we are tempted also to hear the words "feed" and "tend" as metaphor as well. And I’m quite convinced they are not.
I think when Jesus tells Simon Peter to feed and tend the sheep, he is being literal. He wants Simon Peter, and by extension us, quite literally to attend to our brothers and sisters... to be present with them... to see that they are fed, and clothed, and comforted, and healed.
Jesus' conversation with Simon Peter ends with a two word direction: Follow me.
To follow Jesus we need to be able to see Jesus, to have a vision of Jesus. As with the disciples, sometimes Jesus will be standing directly in front of us, looking at us face to face, and we won’t see him... or her...
Its remarkable how patient Jesus is with the disciples. Its liberating to know that Jesus is just as patient, just as forgiving, with us.
Our own convictions and beliefs, like Saul’s, may blind us to God. But God doesn’t quit Saul. God recovers Saul and transforms him into Paul. And so, day by day, God transforms us. Perhaps not as traumatically and as instantly as Paul, but God makes us new.
And so we follow as best we can and we feed and tend the sheep - love and care for our brothers and sisters.
Amen.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
RCL - Easter 2 C - 11 Apr 2010
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
RCL – Easter 2 C – Sunday 11 April 2010
Acts 5:27-32
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31
Hallelujah, the Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Hallelujah!
My Lord and my God, our Lord and our God, we thank you for the Beloved Disciple. We thank you for his account of your life, death and resurrection. We thank you for his writing audacity.
He shows us the disciples, the founders of our Christian community as faltering in their faith and understanding of you. Even in your resurrected, incarnated presence, they needed help. In the end, just like them, we can only draw our next breath and rely on your Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, to help us live in faith.
Amen.
*****
It is Sunday evening, the disciples, most of them, are cowering in a house they hope is safe. For good measure, they have locked the doors. They are afraid and frazzled. They are wondering about so many things.
Will someone denounce them to the authorities as the followers of Yeshua of Nazareth who was executed 2 days ago? Will someone accuse them of stealing his body from his tomb? That crime alone would call for death under roman law. Why is Mary Magdalene saying she saw the Lord alive? What did she really see? Is Jesus really alive? Didn't he mention that he would come back from the dead?
The disciples are living in fear and guilt. Then Mary Magdalene's witness is suddenly validated when Jesus is amongst them. "Peace to you" he says to them. As if to assuage their enduring doubts, he shows them his wounds. This is the man some of them saw die on the cross. And yet he is alive amongst them. "Peace to you" Jesus breathes on them. And suddenly, a certainty dawns on them. They know this is Jesus without the shadow of a doubt. A new creation is happening in them.
*****
Later, after Jesus is no longer with them, Thomas returns to them. This disciple whose name is a nickname meaning "The Twin" is not a timorous disciple. While his friends live under the siege of their own fears, he is out and about. Is he ministering to others in the Jesus community? This is the disciple who answered "Let us also go that we might die with him" when Jesus turned towards Jerusalem. This is the disciple whom the tradition says will cross the Persian empire and reach India to evangelize people on his way.
He is a man of his time and a man ahead of his time by several centuries. He does not explicitly disbelieve that his fellow disciples have seen a risen Jesus. In that, he is a man of his time. A modern person would self-censor themselves to not possibly believe such a thing that goes against accepted rationality and is possibly the result of emotions and impressions. But Thomas does not reject the witness of his friends. He demands empirical verification. He will believe on his terms. How modern is that?
Now Thomas is not alone in his phase of conditional belief. That morning, Peter visited the empty tomb. He saw the linens that had been deliberately put aside. And Peter went home puzzled but not believing in the risen Jesus yet.
Mary Magdalene visited the empty tomb too. She saw angels there. Yet she still functioned on rationalizations: "someone, somehow must have moved his body, but where?" She only came to belief once her name was called out by the resurrected One standing in front of her. Mary Magdalene, not unlike Thomas, also wanted to touch Jesus, even to cling to him.
After she goes home to tell the tale, the locked-up disciples don't give credence to Mary Magdalene's account of the risen Jesus; they doubt her, they doubt Jesus. Even risen from the dead, Jesus has to work on the disciples. They don't abandon fear and disbelief so easily to move into faith and peace.
If Thomas is more guilty than any other disciple, it is not for his doubt, but for his pride in enouncing his methodology for arriving at faith.
*****
And a week later, Jesus graciously offers Thomas the possibility to put his methodology to use. "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." But Jesus also adds: "Do not doubt but believe." Some translators argue that the greek verb should actually be rendered: "Do not doubt but continue believing." A much less contrasted enjoinder and one that reflects more of our own Christian experience, I suspect. In any case, it is an invitation most of us need to hear again and again: "Do not doubt but believe, continue believing."
It seems likely that Thomas desists from testing Jesus' wounds. In all likelihood, Thomas also received the Holy Spirit in Jesus' words and did not need any further help to believe. On the contrary, Thomas now makes a portentous theological statement. He recognizes both natures of Jesus; "My Lord and my God." Thomas recognizes the human master he has followed all these years, even to the risk of his life. And he recognizes the divine master who is one with God.
With God's help, Thomas has transcended his own rationalism to arrive to faith. As the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud will write much later in his prose poem "Bad Blood": "I am no prisoner of my own reason. I have said: God!"
*****
And so, it is important to see how Jesus helps these frazzled, fearful, unbelieving founders of our faith community. He gives them the experience necessary for them to come to terms with his divinity. And through the evangelist, Jesus reaches through the ages to you and I when he says to Thomas: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Leo the Great said (in his sermon #74 "of the Lord's Ascension):
You and I can no longer use our senses to experience the living Jesus, or can we?
*****
In community, in worship, in prayer and in mission, Christ is alive. You can taste and see the Lord if you do not doubt but continue believing. And know that you cannot do that on your own but that the Holy Spirit is always with you to enable you to continue believing, if only you will let it help you.
Shortly, you will come forward to partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Taste and see. Jesus was, is and always shall be with you. And you will take Him wherever you go.
As Teresa of Avila prayed:
*****
And so, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Blessed are you who have not seen and yet have come to believe that Jesus is alive and is the Son of God. Through believing may you have life in his name. Peace to you from the Lord Jesus, the Creator of All and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
RCL – Easter 2 C – Sunday 11 April 2010
Acts 5:27-32
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31
Hallelujah, the Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Hallelujah!
My Lord and my God, our Lord and our God, we thank you for the Beloved Disciple. We thank you for his account of your life, death and resurrection. We thank you for his writing audacity.
He shows us the disciples, the founders of our Christian community as faltering in their faith and understanding of you. Even in your resurrected, incarnated presence, they needed help. In the end, just like them, we can only draw our next breath and rely on your Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, to help us live in faith.
Amen.
*****
It is Sunday evening, the disciples, most of them, are cowering in a house they hope is safe. For good measure, they have locked the doors. They are afraid and frazzled. They are wondering about so many things.
Will someone denounce them to the authorities as the followers of Yeshua of Nazareth who was executed 2 days ago? Will someone accuse them of stealing his body from his tomb? That crime alone would call for death under roman law. Why is Mary Magdalene saying she saw the Lord alive? What did she really see? Is Jesus really alive? Didn't he mention that he would come back from the dead?
The disciples are living in fear and guilt. Then Mary Magdalene's witness is suddenly validated when Jesus is amongst them. "Peace to you" he says to them. As if to assuage their enduring doubts, he shows them his wounds. This is the man some of them saw die on the cross. And yet he is alive amongst them. "Peace to you" Jesus breathes on them. And suddenly, a certainty dawns on them. They know this is Jesus without the shadow of a doubt. A new creation is happening in them.
*****
Later, after Jesus is no longer with them, Thomas returns to them. This disciple whose name is a nickname meaning "The Twin" is not a timorous disciple. While his friends live under the siege of their own fears, he is out and about. Is he ministering to others in the Jesus community? This is the disciple who answered "Let us also go that we might die with him" when Jesus turned towards Jerusalem. This is the disciple whom the tradition says will cross the Persian empire and reach India to evangelize people on his way.
He is a man of his time and a man ahead of his time by several centuries. He does not explicitly disbelieve that his fellow disciples have seen a risen Jesus. In that, he is a man of his time. A modern person would self-censor themselves to not possibly believe such a thing that goes against accepted rationality and is possibly the result of emotions and impressions. But Thomas does not reject the witness of his friends. He demands empirical verification. He will believe on his terms. How modern is that?
Now Thomas is not alone in his phase of conditional belief. That morning, Peter visited the empty tomb. He saw the linens that had been deliberately put aside. And Peter went home puzzled but not believing in the risen Jesus yet.
Mary Magdalene visited the empty tomb too. She saw angels there. Yet she still functioned on rationalizations: "someone, somehow must have moved his body, but where?" She only came to belief once her name was called out by the resurrected One standing in front of her. Mary Magdalene, not unlike Thomas, also wanted to touch Jesus, even to cling to him.
After she goes home to tell the tale, the locked-up disciples don't give credence to Mary Magdalene's account of the risen Jesus; they doubt her, they doubt Jesus. Even risen from the dead, Jesus has to work on the disciples. They don't abandon fear and disbelief so easily to move into faith and peace.
If Thomas is more guilty than any other disciple, it is not for his doubt, but for his pride in enouncing his methodology for arriving at faith.
*****
And a week later, Jesus graciously offers Thomas the possibility to put his methodology to use. "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." But Jesus also adds: "Do not doubt but believe." Some translators argue that the greek verb should actually be rendered: "Do not doubt but continue believing." A much less contrasted enjoinder and one that reflects more of our own Christian experience, I suspect. In any case, it is an invitation most of us need to hear again and again: "Do not doubt but believe, continue believing."
It seems likely that Thomas desists from testing Jesus' wounds. In all likelihood, Thomas also received the Holy Spirit in Jesus' words and did not need any further help to believe. On the contrary, Thomas now makes a portentous theological statement. He recognizes both natures of Jesus; "My Lord and my God." Thomas recognizes the human master he has followed all these years, even to the risk of his life. And he recognizes the divine master who is one with God.
With God's help, Thomas has transcended his own rationalism to arrive to faith. As the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud will write much later in his prose poem "Bad Blood": "I am no prisoner of my own reason. I have said: God!"
*****
And so, it is important to see how Jesus helps these frazzled, fearful, unbelieving founders of our faith community. He gives them the experience necessary for them to come to terms with his divinity. And through the evangelist, Jesus reaches through the ages to you and I when he says to Thomas: "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Leo the Great said (in his sermon #74 "of the Lord's Ascension):
" In a mysterious way (Christ) began to be more present to (the disciples) in his godhead once he had become more distant in his humanity... The faith of the believer was being drawn to touch, not with the hand of the flesh but with the understanding of the Spirit, the only-begotten Son, the equal of his Father. "Within a generation or two of the scene we have just relived, no follower of Jesus would any longer have the experiential knowledge of the physical Jesus. Christians could no longer rely upon such experience to prop up their faith.
You and I can no longer use our senses to experience the living Jesus, or can we?
*****
In community, in worship, in prayer and in mission, Christ is alive. You can taste and see the Lord if you do not doubt but continue believing. And know that you cannot do that on your own but that the Holy Spirit is always with you to enable you to continue believing, if only you will let it help you.
Shortly, you will come forward to partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist. Taste and see. Jesus was, is and always shall be with you. And you will take Him wherever you go.
As Teresa of Avila prayed:
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours;
yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion looks out on the world,
yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.
*****
And so, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Blessed are you who have not seen and yet have come to believe that Jesus is alive and is the Son of God. Through believing may you have life in his name. Peace to you from the Lord Jesus, the Creator of All and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Monday, April 5, 2010
RCL - Easter Sunday C - 04 Apr 2010
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC
RCL - Easter Sunday C - Sunday 04 April 2010
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18
Do Not Hold On To Me (Noli Me Tangere)
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!
That's just fun to say. What a joyous morning! And how wonderful to be here with all of you. Happy Easter!
Of the eighteen verses of this morning's Gospel Proclamation, “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb” is the one that that struck me first as I prepared this sermon. In the several commentaries I read about this passage from St. John, there is a great debate among Scripture scholars about the fact that Mary Magdalene is weeping. Many seem to believe that her weeping is a sign of a total lack of faith. Others contend that, no, Mary's weeping is simply a sign of a not fully formed faith that will begin to develop later in the passage. The writing about this one sentence goes on and on and I finally had to stop reading so that my head would stop spinning.
When I read that “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb” I read that the same way I read the last passage in which she is mentioned. Remember back to Friday, as soldiers are dividing Jesus' garments, just after nailing him to the cross, we read that “meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (John 19:25). No doubt she was weeping then as well. All those Scripture scholars seem so concerned about when, or if, Mary Magdalene will come to faith. What they seem to be missing is that she is already living into a deeper commitment to Jesus, because she is living into her love for him.
And as St. Paul tells us, “the greatest of these is love.” Now please don't mistake me for a Gnostic or a Dan Brown type – I'm not talking about Jesus and Mary Magdalene being married or dating or anything else like that. I am talking about a greater love. A love so daring, so bold, that Mary was willing to risk it all to stand there and weep both at the foot of the cross and at the tomb before she knows that Jesus is raised.
We contemporary Christians sometimes get caught up in an understanding of love that is actually based on popular culture, and not on Christianity. We assume that the highest form of love is romantic and that is why, I believe, these ideas about Mary Magdalene have become so popular. But while romantic love can be great, and very life-giving, in our Scripture and in our Tradition, it is God's love for us that is the greatest form of love. And, in return, our love of God and our brothers and sisters, is the highest human expression of that love.
Though there are certainly feelings that are associated with it, love is not a feeling. No, love is an act. It is action. It is a way of being. An act like standing at the foot of the cross. An action like being present to someone who is dying a gruesome death. A way of being that allows you to stand by that person even though there is nothing you can do for them. Our Father Founder, Blessed James Huntington described it this way: “love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.” I might add, as Mary Magdalene weeps.
As Mary is caught up in her grief, wanting so badly to anoint the body of the one she has come to love more than any other, Jesus suddenly appears on the scene, unrecognized by Mary. And he asks her two simple questions: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
Thinking that he was the gardener, Mary responds that she is looking for the body and asks if he will just tell her where it is. Jesus' response is to simply call her name and with that, Mary's life is forever changed. At the sound of her name being called by Jesus, Mary recognizes him and in her joy and exhilaration reaches out to Jesus in order to embrace him and hold him once again.
But Jesus, backs off, and says to her “do not hold on to me.” I imagine that this could have felt like a rejection and hurt terribly in the moment. But Mary still had something to learn. To date, she had loved Jesus as a man. A great man, no doubt, a great teacher, a great healer, a great friend. But a man. Now, as if in slow motion, the greatest revelation of her life is to take place for she is to begin loving this Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus Christ. He who lived and died, and is once again alive and about to ascend to the Father. This is Christ the King, the Mystical Christ. This is the Triumphant Christ who is One with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
But there is more for Mary to learn. Jesus' last words to her bear repeating: "Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” And that, my brothers and sisters, is a major turning point in Salvation History. Jesus is teaching Mary one last eternal truth.
This means a new relationship for Mary. No longer will she have Jesus of Nazareth to learn from, to care for, to love. Now, she will have Jesus Christ in a mystical relationship of love that will be made manifest in prayer. The “do not hold on to me” is by no means a rejection, rather it is meant to free Mary so that she can embrace God in God's fullness. For now, called into a sisterly relationship with Jesus Christ, she can begin to know God as her Father through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
And this is one of the gifts of the Resurrected Christ to each of us. We are called into that same mystical relationship of prayer with our God. We are called into a brotherly or sisterly relationship with Christ in order to be remade in Christ's image. The Eastern Church calls this: theosis. That is, complete union with God. God intends to, quite literally, be our Father. The complete union with God occurs when we are joined, by the Holy Spirit, into brother or sisterhood with the Resurrected Christ.
I find it interesting that in the Western tradition, it is believed that Mary Magdalene left Palestine not long after Jesus ascended, with Lazarus and Martha settling in southern France. Not a bad idea, if you ask me. Lazarus and Martha went on to evangelize that part of the world, while Mary took up residence in a cave and became the first contemplative. No doubt, learning to love Jesus Christ while not holding on to him, but, in fact, forming a deeper union with him, moment by moment, day by day, prayer by prayer.
To study the historical Jesus is a valuable thing and the base line of learning the Scriptures. That can happen by reading commentaries and taking classes. But to know the Resurrected Christ is to know God as our Father, our brother and our Spirit. It is to know God as the very breath we breathe. And that can only happen by not holding on to the historical Jesus, but by coming to know the Resurrected Christ in Glory, which is done in our lives through prayer, meditation, Lectio Divina and daily Eucharist. Brother Andrew spoke to us on Friday about how often we resist really becoming like Jesus. And indeed, we do. It is hard work, work that can lead us down paths we would have never imagined for ourselves. Paths like the one that led to Calvary.
But, in fact, that self-giving over to theosis, complete union with God, is what we are called to do. And that is why we are called to the monastery. And I believe each one of us, everyone of us in this Church has been called to this monastery on this Easter morning; some for life, some for the weekend, others just for the day, but all of us called to come to know Christ in his Resurrected Glory so that we can learn to call Christ our Brother and God our Father.
When we love as Mary Magdalene did, standing there weeping; as Jesus did, hanging there on that cross, we will continually be called into a deeper and deeper love of God just as Mary was. That call to conversion never ends, that's why Benedictine monks take a vow to dedicate our lives to constant conversion. We are called to love more and more deeply; so that, in time, we become pure love, just as Christ is pure love.
My sisters, my brothers, take Christ's invitation to Mary as your own. Let go. Don't hold on any longer, and when Christ asks you: “Whom are you looking for?” Let him know that you seek your Brother and your Father. When we do that, we will be able, like Mary, to weep no more, for we will have seen, and come to know, the Resurrected Lord.
AMEN. ALLELUIA.
Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC
RCL - Easter Sunday C - Sunday 04 April 2010
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18
Do Not Hold On To Me (Noli Me Tangere)
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!
That's just fun to say. What a joyous morning! And how wonderful to be here with all of you. Happy Easter!
Of the eighteen verses of this morning's Gospel Proclamation, “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb” is the one that that struck me first as I prepared this sermon. In the several commentaries I read about this passage from St. John, there is a great debate among Scripture scholars about the fact that Mary Magdalene is weeping. Many seem to believe that her weeping is a sign of a total lack of faith. Others contend that, no, Mary's weeping is simply a sign of a not fully formed faith that will begin to develop later in the passage. The writing about this one sentence goes on and on and I finally had to stop reading so that my head would stop spinning.
When I read that “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb” I read that the same way I read the last passage in which she is mentioned. Remember back to Friday, as soldiers are dividing Jesus' garments, just after nailing him to the cross, we read that “meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” (John 19:25). No doubt she was weeping then as well. All those Scripture scholars seem so concerned about when, or if, Mary Magdalene will come to faith. What they seem to be missing is that she is already living into a deeper commitment to Jesus, because she is living into her love for him.
And as St. Paul tells us, “the greatest of these is love.” Now please don't mistake me for a Gnostic or a Dan Brown type – I'm not talking about Jesus and Mary Magdalene being married or dating or anything else like that. I am talking about a greater love. A love so daring, so bold, that Mary was willing to risk it all to stand there and weep both at the foot of the cross and at the tomb before she knows that Jesus is raised.
We contemporary Christians sometimes get caught up in an understanding of love that is actually based on popular culture, and not on Christianity. We assume that the highest form of love is romantic and that is why, I believe, these ideas about Mary Magdalene have become so popular. But while romantic love can be great, and very life-giving, in our Scripture and in our Tradition, it is God's love for us that is the greatest form of love. And, in return, our love of God and our brothers and sisters, is the highest human expression of that love.
Though there are certainly feelings that are associated with it, love is not a feeling. No, love is an act. It is action. It is a way of being. An act like standing at the foot of the cross. An action like being present to someone who is dying a gruesome death. A way of being that allows you to stand by that person even though there is nothing you can do for them. Our Father Founder, Blessed James Huntington described it this way: “love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.” I might add, as Mary Magdalene weeps.
As Mary is caught up in her grief, wanting so badly to anoint the body of the one she has come to love more than any other, Jesus suddenly appears on the scene, unrecognized by Mary. And he asks her two simple questions: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
Thinking that he was the gardener, Mary responds that she is looking for the body and asks if he will just tell her where it is. Jesus' response is to simply call her name and with that, Mary's life is forever changed. At the sound of her name being called by Jesus, Mary recognizes him and in her joy and exhilaration reaches out to Jesus in order to embrace him and hold him once again.
But Jesus, backs off, and says to her “do not hold on to me.” I imagine that this could have felt like a rejection and hurt terribly in the moment. But Mary still had something to learn. To date, she had loved Jesus as a man. A great man, no doubt, a great teacher, a great healer, a great friend. But a man. Now, as if in slow motion, the greatest revelation of her life is to take place for she is to begin loving this Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus Christ. He who lived and died, and is once again alive and about to ascend to the Father. This is Christ the King, the Mystical Christ. This is the Triumphant Christ who is One with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
But there is more for Mary to learn. Jesus' last words to her bear repeating: "Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” And that, my brothers and sisters, is a major turning point in Salvation History. Jesus is teaching Mary one last eternal truth.
This means a new relationship for Mary. No longer will she have Jesus of Nazareth to learn from, to care for, to love. Now, she will have Jesus Christ in a mystical relationship of love that will be made manifest in prayer. The “do not hold on to me” is by no means a rejection, rather it is meant to free Mary so that she can embrace God in God's fullness. For now, called into a sisterly relationship with Jesus Christ, she can begin to know God as her Father through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
And this is one of the gifts of the Resurrected Christ to each of us. We are called into that same mystical relationship of prayer with our God. We are called into a brotherly or sisterly relationship with Christ in order to be remade in Christ's image. The Eastern Church calls this: theosis. That is, complete union with God. God intends to, quite literally, be our Father. The complete union with God occurs when we are joined, by the Holy Spirit, into brother or sisterhood with the Resurrected Christ.
I find it interesting that in the Western tradition, it is believed that Mary Magdalene left Palestine not long after Jesus ascended, with Lazarus and Martha settling in southern France. Not a bad idea, if you ask me. Lazarus and Martha went on to evangelize that part of the world, while Mary took up residence in a cave and became the first contemplative. No doubt, learning to love Jesus Christ while not holding on to him, but, in fact, forming a deeper union with him, moment by moment, day by day, prayer by prayer.
To study the historical Jesus is a valuable thing and the base line of learning the Scriptures. That can happen by reading commentaries and taking classes. But to know the Resurrected Christ is to know God as our Father, our brother and our Spirit. It is to know God as the very breath we breathe. And that can only happen by not holding on to the historical Jesus, but by coming to know the Resurrected Christ in Glory, which is done in our lives through prayer, meditation, Lectio Divina and daily Eucharist. Brother Andrew spoke to us on Friday about how often we resist really becoming like Jesus. And indeed, we do. It is hard work, work that can lead us down paths we would have never imagined for ourselves. Paths like the one that led to Calvary.
But, in fact, that self-giving over to theosis, complete union with God, is what we are called to do. And that is why we are called to the monastery. And I believe each one of us, everyone of us in this Church has been called to this monastery on this Easter morning; some for life, some for the weekend, others just for the day, but all of us called to come to know Christ in his Resurrected Glory so that we can learn to call Christ our Brother and God our Father.
When we love as Mary Magdalene did, standing there weeping; as Jesus did, hanging there on that cross, we will continually be called into a deeper and deeper love of God just as Mary was. That call to conversion never ends, that's why Benedictine monks take a vow to dedicate our lives to constant conversion. We are called to love more and more deeply; so that, in time, we become pure love, just as Christ is pure love.
My sisters, my brothers, take Christ's invitation to Mary as your own. Let go. Don't hold on any longer, and when Christ asks you: “Whom are you looking for?” Let him know that you seek your Brother and your Father. When we do that, we will be able, like Mary, to weep no more, for we will have seen, and come to know, the Resurrected Lord.
AMEN. ALLELUIA.
Friday, April 2, 2010
RCL - Good Friday - 02 Apr 2010
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
RCL - Good Friday - Friday 02 April 2010
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:16-25 or
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42
It’s not so very long ago that we gathered here with the place decorated, all of us smiling and expectant, singing carols and ready for a feast. Incarnation, Christmas… then into Epiphany with all that mysterious time can bring… kings bowing down, lavishing gifts on a destitute child; Jesus’ baptism and the water transformed into wine. Visions of God everywhere.
Then Lent. There’s really quite a bit of comfort in Lent – some space to think, get in touch with our humanity, our neediness; an opportunity to swallow a bit of humble pie and, in some contrary way, to find a little pride in having been pretty good for these six weeks.
Now the Triduum – three days – the altar is stripped down – a bit barren – but we’ll get through because we know the BIG DAY is coming.
But, my brothers and sisters, if that’s what we’re feeling, we’ve got it wrong. This is the Big Day. All that has gone before, all that will come after, depend on this day. Crucifixion and Incarnation are one.
The Child is born for this day. Somewhere in the human heart, we know this - always have. Even in the Octave of Christmas we celebrate the first martyr and the Holy Innocents. And listen to the mediaeval carols – underneath, always, the sorrow of the mother, the knowledge that this Child, this Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, is born for this day… the journey from the Bethlehem stable leads to the hill of Calvary. The first stumbling steps of the Child learning to walk are completed in Jesus’ falling on the Way of the Cross.
It’s not what we would like, that idea. We don’t like it that the Man the Child becomes is not the man we think he is. We know what we want Jesus to be. Perfect, wonder working, clearing life’s struggles out of the way. We don’t really want more than that. We sing that we want to be like Jesus and what we mean is that we want to be nice like Jesus. We want to do good; we want to heal, we want to feed the hungry; we want to be obedient but we don’t really want to be like Jesus. We want to be respectable. We want to have faith. We want to know and have a guarantee that we are forgiven for our sins whatever they may be. We would like to trust and be certain of our discipleship. We want to feel that at the end, we’ll be among the saved singing the endless praises in heaven.
We want all that but we don’t want to be like Jesus.
Jürgen Moltmann wrote a book called The Crucified God – a most moving and provoking book. In it he says: “God did not become man according to the measure of our conceptions of being a man. He became the kind of man we do not want to be: an outcast, accursed crucified.”
Somewhere, sometime, somehow we have forgotten that the Crucified One is God. Not a being apart from the Trinity but of the Trinity. God did not hand over another person to the Cross – God gave God’s self. The Lamb is God.
We are so desperate to have things made right; we want the sacrifice to clear everything up. Sweep all the dirt away. Wash me. Make me different so that you can love me. We demand the sacrifice.
But the cross is not the result of our indifference to the Incarnation; it is the point of the Incarnation. We didn’t force God’s hand by being who we are. The Cross of the outcast and forsaken Christ is the reality of the world. If God has taken upon himself death on the Cross it is because he has taken on himself all of life – real life.
The Crucified God is one with every desperate, broken longing of the human heart. There is no depth to which humanity can sink that the Cross has not reached. There is no emptiness in our hearts that God does not know.
Jesus is the lover of the addict mugging the pensioner for a fix; Jesus desires the hooker with HIV whom no system will help because she’s “promiscuous.” Jesus shares the terror of the child who waits in the dark for the pain that the perpetrator brings and Jesus bears the shame. Jesus stands in the place of the people in Haiti and Africa and Iraq and Afghanistan who had nothing and now don’t even have hope.
Jesus accuses God of abandoning him and his anguish is the cry of Rachel weeping for her children for they are no more. It’s the cry of the people who can’t see God. The people the Church demeans or ignores…all the gay people, the poor people, the throw-away people.
Jesus – crucified – is the emptiness of existence known by God and sheltered in the Sacred Heart.
So we don’t want to be like Jesus. None of us could bear it. None of us is so loving. Thanks be to God in Christ that we don’t carry such a burden. Our burden is to let that love take us into this poor broken world where God is alive.
Oh God, make us to be like Jesus!
Br. Andrew Colquhoun, OHC
RCL - Good Friday - Friday 02 April 2010
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:16-25 or
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42
It’s not so very long ago that we gathered here with the place decorated, all of us smiling and expectant, singing carols and ready for a feast. Incarnation, Christmas… then into Epiphany with all that mysterious time can bring… kings bowing down, lavishing gifts on a destitute child; Jesus’ baptism and the water transformed into wine. Visions of God everywhere.
Then Lent. There’s really quite a bit of comfort in Lent – some space to think, get in touch with our humanity, our neediness; an opportunity to swallow a bit of humble pie and, in some contrary way, to find a little pride in having been pretty good for these six weeks.
Now the Triduum – three days – the altar is stripped down – a bit barren – but we’ll get through because we know the BIG DAY is coming.
But, my brothers and sisters, if that’s what we’re feeling, we’ve got it wrong. This is the Big Day. All that has gone before, all that will come after, depend on this day. Crucifixion and Incarnation are one.
The Child is born for this day. Somewhere in the human heart, we know this - always have. Even in the Octave of Christmas we celebrate the first martyr and the Holy Innocents. And listen to the mediaeval carols – underneath, always, the sorrow of the mother, the knowledge that this Child, this Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, is born for this day… the journey from the Bethlehem stable leads to the hill of Calvary. The first stumbling steps of the Child learning to walk are completed in Jesus’ falling on the Way of the Cross.
It’s not what we would like, that idea. We don’t like it that the Man the Child becomes is not the man we think he is. We know what we want Jesus to be. Perfect, wonder working, clearing life’s struggles out of the way. We don’t really want more than that. We sing that we want to be like Jesus and what we mean is that we want to be nice like Jesus. We want to do good; we want to heal, we want to feed the hungry; we want to be obedient but we don’t really want to be like Jesus. We want to be respectable. We want to have faith. We want to know and have a guarantee that we are forgiven for our sins whatever they may be. We would like to trust and be certain of our discipleship. We want to feel that at the end, we’ll be among the saved singing the endless praises in heaven.
We want all that but we don’t want to be like Jesus.
Jürgen Moltmann wrote a book called The Crucified God – a most moving and provoking book. In it he says: “God did not become man according to the measure of our conceptions of being a man. He became the kind of man we do not want to be: an outcast, accursed crucified.”
Somewhere, sometime, somehow we have forgotten that the Crucified One is God. Not a being apart from the Trinity but of the Trinity. God did not hand over another person to the Cross – God gave God’s self. The Lamb is God.
We are so desperate to have things made right; we want the sacrifice to clear everything up. Sweep all the dirt away. Wash me. Make me different so that you can love me. We demand the sacrifice.
But the cross is not the result of our indifference to the Incarnation; it is the point of the Incarnation. We didn’t force God’s hand by being who we are. The Cross of the outcast and forsaken Christ is the reality of the world. If God has taken upon himself death on the Cross it is because he has taken on himself all of life – real life.
The Crucified God is one with every desperate, broken longing of the human heart. There is no depth to which humanity can sink that the Cross has not reached. There is no emptiness in our hearts that God does not know.
Jesus is the lover of the addict mugging the pensioner for a fix; Jesus desires the hooker with HIV whom no system will help because she’s “promiscuous.” Jesus shares the terror of the child who waits in the dark for the pain that the perpetrator brings and Jesus bears the shame. Jesus stands in the place of the people in Haiti and Africa and Iraq and Afghanistan who had nothing and now don’t even have hope.
Jesus accuses God of abandoning him and his anguish is the cry of Rachel weeping for her children for they are no more. It’s the cry of the people who can’t see God. The people the Church demeans or ignores…all the gay people, the poor people, the throw-away people.
Jesus – crucified – is the emptiness of existence known by God and sheltered in the Sacred Heart.
So we don’t want to be like Jesus. None of us could bear it. None of us is so loving. Thanks be to God in Christ that we don’t carry such a burden. Our burden is to let that love take us into this poor broken world where God is alive.
Oh God, make us to be like Jesus!
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