Proper 11- Year A- June 23, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve, OHC
Proper 11 -  Sunday, June 23, 2017

Br. Randy Greve, OHC

“Whoever says, ‘You fool’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.” “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away.” “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” “Love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” “For many are called, but few are chosen.” “You brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

You get the idea. These phrases, out of context though they be, hyperbole though a few certainly are, are nevertheless the words of our Lord.  F. F. Bruce wrote a book called The Hard Sayings of Jesus which collected and made comment on what Bruce called two categories of hard sayings; one group hard because they are an ancient culture’s idiomatic way of communicating, thus making their meaning to us unclear and their interpretation difficult. The other group he labelled hard sayings because their meaning was crystal clear - the doing it is hard.   

Parables could be their own third category of hard sayings in the Gospels. Some have a clear moral message, but some are of the more mystical variety, and oriented toward a way of being rather than a particular action.  Our Gospel today is of this second grouping. They describe the mystery of a process:  a small, insignificant seed grows into a large tree. A bit of fermentation permeates a whole loaf of bread. A hidden treasure inspires one last, ultimate purchase.  A merchant searches for the one, great, elusive find.

 A net gathers in whatever happens to be swimming within reach. The images in these parables find commonality in their service to something greater than themselves at the beginning – the seed is not the tree, only its potential. The yeast of itself is useless without the dough. The hidden treasure, unless found, remains unknown. The one searching is not fulfilled without the discovered pearl. The net, unless it is used and cast, cannot get fish on its own. Each parable is about hidden power or desire let loose to do its thing; potential actualized which sets in motion a process which leads to fulfillment. Each object or motive needs activation, purposefulness, and meaning in order to do what makes its existence or action transcendent.

As a group these mini-parables begin to form some insight into the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. God is the cosmic conspirator of abundance. Kingdom is a verb. Kingdom is happening in the crisis of the recognition of the divine. The kingdom is not some distant or static time or place, but already present and happening now. It is a crisis because if truly recognized, its happening cannot be ignored.The reality of the kingdom is in encountering which must become responding, a reorienting of our lives around and toward that central, ultimate reality. The focus in parables is always on the urgency of the moment, the power of choice, which is all that is ours.

The parables of judgment which mention the end of this age are still of the present moment in rousing us to notice the path we are on – and its eventual endpoint. To our passivity and lack of attention, the kingdom can come as the experience of failure, but the cooperation with a process larger and more mysterious than we can grasp in the moment transforms the upheaval into life that could not happen any other way. If the Christian call is to being that is present to the possibility of this encounter and receiving it willingly, then these parables help us to know the kind of life we are welcoming.

Kingdom life is always a critique of our desire for immediate gratification, recognition, or control. The merchant is a good example of this. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” This is a hard saying, although it is not mentioned in F. F. Bruce’s book.  Loving enemies and turning the other cheek have a certain concrete moral authority behind them – I can generally tell whether I’m even making an attempt or not.  “In search” is certainly a hard saying. I want the great experience, the miracle, the big success, the quick fix. “Search” is more open-ended, a way of being bigger than the neat, nailed-down answers that get me out of the tension. On a search I am not in control, do not know the where or when.

I want to achieve, get it done, do it right. On a search I cannot conform, there is no map. Searching evokes a commitment to presence and attention and expectancy, especially if something of great value is waiting to be found. And in finally finding I am defined by new relationships and commitments, “selling” my old identity for the value of the priceless pearl.

Parables resist easy moralizing because they bend time and space. Is the merchant encountering the kingdom in the search, in finding the treasure, in selling all, or in buying it?  Yes. It is not linear. They are happening simultaneously.  In the searching is the hope of finding and selling all and buying the pearl. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis says in his commentary that, “this is the joy uniquely inherent in the one act that is at once, paradoxically, an act of supreme freedom and of supreme self-giving, of most radical self-emptying and of unimaginable fullness.”

Hard sayings are hard because they are telling us something about ourselves.  It is not that Jesus is harsh, demanding, or rigid, but that these unflinching declarations about reality hit the equally unbending reality of my willfulness. But the parables will not bend.

It is I who must yield to their wisdom.  If the parables and other provocative sayings of Jesus did not challenge our status quo, we would not choose to cooperate with the process of change desiring to work in us. Hard is good. Hard means they have the force of grace to break up my resistance, to reach my heart and change me as nothing else can.

The mystery of the kingdom is that God has chosen to be present and active in a way that is usually contrary to our egos’ inclination. This is the gift and the madness of the way of Jesus.  While the miraculous can happen, most of the journey is day-to-day faithfulness in the realm of the hidden, small, and slow. The hiddenness, smallness and slowness of the kingdom calls forth attentiveness, patience, perseverance, and a trust that something is indeed happening and that it matters in the long run and in the big picture, even though I can only see partially and incompletely. Like the merchant searching for his perfect pearl, the distance between me and the pearl I desire is my conversion. And in this searching and hope my heart is formed into something more wonderful and loving than it could be by itself, because it encounters itself and rests within the reality of God’s conspiracy of abundance.

The conspiracy unfolds in God’s own way and God’s own time, but unfold it does.  Everything on the way to heaven is heaven, St. Catherine of Siena says.  Cultivate and honor the longing and waiting, it is doing its work. Let us plant our seeds and mix in our yeast and set out on our search and cast our nets – and trust in God’s name. Amen.

Proper 9 - Year A - Sunday July 9, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Proper 9 - Year A  - Sunday July 9,2017

Robert James Magliula 

When asked to distill the Gospel to its purest, most primitive expression —devoid of doctrine or dogma— the spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen contended that God was saying to the world in Jesus, “Come close.” We hear the same invitation in the beautiful passage from the Song of Solomon this morning. God has been trying to entice us to come close throughout all of salvation history. Jesus said to all who would listen, “Come nearer to this ultimate reality called Abba---with the simple-heartedness of a child running into the arms of its mother. Don’t keep your distance from God any longer. Become like trusting children, and come close.”

Immediately our inner, jaded self squirms. There’s got to be a catch. It’s too simple, too free of an invitation to swallow. How much more comfortable we would be with an invitation like “Come …all you deserving… all you bright and understanding ones… all you pious …all you considered worldly successes.”

Jesus knew God and called all who would listen to enter into this unique relationship with God. No questions were asked; no restrictions were laid down. All that was required to receive the invitation was a desire to trust and come close. Those who responded were not the educated or the sophisticated, but those who simply wanted change. They were the ones burdened by systems of economic and religious oppression imposed on them from above. They had no possibility of adhering to the purity code of the day. They were the unobservant and the unclean---tax collectors, shepherds, lepers, and prostitutes.

The Gospel today begins with the children of the land whose song is not understood. Jesus isn’t addressing individuals but the society as a whole, the entire generation. In this past week of patriotic celebration of the strength and determination of our nation, how can we fail to reflect on the ways in which our generation fails to understand the reasons for dancing and the reasons for weeping. We are so easily lulled by the other songs of our culture that we not only miss the moment that matters, but we regularly dance when we ought to mourn our burdened world. Jesus’ prayer is not for the powerful, wise, and intelligent who get our attention, but for those who are far from the places of influence that we yearn for. In God’s realm the things that attract our human attention are barely noticed. It is the innocent who somehow understand best the ways of God. Jesus’ invitation to intimacy births a significant engagement with our world before he offers his words of comfort:

Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and Iwill give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28-30)

Setting yoke and easy next to each other seems paradoxical---especially considering the hot sun and rocky fields of Palestine. How can a heavy yoke rubbing on the necks of struggling oxen symbolize peace of heart and mastery of life’s problems? It boils down to this. By making Christ the master partner in our lives, by yoking ourselves to him, enables us to harness power beyond our own. It enables us to control and discipline our inner divisions. It may sound paradoxical to speak of discipline and obedience as conducive to freedom but that’s because we have a misguided notion about freedom having no responsibility. Freedom implies choice to be or do something. Discipline liberates us from our appetites that enslave us as strongly as any chains can.

In today’s epistle. Paul is describing the inner struggle of every heart. For all of his desire for living the Christian life, he boasted most of his weakness. For what Paul wanted to do and what Paul did were constantly at odds. He assumes that every one of us knows what this conflict feels like. Although this civil war raged within, for him the victory was found in Christ. His inner struggle was not the final story of who he was. Neither was his self-contradiction. His deepest self was yoked to Christ, whom he found most loving and powerful at the times of his greatest weakness. It released him from sin’s power to shame and destroy.

Paul views sin not as the breaking of a rule, but rather as the distortion of a relationship. The idolatrous distortion of our proper relationship with God, this turning from God-centeredness to self-centeredness, introduces a darkening of mind into the very center of our being. The turn to self-assertion unleashes the self’s insatiable desire to secure its own acceptability through acquisition and possession rather than trust in God’s love. The self’s means for converting its good intentions into good deeds is infected by the futility of self-centeredness. It draws itself by sheer willpower further from God. If Paul’s bad news is that the self is trapped and cannot rescue itself, Paul’s good news is that God intervenes in Jesus. God’s grace draws and restores the self back to God-centered wholeness.  In and with Christ, Paul carried on, falling down and getting back up. This is how he could go on in the midst of change and an uncertain future. He had accepted the invitation to come close, which enabled him to face anything.

We are so heavily invested in perfection---or at least the illusion of perfection. Paul assures us that doing the right thing apart from God’s grace is a losing battle. It is not that we are simply weak or lazy or not trying hard enough. There are forces at work in us with which we cannot contend. The will may be strong, but the flesh rules the day. Those who believe they are responsible for their own salvation, through military might or political power, through intellectual prowess or personal magnetism, have no need of the comforting arms of Jesus. He will not trouble them with heaven’s gifts.

Jesus insists that the trusting and the lowly know and accept his blessing. His invitation for us to come close draws us to identify with the suffering and struggle of those who live on the fringes of our society and our lives. 

Personal transformation and social transformation are of one piece. The true spiritual quest is that the world becomes whole and we along with it. Comfort and rest in this endeavor is not offered to the strongest and most powerful. It is offered to those who have been made weary by a world that fails to comprehend the burden of injustice. It is to those who recognize their need and the need of others that Jesus comes with comfort, lifting life’s burdens and offering rest. +Amen.

Proper 8 - Year A - Sunday, July 2, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Delcourt,OHC
Proper 8 Year A- Sunday, July 2, 2017

Jeremiah 28:5-9
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42

Br. Bernard Delcourt

Listen to this sermon's recording

Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ,

for He is going to say,

"I came as a guest, and you received Me" (Matt. 25:35).

And to all let due honor be shown,

especially to the domestics of the faith and to pilgrims.

RB Chapter 53

*****

Our Gospel passage of today comes at the end of Matthew’s Missionary Discourse also referred to as the Little Commission. This discourse in Matthew 10 provides instructions to the twelve apostles who are about to spread out throughout Israel.

In the discourse Jesus advises them how to travel from city to city, to carry no belongings and to preach only to Israelite communities. He tells them to be wary of opposition, but have no fear for they will be told what to say to defend themselves when needed.

Later in the gospel according to Matthew (28:16-20), Jesus gives the Apostles the Great Commission, sending them out to all nations, not only to Israelites.

*****

Today’s three verses conclude the Missionary Discourse by telling the apostles that those who welcome them will be rewarded, they will receive a blessing. It will be as if they were receiving Jesus himself.

*****

Nowadays, we consider both the missionary endeavor and the duty of hospitality to be directed to all manner of people and not only a chosen people.

This week, at the monastery, eight Young Adults Service Corp missionaries and an adult missionary completed their two week orientation. Through the summer and fall they will be deployed to works of the Anglican Communion throughout the world. And those works address the needs of all, not only Anglicans or Christians.

*****

I’ll focus on the hospitality side of our reading. A greater number of us will be called on to be good Christian hosts than we are likely to become missionaries.

In Christian hospitality, we are called to be hosts to all people. We are to embrace both the humanity and the divinity of all and any human person we interact with. We are not only called to welcome those whose company we enjoy or those who resemble us most, we are called to welcome with compassion any one who calls on us.

*****

And that often requires us to stretch our compassion muscles. I have been reminded of my own stretching over the past thirteen years I have spent at the monastery. On average, the monastery welcomes over 3000 guests a.

They come in all shapes and sizes. They come with different stories each. That allows for regular stretching of our hospitality muscles.

Recently, a transgendered woman, I’ll name Myriam, asked to see me in pastoral counseling. I had known her as a man 6 to 8 years ago when she was struggling with how and whether to start the transition to womanhood.

At that time, I had listened to her with compassionate intent while at the same time noting my discomfort with her predicament.

Through that initial conversation and further interactions and conversations with other transgendered guests, I have come to know of my prejudice and to pay attention to it so as not to speak or act out of it.

I came to realize that I wanted men and women to fit neatly at either end of the gender binary. I felt uncomfortable with people who were in-between, or even more so, with people who claimed the freedom to slide back and forth on that continuum.

I thought I was fine with transgender people until I came to realize that I wanted each one of them to conform neatly to my male/female dualism.

My recent conversation with Myriam showed me that she trusted me to accept her fully as whom she wishes to be. Our conversation only brushed briefly on issues of gender identity and expression. That was not what her heart was most concerned about.

Instead, I listened to Myriam’s impassioned care for the spiritual health of our churches. I listened to her care for her children and her concern for her wife.

Somehow, my shelving of my prejudice a few years ago had allowed me to see more fully the beauty of Myriam’s humanity and with more depth than my earlier stereotypes would have allowed me to see. And, as a result, I could see Myriam also as an image of the God I love.

*****

Through my duty of hospitality, God has taught me to embrace more fully the beauty and multivalency of gender as a human phenomenon. In receiving Jesus in the person of Myriam, I received a blessing.

*****

I tell you this story to encourage us to pay attention to be hospitable especially to those whose personhood challenges us in some way. We are easily hospitable to family, friends and those who resemble us. Let us discover the prophets and righteous ones also among those who differ from us.

Christian hospitality calls us to offer compassionate hospitality to all. That is how we can encounter Christ in those who come to us and recognize the Christ who welcomes them from within ourselves.

*****

Come Lord Jesus, in whatever form you see fit to stretch our hearts. And let us be touched by the life and being of those who come to receive our hospitality. Amen.