Proper 12 - Year B: July 29, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br.  John Forbis, OHC 

Proper 12 - Sunday, July 29, 2018

To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. John Forbis, OHC 

Now I may be a little slow on the uptake, which I often am, but I just realized something about Jesus:  he likes to have fun with his disciples.  He really enjoys yanking their chain.  As the huge crowd approaches them in this morning’s story, I can imagine how daunting that must have felt to the disciples, let alone Jesus himself.  Yet, Jesus turns to Philip and puts him on the spot, “Where are we to buy bread for these people?”  He asks this as if there is an easily accessible source like Hannaford’s on top of this mountain in the middle of nowhere.  The Gospel claims that Jesus said it to “test” Philip.  But I wonder if he also didn’t ask this question with a slight smirk on his face. 

Philip is the naysayer.  Nope, can’t be done.  It’s pretty clear-cut to him.  Remember, he is the one who later practically demands to see “The Father” after all.

Then, we have Andrew who offers a glimmer of hope with at least one meager offering from a boy, but then he gets quickly discouraged and gives up easily.  We have something here.  But no, it’s not enough.

Now I could provide a cliché here and say, “The story of my life”, but I won’t.  But this certainly is a kind of parable for me and perhaps for you as well.  I am both disciples. 

I do categorically see things as black and white, either/or and make global statements and decisions based on impossibilities.  The problem with this is that I decide what’s possible and what’s not, leaving me flummoxed by objectivity and leaving no room for miracles.

At other times, I can realize that I’ve got something to contribute to make possibilities happen, but then I make an almost knee-jerk decision that it’s not enough and deny potential and again miracles.

These are default positions for me.  They seem to be default positions for our society as a whole.  So this is not just the story of my life.  It can be the story of all our lives both individually to varying degrees and as a community together. 

However, if there are three things I should have learned after being in South Africa for (how long?) 18 years, it is that

1. There are times when I do have nothing to offer.  I have no experience, skill or even opportunity to face a huge crowd of need and hunger coming my way.  I can also feel so depleted that there’s nothing left.
2. At other times, I have something to offer the world, and yes, it is not enough.  Yet, it’s all I got.
3. I can offer what I can when I can, and I’d be surprised about the impact this can have and maybe catch a glimpse of a miracle.

Why haven’t I learned this, yet?  Because Jesus is the piece I often omit from my story and perhaps sometimes even from your story as well.  I apologize for that.  In this omission, we are left with only two results:  the possibilities and imagination are closed off to us, and we are off the hook.  We don’t have to make any effort to try and feed the physically, emotionally and spiritually hungry.  It just can’t be done or we have something we could give them, but it’s not enough.

Only, Philip and Andrew, the naysayer and the not-enough-sayer, have forgotten who they are with.  The joke’s on them.  The joke’s on all of us.  Oh, how we miss the one Tree of Life for the forest.  Have I been all this time with Jesus and still don’t know who he is?

Only, Christ is in our presence, and he makes all things possible.  Paul hopes in his letter to the Ephesians that we will “have the power to comprehend … the breadth and length, and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God.”  He also makes the bold claim that Jesus’ power is “able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” within us.  So yes, possibilities abound and no, we are not off the hook. 

Father Huntington writes in his rule in Chapter 27, “Of the Vow of Poverty”, “We are to remind ourselves that whenever we admit the thought, ‘How much could we do if only we had the material means,’ we are probably hindering God from accomplishing through us those very ends which we desire for his glory, and that if he were to give us the means while we are in that unfaithfulness to holy poverty, we should find them a cause of weakness, paralyzing our work for him.” 

If I say either I got nothing or not enough, such statements of scarcity render not just me but God weak and paralyzed within me.  And yet, Christ amuses himself by showing Philip, Andrew and us, what is unimaginable anyway.  He accomplishes beyond what we can ask. 

Last week we prayed almost every day a collect that dug deeper within me with each repetition.  It got to a point where I was mouthing the words along with Roy and with some of my brothers.  We prayed, “Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give those things which for our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness, we cannot ask.” 

This week’s Gospel passage responds well to this petition.  Jesus takes all we’ve got, even our nothingness, and creates an abundance.  And he makes it easy for us in the process.  All he expects from us is to prepare the people to receive a meal.  He expects us to invite them to come and rest a while just as he and his disciples rested up on that mountain, just before this event. 

Once everyone is fed and satisfied, then scraps must be collected and saved.  We are not to waste anything. Waste is just another symbol and symptom of how distorted and limited our visions are.  Quite frankly, we can’t afford to have our sight to remain sullied, just as we can’t afford to be unscrupulous about possibility and abundance. 

Elisha in 2 Kings demands more.  The man who brings a food offering to the prophet is told to feed the people. And upon the man’s protest, Elisha repeats his command to “give it to the people and let them eat.”  To prove to the man that his food offering is “worthy” and enough, all Elisha has to utter is “Thus, says the Lord …” 

The Lord is ominously here with us.  Christ haunts us as he did the disciples amidst the darkness, a rough sea and a strong wind.  Jesus terrifies them walking on the sea toward the boat, only to say a kind of “boo” when he arrives. Jesus is having more fun with his disciples again.

Now we’ve reached the punchline of the joke as the disciples suddenly reach land.  It’s not me.  It’s not you nor anyone else.  “Thus says the Lord, “It’s I, do not be afraid.” 

Now, these might be pretty cruel pranks, but how else is Christ going to reach us beyond our egos other than to annihilate the barrier between our ignorance and blindness and “the breadth and length, and height and depth” of “Christ’s love”.  It’s hardly understandable.  What Christ can accomplish within us and through us is unimaginable.  Yet this all-encompassing God will show us just what is possible and what’s impossible!  And that determination is his.  

If ever we are in any doubt about this, all we have to do is to look ahead to the second half of our service this morning.  Now I will be up there helping to prepare a meal, and I may make mistakes when I’m doing it.  I often do.  I either got nothing or not enough.  All of you will come to receive Communion and you will bring your emptiness or inadequacies as I will have offering you wine, probably trembling while doing it.  But Christ haunts us up there.  He is present with us and through us and he will insist that what we have to offer is sufficient because he makes it so.  But … “Just give it to the people and let them eat!”  For thus says the Lord, We “shall eat and have some left”.  And Christ may even say to us in a whisper, Boo!  Amen.

The Feast of St. Benedict: Preached at Saint John’s in the Village, NYC Sunday, July 15, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Josép R. Martínez-Cubero, OHC
The Feast of St. Benedict- Sunday, July 15, 2018

To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. Josép Martínez-Cubero, OHC 

Most of what we know about Saint Benedict of Nursia comes from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, written about sixty years after Benedict’s death. This work is a combination of biographical sketch and miracle stories, but there are things in it that we can receive as factual. Benedict was born around the year 480, in central Italy, to a noble family. He was educated in Rome, studying rhetoric and law, but was turned off by the excesses of the Roman society of the time. 

So Benedict decided to abandon the life in which he had been brought up, and taking his childhood nurse, traveled about 40 miles to Affide, a community at the foot of a mountain. He found a mentor named Romanus, a monk in a nearby monastery, who encouraged him to become a hermit. And so, Benedict lived as a hermit for three years, embracing prayer, silence, and solitude. During and after that time, stories of his miracles spread, and a community grew around him. He eventually founded twelve communities of monks in Subiaco, Lazio, Italy each with their own abbot, before moving to Monte Casino in the mountains of Italy where he lived in a thirteenth monastery as abbot with a few select brothers.

Benedict’s main achievement is a document he seems to have prepared throughout the duration of his life containing precepts for his monks, and which today is known as the Rule of Saint Benedict. The document is heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian, another Christian monk before his time, who is noted for his role in bringing the ideas and practices of Christian monasticism to the early medieval West. The Rule of Saint Benedict also shows to have been the editing and reworking of an earlier and very severe monastic rule called “The Rule of the Master. It is the only piece of Benedict’s writing we have, but what he adds, omits, rearranges, and revises from The Rule of the Master tells us more about him than any legend surrounding his life.

A rule is essentially a code of practice and discipline. Since the beginning of time, rules and laws have been important in the way faithful people live their lives. Some rules delineate a code of justice thought to be pleasing to God. There is no need to figure out what is right or wrong but what the rule says and follow it because it pleases God. Other rules define how to live in community in a code of holiness. The aim with these kinds of rules is that all should be treated equally as beloved children of God. This way of living requires constant prayer and discernment, and it is, at times, messy business. So is the Rule of Saint Benedict, which can be an unappealing document for anyone who is looking for a fixed set of regulations.
 
Benedict’s Rule is a reflection steeped in Scripture that describes a way to live in community so that the Reign of God can be manifested. It is a human journey into the heart of God. It called for a community where all had the same access to books for their education; a community where all ate the same adequate amount of food and drink; a community where all had a voice, even the newest members. It sadly sounds like an ideal that could make many political and religious leaders of our day very uncomfortable.
 
I come to you today from Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY. It is one of the houses of The Order of the Holy Cross, an international Benedictine order of men in the Anglican Communion. At West Park, we are a multigenerational and diverse community of eighteen men. Among other things, I serve my community as the Director of Associates of Holy Cross, 415 men, and women who we support, and who support us in all our ministries. The Associates of Holy Cross is what in other Benedictine communities is called Oblate Program. 

Oblates are Christians who desire to live out their Baptismal Covenant in association with a monastic order, and inspired by Benedict's Rule. Associates of Holy Cross are not only recipients of our blessings, but are also a source of blessings and help for our monastery. I share this with you today because we monks are flawed human beings, just as anyone else, but who have made the radical (and awesome!) choice to live in a monastery. But our associates are deacons, and priests and bishops, yes, but also students, doctors, housewives, carpenters, accountants, teachers, musicians, lawyers, grandparents, single mothers and single fathers, partnered or married parents, and the list goes on and on! Our associates are from all walks of life, and from around the world. In their association with us, our three-fold monastic vow of obedience, stability, and conversion of life becomes the three principles by which they center their lives. So I want to share with you a few thoughts about each of these three principles.
 
Obedience is not a particularly popular word today, and in fact, can be thought of, if misunderstood, as potentially dangerous in the world we live in. The Latin root for obedience is “obaudire”, to listen thoroughly. The very first word of the Rule of Saint Benedict is “Listen.” Benedict asks us to listen to his instructions with the ear of the heart. Not just with the mind as in an intellectual exercise, but also with the heart, which is the root of love. So we lovingly listen to the voice of God speaking to us in Sacred Scripture, and the traditions of the Church. We lovingly listen in our daily circumstances and relationships. We lovingly listen to the words of other people. We lovingly listen to our own hearts. By lovingly listening, we carefully discern God’s will and translate it into action.
 
Stability, “to stay put”, makes us confront our tendencies to avoid God, others, and ourselves. All too often we use our free times to escape into fantasies that remove us from the present moment. Through the monastic principle of stability, we engage in the hard, ongoing, and transformative work of being present where God has called us and where our choices have lead us. And we engage in the radical love that challenges us to learn about, respect, honor, and even celebrate what has been called the otherness of the other, in all his or her difference, and wonder.
 
Conversion of life is central to Benedictine life and has to do with the paschal mystery of death and life as it is lived out daily through a lifetime. It is about being broken and renewed. It is about being in the hands of the living God who meets us most reliably at the point of our temptations, self-doubts, and discomforts with a never-ending invitation to holiness. Conversion of life reminds us of the central symbol of transformation in Christianity- a naked, bleeding human nailed to a cross. It reminds us that there cannot be resurrection before crucifixion. It reminds us that there is a broken, wounded part inside each and every one of us, and that the one thing we all have in common as human beings is our powerlessness. And we can only come to terms with this when we grow in humility.
 
The longest chapter of Benedict’s Rule is on the subject of humility. Humility requires radical self-honesty, and a total acceptance of who we are with all our unchangeable past, gifts, strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures. It requires that we surrender and learn to love those parts about ourselves that we think of as unlovable so that our capacity to love can widen. Humility is essential for an individual or a community to flourish because it guides us in having respectful and loving interactions with others. The humble is able to respect the dignity of every human being (even the particularly undignified politician) because the humble knows we all are in need of mercy daily. The humble knows that calling evil what it is, is an act of love, but we must do so without engaging in verbal or social violence. It is only through humility that we can ground ourselves in our true identity as people who are called to overcome evil with good.
 
The Benedictine call then, is to be a people willing to be passionately caring; a people willing to be a challenge and example to our society as a whole; a people willing to be in the world, but not of the world; a people willing to stand at the margins of society so that we can see what really is; a people willing to meet the pain and inner death that comes with seeing the real. We do it trusting that God is always able to bring new life out of all loss. We do it with the confidence that God, who shatters our expectations and surpasses our understanding, only desires for us to evolve into the fullness of the image in which we are made. Holy Father Benedict, pray for us. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre y del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+
 

References:

• Terrence G. Kardong, OSB, Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary (Liturgical Press, 2016)

• Jane Tomaine, St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living, Revised Edition (Church Publishing, 2015)

• Norvene Vest, Preferring Christ: A Devotional Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict (Church Publishing, 2004)

• Rule for Associates of Holy Cross, 1998

• Br. Randy Greeve, OHC, Sermon for the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul- Holy Cross Monastery, June 29, 2018

• Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC, Sermon for the Feast of Saint Benedict- Holy Cross Monastery, July 11, 2015

• Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC, Sermon for the Feast of Saint Benedict- Holy Cross Monastery- July 11, 2012

• Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC, Sermon for the Feast of Saint Benedict- Holy Cross Monastery, July 11, 2010

The Feast of St. Benedict: 79th General Convention Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC

The Feast of St. Benedict- Wednesday, July 11, 2018


To see the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC 

What do you desire?

That is the first question when you’re received as a postulant into a monastic community, and again when you receive the habit as a novice, and again when you make the three-fold Benedictine vow of obedience, stability, and conversion of life to the monastic way.

I do understand the impulse to defeat and vanquish evil. But such violent impulses are a part of evil’s grip on us. Although we can and must resist evil, we can never destroy it. Such is not within our power. Rather, we are called to bear witness to the one who can heal and integrate evil, to the one who can break evil open, and turn even the stoniest heart to flesh. We are called to point the way, through our own fleshy hearts, to the one who can transform and convert evil into good, so that, at the end, even Lucifer will bear God’s light again.


This question of desire drives the Benedictine Way, and, indeed the Christian Way. In his Rule for monks, Benedict gives a very simple and a very challenging answer: prefer nothing whatever to Christ.

You see, Benedict knew that, contrary to the image of monasticism in popular culture as a dour and serious life, the monastic life is really a love affair. For fifteen hundred years Benedict’s rule has provided a structure and context for pursuing the deepest longing of the heart for wholeness and unity in God. The Christian mystical tradition calls this search the pursuit of “purity of heart,” though we might more accurately describe it as “unity of heart,” which is to say the uniting of our entire being—body, mind, spirit, heart-centered in love on the one who is Love itself.

Monastic communities have always been spacious places in a crowded world. That space was certainly what drew me to Benedictine life. My whole life I had been driven by a longing so deep and powerful I couldn’t find a name for it. This longing was a burning secret at the center of my life. And every context in which I found myself was simply too small to hold it, or to hold me.

When I came to Holy Cross, where I’m now a monk, my intuition told me that I had finally found a place with enough space for that longing. It was certainly one of the few places I’d found where people nodded their heads knowingly when I mentioned this deep desire without a name.

I remember Andrew, in particular, an old Scottish monk with a wicked sense of humor, who would sit with me on my visits. He looked me right in the eyes, looked deep into my heart as only those who have lived the life of faith for decades can do, and he said, “I love you.” And as the tears streamed down my face, he said, in voice that understood, “Yes, it hurts to be loved.”

It does hurt to be loved. And it also hurts to love. Which is probably one reason so many of us avoid loving as fully, deeply, and freely as Jesus calls us to do. In this world that is so often small-minded, bitter, and violent—and increasingly so—we harden our hearts to keep them from breaking. But it is only the broken heart that has enough space to love as we ought. And it is only by breaking that our hearts turn from stone to flesh.

Monastic life participates, right here and now, in eternity. That is the secret to its spaciousness. In the hallowing of the everyday, Benedict’s rule points toward the holiness of the incarnate life in which, as he points out, the tools of the kitchen or the garden are as precious as the vessels of the altar. With eternity as its context, there is enough space for the whole of one’s life to emerge.

How different that process is from the process of education, identity-building, and success in contemporary society and even in the Church today. In Benedictine life, you don’t “become someone.” You don’t “make it.” Instead, over a lifetime, you surrender to God’s desire to stitch back together the fragments of your life, so that, what once seemed maimed, ugly, or shameful becomes, through the persistent and loving movement of God, beautiful, whole, and holy.

The Benedictine vision of the Christian life, in fact, asserts that it is precisely these parts of ourselves we would most like to deny that is the gateway to wholeness. We are not to jettison the shameful inner fragments, nor to exile or erase them as if we ever could. No, we are to allow God, in the context of our community life, to heal and transform those parts so that even they carry nourishing blood throughout the body.

If this movement toward wholeness is true on the individual level, how much truer it is for the community. For Benedictines, salvation is never individual. It is always communal. Each member of the monastic community is essential to the health of the whole body, each has his unique contribution to make. When a brother or sister is in need of a physician, the community provides one, which may include disciplinary action, but always with the goal not of punishing or shaming but of healing, transforming, and integrating that brother or sister back into the body of the community, where their flourishing is our flourishing.

None of us can or will be saved in isolation. It’s all of us or none of us. Because love is never finally satisfied. As any monk will tell you, the more your desire is fulfilled, the deeper that desire gets. It has no limit, because, ultimately, our desire is to be in total union with one who made and sustains us, the one whose Love is our true name and our true nature.

The more I live the monastic and the Christian life, the more fully I am convinced that no one and nothing is beyond this love. And that no matter how dark the times in which we live, God is still working, through each of us, to break the world’s heart open so that it can become a heart of flesh.

This is a challenging vision in the times in which we live. The forces of evil swirl around us and seem to tighten rather than loosen their hold. And yet, even—especially—when evil seems strongest, we are called all the more to allow our own hearts to break open, and to love without reservation.


As James Stephens so beautifully puts it in his poem “The Fullness of Time,”

On a rusty iron throne

Past the furthest star of space  

I saw Satan sit alone,      

Old and haggard was his face;    

For his work was done and he

Rested in eternity.          

 

And to him from out the sun      

Came his father and his friend  

Saying, now the work is done    

Enmity is at an end:        

And he guided Satan to

Paradises that he knew.                

 

Gabriel without a frown,              

Uriel without a spear,  

Raphael came singing down              

Welcoming their ancient peer,  

And they seated him beside        

One who had been crucified.

There is nothing and no one who does not, ultimately, belong to God. There is no part of us, individually or collectively, that is beyond the reach of God’s healing and reconciling love. And if we follow the deep desires of our heart, if we prefer nothing whatever to Christ and allow Christ’s love to break and fill our hearts, who knows what kind of spacious sanctuary we may become?

The Feast of St. Benedict- Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br.  Scott Borden, OHC

The Feast of St. Benedict- Wednesday, July 11, 2018


To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br.  Scott Borden, OHC

Like so many figures in our tradition, what we believe about Benedict is far greater than what we know about Benedict... When I was more interested in things journalistic, that would have troubled me.

Brother Andrew used to preface statements with a qualifier of the following nature: "It may not have happened this way, but this is the truth." Of course, Andrew would smile and laugh as though he were joking, but he wasn't. If we are confined to the literal, then we are very deprived indeed. So, let's not be too bound to the literal as we look a bit at the life of Benedict...Of course, there is one point of solid evidence in the life of Benedict and that is the Rule of Benedict. 

I'll happily acknowledge that I may not be impartial, but the Rule is surely one of the most important pieces in the history of monasticism, not just Western but Eastern Christianity. The influence of the rule on all expressions of Monasticism is profound. Just ask our Orthodox brothers and sisters at New Skete.

So, let's hear a chapter from the rule...  Of the Porter of the Monastery: Inside near the gates of the monastery a cell is to be provided for a brother, who by reason of advanced age cannot wander far. Posted there, let him at all times close up the monastery behind those who leave and open it for those who are coming in, and announce arrivals to the abbot. During periods devoted to reading, he must see to it that the gates are locked. In a like manner, when the signal for the Divine Office has sounded he is to lock the gates and be present in the oratory... Those who know the Rule of Benedict will realize that I'm perpetuating a bit of a fraud... that is not the Rule of Benedict, but rather the Rule of the Master... Benedict's rule, it would seem, has an evil twin: The Rule of the Master.

The two rules share many starting points. Benedict addresses the porter of the monastery – an older brother is to be given a room near the entrance and his charge is to deal with those who come to the door. But how the porter deals with the those who comes to the door – there is the difference.
The Master's porter is a gate keeper. He is to keep folks out and make sure those allowed in are kept in line so as not to disturb the community. Benedict's porter is there to extend hospitality to the strangers at the door – to welcome them and offer them a blessing.

Time and again the two rules start in the same place – it’s the destinations that demonstrate the difference. Benedict focuses on a growing life of faith which then is shared with others, both with brothers and strangers. The Master focuses on keeping the brothers focused and free of distraction.
Was one rule based on the other? Who knows. Were both rules based on some older, lost tradition? Scholars wonder.

So, with the help of Br Andrew let me sort this out...It may not have happened exactly this way, but this is the truth...

Once upon a time a man named Benedict was called to lead a monastery that was in trouble... The abbot had died, and the community was a shambles...

The brothers knew they needed help and so they sought Benedict, a good and powerful leader, to get them back on track. Benedict dutifully assumed the position of Abbot and set about the work of rescuing this community. After all, this is what the community had called him to do.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about communities to learn that the brothers of the monastery responded to Benedict's loving correction by conspiring to kill Abbot Benedict. What else could they do?

They put poison in the wine for his Eucharistic Celebration and waited for Benedict to drink his own death. But God intervened. As Benedict prayed a blessing over the cup it shattered, the poison was spilled and Benedict was saved. We might wonder at the faithfulness of these brothers, but when it came to ridding themselves of Benedict they were devoted...

If the wine didn't do it, then it's on to the bread... poison is applied to the host for Benedict's celebration, but before he could eat the deadly loaf, a raven sweeps in and snatches it away. Birds – one. Community – zero.

So here is my theory, which I know to be true even if it didn't exactly happen this way... When Benedict assumed the position of Abbot at that troubled monastery, he attempted to enforce the Rule of the Master. The result, to say the least, was not life giving. But when God spared Benedict from attempted assassinations, he also put it in Benedict's mind to spare future generations from that terrible rule. And so, Benedict crafted his rule out of the dregs of the Rule of the Master.

Time and again The Rule of Benedict starts with the same chapter heading as the Rule of the Master, and time and again Benedict turns away from a stringent, precise, highly detailed answer to a generous and loving answer. How much food and drink should each brother have? The Master knows to the ounce. St. Benedict is more vague – each should have enough... but not too much... and if there is a shortage we may have to do with less... and if that is the case, we had better not complain...
The Master's rule calls us to stay within the boundaries. Benedict's rule calls us to live life to the Glory of God.

It is a difference of extreme importance – and one that has been part of the Christian enterprise since the time of Jesus, and part of the religious enterprise long before that.

From the very beginning of scripture, we see the pattern of these two rules emerging. Starting during the life of Moses, rules (the law) become important in the way faithful people live their lives. You really can't be faithful without some sort of rule. Some of the rules, the law, define how we live with each other, in community. And other rules, also the law, call us to live in a way that is pleasing to God – one is a code of justice and the other a code of holiness.

There lies a fundamental difference between the Rule of the Master and the Rule of St Benedict. The Master is defining a code of holiness. You do what the rule says because that is what is pleasing to God and anything else is wicked. Benedict is defining a code of just living. You live according to the rule because that brings about a community where all are treated as brothers and sisters – as equally loved children of God. Within Benedict's framework there are many times when discretion, creativity, even contradiction are essential.

Why on earth would anyone choose a rule like the Rule of the Master over a rule like the Rule of St Benedict? It is tempting to answer that no sensible, faithful person would, but that is not the truth.
The reality is that the Rule of the Master, while it may seem daunting in its minute detail, is simpler to follow. You don't have to figure out what is right or wrong, you just have to figure out what the rule says. Benedict is much messier. It demands that you think and that you adapt. For someone looking for a fixed and unchanging truth, the Rule of Benedict is an unappealing destination.

Yet Benedict's rule is fully concerned with our transformation of life. And it is in the messy, confusing, sometimes frustrating, even contradictory working out of life in community under a rule that our ways are converted – that we are transformed – that God's kingdom is built in our hearts.
The Master seeks to control and manage our will. Benedict seeks to harness our will.

If the rules of Benedict and the Master were available in Jesus' day, I dare say Jesus would have been enthusiastic about Benedict's rule while the Pharisees would have been far more enamored of the Master's rule. Jesus is always interested in justice – especially justice for the weak, the powerless, the oppressed. The Pharisees are interested in absolute answers and sound doctrine.

We tend to overlook that Jesus was a trouble making revolutionary who was interested in disturbing the status quo – because the status quo, now as much as then, is designed to give all the advantage to the rich and powerful. Following Jesus meant then, and still means today, standing against the culture and disrespecting some rules.

We may not think of Benedict as particularly revolutionary, but think what it would mean if the world as it is now were transformed into the community Benedict has in mind... Benedict, through his holy and inspired rule, has given us a plan for conversion of our ways of life to the monastic way – that is a plan not for safety, not for comfort, but for the revolutionary act of building God's Kingdom.

Proper 9, Year B: Sunday, July 8, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Roy Parker, OHC

Proper 8- Sunday, July 8, 2018


Sorry, no audio recording of this sermon is available.

Br. Roy Parker, OHC 

These remarks are a four-part survey on a progression of faith from the encounter of Jesus with his fellow townsfolk on up to the present. The four parts are, first, Unfaith in Nazareth; second, Expansion of the Source of Faith; third, Expansion of the Person of Faith; and fourth, Expansion of the Community of Faith.

Part One: Can’t you just hear it in Nazareth as the hometown boy both dazzles and antagonizes! “Hey, we know this guy, Mary’s boy, ‘cause we’re always hanging out with ‘im. He gets as wasted as any of us at bar-mitzvahs and dances and stuff. Remember that one from which he was bounced and his brothers had to take him home? Not to mention the way he can put away a plate of ribs!”

Jesus summarizes the disdainful reaction of his hometown folks as an amazing lack of faith, which is also a deficiency in his disciples that he must put up with.

Throughout the New Testament we encounter those who recognize the phenomena of faith, wisdom, and prophecy, yet cannot connect with it; on the other hand, those who recognize it, and can, and do, connect.

For example, last Sunday’s story of the woman of faith with the twelve-years’ hemorrhage compared with the surrounding crowd unpossessed by such faith. Also, the notices about King Herod who recognized the prophetic character of John the Baptist respected his testimony, but could not be governed by it. Then the story of the prophet in the village of the Jewish diaspora: in a disagreement with the village council which wanted to go along with an anti-Semitic policy of the occupying government, he challenged them: “If I am right, let that stove over in the corner collapse.” Well, the stove collapsed, and as the prophet looked meaningfully at the council, they replied, “Yes, but that doesn’t matter anymore.” 

Part Two concerns an expansion of the divine figure with whom we’re apt to connect the phenomena of faith, wisdom, and prophecy. Several years ago Marin Alsop,  newly-installed Director of the Baltimore Symphony, was interviewed on NPR about her appointment to the position, including a question of why it took so long for the Symphony’s Board of Trustees to ratify her election. She replied that there is in the culture the abstract notion of a supreme male authority figure which she exampled by recounting her instinctive reaction while preparing for takeoff in a plane when the announcement came that the pilot and co-pilot were both women and she could feel the jolt of anxiety in her stomach. Then she concluded, “In fifty years we’ll be saying to ourselves: What were we thinking?!

Part Three, then, concerns the expanded possibilities of appeal to what might be likened to a mysterious androgynous authority figure. The person of faith under these conditions is described by Thornton Wilder in his novel The Eighth Day and may lend us courage in our own journeys. The narrative here is slightly adapted: 

Jane Ashley was a woman of faith. She did not know that she was a woman of faith. She would have been quick to deny that she was a woman of religious faith, but religions are merely the garments of faith — and very ill-cut they often are, especially in Coaltown, Illinois. Like most people of faith, Jane Ashley was, so to speak, invisible. You brushed shoulders with a woman of faith in the crowd yesterday; a woman of faith sold you a pair of gloves. Their principal characteristics do not tend to render them conspicuous. Only from time to time one or other of them is propelled by circumstance into becoming visible — blindingly visible. They tend their flocks in Domremy; they pursue an obscure law practice in New Salem, Illinois. They are not afraid, they are not self-regarding; they are constantly nourished by astonishment and wonder at life itself. They are not interesting. They lack those traits - our bosom companions - that so strongly engage our interest: aggression, the dominating will, envy, destructiveness and self-destructiveness. No pathos hovers about them. Try as hard as you like, you cannot see them as the subjects of tragedy. They have little sense of humor, which draws so heavily on a consciousness of superiority and on an aloofness from the predicaments of others. In general, they are inarticulate, especially in matters of faith. The intellectual qualifications for faith - considering Ashley’s faith in connection with her mathematical gift and her talent as a gambler - are developed and fortified by a ranging observation and a retentive memory. We have described these women and men in negative terms — fearless, not self-referent, uninteresting, humorless, so often unlearned. Wherein lies their value?

We did not choose the day of our birth, nor may we choose the day of our death, yet the choice is the sovereign faculty of the mind. We did not choose our parents, color, sex, health, or endowments. We were shaken into existence, like dice from a box. Barriers and prison walls surround us and those about us — everywhere inner and outer impediments. These women and men with the aid of observation and memory early encompass a large landscape. They know themselves, but their self is not the only window through which they view their existence. They are certain that one small part of what is given to us is free. They explore daily the exercise of freedom. Their eyes are on the future. When the evil hour comes, they hold. They save cities — or, having failed, their example saves other cities after their death. They confront injustice. They assemble and in spirit the despairing.

They assemble and inspirit the despairing — which brings us to Part Four, Expansion of the Community of Faith.

Several years ago when the Order of the Holy Cross was preparing to choose a new Superior, we invited Martin Smith, a former Superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, to address us. In the course of his remarks to our ambivalence about the office of Superior, Martin made the significant and enigmatic statement that the Superior was the person who enabled the Wisdom event to occur in the community. When I later questioned him for clarification, he explained that the Superior gathers the community for consultation. His key responsibility is to elicit what the Quakers would call ‘the mind of the meeting,’ a discernment to be accompanied by silence as well as care to tease out the views of the less vociferous.

The circular arrangement of the community is important in this. To understand its power as a collaborative conversation model and the kinds of insights that can pour into the group process, it helps to understand that when we circle up in a ring of chairs, we are activating an archetype. Archetypal energy tends to made our experience seem bigger, brighter or darker; our words take on shades of meaning, and our dialogue, decisions, and actions take on added significance. Part of the attraction to circle process is the way archetypal energy can magnify issues among the group and help transform them. Those who have experienced this have referred to the archetypal energy as ‘the magic of circle’ that occurs when the best - or sometimes the worst - comes out of us and we find ourselves capable of responding with a creativity, innovation, problem-solving and visioning that astound us. Others talk about the circle as an experience of synergy, as being able to tap into something they didn’t know was in them and could not have predicted as a possible outcome at the start of a circle meeting. Such is the occurrence of the Wisdom Event in a community, Part Four, Expansion of the Community of Faith.

This four-part development would seem to underscore something several of us noted in our Saturday Bible Sharing session yesterday, and that is the demise of the cowboy way, or put differently, the requirement for the gifted person to be backed by a communal chorus.

Proper 8, Year B: Sunday, July 1, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Proper 8- Sunday, July  1, 2018 

To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC 

Jesus cares for both the privileged and the poor. Jesus hears both of their prayers.  He responds to the faith of the one and the other.  Jesus wants us to live fully in God’s integrative love; the love that makes us One with the One.

In today’s passage, Mark the Evangelist displays to us the divinity of Jesus-the-man through his Kingship over both Law and Life.

Jesus does not let the letter of the Law, or even, the spirit of contemporary purity codes, stop him from serving the poor and the desolate.Jesus does not even let the natural course of Life stop him from ministering to those who call upon him in faith.


But before I explore Jesus’ healing of our lives with you, as illuminated by Mark’s gospel, I want to sound a word of caution.

I have faith in Jesus and I love God as best I can.  I do believe in prayer. And I do believe in God’s loving involvement with each and every parcel of creation (me and you included). Yet, I do not know God exhaustively as God is, nor do I pretend to comprehend or understand God’s work in all of creation.

When I pray, the best of me knows that I am coming to the relationship that evokes my true self and builds me up.  I don’t come to prayer to cash into the power of God.  I don’t count on my laundry list of requests being the most important thing in my relationship with God.

And yet, I know God cares and so I sometimes bring my laundry list anyway. In prayer, I help God transform me and teach me, while he loves me as I am and for whom I am. I say all this because today’s gospel passage could be over-simplified as: “believe strongly enough, and anything you ask for will come to pass as you intended.” And that is a dangerous way of looking at prayer and relationship with the God who wants us to be One.


Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman believed in Jesus. And healing beyond their comprehension touched them through the touch of Jesus.  These two things are important:

- belief in Jesus is central,
- letting Jesus touch us is vital.

But, I don’t want to sound absurdly optimistic about what our faith and prayer can achieve.  It can achieve miracles but it is rarely the miracle we thought we were asking for.  Even for Jairus and the bleeding woman, the miracle went beyond what it seemed at first.

Being enfolded in God’s integrative love is miracle enough and it often takes shapes we don’t immediately recognize.  So keep praying, cleave to your faith; by all means. But I don’t ignore that sometimes, our most earnest prayers seem unheard, or at least unanswered.  Or was it that we didn’t believe in our own prayer to start with?  I don’t know.

In this gospel we read today, Mark the Evangelist weaves a brilliant narrative to reveal the nature of Jesus’ person and the depth of his ministry. There are actually two stories, of course.  And one is inserted in the middle of the other. Our Br. Roy likes to refer to this as a Markan sandwich.There is the story of Jairus. There is the story of the hemorrhaging woman. The two stories are intertwined for a reason. And we are invited to contrast and compare them for insight.

Jairus is an honored religious leader.  He has means (servants, a house, paid mourners). Yet he, a leader of the synagogue, probably a Pharisee, recognizes Jesus’ authority and demonstrates it by kneeling in front of this traveling carpenter from Nazareth and begging for a favor. In the second part of Jairus’ story, you can nearly hear the sneer in his servants telling him it’s no use bothering “the Teacher” any further. They may think less of him for resorting to a Galilean uneducated healer. And then there are the professional mourners who actually laugh at Jesus’ assertion that the child is not dead. Clearly, Jairus is giving honor to Jesus against the flow of his entourage’s thinking.

Yet, upon hearing Jairus’ plea in all its genuineness, Jesus immediately follows him to his home, followed by a pressing crowd.

The suffering woman, on the other hand, is a pariah in her own society. Her constant bleeding has ailed her health and financial situation. Her bleeding makes her ritually unclean. People would move away from her if they saw her coming. Her touch would make them religiously unclean themselves.That no male intercedes in her stead indicates that she probably is a widow without male heir.  Such women were very vulnerable to start with whether pure or not.

She too recognizes Jesus’ authority. But she knows that only stealth will get her close to him.  The crowd is so focused on Jesus that no one even notices her sidling up to him. If they did, they would probably shoo her away.

Yet she does not presume being allowed to address him and make a plea. Instead, she ardently believes that touching his robe will cure her, and so it does.

But Jesus is aware of her and demands to know who touched him. This is a moment of jeopardy for the woman; according to the codes of purity, she has just defiled a holy man.  She might be even more deeply shamed and shunned now, than she already has been.

But the woman does not escape, and she acknowledges Jesus’ status by kneeling in front of him and she courageously confesses to him what has just happened.

Contrary to all expectations of their society, Jesus acknowledges the woman. He honors her as kin of choice by calling her “Daughter.” In so doing, he uses his great authority to restore her to full participation in her community. Honorable belonging to the community is the apex of what this society would have called healing; well beyond the curing of a physical condition. The woman is now fully healed. She belongs again. Does she become one of the many women who accompanies Jesus in his ministry? We can only imagine it.

Is Jairus on pins and needles while all this happens?  Or is he further mesmerized by the charisma emanating from this man? The text doesn’t say and he might experience both. In delaying his visit to Jairus’ home to re-integrate the woman in the people of God, Jesus shows us another lesson we keep trying to forget. It is what the Roman Catholic social teaching calls the preferential option for the poor.

In our own lives, how do we stand by the poor, be with them, advocate for them and love them? Where does my preferential option for the poor express itself? Do I serve the underprivileged, as well and as promptly as the privileged?

Yet those favored with ample resources are not forgotten nor ignored. Jesus chooses his three closest disciples to accompany Jairus and his wife to the deathbed of their daughter.

After a public demonstration of his standing beyond the scope of the Law, Jesus offers a private glimpse of his standing beyond the scope of Life and Death as we usually experience them. Another “daughter”, Jairus’ own, is given back to her community.  She had lived 12 years up to then; just as the woman had hemorrhaged 12 years up to then.  Twelve years, as a repeated symbol of the wholeness of the People of God, to whom these females are rehabilitated.

God loves us, engages with us and with our prayers. Often, it looks nothing like we asked. Will we move on disgruntled and ungrateful? Or will grace open our eyes to the even better gifts we have received? Those gifts that the Spirit, searching our hearts and the heart of God, knew we needed above all? Have faith. And love the Lord of Life and Creation.

Beloved Lord, give me the courage to reach out and touch the hem of your robe, to kneel before you. Give me the faith to receive and nurture what you know is best for me.  And if there are items on my laundry list that you really like too, so be it.  So be it, Lord.  Amen.