The Third Sunday after Epiphany - January 26, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
The Third Sunday after Epiphany - January 26, 2020

Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

From the Book of Common Prayer:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that...we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Yesterday we, along with many churches, concluded the annual observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

There is an interesting history in the development of this observance which has an historical connection with our own Order. Fr. Paul Wattson, founder of the Atonement Friars, served an abbreviated (and alas, unhappy) novitiate at our OHC monastery in Westminster, Maryland in 1899, and it is he who is credited with creating and promoting this octave of prayer after his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Over the years the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity seems to have diminished in stature, but the desire of our Lord that we all be one is still very real and continues to demand our attention. What does it mean to be one in faith and in church order? one in service, in ministry, and in witness? one in charity? There are many different takes on this. And we are called again and again to remember that we are already united in that one Lord in whom we have been baptized, despite our unhappy divisions and our perhaps not-so-unhappy varying outlooks and rich diversity.

Still we look around us and we see critical tensions, divisions or breakups within churches. We in the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion are no strangers to this, having lived with internal dissension and schism for some decades. We lately read of the United Methodist Church now breaking into two independent bodies. And we read with no little fascination of contrasting visions and power struggles within the Roman Catholic Church from the top on down. Indeed there is scarcely a church body that has not experienced some such disruption. And even within apparently monolithic households of faith there are open or hidden tensions and widening gaps regarding faith, doctrine, and practice, often circling around issues of the authority and interpretation of the Bible or other sacred texts or regarding particular teachings, traditions or persons. Likely flash points currently focus on issues of gender and sexuality, but it touches everything.

Today's reading from Paul's First Letter to the Church at Corinth therefore seems both a bit ironic in the light of our observance of the Week of Prayer for Unity and also timely. For the Church in Corinth, which Paul was so instrumental in founding and nurturing, was, within perhaps ten years of its establishment, a community rent by divisions, factions, and cliques all claiming allegiance to one or another leader and at odds with each other over issues of sex, marriage, the role of women, right doctrine, food, divergent worship styles, and the role of leadership and finances and power. It was a mess. And it could, with a few tweaks, have been written today.

In some ways, the state of the Church at Corinth was not unexpected. Unlike other churches Paul founded that were homogeneous, with most converts coming from similar religious and cultural backgrounds, the Church at Corinth was big and diverse. As a recent article puts it:

“...the Corinthian Church was crisscrossed by significant differences. It was composed of people who were from an utterly pagan background, who were half-Jewish pagans (that is, converted God worshipers), and who were Jews. There were many poor converts but also a number of high-status and wealthy figures, along with their households.... These diverse Corinthian converts brought into their Christian community all the hostility, suspicion, and misunderstanding that arose from these differences in race, class and gender.” (Douglas A. Campbell, The Christian Century, January 3, 2020)

Significantly, the article from which this quote is taken is titled: “Culture Wars at Corinth.”

And it's not all that different from the church of today. Truthfully, how many churches have you ever been a part of or attended where folks of many different cultures or colors or educational levels or wealth or status have worshiped and formed Christian community together? Nor is it different in our society. We hear so much about our own culture wars, about class conflict, about a deeply divided citizenry both at home and abroad. We have become aware of the ubiquitous and enduring negative effects of sexism, racism, class-ism, poverty and privilege as well as of the pain of those whose modest dreams of economic or social progress have been lost and who see their hope fading or gone.

At the same time we mourn the death of civil discourse in our public and private arenas, not to mention in social and other public media, where non-violent speech and patient

listening and reasoned conversation are absent or dismissed. We have become sensitive—some might argue hypersensitive—to any expression of thought that differs from our own. We have come near to the point that whoever differs from us either by appearance or conviction is, by that very fact, considered an enemy, an alien, an other. We are "other-izing" each other to death, both metaphorically and actually.

What does our Christian faith have to say about these unhappy divisions not just in our churches but in our country and in our world? Much, to be sure. And it is hard to know where to start. We could, of course, look to the Gospel teachings and example of Jesus who invites us, with his first disciples, to follow him. But it might be well to look at what St. Paul has to say to that messy church at Corinth, where we began and which crystallizes in a certain place and time this difficult contemporary dynamic.

There are two things, among many, that are worth emphasizing, and here I am indebted to the article I quoted from earlier by Douglas A. Campbell.

The first has to do with love. Michael Curry, our Presiding Bishop, never tires of telling us: “If it's not about love, it's not about God.” He is right. And I think St. Paul would agree. For it is later in this same anguished letter to the Corinthians that St. Paul offers us his great hymn to love. And this, according to St. Paul, is what love looks like: it is patient; it is kind; it is not envious or boastful or proud; it is not rude; it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It rejoices in the truth. It trusts. It hopes. It perseveres.

If we are to live lives of Christian integrity, indeed of human integrity, whether in church or in society, we need to begin here. We need to live into and act out of this stance. This is the key to appropriate relating in all life, as impractical and utopian and counter cultural as it sounds. These Corinthian Christians, no less than we American Christians, need to learn the practice of love. And brothers and sisters, it's hard work, especially when it forces us to see ourselves and our world in a clearer light and commits us to persevere in that walk of conversion, come what may. It is a habit, a practice, one that is both life long as well as life giving.

Secondly, we must expect this of our leaders as well, whether in church or government, from the highest national levels to the most local. Paul reminds the Corinthian church and its leaders that their model and ours is none other Jesus Christ crucified. It's the message of the cross. It's the self-emptying love and humility of the crucified Messiah who stoops down to us, becomes one with us, and thereby transforms and transfigures us and our world.

Pope Francis, speaking to church leaders and pastors, put it this way: “You must be shepherds who smell like your sheep”...because they are close to them and live among them and are not afraid to get their hands dirty. So, too, should all our leaders. And so, brothers and sisters, should we.

St. Paul was not naive. He knows this is a tough pill to swallow. He concludes this section of his letter with these sobering words: “... the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us are being saved it is the power of God.”

That is us—you and me—though we may shrink back, tempted to either run in the opposite direction or dawdle in indecision. Yet we are being saved by love and through love. And this way of life is none other than the power of God at work in the world through us. It is power to live well in a changing church, in changing society, and in a changing world. It is power to live and to risk loving because in truth we are rooted and grounded and enfolded in a Love deeper and wider and greater than we can ever imagine.

I need to remind myself of this regularly, even as I remind you: it is worth the risk. It is a gospel that saves. It is good news.

You can bet your life on it. Many of you already have.

The Second Sunday after Epiphany - January 19, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Maximillian Esmus, n/OHC
The Second Sunday after Epiphany - January 19, 2020

Isaiah 49:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

We have here an “Epiphany moment.” The glory of God is glimpsed in Christ, discipleship begins, the foundation of the Church is laid. And it all happens so quickly! The Baptizer points at Jesus and says, Behold, the Lamb of God! Two of his disciples get the message and go after him. Jesus looks at them, says, “What are you looking for?” and they reply, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” He simply says, “Come and see.”

They spend the rest of the day with him, and the gospel community is born.

The very first act of Jesus in this Gospel is to turn and look at these two disciples. I speculate that they became fully convinced this was the bona fide Anointed One at that moment when Jesus looked them in the eye. Just then, they caught a glimpse of the eternal, and they knew that the salvation of Israel was at hand, that the Lamb of God was here, taking away the sin of the world.

And Jesus, in turn, saw the image of the Divine reflected back to him in their eyes. This is one of Jesus’s greatest superpowers: his ability to look at you and see you for who you really are, and to love you for it.

When Jesus asks what they seek, the disciples don’t request from this Rabbi a word of wisdom, nor a Messianic holy war manifesto. They seek to know where he is staying. It is about being with Jesus, and Jesus being with them, mutually beholding each other.

The initiation of this community of mutual beholding is almost shockingly direct. I want to know, How is it that these two are able to see Jesus for who he really is? How is it that they are able to respond so unreservedly to Jesus’ equally unhesitating acceptance?

I think that the disciples were able to see and respond because they were well prepared for this moment by a good teacher: John the Baptist, the preacher of repentance. John, who it was said would “go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give God’s people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”

I believe the disciples’ eyes were open to Jesus in part because they had acknowledged their human frailty and received God’s promise of forgiveness in those cleansing waters, and in so doing, had received the gift of humility. They had set aside all pretense. Humility, the honest acknowledgement of my situation as a beloved, broken, sinful, forgiven child of God, is a crucial element in my readiness to behold the Lamb of God.

What does the path of repentance – the path toward humility – look like? The Gospel does not give us any details about the paths that originally brought those two disciples to the Jordan river to be cleansed. We can imagine and speculate about that. We can think of our own stories of forgiveness and repentance.

I’d like to share one such story that comes the realm of legend and myth. It comes from one of the greatest epic myths of Western Culture, or at least, one with great influence on me from my childhood. As in all myths, the characters in this story are archetypes, whose experiences are universally relevant.

The story begins:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a young Jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker. He was a skilled Jedi, strong in the force, and advancing well in his training. He and his wife, Padmé, a formidable politician, were expecting their first child. One day, Anakin had a nightmare, a prophetic vision that Padmé would die in childbirth.

Anakin became greatly distressed, and began acting out in anger at the unfairness of this fate. How could this happen to him? How could Anakin, so strong in the Force, be dealt such a devastating loss? In his desperation to resist Padmé’s fate, Anakin abandons the ideals of his Jedi masters and begins to seek the security of cultivating power and control.

When the time came, Padmé gave birth to twins, and named them Luke and Leia. Then, tragically, she died.

Anakin acted out in anger and frustration yet again. His fellow Jedi knights, fearing for the safety of the twins, took them away into foster care. In the darkness of Anakin’s grief, the Evil One came to him with sympathy on his face and said, “Oh, my dear Anakin. What a tragedy. If only you had been strong enough to save Padmé. If only you had loved her enough. If only you hadn’t been so angry.”

In his pain Anakin believed these words. He didn’t think he could bear the shame of what he had done, and what he had failed to do. He started to believe himself incapable of love, to believe that he was in some way defective. He had to hide. And so, he crafted a mask for himself, a dark mask and a cloak that would project strength, power, and invulnerability. He called this mask Darth Vader. For many years, Vader lived a kind of half-life, almost more machine rather than man, and allied himself with the Evil One.

Then, one day, Darth Vader’s son Luke, now grown to adulthood, returned to him, and said to him, “Father, I know there is good in you. I see the good in you. Won’t you take my hand and come back home to yourself?” And Vader felt so threatened by Luke’s compassion, more threatened by this than by any who had ever raised a sword against him, that he swore to destroy Luke.

But Luke said, “I will not fight you, Father. There is good in you.” Vader didn’t believe it, he said it was too late for him to have such hope. But then he saw Luke do a remarkable thing. Luke was so determined not to jeopardize his relationship with the one he loved, that he chose even to surrender to the most destructive forces of the Evil One, rather than draw a sword against his own flesh and blood.

Seeing this, Darth Vader – Anakin – finally understood something about love he had long forgotten. He at last was able to face the guilt over the wrong he had done, and the shame – the unearned guilt – over what had been beyond his control. In receiving Luke’s acceptance of him, he accepts himself. He casts the Evil One into the abyss, and repents. He turns around to face his son.

The first thing he says is, “Luke, help me take this mask off, so that I can see you with my own eyes.”

“Help me take this mask off, so that I can see you with my own eyes.”

The black helmet is lifted off, the twisted mask is peeled away, and behind it we see a broken man whose eyes are filled with nothing but love for his son. The deep shame of past hurts, failures, and losses has fallen away, and with it has fallen away the need to armor up, puff up with pride, and protect himself.

And we see that all along, behind the mask of Vader have been the eyes of a man desperate to love, desperate to give himself in love. Luke had said over and over, “I know there is good in you.” And Anakin’s final words to Luke are, “You were right about me. You were right.” Thus ends the story of Anakin Skywalker.

I, like you, wear a variety of masks – personas – that disclose a curated version of myself to myself and to the world. They obscure a deeper me, the “me” who I’m not so sure is lovable, or capable of love.

But God knows — God knows that your point of origin is not sin, it is love. He sees the goodness in you. He says to you, in the words of the Psalmist: “Princely state has been yours from the day of your birth; in the beauty of holiness have I begotten you, like dew from the womb of the morning."

When you undergo repentance, and let go of your mask, you see Christ afresh. And then you can Look! Behold – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! And you find yourself adoring him, overflowing with love that spills over into every relationship, into every hurt that needs healing.

Christ notices you beholding him with these new eyes of love and says, “What are you looking for?” And you say, “You, Rabbi. I’m looking for you! I have seen you with my own eyes, and I wish to abide with you. Tell me, Where are you staying?”

And he says, “Come and see.” He guides you along the way to where he abides. He says, Come here to where two or three are gathered in my name. There I am. Come and see – in the face of this little one who comes from a distant land seeking a cup of water to drink. Give it to her, and in so doing, you give it to me. Come and see. In the fragile and majestic beauty of this world my Father made. Come here to the table and see the broken bread; there I am. Abide with me and I will surely abide in you.

Jesus knows that my attention is fickle, my resolve is weak, and the old habits of shame and self-rejection are not overcome in a day. I find myself hiding, holding back, losing sight. So again and again, I turn back to the one I love and I say, “Rabbi, teacher, open the eyes of my heart. Help me take this mask off; so that I may see you, where ever you are staying.”

The First Sunday after Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord - January 12, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev. Cari Pattison
The First Sunday after Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord - January 12, 2020

Isaiah 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

I am grateful to be with you this morning.

My name is Cari Pattison, and I have long been a guest and friend of the Holy Cross Monastery.

Over 15 years ago while I was attending seminary, one of our professors brought groups of students here, and introduced me to this Benedictine monastic way of life.

I served a parish just north of the City for 12 years, and now have the joy of staying in Iona [the guest-suite here at Holy Cross Monastery] for several months. And it is a blessing to enter the rhythm of community here in a new way.

We just began a brand-new year and a brand-new decade, and there is no shortage of advertising that tells you there’s something you need to start out right. A new diet, a new habit, a new spiritual practice that will make you the best Christian.

Maybe you made resolutions this year; I know I did. Anyone still keeping theirs?

There is something in us that wants to get a strong start when a new year or a new season begins. How we start things matters.

In our Gospel reading today, Matthew wants to make sure his readers and listeners understand how Jesus’ ministry starts.

I invite you to use your holy imagination and picture the scene, there at the Jordan River. We see the ripples of gentle waves, the reflection of light on the water. And in the distance the silhouette of a bearded man, standing waist-deep in the river, his arms gesticulating to the crowd on the shore.

A crowd has gathered: old and young, men and women, children and babies. They are watching this man in the water with expressions on their faces both quizzical and open. Curious what he has to say.

He starts in softly, telling them his own story of living in the woods, eating locusts and wild honey for food. He tells them that in those lonely hours he heard a call from God. A call to prepare the way. His voice gets louder and he gestures more emphatically-

“That God,” he says, “is calling you too. Telling you it’s not too late to turn around.” He calls this repentance. And the sign of it, he says, is to step into the water.

I picture how this might’ve played out. Perhaps an older man, unsteady on his cane, steps in. And then a pregnant woman. And then two children holding hands. Some look uncertain. Others have tears in their eyes. A few smile with longing.

And one by one, the man in the river- whose name is John – gently dunks each one under the water, saying, “I baptize you for the forgiveness of sins. Wash and be made new.”

Then someone new arrives- a man who seems to know John well. He smiles with recognition and calls out, “I’m here to get baptized.”

John starts toward shore to meet him. They exchange the mid-eastern greeting of a kiss on the cheek. “Wait a minute,” John says. “You? You’re the one I’ve been announcing. You’re the one who needs no forgiveness!” He shakes his head. “How can I baptize you?”

What does the world tell you about who you are?
What kind of starting over does it demand?

“Start over - and be successful this time.”
“Start over - and make something of yourself.”
“Start over - and be more disciplined.”
“Start over - and do more to save the world.”

There is plenty to be anxious about in the world – real problems that need addressing, real disasters that need relief. This week alone, there are temperatures here that make no sense for the month of January, smoke and fires in Australia, leaders in Iran who’ve been shot down, rumors of retaliation.

But I wonder if the greatest anxiety most of us face isn’t that of the world around us, it’s the world in us. The relationships under strain. The job that isn’t fulfilling. The weight of our own disappointments.

If you were among the crowd gathered at the Jordan, what kind of fresh start would you want?

The crowds turn to watch: John the wild man, the baptizer, the prophet, speaking in hushed tones with the man from Nazareth - the son of Joseph the carpenter and his wife Mary.

Some of them remember rumors of a magical birth – angels and foreign astrologers and mysterious stars. Who is this Jesus? And why wouldn’t John want to baptize him?

As Jesus steps into the water, John does not understand what is happening, but he can no more disobey Jesus’ request than he can stop a hungry urge for food or drive away the thirst for water.

And as John baptizes Jesus, something extraordinary happens.

Some described it later as a parting of the clouds, a beam of sunlight landing right on Jesus’ face. Some said it was a flock of birds that flew down, among them a lone dove alighting on his head. Others couldn’t find the words to speak of it, only describing the shiver they felt in their bones, the wave of warmth instead of cold that passed through them, a kind of wind that whipped at people’s robes and rippled the waters and carried a shimmering lightness that felt like love.

No one could adequately describe what they witnessed. Only one thing they agreed upon:

The Voice. Coming from God knows where, had come a voice beyond any they’d ever heard. Not quite male or female or child. A voice at once booming, and quiet.

The voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

If you seek who Jesus is in the Gospels, you find he is uniquely the Son of God.

But I believe that part of why he got baptized – into that sacrament of forgiveness and belonging and community – is that he’s inviting us to do the same. Not just to be baptized, but to hear the voice.

The voice that declares, “You are God’s son.” “You are God’s daughter.”

You are the Beloved.

With you God is well pleased.

The late author and evangelist Brennan Manning tells the story of Edward Farrell, a priest from Detroit, who visited his uncle in Ireland in honor of his 80th birthday. On his uncle’s big day, they got up before dawn and walked quietly along the shores of Lake Killarney then paused to take in the sunrise.

They stood there together basking in the beauty of the rising sun when suddenly the uncle turned and went skipping down the road; beaming and smiling from ear to ear.

Running to catch up to him, Ed said, “Uncle Seamus, you look very happy.” “I am, lad,” said his uncle. Ed asked, “Want to tell me why?” And his 80-year-old uncle replied, “The Father of Jesus is very fond of me.”

Manning continues: “If the question were put to you, ‘Do you honestly believe that God likes you?’ Not just loves you theologically because he must, but likes you?” What would you say?

“If you could answer, ‘The Father of Jesus is very fond of me,’ how relaxed would you feel? How compassionate and tender toward yourself? And those around you?

In my 12 years of being a pastor and my 4 months of hiking the Appalachian Trail, I’ve gotten to hear a great number of people’s stories. Religious people and non-religious. Wall Street bankers and wilderness wanderers.

And I can tell you that no matter how old, how rich, how smart, good-looking, or successful someone is, most people are asking some form of the questions: “Am I good enough? Am I lovable?”

How do we get in touch with this voice who calls Jesus - and us - the Beloved?

I think the simpler the better. Maybe you are regularly here with us for morning Matins prayer, to anchor your day. But whether you are or aren’t, that voice calls you to also make a little time just for God and you alone.

You might consider setting a timer for only 5 minutes, and picturing God smiling upon me, just as you are.

Sometimes I do the breath prayer “Lord Jesus Christ / Have mercy on me.”

Sometimes I do the Thich Nhat Hanh way, of saying, “Breathing in I calm my body; breathing out I smile.”

And it can help to enlist a friend in your daily practice of hearing the voice who calls you Beloved.

Lately I have been starting each day by exchanging an email with a prayer partner, listing out five gratitudes. Specific things that morning I’m truly thankful for.

It was only by rising early each day and meeting with God in prayer, that Jesus could hear the voice of the Father above all the other voices that clamored for his attention. The voices of adoration and condemnation.

Relationships can be hard. Community takes work. Families are fragile. But part of the beauty of receiving your blessing and knowing you are the Beloved, is that you start to see everyone else as Beloved, too.

It begins with the way we look at people.

The late author Toni Morrison says, “It’s interesting to watch what happens when a child walks into a room. Does your face light up?” She explains, “When my children used to walk in the room when they were little, I looked at them to see if they had buckled their trousers or if their hair was combed or if their socks were up. You think your affection and your deep love is on display because you’re caring for them. It’s not. When they see you, they see the critical face. What’s wrong now? Let your face speak what’s in your heart. When they walk in the room my face says I’m glad to see them. It’s just as small as that, you see?”

A small thing, but actually quite big. A way we can choose to look not only at children, but at each person we meet.

At the very start of Jesus’ ministry, that loving look from his Father, that blessing spoken over him, is what sustains him throughout the trying road ahead. It’s what carries him through the wilderness and temptation and criticism and persecution.
A little blessing goes a long way.

If you can start your conversations with other people, offering a word of acknowledgement, a noticing of something special about them, a genuine smile, you are inviting them to see themselves as God’s beloved.

Jesus’ entire ministry began not with anything he did, but with hearing that voice of love.

The late priest Henri Nouwen says, “Life is a chance to live as a ‘yes’ to our belovedness. Not living as though we have to prove we are worthy of being loved.”

May it be so for you, in 2020 and beyond. Amen.

The Epiphany - Monday, January 6, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
The Epiphany - Monday, January 6, 2020

Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

Here we are – coming to the end of the Christmas story – the Kings, who had so much further than everyone else to travel, have finally arrived. As a child I used to wonder, if these “wise men” were so wise, why didn’t they start earlier…

As is our monastery custom, the kings have taken their place alongside shepherds and various animals looking at the holy family at the creche. And we can feel a vague sense of Anglican superiority because our kings have made the journey and arrived on the correct day: Epiphany.

Of course we can only feel vaguely superior for a few moments, because if we stop to think about it, we have to realize that the kings, or whatever they may have been, never arrive at that stable and never take their place alongside those shepherds and the sweet little animals.

The problem with the Christmas Story is that there is not one story, but two. In our minds they quite easily mush together. But when we trust our memories, some important details get dropped. Most of what we know as “the Christmas story” comes to us from Luke. Luke has shepherds. His telling of the story is particularly good for a warm and merry Christmas.

But this Feast of the Epiphany, this arrival of the Magi, directs us to Matthew – the “other” Christmas story. Luke gives us warm and fuzzy; Matthew turns up the dark.

Matthew spares us lots of detail… Before their marriage, Mary is found to be pregnant, so Joseph is going to quietly end the engagement. But an angel, the first character to speak, gives Joseph the full story. And so, Joseph takes Mary to his home and Jesus is born – at home. No muss, no fuss, no long journey, no stable… I haven’t shortened it much because there isn’t much to shorten… It’s hard to imagine the Hallmark Holiday Special built on Mathew…

That brings us up to today’s feast – wise men, or magi, or astrologers, or kings appear in Jerusalem from “the east” – wherever that may be… They were following a star, but they somehow seem to have lost sight of it. They have but one seemingly innocent question: “Where is the infant king of the Jews?”

Ooops. In the paranoid stew that was Jerusalem at that time, this is an incendiary question.

Herod, King of the Paranoid, gets wind of it and, like any truly insecure despot, he begins to fight. Just imagine if there had been Twitter back then… Herod learns from his minions that Jesus is to be found in Bethlehem. And so, in a touch of irony, it is Herod that puts the wise men back on the right path. Star back in sight, off they go to meet Jesus. And this is the epiphany – the manifestation: God in human flesh is revealed.

The wise men, while they’re there, open their treasure chests and give gifts to the baby – gold, frankincense, and myrrh… notoriously inappropriate baby gifts. I tend to assume that the giving of the gifts was the point of the journey – “bearing gifts we traverse afar” as the hymn says… But in Matthew’s actual telling, it is worship that is the first purpose of the wise men. The gifts come almost as an afterthought.

The wise men go home, and the story gets darker. In our calendar the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents has already come and gone, but its proper place in the sequence of things it has just been triggered. Herod, in paranoid rage and unsure which baby is the infant contender for his crown, opts to protect his position by simply having all the little boys in Bethlehem slaughtered.

Mysterious, cold, paranoid, violent… these are the kinds of adjectives that Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus brings to my mind. No cattle lowing… no shepherds proclaiming glory to God… no peace on earth… little if any goodwill toward anyone.

Matthew is so sparse with details that over the centuries we have had to invent them. So first these mysterious visitors acquire a sex – they become wise men; an occupation – they are astrologers or magicians; a number – there are three of them (because there were 3 gifts); upward social mobility – they are kings; they get names – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar; and perhaps most surprising – they acquire race, or least one does – one of them is purported to be black.

The story of Amahl and the Night Visitors is, for me, one of the most moving Christmas stories the Bible never told. As the kings, the night visitors of the title, make their way to Bethlehem, they stop at the home of Amahl – a physically disabled child. Amahl lives with his poor, widowed mother (who has no name). They are destitute… hardly able to feed themselves. They are in no position to entertain royalty. And yet it is their home in which Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar take shelter for the night.

Amahl emerges from the imagination of Gian Carlo Menotti. It was a made-for-television opera – back in the day when television had aspirations. And what do you know? When I dismissed Matthew as fodder for a Hallmark Christmas special, I was wrong – Amahl and the Night Visitors was, in fact, the very first Hallmark Christmas Special…way back in 1951. It’s not exactly Matthew. To be honest it’s not Matthew at all. But it is surely inspired by Matthew…

Amahl and the Night Visitors finds Menotti at his most romantic – the score is lush, the music beautiful. But one moment stands out in a particularly poignant way. When the kings have their first moment alone with the mother they ask if she has seen the child they seek. They describe him: His skin is the color of wheat, the color of dawn, his eyes are mild, and his hands are those of a king, as king he was born… And she answers Yes, she has seen this child. It is her own child: Amahl. And then she laments that nobody will bring her child gifts, though he is sick, and poor, and hungry and cold.

I find that out of a made-for-television Hallmark special, a glimpse appears to me of what Matthew may be telling me in his hard-to-warm-up-to Christmas story. The kings are looking so hard for the Jesus they expect, that Jesus, in the form of Amahl, stands right in front of them and they cannot see him.

The good news for these mysterious wise travelers from a far is not that their journey was easy or direct, or that they were such gifted detectives – they needed the help of Herod after all. The good news is that they persevered until they saw God in human flesh.

It’s quite fun and heartwarming to locate ourselves in Luke’s Christmas story – we can be shepherds or cattle and sheep. For the lucky few perhaps Joseph or Mary.

Locating ourselves in Matthew’s Christmas story is more heart chilling, but a good exercise, nonetheless. I can find myself among the magi who wander and get so lost that they turn up in Luke… I can find myself among the greedy minions who cling to Herod for power, even when it calls for committing atrocities. And if I’m feeling very brave, I am Herod – who would rather commit unspeakable acts than tolerate Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, God with me.

Luke reminds us of how much we want Jesus in our lives. Matthew reminds us of how far we will go to keep Jesus out. The revealing, the uncloaking, the epiphany is something we both desperately long for, and furiously work to confound.

Herod is brutal and blunt in trying to keep Jesus out of his life. These days I’d like to say we are less brutal and more clever, though with events at our southern border, or in the townships of South Africa, or at any number of places around the globe where refugees are refused care, where strangers are rejected, I’m not sure we’ve come any distance at all from Herod.

Remember, it is in the face of these strangers that we are to meet Jesus, that we are to have our own Epiphany.

The joyful good news, the Gospel, is not that I’m prepared for Jesus in my life or that our world is in such a good place that Jesus will feel like he’s still in heaven.

The good news is that Jesus is revealed in our world just as surely as Jesus was revealed to the Magi in the toxic, paranoid world of Herod. Jesus comes because of our need, not because of our desire and not because of our merit. Our world is often dark, unjust, cruel, and wicked… just the sort of world that needs Jesus.

And so, we pray: Lord Jesus, come, be revealed to us today because our need is as great as ever.

The Second Sunday after Christmas - January 5, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev. Suzanne Guthrie
The Second Sunday after Christmas - January 5, 2020

Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
Luke 2:41-52

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

Like many Biblical authors, Luke leaves out the very things I want to know. What I want to know in this story is what Jesus and the elders in the temple talked about? What held their interest in the young boy's questions and what held Jesus' attention in the discussion that went on for days?

When scripture leaves off important stuff it is an invitation to imagine what took place.

Imagine you are twelve – on the threshold of adulthood. The Temple is deeply rooted within your soul. In infancy you were brought there and met a great prophet, and a saintly woman of deep prayer - so you are told - over and over. ( Eye roll. Mary's voice: “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...” “Mom! Don't sing that song again!”)

You can't imagine life without The Temple's majesty, comfort, its orientation as the center of the world and as Gateway to the Holy One.

And, the Temple is a gathering place. You have visceral memories of the journeys there traveling in caravans to festivals all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem, a time away from ordinary worries and work - your mother's anxious face looks like a girl's as she walks with old friends. Your stern, silent father laughs with the other men. You are going to where God lives, and the adults give you special sweet dates from En Gedi to eat.

Jerusalem itself is pretty exciting, but inside, the Temple! It's s a wondrous GARDEN - like the Garden of Eden! Olive wood and cedar, the bronze pillars carved with pomegranate shapes, golden palm trees, and flowers full of jewels. The lamp is in the shape of an almond tree.

And lustrous fabrics! Purple, red, and gold! And – the veil – you haven't yet seen it in the Holy of Holies - nevertheless you “see” the veil inside your dreams, for just behind the veil – the Holy One.

And space! The space within seems impossible from looking at the building from the outside. Space that takes your own prayer and draws it upward, expanding to fill the cosmos! The Temple represents the universe in its divine proportions holding secrets within secrets within secrets.

And oh, how you wish you could be a high priest – just for that one time to be in the Holy of Holies. For you are in love in God.

But just now you are brooding on a story about David the King.

The kingdom of Israel is mostly at peace, and King David looks out from his palace roof in the cool of the evening, not, this time, distracted by beautiful women bathing, but contemplating his own love of God and God's own ridiculously smitten love of him.

David says to himself, “Here I live in a palace made of cedar, but the Ark of God is living in a tent.” And negotiations for a glorious Temple begin. But God objects.

“All these years I have been moving around with my people in a tent. Have I ever asked for a house of cedar? Would you build me a house to dwell in?” (2 Samuel 7:1-7)

With this story your parents and teachers taught you, “Beware of putting God in a box.” But maybe when you were eleven years old or so, you summoned up the courage to ask, “If God doesn't want to live in a box, why do we have the Temple?”

And all the adults gasp and say, “Don't ask stupid questions.” And you sulk. And then, brood. You know about Solomon and the whole subsequent history of the Temple. Nevertheless the question doesn't go away.

So now Jesus is at the Temple for the festival. He's twelve. And rarin' to go.

Here's what I think Jesus wanted to talk about with the elders. “If God told David he didn't want to live in a box, why do we have the Temple?” (Because this would be my question. And maybe it would be yours.) Anyway, Jesus hangs around the elders, and, citing David, asks his question.

And they're off! Oh, and I wish I could listen in! Here's what I imagine.

An Elder opens, “The Holy of Holies is the center of world. The Temple is Holy because it surrounds the Holy of Holies. Jerusalem is Holy because it surrounds the Temple. And the country is Holy because it surrounds Jerusalem. And so on. This, my son, is called the Hierarchy of Holiness.”

Another Elder says, “But the Romans keep threatening to destroy the Temple, like Nebuchadnezzar did. Where is our holiness located then?”

Then, an argument about how the Romans control them by such threats, and whether those threats are empty or not. The younger ones tend to think the Romans couldn't do such a thing. The older ones have accumulated more somber memories. “This is why we appease the Romans,” says one. And then, this devolves into another unsolvable argument about politics and morality.

An Elder says, “The holy fellows over in Qumran, they have an idea that this Temple was not built to the specifications of God...”

Another interrupts “And they are constantly building ideal Temples in their heads!” Ha ha ha. Everyone laughs. “Qumran. What a bunch of crackpots.”

“But it is an intriguing idea,” says an Elder. “What if we all carry the Ideal Temple around in us all the time? What if Temple is a form, as Plato says....” but the mention of the philosopher is interrupted by a non-verbal cackle of derision.

Another Elder says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute - many of us carry the Temple in our hearts! The Temple is a TEMPLATE of holiness, a Teacher of how to be holy in the world. The heart IS a temple – and should the Romans destroy it, and scatter us to the corners of earth, in a diaspora like our years in Babylon, we would still have the Temple, in that sense.”

“Yes,” says another. “The Temple here is stone and wood and bricks. A building built by human hands and temporal!”

“That's blasphemy,” says one old but revered and holy crank. “These very stones are holy. Are you saying they are not?”

Okay. So imagine the young Jesus from Galilee - hungry for intellectual stimulation, thirsty for God, watching with a glistening sparks in his eyes as the elders dispute among themselves in these matters.

Those literal minded against those metaphysically minded. The concrete against metaphorical. God, enclosed in the Holy Box. God, everywhere, as if enclosed, enfolded, fluid. They are all having such fun in the most playfully rabbinic way, they lose track of time until the anxious parents came to interrupt them and take Jesus home.

Jesus has twenty years to think about all these things: divine proportion, secrets within secrets, interior gardens, architectural space drawing infinite prayer from the space of your own soul, the veil, the Holy of Holies. All these things he pondered in his heart.

As an adult he loved the Temple enough to risk his life clearing the outer court of the sellers of animals and money-changers with a whip of cords. “You have made this house of prayer into a den of thieves.” (Mt 21:12-13 and citing Isaiah) And once, as his friends are admiring the Temple adornments and precincts, Jesus will say, “Not one stone will stand upon another.” (Mt. 24:1-2, Lk. 21:5-6)

And at his trial, he will be accused of saying, “Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.” (Mk 14:58)  John's Gospel adds that he was talking about the Temple of his body.

In a violent world, Jesus died of violence. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Mk 15:38) as if rending its garments in grief.

The Temple was destroyed by the Romans not long after that. And a world-wide diaspora still moves on, heart by heart in a violent world.

And yet, all over the world, people sing, Joy to the World….
“...let every heart prepare him room.”

The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev. Matthew Wright
The Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ - January 1, 2020

Numbers 6:22-27
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 2:15-21

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Name, which always falls on January 1st, eight days after Christmas, remembering the Jewish custom of circumcising and naming a male child on the eighth day. And so today we are celebrating the name of Jesus, but this feast also takes on a secondary meaning in light of our first reading. In the passage we heard from the Book of Numbers, we were given the priestly blessing: “The Lᴏʀᴅ bless you and keep you; the Lᴏʀᴅ’s face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lᴏʀᴅ lift up the divine countenance upon you, and give you peace. So they shall put my Name on the Israelites”—on my people. The Holy Name of God being placed on the people.

Now the word translated in this passage as “LORD” is actually the unspeakable Hebrew Name of God, the Tetragrammaton, or the letters Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh (YHVH), sometimes pronounced by Christians as Yahweh, but traditionally never uttered by Jews. And so when the Name had to be spoken, it was replaced instead with Adonai, Lord, as a way of pointing to or speaking the Unspeakable. And it’s even been said by some of the rabbis that this name of God is actually the sound of the breath, and that this is why it’s essentially unspeakable, because we are actually speaking and carrying the name of God on every breath.

And so today’s feast holds, and celebrates, this tension between naming and the Unnameable, between saying and unsaying, which is a paradox that lies at the heart of all mysticism—how do we speak of the Unspeakable?

Now the name Jesus itself is a translation of the Greek Iesous, which, of course, is not the name his parents actually gave him. Most scholars assume that name would have been the Aramaic Yeshua, a shortened form of Yehoshua or, in English, Joshua. And etymologically that name, it begins with Yah, pointing to YHVH, the Unnameable, and it ends with shua, which can be traced to the verb meaning “to rescue” or “save” or to the noun for “a saving cry” or “a salvation shout.” And so this name itself holds the tension we’re speaking of—Yah, YHVH, the Unspeakable, speaks, cries out, shouts, to save us.

And salvation in the biblical languages is connected to the word for healing or wholeness. “Your faith has saved you” can also be translated “your faith has made you whole.” And so again, Yah-shua—the Unspeakable, present in our very breath, is our wholeness. A name pointing to the Nameless. This entire Christmas season is about the unfolding of this paradox—that somehow, in Jesus, the Unspeakable is spoken, the Infinite becomes finite—and that reality continues unfolding and deepens today when the Unnameable, for our sakes, takes on a name.

This paradox between saying and unsaying, naming and unnaming, is captured beautifully in an early Christian text called The Gospel of Philip, which was probably written in the late 2nd century—too late to be given canonical status, but a window into what early contemplative Christians were contemplating. It’s not a Gospel in the traditional sense of telling the story of Jesus; instead, it’s a collection of Christian mystical teachings. And in it, we’re given these somewhat shocking words:

“The words we give to earthly realities engender illusion, they turn the heart away from the real to the Unreal. The one who hears the word God does not think of what really exists, but a concept or an image of the Real. The same for the words Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Life and Light, the Resurrection and the Church, and all the rest. By these words we are made to think not of what exists, but of what does not exist, though these things could point to what really exists.”

A powerful early Christian reminder that all our words, including God, are simply pointers. Which means that there’s always the risk that we will mistake the pointers for Reality itself, and that we’ll end up worshiping our own mental constructs rather than the living God. And so Philip here, rather mercilessly, rips all of our words away from us—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Life, Light, and Church!

But then, after his demolition project, with great tenderness, he gives them all back to us; the passage continues: “But Truth brought names into the world for our sake, and one cannot refer to Truth without names. Truth is one, but its names are many for our sake, to teach us lovingly this one thing through many things.”

Today we celebrate this great mystery that the Unnameable took a name for our sake: “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus…” Now this text always pairs in my mind with another, and since I’ve already brought in The Gospel of Philip I might as well bring in The Gospel of Thomas, which is simply an early collection of sayings of Jesus. And one of the sayings goes like this, “Jesus said, ‘A person old in age will not hesitate in asking an infant, seven days old, about the Place of Life, and will find life.’”

Here we have someone at one end of life going to someone at the other end—at the beginning—in order to discover (or remember) what life’s about. And significantly, Jesus says that this is “an infant, seven days old.” “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child…” “A person old in age will not hesitate in asking an infant, seven days old…” A child seven days old is still in the state before naming, before taking on religious identity—in that original freshness, straight from God. And so when we hold these two texts together, we see this delicate dance between naming and unnaming, the seventh day and the eighth day. On the eighth day, Jesus, for our sakes, takes on a name… and then the Named One points us back, to the one seven days old, to the Nameless. We say, and we unsay. We name and we un-name. This is the great mystical paradox.

But today we celebrate and give thanks for the naming. Today the Nameless takes a name, Jesus. And I think that this is perhaps not only for our sakes, but for the sake of the Nameless as well. There is a need, a longing, flowing in both directions. The Nameless, I believe, delights in taking on a name—in taking on all these names [gesturing to the congregation]. “So they shall put my Name on my people.” And while the Nameless delights in being named, we are invited into the delight and fullness found in returning to the Nameless, to silence, to the breath.

And the Name of Jesus holds this paradox, open wide in both directions—Yah!—the Unspeakable—shouts salvation! The Name of Jesus, paired with the breath, is of course one of the Church’s earliest prayers—what we usually call the Jesus Prayer. It’s most common form today is “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” but in its earliest forms it seems to have simply been the name itself: Yeshua, Jesus, God saves, the Unspeakable makes whole.

St. John Chrysostom wrote in the 4th century of this prayer:

“The name of the Lord Jesus Christ, descending into the depths of the heart, will subdue the serpent holding sway over the pastures of the heart, and will save our soul and bring it to life. Thus abide constantly with the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart, and the two become one.”

And the two become One. The Nameless and the Named become One. And so I invite you in the brief silence that follows this sermon, to breathe the Name of Jesus. I learned the Jesus Prayer in a very simple form from Sr. Helena Marie of the Community of the Holy Spirit—simply breathing in “Jesus” on the in-breath, and breathing out “Mercy,” on the out-breath. Breathing in the love held in that name, breathing out mercy and compassion for all creation. If this form of the prayer calls to you, or if you’re drawn to or familiar with another, take a few moments with it now, breathing in this amazing reality: that today the Unnameable takes a name for our sake, and delights in placing the Divine Name on each one of us.

Amen.