Proper 13 C - July 31, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC

Pentecost, Proper 13 C - July 31, 2022

Hosea 11:1-11
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

This week a professor of art education came to talk with a few of us about making art withing a monastic context. He was curious about how a monastic setting changes and shapes artistic practice and how the making process may also shape the monastic life. We talked about many things in our nearly four hours of conversation, but I kept coming back to the word “abundance.” At one point I said to him that when I’m making a quilt, for instance, I do the best job that I can within the limitations both of my skill and of the materials. I select a pattern. I choose fabrics that I think will pair well with one another. I do my best to line up the seams, to quilt the piece without any bubbles in it. The whole time I imagine, with great anticipation, what it will look like when it’s done. And yet, no matter how careful I have been, and no matter how many so-called mistakes I have made in the quilting process, every single quilt ends up being so much more than I could have imagined. The finished quilt has a life and a beauty that somehow far far exceeds whatever I have put into it. So it is with the monastic life, and, indeed with any life faithfully lived. Our little efforts at prayer, at compassion, at self-improvement, at loving those God surrounds us with—they’re paltry, really. And yet, somehow life ends up being so much vaster and more abundantly beautiful than we could ever have asked for or imagined. You see, God’s answer is always more. More life. More mercy. More love. Not in spite of our efforts, but not because of them, either. On its surface, this morning’s gospel reading seems refreshingly clear. We get none of the maddening puzzles and turnabouts that so often run through Jesus’ teachings. Greed is bad. When we focus on our possessions, we lose track of our need for God and God’s great mercy toward us. In fact, the more tuned in to our possessions we are, the more they possess us. This is a message we need today, isn’t it? We who are living through the death throes of late-stage capitalism. Who know the rich landowners, who not only store up for themselves huge sums of money and property but also the political control that goes with such riches. We who are living through the early years of climate collapse, due almost entirely to our overweening greed. And this greed is not limited to stuff. Jesus tells us to guard against all kinds of greed, indicating that greed wears many faces. John Cassian, the great pioneer of monastic spirituality, reminds us that greed “is a catchall of the vices and the root of all evil.”1 Greed lies at the root of lust, gluttony, vainglory, and pride, all of which leave us wanting more—more money, more sex, more food, more adulation. Cassian adds that “the madness of covetousness is that it always wants more than whatever a person can accumulate.”2 There is never enough to substitute for God, never enough to make us self-sufficient. Those of us who get caught up in the compulsive accumulation of more—whatever our more of choice may be—end up like the rich man in Jesus’ parable. We become fools, and God, always on the lookout for hypocrisy, exposes our foolishness and undermines our self-destruction. This parable begs an important question. What does it mean to be to “rich toward God?” Again, Cassian provides an answer: “Th[e] madness [of greed] is stopped not with wealth but with poverty.” (XXIV) Holy poverty is the answer to our compulsive grasping at food, money, sex, esteem, self-righteousness, or whatever else we cling to rather than God. The way to be rich toward God is voluntarily to dispossess ourselves of all that is not God. God invites us not only to let go our faults and sharp edges—which would be delightful, wouldn’t it?—but also the good in our lives that is self-centered rather than God-centered. This latter is much harder to relinquish and includes our perception of spiritual “progress” (whatever that is) as well as all our certainties that we are good and right and that we know the best way forward. In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Thomas Merton writes about this dispossession: “At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty[…] . It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.” God reveals himself, in the face of Jesus, as suffering love, utterly dispossessed in order to draw us ever deeper into the heart of God. Jesus shows us the way of dispossession and emptiness that leads to total freedom in God. The freedom to allow God’s suffering love to flow through us to a hurt and broken world. The freedom to allow God’s mercy to fill us up and to overflow in radiant abundance. From this place, today’s reading takes on a different light. Our initial clarity about this rich landowner and his greed appears smug and self-satisfied in the light of God’s mercy. Jesus says to the young man, “Who set me up to be a judge and arbitrator?” With this question in our hearts, we can look at this foolish rich man, not with condemnation or smugness or superiority, but with compassion. Do you see how he suffers? He not only has no place to store his crops. But he has no community with which to share his abundance. He has no friends to delight his soul. He must find his companionship only in the things that surround him. He may be materially rich, but he is utterly alone. His choices have cut him off from the great abundance that surrounds him. Can we allow our hearts to break for this man, even as we decry and condemn the poverty his wealth inflicts on others? Mercy begets mercy. When we allow God to dispossess us and to draw us into the flow of suffering, merciful love, there is always more love. We can love the poor who have nothing to eat and also the rich who are so enslaved to their possessions and hungers that they enforce poverty on others. Even more difficult, perhaps, we can love ourselves and those people with whom we live, despite our very many faults and trials. No matter what we put into it, this life manages to astound us with God’s extraordinary abundance, if we have the eyes to see it. As Jesus says over and over again in his teaching, the kingdom of God is all around us and within us, and the gate of heaven is everywhere. There is no place separate from God. Even in the midst of death and suffering and heartache, and of the great anxiety of this moment in history, God’s answer is still—and always will be—more life.

Proper 12 C - July 24, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Pentecost, Proper 12 C - July 24, 2022

Genesis 18:20-32
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Luke 11:1-13

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

There’s a big difference between arguing and bargaining. Having just returned from spending two weeks on an island with my two great nieces, who are one and two and a half, I consider myself well-schooled!

Our readings today illustrate the difference between arguing and bargaining with God. In our first lesson we learn that arguing with God is not only good and appropriate, but also our responsibility and duty. Bargaining, on the other hand---although we do it a lot---is destructive, because it’s based on the wrong idea of who God is and what God does. Consider the ways we try to bargain with God. It usually takes the form: “if you do this, then I’ll do that.” It may involve our health, a relationship, our work, …you name it. I find that this way of operating can become so automatic that it’s almost unconscious. The first problem that arises, if we are not granted our request, is that we go to that very human assumption that we are not loved or worthy to receive what we’ve asked for. It’s usually something wrong with us or something wrong with God. Another problem arises when we get what we want and then are faced with keeping our end of the bargain. We don’t always follow through with good resolutions, especially when the pressure is off, and we've gotten what we want. There’s a sort of forgetfulness that descends upon us. Guilt is often the byproduct of this failure to follow through. It’s not the good variety of guilt that can serve as a transition to repentance and change, but the kind that substitutes fear for love. Since we’ve failed God, it leaves us open to interpret the next bad thing that happens to us as a punishment from God. The worst problem of all in bargaining is what it says about what we think of God. Unless we bribe God, God does not love us enough to have our best interest at heart. The premise is that we can control God by making the right deal.

13 th century mystic, Meister Eckhart wrote: “Some people want to love God in the same way they love a cow. They love it for its milk and cheese and the profit they will derive from it. Those who love God for the sake of outward riches or for the sake of inward consolation operate on the same principle. They are not loving God correctly; they are merely loving their own advantage.” If bargaining with God is dangerous to our spiritual and mental health, arguing with God is good for us. The psalms are filled with countless examples as are our lessons for today. When Abraham learns that God is about to destroy Sodom, he argues with God about whether it’s appropriate. The form of the arguing may sound like bargaining to our ears. It resembles the haggling of a Middle Eastern marketplace. Abraham keeps lowering the number of righteous it would take to spare the city. Abraham isn’t trying to get anything for himself nor is he promising to do anything for God. He’s concerned over the destruction of good people. He’s reminding God that it’s not something that God does, that it’s not consistent with God’s nature, which is love. He’s on solid ground when he calls on God to be faithful to God’s character.

The story in Luke is a variation on the same theme. Jesus gives two examples about the right way to pray. The first is the story of a family who discovers they have no provisions when a late-night visitor arrives. Even though the neighbors may resent being disturbed at such a late hour, they will respond to the need, not out of friendship, but because they understand the duty of hospitality in their culture. They are being asked to be true to their own nature---to act appropriately in the situation. So, we are told in both instances that God responds to requests according to the divine nature, at least when those requests are on behalf of others. In fact, it’s our responsibility to make such requests. Intercessory prayer is not a manipulation of God, but a radical and open cooperation with the God who loves and cherishes us. Intercessory prayer helps us to cultivate trust in God’s providence rather than our own will, when we entrust those for whom we pray to the never-failing love and care of God.

Jesus’ second example takes us further by letting us know that we can ask that our own needs be met as well. Again, the last two weeks modeled good and loving parenting for me, even under stressful, loud, and chaotic conditions. Just as a human parent will not withhold what is needed or give what is harmful to their child, so much more will our divine parent care for us. But there’s a catch. Just as a loving parent will not give a scorpion to a child who asks for an egg, so that parent will not give a scorpion to a child who asks for a scorpion. Loving parents know that children do not always know what will harm them. My older great niece was repeatedly reminded, amid loud protesting, that it is her parents’ responsibility to exercise good judgment and protect her. Asking God for the wrong things, no matter how attractive or how much we want, bargain, or protest for them, will not induce God to give them to us. We let God know what we or others need, not because God needs our prayers. God doesn’t need to be reminded of God’s nature or God’s love for us---we do---just like little children---over and over again. So, when we pray, instead of bargaining, let us remember that if we who are infinitely less generous and patient, know how to provide good things for those we love, how much more will God provide for us. Again, Meister Eckhart reminds us: “We should be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive. As God is omnipotent in deeds, so too the soul is equally profound in its capacity to receive.” We need never fear to make the radical and risky prayer taught and prayed so often by Jesus---“Your will be done.” We can trust that God’s will for us is nothing but the best. +Amen.

Proper 11 C - July 17, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero, OHC

Pentecost, Proper 11 C - July 17, 2022

Genesis 18:1-10a
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

Nada te turbe, Nada te espante, Todo se pasa, Dios no se muda, La paciencia Todo lo alcanza; Quien a Dios tiene Nada le falta: Sólo Dios basta. -Santa Teresa de Ávila: Anyone who knows me just a little bit knows that I am an unapologetic doer. Yes, I am a Benedictine monk. I even dare say I am a contemplative monk. But to me, a wonderful contemplative practice can be organizing a closet, or cleaning a room, or painting a hallway. I love tasks, and creating goals for myself, and writing lists and making very detailed schedules. In meetings, I can become restless with a lot of conceptual talk that involves no action, or talk of lovely ideas without a process plan for implementation. Duty and service have always been very important to me, and I don’t think that is ever going to change. This world is both really wonderful and a big mess, but without us doers I believe it would just be a big mess and nothing would ever get done. Needless to say, I find it quite ridiculous that this gospel story is so often used to advocate contemplation over action, or word over deed, or mysticism over activism, or worship over service. Why? Because we need all of it! Our common life requires all of it! What would churches do without the Marthas of the altar guild, or the Marthas who bake the Eucharistic bread, or the Marthas who set up for the Coffee Hour or arrange the altar flowers? What would we do here at Holy Cross Monastery without the Marthas who come weed our gardens, or the Marthas who volunteer in our library and our archives, or do data entry, or organize the files of our associates, or those of us Marthas who take the initiative to do all kinds of things without being asked? I dare say this my community has more than several Marthas!

The Gospel of Luke places great importance on service, on diakonia, from which we draw the word Deacon. Earlier in this gospel, Jesus sends out the 70 disciples to do ministry ahead of him. He tells them that when they are welcomed into someone’s home, they should eat whatever is set before them. Now, in today’s gospel story, it is generally believed that Martha is busy preparing a meal for Jesus and his followers. It’s an assumption that makes sense if one considers the cultural practices of the place and time. So if it is true, and Jesus is actually telling Martha she should sit down with Mary, Jesus and company, won’t have anything in front of them to eat! And immediately before this event Jesus tells what we know as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and instructs to “Go and do likewise.” So it makes no sense to think that Jesus is now advocating sitting and listening over doing.

So, what is really going on in this story? I don’t think the issue is that Martha is busy serving and providing hospitality. Service is, in fact, a needful thing. Jesus himself came as one who serves. The issue is that she is worried and distracted. The root meaning of the Greek word translated as “worried” is “strangled.” The Greek word translated as “distracted” means “to be pulled, and dragged away in different directions.” These are violent words that signify states of mind that make us isolated and un-whole.

  Martha’s anxiety and distraction are sabotaging her own desire to offer hospitality, leaving no room for the most important aspect, which is gracious attention to her guests. Instead, all she can do is to question Jesus’ love (“Lord, do you not care?”), break all the rules of hospitality by trying to embarrass her sister in front of her guests and fixating on herself (“My sister has left me to do all the work by myself”), and asking Jesus to intervene in a family dispute by triangulating (“Tell her then to help me.”) Yikes! But Jesus will not be triangled!

It is not the doing that goes wrong with Martha. It’s the motivation behind the doing. Martha has let her ego motivate her “doing.” When this happens, it always leads to resentment, which is a disappointed expectation. Her resentment and frustration diminishes her gift of hospitality, which she is working so hard to share.  If our inner life has become strangled and we struggle to give and receive love. If our busyness is dragging us in different directions and has become an affront to the friends we long to host. If our worry is keeping us from being fully present, and fully engaged. If we are using our packed schedule to avoid intimacy with God or with others. If our spiritual practices and devotions have become busy, mechanical and rigid keeping us distracted and blocked from being hosts to Christ’s presence in our hearts. Then Jesus is inviting us to remember that “…there is need of only one thing.”

What is the one thing that is necessary? Today’s gospel story does not tell us. To find the answer we need to look at the text which immediately precedes today’s story. The question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The answer: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your strength and all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Plain and simple. Of course, we know this, and yet need to be reminded time and time again. It is only through love that we become the hosts of Christ’s presence in our hearts. It is only through Christ’s presence in our hearts that we can be renewed to give ourselves in love to the world.

I like to think about Jesus’ words to Martha as an invitation, not a rebuke. And that invitation is for all of us, especially those of us of the “doing” disposition. It’s an invitation to know and trust that we are valued not for what we do, but because of who we are, beloved children of God. In a culture of relentless pursuit of productivity, we doers need to be reminded that our worth is not measured by how busy we are, by how much we accomplish, or by how well we meet the expectations of others. We are invited to sit and rest in Christ’s presence and trust that whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. In the words of Orthodox priest James Krueger: “Self-gifting love is the true goal of contemplative practice, not self-actualization.” It’s important to remember that we are all called to be mystics and prophets! Mysticism that doesn’t lead to prophetic action is disengaged, and sentimental and self-absorbed. Prophetic action that doesn’t spring up from prayer and contemplation is chaotic, and contentious, and it too is self-absorbed.   So, if you are a doer like me, oh, be you, DO! Don’t let any preacher, or pastor, or spiritual director make you feel like you are any less for being who you are. But “do” single-mindedly, and deeply saturated in Christ’s love. That’s how we can live into the Reign of God. If we asked Jesus which example we are to follow, the active Good Samaritan or the contemplative Mary, Jesus would most certainly answer: “Yes!”

I’ll end with the same poem with which I started by Saint Teresa of Ávila:

Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+

St. Benedict - July 10, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC

Saint Benedict - July 10, 2022

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

Today we are celebrating the feast of Saint Benedict, father of Western monasticism. As a Benedictine monastic community, we count this as one of our great festivals. But it is also a festival that Christians everywhere can join in celebrating, for the tradition that flows through and from St. Benedict has shaped our world, and largely for the better, for fifteen centuries. And the popular rediscovery of St. Benedict over the last 50 years or so--a popularity which flows from the writings of both monastics and non-monastics alike and especially from Anglican lay women such as Esther de Waal and Kathleen Norris--has been a gift to the whole church and the entire world. We celebrate Saint Benedict who lived in the late 5 th and early 6th century in northern Italy. But truthfully, we don't know all that much about him. Pope Gregory the Great wrote an account of Benedict’s life some fifty years after Benedict died, though it's generally agreed that, as Rowan Williams put it: “...it is largely pious guesswork stringing together a few traditions preserved in some central Italian monasteries.” Even Gregory himself acknowledges that his sketch of the life of Benedict is woefully incomplete. Towards the end of this brief work he says: “He [Benedict] wrote a Rule for monks, a work outstanding in good judgment and clearly expressed. Whoever may wish to have a fuller understanding of his character and his life can find all the acts of his administration in this Book of the Rule. For that saint was incapable of teaching a way of life that he did not practice.” Yet even the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, so influential as a guide for wise and balanced living, is itself not entirely original. Modern scholars have pretty much reached the consensus that Benedict's Rule is largely a reworking of an older and longer monastic rule commonly referred to as the Rule of the Master. If we're to learn anything about the man Saint Benedict from his Rule, we need to look at what he retained of that earlier rule, what he eliminated, and what he changed or nuanced. There are scholars who have made their whole professional career the analysis of this process. Over my 36 years in the monastic life, I have given any number of talks or retreats on the Rule of Saint Benedict and on Benedictine spirituality generally. I've often organized them around particular catch phrases or popular summaries of both the rule and the tradition. For example, one approach might be to focus on the interconnected Benedictine vows of stability, obedience, and conversion of life. Or there is the Latin tag ora et labora, that is, pray and work. And though popular—you can find a stone at our guesthouse door engraved with these words—it's a fairly incomplete description of the Benedictine vision without such things as study and leisure and the communal life. Finally, there is simply the Latin word for peace—Pax—often inscribed over the entry to monastic cloisters. Benedictine peace comes close in meaning to the Hebrew Shalom, pointing to a way life that is at once balanced and open, seeking the well-being not only of the individual and the community, but that of the whole world. As useful as these capsule summaries may be, I must admit that I now find them a bit tired. But recently I came across another stab at this approach offered by the Oxford historian Henry Mayr-Harting and quoted by Rowan Williams in the introductory essay of his book The Way of Saint Benedict (2020). Commenting on Benedictine spirituality or holiness, Mayr-Harting, who was educated by English Benedictines from his youth, observes: “There are three phrases by which I would sum up Benedictine holiness: completely undemonstrative, deeply conventual, and lacking any system of expertise.” Let’s have a look. First, Benedictine life, Benedictine spirituality or holiness is, Mayr-Harting says, completely undemonstrative. And that is to say that, at its best, it is a quiet kind of Christian living: nothing flashy, no headlines, no greatest hits or celebrities. Maybe the most demonstrative aspect of Benedictine life is the restrained way in which it celebrates the Christian liturgies. If it is to demonstrate anything at all, the Benedictine vision holds out to us the possibility of people dwelling together in unity, as the psalmist would have it. It is life lived day by day with humility and intentionality and faithfulness and patience and very often, hard work. Second as Mayr-Harting says, Benedictine spirituality or holiness is deeply conventual. Not conventional, but conventual. Which is to say it is life lived with others. Just as one can't be a Christian on one's own, neither can one be a Benedictine on one’s own. While Benedict's rule makes a place for the hermit or eremitical life at a late stage of the monastic journey, it is only for those few who are called to it. The preponderance of emphasis is on life together day by day, year by year with, if not exactly the same people, at least the same cast of characters who will simply not go away. St. Benedict describes the monastery as a workshop. And Rowan Williams says that what is made and formed in that workshop are souls or holy lives. Each of us is called to some kind of monastery, some circumscribed setting where commitment and fidelity and mutuality and the painful/joyful process of growth can happen. Call it what you will: community, family, friendship, work, parish, neighborhood, the country, and on and on. These are all workshops where souls or holy lives are shaped and formed. What perhaps distinguishes the traditional monastery from these other workshops is that it is, if you will, a kind of intensive care unit for souls like me. Finally, Mayr-Harting says (surprisingly!) that Benedictine holiness or spirituality lacks any system of expertise. Surely that can't be right, can it? Isn't the entire Rule a handbook of monastic expertise? In fact, it's not. It is rather, as the author himself says, a little rule for beginners. There are no experts in this, though there some who have been at it for decades. They may have some experience under their belts, they may see a little more clearly the promises as well as the pitfalls, but they are hardly experts. If there is any sense of expertise in this way of life it lies in the recognition of how far we each have yet to go and how often we have missed the path or strayed from it. Every day a new beginning, says one writer…just like AA. No, there's no exotic set of spiritual practices which, if followed faithfully, is guaranteed to produce the desired result. There’s no form of personal prayer or meditation that is peculiarly Benedictine, though being formed by the round of daily prayer services—the Opus Dei—may come close. There's no guru or staretz in our tradition, though there are perhaps writers or scholars who speak to our condition. And in fact we each tend to find one or another person who seems to be just a little bit farther along on the journey, and we may seek their advice or counsel or their companionship. But the bottom line is that we're all in this together and nobody has all the answers. We're all in this together. For me this is the great take home lesson from Saint Benedict. He ends his Rule by speaking of the good zeal of monks and concludes with these words: “Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.” (RB 72:11-12) All together! Beloved, this is not a competition or a race in which one of us gets to the goal first or at least finishes among the medal winners. No, this is more a pilgrimage. And if you've ever been on a pilgrimage, you know that the idea is not to get there first (wherever there might be). The goal is to get there together. In this fractured and divided world and nation of ours, in our divided and suspicious churches, in groups and families at enmity and strife we desperately need to hear this and take it to heart. Benedict’s vision is for today. And if monasticism has anything to offer to the contemporary world, it may be to model, however imperfectly, a diverse community of ordinary people living together in fragile unity and Christian hope and holy love. We are all in this together. Aided by the prayers and teaching of our holy Father Benedict, may the good Lord bring us and our world all together to everlasting life. May it be so.

Proper 9 C - July 3, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Ephrem Arcement

Pentecost, Proper 9 C - July 3, 2022

Isaiah 66:10-14
Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

“Even though it may seem counterintuitive, a comfort zone is a dangerous place to be.” So says Mary Lou Retton. With this in mind, I would like to offer a counter-intuitive interpretation of the gospel passage we just heard…suggesting that the most important truth it has to offer is not that of a practical guide for a mission trip–what to do and what to say. Who of us here will literally go from house to house shaking off the dust from our Birkenstocks when people understandably slam the door in our face? First century Palestine is not twenty-first century New York! Further, what does the commissioning of the seventy on their first preaching mission have to do with a community of monks who take a vow of stability? Actually, much in every way, I dare say! And this is what reveals what is so counter-intuitive to the way we often literalize this passage and prevent it from speaking to us in the here and now of our lives today. While on the surface we most often read Jesus’ commissioning of the seventy as being about evangelism, I would like to suggest that it is just as much, perhaps even more, about sacramentalism. History has, unfortunately, pitted these two dimensions of the church against one another. Today, a whole group of Christians identify themselves as Evangelicals. Others would say, “No, I’m definitely not Evangelical, I’m sacramental and liturgical.” The historical circumstances that have led to such bifurcation are varied and complex and ultimately have to do with the over-emphasis of one dimension over the other (say, the sacramentalism of the Medieval church) and the tendency to over-correct in the opposite direction (say, the evangelicalism of the Protestant Reformation). Thankfully, in the age of ecumenism, these dimensions are beginning to come together once again and the universal Church now has the opportunity to recover some of its catholicity or its wholeness. Both dimensions are at work in Jesus’ life and ministry and are on striking display in this passage from Luke, chapter 10. Jesus has just embarked on his journey toward Jerusalem where, he knows, he will be crucified. On the way, he desires to teach his disciples to follow his example in his preaching and healing ministry. This is the essence of the evangelical dimension. But if we read a little more closely, we recognize more that is going on in this passage–something quite revolutionary and radically new. Unlike other peripatetics of the ancient world, Jesus is not simply concerned about spreading his message about ethical living. He is about something far more life-altering. In the words of St. Paul, he is about effecting a whole “new creation.” Jesus’ message is not transactional, it’s transformational. And this is what makes it sacramental. Karl Rahner, the great Roman Catholic theologian of the twentieth century, said that nothing is finished or fully created until it becomes a sacrament–until the natural becomes supernatural. It’s the sacramental imagination that sees the Temple in Jerusalem, a building constructed with human hands in a particular city in ancient Palestine becoming, through the presence of God, the place where heaven and earth become one, where the human can touch the divine. This was the good news of the Old Testament: humankind is not alone–God is not far away but in our midst…or in the exultant words of the prophet Isaiah, “Rejoice with Jerusalem–that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply from her glorious bosom.” The Creator of the whole universe is now being manifested and encountered in a fallen, broken world to liberate it from oppression and help it realize its destiny. This truth, this good news, is modulated into a whole new key in the ministry of Jesus when we hear him say, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Jesus is preparing his disciples not to just continue saying and doing the things he said and did once he is gone, he is preparing his disciples to be his presence once he is gone. In fact, he’s teaching his disciples that he will never really be gone at all but will remain with them…not just alongside them but in their very flesh and bone. Could it be that we have sold God short and have made the good news less good than it really is? We see Jesus going about destroying the works of the devil and liberating people from their infirmities. This is good news…but this isn’t the gospel. Freedom is never meant to be an end in itself. The end goal of the liberating power of God is the sending of the Spirit into our cleansed and liberated hearts so that we–you and me–can now become God-bearers to those in need–that’s the gospel! Do you believe yourself to be a God-bearer? Do you think in these daring, sacramental terms? Do you realize that upon your countenance can be seen the face of God? Without the humility of the cross, this is blasphemy and the height of human pride. With the cross, this is life fully alive–creation fulfilled. One who has undergone the transformative dying and rising with Christ is a new creation whose whole reason for being becomes to allow God to be seen, felt, heard, and known in the here and now of our physical existence, especially by those who need to see, feel, hear, and know God most. The good news is not that we now get to go to heaven when we die. It is that heaven gets to come to us while we live! The goal of the Christian life is not salvation. It’s mysticism! God isn’t just concerned with saving us from our sins. God is mostly concerned with transforming our lives, getting us ready for a wedding where human and divine become one! It is no wonder that the message which Jesus instructs his disciples to preach is one of peace. No longer are God and the human heart necessarily antagonistic toward one another. Through the cross of Christ, God can conquer the human heart and liberate it by taking up abode in it. When we now speak, God speaks. When we now bless, God blesses. When we now weep, God weeps. Maybe not in every instance or in every circumstance (for God can never be controlled), but this awesome possibility is now open to each of us, and when our hearts are aligned with God’s, God shines forth and coruscates in revelatory moments of grace…and the kingdom of God is very close indeed!