Proper 17 A - September 3, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku OHC

The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17 A, September 3, 2023

 

Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

We gather this morning to worship God, to be taught by His Word and to be fed at the table of communion. The theme of being called to loving service seems to stand out in our readings today but more than that we are presented with encouragement and strategy on how to live our lives of faith as we offer joyful service to God by serving our neighbor.

In the first reading this morning from the book of Exodus, we hear the call of Moses who was going to be God’s instrument of delivering the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. Now, Moses would be the most unlikely candidate for the job, if I were the one doing the calling or if I were to have been a member of the selection committe. He was arrogant, temperamental, a murderer, a doubter on top of having a stutter. He did not seem to have the right qualifications that we earth dwellers consider important or essential for such an important ministry. God however called him from the ordinary circumstances of every day life despite his shortcomings.

Moses was minding his business of tending his father-in-law’s flock and not looking for an encounter with God or some spiritual experience. Despite who he was and where he was, God broke through to him with some drama that involved a burning bush to draw his attention. Instead of running away in fear, curiosity drew him closer to the bush to investigate what was really going on. The holy can only break through to us when we drop our defenses, and this happens when we are caught off-guard but not necessarily by something as dramatic.

First and foremost, God wanted to establish a relationship with Moses and that is why He tells him He is the God of his ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God wanted Moses to not only know Him, but to know Him personally. This is crucial in the sense that it is only when we have had a personal encounter with God, that leads to a personal relationship with Him, that we are able to serve Him whole heartedly. That personal relationship is what gives us conviction that we are personally called for this or that mission. It gives us the courage to soldier on when our motives are questioned otherwise we will be easily shaken or discouraged from taking the direction that God wants us to go.

Knowing that God is in our hearts gives us the courage to risk, and sometimes the courage to fail, because we know that even in our failure as persons, God can still bring success for His plans. Knowing God is with us transforms our whole perspective on life. It helps us look at our imperfections differently and helps us understand that in spite of them, God still wants to establish a relationship with us.

For humanity, God has only one master plan which is salvation. God desires us to be freed from whatever that enslaves us and causes us suffering. We are enslaved by sin, by addictions, by pride, by friendships and so on, but whatever we call it, it is most often an enslavement of our own making. God wants to free us from all these and to use us to free others.

Moses attempts to resist God with a lot of seemingly valid reasons but God promises him help and offered to provide all he needed for the specific task that he was being given. God never told Moses that it was going to be easy. He just promised to be present. Moses was to act in faith. Faith does not make things easy but it makes them possible. The call of Moses is therefore crucial in helping us understand the call or mission of Jesus and our own calling as is made evident in our Gospel reading today.

“From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life”. (Matthew 16:21) In these few powerful words Jesus reveals the whole purpose of his earthly ministry, that is, the father’s divine plan for the salvation of all Human kind and the good news or gospel if you like that he, the Christ, had come to suffer, die and be raised again for the forgiveness of our sins and the sins of the whole world.

Peter, the one who had a few verses before proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God(Matthew 16:16) could not comprehend what Jesus was revealing to them and tells Jesus that that will never happen to him. I understand Peter very well. In fact I empathize with him. He was Just being like all of us who at times practice what is called selective hearing. We either hear what we want to hear or pick a word or two in a sentence and draw a conclusion out of context. Peter seems to have only heard the words ‘suffering’ and ‘death’ but never heard or at least never paid attention to ‘being raised on the third day’ or even the reason why the death, suffering and rising were happening, that is, ‘the forgiveness of our sins and the sins of the whole word’! Peter and the other disciples were looking for another kind of Christ. One who preferably would dramatically enter on a horse and some shining armament, coming as an earthly savior to free them from the tyranny of their Roman oppressors. In other words, Peter and company were looking for power and glamour and were therefore not ready to hear the truth of the matter.

Jesus, however knew who he was and why he had come. He was also wise and discerning enough to look through Peter, see the devil, who was trying to discourage him from his mission and rebuked the devil and cast him away… “Out of my sight Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men!(Matthew 16:23).

There will always be well-meaning“Peters” in our life of faith who will try to “speak sense” to us when we embark on our journeys of doing the will of God. In 2010, several months before I left Kenya for an Abbey in the high desert of New Mexico, I was invited out for lunch by a Canadian Missionary Sister, a member of the Congregation of Sisters I was working for, who was also a colleague at the program I was in charge of.

A few weeks earlier I had handed in my resignation so that they could hire a replacement for me so that I could hopefully get time to train him on the job to ensure a smooth transition. The sisters were of course very sad that I was leaving and employed several tactics to make me stay. When we finished our lunch, the sister told me that she took me out to get a chance to speak to me privately and honestly. I told her to spill.

She told me that she had gotten to know me very well for the time we had worked together, and that I was making a huge mistake leaving a stable and very well paying job to join a monastery in the middle of nowhere. She told me she understands the pull most people from the “third world” have to go to the United States and the West in general, but life there can be challenging or outright miserable. She mentioned my personality, the severe winters and cruel summers, racism, isolation and individualism, culture shock, food, and lack of a close-knit support system among things that should make me reconsider my decision. I, on the other hand, was burning with the desire to be a Contemplative Benedictine Monk and therefore could hear none of what she was saying and jokingly told her to “get behind me Satan.” We laughed, toasted with a whiskey and that was the end of the conversation.

I, of course, got to New Mexico and almost immediately all of what she had predicted to me happened! However, despite the struggles and difficulties involved, I do not have any regret because monastic life has provided me with a mirror that helped(and that continues to help) me face my inner self that was broken, traumatized and burdened with self-hate despite the happy facade that I was presenting to people. Monastic life put me on a journey of self discovery and self love which is one of the many crosses that I carry to this day. Had I heeded the well meaning advice of the sister, I would have cancelled my date with destiny and would most likely be a rich but miserable human being. I am not the happiest person on earth yet…that prize has already been taken by a Buddhist monk somewhere in the Far East. All I am trying to say is that a strong God given conviction is crucial in keeping these well meaning “Peters” at bay.

Jesus knew he had come to fulfill the will of his heavenly father and that included literally taking up his cross and following this will wherever it led to. It was absolutely necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, suffer unjustly at the hands of the wicked and hateful men who in fact thought they were holy; die a cruel death on the cross and on the third day be raised again to life by the power of God who is almighty. By doing so, he took my sins and yours, redeemed you and me from the grasp and hold of the evil one and by this forgiveness restored our relationship with the father.

Having set an example, he calls us to take up our cross and follow him. So often we misunderstand this call, mistaking at times our daily struggles as  crosses. Our cross is not something common to all people, both believers and non believers. Difficulties at work, illnesses and diseases, death of loved ones, difficulties in relationships, separations or divorces and so on, are not necessarily crosses by the fact that they are common to all human beings.

Our cross is something that is placed before us as individuals to willingly endure or suffer because we are Jesus’ followers, because we are believers, because we are his disciples! Things like forgiving those who we would otherwise better not forgive, loving the unlovable, caring for the lonely and forgotten, hugging and visiting the untouchables of our world, helping those in need without favor or discrimination, speaking truth to power wherever injustices happen, are just a few examples of crosses that individuals take up or could take up and follow Christ.

We should take up our crosses out of love. Love is also the major distinguishing mark of a Christian and as we heard from the second reading this morning from the letter to the Romans, Paul exhorts us to let our love be genuine(Romans 12:9). Genuine love is characterized by hating what is evil and clinging to what is good. The images that Paul gives are very powerful. He tells us to…let our love be heartfelt; be eager to show each other honor; be set on the fire by the spirit; be devoted to prayer; contribute to the needs of the saints and to pursue hospitality. True love is therefore fervent, relentless and practical.

Now, is following Christ closely in vain or self serving? In Matthew 16:27, Jesus reminds us that he, the son of man, is going to come in his father’s glory and he will reward each person according to what he has done. He does not promise us eternal life because of ‘what we do’ but rather because of ‘how we do’ it, that is, how willingly you and I take up our cross to follow him. The level or degree of willingness demonstrates our faith and our loving response for all that Jesus has done for us and asks of us. It is this faith that will be rewarded with the gift of eternal life.

Our work as followers of Jesus, be we monastics or not, is to individually discern the workings of the Holy Spirit in me, what cross Jesus is placing before me today and how to respond in joyful service to our Savior. The golden question this morning is… How will I take up my cross to follow Jesus…how will you take up your cross to follow Jesus?

May God in His graciousness and love give us eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts filled with compassion as we take up our cross to follow Jesus!

Amen

Proper 19 Year A- September 10, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Roy Parker, OHC
Proper 19 - Year A - Sunday,  September 10, 2017

Br. Roy Parker

Today’s readings are about the options for communicating difficult truth in the community of faith, and my rather brief remarks will endeavor to unpack those options a little bit without pretending to cover all the bases.

As to critiquing, we are cautioned about doing anything of this sort in unawareness of our own faults: How can you presume to remove the speck in another’s eye when you do not perceive the log in your own eye?  In eye treatment, are we really equipped for a delicate procedure which risks damage to the cornea? Speaking the truth in love is also governed by the admonition in the Letter to the Romans “Owe no one anything, except to love one another .  .  . Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” 


Also worth consideration is the opinion of a religious sister associated with the House of Representatives who, when asked how the Congress might be able to restore its bipartisan capability at a time when congressional comity had broken down, recommended each House precede debate by a ten-minute observation of silence. The sort of communication envisioned here, I suggest, might well follow Emily Dickinson’s poetic advice: 

“Tell All the Truth But Tell it Slant —Success in Circuit liesToo bright for your infirm DelightThe Truth’s superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children easedWith explanation kindThe Truth must dazzle graduallyOr every (one) be blind — ”

“Tell All the Truth But Tell it Slant” is the magic formula within all tales of morality of which we see an early  example in the prophet Nathan’s oblique rebuke of King David’s adultery with Bathsheba. The prophet’s tale of power’s abuse of the vulnerable produces a self-condemnation from the king’s own mouth, a far more effective outcome than a direct confrontation could ever have been. This folkloric incident represents one of the more reliable templates for interpreting today’s Gospel passage.

Experience of this sort of communication in monastic life suggests that it sometimes works better if you start right off with the third option, the gathered community of faith. Does the gathered community represent the Body of Christ? Maybe yes, maybe no. Or, as the saying goes, “The wrath of God is a church meeting from which the Holy Spirit has withdrawn.”  Nevertheless, at its best, the gathered faith community is the primary sacrament of Christ, in which the members can converse according to the rubric Success in Circuit Lies, with Circuit denoting a circular line as well as a way of speaking; Success in Circuit Lies is a way of referring to a method of communal conversation as circle practice, which we don’t discover so much as remember.

Our species’ memory is filled not just with circles we painted on pots and cave walls long ago, but also the formations in which we arranged ourselves as we got to know one another. The Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana writes that humans first developed language when we moved into familial groups. The closer we got to one another, the more curious and expressive we became. Circle is the way humans have always sat together and gotten to know one another.

It’s important to remember this long lineage as we daily sit in rows in classrooms, buses, planes, and churches, looking at the back of each others heads, or as we sit along the straight edges of tables and desks, struggling to find a way to communicate and reach one another. After centuries of separation and isolation, circle welcomes us back into a shape where we can listen, be heard, and be respected, where we can think and create together. Circle is the means to draw us away from the dramatic and angry public exchanges that are not just commonplace but seemingly the only option available for discourse.

The Gospel passage contains another important detail: the outcome of successful communication between you and your sister or brother is that you have regained them, a term meaning that both of you newly reenter the communion of Christ’s Body, which is refreshed and renewed through your reconciliation. Obviously, in terms of refreshing and renewing the communion within Christ’s Body, inappropriate language has no place.   St. Paul uses that same verb about regaining another in stating that he becomes like those to whom he speaks in order to more readily gain them for Christ. In his first letter to the Corinthians he writes, “though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might gain more of them.

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law so I might gain those under the law. To those outside the law I became as those outside the law so that I might gain those outside the law. To the weak I became weak so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.” (1Cor.9:19f.)

Paul’s behavior, his method of gaining, requires the renunciation of any sort of arrogance, superiority, or self-satisfaction of expression or attitude. The disposition to become as the one to whom we speak, a way of loving your neighbor as yourself, works a kind of long-term alteration in our personality as if grace came to the assistance of our original resolve. One of the best illustrations of this occurred for me at a Jewish wedding ceremony I attended in Virginia several years ago. At the point in the service when the groom crushes the wine glass underfoot, the rabbi explained to the congregation that this was the last time in this relationship that the man would put his foot down.

Proper 17 A - Sep 3, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Proper 17 A – Sunday 03 September 2017


Jeremiah 15:15-21
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16: 21-28

Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC

In last week’s gospel, just a few verses before our passage of today, we heard of Peter’s confession. Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And for this, he was blessed and commended by Jesus.

*****

In the gospel according to Matthew, the confession of Peter marks a transition in Jesus’ ministry. After the disciples have acknowledged him as the Messiah, Jesus spends more time teaching and preparing the disciples for his passion and his resurrection.

From that time on, Jesus teaches the disciples what kind of Messiah he is to be. And until that is clearer to them, he doesn’t want the disciples to spread that title around for it is fraught with preconceptions that run against Jesus’ redemptive mission.

And understanding Jesus’ type of Messiah is a difficult transition for the apostles. That difficulty is amply demonstrated by Peter’s rebuke of Jesus for announcing his passion in today’s gospel passage.

You see, the Jewish people were waiting for a Messiah who would come in glory and redeem Israel from oppression. The Jewish people were under the rule of the Roman Empire and the collaborating civil and religious authorities. Oppression under a domination system was the Jews’ clear and present reality in the time of Jesus.

No wonder Peter is attached to the generally accepted view of a glorious redeemer as Messiah. Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus were to be increasingly revealed as an all-powerful vindicator who would put everything right for Israel very soon?

*****

Don’t we all, at times, wish for a God who would instantly fix all sufferings and injustices? What if God could give us very soon Universal Healthcare, Free College Education for All, Living Wages for All, Restorative Justice instead of Mass Incarceration. Even Jesus might have found divine overrule over human destiny a tempting alternative. Does he not say to Peter “You are a stumbling block to me.” Jesus seems to be tempted, if for a moment, by the allure of being a vindictive Messiah who puts all right by power.

But let’s remember that this is a temptation that Jesus had already rejected in his meeting with the devil after his baptism.

In Matthew, Chapter 4, we heard:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
   and serve only him.” ’

This was the last of three temptations in the desert and after this the devil left Jesus for a while. But in our gospel passage, Peter is again mirroring to Jesus the temptation of grabbing and using divine power to achieve human ends.

*****

From the time the disciples recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus will teach them to understand what God’s version of those titles is. The Messiah must suffer with humanity to the fullest before the glory of resurrection can happen.

Even today, after his resurrection, the Messiah continues to suffer with humanity to the fullest, even now. There is no human pain or suffering that God does not understand or feel. God feels the pain and suffering of those who lost loved ones, homes or livelihood to Hurricane Harvey, God feels the pain of non-white Americans who bear systemic racism, God feels the pain of North Koreans living under an inept, brutal and megalomaniac dictatorship. God also feels your pain even now.

*****

And in calling the disciples, in calling us as disciples, Jesus calls us to not be afraid to take up our cross and follow him to his passion. This is a countercultural call today as much as it was in Jesus’ lifetime. We hear a harbinger of the apostle Paul’s call to not be conformed to this world as we heard in the epistle today.

We are to be ready to deny ourselves on our path to following Jesus up to the point of being detached from what happens to our very life.

*****

Mind you, Jesus is not asking us to deliberately turn our lives into a misery. But he asks us to not hold back anything from our commitment to him as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

In a way, today’s teaching is a mirror image of the Shema prayer found in Deuteronomy (6:4-5) as applied to Jesus:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

*****

We are to hold nothing back from our love for God, not even our life. And in exchange for giving our life, Jesus promises that we will find our life. “Those who will lose their life for my sake will find it.” And while this may sound like a promise of eternal life beyond death, I also believe that it is a promise of fulfillment of life in the here and now. We must die to our false self, to let the true God-centered self live abundantly. In giving ourselves totally to God, we are finding the fullness of whom we are meant to be.

*****

As an important aside on today’s gospel, I would like to come back to Peter’s predicament in this passage. Not long ago Jesus blessed him for his insight and named him a foundation of his church. And a few days later, the same Peter, for his traditional interpretation of who Jesus is, is called names and told to step behind Jesus.

Peter is not less in today’s gospel passage than he was in last week’s gospel passage. Peter is still a chosen servant-leader of the church. And yet, we are shown here that not even our most distinguished leaders are beyond needing to fine-tune their image of who God is.

We all need to listen to what God is saying about Godself in our lives. God can still surprise us. We need to question our long-held views of who God is.

Are we instrumentalizing God in any way to achieve what our goals and hopes are? Are we willing to accept that God’s being may be different and larger than the picture we have put in God’s place?

Throughout the gospel, Peter is learning who God is, sometimes in embarrassing or painful ways. May we be willing to continue to learn who God is in any way God sees fit for us.

And may we be willing to hold nothing back to follow Jesus, no matter what detachment is required of us.

Amen.

Proper 17 C - Aug 28, 2016

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Peter Rostron, OHC

Proper 17, Year C - Sunday - August 28, 2016

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

Gandhi spinning yarn. What is our simplicity?

With all sorts of news about the presidential campaign swirling about, I recalled the well-known aphorism: All politics is local. Whatever the sweeping visions or inspiring slogans,­ if any, ­in the end, people tend to make their decisions on the smaller things, things that affect their daily existence. Such as having enough food on the table, being safe on the street, having a decent place to live, getting a good education, and having access to quality health care. Yes, there can be bigger principles at work in people’s decision­-making, but a prerequisite is the fulfillment of fundamental, local needs.

This principle is also at work not just as we think ahead and make choices about the future, it also applies to the trajectory of the past that brought us to this present moment. The grand themes of history that we look back at, and study and learn from, only emerge out of the accumulation of many lesser, individual events and decisions that were made over time with no knowledge of what the future, or what the big picture, would be. Likewise, the grand arc of our individual lives is the accumulation of the many small choices that we make along the way. Thus, little things matter. All the small decisions that we make matter. They add up to who we are.

So it is in today’s gospel. Where do you choose to sit? It seems like a fairly inconsequential decision to make, yet it is not. It is a reflection of how you regard yourself in relation to others. If you choose to sit in the highest place, there is an assumption of being important. It implies that you want and deserve the best, that you don’t have much concern about what might rightfully belong to someone else. 

On the other hand, sitting in the lowest place makes space for others to be ahead of you or to receive more than you. And that involves a letting go or a doing without. It embodies a level of poverty. Poverty, I imagine, is not a word most of us in this room might associate with ourselves. On the surface, I don’t think of myself as being poor or as living in poverty. Yet, for me and for my brothers, poverty is embedded in the component of our monastic vow in which we commit to conversion to the monastic way of life. And for you seated in the congregation, if it isn’t already, poverty, and an awareness of it, can become part of your spiritual practice.

But, what is poverty? Most simply, it is being without, lacking something. Something material or emotional or spiritual. It does not necessarily mean, however, that you do not have enough. It can mean having only what one reasonably needs and living simply, without extravagance. The more we possess, the more energy we must devote to caring for and protecting those possessions, and the less energy we have to be mindful of the needs of others, to love our neighbor. Our Founder, Father Huntington, expresses this in his rule when he says:

we are, then, to look for the riches of God to be given us more fully as we depend less upon the riches of the world. 

And Jesus exhorts us in the gospel of Matthew, 

Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal; but store up treasure in heaven... For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We can choose to do without material things in order to make more room for spiritual things.

There is another manifestation of poverty for us as Benedictines, which is common ownership. As put forth in the book of Acts, 

The whole company of believers was united in heart and soul. Not one of them claimed any of his possessions as his own; everything was held in common.

Benedict includes this in his Rule, where he says, 

... no one may presume to give, receive, or retain anything as his own, ... not [even the free disposal] of their own bodies and wills.

So, rather than being individual owners of anything, we instead are stewards of commonly­ owned things. We are responsible for their care and use while they are in our possession, but we, as individuals, do not own them. I have on occasion been given something here in the monastery and been told, “Here, this is for your use,” not “Here, this is yours.”

Beyond the notions of intentionally doing without, or with less, or of sharing possessions, you can also experience a form of poverty that stems from the loss of something that you really do want, something precious, and for reasons beyond your control. Things such as good health, or a happy marriage, or the love of a lost parent or child. That form of poverty can be a source of pain, sorrow, regret, bitterness, or resentment. It can fuel jealousy and animosity. It can cause us to close in on ourselves and condemn or neglect others. In his book, Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen writes, 

When we are not afraid to confess our own poverty, we will be able to be with other people in theirs. The Christ who lives in our own poverty recognises the Christ who lives in other people's. Just as we are inclined to ignore our own poverty, we are inclined to ignore others'. We prefer not to see people who are destitute, we do not like to look at people who are deformed or disabled, we avoid talking about people's pains and sorrows, we stay away from brokenness, helplessness, and neediness. By this avoidance we might lose touch with the people through whom God is manifested to us. But when we have discovered God in our own poverty, we will lose our fear of the poor and go to them to meet God.

The avoidance or denial of poverty, then, in its various forms, can lead to separation, from others, and from God. You could be avoiding the “desirable” poverty of simplicity or shared ownership and instead, be living with a sense of privilege and with a focus on accumulating and holding on to lots of nice things. This puts you at risk of becoming self­absorbed and inwardly focused, becoming disconnected from those around you. On the other hand, you could be carrying your own painful, emotional poverty. Denying this puts you at risk of denying the needs, even the very existence, of others who are suffering, because that might resonate too much with your own woundedness. 

Either way, our own poverty ­ material, emotional, and spiritual is significant and worthy of careful examination. Do you have more things than you need? What consoles you when you are stressed? What issues of the world concern you? What activities and things enliven and enrich you? Your honest answers to questions such as these can suggest how poverty exists in your life,­ what forms it takes, how you understand and relate to it, what your intentions are around it­ and that in turn can shed light on the ways that you engage with, or separate from, those around you.

So now, back to the simple question prompted by today’s gospel, one of the many small decisions that add up to your life. Where do you choose to sit? Do you choose the highest place?

That is, do you choose to insulate yourself from others, to detach yourself from your own humanity in favor of other seductive but false attachments? Or, do you choose to sit in the lowest place? There, you can embrace your poverties and enjoy the freedom to be open and honest and loving with those around you, no matter their place in the world. We heard Paul say it today in his letter to the Hebrews: 

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers... Remember those who are in prison... Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have.”

It is then that we can be filled with the ultimate treasure: God’s love. And, by living in such Godly poverty, we will be able to realize what Paul expressed so eloquently to the Corinthians: 

As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: ...as poor yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Proper 17 B - Aug 30, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Borden, OHC
Proper 17 B – Sunday, August 30, 2015

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Br. Scott Borden

It’s tempting to hear this Gospel passage from Mark as a dispute between the faithful and the faithless – between the disciples and Pharisees. But this is a dispute among faithful people. The Pharisees were not unfaithful – they were extremely devout, extremely faithful, just like the disciples. The issue is how they live their faith.

This passage combined with the letter of James forms a challenge for those of us today who are both faithful and devout: How do we live our faith – and more to the point, do we live faithfully in the manner of the disciples or of the Pharisees…

In Mark, Jesus calls us to listen. Jesus is emphatic: "Listen to me, all of you, and understand..." The listening part is not so difficult, but understanding…

But the Letter of James has some very useful coaching: "… be doers of the word, not merely hearers who deceive themselves." So understanding the word must involve action. Perhaps the words of Father Huntington apply: Love must act. And we know that God’s word is love.

Martin Luther famously hated this Letter of James because it seems to encourage a doctrine of works righteousness; that our salvation is somehow obtained through doing good works. For Luther it was all about God's grace being given to us in spite of the reality that we don’t earn or deserve it.

I'm happy to ignore Luther for the moment and turn instead to John Wesley. The same controversy of salvation through works or grace was still swirling nearly two centuries later, but Wesley saw a different order of things. Good works, what Wesley called sanctified living, were not a precondition of grace, but rather a response to it.

According to Wesley, when we become aware that we are the recipients of God's grace through no act of our own, we cannot help but respond in sanctified living. And the longer we live in the knowledge of God's grace, the greater our joy will be in sanctified living. We must be doers of the word, of love, because otherwise we are merely hearing the word, not understanding it. Without action, faith is dead, the words are empty. Love must act.

According to James, those who hear the word without acting are like folks who study themselves in the mirror. In contemporary terms I think James is talking about narcissism. Narcissists are interested in how things appear, and most especially in how they, the narcissist, appears. Or as a silly pop song of a few years back put it, it isn’t how you feel, its how you look… Lovers of God, followers of Jesus, on the other hand, are interested in who needs food and who needs help, not in how things appear.

It is easy to read this Gospel passage as a story of opposing groups – the good and faithful disciples and the narcissistic Pharisees. That may have been a good way to read the story – back then... But I think the richness of this story today lies not in reading it as a story about two unfriendly groups, but rather as a story of inner conflict. We are Pharisees and we are Disciples who hear and understand.

In the church today there are many who, as James says, are quick to speak; quick to judge; quick to condemn; quick to exclude, not so quick to listen... I can spot those people from miles, even oceans, away.

It’s a bit trickier when I’m the one too quick to speak, to judge, to condemn, to exclude. Once we have our mouths running, listening becomes much more difficult – even for me...

The direction of our action must be love. James tells us that our anger does not produce God=s righteousness. In my experience, my anger produces self-righteousness. Frighteningly, much of our present political discourse seems to start in anger that billows forth into self-righteousness and narcissism.

How easy it is for me to spot self-righteousness… in others... How much harder to spot my own self-righteousness. And yet it’s there – and it is not Godly. My anger does not produce righteousness. This is a humbling reality.

It’s not that we don=t get angry. Certainly there are many things in this world that should make us angry. Certainly Jesus got angry. Anger can move us to action. The problem is that anger must not direct our action. Love, God’s love, must direct our action. Otherwise the result will not be righteous.

With this letter of James ringing in our ears what happens when we go back to Mark?

It’s a fairly standard set up in Mark – Pharisees are yammering away: AYour disciples do not love God because they do not keep God’s law... they do not (insert offense here)...@ This time the offense is Athey do not wash their hands before they eat.@ (I had a 2nd grade teacher who would have quite liked these particular Pharisees...). The disciples, in the eyes of the Pharisees, are defiling themselves and thereby defiling God.

So Jesus tells us how we truly defile ourselves – not with what we eat, not by failing to follow rituals, but with what is in our heart and what comes forth out of our mouths.

We wrestle with Pharisees all the time. They are the people who know how everything ought to be done and are happy to tell us... From politicians to televangelists to health and fitness gurus and more. There is a great chorus of Pharisees chiding us for the ways we fail to metaphorically wash our hands.

Listening to the Pharisee Chorus is easy, and perhaps even fun. It provides clarity and certainty. But the Pharisee Chorus is not the choir of angels… It sings a siren song that says examine yourself, look at yourself, improve yourself, love yourself. Don’t look away from yourself.

When I examine my heart, what do you know? I have my own Pharisee Chorus which really does know exactly how everything ought to be done to please God – not only what others ought to be doing, but what I ought to be doing as well. This chorus is never helpful. It is never Godly.

The lyrics of this Pharisee Chorus are based on some sort of code, or law which defines what God does and doesn’t like – a holiness code. The duty of the Pharisee is to clarify the code, to fanatically follow the code, and at every opportunity to impose the code on others. This is what my personal Pharisee Chorus does... each of us can hear, if we listen closely, our Pharisee Chorus singing away. Listening to this chorus is narcissism. We are at the center – at the spot where God needs to be.

And we all know how big a fan Jesus was of the Pharisees Chorus...

The more we listen to our Pharisees the less we can hear Jesus... the less we can be hearers and doers of the word… the more we stand and look at ourselves in a mirror… the relationship between faith and narcissism is powerful, for they are in some ways shadows of each other. They are both forms of worship – but faith worships God while narcissism worships self.

And here is what narcissistic worship leads to: We can loudly proclaim our belief in the sanctity of family while at the same time allowing children to go without proper nutrition... We can proclaim that we believe in justice for all while accepting a legal system that completely fails entire segments of our society. We can proclaim our love of God’s creation while failing to address our addiction to burning cheap fossil fuels and thereby despoiling our planet. The list goes on and on.

We abandon Jesus in favor of human tradition. We honor God with our lips, but our hearts are far from God.

To hear God’s word is to act on it – we cannot be hearers without being doers for they really are the same, just as loving God and loving neighbor really are the same. God help us to step away from the mirror and to share God’s love with brothers and sisters.

Proper 17 A - Aug 31, 2014

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Proper 17 A – Sunday 31 August 2014

Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16: 21-28

"Get thee behind me, Satan"

In last week’s gospel, just a few verses before our passage of today, we heard of Peter’s confession. Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And for this he was blessed and commended by Jesus.

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In the gospel according to Matthew, the confession of Peter marks a transition in Jesus’ ministry. After the disciples have acknowledged him as the Messiah, Jesus spends more time teaching and preparing the disciples for his passion and his resurrection. 

From that time on, Jesus teaches the disciples what kind of Messiah he is to be. And until that is clearer to them, he doesn’t want the disciples to spread that title around for it is fraught with preconceptions that run against Jesus’ redemptive mission.

And understanding Jesus’ type of Messiah is a difficult transition for the apostles. That difficulty is amply demonstrated by Peter’s rebuke of Jesus for announcing his passion in today’s gospel passage.

You see, the Jewish people were waiting for a Messiah who would come in glory and redeem Israel from oppression. The Jewish people were under the rule of the Roman Empire and the collaborating civil and religious authorities. Oppression under a domination system was the Jews’ clear and present reality in the time of Jesus.

No wonder Peter is attached to the generally accepted view of a glorious redeemer as Messiah. Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus were to be increasingly revealed as an all-powerful vindicator who would put everything right for Israel very soon?

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Don’t we all, at times, wish for a God who would instantly fix all sufferings and injustices? Even Jesus might have found that a tempting alternative. Does he not say to Peter “You are a stumbling block to me.” Jesus seems to be tempted, if for a moment, by the allure of being a vindictive Messiah who puts all right by power.

But let’s remember that this is a temptation that Jesus had already rejected in his meeting with the devil after his baptism.

In Matthew, Chapter 4, we heard:

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
   and serve only him.” ’

This was the last of three temptations in the desert and after this the devil left Jesus for a while. But in our gospel passage, Peter is again mirroring to Jesus the temptation of grabbing and using divine power to achieve human ends.

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From the time the disciples recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus will teach them to understand what God’s version of those titles is. The Messiah must suffer with humanity to the fullest before the glory of resurrection can happen. 
Even today, after his resurrection, the Messiah continues to suffer with humanity to the fullest, even now. There is no human pain or suffering that God does not understand or feel.

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And in calling the disciples, in calling us as disciples, Jesus calls us to not be afraid to take up our cross and follow him to his passion. This is a countercultural call today as much as it was in Jesus’ lifetime. We hear a harbinger of the apostle Paul’s call to not be conformed to this world that Shane preached about last week.

We are to be ready to deny ourselves on our path to following Jesus up to the point of being detached from what happens to our very life.

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Mind you, Jesus is not asking us to deliberately turn our lives into a misery. But he asks us to not hold back anything from our commitment to him as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

In a way, today’s teaching is a mirror image of the Shema prayer found in Deuteronomy (6:4-5) as applied to Jesus:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

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We are to hold nothing back from our love for God, not even our life. And in exchange for giving our life, Jesus promises that we will find our life. “Those who will lose their life for my sake will find it.” And while this may sound like a promise of eternal life beyond death, I also believe that it is a promise of fulfillment of life in the here and now. In giving ourselves totally to God, we are finding the fullness of whom we are meant to be.

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As an important aside on today’s gospel, I would like to come back to Peter’s predicament in this passage. Not long ago Jesus blessed him for his insight and named him a foundation of his church. And a few days later, the same Peter, for his traditional interpretation of who Jesus is, is called names and told to step behind Jesus.

Peter is not less in today’s gospel passage than he was in last week’s gospel passage. Peter is still a chosen servant-leader of the church. And yet, we are shown here that not even our most distinguished leaders are beyond needing to fine-tune their image of who God is.
We all need to listen to what God is saying about Godself in our lives. God can still surprise us. We need to question our long-held views of who God is. Are we instrumentalizing God in any way to achieve what our goals and hopes are? Are we willing to accept that God’s being may be different and larger than the picture we have put in God’s place?

Throughout the gospel, Peter is learning who God is, sometimes in embarrassing or painful ways. May we be willing to continue to learn who God is in any way God sees fit for us.

And may we be willing to hold nothing back to follow Jesus, no matter what detachment is required of us.

Amen.

Proper 17 B - Sep 2, 2012

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC
Proper 17 B – Sunday, September 2, 2012

A little cairn in the monastery meadow - a place to stop and ponder
Picture by noelle.photographie@gmail.com

Song of Solomon 2:8-13
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Does my heart, and your heart, direct me to right action most of the time?  What intentions drive my actions?  Does God's bidding, God's commandments, God's desire come into it?

Do I stop long enough to question myself in this way?  Or do I let ingrained habits, long-held customs, hallowed traditions take precedence in how I live?

Does my community have habits, customs and traditions such as those?  Do we often enough question whether they are still serving God?  Or are some of our customs serving an idolatrous conservatism that is leaking its last bit of meaning though it suits us well?

Today's gospel addresses questions such as these.

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Mark the Evangelist commits to writing “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” around the year 70 of the current era.  He writes the gospel mostly for non-Jews, gentiles of the Roman Empire.  His community is probably in what was then known as Syria (a larger and less defined region than the current ailing state).

Mark's gospel was written to include Romanized non-Jews into the body of believers.  It is written at a time when Christians -- as they are coming to be newly called -- are increasingly separating from the Synagogues.

Indeed Christians are more often than not seen by their Jewish brethren as too different.  They do not conform enough to the traditional Jewish codes of conduct.  They seem to threaten the integrity of Judaism.

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In this context, Mark remembers incidents of Jesus' life that support the importance of right relationship to tradition.  He recounts Jesus questioning the validity of human codes of conduct.  These codes, which human society evolved from tradition over time, sometimes end up stifling the spirit of the tradition they stem from.

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So, in today's passage, the Pharisees and some of the scribes reproach Jesus for letting some of his followers eat with defiled hands.

Now defilement is originally meant to describe the situation of priests and levites who temporarily become invalid for the performance of rites.  For instance, by coming into contact with human blood or a dead body.

That is, what is going on in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The Priest and the Levite, on their way to serve in the temple, both take a broad sway past the left-for-dead Judean bleeding by the wayside.  They'd rather serve God in the temple than come to the help of their fellow man and defile themselves.

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The Pharisees pick a fight with Jesus about an extended notion of defilement.  One that includes all Jews as ministers of religious rituals; in this case, the sharing of a meal.

The few disciples who are eating with unwashed hands show a behavior that does not comply with the purity code, the so-called “tradition of the elders.”

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In a sweeping statement, Mark ascribes those purity behaviors to “ the Pharisees, and all the Jews.”  In fact, the “tradition of the elders” as Mark calls it was a development within the Pharisaic movement of Judaism.

When they were in exile, the Jews could no longer worship in the temple at Jerusalem.  The Pharisees then surmised that in the absence of the temple, each Jew had to act as holy as the temple priests;  and that the meals of a Jewish household were to be attended to with the same care given to the altar in the temple.

However, that level of expected sanctity left large swathes of the Jewish population out.  For most Jews, their location, their level of wealth or their profession would have made them unable to follow the fullness of the “tradition of the elders”.

Travelers such as Jesus' disciples, for example, could not have been expected to have access to ritual bathing.  Fishermen would constantly have been defiled by their coming into contact with dead animals.

In actual fact, the “tradition of the elders,” became a great way to determine who was out and who was in on being holy, or a Pharisee, for that matter.

It started from the Mosaic laws, of course.  But it elaborated many demands that, at face value, kept the laws, but in fact corrupted their spirit.  One had to be a fairly well-off urban dweller to be able to keep up with the “tradition of the elders.”

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Jesus does not reject the Mosaic laws on which the Pharisees developed their purity code, but he emphasizes their intent and how it should drive right action rather than legalistic observances.

In fact, Jesus refers in an indirect way to the ten commandments when he lists the evil intentions that come from the heart.  Go back to the list and you can track them back to five of the ten commandments.

It was taboo to say the ten commandments as they had been given to Moses.  But it was fine to say them in another way and/or in another sequence.  In this way, Jesus shows deference to some tradition, especially if it goes back to the foundations of the Jewish faith.


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So, where does that leave you and I today, you may ask?  Are we concerned by this gospel passage?  I venture we are, and in a big way.

Do we ever use legalistic or literalistic arguments to justify why our way is right and others' is wrong?

Do we ever refer to noble moral principles to justify non-assistance to those who need our help?

Do we ever keep ourselves busy with visible piety or ostentatious liturgy?  Does it come to a point where there is no space nor time left to welcome the inappropriately dressed newcomer or help the homeless hanging by the door into the sharing of coffee hour?

Do we keep our beliefs and values in the closet when they are not getting their weekly Sunday morning airing at church?

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What are our evil intentions of the heart?  How do we become aware of them, especially in their subtler expressions? How do we turn our heart around to God's desire?  How does that translate in actions that express God's care for the world?

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These are questions I ask myself as a monk.   How does my life, my daily actions express God's love for the world?  Are my best intentions only in my head while the evil intentions reside cozily in my heart and run it?  How do I reverse that order and let my evil intentions chill out and shrink in the coolness of my intellect?

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Today's passage offers no pat solution, but it insists that we put God's desire first, and test human traditions in that way, no matter how good public opinion has them to be.


*****

Listen carefully, the song of songs invites us to more fully entrust our heart, body and soul to God.

The voice of my beloved!
Look he comes,
Leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

Shall I let his gaze meet mine?
And will I leap at its invitation?

To be continued... in each of our lives.