RCL - Proper 25 B - 25 Oct 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
RCL - Proper 25 B - Sunday 25 October 2009

Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52


On the face of it, this is a very happy Gospel story. Bartimaeus is blind. Jesus heals him. All live happily ever after. But my grandmother taught me carefully that there were no silver linings without dark clouds as well. So lets spend a little time looking for some of those clouds... what could be more fun...

In miracle stories, the miracle tends to push the rest of the story out of the picture. There is a lot more in the story than just Bartimaeus having his sight restored.

Look for instance at the crowd. If we focus only on Bartimaeus, then the crowd is just set dressing, but that is not the case.

This is a large, enthusiastic, faithful crowd. They have gathered to cheer Jesus - to worship... It’s a crowd that could easily be compared to any Sunday morning congregation. Good people gathered to praise Jesus. We should aspire to be like them.

But look at the function of this congregation. Jesus is in the middle and over on the edge somewhere is blind Bartimaeus needing help. And when Bartimaeus cries out for help what does the admirable congregation do?

They shush him... try to keep him from making a scene... They do what they can to keep him from getting the help he needs. They literally try to stand in the way of God’s healing power.

I said we could aspire to be like this crowd - this congregation. And now I have to face the fact that, at least some of the time, I don’t have to aspire... I am already part of this congregation.

For the sake of maintaining a joyful atmosphere we sometimes stand in the way of God’s healing power. For the sake of maintaining a familiar status quo we sometimes stand in the way of God’s justice. For the sake of good liturgy we sometimes defer the building of God’s kingdom.

Well, there is a dark cloud... this story is asking me to notice something about myself that I don’t want to notice... Something that, once I’ve noticed it, requires me to do some work. I have to take care not to get so caught up in following Jesus that I forget to follow Jesus. A dark cloud...

But that’s just the first cloud...

There is something about the way this miracle takes place that leaves me with questions. I know, and we all know, people with faith as strong as Bartimaeus, who have serious needs and who ask for God’s healing - and don’t appear to receive it.

I talked with a 10 year old boy who was afraid to pray. When his grandmother was terminally ill he had prayed earnestly that God would heal her. But she died. Children have a way of putting themselves at the center of things... he had concluded that God had allowed his grandmother to die as way of punishing him. He had taken this one step further. He feared that anything he prayed for, God would do the opposite. Experience had taught him this. So he was afraid to pray.

The combination of innocence and lack of perspective make for a heart rending story. But its not unique. This story of Bartimeaus, who’s prayer is answered so quickly and so exactly, would not have helped my 10-year-old friend. It is, for me, a cloud.

Its interesting that the compilers of the Lectionary have chosen to offer part of the story of Job with this Gospel passage. We know the story of Job. He was a good and decent man who suffered terribly in the cause of what seems to be nothing more than a bit of sport between God and the devil.

After the suffering God makes things up for Job - that’s what we heard about this morning. But in the midst of suffering Job surely must have felt that God refused to hear his prayers.

His helpful friends added insult to injury by telling Job that he, no doubt, was the cause of his own suffering. Surely he must have done something bad. Yet Job remained steadfast in his faith, not because his prayers were answered, but because his faith was unshakable. That, of course, is the wager God made with the devil - so at least God wins...

When Job’s fortunes begin to turn, his friends all come back. Now they eat with him and now they show him sympathy... where was that sympathy when he was suffering? When he needed it? They were busy heaping on judgment. It’s a cloud implicit in the story of Bartimaeus. The crowd is really not interested in the needs of the needy... we tend to view the needy and the injured with suspicion and judgment. Scattered clouds seem to be in the forecast...

There is an odd twist in the story of Bartimaeus. When Jesus restores his sight he says “Go; your faith has made you well.” But Bartimaeus does not go. He stays. He follows Jesus. This is exactly not what he was commanded to do.

Bartimaeus’ gratification is instant, And so is his disobedience.

Bartimaeus’ miracle doesn’t really have the simple, happy ending we may think it has because his life doesn’t end when his sight is restored.

His identity, his livelihood was as a blind beggar. It was, at the time, not the worst way to make a living. Post-miracle Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, the blind beggar was going to need a new identity and, more to the point, a new job. His sight has been restored and his world has been turned upside down and his status quo has been shattered. That is the miracle. And that would be another dark cloud. My grandmother would be proud.

The miracle of healing for Bartimaeus is all too easy to spot. In my own experience I find that miracles are much more subtle. And I find that the miracle I want, the miracle I’m looking for, the obvious miracle, actually blinds me to the miracle that is taking place.

I had a friend some years ago who was seriously ill - both physically and emotionally. I had known him for many years and watched his downward spiral. In the end there was nothing I could do but sit with him a few evenings a week and listen to him rant.

I prayed earnestly for a miracle... that God would give me something to say or show me something to do to make things better. Nothing...

And then one day my friend pointed out to me the miracle I was not seeing. In the middle of a long list of unhappy things he paused and looked at me. And then he said: “I’m glad you still come to visit. I know I’m really difficult to be around and nobody else comes any more. But you still come and it really helps.”

The miracle I wanted - to be able to fix things - to be a hero - was blinding me to the miracle that was being given - I could accompany a friend on his journey, albeit a painful one. He told me how it mattered to him, but I find that even now he still journeys with me and brings richness, compassion, patience, to my life. Its not the miracle I prayed for. Its not the kind of answer Bartimaeus got. But it is a blessing.

Bartimaeus’ miracle is not going to be without pain. He hasn’t followed Jesus command to go, He is following Jesus. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem... Ultimately on his way to crucifixion. Bartimaeus’, eyes now open, will soon see the Son of David who has shown him such mercy nailed, with no mercy at all, to a cross. Dark clouds indeed.

The miracle I need, that we all need, is to have our eyes opened to God’s presence in our lives and in our world. But to have our eyes opened will mean that we see not only joy, but sorrow. Not only resurrection, but crucifixion. Not only beauty, but ugliness. Silver linings with their dark clouds still attached.

Jesus doesn’t offer us easy life. Jesus offers abundant life, total life. We pray that, as God opened the eyes of Bartimaeus, God will open our eyes to the life that is all around us.--

RCL - Proper 21B - 27 Sep 2009

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. James Michael Dowd, OHC

RCL - Proper 21B - September 27, 2009

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

Br. Randy by our massive Oak in the Lesser Cloister

Photo Originally Uploaded by Rachael Elizabeth Photography

Total Abandon

I was very much taken with our second reading from the Epistle of James this week as I began to prepare this sermon. The reading, taken from the end of the Letter begins with a series of questions: “Are any of you suffering?” “Are any cheerful?” “Are any among you sick?” In all those cases, and in many more, we are told by James, that we are to pray. As I experienced all of those questions in real time this week – I was sick and suffered (ok – suffering might be a little strong, but it was unpleasant); and I experienced real cheerfulness due to some very good news I received regarding a ministry I am involved with. And so, I thought to myself: “well, what would James say?” He'd tell me to pray. And this seems like a good thing for a monk to do, indeed for any Christian to do.

But my own personal experience, and the experiences of many people I talk to, indicates that even when a person feels truly called to pray, they often experience hesitation, or even downright resistance to actually praying. And, admittedly, I am reading into James here, but his urging people to pray sounds a bit frantic to me. Like he has had the same experience I have had. An experience that has taught me that whatever the situation, prayer is always a good thing – but sometimes, it's just so hard to bring ourselves to do. When we are sick or in sin, that is, when we are at our weakest either physically or spiritually – we should pray. But not only then. In fact, when we are at our strongest – cheerful is the word James uses – we should pray then too. Whatever the situation, God is the Lord of all and welcomes, indeed, invites prayer at every turn. And yet, all to often we resist.

One of the great blessings in my life is my family. I thank God everyday for them. In recent years, many of these blessings have been manifested in my nieces and nephews. Among my three siblings, I have eight nieces and nephews who range between the ages of four and sixteen. Now back when each of them were between the ages of about four years old and six years old, and two of them still are, they had a way of greeting me when I would visit that was unforgettable and something I will treasure for the rest of my life. It has been so meaningful to me that, often over the years, when things have been difficult – I have thought of these moments.

I'd be visiting from what must have seemed very far away and as I approached the walkway to the house or came in the front door, the kids would charge me with full abandon and dive into my arms, yelling something like “Uncle Jimmy is here!” If you ever want an experience of total, unrestrained and unquestioning love, I highly recommend this. And if you want a double dose of it – just ask a sibling to have twins, as my younger brother has.

I would be greeted with such warmth, hugs, kisses, tussling of my hair, and squeals of delight. The “Uncle Jimmy is here!” sounded as if the greatest event in human history had just occurred with Uncle Jimmy's arrival. It is unmitigated joy.

But this only happens when youngsters are between the ages of four and six, give or take. Younger than four, the children did not know me well enough and would be more cautious. Older than six, a kind of worldly maturity begins to set in, slowly, but surely. And with maturity comes reserve. And with reserve comes self-defense. And with self-defense comes a seeming need to mask our vulnerability.

Now, I have a great relationship with each of my nieces and nephews, whatever their age, and wherever they are at. These relationships have deepened over the years and are incredibly meaningful to me. Each of them are unique blessings that God has granted to me, a rather undeserving soul. But I have wondered about the loss of this type of innocence for a long time. And as I have reflected on it, I began to turn inward and to think about my own experience. What was it like for me to be standing there as one of these great kids was charging me, screaming at the top of their lungs, and diving into my arms?

Well, usually, I protected myself, physically and emotionally, asking myself in an instant, questions like “can I still lift them?” “what about my back?” “what if I drop them?” “why can't I scream with so much joy?” “why can't I tell them that I love them as much as they love me?” And on and on. I would scoop them up and hug them and kiss them – but with a tinge of that reserve, while slowly placing a mask over my vulnerability.

But somehow, the kisses and the hugs and the joy of these great children would relax me and would show me a better way. A way to be open to a love that is pure, innocent, and true; before layer after layer of protective coating begins to be applied.

That's what adulthood does to us. As we begin to age and move into the world we get hurt, we experience pain in ourselves and witness it in others, and little by little, we begin to ask ourselves questions like “can I still lift them?” or “why can't I scream with such joy?” And those very real, very difficult questions, begin to shape how we approach our relationships. And that includes how we approach our relationship with God. An approach that has a layer, perhaps several layers, of protective coating on it.

We are careful. We don't want to be hurt. We don't ask God for too much because perhaps he'll disappoint us in his seeming lack of response. We don't tell God we love him too often, because that just makes us more vulnerable. We don't sing praises to God because we just cannot scream for joy any longer. We don't confess our sins because God must be so disgusted with us. We don't even tell God when we are happy, because we probably don't deserve to be anyway. I think we tell ourselves these kind of lies all the time, because we think they keep us safe.

And that brings me back to what I think might have been James' motivation in ending his Epistle with his pleading instruction to pray. When I think of Elaina, Katie, Patrick, Emily, Matthew, Alex, Connor or Sydney charging me and diving into my arms, I think of God. I actually think that God wants to approach us like a four year old – jumping for joy, diving into our arms, hugging and kissing us with total, unrestrained and unquestioning love. With the announcement that “Uncle Jimmy is here!” and it really is the greatest moment in human history. Just because God is here, present to us.

This is, after all, what the Incarnation is: God throwing open his arms with total abandon and embracing each of us as his own. This is, after all, what the Passion is: God throwing open his arms with total abandon to lay down his life for his friends. This is, after all, what the Resurrection is: God throwing up his arms in total abandon with victory over sin and death for us. This is, after all, what the Coming of the Holy Spirit is: God throwing open our arms with total abandon so that God can pray within us.

In last week's Gospel passage from St. Mark, Jesus tells us "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." God is a four year old. God wants us to act like four year olds: Totally open to love, joy, welcome, and with a world view that says each and every encounter with God is the greatest moment in human history. That's what James is telling us today. Pray with unrestrained abandon, like a four year old – everyday and in every circumstance. Let God throw himself at you and open your arms so wide that it hurts to receive him. Take off the mask and let yourself be vulnerable. Strip yourself of the layer upon layer of self-defense you have put on over the years. Give back to God what he first gives to you – total love in complete abandon. The only way to do that is to pray – every day in every way. AMEN.

RCL - Holy Cross Day - 14 Sep 2009

St. Andrews, Newark, NJ

Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC

RCL - Holy Cross Day, September 14, 2009

Isaiah 45:21-25

Philippians 2:5-11

John 12:31-36a

The Crucifix in the Monastic Gardens at Holy Cross Monastery

Originally Uploaded by Cloister-Walk

I’ve never been to Jerusalem or to the Holy Land. And I’m not at all sure I want to go. Which is surprising. I’ve been to lots of places and generally enjoy travel. I’ve lived in Europe. I’ve been to Egypt and New Zealand and, yes, even to Canada. And my current position as Superior of the Order of the Holy Cross requires that I travel every year to South Africa. And since the advice of one of our venerable senior brothers was “Never fly direct,” it’s certainly conceivable that I could take the long way around and visit the Holy Land. But I don’t have much desire to do that.

Strange. I have a dear friend who regularly leads pilgrimages there. I have met countless people who have journeyed there, studied there, lived there. They all tell me how profoundly and irreversibly it changed the way they read the Bible and the way they hear the stories of Jesus that we have heard from our youth. To walk where Jesus walked, to bathe in the same rivers, to see the same hillsides, to know that you do in fact go up to Jerusalem and down to Dead Sea and north to the Galilee. It all gets fleshed out for them; it all becomes real in a way it wasn’t before. It’s like the difference between reading a map and actually being in a place. Both may be accurate perceptions, but they are totally different experiences, the first only a sketch or shadow of the second, helpful in navigating the terrain a little more confidently, perhaps, but pale in comparison.

I’ve also met people who’ve come back from trips to the Holy Land totally disillusioned: disillusioned by the development of the cities and the countryside, by the crowds of people, by the tourist and pilgrimage trade, by the crass commercialization of religious faith, by the dirtiness, the chaos and the political and cultural violence. They went seeking happy peasants, and what they found were people not much different than themselves struggling to make a living in one of the most emotionally and politically charged pieces of real estate in the world, a small piece of the earth claimed as sacred, as holy, as home by three world religions and by many different tribes and nations. It apparently didn’t look or feel at all like those colorful drawings we saw in Sunday school as children, and these folks came back profoundly disappointed. Whatever it is they wanted, the Holy Land could not give them.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than Jerusalem itself, always it seems a spiritual and political hothouse—a small place, crowded, fought over, jealously guarded and deeply revered, deeply longed for and loved by generations, sung about in songs and painted by artists, written about by travelers and dreamed about for ages: “Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blessed.” “Jerusalem my happy home, when shall I come to thee?”

I fear it may be all too much to bear, too much to take in. So I stay in New York, or South Africa, or New Zealand, thank you very much.

But people do still go to the Holy Land and especially to Jerusalem and they have been going there for millennia. They go on pilgrimage. They go to be close to lands and skies and places that they have heard about all their lives and dreamed about and prayed about. They go to walk where Moses or David walked and where Mary and Jesus and the apostles and the first Christians lived. They want to be where it all happened, where Jesus taught and healed and preached and died. They want to see it with their own eyes, touch it with their own hands, hear and smell and taste and walk that place. It’s not unusual or surprising. Look at how many make their way each day to that great hole in the earth in Lower Manhattan that was the World Trade Center. They want to see it with their own eyes, to be there. And who knows why? Who can explain it?

Our feast today, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (or Holy Cross Day), is a feast rooted in this desire of human beings to see it with their own eyes, as much as they can, as much as is humanly possible. Its origins lie in the restoration of the Christian holy sites begun in earnest in the fourth century under the Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena. They decided that it was time to locate and honor those places that were so much part of the story of Jesus, and by extension, our story as well. And no place was more central than that place where our Lord was crucified for us and where he rose from the dead—what came to be known today as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The great triumph of that effort was the popular belief that on that sacred site, the very wood on which our Lord had suffered had been recovered through a miraculous turn of events. And that wood was presented as a sign and a deep and living connection to our Lord’s saving act. That precious relic was offered for the veneration of all who came, and over the centuries they came by the hundreds of thousands to see that wood, to visit that hill of Golgotha and the nearby tomb where Jesus rested in death and rose again to life that first Easter, the whole site now covered by one enormous structure connecting these various sites and fought over by Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Copts and other Christians for centuries. Indeed the competition is so fierce and the territorial rights so volatile that Moslem and Jewish authorities have to guard the peace to keep the Christians from fighting with each other, as regularly happens.

It is, to this very day, a chaotic scene. And people often wonder if Jesus would recognize it? And more to the point, what would he think of it? My opinion is that he’s seen it all, accepts it all, and that nothing would surprise him.

We may, of course, dismiss it. Our faith in Christ has never been dependent upon a visit to certain sacred places but rather on faith in the Lord Jesus himself. And all the layers of tradition, superstition, sectarian rivalry, and religious tourism make such places easy targets for our skepticism.

But the truth is that there is still power in such places. It is, I think, the power to see things differently, to catch an alternative view of life, to be jolted or shocked out of our usual ways of experiencing our world. It’s one of the reasons that people still go on pilgrimages. But the funny thing is, you can never predict when these moments or experiences will happen or even if they will happen at all. All you can do is be open to them, when God in his mercy uses an event, a place, a person to draw the curtain aside to let us catch a glimpse of something more, a glimpse than can be either consoling or troubling, or both.

I was reminded of this as I was reading Forward Day by Day this past week. There is a printed version, as you know, frequently available at the back of Episcopal churches, but it is also available on line on the Internet, and if you have access to a computer, you can read it and also post a personal response to the daily reflection to share with others. Last Tuesday, the reflection focused on the line from St. Marks’ Gospel about the women who went to the tomb early that first Easter: “Terror and amazement had seized them.” It was a simple and beautiful reflection about the author going with his grandson on his first roller coaster ride seeing in his grandson’s face that peculiar combination of “terror and amazement” that St. Mark described.

But what really caught my attention and stopped me in my tracks was a response of someone named Rick Meyer, from I know not where. Let me read you what he wrote:

In 1993 I visited Jerusalem and took the tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; it was nice but I would have liked to stay. I noticed that many people were just sitting along the side of the room up by the cross. So in ‘97 when I returned I set aside a whole day to sit and watch. There is a front stairs that everyone comes up and a back stairs were people leave. I sat on a small bench next to the back stairs. The place was jammed. After a few hours a woman came up the back stairs. She was dressed in modest clothing [eastern European] with a shawl over her head. She got on her knees and [crying] started crawling through the crowd towards the cross and the rock. People started to see her and it got eerily quiet up there as literally thousands of people moved out of her way. She moved forward, never looking up, making the sign of the cross and crying as she approached the cross. She reached in and touched the rock and reacted as though she had received an electric shock, then crying and sobbing [and never looking up] she crawled backwards to the stairs and left. It shook me up. I walked downstairs and stood in the line to go into the tomb. The floor around the tomb area is cracked concrete in bad repair. It was noisy, as thousands of people, speaking many languages, waited their turn to go in. Off to the left I saw the woman again; on her knees same as before. As people noticed her, again, it became so quiet as thousands of people moved out of her way to let her pass. She crawled as before over the broken rocks to the tomb; the priests at the tomb moved out of her way, people already in the tomb, seeing her, moved aside. As before she never looked up, making the sign of the cross, crying and sobbing. Then she backed out again, head down, crawling over the broken concrete, and was gone. We all stood in silence for a long time. I was asking myself why I wasn’t crying and crawling on my knees towards my savior. I think others were doing the same. It haunts me still.

And reading it, it haunts me too. The Holy Cross: our salvation, our hope, our redemption, our resurrection. We’ve so domesticated it, so neutralized it, become so familiar with it, that we put it on our walls and on our steeples and wear it around our necks and make feature length motion pictures abut it and paint it and sing it. But sometimes, we are simply called to or forced to worship it, that is, to come there before God’s power emptied of all glory and glorious beyond our own emptiness and like those women in the Gospel and that woman on her knees, be seized by “terror and amazement”… reduced to tears of grief for our own broken hearts and our own broken world and to tears of gratitude for the tender mercy of God who in ways that surpass our understanding, enters into all and redeems it all and transforms it all.

“I was asking myself why wasn’t I crying and crawling on my knees towards my savior…It haunts me still.”

No wonder I’m reluctant to go to Jerusalem. Who knows what I’ll find there? Who knows what or who will find me there?

But, the truth is that God is persistent and endlessly creative… and if we don’t go to Jerusalem, Jerusalem will come to us. Here we are this morning, the church of Jesus Christ, gathered in this place, in prayer around this book and this table where the mystery of Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection is being played out yet one more time for us and in us. Who knows what will happen?

Don’t be afraid, angels often say. But don’t be surprised either if some day it will be as if you too received an electric shock…and in the power of that shock, go on to live a changed life, a fuller and richer and more loving life, indeed a new life in Christ.

May today be that day—for you and for me. May every day be that day!

That is the promise and the power of the Holy Cross.