Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Mr. Matthew T. Leaycraft
RCL - Palm Sunday C - Sunday 27 March 2010
Isa 50:4-9a
Phil 2:5-11
Luke 19:28-40
The Divine Harmonic
I love the grand harmony implicit in every aspect of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Everything is alined, almost like magic. Jesus foretells that in the village the disciples will find tied up a colt that has never been ridden. They go, and immediately the colt appears, just as Jesus predicted. The curious owners arrive asking, as Jesus foretells (and well they might), why the disciples are untying the colt. They answer as Jesus instructed, “The Lord needs it.” This seems to satisfy the owners entirely. Off they go with the colt. Jesus seems omnipotent. Everything moves at his command. People, objects, even time itself, seem effortlessly within his grasp. He is free and everything comes to him.
The action speeds up and more join in. The disciples throw their cloaks on the colt. Almost supernaturally it seems, they lift Jesus onto the makeshift saddle. Everyone catches the spirit. The crowd surges toward Jesus laying down their cloaks before him. Disciples all, they were witnesses to Jesus curing the blind, healing the sick, and even bringing the dead Lazarus to life. Caught up in the ineffable wonder of God, the incarnate Christ among them, heaven and earth at this moment in rapturous unity, they sing out blessing God in Christ their King and praising the peace and glory of heaven now realized before their very eyes.
And yet, all this unfolds as Jesus knows himself to be in mortal danger. He walks boldly to what may come. In his greatest moment of glory he is at his most vulnerable. And yet, he is beyond fear: wide open, utterly free. His self offering is absolute. Obedience for him is his complete oneness with God. This is what leads him to give himself up to the situation as it unfolds. The offering of self in love is the only directive, the only authority. Nothing stands in his way either within him or without because in full obedience he is in divine harmony with all things: perfect love of God, perfect love of neighbor. And so, he is at his most powerful. Fully conscious even while riding on the little colt, he tells them, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out!”
Paul asks us to emulate this. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” But it doesn’t seem to be so easy. He asks us to be obedient.
Obedience. A loaded word for most of us. In our minds it implies some kind of objective set of rules or value system to which we must willingly or unwillingly comply. Rules. For some of us the word conjures images of self abnegation, the giving up of things, or desires, or individuality. Sometimes we relish the discipline of denial. Adherence to fixed rules is what we live for. There lies safety. It is our marker of identity. Often it takes the form of our maintaining our distinction from YOU, whoever you are, who don’t follow my or our rules. For others rules imply domination, repression, and punishment. The only thing to do is escape. We rebel. Make our own rule, a better rule. In the name of freedom which isn’t freedom at all. In our own compulsive reaction we act out in various ways. Fettered by rigidity or driven in license, our identity is of our own making. In both ways we are unfree.
As many of you know, my Seminarian Internship here at Holy Cross and status as a commuting graduate student between New York and New Haven means I log in hundreds of miles a week on the road. Have you noticed that high speed driving in recent years has taken on the psychic and adrenaline pumping intensity of intergalactic combat? I don’t quite know when this happened, but it is at times truly terrifying, weird, and exhilarating all at once. We travel down the highway among strangers. All these isolated and seemingly disembodied souls hurtling along shielded and concealed in the hard shells that encase them. The characters, stripped of their personalized and complicated masks, act out revealing themselves on an essential level. It’s primal and it’s dangerous.
There is the petite young woman in the gigantic black SUV doing close to 90 who breathes down your tail. With terrifying speed she races up behind you, her whole psyche bent on getting you out of her way in the passing lane. You can feel the energy, can’t you? Finally, frustrated and enraged, she swings to the right, passing you. Before you know it, she has aimed her vehicle directly in front of you. Though there is not much more than a car length between you and the car ahead, she’s pulling right in front of you. You want to scream, but you can’t. Time stands still - is this going to be it? Chaos, danger, and possibly death come in her wake. Fueled by blind anger, her rebellion is heedless of any reality but its own compulsive drive. As you feel the blood drain from your body, a death grip on the steering wheel, you slow down and make room for her. And off she goes, her trip an extended conflict with everything and everyone around her. Careless of the consequences, her reality collapsed into itself, love can not enter.
On the other side of the coin, I know a man in his late ’70’s who, making the trip from the Midwest to visit us, proudly announced when he arrived that for the entire length of the two day drive he never exceeded the 65 mile an hour speed limit. In fact, he proudly boasted, he did 60 most of the time, just to be sure he was operating within the prescribed boundaries. His companion, a woman of his own age, emerged from the car ashen and shaken. His immovable slowness, so contrary to the prevailing conditions, had driven the other drivers to frantic extremes, to avoid, get around, and pass him. Yet, he took pride in the mayhem, because he was right. No love here either.
To be honest, I am both of these drivers at different times. Reactive, rebellious, self righteous by turns. If you get caught up in this it is exhausting and debilitating. Adhering to the authority of an identity of our own making, sometimes conscious, much of the time acting blindly, we are lost. But, there are times we intuit another reality. Sometimes your drive down the highway and the path seems clear. Fully attentive in all directions at once, you synthesize your situation and act accordingly. You are free, unfettered by self and others, letting those pass who need to and wishing them well on their way. You accelerate, slow down, change lanes with spontaneous ease relating to situations and others in harmony, creating harmony as you go. The journey, exhilarating and nimble, is over before you know it. You arrive perhaps tired but happy. It was an experience of freedom, a liberation from self.
We get a glimpse of the deeper truth. Something drops away in us and we see our reality from a different perspective uncluttered by ourselves. In grace God enters freeing us from the falsehood of obedience to our inner demands, our inner demons - self created, self inflicted, conscious and unconscious. It can be as simple as disengaging from the highway madness, or it may be letting go of some primal state trapping you anger, hatred, judgment, fear or chaos, what have you, with all the violence of the demons that assailed St. Anthony of the Desert. With the insight into the truth comes freedom. We experience a relief so profound. And, as if that were not gift enough, love enters. Once you have a taste of the Divine Presence you want more, it leads you onward. It’s all you want. With every opening through the infinite grace of God, love fills the vacuum.
It is the movement of grace that brings us to a place like this. It’s a hospital really, for the trapped and blind. We come seeking freedom. Here we find a respite from our particular worlds in which we are defined. Stepping back we become more open to see ourselves as we are. In hospitality, community, silence, prayer, and the Eucharist, we turn our attention to God. Opening ourselves to God, God is able to enter us in new ways. We see more clearly ourselves as we are, free from our allegiance to our false authorities. In humility is our hope. The goal is true obedience, an opening of love so deep there is nothing else. The freer we are in that love the freer we are to love others. It is the divine rule, the one follows the other. Love of God love of neighbor, this is our calling, this the authority which more and more it is our delight to obey. In letting go we invite participation in the divine harmony.
Now as we enter Holy Week let us concentrate our attention and open our hearts to God. Let us look to those areas that confound us. The places where no light shines. The places that seem closed rather than open, those actions, thoughts, and feeling that seem to come from nowhere. Those are the places to look. Here is where we need to spend time. It’s a bit scary, we have everything to loose. We hold on. But, God is our constant companion. We see the truth, humility enters. We have nothing but ourselves, nothing but God.
With every opening, we enter the imperative of love, the radical freedom of obedience to God. We enter the gift of that true self within, born of God poured out from us to God and to neighbor . Bit by bit, from grace to grace we unfold. The old self drops away. Union with God and right relationship, fall into place. Each step lifting us closer to the freedom and glory of the Divine Harmony that greets us, enfolds us and leads us on until we can join with Paul saying:
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, .... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
RCL - Annunciation - 25 Mar 2010
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Charles Mizelle, n/OHC
RCL - Annunciation - Thursday 25 March 2010
Isaiah 7:10-14
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38
Favored One
In our pantry we have a “gadget” called Holy Toast. It looks more like a cookie cutter. The idea is you press the mold into a piece of bread and as you toast it an image of Mary will appear. Well one day my curiosity got the better of me and I tried it. I pressed the mold into a slice of bread, put it into the toaster and waited. When my toast popped up no image of Mary had emerged. I shrugged my shoulders and thought...Mary does not make appearances to a Baptist.
Left behind in our pantry by an impish guest. Unconvincingly tested by an ex-Baptist monk...
When you grow up Southern Baptist you learn quickly that Mary is just a “B” actress in God’s theater. A bit player with only a small part to play. Jesus is what the show is all about and the only central character. All others simply have a small minority role.
When I was about 12 or 13 years old a Catholic family moved into our Baptist neighborhood. They went to church on Saturday afternoons, went to the beach on Sundays, had a house full of kids. They had many strange behaviors that made them all very suspect in our Baptist world. One of their sons was the same age as I and we became friends. I’ll never forget my Grandmothers reaction when she learned I had gone to church with him on a Saturday afternoon. I thought I would get extra credit for the additional time in church but she scolded “You didn’t pray to Mary did you? We don’t pray to Mary! We pray to Jesus!” The message was very clear--I had truly done something wrong by just being in a Catholic church.
So I must begin this morning by noting God’s great sense of humor in that the first sermon I am preaching in my monastic journey is about Mary. To this day, in fact as recently as last week, I still get questions of concern from my family about just where Mary fits into my faith, my worship, and my devotion. So I’ve learned to give a very evangelical response. In the God said it, I believe it, and that settles it philosophy of my upbringing I just say “God’s Word says Mary is the favored one and that settles it for me”.
Today is known as the Annunciation, the announcement of a divine birth by the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel is quite busy in this opening chapter to Luke’s gospel. He makes two visits to announce two different births; that of John the Baptist and that of Jesus. The stories hold both remarkable similarities and remarkable differences. But aren’t we in the middle of Lent? Isn’t Holy Week and our commemoration of Christ Passion quickly approaching? Shouldn’t the announcement of Christ’ birth come at the beginning of Advent? Here lies another conundrum for one who grew up Baptist and has embraced Liturgy late in his Christian formation. A little math will help us. Christ birth is celebrated on December 25th. Backing up 9 months from there we land squarely on March 25th.
I have always heard the Annunciation as a story about Jesus’ divine incarnation. To me it had always been a story about the miracle of a virgin birth, about God becoming man, and about God coming to live on earth among us. Today, I am no longer convinced that was Luke’s only agenda. The story Luke tells is very much a family story. It is a story of family scandal.
It is the story of a teenage girl, betrothed to be married. Not engaged in our sense of romantic love and weddings. Betrothal was a family arrangement where two families unite together. For Mary to turn up pregnant before the marriage takes place would be devastating news to both patriarchal families. It would result in great shame, humiliation and dishonor. This is the backdrop for Gabriel’s news for Mary.
This is the backdrop when Gabriel speaks to Mary saying “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” At that moment Mary had none of the status symbols required of her society to deem her a “favored one”. She had neither husband nor child to validate her existence. She was among the powerless people of her society. She was young in a world that values age. She was female in a world ruled by men. She was poor in a stratified economy. To say that Mary was perplexed by Gabriel’s greeting is one of the greatest understatements of all time. Not to mention that Mary also had to wrap her mind around the fact she was holding a conversation with an Angel.
Add it all up and you’ll see the facts conspire against Mary being a favored one.
Today, many assume and some erroneously preach that those who God favors will be blessed with social standing, wealth and good health. To be favored by God is equated with the good life. Yet Mary, God’s favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock. And next week we will follow that child as he is executed as a criminal. Status, comfort and prosperity have never been the trademarks of God’s blessing. This is a family story of scandal. The story has become so familiar to us that is familiarity masks the scandal.
If we read further in this first chapter of Luke we would see that Mary immediately goes to visit her Aunt, Elizabeth, who is six months pregnant with John the Baptist. Again our familiarity with the story masks the scandal. Is this the story of a divine encounter between two mothers-to-be carrying infants with a divine mission? Or is this the story of a family sending a young teenage girl off to stay with a distant relative because of an untimely pregnancy? Or is it a story about both?
Gabriel had a window into Mary’s mind and heart which is why he called her “favored one”. Under normal circumstances Gabriel’s announcement would have been devastating news. In calmness and composure Mary only asks one simple question; “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”. I wish we had time to set the annunciation story of John the Baptist, which occurs at the beginning of this chapter, side by side with Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary.
In a similar story Zechariah questions how Elizabeth, his wife, will be able to conceive a child. But Zechariah asks a very different question than that of Mary’s. He questions “How will I know that this is so?”. Both Zechariah and Mary want to know how God will overcome the obvious obstacles of the physical body; one of old age, another of virginity. But Zechariah’s question goes further. He asks for proof. He asks for a sign. He asks in disbelief. And the archangel Gabriel was not amused. Zechariah’s disbelief left him mute and unable to speak until after John’s birth.
We see into the mind and heart of Mary from her response to Gabriel’s reply to her. “Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’” If Mary embodies a family scandal she also exemplifies the obedience that should follow from blessing. In the Rule of Benedict, our model for obedience in the monastic life, it states that obedience itself is a blessing.
As I have prayed over these texts the past several weeks this is the passage that kept surfacing for me. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary’s “yes” is unequivocal. It is an answer of profound faith. It is a statement of consent and of giving oneself fully to God. It is no-holds-barred obedience and the setting aside of her own fears and giving herself freely to God’s wishes. Her response was immediate. And in doing so Mary models for us detachment. She models for us the ultimate “letting go” of her concerns for herself and trusting God for the outcome.
The conundrum of this Advent story falling at the end of Lent is solved in seeing that the glory of Christmas and the glory of Easter are really about ordinary people saying “yes” to God. They are stories of what happens when we give our unequivocal consent. In doing so we are the ones scandalized as we allow God to lay full claim to our lives.
In Christ Name, Amen.
Br. Charles Mizelle, n/OHC
RCL - Annunciation - Thursday 25 March 2010
Isaiah 7:10-14
Hebrews 10:4-10
Luke 1:26-38
Favored One
In our pantry we have a “gadget” called Holy Toast. It looks more like a cookie cutter. The idea is you press the mold into a piece of bread and as you toast it an image of Mary will appear. Well one day my curiosity got the better of me and I tried it. I pressed the mold into a slice of bread, put it into the toaster and waited. When my toast popped up no image of Mary had emerged. I shrugged my shoulders and thought...Mary does not make appearances to a Baptist.
Left behind in our pantry by an impish guest. Unconvincingly tested by an ex-Baptist monk... When you grow up Southern Baptist you learn quickly that Mary is just a “B” actress in God’s theater. A bit player with only a small part to play. Jesus is what the show is all about and the only central character. All others simply have a small minority role.
When I was about 12 or 13 years old a Catholic family moved into our Baptist neighborhood. They went to church on Saturday afternoons, went to the beach on Sundays, had a house full of kids. They had many strange behaviors that made them all very suspect in our Baptist world. One of their sons was the same age as I and we became friends. I’ll never forget my Grandmothers reaction when she learned I had gone to church with him on a Saturday afternoon. I thought I would get extra credit for the additional time in church but she scolded “You didn’t pray to Mary did you? We don’t pray to Mary! We pray to Jesus!” The message was very clear--I had truly done something wrong by just being in a Catholic church.
So I must begin this morning by noting God’s great sense of humor in that the first sermon I am preaching in my monastic journey is about Mary. To this day, in fact as recently as last week, I still get questions of concern from my family about just where Mary fits into my faith, my worship, and my devotion. So I’ve learned to give a very evangelical response. In the God said it, I believe it, and that settles it philosophy of my upbringing I just say “God’s Word says Mary is the favored one and that settles it for me”.
Today is known as the Annunciation, the announcement of a divine birth by the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel is quite busy in this opening chapter to Luke’s gospel. He makes two visits to announce two different births; that of John the Baptist and that of Jesus. The stories hold both remarkable similarities and remarkable differences. But aren’t we in the middle of Lent? Isn’t Holy Week and our commemoration of Christ Passion quickly approaching? Shouldn’t the announcement of Christ’ birth come at the beginning of Advent? Here lies another conundrum for one who grew up Baptist and has embraced Liturgy late in his Christian formation. A little math will help us. Christ birth is celebrated on December 25th. Backing up 9 months from there we land squarely on March 25th.
I have always heard the Annunciation as a story about Jesus’ divine incarnation. To me it had always been a story about the miracle of a virgin birth, about God becoming man, and about God coming to live on earth among us. Today, I am no longer convinced that was Luke’s only agenda. The story Luke tells is very much a family story. It is a story of family scandal.
It is the story of a teenage girl, betrothed to be married. Not engaged in our sense of romantic love and weddings. Betrothal was a family arrangement where two families unite together. For Mary to turn up pregnant before the marriage takes place would be devastating news to both patriarchal families. It would result in great shame, humiliation and dishonor. This is the backdrop for Gabriel’s news for Mary.
This is the backdrop when Gabriel speaks to Mary saying “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” At that moment Mary had none of the status symbols required of her society to deem her a “favored one”. She had neither husband nor child to validate her existence. She was among the powerless people of her society. She was young in a world that values age. She was female in a world ruled by men. She was poor in a stratified economy. To say that Mary was perplexed by Gabriel’s greeting is one of the greatest understatements of all time. Not to mention that Mary also had to wrap her mind around the fact she was holding a conversation with an Angel.
Add it all up and you’ll see the facts conspire against Mary being a favored one.
Today, many assume and some erroneously preach that those who God favors will be blessed with social standing, wealth and good health. To be favored by God is equated with the good life. Yet Mary, God’s favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock. And next week we will follow that child as he is executed as a criminal. Status, comfort and prosperity have never been the trademarks of God’s blessing. This is a family story of scandal. The story has become so familiar to us that is familiarity masks the scandal.
If we read further in this first chapter of Luke we would see that Mary immediately goes to visit her Aunt, Elizabeth, who is six months pregnant with John the Baptist. Again our familiarity with the story masks the scandal. Is this the story of a divine encounter between two mothers-to-be carrying infants with a divine mission? Or is this the story of a family sending a young teenage girl off to stay with a distant relative because of an untimely pregnancy? Or is it a story about both?
Gabriel had a window into Mary’s mind and heart which is why he called her “favored one”. Under normal circumstances Gabriel’s announcement would have been devastating news. In calmness and composure Mary only asks one simple question; “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”. I wish we had time to set the annunciation story of John the Baptist, which occurs at the beginning of this chapter, side by side with Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary.
In a similar story Zechariah questions how Elizabeth, his wife, will be able to conceive a child. But Zechariah asks a very different question than that of Mary’s. He questions “How will I know that this is so?”. Both Zechariah and Mary want to know how God will overcome the obvious obstacles of the physical body; one of old age, another of virginity. But Zechariah’s question goes further. He asks for proof. He asks for a sign. He asks in disbelief. And the archangel Gabriel was not amused. Zechariah’s disbelief left him mute and unable to speak until after John’s birth.
We see into the mind and heart of Mary from her response to Gabriel’s reply to her. “Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’” If Mary embodies a family scandal she also exemplifies the obedience that should follow from blessing. In the Rule of Benedict, our model for obedience in the monastic life, it states that obedience itself is a blessing.
As I have prayed over these texts the past several weeks this is the passage that kept surfacing for me. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary’s “yes” is unequivocal. It is an answer of profound faith. It is a statement of consent and of giving oneself fully to God. It is no-holds-barred obedience and the setting aside of her own fears and giving herself freely to God’s wishes. Her response was immediate. And in doing so Mary models for us detachment. She models for us the ultimate “letting go” of her concerns for herself and trusting God for the outcome.
The conundrum of this Advent story falling at the end of Lent is solved in seeing that the glory of Christmas and the glory of Easter are really about ordinary people saying “yes” to God. They are stories of what happens when we give our unequivocal consent. In doing so we are the ones scandalized as we allow God to lay full claim to our lives.
In Christ Name, Amen.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
RCL - Lent 5 C - 21 Mar 2010 - Alison Quin
Christ the King Episcopal Church, Stone Ridge, NY
The Rev. Alison Quin
RCL - Lent 5 C - Sunday 21 March 2010
The Rev. Alison Quin often ministers to the Monastery community by celebrating the Eucharist for us on Friday mornings. She is the Rector of Christ the King parish in nearby Stone Ridge, NY. This sermon was written as a prose poem.
Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12: 1-8
Lazarus’ ragged breathing was the only sound in the room.
His sisters kept an agonized vigil at his side,
rising only to send for Jesus.
“Quick, run, bring him here.
Tell him Lazarus is dying!”
But Jesus didn’t come.
Lazarus drew his last breath.
An air of unreality descending,
the sisters began doing last things.
Washing and anointing their brother’s body,
trying to memorize the beloved face,
before covering it for all time with a cloth,
before they laid him in the tomb.
Friends and neighbors gathered,
bringing food, trying to console.
The wailing of the mourners was punctuated by silence
and then voices talking in hushed whispers
as if to avoid waking the dead man.
“Jesus is on his way!” cried one voice.
Martha rushed to meet him.
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
If you had been here…
Why weren’t you here?
Why?
Jesus answers with an enigma:
“I am resurrection and I am life.
Whoever believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”
Martha believed—a miracle of faith
in a cloud of uncomprehending grief.
Mary came out next, weeping.
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
This time, the words pierced his heart
and Jesus wept as they led him
to the tomb where Lazarus lay.
“Take away the stone.”
“But he has been dead for four days!
The stench will be terrible.”
“Take away the stone.”
So they did.
“Lazarus, come out!”
Lazarus came out, weak, stumbling,
fingers fumbling at the cloth over his face.
Lazarus, impossibly alive again,
his mortal self reconstituted
by the Son of God, the Giver of Life.
The sisters, who went out weeping,
helped carry him home with shouts of joy.
Word got around: he even raises the dead!
Some were afraid—if we let him go on, everyone will believe in him.
And then the Romans will destroy all of us.
So from that day on, they planned to put him to death.
Jesus went away for a while with his disciples,
until it was time.
(We know what time that was—the shadow of the cross
still falls across our paths.)
Now he is at Bethany,
At dinner with Lazarus and the twelve,
with Mary and Martha,
celebrating the dying and rising.
Did they remember what Jesus had told them,
that he would die and rise again?
Did they sense that time past
and time future
and time present
were gathered into this one moment?
Or did their hearts fail them
when they looked into the abyss
and strained to take in the mystery
of joy and suffering held together
in the mind and heart of God?
Did they will themselves not to think about
what Jesus said
about his death?
At the house in Bethany, Lazarus and his sisters
already knew about
waiting for God
when all hope was extinguished.
Death and resurrection
was already written on their hearts,
and they believed.
Mary rushed to the shelf
where she kept her ointment;
the expensive stuff she was saving for her wedding.
She did what she could for Jesus.
She reached for him during his hour
and anointed him for his burial.
Her love was extravagant:
a whole pound of ointment!
Kneeling at his feet like a slave,
she wiped his feet with her hair,
A gesture of absurd intimacy.
The others averted their eyes, embarrassed,
except for Judas, who was angry
and scolded her.
The early church thought it was greed
that motivated him.
They accused him of stealing.
But maybe he was shocked and afraid
That Jesus would choose the path of suffering,
without even trying to resist the oppressors.
Maybe he could not bear
the awful mystery of death
(and such a death!)
leading to life.
Don’t our hearts quail before that mystery too?
Don’t we long for Easter without Good Friday?
And what about the poor?
“The poor will be with you always.”
Did Jesus really mean to condone poverty
and authorize the church to
spend money on luxuries?
Or was he simply reminding us,
in our abstract struggle for justice,
not to overlook the one standing
in front of us,
the one who needs our love?
Do we dare take that person’s hand,
and look with her into the abyss?
Can we kneel at her feet
and humbly serve, like Mary
and like Jesus?
Do we dare to love that one with abandon,
doing what we can,
spending what we have?
Could Judas and Mary be reconciled after all these years?
Can righteousness and mercy kiss each other?
And there is another question too:
can we let ourselves be loved with abandon,
as we face the various deaths in our lives?
Can we bear the intimacy and extravagance of God’s love,
revealed in the person kneeling at our feet?
Do we dare to believe, like Mary,
that dying with Christ,
we will be raised with him to new life?
Blessed, blessed is she who believed.
wherever the gospel is proclaimed
In the whole world,
What she has done will be told in remembrance of her.
The Rev. Alison Quin
RCL - Lent 5 C - Sunday 21 March 2010
The Rev. Alison Quin often ministers to the Monastery community by celebrating the Eucharist for us on Friday mornings. She is the Rector of Christ the King parish in nearby Stone Ridge, NY. This sermon was written as a prose poem.
Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:4b-14
John 12: 1-8
Lazarus’ ragged breathing was the only sound in the room.
His sisters kept an agonized vigil at his side,
rising only to send for Jesus.
“Quick, run, bring him here.
Tell him Lazarus is dying!”
But Jesus didn’t come.
Lazarus drew his last breath.
An air of unreality descending,
the sisters began doing last things.
Washing and anointing their brother’s body,
trying to memorize the beloved face,
before covering it for all time with a cloth,
before they laid him in the tomb.
Friends and neighbors gathered,
bringing food, trying to console.
The wailing of the mourners was punctuated by silence
and then voices talking in hushed whispers
as if to avoid waking the dead man.
“Jesus is on his way!” cried one voice.
Martha rushed to meet him.
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
If you had been here…
Why weren’t you here?
Why?
Jesus answers with an enigma:
“I am resurrection and I am life.
Whoever believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”
Martha believed—a miracle of faith
in a cloud of uncomprehending grief.
Mary came out next, weeping.
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
This time, the words pierced his heart
and Jesus wept as they led him
to the tomb where Lazarus lay.
“Take away the stone.”
“But he has been dead for four days!
The stench will be terrible.”
“Take away the stone.”
So they did.
“Lazarus, come out!”
Lazarus came out, weak, stumbling,
fingers fumbling at the cloth over his face.
Lazarus, impossibly alive again,
his mortal self reconstituted
by the Son of God, the Giver of Life.
The sisters, who went out weeping,
helped carry him home with shouts of joy.
Word got around: he even raises the dead!
Some were afraid—if we let him go on, everyone will believe in him.
And then the Romans will destroy all of us.
So from that day on, they planned to put him to death.
Jesus went away for a while with his disciples,
until it was time.
(We know what time that was—the shadow of the cross
still falls across our paths.)
Now he is at Bethany,
At dinner with Lazarus and the twelve,
with Mary and Martha,
celebrating the dying and rising.
Did they remember what Jesus had told them,
that he would die and rise again?
Did they sense that time past
and time future
and time present
were gathered into this one moment?
Or did their hearts fail them
when they looked into the abyss
and strained to take in the mystery
of joy and suffering held together
in the mind and heart of God?
Did they will themselves not to think about
what Jesus said
about his death?
At the house in Bethany, Lazarus and his sisters
already knew about
waiting for God
when all hope was extinguished.
Death and resurrection
was already written on their hearts,
and they believed.
Mary rushed to the shelf
where she kept her ointment;
the expensive stuff she was saving for her wedding.
She did what she could for Jesus.
She reached for him during his hour
and anointed him for his burial.
Her love was extravagant:
a whole pound of ointment!
Kneeling at his feet like a slave,
she wiped his feet with her hair,
A gesture of absurd intimacy.
The others averted their eyes, embarrassed,
except for Judas, who was angry
and scolded her.
The early church thought it was greed
that motivated him.
They accused him of stealing.
But maybe he was shocked and afraid
That Jesus would choose the path of suffering,
without even trying to resist the oppressors.
Maybe he could not bear
the awful mystery of death
(and such a death!)
leading to life.
Don’t our hearts quail before that mystery too?
Don’t we long for Easter without Good Friday?
And what about the poor?
“The poor will be with you always.”
Did Jesus really mean to condone poverty
and authorize the church to
spend money on luxuries?
Or was he simply reminding us,
in our abstract struggle for justice,
not to overlook the one standing
in front of us,
the one who needs our love?
Do we dare take that person’s hand,
and look with her into the abyss?
Can we kneel at her feet
and humbly serve, like Mary
and like Jesus?
Do we dare to love that one with abandon,
doing what we can,
spending what we have?
Could Judas and Mary be reconciled after all these years?
Can righteousness and mercy kiss each other?
And there is another question too:
can we let ourselves be loved with abandon,
as we face the various deaths in our lives?
Can we bear the intimacy and extravagance of God’s love,
revealed in the person kneeling at our feet?
Do we dare to believe, like Mary,
that dying with Christ,
we will be raised with him to new life?
Blessed, blessed is she who believed.
wherever the gospel is proclaimed
In the whole world,
What she has done will be told in remembrance of her.
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