Palm Sunday - Mar 29, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Jean Delcourt, OHC

Palm Sunday B – Sunday, March 29, 2015

Mark 11:1-11 Philippians 2:5-11 Mark 14:1-15:47

An alabaster jar to hold perfumed balms

We stand today at the threshold of Holy Week when the Church remembers and relives the events of Jesus’ passion and resurrection.

But for today, we heard of the passing glory of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and we dwelt on some of the events preceding and leading to his passion on the cross.

Throughout this Holy Week, we’ll be invited to remember what Jesus did for the love of God and the love of us, his followers.

I offer you two suggestions for you to consider in your meditations this week:

• First, Jesus’ utter humility
• And second, the women who supported Jesus’ ministry and surrounded him up to the time of his death.

*****

In Mark’s telling of Jesus’ passion, both religious and political authorities collaborate, if uneasily, to get a rebel executed. In the eyes of the religious authorities, Jesus is guilty of identifying himself too closely with God.

In the eyes of the political authorities, Jesus is a troublemaker who has claims to kingship over the Jews. These claims are enough to make Pilate condescend in the end to the religious authorities’ request that Jesus be executed. Despite his doubts, he doesn’t want to be seen as the governor who’s soft on enemies of the state (whether averred or suspected).

Due process was important to Romans when they prosecuted one of their own.  It had little importance when they prosecuted subjects of a far-flung province of the empire.

In having Jesus identified as an enemy of the Roman state, by allegedly claiming that Jesus wants kingship over the Jews, the religious authorities get Pilate to endorse their plan for an execution.

*****

No matter whom it came from, Romans took political opposition to the state seriously and made sure that a gruesome example was made of whomever dared to challenge the state. It was important for the Romans to make a public display of how political opponents were treated. The opponent would be made utterly helpless, would be made to suffer gruesomely and would be completely humiliated.

Crucifixion victims were often first vigorously flogged with whips that included pieces of rock or metal in order to cause deep wounds and extensive bleeding. Many victims would already be in a state of shock by the time the flogging was over. By then, some would be unable to carry their cross to the place of their execution.

At the place of crucifixion, the victim would be stripped of all clothing and nailed naked to the cross for maximum humiliation. Once hung from the cross, death would come painfully and slowly in a state of radical helplessness. As Bart Ehrman puts it, crucifixion for the Romans was a symbolic statement that WE are Roman power and YOU are nothing.

I won’t dwell in any more details on how horrible and humiliating a death this was. But it is important for us Christians to realize how utterly awful and desolating this would be for the victim and for the victim’s loved ones. Christian glorification of Jesus’ death on a Roman cross can tend to make us overlook the humiliation, the pain and the complete helplessness of such a death.

*****

Jesus and his contemporaries would have known of crucifixion. They would have witnessed it themselves, probably a few times. Crucifixion was not uncommon and the Romans intended it to be a spectacle for all to see of what happened to those who crossed Rome. They did want the populace to witness what happened to those who were crucified.

So when the gospel tells us of how Jesus predicted his death on the cross and yet deliberately journeyed towards Jerusalem anyway, we are not speaking of death as a remote and abstract concept. Jesus also knew the gory specifics of what risk he was exposing himself to.

Nonetheless, Jesus decided to continue his announcing the good news of the Kingdom of God well into the domain of his known adversaries, well into Judea and Jerusalem. He considered his peaceful message of announcing the good news important enough to not skirt the risk of a painful and humiliating end.

*****

Mark‘s account of Jesus’ passion shows us extreme humility. Despite his being one with God, Jesus chose to embrace his humanity fully and regardless of the cost in obedience to God’s will. Jesus tried to ask for God’s help to keep his martyrdom away if that was God’s will. The prayers of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane tell us that Jesus fully understood what awaited for him and yet fully trusted God’s will for him to be what he needed to embrace. And what Jesus willingly embraces was the fullness of human suffering up to and including death.

It is this type of humility that we are called to in our own lives. Luckily we are faced with less trying circumstances for most of us, most of the time. But we are called to discern God’s call and answer it even when it displeases or frightens us. We are to pray for the strength to accept God’s will. We can particularly pray to Jesus for such prayer. We can draw strength from the type of humility Jesus models for us throughout the events of the last week of his life. It is a costly humility, no doubt. But humility is part of our call.

*****

And in parallel to Jesus’ absolute humility and abandon to God’s will, I ask you to consider the complete commitment of female disciples to accompany his life, ministry and death.

Because of the prevalent biases of those who wrote the New Testament, we have only glimpses of how women were involved in Jesus’ ministry and life, and they often go unnamed. Mark tells us there were many women at the crucifixion even though he names but three of them.

*****

In Mark’s gospel, the account of Jesus’ passion is preceded by the episode of a woman who comes in the Bethany house where Jesus stays and anoints his head with a jarful of costly ointment. It is a gesture of adoration and abandonment to love. And Jesus himself commends this woman for having anointed his body for burial. He understands what’s upcoming for him and sees the loving beauty of the woman’s gesture.

In Mark’s gospel, after the crucifixion, Jesus’ body is precipitously wrapped in a linen cloth and buried, probably just in time for sundown and the beginning of sabbath. There is no time to wash and anoint his body before the sabbath.

But Mark’s readers remember that a loving female disciple anointed Jesus for burial beforehand. She is to be remembered for her love and her uncanny intuition of what was right and meet to do for her rabbi.

*****

In contrast, the crucifixion is a time of utter helplessness and dereliction for Jesus. Did he perceive the presence of his female disciples at a safe distance from the haggling and torment of the crowd and the soldiers? I hope so.

In any case, those women disciples were the only loved ones who were near. Can you imagine their courage in braving the opprobrium heaped on an enemy of the state at the time of his shameful death? They were Jesus’ only human support though his agony. They knew what was right and meet to do for their rabbi and they dared to do it.

These women question me. Am I willing to do what it takes to abandon myself fully to the love and the will of God? Jesus did it and these women kept following him to the bitter end. Do I have that courage and that stamina?

*****

In this most Holy Week, I invite you to keep at heart Jesus’ utter humility and the women’s indomitable courage and perseverance in the love of God. Have a blessed Holy Week.

Amen.

Annunciation - Mar 25, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Sevensky, OHC
Annunciation – Wednesday, March 25 2015

Isaiah 7:10-14 
Hebrews 10:4-10 
Luke 1:26-38

Michelangelo's Pietà in the Vatican's Pavillion
at the New York World's Fair 1964-1965

Some fifty years ago I attended the New York World's Fair in Flushing, Queens. My real goal was to visit the Vatican Pavilion and see Michelangelo's Pieta. It's almost unbelievable that they actually crated up that masterpiece, put it on a ship, and sent it to New York. But such was the power of Cardinal Spellman and his deep pockets. And it was spectacular.

But not far from the Vatican Pavilion was the the Mormon Pavilion, and being even then a religion junkie, I couldn't resist. The building was impressive, at least from the outside, modeled on the facade of the Salt Lake City Temple with a golden Angel Moroni atop blowing his horn. And inside I found dioramas, bad art, handsome and eager young people, and brochures, which I took and read from cover to cover.

I have to say that I was rather struck by their theology. It was, first of all, a great story—lost tribes of Israel, wars in prehistoric Americas, Jesus in the Southwest. It was also tremendously optimistic. As I recall it, according to Mormon teaching we all lived in a previous sphere of life and chose to come to earth to grow and perfect ourselves. And if we played our cards right, we would become gods ourselves, masters of our own planets along with our spouse(s) and our spirit children, who would then repeat the cycle.

What struck me then is what I would now call the meta-narrative or Big Picture that this theology provides. All religions seek to provide a Big Picture, some way to fit in and make sense of our own individual stories, to place them in a larger, more encompassing, indeed an all-encompassing framework of meaning and lending them legitimacy and importance.

I thought of all this again because, as many of you know, I was in Salt Lake City last week for the very first time and got to visit Temple Square and see dioramas and handsome and eager young people very much like those I saw fifty years ago in Queens. And of course the facade—but only the facade—of the real LDS Temple. But more about that later.

Today's feast of the Annunciation invites us to reflect on the story of Jesus and, by extension, on our own stories. And it raises (at least for me) a fascinating question: where do you begin the story, whether it is the story of Jesus or of some other historical character, or our own life narrative?

We see St. Mark in his Gospel beginning with an adult Jesus being baptized by John. And that's a perfectly good way to begin a story: you dive right into the thick of things, right in the middle. And as the story is told, more details are revealed and more connections made, until a network of meaning emerges.

St. Luke in today's Gospel, pushes the story of Jesus back some decades to the achingly beautiful event of the Annunciation—of God's invitation to Mary through the angel Gabriel. We know it so well and love it so much and recall it daily as we pray the Angelus. But as if that were not quite adequate, Luke pushes the story back even further, tracing in Chapter 3 the genealogy of Jesus all the way to Adam, the “son of God.” In this he outdoes even Matthew, who takes the genealogy back—albeit for different reasons—only as far as our father Abraham.

And of course all three Synoptic Gospel writers pale in comparison to John's Gospel, which draws the story of Jesus right back to creation, indeed, back before time itself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

So where does the story of Jesus begin? Well, it begins beyond the mists of time and creation and history. It begins from all eternity, in the endless, timeless, loving engendering of the Son out of the Father's heart, out of the very inner nature of the Godhead, who always was and always shall be. And let's face it, as stories of beginnings go, that's a dramatic sweep that's hard to beat. As meta-narrative, it doesn't get any better than this.

But what about us? I want to suggest that while we may not be able to accept the Mormon narrative that we all preexisted and chose to be here—though I'm not sure it contradicts any Christian beliefs—we still have a claim on a grand story that spans history and creation and extends beyond the ages. And that because we are all made in God's image and likeness and through our baptismal transformation are fully identified with Christ—albeit in ways almost totally surpassing our understanding and feeling. So it is that we are now, in some sense, no longer simply identified with Christ but identical with Christ. As St. Paul says, his life has become our life. Or more accurately, our lives have become his. And so in some mysterious but profound way, you and I and, I'd venture to say, all God's people share in the great drama of eternity that is Jesus Christ. What is his is now also ours. As even some of our own theologians and teachers in the faith have been so bold to claim: “Christ became human so that we humans might become divine.” It is what theologians call theosis, the divinizing transformation of the created order. So maybe Joseph Smith wasn't too far off the mark after all.

But does this help any of us? I know it helps me. When someone asks me about my story, my life history, perhaps at the refectory table or in conversation with family or friends, or in therapy, or as I question myself in the middle of those nights when I can't sleep...I tend to have certain tapes or messages [memes] that I play about myself. Maybe it's Robert the good. Or Robert the holy. Or Robert the son of the working poor. Or Robert the scholar. Robert the administrator. Or perhaps even Robert the forgiven sinner. Or Robert the betrayed. Or Robert the betrayer. Robert the victim. Robert the helpless. (Though seldom, I might add, Robert the artist or creator or thrill seeker or adventurer.)

You know these stories, these memes, these tapes. We all have them. They are the tales we have created about ourselves, based on and spun out of the events of our lives, real and imagined. And they have some usefulness, as far as they go. We use them to define who we are. But we also misuse them to limit ourselves. To protect ourselves. To separate ourselves from others. Sometimes even to separate ourselves from our own real life possibilities, or to avoid new life, changed life, converted life. Our stories, even when they bear the marks of truth, are almost always too small, too safe, too domesticated and way too edited.

And here our faith challenges us. Because it tells us through Scripture and myth and symbol and ritual and community that we are each of us created in God's image and incorporated into Christ and thus we share in an eternal destiny, even if at the moment it may appear quite hidden to us. Our story is also always bigger than we imagine.

One week from tomorrow we will gather to begin the annual sacred Three Days, celebrating the Paschal mystery of Christ's dying and rising. It will begin with a reading from the Gospel of St. John where Christ, at the Last Supper, begins to wash his disciples' feet. And he does this, says the Gospel writer, because he knows that he had come from the Father and was going to the Father. (John 12:3) That's Jesus' meta-narrative, his Big Story. And, my friends, that is your story and my story as well. That is the universal Christian meta-narrative, the container, the discourse that frames and makes sense of all our personal stories and memes and tapes and narratives that we repeat to ourselves and each other about ourselves, sometimes ad nauseam. The deepest truth about us is that, like Jesus, we—you and I—come from the Father and are going to the Father. And if we know this, and act on this, we will be blessed.

The young woman Mary knew this full well, and because she did, she was able to say Yes: yes to God's invitation, yes to the joys and pains and glories that were uniquely hers. It is this Yes that we celebrate today.

Pray that we too may also know it and with her say Yes to all that God is doing now in our world and in our communities and in our lives and in our own hearts.

“Mary said: Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

Yes!

Lent 5 B - Mar 22, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Will Owen, n/OHC

Lent 5 B – Sunday, March 22 2015

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-33

The tree of life

I’ve been thinking a lot about judgment recently, particularly as it’s come up in our Lenten gospel readings. This week’s gospel text ends by telling us Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out. What follows after, which doesn’t make it into the section we read today, is the admonition to walk while we have the light so that the darkness will not overtake us. That light, as we know, is Jesus, who by this point in John’s gospel has turned his face toward Jerusalem and the death he will meet there. By this point in Lent, we have also turned our faces and our hearts in that direction. We notice, too, that this bit about walking while we still have the light links this passage about judgment to the one we read last week. And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people preferred darkness to light.

When we hear about judgment, it’s hard to escape the image of judgment made famous by that great 18^th century preacher Jonathan Edwards: we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, like a spider dangling over the flames of hell. And even if we reject this image out of hand as based on an antiquated and irrelevant theology, we often try to read the scriptures as if they were law codes or how-to manuals. Okay, how do I get close to Jesus? Sell all that I have and give it to the poor. Check. Okay, how do I follow Jesus? Take up my cross. Check. How do I get God’s love? Confess my sins. Check. But the gospel accounts are not law codes or how-to manuals. No, they’re poetry. And love poetry at that. They’re full of image and metaphor and story. They’re a communication from the source of all life, a love song calling us home from our self-imposed exile. And rather than give us facts and rules, they are meant to convey the incomparable and unbearable prodigality of God’s love for the world. Incomparable because we can’t make any sense of the scope of God’s love with human reason. And unbearable, because God’s love demands a death and a surrender so total that we resist it with everything that we have and are.

Seen in the context of a love poem, judgment ceases to be something fearful and terrible and becomes a supreme act of love, drawing us ever closer to the abundant life that flows from Christ Jesus. Judgment is nothing other than an honest exposition of reality, in this case the reality that God knew and loved us completely even before the creation of the universe and that God continues to do so now, despite the manifold ways that we resist and attempt to sabotage or manipulate that love. In the light of judgment all our resistance to God’s love is exposed and our death is required. We cannot stare into the face of love without dying, and our hearts cannot make space for God’s love without breaking open.

In the exposing light of God’s judgment we see our brokenness for what it is. We glimpse both the depth of God’s love for us and the reality of how often we have made ourselves and others small to escape that love. This is a painful process. When I started visiting the monastery, I would often sit down with one particular brother. As he shared his own experience, he talked a lot about the love he’d known in his life, about God’s love for him and God’s love for me, and his own love for me. My eyes filled with tears. He said to me, “it hurts to be loved.” Not a question, but a recognition. Yes, it does. It hurts to know ourselves loved without having earned it or deserved it, for no reason at all other than because we exist. The revelation of that dynamic through the light of love—that’s all judgment is.

We cannot earn God’s love, nor do we need to. God’s love for us is more fundamental than the air we breathe, closer than our heartbeat. Seeing the reality of God’s love for us and the ways we resist it allows us to take responsibility for our own broken hearts and to move more deeply into them. When we move into those broken hearts we will find Jesus there: Jesus on the Cross, on the Golgotha of our broken hearts. He has been there all along, and we never knew it. He’s been there, hurting as we hurt, loving us from the beginning to the end of all existence, inviting us to join him in his death, in our deaths, the death of all our running away, all our resistance, all our insistence on earning love, all our self-will, the annihilation of our false self, so that we may join him in the abundance of his life.

Drawing on an image reminiscent of our gospel text today, the fourth century poet and hymnodist St. Ephrem the Syrian, in one of his poems on virginity, says that the Tree of Life, in the midst of the Garden of Eden, “saw that Adam had stolen” the fruit and “sank into the virgin ground / and was hidden / —but burst forth and reappeared on Golgotha.” Seen in this way, the Cross is none other than the Tree of Life that once grew at the center of paradise. It grows up out of the ground once more to cradle the body of Christ. When that precious body touches the dead wood of the Cross, the Cross bursts forth into fruit and flower, revealed for what it truly is: that Tree of Life. Another Orthodox theologian, David the Invincible, writing two hundred years after Ephrem, picks up the theme: “Blessed are you, Holy Wood, crowned by Christ, / that grew on earth, yet spreading your arms rose / above the arches of the highest heavens, / and brought forth and carried upon yourself / the imponderable fruit! / […] You flowered in the stock of Israel / and the whole earth was filled with your fruits.”

Just as the dead wood of the Cross becomes for us the Tree of Life, so the light of God’s judgment reveals our broken hearts to be the new Golgotha, sanctified places where Christ dwells eternally within us, bearing the fruit of new and abundant life, fruit for us and fruit for the world. This is the meaning of resurrection; this is the new life God promises us; and this is the awesome power of God’s love for us and the whole creation—not that our hearts will never break, not that we will never know death, but that through our hearts breaking and through our own dying to ourselves, the very places within us that are most barren and empty will become the fertile ground of our and the world’s most abundant life. This Lent, in the light of God’s loving judgment, may we, like that grain of wheat, die and rise to bear fruit for the world.