Call – SSJE: Recent Episodes

Call – SSJE

A Monastic community in the Anglican Episcopal tradition.

Br. Jack Crowley

Marie de l’Incarnation

John 15:14-17

Whenever I pray with the life of a saint, I look at two things. The first is what the saint thought God was calling them to do. The second is what actually happened in their life. These two things don’t always overlap smoothly, yet somehow, saints always find a way to serve God.

Today we celebrate and pray with the life of Saint Marie of the Incarnation. When Saint Marie was fourteen years old, she told her parents that she wanted to join a Benedictine abbey. This was in France in the early 1600s, and her parents responded to her request by saying no and arranging her marriage to a silk worker. Saint Marie married and had a son. Tragically, six months later, her husband died. So in a short amount of time, Saint Marie had gone from a young woman looking to join the religious life to a teenage widow with a baby and her husband’s business to run. Certainly this was a wide gulf between what she thought God had been calling her to do and what actually happened.

We don’t have time to go into the seventy years of her saintly life and all that she did to become a saint, but the point I’m trying to make is even saints have to deal with the curveballs of life. They become saints not by quitting or resenting, but by persevering. They keep finding a way to serve God even if it’s not in the way they originally thought they would.

I think we all have our own version of this. Times when we say to God if only this or that happened, then I could really start serving you. We may even feel forsaken by God, wondering why God called us to do something and for that thing to suddenly change. It’s important to remember that even Jesus himself felt this inner turmoil.

Although it is beautiful to put our saints in stained glass windows, we must remember their inner lives were just as human as our own. They too had to deal with the same doubts, pet peeves, and anxieties we deal with. Yet somehow they transformed these into something greater, something that could serve God and others.

We don’t always have a full idea of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. Yet, as Christians, we are called to do our best. No matter what form that might take, we are called to do our best, and let God handle the rest.

Br. James Koester

Preached at the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, Boston.

The Third Sunday in Lent

John 4:5-42

There is a small porcelain figurine in a church sacristy that fascinates me. It depicts this encounter between Jesus, and the Samaritan woman.[1]

Jesus sits on one side of the well. He is tall, handsome, masculine, and has lots of shoulder length hair. He is deep in conversation with the woman. She stands, leaning over, with her elbow resting on the wellhead. She looks directly at Jesus. Her hair is loose and flowing, and her dress is falling off one shoulder. Her hand is under her chin, just so. She is enticing, alluring, and attractive.

What this figurine says about Jesus and the Samaritan woman is no mystery. It may be pure white, but the message is in technicolour: a seduction is happening.

But then, this is how the story has been told to us. After all, the story is of an encounter between Jesus and a woman who has had five husbands, and the one she has “now is not [her] husband” (John 4:18). Why else would she find herself at the well in the middle of the day, when the heat is most intense, and no one else is around? Because of her lifestyle, she is humiliated, isolated and ostracized. It’s clear, she’s someone with few morals, someone to avoid.

That’s what the figurine tells us. That’s what John tells us. Or is it?

Recent biblical scholarship has begun to see things differently. This is especially true as women examine gospel texts through the lens of their own experience, to discover the experience of the women in Jesus’ inner circle of friends, intimates, and disciples. With that in mind, how might we read this story differently than we have read it in the past?

“The same day some Sadducees came to [Jesus], saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses said, “If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.” Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman herself died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.’” (Matthew 22:23-28)

One reading is that she is the unfortunate widow of five brothers. She finds herself widowed once again, this time with no one in the family left to marry her. No one else in the community dares marry her, fearing she is somehow cursed. All she can do is to abandon hope and seek the protection of any man who will take her in, even if it means living outside the bonds of marriage.

Another reading suggests she is equally unfortunate, having married five men, all of whom divorced her.

“Some Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’” (Mark 10:2-4)

Divorce was simple. While a man could divorce his wife, a woman could not divorce her husband. Perhaps childless, her husbands divorced her one by one, to marry another, hoping to secure an heir.

Whatever the reason, it is not her morals, but her situation which has left her reputation in ruins and forced her to allow herself to be taken in by anyone who would offer the security of a home.

In these interpretations, the Samaritan woman’s visit to the well in the heat of the day retains its power. Alone, isolated, craving kindness, goodness, sympathy, even intimacy and companionship, she makes her way to the well. To her surprise she finds Jesus, a man who takes her seriously; doesn’t condemn or demean her; and offers her the “one thing necessary” (Luke 10:42): “[To] those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

Laying aside the woman’s husbands; the numbers of them; why she had five and was currently living with one not her husband; and her reasons for being at the well alone, during the heat of the day, what other details in the story bear significance to its meaning as a whole?

There are details in the story like other gospel stories which tell of the call to discipleship.

“Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’” (John 4:28-29)

After the conversation about water, husbands, and worship, the disciples return. At this point that the woman leaves her water-jar and returns to the city, telling people to come and see. It’s important to note that in other encounters with Jesus, others also leave things behind.

“As [Jesus] walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers . . . Peter, and Andrew . . . casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Matthew 4:18-20)

Like others who left all to follow Jesus, the Samaritan woman leaves behind her water-jar, and calls others into an encounter with the Lord. Like other disciples she invites her neighbours to encounter Jesus: “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’” (John 4:29).

While her profession of faith, He cannot be the Messiah, can he? is not quite that of Andrew: “‘We have found the Messiah’”; or Nathaniel: “‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’”; or Martha: “‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world’” (John 1:41, 49; 11:27), it is nonetheless a step toward faith, and she begins to see Jesus as the Messiah, and invites others to see for themselves.

In this way, the Samaritan woman invites others into an encounter with Jesus, just as do other disciples.

“Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’” (John 4:39-42)

Read in this way, the story of the Samaritan woman is a story of discipleship, of conversion, of confession. It is a reminder that God’s invitation to belief and discipleship is not for the select few, but for all who long to drink deeply from the well of living water and eternal life. It is a story of longing for connection and reconnection, not only to the communities from which we come, but to God who calls us from our past, into a future, God’s future, where we know ourselves to be loved by God. It is a reminder that we too have been invited to become God’s children, and like the Samaritan woman, to drink from Jesus, the living water of eternal life. And that is good news, no matter where you are from, your situation in life, or what others think of you.

So rather than seeing scandal in this story, we instead see it as a story of profound faith, and eager discipleship as the woman invites others to come and see what she herself has found in the person of Jesus. Having discovered Jesus as the source of eternal life for ourselves, we can then follow the lead of the Samaritan woman and invite others to come and see who Jesus is for themselves.

[1] For a fuller analysis of the Samaritan woman, see the essays by Harold Attridge, Steven Hunt, and Peter Phillips in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel (Eerdmans, 2013), 269ff, as well as Judith Kay Jones, The Women in the Gospel of John (Chalice Press, 2004), 13ff and Adeline Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom (The Liturgical Press, 1998), 45ff.

Br. Jack Crowley

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

John 1:29-42

One question we Brothers get asked often is “why did you become a monk?”. We often get asked this question at Sunday talking meals just after we have taken a big bite full of food. I usually mumble my way through an answer with my hand covering my mouth talking about God and community.

The truth is I’ve been asked why I became a monk by guests, family members, Doctors, HVAC technicians, police officers, flight attendants, and a whole host of other professions and vocations. Of course I’ve asked myself the same question many times. I would say my personal favorite time being asked this question was when I was standing outside on the front step and a man walking his dog stopped, looked at me and said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but what made you want to do this?” The look in his eye was equal parts serious and curious, as if my answer would greatly impact what kind of evening he was having.

Deep down, whenever someone asks me why I became a monk, I just want to say, “come and see”. I want to open up my little world of monasticism to them and show them my experiences of God. I know that sounds incredibly corny, but it is true. I know that my words will never capture the lived experience of finding God, so all I can say is “come and see.”

We heard Jesus use this phrase “come and see” in our Gospel this morning. In all honesty, it’s one of my favorite quotes from Jesus. He says come and see to the two disciples of John the Baptist who ask Jesus where he is staying. Where are you staying is actually the very first question asked of Jesus in John’s Gospel, so “come and see” is Jesus’ first answer to humanity. One of the many reasons I love this answer is it’s only three words long, but it is simultaneously an answer, an invitation, and kind of a command. Come and see.

Above all else, the thing that I love most about Jesus’ answer “come and see” is that it doesn’t really answer the question of where he is staying, at least not literally. Jesus doesn’t answer the question, but he does something even better, Jesus invites the questioner to experience the truth for themselves in their own personal way.

It is as if you were to ask someone what they were cooking, and instead of telling you the recipe or the name of the dish, they just offered you a taste. Jesus knows there’s no substitute for lived experience. There is no substitute for God. Come and see.

So too must we continually come and see. We must pursue God relentlessly and allow ourselves to be loved by God relentlessly. Both are equally important – the active passion to pursue God and ask where are you staying God, where are you in all this? As well as having the courageous vulnerability to accept God’s invitation to come and see.

Personally, there are some days that I don’t want to come and see. There are some days that I don’t want an invitation, I just want a summary. I’d like a quick run down of the truth with clear cut answers about what’s right, what’s wrong, and what I should be doing differently. Instead, in my experience, when I pray and meditate, I go on a journey with God to the truth. I find that the cravings I had for clear cut answers often dissolve under the loving eyes of God. I find that the pointed questions I pose before God are rarely answered, but I get something even better, a loving invitation to live into the truth, as foggy as it may appear to be. Over all the static of the world and in my head, I hear a clear-cut refrain, come and see.

A good portion of our lives is spent stumbling around trying to make sense of what our souls are saying and what’s going on around us. We can do our best to make it look like we have it all together and have all the answers in our head. Yet we all know deep down there will be times when we have little certainty to go on and so many things to trip over.

At certain points in our lives, no matter how saturated with love we are from those closest to us, we will find ourselves utterly alone with God. This can be horrifying, when everything we thought we knew amounts to so little in the presence of God. We will say God where are you staying, just let me a get a foothold here, and God will respond come and see, don’t stop. This is a glorious opportunity to sacrifice whatever it was we were holding onto and grab on to God with both hands, saying yes, I will come and see.

Jesus built his disciples experience by experience. He knew the life he was inviting them into would not be easy. He was inviting them into a life full of controversy, risk, and sacrifice, but also the truth. Jesus invited his disciples into a life full of truth. We have been given this same invitation. All we must do is leave what we know behind and go forward in this pursuit of truth.

The life of discipleship is not for the faint of heart. We must be willing to walk with God no matter how unpredictable the journey appears to be. We all have no idea what’s going to happen to us. Sure, we can have our predictions and plans, but we all know life can change so quickly in so many ways. We have to hold to God for dear life.

Finally, as we begin this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I’m aware that nothing feels united right now. I don’t know of anyone who is thriving right now or thrilled at the state of the world right now. However, my prayer this week is we can all nudge our hearts a little closer to the fire. Even if it is just a centimeter, a little movement is contagious. In my experience, momentum is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Moment to moment, we are being called to come and see. As long as we keep nudging towards the light of the world, things will get brighter.

Br. Jonathan Maury

1 John 3:1-3
John 3:1-8

“O God, you caused your blessed evangelist Saint John so eminently to receive the love of your dear Son Jesus Christ: Grant to us your servants that that we may evermore abide in that love, and accomplish your holy will. Watch over the Society of Saint John the Evangelist for good. Give your elect angels charge concerning us, and make your Holy Spirit to rule our hearts, that our lives may be holy, our prayers acceptable, our wants supplied, our words directed, and our work prospered, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The prayer just offered comes from the earliest days of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist. It is presently used to conclude the Chapter Office in which we hear and reflect on our Rule of Life, chapter by chapter, day by day. It is, I think, a fitting way to begin a sermon series in which our community’s elders meditate upon their developing response to the grace and gift of commitment through profession in life vows.

Listen for a moment to the introduction of Chapter 39 from our SSJE Rule of Life (1997):

“Jesus’ offering of his life on the cross was the supreme expression of his love for the Father, made in perfect freedom through the Spirit. . . . This free self-offering is expressed anew in our lives when, abiding in Christ, we find in him the power to surrender ourselves entirely to God, by taking the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience for life. When a brother vows to abide in our community until death, the whole brotherhood rejoices in the gift of freedom that enables him to make this commitment after years of testing.”

My path of commitment to life profession in religious vows began, I believe, with God’s call to existence and being, which I share with my Brothers, each of you present and all of God’s children. We were chosen by God in Christ before we were even capable of owning and choosing the gift of being for ourselves. The religious life vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience were preceded by God’s commitment to me in Holy Baptism. Through the outward and visible sign of burial in water and the inward and spiritual enlivening of God’s creative Spirit, we have all been sacramentally incorporated into the death and resurrection of Jesus by the loving purpose of the Father. Our commitment to God’s call and our desire to respond to that gift are themselves signs of God’s commitment to us as beloved children. My present commitment was born out of my parent’s response to God’s love in faith and trust by bringing me to the font of regeneration.

Commitment to religious vows in Christ, I am certain, arises from my need of God’s love at every moment to sustain me in being. The vows provide the framework for my own life through the common baptismal commitment we all share. The vows are the means by which God is shaping me in the unique image and likeness of his love which God has created me to be. Lived openly in the face of the Church and the world, both in my faithfulness and in my failings, the vows become the creative means by which God is revealing the image of Christ in me. “When He is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is,” as Saint John’s first letter promises (3:2).

In our Rule of Life we hear that “Father Benson has taught us that the call of God in the religious life is continuous, abiding and progressive. As profession brings to an end the period of probation, so it inaugurates a lifetime of developing response.” In light of this teaching, we elders of the community have been asked to testify to the wisdom of our experience and to our ongoing response to the grace and gift of vowed life.

My personal experience has been of ongoing, unconditional welcome and acceptance, just as I was when I joined the community and even as I am now. God’s commitment to me and to our everchanging community of men, I believe, has always been there drawing me to Jesus. Even I, one given to rebellion and self-assertion, one presuming to know already exactly how I was best suited to serve and love God, was welcomed and accepted into the particular fellowship necessary for my transformation. One wounded by addiction and romantic dreams, even this man, was challenged to accept being born again, “born from above,” to surrender my life to Christ in a community of mutual commitment composed of holy and fallible men. Joined to a company of those desiring to “see the kingdom of God,” years of formation in vows, are even now bringing me to submit to a “greater, higher power” than my helpless self. I continue to experience the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience challenging me to accept the molding and shaping of God’s fierce and unfailing love – despite my many resistances.

In this hope, my developing response has and continues to be a growing desire to live “a life hid with Christ in God,” as apostle Paul teaches, to be “separated from the world in order to be joined to the world” as a monastic. My at times flagging desire is to respond to God in a life of joy. My desire is for a life of faithful response in the following ways:

in continued proclamation of the Good News through the ministry of initiation as a baptismal catechist;
by solidarity with Christ in prayer and action as one on the side of people who are deprived and oppressed;
in serving the needs of those who desire to learn how to pray and deepen their conversion to life;
in becoming God’s fellow-worker, acting in love and intercessory prayer for the reconciliation of all things in Christ;
in listening with and to those who seek intimacy with God in the ministry of spiritual companionship and guidance;
in readiness to repent whenever I fall into sin through confession and prayer of reparation and amendment of life, fleeing the demons of selfishness, pride and arrogance;
in offering and sharing worship in word and sacrament in the company of Christ’s friends drawn into our circle;
in humbly accepting the God-given freedom by which doubt and questioning do not separate us from Christ or one another, but rather yield to faith and hope of things not seen;
in dedication to cooperation with the Spirit and growth in the face of the challenges of aging and diminishment.

All of this only possible with God as my helper.

How shall I, how shall each of us baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, be made ready to respond today and every day to God’s call? We will surely come to know, as we need to know, though our commitment to one another and to God’s future forever losing ourselves in the wonder, love, and praise of Christ Jesus. Amen.

Br. Lain Wilson

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Day

John 1:1-14

Merry Christmas, everyone! It’s such a delight to have you all with us today.

Christmas can be overwhelming. Joyful. . . and overwhelming. Decorations and lights everywhere you look; the smell of baking or, in the Chapel, incense and beeswax; bells and beloved carols; the taste of familiar foods at dinner; the gentle pressure of hugs with family and friends. We all have these sense memories that tell us, finally, yes, Christmas is here!

But Christmas, too, invites us to engage another sense – our sense of wonder.

I remember one night several years ago going to an observatory in Northern Virginia for a kind of astronomy “open house.” I didn’t really know what to expect. I sat waiting in line for one of the larger telescopes, a bit cold, a bit tired, a bit ready to be away from there. But when I put my eye to the scope . . . well, the planet Saturn was just there. Right there, rings and all, cold and perfect, right before my eye. It was . . . wondrous. I don’t really have a better word. It was wondrous to see this planet, this being, brought vast distances across the expanse of space and made present.

This is the kind of wonder with which we should look upon the enormity of the gift revealed to us today. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:1-2, 14). If the lights and music and cooking smells can threaten to overwhelm us with nostalgia, how much more should the mystery of the Incarnation—that God should take on human flesh and live among us, that the Word from before time and space should come and be present to us – how much more should this mystery overwhelm us with awe!

The wonder of it, the joy of it, is that when we look upon this awesome mystery, what looks back upon us, what becomes present before our eyes, even here, even now, is not the cold perfection of remote space, but the overwhelming abundance of life and light and love. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. . . . ‘For God so loved the world that [God] gave [the] only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’” (John 1:3, 3:16).

We are filled with wonder today, that Jesus’ birth in a tiny town two thousand years ago was God coming into the world; that God’s taking on the material stuff of humanity was God’s descending to us so that we might ascend to God; and that God met our constant turning away – our choosing again and again death and darkness and hatred – with life and light and love.

If we are filled with a sense of wonder, though, we are also invited to be clearsighted about our reality, and be filled with a sense of purpose. The Word came into a world that needed to be saved, and one that was bent on rejecting the gifts the Word offered. This was true two thousand years ago, and it’s still frustratingly true today. Death and darkness and hatred continue to run rampant in our world.

So what are we to do?

In the face of death, choose life. Affirm the value of all life that God has created. Look upon those around you – family and friends and strangers and enemies; rocks and rivers and trees; birds and deer and even the rabbits that eat your flowers – look upon all those around you as gifted by God with life, a sign of the creator of all, given to the world, given to you, and called very good. “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:3-4).

In the face of darkness, choose light. When so much conditions us to hide or hoard or turn inward, when so much tells us to shut the doors of our hearts, fling them wide open. Our humanity dies in darkness. Against the darkness of ignorance and prejudice, against the willful blindness of all that is unfamiliar or different, let the light shine into your heart, and let your own light shine out for others. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).

And in the face of hatred, choose love. It’s so easy to hate, to write people off, to say that they aren’t worth the effort. It’s so, so easy. And it can be so hard to love. When everything that surrounds us seems to drive our divisions, when the horizon of our world almost inevitably seems to get narrower and narrower, turning outward and building bridges and breaking free from what binds us by choosing love may be the most countercultural, against-the-grain, confounding-the-expectations thing that we can do – as confounding of expectations, perhaps, as that God would choose to enter this world, to be born as a baby in a country under foreign occupation, all for a love that knew – and that continues to know – no bounds. “Love came down at Christmas,” begins one of my favorite carols. “Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift and sign.”

Today is Christmas, when we welcome the birth of our Savior, when we look on with wonder at this enormous mystery, and when that wonder transforms to purpose, the resolve to carry forward, in our own lives, Jesus’ mission to bring life and light and love to our aching world. To receive the gift of Jesus and bear him to others.

Merry Christmas to you all! Amen.

Br. Jack Crowley

Martin of Tours

Matthew 25:31-46

Tonight we celebrate the life of Saint Martin of Tours. Saint Martin lived in the fourth century and converted to Christianity as a young adult at a time when Christianity had only recently become legal in the Roman Empire. Martin went on to be a Roman soldier, then a hermit, then started the first monastery in what is now France, and finally became a bishop. His life was a series of pendulum swings between solitude and service.

There is one anecdote from his life that I’d like to focus on tonight. The story goes that in the year 371, the bishop of Tours died and the people wanted to elect Martin to take his place. The people knew Martin was too humble to accept the position, so they tricked him to come into the city by telling him there was a sick woman who needed his help. When Martin realized he was being fooled, he ran from the crowd and hid in a barn full of geese. If you’ve ever been around geese, you know that is not a good hiding spot. The geese started to honk, Martin was discovered, and soon became bishop. To this day, it is common in some countries to eat goose on Saint Martin’s day in celebration of this anecdote.

Like Martin in the goose barn, we human beings have been trying to hide from the call of God for a long time. From the very beginning, we’ve never really been good at it. One of the first things Adam did after he ate the forbidden fruit was hide. Adam covered up himself and tried to hide from the call of God among the trees. This first game of hide and go seek did not go in humanity’s favor.

To hide from the call of God is like trying to run away on a treadmill. You may think you are gaining distance, but in the eyes of God, you have not moved. The call of God has a way of catching up to us all.

So what would it look like to stop hiding? What would it look like to answer the call of God? What does it take to make us step out of our own barn full of geese and face the crowds?

One of the many things I love about the lives of saints is that they all had to answer these questions with their lives. So do we. The Christian life is not an escape from anything. The Christian life is a confrontation. We do not hide from the hard questions, the hard conversations, or the hard times we must endure.

We also do not hide from joy. That little bubble of hope that lifts up our hearts and surprises us with a smile when things seem bleak. We have a God who loves us and a Holy Spirit that guides us. It may be tempting to hide from these wonderful truths of life but the good news is they are there no matter what kind of day we are having.

Saint Martin answered the call of God, maybe not in the way he wanted to, but he answered it. Saint Martin, give us the courage to do the same.

Saint Martin, pray for us. Amen.

Br. Lain Wilson

Reflection given at The Table, hosted by the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at the MIT Chapel, on the theme of vocation.

1 Corinthians 12:1-13
Psalm 139
Luke 4:16-21

When I began discerning my own vocation, I was stuck between pursuing ordained parish ministry in the Episcopal Church and the vowed religious life. Much of what I focused on and prayed with came down to questions broadly in the category of self-knowledge. What was I good at? What did I find enlivening, or draining? Where did I feel myself most connected in prayer with God?

Now there’s nothing wrong with this. These are important questions. But there’s more, and our readings tonight help to reframe these questions.

“Lord, you have searched me out; O Lord, you have known me” (Psalm 139:1). I really love Psalm 139. It’s the one I go back to time and time again when I reflect on my vocation. It reminds me that even when I try to hide, or run away, I am not hidden from God. And it reveals that in knowing ourselves—in all our self-knowledge—we discover that we have already been fully seen, known, and loved by God. We participate in God’s knowing—we are invited to see ourselves with God’s eyes as “marvelously made” and as one of God’s wonderful works (Psalm 139:14). Who we are is who God has created us to be—we can’t affirm that often enough.

Who we are includes all our giftedness: “All these [gifts],” Saint Paul writes to the church of Corinth, “are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (1 Corinthians 12:11). We are given our bodies, our intellects, our creativity, and our capacities not just for ourselves, for our own self-fulfillment, but as members of the Body of Christ. We have been gifted so we may use those gifts for others.

This gets at the core of the question you all have been asking this week: “What is God calling us to do?” If we take as given that who we are is who God has created us to be, and that what we have been given has been given to us to use for others, then what God is calling us to do is to find where our gifts and our deepest, authentic selves find their fullest and most joyful expression in service to God’s creation. The question “What is God calling me to do?” may be put another way: “To whom am I being sent?” Vocation and mission are two sides of the same coin. For us Brothers, a quotation from the fourth-century desert father Evagrius of Pontus gets at the same idea: “A monk is separated from all in order to be united to all.”

Jesus is our primary model here, in his reading from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Jesus will later point to this passage, and his fulfilment of it in his miracles, when John the Baptist’s followers later come to ask him who he is (Luke 7:22).

Now, this is all just a long way of saying what Frederick Buechner has already said so elegantly: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” So as you consider and discern your own call, your own vocation, I invite you to ask this allied question: To whom are you, the beloved of God, uniquely gifted by God—to whom are you being sent?

Br. Jack Crowley

Saint Matthew

Matthew 9:9-13

Follow me. Those were the two words Jesus said to Saint Matthew when they first met. Follow me. Saint Matthew heard those words, got up from his tax booth, and followed Jesus.

Now in most situations, if a stranger comes to your place of work and tells you to follow him, it’s probably not a good idea to follow him. Yet, we know Jesus had a way with people. Jesus knew the hearts of humanity, and Jesus knew how to read a room. So when Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax booth, Jesus only needed two words to convince Matthew to leave it all behind. Follow me.

I would love to know what was going through the mind of Matthew when he first saw Jesus. I always wonder what kind of day Matthew was having. I mean we’ve all had our bad days at work when we think to ourselves I gotta get out of here.

One time, I was flying on a plane and the man seated next to me started talking to me. I wasn’t wearing my habit but he still opened up his life to me and told me all about it. At one point in the conversation, he said that sometimes he felt like quitting his job and joining a monastery. He asked me if I ever had that feeling. I said yes.

There is also a chance that maybe it was a normal day when Matthew met Jesus. Maybe Matthew just sensed that there was something special about this guy. This down-to-earth stranger who spoke so plainly to him.

Clearly, Jesus and Matthew had a moment. Something happened. We’ve all been there, when you meet someone special and you just know in a way beyond words that something beyond yourself is going on. Something that feels both beneath the surface and heavenly. Who wouldn’t want to follow that feeling?

We all have our own story of how we came to follow Jesus. Trying to put that story into words is close to impossible. Instead, we put words into our story. We do our best to describe and analyze our connection with Jesus, but ultimately we know what’s in our hearts can never be fully verbalized. There are some things that will just be between us and God. Thank God for that.

Like Saint Matthew, we also all have our own little tax booths. Some situation that comes between us and Christ. Some barrier we stay seated behind and watch as our lives go by. We tell ourselves one day I will get up out of this. One day I will fully follow Christ with all my heart.

Every day of our lives, we must get up out of own tax booth. This is hard. It’s always tempting to stay seated in the status quo. Yet throughout scripture, the status quo rarely survives an encounter with Christ.

The good news is that Jesus knows all of this. He knows what we’ve been through, what we are going through, and where we’d rather be in our lives right now. He knows we’ve all missed the mark a few times. He knows sometimes we land in our own tax booths despite our best intentions.

The good news is that Jesus is ready to help us to move. Jesus is ready to help us change. Jesus is not only ready for us to follow him, Jesus wants us to follow him.

We celebrate Saint Matthew because he had the courage to follow Jesus. He left it all behind to follow Jesus. He had no idea what he was getting into, but that did not stop him.

We too must have the courage to keep following Jesus. We must heed the call of Jesus every day of our lives with our own lives. We must get comfortable with depending on Jesus, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

The alternative is a life built solely on self-reliance. A life stuck behind the tax booth of our own selves. That is an exhausting life. That is a life that gets old quickly.

To radically depend on Jesus is intimidating, yet so many who have gone before us did so. The lives of saints were often built on leaps of faith. I don’t know of any saints who lived a quiet, comfortable life. I don’t know of any saints who lived a life free of challenges.

Saint Matthew followed Jesus all the way to martyrdom. He gave up his life to that call. We all do the same in our own way. Follow that call. Amen.

Br. Lain Wilson

Psalm 150

In a time of oppression and division, of political violence and fear, of extreme wealth inequality, of competing claims to truth, of state power brought to bear on the least powerful, I imagine that hearing and praying psalm 150 could be as stark and striking an experience as it is in our own time.

“Praise God in his holy temple; praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts; praise him for his excellent greatness.” (Ps 150:1-2)

There are any number of psalms that we can and do pray—songs of lament, of abandonment, of joy—songs expressing all that is possible to express in conversation with God, all that is needed to communicate to God all that is in our hearts as we encounter a world that seems so wrong.

And there’s no doubt that there is so much wrong with the world. The psalms give us the prayerful vocabulary to bring these wrongs before God.

Each psalm speaks to us in its own way. But this quintessential song of praise points to a substrate in our reality. Whatever we encounter and experience, however we may be divided, whatever we may lament, whatever we grieve—underneath all that is the truth of our common vocation, a truth St. Ignatius of Loyola asserts in his Spiritual Exercises: “The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God as Lord.” Even more strongly, this praise is the common vocation of all creatures, as we hear in our hymn today: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise him, all creatures here below; praise him above, ye heavenly host: praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”[1]

In times of division and turmoil and fear, this fundamental truth of our common vocation calls us all to a unity that may seem, and frankly may be impossible in this life. But in this unmitigated praise of God, we can make present now the new creation inaugurated by the death and resurrection of Jesus, when all divisions are erased. In this unmitigated praise of God, we can experience now a foretaste of God’s promised future.

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Hallelujah!” (Ps 150:6). Amen.

[1] The Hymnal 1982, no. 380, stanza 3 words by Thomas Ken (1637-1711).

Br. David Vryhof

Luke 5:1-11

The call of God comes to us in a variety of ways. Sometimes it seems to come from outside of ourselves; God “breaks into” our lives, perhaps quite suddenly and unexpectedly, to reorient and redirect us. Think of St Paul on the Damascus Road or of St Matthew summoned from his tax collector’s booth. At other times, the call of God seems to grow within us over a period of time. We can’t point to a single day or hour when God’s call became clear to us; we experienced instead a growing attraction to Jesus and a deepening desire to participate in God’s mission in the world.

How has God’s call come to you? Perhaps you had a life-changing encounter with Jesus, or perhaps the call manifested itself to you over the course of time. To what were you being called? And what convinced you to follow him?

Each of the four gospels contain a story about Jesus calling his first disciples. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus summons Simon Peter and Andrew his brother, along with James and John, the sons of Zebedee – all Galilean fishermen – from their work. We are surprised when they respond without delay, since it seems they have not previously known him. We read, “immediately they left the boat… and followed him” (Matt 4:22, also Mk 1:18, 20). In John’s gospel, Jesus invites two of John the Baptist’s disciples, one of whom is Andrew, to “come and see” where he is staying. Andrew then invites his brother, Simon Peter, to meet the Teacher and they become his disciples. Again, we are not told what compels them.

Luke’s gospel differs from these accounts in that by the time that Jesus summons Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee, he has already established a reputation as a teacher and healer. He has preached in the synagogues of Galilee and Judea. He has demonstrated God’s power by healing Simon’s mother-in-law and a man with an unclean spirit.

Now, in chapter 5, we read that he is standing beside the lake of Gennesaret (Luke’s name for the Sea of Galilee) and “the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God” (v.1), so that he has to step into Simon’s boat and ask him “to put out a little way from the shore” in order to address the crowd from the boat (v.3). When he finishes speaking, he tells Simon to “put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (v. 4). Remarkably, after they had caught nothing all night, they draw in a tremendous catch of fish. Here, in Luke’s gospel, Simon and “all who were with him” have plenty of evidence that this Jesus is a remarkable teacher and healer and have good reason to choose to follow him.

What caused you to become a follower of Jesus? And what is it that compels you to follow Jesus today? If you were to picture Jesus standing in front of you this day, what might he say to you? To what would he summon you? Where and to whom would he send you?

Father Benson has taught us that the call of God is continuous and ongoing; it persists throughout the whole of our lives. What are you aware of today?

Br. Luke Ditewig

Saint James and Saint John, Apostles

Matthew 20:20-28

From a life on the sea with nets and fish, Jesus called James and John. Immediately they left their boat and father Zebedee and followed. In a diverse group of unlikely students, they traveled from village to village as Jesus taught and healed. They learned by walking, listening, witnessing miracles, seeing scripture come alive, personally touched by love, hearing and seeing others changed. Jesus sent them out to preach, heal, and cast out demons. They learned to fish for people.

With Peter they climbed a mountain with Jesus and witnessed him transfigured. When traveling through Samaria, folk long excluded by Jews, residents didn’t receive Jesus and his disciples. In reply, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven on them! For jumping quickly to such extremes, Jesus nicknamed them Sons of Thunder.

Similarly, they sought special privilege, honored positions of power. Their mother asked, but Jesus saw through and spoke directly to the brothers. “You don’t know what you are asking.” Asking for power upset the other ten disciples, a striking but probably not new occurrence. Jesus clearly and graciously corrected their excess temper and ambition.

Jesus washed his students’ feet and called them friends. Jesus invited Peter, James and John to accompany him further when praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Instead of striving up, Jesus said: Whoever wishes to be great must be the servant of all.

Jesus also said: “You will indeed drink my cup.” King Herod had James killed, becoming the first martyr. We don’t hear that of John. John began the line of non-blood martyrs, people, like us, killed over and over by suffering though not literally, invited to trust through the hard.[i]

Like Peter and Mary Magdalene, like you and me, Jesus chose James and John as they were, thunderous and stumbling, eager and leading. Jesus patiently loved them, taught them, into more. How has Jesus has called you? How Jesus has loved you, especially how Jesus has washed your feet, your weakness and wounds. What’s the invitation now? Give thanks for the journey of becoming long loved into life as with Blessed James and John whom we remember today.

[i] Bruner, Frederick Dale (2004) Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 2, Revised and expanded edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, p330.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Colossians 1:15-28

If I were to ask you “Who is Jesus to you?” you could probably say something right on the spot. You might not be ready to publish… however, there is something you could readily name about Jesus’ identity or your relationship to Jesus that you could express. That’s my hunch. “Who is Jesus to you?” You might speak of Jesus’ miraculous birth; or perhaps to his being Savior of the world; or to his miracles past and present; or to his being crucified, resurrected, ascended; or perhaps to his Real Presence in Holy Communion. However, my hunch is that you would not make reference to a particular phrase which appears in the Nicene Creed, which comes momentarily.[i] The phrase you will probably not use in your brief description of Jesus is, “Through him all things were made.”

That phrase first appears not in the Nicene Creed, but in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, the passage we just heard read, which is called “The Creation Hymn.” The phrase – “through him all things were made” – hugely enlarges the picture of “God the Son,” whom we know in earthly life as Jesus. Here is Saint Paul’s attention grabber: Jesus, who is God the Son, is the agent of creation. It is through the Son that “all things were made.” Trace your memory back to the beginning of the Book of Genesis, the creation story. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” God the Son. “And God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” [ii] God the Son is the agent of creation. All that has been created for evermore in this world and in the worlds of interstellar space and the galaxies of the universe has been created by the Son of God. Saint Paul continues, saying that the Son of God humbled himself to take on earthly life.[iii] The Creator became the creature.

The Welsh poet and priest, R. S. Thomas, wrote an apocalyptic poem entitled, “The Coming.” The poem describes what had gone awry on earth with the appalling suffering and the desiccated hopelessness and despair. In the poem, we witness the Trinity: God the Son conferring with the Father and the Spirit. The Son, as he looks down upon earth, says, “Let me go there.”[iv] And God the Son, the Creator, is born a human being among us. This is Jesus. Saint Paul describes Jesus as “the image of the invisible God.”[v] The English word “image” is the translation of the Greek word “icon.” Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. In Jesus we can see, and hear, and feel, and know, and name the eternal, invisible, seemingly-distant God. Jesus entered the world to redeem world and to restore it to life.

In The Narnia Chronicles, C. S. Lewis captures a scene in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” where everything in Narnia is trapped in a 100-year-old winter night. This frozen lifelessness has happened because of collusion with the evil White Witch who has cast the icy spell. And then a miracle begins to happen. The great lion Aslan – who is the Christ figure – appears “on the move” in Narnia. Everything begins to thaw and springtime begins. “The mist turned from white to gold…. Shafts of delicious sunlight struck down onto the forest floor and overhead you could see a blue sky between the tree-tops.” Aslan comes as the rescuer and redeemer of the lost world.

In Jesus, God the Son comes into our world not just for the “spiritual salvation” of people. There is much more. Jesus comes to us because “God so loved the whole world.”[vi] The Greek word used for the “world” is cosmos. Jesus is the Savior of the cosmos.[vii] The breadth of Jesus’ saving intervention of love includes everything that has been created: people, to be sure, created in the very image of God, as well everything else that has been created and that suffers. Jesus is the “Savior of the cosmos.”

What is our personal calling, our vocation? Saint Paul calls us “ambassadors of Christ.”[viii] We are emissaries of God’s light, and life, and love. We are missionaries both to people and to the rest of creation which Saint Paul says “groans” in its suffering and estrangement.[ix] With so much suffering that surrounds us now, we live in a very opportune, crucial time to be God’s ambassadors. None of us has a global outreach; however all of us are within arm’s reach of some practice of restoration, or renewal, or adoption. We are all within reach some act of justice-making on behalf of God’s creatures – people, as well as earth, sky, and water; flowers and plants and trees; animals of the earth; birds in the sky; fish of the sea, these voiceless creatures who suffer so much devastation from our hands through things we have done, and things we have left undone, and things done on our behalf.

Where can we give our voice and muscle on behalf of some constituent part of creation that suffers injustice, discrimination, abuse, or neglect? To what people and for what other members of God’s creation can you and I take a stand? That is God’s invitation and God’s request. When I hear Jesus say, “as you have done to the least of these my brethren, you have done to me,”[x] I am thinking about people… but more than just people: about the whole of creation. We have duty!

God the Son, whom we know as Christ Jesus, has a vested interest in being Savior of the world, the whole cosmos. God the Son is the Creator of everything that has been, is now, and shall be. We believe that in our baptism Christ comes to live within us. And he instills in us the vocation and the power to co-operate in his work of saving the world. We must be on with it!

[i] The Nicene Creed attests: “…We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made…” The Book of Common Prayer (1979), p. 358.

[ii] Genesis 1:1-31.

[iii] Philippians 2:5-7.

[iv] R. S. Thomas (1913-2000) in “The Coming”:

And God held in his handA small globe. Look he said.The son looked. Far off,As through water, he sawA scorched land of fierceColour. The light burnedThere; crusted buildingsCast their shadows: a brightSerpent, a riverUncoiled itself, radiantWith slime.

On a bareHill a bare tree saddenedThe sky. Many PeopleHeld out their thin armsTo it, as though waitingFor a vanished AprilTo return to its crossedBoughs. The son watchedThem. Let me go there, he said.

[v] “Image” = εἰκὼν (icon): Colossians 1:15.

[vi] John 3:16.

[vii] Jesus is “the Savior of the world κόσμου”: John 4:42.

[viii] 2 Corinthians 5:20.

[ix] Romans 8:22-24.

[x] Matthew 25:40-45.

Br. Luke Ditewig

2 Kings 5:1-14
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Big voices, big egos, big money to pressure, prod, and profit. The proud posturing of the powerful who think they are great versus children, the poor, foreigners, and the marginalized unseen, unheard, hurt. In such a world and week, we have the story of Naaman.

A great man in high favor, the military commander of one of Israel’s enemies with a skin disease. A young girl captured from Israel says there’s a prophet in Samaria who could cure him. Naaman goes off asking but the king of Israel doesn’t know or acknowledge that such power could be in Israel. He supposes the enemy is trying to provoke. For what human cures such a disease? The powerful are in need and don’t know. They listen and follow the young girl, away from her people, who knows and speaks truth.

Naaman comes to Elisha’s house with gifts of money and clothing. Elisha sends a messenger to say: “Wash in the Jordan river seven times.” “Who me?” Naaman replies. “I’m great. Elijah should greet me, pray, and wave his hand to heal me. Just wash in a river? I’ve got better rivers at home. Why would I wash in one here?”

Naaman almost misses out, almost leaves in arrogance. His servants encourage reconsidering. Washing is simple. “If you were asked to do something great or difficult, you would. So why not try this?” The great man swallows his pride and washes in the foreign river, an ordinary lowly act, a vulnerable posture presenting his body, washing as receiving. Having done so, he is made well.

God heals a proud, powerful foreign military commander through a young girl, a prophet, servants, the Jordan River. Surprising expansive blessing. Grace to all the last, least, and lost—among us, sure—but grace to the proud enemy? This story may frustrate. Why bless them? We have stories of being saved from enemies as in the Exodus and against Goliath. Here God heals.

When Jesus returned to visit Nazareth, he read from Isaiah in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.” Initially people marveled at his words and teaching. Jesus said this is an expansive call. Like other prophets, they wouldn’t welcome him home.[i]

Jesus said: “There were many widows in Israel during a time of famine, but Elijah was only sent to widow in Sidon. There many with leprosy in Israel during the time of Elisha, but only Naaman of Syria was cleansed.” Those who heard this were enraged and tried to throw Jesus off a cliff.[ii]

Jesus recalls Naaman to show God’s good blessing and grace is expansive and abundant, not something we can claim as just ours. Through prophets like Elijah and Elisha, God did certain miracles only outside Israel. Jesus continues God’s unbounded love.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus sends seventy out ahead of him to announce kingdom of God. There were seventy elders in Israel and in Genesis seventy nations in the world.[iii] Seventy may symbolize all. Go to everyone with good news. The harvest is plentiful. God is a reckless gardener sowing seed everywhere for every opportunity.[iv] A wild abundance welcoming all people.

Jesus sends out the seventy with instructions. Don’t take supplies with you. Receive others’ hospitality. They will provide for you. Eat food offered to you. Like washing in a river, be humble and vulnerable trusting in God’s power.

The seventy return with joy amazed with power they received. “Even the demons submit to us.” Jesus replies, “Don’t rejoice at this but that your names are written in heaven.” God calls you beloved. You have been blessed. Rejoice in that. From the gratitude and joy of receiving, share and extend blessing. That’s our story back from Abraham, blessed in order to bless the whole world.

Stop to remember. How have you been blessed? What’s the invitation now to bless others? Consider the characters in today’s story as portraits of God blessing and us receiving and sharing. How do you identify with each of them?

The girl who knows and names truth of her own culture and people though seemingly powerless and alone in a foreign land. Elisha who trusts God’s power, resists the push of wealth and prestige, who invites vulnerability and shares God’s grace. Naaman’s wife and servants who share what they hear and encourage humility. Naaman who assumes or demands how Elisha and God should act, who acts entitled and seeks to buy his way, who almost refuses a simple invitation, and who then accepts and receives.

God brings down the proud, lifts up the lowly, speaks through the little, and showers abundant love. Blessed and healed, humble and vulnerable, we have good news to keep sharing with everyone.

[i] Luke 4:16-24

[ii] Luke 4:25-29

[iii] Exodus 24:1; Genesis 10

[iv] Luke 8:4-15

Br. Jamie Nelson, SSJE

Luke 15:1-10

Have you ever gotten lost in the woods?

Back in my college days, one of my classes went on a weeklong field trip to a national forest in central Idaho. Late one afternoon, the group of us were deep out on Forest Service land when we realized our classmate Tyler was missing. We waited a few minutes, but Tyler didn’t reappear.

Eventually we decided to search for him. We organized ourselves into a line, two arm’s length between each person, and divided our group in two to search a grid pattern down either side of the gravel road, backtracking the way we’d traveled. We called out Tyler’s name over and over as we carefully picked our way through and under and over and around the rough wooded terrain.

The search seemed to last forever, long enough that a twinge of despair had begun to creep into our hoarse voices as we called for him.

Then we heard a shout. The news spread from person to person: Tyler had been found and was ok.

We regrouped and Tyler told us what had happened. Without telling anyone, he had slipped away for a moment to take a bathroom break, certain that we’d still be in sight & he’d easily catch up with us when he returned. But he was mistaken.

When Tyler returned, we were no longer in sight. And somehow in that moment, he got his bearings turned around. He started going in the wrong direction. And thinking we must be just out of sight around a corner, he just kept going & going.

Eventually, he realized that he’d gone the wrong way and that he needed to turn back.

To be honest, I don’t remember what we learned on that field trip, or which professor taught it, but I do remember the relieved & celebratory mood at the meal that night. Our simple food now tasted like a feast, and classmates who had been mere acquaintances now felt more like friends. All because one of us had been lost but was safely found.

In today’s gospel, Jesus recounts two celebrations that take place when something precious is found after being lost.

In the first story, a shepherd searches until he finds one of his sheep who had gotten separated from the rest of the flock. Carrying the lost sheep home on his shoulders, the shepherd calls together his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him.

In the second story, a woman searches her house for a valuable coin, sweeping the entire floor and shining a lamp into dark corners. Once again, when she finds the coin, in great joy she calls together her friends and neighbors to celebrate, for she has found something precious to her.

Jesus compares both celebrations to the joy felt in heaven that comes each time a single sinner repents.

What image does the word “repentance” bring to mind for you? Maybe it’s a streetcorner preacher with signs and a megaphone. Or maybe it’s John the Baptist with his rough camel’s hair clothes and wild beard.

One meaning of the Greek word we translate as repentance is “to turn around, to turn back.” In my story, my classmate eventually realized he’d gone in the wrong direction, so he turned back and headed towards us.

Is there anywhere in your life where you are currently feeling lost?

How might God be inviting you, now, to change direction?

Turn back.

Turn back, and trust in God’s joy and extravagant love, for you are precious in God’s sight.

Luke 10:1-18

We don’t always know where our motivation comes from. Sometimes we wake up in the morning ready to go. Other times we’re tired all day. Motivation is unpredictable.

Jesus knew motivation. He knew how hungry people are for something energizing. He knew how much people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something meaningful, something true, something they can give their lives to.

In our Gospel today, Jesus is sending out seventy-two disciples on mission. He leads his speech to them by saying “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”. I’ve heard this phrase probably a few thousand times in my life, and it always motivates me.

It’s a fascinating phrase from a motivational perspective. Jesus is saying there is simultaneously an opportunity and a problem. The harvest is plentiful…but the laborers are few. It’s kind of like saying to a group of chefs there is a ton of good food for you all to make, but there’s not many of you to make it. Simultaneously Jesus’ words pull you into the mission but also push you to realize the limitations you and those around you are working with.

In our journey with God, we frequently find ourselves in circumstances similar to what Jesus is describing. We find our problems and opportunities mix, our stress and excitement comingle, and the solution to today’s crisis becomes next week’s problem. Our lives and mission are rarely as clean cut, neat, and clear as we would we like them to be.

Finding some sort of motivation that can persist through the changing circumstances of our life is essential. This is not a one-time task; this is a day-by-day reality of the Christian life. Our lives are constantly changing and so are the lives of absolutely every single person around you.

The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. We are born into this harvest, and we start laboring before we know it. To be in the thick of that labor is to do the work of God.

Br. David Vryhof

Isaiah 11:1-10
Luke 1: 26-38

Common of the Incarnation

It has been the custom in monasteries such as ours to honor Mary, the Mother of our Lord, on the Saturdays in Ordinary Time between the seasons of Pentecost and Advent. Mary’s example – particularly the graciousness, generosity and humility with which she responds to God’s call – has been an inspiration to monastics throughout the ages, and to all who have sensed that God is summoning them to a particular task or way of being in the world.

The call that comes to Mary is a daunting one. God promises, through the angel Gabriel, to bless her with a son, who “will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High,” and through whom God’s people will be established forever. This, despite the fact that she is a virgin. Remarkably, she accepts the intervention and the promise with openness and trust, and responds with those familiar words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).

I suspect we would all like to think that when God calls us to some special task we would respond as Mary did, saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord…” But we know that we are also capable of turning away, of delaying our answer, of looking for a way out. We see our best selves responding with openness and generosity, but we know also that selfish side of ourselves that loves to have its own way and doesn’t like being moved out of its comfort zone. And sometimes, if the truth be told, the call is, well, daunting, and we just don’t see how we can do it.

We’re not alone in this. Consider the reluctance of Moses, who responded to God’s call by insisting that he was not the right man to appear before Pharaoh (Exodus 3:11). Or think of Jeremiah who, when God called him, protested that he was too young and inexperienced to be a prophet (Jeremiah 1:6). Or Jonah, who hopped on a ship headed in the opposite direction from where God had called him to go (Jonah 1:1-3). Or even Mary, whom we remember today, whose initial response to the angel’s message was “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). We, too, may feel overwhelmed or afraid or unqualified in the face of God is asking us to do. We may be tempted to turn away, to go our own way, or to look for a way out.

God’s response to our fear and anxiety is always the same. To Moses, God says, “I will be with you” (Ex 3:12). To Jeremiah, God says, “Be not afraid…I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer 1:7-10). To Mary, God offers comfort and assurance, saying, “Do not be afraid… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:30, 35). In like manner, God says to us, “Do not be afraid. I will be your strength in weakness. The work is mine; I will do this work in and through you.”

Whatever this season of life is bringing you; whatever challenges it puts before you; whatever God is asking of you now – God is with you; God’s power is available to you; God has promised to do God’s work in and through you. Keep in mind that the work is God’s. Your job is not to be successful, but to be faithful. “Do not be afraid.” Put your trust in God.

Commemorating Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)

Br. Curtis Almquist

Micah 6:6-8

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? … He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

We commemorate today Dag Hammarskjöld, the much beloved Swedish diplomat and Secretary General of the United Nations. In the church calendar he is called “Servant of Peace,” having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Hammarskjöld led the United Nations in negotiating the release of U.S. soldiers captured by the Chinese in the Korean War; in addressing tensions in the Middle East, particularly on behalf of Palestinians; in disarming the conflict around the custody of the Suez Canal; in establishing the first U.N. Observation Group in Lebanon; and in negotiating the horrific wars in Southeast Asia which began looming large in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Much of his work he called “preventive diplomacy.” He died in September1961 in a plane crash in central Africa while negotiating a peace accord in the warring Congo.

Hammarskjöld was such a powerful witness to the Prophecy of Micah: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” In his journal entitled “Markings,” Hammarskjöld describes his entries as “negotiations with myself… and with God.” He writes, “At some moment I did answer Yes to [God] and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”

Saying Yes to God is foundational in our stewarding the life God has given to us. It is possible to live life “kicking against the goads” (to paraphrase Saint Paul): resisting or resenting the hand we have been dealt in life. In saying Yes to God, I am not suggesting our being passive in life, letting life roll over us, choosing to be a “victim” in ways over which we actually have the power and dignity to make changes. I am saying that our life is a gift from God. God is God; God operates in our life. God invites us to co-operate in stewarding the life to which we have been entrusted, to the opportunities afforded us, and to the limitations which surround us. To say Yes to life… which is hugely challenging and, I would say, equally necessary… and quite possible if we are to live a whole life, the whole life that God has given us.

Blessed Dag Hammarskjöld, whom we remember today.

Mark 6:1-13

About thirty years ago, we Brothers went through a period of renewal. We were stuck, and we knew it. It was difficult for us to make decisions. We were busy all the time, but it seemed, we were mostly busy spinning our wheels. We didn’t know which direction we wanted to go, and we weren’t even sure how, or who, would decide that. We were stuck, and we knew it. Luckily, we also knew that something needed to change. We weren’t sure what, but we knew we could not go on like that. And so, we asked around. What had other people and organizations done in similar situations? Eventually we were led to a woman named Jean. Jean walked into our life one day, and while there were countless times when we all wished she would walk right back out, she and we persisted, and we’ve never been the same.

Thirty years later, all of us who were here then, still speak of her. Brothers who were not here, certainly know of her. She is perhaps quoted, and referred to, only slightly less frequently than Father Benson. Ask some of us, and we all have our favourite Jean story.

One of the things that was eye opening for me, was the day Jean introduced us to the concept of frozen roles.

Jean’s point was that we often cannot see what another is doing, or saying, because we think we know what they will do, or say, even before they do, or say it. She always reacts this way. He always does that. I don’t need to bother listening because I already know what they will say. We freeze people, and even ourselves, into certain patterns, and we don’t allow them to break out, or to be different than how we expect them to be.

The dynamics of frozen roles are perhaps most prevalent in families, small work situations, and dare I say it, monastic communities, where members have known one another over decades. Here he goes again, we say to ourselves. How many times have I heard this in the last 10, 20, 30 years? I don’t need to listen. I already know what he will say.

Today in Mark’s gospel, the author paints a classic picture of frozen roles. Jesus comes home, after having been away for some time. At first, everyone is thrilled.

[Jesus] … came to his hometown …. On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands![1]**

The hometown crowd is impressed and astounded with his words and deeds of wisdom and power. But that astonishment quickly turns bitter. No longer do they see the man Jesus has become. They can only see the one they think they knew from before. Suddenly the past catches up and the wise teacher becomes the simple carpenter.

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’[2]**

In an instant, small town jealousies freeze Jesus into roles that are as predictable and safe, as they are familiar. It seems all he could do in the face of their offence, was to lay his hands on a few sick people and [cure] them,[3]** before leaving town.

Frozen roles and frozen expectations quench possibilities and stifle innovation. In the end if you stay there, everyone gets stuck, and no one can move. Patterns of behaviour and response are frozen, as are the relationships around them. Luckily, Jesus had the force of will, and that’s what it takes sometimes to get unfrozen, sheer force of will, and even the courage, to move on and leave town, amazed at their unbelief.[4]**

Once he left town and escapes his former neighbours’ preconceived notions and frozen roles, amazing things began to happen.

He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits… So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.[5]**

Sometimes it takes a force of will and sheer courage to break out of a frozen role. Sometimes it takes a new leader, or, as in our case, the election of a new Superior.

Like people and organizations, monastic communities can become frozen. They can become frozen by expectations, both internal and external. We always do things this way. They always do things that way. We expect people, and organizations, and individuals, and monastic communities to behave or react in certain ways, because that is how history has repeatedly shown them to react. Until they don’t. When they don’t, expectations are tuned upside down, and strange, new, sometimes upsetting, and sometimes quite wonderful things happen.

The history of SSJE has been marked by a series of events when we broke out of certain frozen roles, both individual and communal.

The first frozen role that was shattered occurred in 1890 when Father Benson, our Founder, and until then our only Superior stepped down as Superior and moved away from Oxford for newly a decade. From our founding in 1866 until the 1880’s it had been unthinkable that Father Benson would resign as Superior. It was assumed that only death would remove him from that role. But by the late 1880’s the community was in crisis. The professed members were leaving in droves, and those who came to test their vocations stayed for only a short time before they too left. The atmosphere was gloomy, depressed, and discouraged. Father Benson famously declared that a religious community should not exist for more than one generation. The community and Father Benson were frozen into a certain mindset that said the end of SSJE in their lifetime was inevitable.

Fortunately, Father Congreve did not believe that, and he slowly convinced Father Benson to step down. In 1890 Father Page was elected Superior, and in a few years things turned around. Men came and stayed. Soon a new and larger monastery and church were built to accommodate the growing community. Roles which had been frozen were unfrozen, and new and wonderful things began to happen.

Another occasion when roles were unfrozen happened towards the end of the First World War. For decades the Brothers here in Boston had been advocating for the establishment of an independent American Congregation. This move towards independence was resisted tooth and nail by the community in Oxford. In fact, things got so bad it seemed at one point that the house in Boston would be closed, and the work here in this country shut down. When word of this leaked out, a great hew and cry went out from across the Episcopal Church and the Superior General was flooded with pleas to keep the work here going. About the same time, Father Bull, an Englishman who had served for several years at the Mission House on Bowdoin Street was recalled to England where he was elected Superior General. Knowing the situation in Boston and the United States firsthand, he took steps which resulted in the creation of an independent American Congregation in 1921. With autonomy from the English Congregation came vocations, and new work was opened in San Francisco, Canada, Japan, New York, and right here on Memorial Drive. Roles which had been frozen were unfrozen, and new and wonderful things began to happen.

Another occasion when roles were unfrozen happened in the early 1970’s, with the election of Paul Wessinger as Superior. Again, the community was in crisis. Men were coming to test their vocations, but more men were leaving. They left in droves in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Some left because they perceived us to be too liberal. Others left because we were thought to be too conservative. At one point the novitiate was closed, and it was expected that we would simply die. But in 1972 Paul was elected Superior and he took the risk to change thing. The novitiate was reopened. We adopted the 1979 Book of Common Prayer as our standard for worship. Women were welcomed into the choir and guesthouse, to name a few. Roles which had been frozen were unfrozen, and new and wonderful things began to happen.

I believe we are in such a time.

The world and Church are in crisis: economically, environmentally, demographically, politically. No matter how well certain patterns of behaviour have served us in the past, they may, or may not, serve us in the future. The world is a different place than when Father Benson, or Father Page, or Father Bull, or Brother Paul, or even when I became Superior. The Church is a different place than when Father Benson, or Father Page, or Father Bull, or Brother Paul, or even when I became Superior. If we are to serve the Church and the world in the years to come, we cannot simply do what we have always done. If SSJE is to survive, and thrive, and serve the Church and the world in the years to come, we cannot simply do what we have always done. We cannot afford to remain frozen. We need to take the risk to change.

In a few weeks the Brothers will elect a new Superior, and things will change. Things are already changing. They will change because whoever we elect is not me, nor will he be a James clone (and that is a good thing). Nor will he be Paul, or Father Bull, or Father Page or Father Benson. And that is a good thing. We are not living in 1866, or 1890, or 1921, or 1972, or even 2016. Things will also change because whoever we elect will be under the age of 55 and might even be in his 30’s or 40’s. Whoever we elect will have only been in the community since about 2009 and will only really have known either Geoffrey or me in this role of Superior. That alone will cause roles to be unfrozen, and things to change.

It takes a great deal of courage to break out of frozen roles. I cannot imagine how difficult that conversation was when Father Congreve told Father Benson it was time to step down. I cannot imagine the risk Father Bull or Paul took when they set a revolution in motion. Everything could have gone wrong. The resistance could have been so great, and the freeze so deep, that nothing might have changed, and like the residents of Nazareth, they could have been dragged to the cliff to be thrown over by the Brothers. But instead, roles which had been frozen were unfrozen, and new and wonderful things began to happen.

In the days and months ahead, our task, the task of the Brothers, the task of the new Superior, even your task as our friends and those who pray for us, is to pray for the gifts of courage and of hope. Courage to do things differently, because the world is different, the Church is different, and all of us are different. And hope to remember that the future, the world’s future, the Church’s future, and our future belong to God who promises to meet us in whatever the future will bring for remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.[6]**

I must say that I have never so eagerly anticipated the election of a Superior as I do at this very moment. It is not that I am ready to lay down this role, and pass it on to someone else, although that is certainly true. Rather, it is because I am excited about our future, and the expectation that God’s promise to meet us there will be fulfilled in new and wonderful ways.

[1] Mark: 6: 1 – 2

[2] Mark 6: 3

[3] Matthew 6: 5

[4] Matthew 6: 6

[5] Matthew 6: 7, 12 – 13

[6] Matthew 28:20

John 21:15-19

“How’re you doing?”

How do you usually answer this question? “I’m fine,” perhaps, or “I’m okay.” In our daily interactions we get asked seemingly polite questions like this over and over, and we are conditioned to respond politely.

They don’t want to know your whole life story.

Unless they do. But we can’t know their intention—unless they persist, unless they make known their intention.

“How’re you doing?” “No, really, how’re you doing?”

How do you feel knowing that someone else truly cares to know something true about you?

“Peter felt hurt because [Jesus] said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’” (Jn 21:17).

The passage is clear here that Jesus’s repeated asking is the cause of Peter’s hurt. But I think there’s something else going on beneath the surface. It’s not just that Peter is hurt because he is being doubted, but rather that there may be some basis for this doubt.

I think Peter’s hurt at the questioning reveals something true about him: that he has been hurting, that he has been grieving, grieving this whole time—grieving his failure, his cowardice in denying Jesus. Perhaps, that he has been questioning his own love of Jesus—or, rather, his own worthiness for that love.

But this repeated questioning is, I think, Jesus saying, “No, really.” Jesus invites Peter to be real, and it is important that these three repeated questions yield the same answers: “Yes, you know I do.”

“You know I do.”

Peter is raw, pleading, and unequivocal—“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (Jn 21:17).

The questions—and the answers—aren’t for Jesus. Jesus already knows. They’re for Peter, who may need that repeated invitation to be real, to bring to the surface his own grief, to know assuredly not only that he loves but that he is loved. And to hear—also, repeated three times—the way that this love will be lived out in the world: “Feed my sheep.”

And these questions are for us, our own invitation to dig deeper, to be real, to be assured in our own claim. To be able to answer the question “Do you love me?” with our own “Yes, Lord; you know I do.” And to live that love out in the world.

Amen.

Isaiah 44:1-8
Psalm 92:1-2, 11-14
John 20:1-9

The summer after I graduated from college, I received a phone call. The caller introduced himself as Agent So-and-so, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I was struck silent for a moment or two. Not least because I was having a mild panic attack: “What did you do, Lain?!”

After I recovered, I learned that a college friend had listed me as a reference on his application to the FBI. I don’t recall what I said during the phone call, but I do remember two emotions. Profound gratitude—for being thought worthy of this, for being trusted. And a profound sense of responsibility—my testimony, in however a small way, had power.

Testify, witness, confess—these words recur throughout our readings this morning, as does the underlying sense of revealing some truth about God. “You are my witnesses!” God tells God’s people through the prophet Isaiah, after the promise to restore God’s blessings: I will pour my spirit upon your descendants” (Is 44:8, 3). “It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD,” the psalmist sings, “to sing praises to your Name . . . to tell of your loving-kindness” (Ps 92:1-2). And two millennia later, these words by Robert Herrick, whose poem we sang before the service: “All these, and better Thou dost send Me, to this end, That I should render, for my part, A thankfull heart.”

Each of these texts can stand for countless others in the power of our words to testify, to bear witness, to shout out with thanks and praise the truth of God’s goodness and mercy. We can, with the power of our words, give God an absolutely glowing reference.

But our responsibility goes deeper than that. And the beloved disciple shows us how. Running to the tomb with Peter, and seeing the linen wrappings, he went into the tomb, “and he saw and believed” (Jn 20:8). He saw and believed.

Many, many words will come later, in the writings attributed to the beloved disciple. But here, in the early morning of that first Easter Day, the beloved disciple bears witness to the truth without words, without praise or thanks or even understanding. He bears witness to the truth of Jesus’ resurrection by simply believing, by an act of faith. It is the witness, the testimony, of a human life utterly transformed by God’s loving, saving action in Jesus Christ. Belief is his response to God.

We too are transformed—or rather, are transforming, becoming. This is an ongoing, incomplete process in this life. And a first step—a first step in our own cooperation, our working with God’s transforming us—a first step in a lifetime of first steps—is to stand silent. To stand silent in awe, witnesses to a love that cannot help but strike us silent. Words will follow—but here and now, we can do no better than the beloved disciple did: to stand silent, and believe.

Br. Jack Crowley

John 6:30-35

My Brothers know that I love to eat. I eat often and I eat a lot. Every monastery has to have that one Brother who’s always hungry, and I’m that guy. So having said that, I must confess that every time I hear Jesus call himself the bread of life, I get a little hungry.

One of the many things I love about Jesus is he knows what motivates us. He knows our hearts, our minds, and our stomachs. He knows what makes us tick. He knows this for each and every one of us, in our own peculiar way.

Jesus knows that above all else, we crave God. We crave God in the same way we crave food. Deep down, we crave God not one time, but all the time.

This craving for God is good. It’s a good desire. What we do with our desire for God is what matters. How we go about fulfilling our craving for God is what shapes our spiritual lives.

Jesus continually invites us to keep coming back to him with our desire for God. He promises that anyone who comes to him will never be hungry again. We have the freedom to feed on Christ daily. We have the freedom to feed on Christ not just daily, but every moment of our lives.

Think about that for a moment. We have access to God every single moment of our lives. No matter how we are feeling, what we are thinking, or what we are doing, God’s sustenance is available to us.

God is not only ready for us, God is willing to meet us where we are. Our craving for God can be fulfilled in the here and now. We do not have to wait for the circumstances of our life to perfectly align to feed on Christ. Thank God. That’s really good news.

If you keep waiting for the perfect moment to find God, you will keep waiting. There will never be a perfect time to find God, except right now. God is already at work in the present circumstances of your life. You do not have to wait. God is here, God is now, and God is with us.

God is ready for us, even if we don’t think we are ready for God. God is ready to nourish us, even if we do not think we are worthy. God is ready to feed us, even if we don’t think we need to eat.

To be fed by God is a humbling act. It’s like that feeling when you take the first bite of food, and you realize just how hungry you really were. It’s humbling to admit how much we need God, not just one time, but again and again all the time.

To recognize our absolute dependence on God is shocking. It’s uncomfortable. It’s unsettling, but it’s real. Our dependence on God is not something we grow out of, our dependence on God is something we grow in to.

Certainly, in the course of our busy lives and increasingly fuller days, our relationship with God is something that will change. There may be times when we think we have this, we can do it by ourselves. We may let our lives distract us from the giver of our lives. We can take for granted what is right in front of us and forget to give thanks to who holds it all together.

If your experience is anything like mine, inevitably, hunger brings us back to God’s table. The call of God is as unrelenting as a stomach growling. That holy hunger in our soul is impossible to ignore. We must feed it with God.

Br. Luke Ditewig

St. Joseph

Luke 2:41-52

We frequently remember Mary for saying “yes” to God’s invitation. Joseph also said “yes” though none of his words are recorded in scripture. His life is his word. Joseph’s actions speak loudly.

Joseph was a righteous man. Quiet Joseph resolved to do the right thing, to dismiss Mary quietly, to save her from disgrace. Then God told Joseph to do something different, to take Mary as his wife and name their child Jesus. Joseph listened and followed.

The righteous are attentive to listen, with a detachment and freedom to change their ideas—even, especially, of what they understand to be right—and being righteous means action, doing God’s will. Through the gospels, Jesus continually confronts those who cling tight to what they sense is right including who to eat with and how to worship.

When God spoke, Joseph listened and changed his plans. He took Mary as his wife. Later God told him to flee to Egypt with his family, and Joseph did. Further on, God told him to return to Galilee, and Joseph did.

Children surprise, challenge, and expand our sense of what is right. They rely on us, cry a little or a lot for help. They ask countless questions. Children push parents to reconsider what is normal, right, expected in terms of sleep, answers, possibilities, give and take, relationship, giving and receiving love.

Jesus grew from an infant to a toddler to child to a teenager, a teenager who stayed behind in the temple causing Joseph and Mary to search anxiously for three days. Jesus was human in causing astonishment, amazement, anxiety and more in this story as well as before and after. As a parent, Joseph lived an ongoing yes to God.

To love and to love a child is to keep saying yes. Yes to being, doing, and giving more and differently than we expected. God comes, including through our children, families, neighbors, and more challenging our good, limited sense of what is right.

What are you expecting from God? Don’t cling too tight. Listen and look for surprises, invitations which will stretch you to something more. We need not be afraid. God is good and saving. Our actions speak loudly. Like Joseph, may we keep growing, keep living our yes.

Br. Keith Nelson

John 12:20-33

The arrival of Jesus’s “hour” is a pivotal moment of transition in John’s gospel. Like road signs advertising a major attraction miles in advance, significant mention has been made of this hour throughout the gospel. In chapter 2, when the mother of Jesus urges him to change water into wine at a wedding, he initially demurs, saying, “My hour has not yet come.” In chapter 7 and again in chapter 8, Jesus is teaching in the temple and the Judean authorities try to arrest him, but “no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.” In chapter ten, we encounter a different kind of foreshadowing. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd, declaring, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Here in chapter 12, with the arrival of Greek Gentiles who wish to see Jesus, the much-anticipated hour has indeed arrived. Every word, gesture, and action of Jesus from this moment on will be charged with new meaning in light of his coming death and glorification.

But even as Jesus moves with confident purpose toward this climactic event, we receive a precious detail about his innermost experience that belies his calm exterior: “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” The word translated soul is important here. It is psyche, from which we get our English word psyche. But it is the same word translated “life” a few verses prior, when we heard Jesus say, “Those who love their life [psyche] lose it, and those who hate their life [psyche] in this world keep it for eternal life.” The life that is clung to and lost is psyche. The life that is held provisionally, offered up, and thus transformed into something greater is psyche. This psyche is individual; particular; dependent; fragile; and ultimately comes to nothing without God. The greater Life which touches and transfigures it is, in Greek, zoe. When Jesus says, “I am resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,” this is zoe. My point here is that Jesus is troubled in his psyche – his individual, particular, dependent, and fragile human life. In this, he shares so much of what is ours. Though he knew himself to be held within the greater life, the zoe of the Father, Jesus knew as well what it was like to feel troubled – at the core of his finite being.

As followers of Jesus, our souls (lives) will be troubled. Jesus says, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

The pain outside and around us will trouble us, as we see with new eyes the chasm between the world as it is and the world as God longs for it to be.

The pain within us will trouble us, as we feel with a new heart and a new conscience our own seeming incapacity to follow the narrow way of Jesus and to rise up to the demands of the gospel.

But there is at least one more significant reason that following Jesus troubles our souls, a reason that is at the heart of today’s gospel reading. This is related to the trouble – even the agony – that we will undergo if we are faithfully responding to the individual purpose for which God has created us, as Jesus was. This individual purpose is sometimes called our vocation.

If we consider our primary calling – our primary reason for being in the world and its alignment with the purposes of God – we know that it is moments of challenge that most refine and clarify that call. On the one hand, we know in our hearts that we are following the path God intends for us. At the same time, on the course of that path, a moment comes when we reach our known limit: “I cannot do this,” we confess. And given the evidence at hand, it’s entirely true. But then something within us or beyond us pushes back, with an equal insistence: “I cannot not do this. This is why I am here; this is what I was made for; this is the moment.” With Jesus, we pray, “It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

When have you known this dynamic at the core of your own finite being? In your sacred calling: as a selfless parent – as a faithful spouse – as a compassionate caregiver – as a patient teacher – as a loyal friend – or as a persevering disciple? When have you felt yourself troubled at the core – individual, particular, fragile, and dependent – yet made willing by the God who is Life to face whatever life asked of you?

I can speak from my own experience walking the path of religious life as it is lived by this community.

One of the most challenging moments on that journey for me was the decision to leave my previous life behind in order to discern this vocation as a postulant, at age 31. In part, this is because I had already tried discerning an SSJE vocation once before, albeit briefly, at age 26. When I returned, I was calmer and clearer about what I wanted in life and had fewer illusions about the choice I was making. The call, as I heard it in my own heart, had only become louder and more persistent. At the same time, I had spent five years since building a life that was mine, that had its own momentum and future trajectory, and was relatively satisfying. But deep down, I knew it was too small – it was psyche. God had laid claim to me and wanted, needed, all of me. God wanted to give me zoe, in the way that I was made to receive it.

A parallel moment came for me years later as the hour of my Life Profession drew near. The chapter in our Rule on Life Profession begins by invoking the free self-offering of Jesus’s life on the cross, and his words: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Though I had read these words many times before, in that hour the words filled my fragile, particular, dependent humanity with terror. I had no desire whatsoever to leave this life. I knew it was my calling. But in that hour I began to learn the crucial difference between the desire not to leave and the free choice to lay down my life – not once for all, but daily, hourly, even moment by moment, to make room to receive the Life of God.

Many observers of our life, including men who are drawn to explore it, initially assume that monks are cut from a different cloth than other human beings; that we are hardwired differently from birth; that we have an innate intimacy with God that makes the sometimes excruciating challenge of this life not only bearable, but effortless. In all this, the implicit assumption is perhaps that we are more like Jesus – a Jesus who didn’t need to grow, learn, change, or suffer on a human path toward God’s purpose for him. None of this is true, just as that version of Jesus is not the Jesus we find in the gospel. We are simply men who began to ask a question that would not let us go until we surrendered into the arms of God. We kept striking iron and flint, and a spark finally leapt out into the tinder of our uncertainties and our blind but relentless desire to give it all to him. The question troubled our souls, and we could not rest until we found an answer.Finally, as we approached the moment of decision, nearly all of us heard the voice of psyche, the voice of our small self, our frail humanity saying “I cannot do this.” And, in one form or another, a voice from within and beyond us that broke the last barrier of our resistance, saying: “You cannot not do this. This is why you are here. This is what you were made for. This is the road that leads you to Life.”

From the eye of the storm, from the center of his one human life, Jesus prays, “Father, glorify your name.” In response, the God he knew as Father speaks as a voice from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” This is the only moment in John’s gospel that the voice of the Father communicates in this way. God affirms the calling of Jesus, both as Jesus has fulfilled it and as he is about to fulfill it. Listen intently to God’s reply to your own prayer. Is God urging you further down the well-worn path of a calling confirmed years ago? Is God inviting you to step forth from a way of life you have largely outgrown into larger life? Is God beckoning you toward a sacred purpose you are only now discovering? If we are following Jesus, all paths lead toward a troubled soul. It is how we pray from the center of that trouble that opens the way for God to meet us and carry us through every death, into unbounded Life.

Br. Jim Woodrum

Matthew 18:12-24

Many of you are aware of my special affinity for angels. These mysterious figures make appearances throughout scripture, filling the depths of my imagination with stories of their continuous worship in heaven, particularly as described in the Revelation to John. If there were a runner-up for the affections of my heart, it would probably be shepherds. The primary responsibility of these country-dwellers was the husbandry and protection of flocks of sheep entrusted to their care.

In Luke, chapter two, we learn that shepherds were the first to receive the news of Jesus’ birth, announced to them by a multitude of angels. In just under two weeks, we may soon find ourselves singing a popular Christmas carol that begins: “While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around.”[i]

Throughout scripture, we encounter numerous references to shepherds. For example, the renowned King David of the Old Testament served as a shepherd for his father Jesse’s flock during his youth. King David, who was not only a shepherd but also a skilled musician and credited as the author of the Psalter, likely penned the words found in Psalm 23:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”[ii]

In the Gospels, not only were the shepherds the first to hear the news about Jesus’ birth from the angels, but we also find Jesus himself referring to himself as “the good shepherd.” He states, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.”[iii] In a similar fashion, he identifies himself as the gate to the sheepfold: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”[iv]

Tonight’s gospel lesson features one of my favorite metaphors of a shepherd used by Jesus. In this passage, Jesus poses a question to his audience: “What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” Certainly, we find this image endearing and comforting.

When I was praying with the passage for the homily this evening, I began to reflect on my life and the people who have served as shepherds to me. I consider myself fortunate, as there have been many such individuals. One significant memory takes me back to the youth program at my elementary school, which took place every summer and was sponsored by our local Department of Parks and Recreation.

While parents were at work, neighborhood kids, including myself, would ride their bikes up to the school. There, young adults employed by the city Parks and Recreation were on hand to facilitate various activities, including games, art, physical fitness, and field trips. As an only child navigating the highs and lows of a family life that was not always joyful, I found myself craving and in need of special attention.

There were two or three young adults during those summers who recognized that need and would play board games with me when no one else showed any interest. They shepherded me when, in a way, I was a lost sheep, bullied by other kids and isolated because I was not popular. When I received the attention I so desperately needed from these counselors, I felt happy, content, and, most importantly, safe. Perhaps this is what inspired me to ask my parents one Christmas if I could have an older brother. I wanted someone who cared for me, looked out for me, and who had walked the very path I had walked earlier in his life; someone who could guide, affirm, and encourage me when I felt especially alone and vulnerable. I think this is as true for the 52-year-old Jim as it was for the 9-year-old Jim. Who have been shepherds for you in your life? Perhaps there are a few people who stand out as shepherds who guided you, fed you, comforted you, and kept you safe.

While nestled in the comfort of these warm images, we might not think about the risks posed to that of a shepherd. While the images in our minds are often pastoral, idyllic, and serene, it may be lost on us that the vocation of shepherd was actually quite dangerous. In an essay titled “The Fighting Shepherd,” Dr. Alastair Roberts writes: “The biblical image of the shepherd is of a man surrounded by many threats from which he must protect the flock within his charge. He works within a harsh and unforgiving terrain, a place with much barren wilderness, rocky areas, and dangerous mountain valleys and passes, within which he must find water and secure good pasturage. He faces the threat of bandits, robbers, and thieves, who might kill or steal his flock, and of ravenous wild beasts who will prey on the sheep. Protecting the flock may cost him his life.[v]

In all of these metaphors Jesus uses about shepherds and sheep, I sometimes wonder if we get sidetracked by our focus on the sheep, when Jesus, I think, is asking us to focus on the shepherd. For a shepherd to fulfill the role effectively, the sheep must know and trust the shepherd’s voice. This is not an instantaneous process. While I admit I haven’t delved deeply into researching this dynamic, I’ve observed that Jesus aims to convey the characteristics of a shepherd—one that we, like sheep, can come to recognize, know, and trust.

A shepherd may prod with rod and staff, but in the development of the relationship, the sheep have come to find comfort in that guidance. The action of prodding does not instill a sense of shame or punishment but rather one of being led to safety. The shepherd is willing to take the risk to pursue the least of the herd so that none shall be lost. I ponder if a flock of sheep comprehends this. A shepherd is prepared to lay down their life for the sheep. How many of us here would take on the role of a shepherd, knowing that laying down one’s life is part of the job description?

And yet, when Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd of the sheep, one who is willing to risk his life for the sheep, this sentiment is far from platitudinal or empty. Jesus’ mission was directed toward Jerusalem, where he would be handed over to the chief priests and Pharisees by someone within his own community. This path led to his passion and death, transforming the great shepherd of the sheep into the sacrificial lamb, given once and for all for the sins of all. This profound sacrifice aimed to bridge the great divide between sheep and sheepfold, restoring the relationship between God and creation through Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.

If we desire to know God as we are known by God, we must learn to recognize and focus on the good shepherd, trusting that he will lead us back into union with God as God’s beloved children—created in God’s image and likeness. Through this understanding, we realize our capacity to love, nurture, and guide others to the sheepfold where all may be fed, loved, and protected. Just as God called Jesus from a shepherd to sheep, Jesus is calling us from being sheep to becoming shepherds—an embodiment of God’s love and provision for all.

Acknowledge that you are loved by Jesus, the good shepherd, and in turn, become a shepherd for others by following Jesus’ example. Amen.

[i] Hymnal 1982, Hymn 94/95

[ii] Psalm 23:1;4

[iii] John 10:14-15

[iv] John 10:9-10

[v] Roberts, A. (2012, July 14). The Fighting Shepherd. Alastair’s Adversaria. https://alastairadversaria.com/2012/07/14/the-fighting-shepherd/

Luke 14:15-25

You may have noticed that food and eating play an incredibly important role in Scripture. You can’t get very far reading the Bible before you come upon a story, or a saying, or an image, that somehow involves food or feasting. That’s true beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. In Genesis we are told that after God created the first human, God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed Adam, where he was to care for the garden, and might eat his fill of everything, except of course the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.[1] Scripture closes with God standing at the door knocking, waiting for us to open so that the Lord may enter and eat with us, and us with God.[2] Between these two passages is a veritable Biblical guide to food and etiquette.

But like so much else in Scripture, food exists, not simply to fill our bellies, although it does. Scripture speaks of food as a sign, a symbol, a sacrament, of something much larger. This is certainly true in Isaiah, where the prophet declares that,

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death for ever.[3]

For Isaiah this feast of rich food and well-matured wine is a sign of something great and wonderful. It is a sign of things to come, when death, and tears are no more.[4] We see this too in Revelation where the angel tells John to write, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.[5]**

Over and again food and feasting are signs of God’s reign of justice, peace, and plenty to come, where the poor shall eat and be satisfied.[6] As Isaiah reminds us,

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.[7]**

It is with all this background in mind, that we read our appointed gospel, and we come to understand the parable not simply as an account of a great banquet, but a parable of the kingdom of God itself.

As simply a story of a dinner party, we are intrigued by the circumstances. We are curious about the menu. We are fascinated by the variety of excuses given by those invited, but who turn down the invitation. We are understanding of the host, who doesn’t want all that food go to waste, so he invites others to fill that hall. But I don’t think Jesus meant us to be intrigued, curious, fascinated, or understanding. I think Jesus meant his audience to be shocked, and horrified.

We all have turned down invitations to a dinner party before. We all have had our reasons and excuses. They may not involve property, oxen, or marriage, but they are excuses none the less, and they get us out of having to go to something that doesn’t interest us. As hosts, we may be disappointed that an invited guest can’t attend our banquet, but we understand and invite someone else to make up the numbers.

If this story was about that kind of dinner party, that would be the end of the story, and a highly forgettable one at that.

However, Jesus isn’t talking about that kind of banquet. He isn’t speaking of a casual social gathering, or a meet and greet, or even a fancy-dress event, with stiff collars and fabulous food. Jesus is speaking about the kind of banquet we read about in the prophets and the psalms. Jesus is speaking about the kind of marriage supper referred to in Revelation. Jesus is speaking about the kind of banquet that signals God’s reign, where justice, freedom, and mercy are restored, and where the Beatitudes[8] are fulfilled. Jesus is speaking of a banquet that inaugurates to coming of the reign of God, a reign so needed in a broken, suffering, divided world. Jesus is speaking of a banquet that heals our divisions, sooths our suffering, and binds up what is broken. That is the great dinner our king has prepared for us tonight, and that is the great dinner so many continue to refuse to attend.

Now, as in the days of Jesus, as in the days of Isaiah, the world is broken, suffering, and divided, and so many long for justice, freedom, and mercy. So many long for healing, soothing, and binding. So many long to feast at the banquet of God’s kingdom. In the midst of this longing for God’s kingdom, so many refuse God’s invitation to a banquet where the poor, the grieving, the meek, the seekers after righteousness, the merciful, the pure hearted, and the peacemakers are blessed. And that is shocking. That is horrifying.

To reject God’s invitation to the heavenly banquet, is to reject the invitation to God’s kingdom of justice, peace, and plenty. And that is what this parable of the great dinner is about. It is not simply a story about a wonderful party, a generous host, and some rude guests. It’s a parable about how we, yes, we, sometimes reject God’s invitation, because we have just become property owners, bought some oxen, or have just been married. The cares and concerns of our place in the world distract us, and so we reject God’s invitation to join in the work of building God’s reign on earth, thinking our own empires are more important and more lasting.

But that is not how this parable needs to unfold. You and I don’t need to be those rude guests. We don’t need to reject God’s invitation. God does not need to scour the roads and lanes and compel others to take our empty places. Instead, we can accept God’s invitation. We can join God in the work for healing, soothing, and binding this broken, suffering, and divided world. We can become citizens of God’s reign of justice, freedom, and mercy. And it all begins here tonight, as we take our places as the Table of the Lord, and accept the offering of food before us, which is the very life, and light, and love of God, in the person of Jesus. Clothed then, with Jesus you and I can begin the work of building God’s reign on earth, which is what all these stories of food, and feasts are about.

[1] Genesis 2

[2] Revelation 3: 20

[3] Isaiah 25: 6 – 8a

[4] Isaiah 25: 8

[5] Revelation 19: 9

[6] Psalm 22: 26

[7] Isaiah 58: 6 – 9

[8] Matthew 5: 1 – 12

Br. Luke Ditewig

Jonah 3:1-10
Luke 10:38-42

Jesus visits his dear friends Martha and Mary in their home. Martha is upset that Mary sits listening rather than helping her with the work as host. Some hear this as about work versus prayer or balancing action and contemplation.

This story come just after the lawyer who tries to test Jesus by asking “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” and “wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus ‘Then who is my neighbor?’”[i] Paul Borgman says the lawyer and Martha are both anxious and trying to justify themselves.[ii] I am doing what is right. I know and follow the law. “Who is my neighbor?” I am upholding our virtue of hospitality. “Do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?”

Jesus replies to the lawyer with a story of a man robbed and left for dead. A priest and a Levite both pass him by, but a despised Samaritan stops to cares for him. Which one was a neighbor? Not our religious leaders. The one who showed mercy. Jesus says: “Go and do likewise.”[iii] Jesus replies to Martha. “You are worried and distracted by many things. … Mary has chosen the better part.” What does it mean to inherit eternal life? Listen to Jesus like Mary and be a good neighbor like the Samaritan.[iv]

Samaritans were despised for being a mixed race with the enemy. Samaritans were formed by some Assyrians marrying Israelites. The Assyrian Empire was the most violent in the Middle East for centuries. They long terrorized the area, making war after war against Israel, and taking its people captive. God told Jonah to go down to Nineveh, one of the capitals of Assyria. Jonah is anxious and so afraid he fled up in the opposite direction to Tarshish.

After a raging sea storm and prayer in the belly of fish, Jonah finally went to Nineveh and preached news that the city would be destroyed. The Assyrians repented! All put on sackcloth and fasted, and God withheld the calamity. Though he preached the message, Jonah’s heart was not in it. He got upset at the outcome. The book of Jonah is not ultimately about Jonah, rather about God who has boundless compassion. Violence and destruction do not negate it. God seeks and forgives even the Assyrians.

How might you identify with Jonah, upset at God showing mercy to tyrants, terrorists, and their nation? Have you gotten or dreamed of getting revenge for your hurt?

How might you identify with the lawyer, confident about correctness, including being religiously right, yet wondering what Jesus’ words really mean?

How might you identify with Martha, wearing in doing good work and wanting her sister’s help? Frustrated at those who just stop to be with Jesus.

Jesus had compassion for the one who tried to test him and for Martha. God had compassion for the Assyrians and for Jonah. Jesus has this loving mercy, this compassion for us. How have you experienced such kindness?

Jesus comes as loving Teacher and Friend, knowing our hearts, listening with compassion, and redirecting us, helping us change course, on the way to life.

“There is need of only one thing.” Listen to me.

Love well like the Samaritan. Be a neighbor to all.

I seek to restore even the most violent. Share the good news.

[i] Luke 10:25-29

[ii] Paul Borgman (2006) The Way according to Luke: Hearing the Whole Story of Luke-Acts. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, p103.

[iii] Luke 10:30-37

[iv] Borgman, p104.

Br. David Vryhof

Luke 9:7-9

In today’s very brief gospel lesson, we get a glimpse into the heart of Herod Antipas, the Roman Jew who was the ruler of Galilee and Perea during Jesus’ lifetime. This short text from Luke’s gospel reveals that he is both frightened of Jesus and fascinated by him. It calls to mind Herod’s relationship to Jesus’ forerunner, John the Baptist. We read in Mark 6:20 that Herod “feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.” We know the rest of the story, don’t we… John’s popularity posed a threat to Herod and he had John arrested and imprisoned. Not long afterwards, in a state of drunkenness at a party he was hosting, Herod made an extravagant promise to his daughter, which led to John’s beheading. It was a promise he deeply regretted. It is clear that he was both fascinated by John and fearful of John’s influence.

Here we see a similar response to Jesus. Herod is alarmed by the reports coming to him about the wondrous signs Jesus is performing and his growing popularity. Some people are saying that John has been raised from the dead; others that Elijah has returned. Herod is confused by the reports and threatened by what he is hearing. But he is also curious. He “tried to see him,” the gospel writer tells us, though he doesn’t share with us why Herod wanted to see Jesus. Perhaps it was to witness the miracles himself, or perhaps to decide for himself who this Jesus was. But it also could have been to interrogate him, arrest him, or even put him to death. We don’t know.

What interests me is the curious mixture of fear and admiration in Herod towards these two prophetic figures. He recognizes that both men are “righteous and holy,” both are popular among the people, and both pose a threat to his reign. And yet he wants to see them and hear what they have to say. In the end, Herod’s fear wins out over his curiosity. He is afraid of losing his power, his wealth, and his influence. His heart closes to their message and he must destroy them to preserve his privileged position.

Have you seen this before? People of privilege and power can be afraid to embrace the truth or do the right thing because they risk losing their influence. To follow their conscience may mean that they won’t be re-elected or that their ratings will drop. They can’t risk it. So they close their hearts and cling tightly to their power, even when it means embracing lies and practicing deception.

It may be that you recognize this tendency not only in the powerful, but also in yourself. It can be difficult to embrace and speak the truth when it jeopardizes our popularity or our privilege. It can be hard to do the right thing when it means we will have to make do with less or be forced to share our privileges and benefits with others. Speaking the truth or doing what is right is likely to cost us something.

Love can overcome this fear. Love can give us the courage to let go of power and privilege to lift up another. Love can teach us to bend low and serve, to risk personal loss to follow the example of our Savior. Love can keep our hearts open to truth, even when that truth is inconvenient, or when it threatens our social status or our way of life. But “we love because he first loved us” and we serve because he came as the servant of all. Clinging to power and privilege is not the way of Jesus. Jesus’ way is the way of love.

“Mary Magdalene is, especially for John, the prime example for us of being a Christian. First, Jesus chose Mary and healed her. She followed along and witnessed his teaching. Jesus continued to come, surprise, and reveal including amid deep grief. Jesus sent Mary to share what she knew, first to a small group of men huddled in fear. Mary was apostle to the apostles.”

Reflecting on the witness of Mary Magdalene, Br. Luke Ditewig invites us to consider how we have been chosen by Jesus to be witnesses.

“What is God calling you to today? How does saying yes to God unsettle your life, your sense of security? What are you afraid to risk? Hear Jesus’s words—“have no fear”—and know that he will be with you, always.”

Br. Lain Wilson reflects on fear as our natural human response to the risky call of God.

Br. Sean Glenn

Matthew 5:43-48

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

As you hear these words—this commandment—on the lips of Matthew’s Jesus, who do you fee? What comes up within the chambers of your heart? Are you borne up in inspiration and joy?

Or are you, like me, sometimes rather terrified? Terrified of this commandment; terrified of all the gaps in your character through which the word “perfect” shines an unbearable light; despondent at the thought that one might never achieve such divine perfection.

Or, even more, go beyond the confines of a single self: human history is formed (or, rather deformed) by human ambitions to perfection. No matter how lofty or admirable a goal, the perfectibility of the human being has so frequently ravaged the human experience; whether through the carnage of racial, ideological, and national “purity;” or the mutilation of certain bodies that do not conform to a preconception of human perfection; the project of selectively eliminating certain genes within the human genome in order to prevent various congenital illness and come, at last, to a kind of designer perfection of one’s own children.

As a music student, I was quite alive to this ambition of humankind. I don’t think there was a single day in the four years of undergrad when I was ever told “this is good enough.” And it fractured my relationship with music as a result. I would never be “perfect.”

This all-too-human conception of “perfection,” in its more common usage, is defined by its notable reliance on discrimination. We understand it commonly as a way of describing something that is whole and without blemish. Yet, as Sam Bortaro notes, this is a late usage. Perfection via the path of discrimination is a relatively recent development.

Lent is so often conceived of in this discriminatory mode: we cut away what we find superfluous or weak. We strive to fortify our wills by a sustained act of bodily self-denial. And while there is much to be gained by such a discipline, I think it is also worthwhile to get acquainted with a less familiar notion of perfection—one with which Matthew’s gospel seems distinctly at home.

For in this morning’s gospel, we do not hear Jesus cutting away portions of the law. Rather, he tries to get his disciples to have a more greatly expanded sense of the spirit of the law—something characterized not by its proclivity to discriminate, but defined instead by its thoroughness, consistency, and comprehensiveness.

He begins with the received tradition: You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

And then, he blows the walls clear and opens up what has been received: But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

In so doing, he invites his followers into the same prodigality of heart that our heavenly Father displays at all times: for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

The divine perfection commanded by Jesus can be said to invite us all into this kind of thorough, consistent, comprehensive prodigality of heart. For we must never forget, Jesus washes and feeds his betrayer. Even knowing what Judas will do, Jesus nonetheless holds him in the perfect love of the Father, washing his feet and feeding him at the last supper.

So, perhaps this Lent and beyond, we might consider taking on a new kind of discipline: a discipline in forbearing, prodigal love, moving ever closer to that perfection this is not discriminating, but is instead scandalous and expansive. It is a discipline that might not leave us any better; but it may yet leave us bigger—big enough for Love.

Amen.

St. Andrew the Apostle

Deuteronomy 30:11-14;
Romans 10:8b-18;
Matthew 4:18-22

In the Eastern Church, St. Andrew is known by the title Protokletos: St. Andrew, the First-Called.

In this first week of Advent, the first week of the liturgical year, today’s feast provides a simple but profound opportunity to return to first principles.

In a contemplative spirit, we can pause to reconsider some fundamental questions about what it means to be called by Jesus, and what it means to be sent.

Through whom did Jesus first call you?

We are each embedded in a web of relationships. It is in relationship that we have caught our particular attraction to Jesus. It is in relationships that we have been taught our understanding of who Jesus is: by a parent or grandparent; a teacher or mentor; a spiritual friend. Who in your life has modeled, or is modeling, a vivid, responsive faith in Jesus?

Toward what is Jesus calling you?

Jesus calls all of his followers to himself, to be servants of his kingdom and witnesses to his crucifed-and-risen life. But Jesus also calls each of us to follow in the particular way he knows is most needed for our ongoing conversion and the building up of his body, the Church. This call is dynamic and continues throughout our lives. In what direction is Jesus calling you at this precise moment? How is his call to you different now than it may have been last Advent?

From what is Jesus calling you?

The call of Jesus, whether subtle and gradual or sudden and dramatic, is life-changing. It resonates deep inside and stretches us toward new possibilities of becoming. But it can also be very disruptive, as we reckon with what we are being called to leave behind us. Jesus said to Andrew and Simon Peter, “I will make you fishers of people.” They knew what it meant to be fishers of fish, but fishers of people must have been a confusing new way to understand their life’s purpose. What places, roles, habits, or self-understandings does the call of Jesus now ask you to leave behind?

To whom is Jesus sending you?

Who in your life looks to you as someone who loves Jesus and follows him? What kinds of people are you uniquely suited to bring to Jesus? What unique sensitivities do you have for noticing how Jesus is already active in the lives of those around you, and for pointing that out? Those who are sent, the meaning of the word apostle, are bearers of Jesus, but they are also those attuned to finding and naming his presence and power where it may be hidden in plain sight.

“The word is very near you; on your lips and in your heart.” Like St. Andrew, may we, too, be apostles of this life-changing Word.

Lectionary Year and Proper: Year A, Advent I

“The destination and end of our walk with Christ is to finally meet God face to face, dwelling in light inaccessible. To know even as we are known. To behold the beatific vision of the Triune God, and there to dwell, to make our habitation. But there is no direct flight, and the trek is often uphill.”

As Advent begins, Br. Todd Blackham invites us to consider where we are on our pilgrimage of faith.

“I did not grow up in the conscious company of Jesus, and my path into the faith was something I unexpectedly tripped over one day in some field of my heart. No years of devotion or study prepared me to meet him there, but I quickly sold all that I had to buy that field of heart.”

Br. Sean Glenn considers the value of any path that leads us to God.

“Allowing ourselves to be loved by God, as Jesus did, also requires some degree of just sitting there, as Mary of Bethany did in Jesus’ presence. But consenting to this transformation at the core of our being is anything but passive: it is our single greatest challenge. To the world, that process looks like nothing. But to Jesus, it is the one thing necessary.”

Br. Keith Nelson revisits the familiar story of Martha & Mary to discover the one thing Jesus asks of all of us: the single-hearted, undivided commitment of discipleship.

“This night your very life is being demanded of you. If you take it very seriously, does the prospect make you squirm? In truth none of us knows what the next hours hold. Tomorrow is not promised. If your life was demanded of you tonight and you stood before the Almighty where would your confidence lie? It’s worth considering, 'Am I seeing and serving Christ in the ways he told me I would?'”

Br. Todd Blackham urges us to let our fear and trembling gives us the strength and courage to meet Jesus face to face.

“The Climate Emergency we are facing today is a human problem, the result of our plundering the earth for its treasures at the cost of life’s delicate balance. Much of it is the result of human greed. Our greed is destroying the planet, polluting our air and our waterways and oceans, eliminating whole species of animals from the earth, and threatening our very existence. If we continue in this way, we will, before long, render the planet uninhabitable. The Climate Emergency has been caused by human beings, and only human beings have the power to reverse it.”

Br. David Vryhof cautions that money is not the problem; greed is; and that true richness comes when we learn to enjoy God’s world, and live with contentment.

“There is more than meets the eye in everyone. And so our posture in life toward others should surely include the humility that we do not know them as God knows them, that God is at work in them as much as God is at work in us, please, that God is not in a rush, and that none of us is a mystery to God, who so loves the world.”

In the surprising witness of Arctic missionary Edmund James Peck, Br. Curtis Almquist finds a universal reminder to honor the mystery present in the heart of each one of us.

“Close your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself coming into the presence of Jesus, who is so gentle and so humble. Imagine him extending his arms to you, welcoming you into his embrace. Hear him say to you, “Come to me; I want to give you rest…. I see what a heavy burden you’ve been bearing and how weary you are from carrying this load. Let me take it from you. Come apart for a while, and rest.””

Br. David Vryhof encourage us to give our burdens over to Jesus and rest.

“Lucas, in the offering of your life to God today, as a witness to Jesus who is Light, and Life, and Word of God, you are, in a sense, standing in the baptismal tank at St. Philip’s with Bernard. Like Bernard, you don’t know where you will be led, but with him you are saying, O give me grace to follow.”

Br. James Koester and the community celebrate the Profession in Life Vows of Br. Lucas Hall.

“Today we remember Mary as the Ark of God because in doing so, we remember our true vocation: to bear, carry, and give birth to the One who is Bread, Word, and Redeemer."

Br. James Koester illustrates the Christian vocation as bearing God into the world in this celebration of Mary's life and vocation as the mother of Jesus.

“What is your own story, your own experience, of being forgiven? What is the invitation now? Our repentance is always in response to God. Seeing the obstacle, hearing the pain, and whatever desire we have to confess comes from God. That is God already at work in you, preparing, sending messengers with saving invitations.”

Br. Luke Ditewig marvels at God's forgiveness and at our need and capacity for repentance: the ability to see things afresh, break free from old patterns, and set out on a new path.