Redemption – SSJE: Recent Episodes
Redemption – SSJE
Feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude
Ephesians 2:13-22
Today, one week before Election Day, is a day that I didn’t expect I needed Simon and Jude.
We don’t know much about these apostles—we know their names, and that early tradition consistently linked them together in mission to Persia and Armenia. We know that Simon was called “the Zealot” (but not what is specifically meant by this), and that Jude has come to be venerated as the patron saint of desperate or lost causes.
We don’t know much about them, but these small, memorable associations are somehow exactly what I needed today.
I’m sure many of us have felt, or maybe are feeling even now, a sense of despair—that we are going down a road with no return, that there will be something about who we are that is irrevocably broken. Here in the US, our major party candidates promise two very different visions of tomorrow—you may despair that the other side may win, or you may despair that neither vision speaks to the challenges that you and your loved ones face. I’m sure many of us feel like we’re facing one of the most desperate of lost causes.
And that’s just politics. Each of us bears wounds that others cannot see, tugging at our attention, drawing us to doubt our hope that we can become who we were created to be. For many of us, part of this will be about how we view our neighbors, with contempt or hate. If externally we face an ever-more-divided populace, internally, we can come to feel a division in who we are now and who we are supposed to be.
So what are we supposed to do?
We can pray, of course. We’ll pray for unity this evening. We Brothers will engage in a vigil next Tuesday, on Election Night, going from 7 PM until the last polls close at 1 AM, to pray for unity, guidance, and protection.
But more than that we can take the example of Simon and be zealous. But not zealous for a political candidate, or for an issue, or for a movement. We can instead be zealous for God. Which may sound a bit strange, at first. What do I mean by being zealous for God?
Fundamentally, what I mean is taking the God revealed in Scripture seriously. Taking seriously that God is a “faithful God, without deceit, just and upright,” as Moses recites in Deuteronomy (Dt 32:4). Taking seriously that God’s faithfulness remains from one generation to another,” as the Psalmist sings (Ps 119:90). And taking seriously that Jesus “is our peace,” that he can break down dividing walls and remove hostility and proclaim peace (Eph 2:14, 15). Taking seriously that our internal and external divisions are not permanent, that we as individuals and as a people are not irrevocably broken, that this seemingly most lost, most desperate of all lost causes is not in fact lost, because we take seriously that God is powerful to heal, to mend, to save. Amen.
Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
In the year 1919, the poet W B Yeats wrote a poem called ‘The Second Coming’. There is a famous line in that poem which has resonated through the decades. He wrote, ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’ The first world war had just ended, and it felt like chaos had descended on the world, with the breakdown of order, of stability, and of the traditional sources of authority. ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’ For many, those words well describe our world and our nation today: The recent shocking attempt at an assassination, a deeply polarized and divided nation, a world filled with violence in the Ukraine, Gaza, and frightening weather patterns signaling a planet in crisis. ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.’
Yet these same words could also have been used to describe the land where Jesus walked. Not only was their land occupied by Romans, but worse, there as a breakdown of moral guidance and spiritual guidance from those who were meant to be their leaders, their ‘shepherds’. In our first reading today from the Book of Jeremiah, the prophet excoriates the religious leaders of Judah, ‘woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. You have driven them away and not cared for them.’ But Jeremiah then goes on to give to the people a prophesy of hope. ‘The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up a shepherd who will shepherd my people. I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and execute righteousness in the land.’ That day finally came, when Jesus was born.
And our Gospel reading today is one of the most marvelous descriptions of Jesus the good shepherd in action! It is only a very short gospel reading, but it is so visual, almost cinematic. The disciples have returned from a mission, and they are excitedly telling Jesus all about it. But they are tired and hungry, so Jesus says to them, let’s get in the boat and sail across the lake to a quiet place where we can rest and recover. But as they crossed the lake they are spotted. ‘Jesus is coming!’ and the word spread like wildfire. And before long, crowds and crowds of people, hundreds and thousands of them, were running, hurrying, racing on foot from the towns and villages to meet the boat on the other side. I imagine those tired and hungry disciples must have groaned, ‘Oh no.’ Just when we thought we could get some peace and quiet…’ Perhaps they even asked Jesus to send them away. But Jesus, we read, ‘had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.’ But in Jesus, the crowds recognized the Good Shepherd promised by the prophet Jeremiah, the one who will exercise justice and righteousness in the land. So the crowds kept coming, and they gathered around Jesus, and Mark tells us that ‘he began tot each them many things.’ For although they were likely tired and hungry, what they hungered for above all was a word of life, a word of hope, a word of salvation for their hungry souls.
In Mark’s account, we get this incredible description of all these people scattered all over the countryside, running from every direction, racing to be with Jesus. If you have ever seen Pasolini’s ‘Gospel according to Matthew’, there is a wonderful scene of hundreds of people running, jumping over rocks, like scattered sheep, racing to be with Jesus. It must have been quite chaotic! But after Jesus had finished teaching them something changed. The disciples, whose tummies were probably rumbling by now, reminded Jesus that the crowds were hungry. So, Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds them all, five thousand of them. But actually, Jesus had already fed their souls with his words of teaching – and now they are changed. This disorderly and scattered crowd of people running here and there, like ‘sheep without a shepherd’, are transformed. And Mark describes the scene very carefully and in precise language. Everything is now calm and still. They are sitting ‘on the green grass in groups of hundreds and of fifties.’ Out of chaos Jesus had brought calm and order. With their souls fed, and now their bodies as well, they are sitting in safety and security and in peace, in ‘shalom’. For they had found their shepherd. Or rather, their shepherd had found them.
As I was praying with this Gospel reading, I imagined being there with these crowds and with Jesus. I felt within myself that deep peace which those people must have felt, sitting with Jesus their shepherd. I believe that Jesus wants to give that same peace, that same rest, to each one of us. In a world which seems sometimes to be falling apart, with a center which cannot hold, Jesus the Good Shepherd comes to us and says, ‘Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ In our monastic life, in this community, the most precious part of the day happens each morning, immediately after Morning Prayer. Each brother goes into his cell for an hour of prayer and meditation. We simply sit there with Jesus our Good Shepherd, and allow him to still and feed our souls, and prepare us for the day ahead. I do commend this practice to all of you. It doesn’t have to be an hour – ten minutes, or as long as you can manage. Find a place where you can be quiet and still, and then maybe have a picture or an icon to help center you; perhaps a picture of the Good Shepherd, and allow him to gently restore your soul. Most recently I have been praying with that most beautiful of psalms, psalm 23, which we have just sung together: ‘The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, and leads me beside still waters. He revives my soul, and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.’ You might find it inviting to do the same. Read the verses slowly, and imagine that you are there, beside the lake, sitting on the green grass, with the one who knows you and loves you.
For we have found our shepherd. Or perhaps rather, he has found us! Every day he comes looking for us, to save us, and when our earthly days are over, to bring us safely home. ‘For surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’
Br. Curtis Almquist
Isaiah 7:1-9
Our reading from the Prophecy of Isaiah is an 8th century BC version of what we are seeing every day in our own newspapers and online: a world, including our own homeland, teeming with conflict. For Isaiah, the players were King Pekah and King Remaliah of Israel; King Rezim of Aram-Syria; and Kings Tabeel, then Uziah, then Ahaz, and then Jotham the successive Kings of Judah.[i] For the life of me, I cannot keep it all straight – neither the political players whom we are reading about from the 8th century BC, nor our own present-day news stream: the historic territorial disputes, the ever-changing political alignments, often created by common enemies; the fracturing of treaties and goodwill; the political threats and promises; and the suffering of the innocent. Whether in the 8th century BC or in the 21stcentury of the Common Era, there are so many parallels in strife that span across time.
There is a word of hope buried in this Prophecy of Isaiah, hope for the 8th century BC which also pertains to us in our own day. Isaiah speaks an assurance in the voice of God: “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…” “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…”
These words of assurance do not mean that everything will be just fine. Clearly not. We do not escape suffering in this life. None of us does. I don’t need to tell you that. If anything, suffering takes on a certain poignancy for those of us who are followers of Jesus. You may remember Jesus’ saying that if we want to be his followers, we must “take up ourcross and follow him.”[ii] This signals the cost of our discipleship to Jesus. We are promised the experience of the cross: not taking up Jesus’ cross but our own cross. I imagine that every one of you knows about that: what it is to have been handed a cross in life – at least once and perhaps multiple times – to carry in life.
In almost the same breath that Jesus speaks about our taking up our cross, he also speaks about living in peace… but with a qualification. Jesus does not say we will know peace because all the political turbulence and terror will calm down. Quite to the contrary. Jesus says: “I do not give you peace as the world gives.” The gift of peace Jesus is talking about is from the inside out. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give [peace] to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”[iii] Jesus lived in a time of cataclysmic political strife with the massive occupation of the oppressive Roman Empire, and with the political factions within Judaism being so very fractious and frightening. It is in this context that Jesus speaks of his gift of peace, peace from the inside out.
Jesus’ promise of peace does not preclude our suffering in life. Jesus clearly knew suffering himself. Nor does Jesus’ promise of peace circumvent our mortality, nor the diminishment we will likely experience as we decline with age before we die. Neither does Jesus’ promise of peace mollify our grief from those whom we have lost in life, nor our grief from what we have lost in life. Jesus says, “You will weep and mourn; you will have pain but, he adds, your pain will turn into joy.”[iv] And Saint Paul picks up on this.
The single-most prolific author of the Christian scriptures – the New Testament – is Saint Paul. Virtually everything that he wrote about following Christ was inspired by his suffering and written during his imprisonments. He writes about his floggings, lashes, having been beaten with rods, and being stoned. He writes about being shipwrecked and adrift at sea, about the danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger from deceivers….” He writes of “toil and hardship, many a sleepless night, being hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.” He faces capital punishment, and he continues to write. [v]
In the end, what is he left with? Again in prison and on the cusp of being executed, the experience which he writes about, repeatedly, is joy. And in case we miss his point, he writes, “again I say, rejoice!”[vi] Joy is such a great paradox. For Saint Paul, suffering sets the stage for knowing joy: a deep sense of well-being and gratitude in life. One might say that Saint Paul is a little over-the-edge about joy, rather hyperbolic in an unimaginable sort of way… unless you have discovered how joy will so often emerge from and companion grief and loss.
Back to what we heard in our first reading from the Prophecy of Isaiah: “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…” This is about living life peacefully, but not about living life passively. It is not about taking the suffering we experience and witness in life with a saccharine smile on our face. But it is to say that when we find ourself powerless to overcome what we know to be wrong, or when we find ourselves suffering without promise of relief, or when we find ourself reminded of the imminence of our mortality, we are not left alone. We are promised Jesus’ provision of inner peace, his companionship, and his joy. As Jesus says, “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”[vii]
[i] In the Hebrew scriptures we read of about 250 different kings in Middle Eastern antiquity. Many of these kingdoms were miniscule in size; however the title “king” usually designated unrestrained power and the divine favor of whomever or whatever the kingdom worshiped.
[ii] Matthew 16:24-27; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23, 14:27.
[iii] John 14:27.
[iv] John 16:20.
[v] 2 Corinthians 11:21-29.
[vi] See Philippians 4, particularly verse 4.
[vii] John 15:1-11.
Br. David Vryhof
John 11:45-53
The gospel passage we have before us today wraps up the greatest miracle story in all of the gospels: Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Other miracles pale in comparison to it, but still, as is so often the case in the gospel accounts, the reactions to this astounding miracle are mixed. Many of the Jews who witness the miracle come to believe in Jesus. But others report Jesus’ words and actions to the priests.
Their report prompts an interesting discussion: Jesus’ increased popularity poses a threat to the chief priests and Pharisees because it risks drawing the attention of the Romans, who, they fear, will crush this populist movement, destroying both their religion and their nation. There’s no reason to doubt the genuineness of their concern for their faith and for their country, but we must note, too, that the chief priests and Pharisees derive what power they have from Rome, so the threat to their livelihoods, their influence and their social status is real.
Caiaphas, the high priest, has a solution: Let this one man, Jesus, die for the nation. The death of Jesus will squelch the movement, he argues, and it is better to have this one man die than to have the whole nation come to destruction. The evangelist John is quick to point out the irony of the high priest’s statement. Caiaphas is speaking from a political point of view when he speaks of Jesus dying for the people, suggesting that Jesus die instead of the people. John, however, understands Caiaphas’ words from a theological point of view. For John, Jesus dying “for the people” anticipates the voluntary offering of his life that will further God’s plan to save both Jews and Gentiles through Jesus’ death and resurrection. He will die on behalf of the people, rescuing them from the power of sin and death, and obtaining for them the precious gift of eternal life.
John sees the Spirit at work here, revealing God’s intention through the words of the high priest. God’s purpose is to gather up all the dispersed people of God – Gentiles as well as Jews – through this great work of grace. John explains it this way: “[Caiaphas], being the high priest that year… prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.” (Jn 11:51-52).
John’s explanation here recalls Jesus’ earlier statement that he has “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” (Jn 10:16). Its implication is that the kingdom of God extends beyond the usual national and cultural boundaries of Judaism; God is prepared to welcome “outsiders.” In the same way, it implies that we may not limit the work of Christ to a particular people or organization, such as the Church, but instead must ask ourselves, “Who are the scattered people for whom Christ died in order that they, too, might be reconciled with God?” John does not limit the scope of God’s saving grace, and neither must we.
Jesus’ opponents fail to see the power of God manifest in Jesus’ miracle – a power that is stronger than death. They also fail to see what it reveals about God’s purposes and design. Instead, this miracle is the sign that pushes them over the edge: “From that day on they planned to put him to death.” (Jn 11:53).
Save us from a similar blindness, Lord, and open our eyes to discern the height and breadth and depth of your saving grace in our world.
Br. Jim Woodrum
Luke 23:32-34; 39-43
During Lent, we dedicate a considerable amount of time reflecting on our relationships with God and each other, focusing on concepts like repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Repentance involves recognizing that we’ve deviated from God’s intended path for us and deciding to change direction (the Greek term for ‘repent’ is metanoia, meaning “a transformative change of heart”). Forgiveness entails releasing resentment or even the demand for compensation for harm caused. Reconciliation is about reuniting or coming together again after a separation. Despite the positive nature of these concepts, achieving them can be challenging. This difficulty often stems from a place of brokenness, encompassing damaged lives, relationships, expectations, and hearts.
This evening is the last installment of our preaching series “In the Midst,” which endeavors to help us know and experience Jesus’ presence in the midst of all that challenges and even troubles us. The theme of tonight’s sermon is “Wholeness in the Midst of Brokenness.” I’ve chosen to explore this concept from the vantage point of Jesus’ crucifixion in the gospel of Luke.
To begin, it is important to recall just what crucifixion was in first century Palestine. Crucifixion was a method of torture and execution used by the Roman empire against those they deemed criminals or enemies of the emperor. Victims were nailed to a cross made of wooden beams and suspended. This suspension made breathing difficult unless the victims attempted to pull themselves up by their wrists while pushing with their ankles, a task they couldn’t sustain for long due to the pain caused by nails driven through their joints. Technically, crucifixion was execution by asphyxiation which could last hours. When the victim was believed to be dead, the executioner would confirm this by breaking the legs of the remaining corpse hanging from the beams. Crucifixions were public events usually held just outside the city gate. They were intended to traumatize not only the victims but also those who witnessed the spectacle on their way into or out of town.
As the author of Luke sets the scene, he identifies the location of Jesus’s crucifixion as a place known as “The Skull.” At this place, Jesus is crucified between two criminals. Despite being associated with individuals deemed unclean or nefarious by the society of his time, Jesus had never engaged in criminal activities. Now, possibly due to misunderstanding and/or manipulation, he faced a criminal’s death alongside two men convicted of crimes against the Roman regime. Below him, the soldiers who had mistreated him—beating, spitting, mocking, and crowning him with thorns—gambled for his clothing as a memento of the event. These men were not Judeans but Romans; not adherents of the Jewish faith, but Gentiles, who likely knew nothing about this itinerant rabbi.
Adding insult to injury, one of the men crucified alongside Jesus started mocking and taunting him, saying, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” This taunt mirrors the devil’s temptation of Jesus during his fast in the desert, where Satan challenged Jesus to prove his divine sonship, confirmed at his baptism, with demands such as turning stones into bread, throwing himself down from a high place, and worshiping Satan. Each of the devil’s taunts began with the words, “If you are the Son of God…” Just as in the case of Jesus’ temptation in the desert, despite his intense suffering, Jesus does not succumb to the mocker’s demands.
After exploring the historical context of crucifixion and reflecting on Luke’s narrative, we may wonder how to journey towards wholeness amidst so much brokenness. The key, as we discussed at the beginning of this sermon, lies in our Lenten transformation of the heart, mercy, and reunion.
When confronted with the first man’s scorn, the second individual crucified next to Jesus admonishes him. He asks, “Do you not see where we are? Have you forgotten how we came to be here? We are rightly accused of our crimes. How can you speak such things without fear of God?” This man’s expression of remorse signifies a profound transformation of heart, in stark contrast to the first man’s hardened heart, which remains embittered and resentful.
Bitterness traps us in a toxic cycle, addictive as any opiate. A saying often credited to St. Augustine of Hippo captures this sentiment perfectly: “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”[i]
The second man distinguishes himself by letting go of resentment and blame through metanoia—a transformative change of heart. Facing death in such a humiliating posture, in full view of his executioners, he implores Jesus to remember him upon entering His kingdom. Jesus’s reply is simple and profound: “Of course.” He sets forth no prerequisites for penance, seeks no reparation, and does not question the man’s remorse. Instead, Jesus assures him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
In the thick of His own suffering, Jesus embodies compassion (“com-passion”: with ‘com’ meaning ‘with’ and ‘passion’, derived from the Latin ‘passio’, signifying ‘suffering’). To be compassionate is to suffer alongside someone. Jesus not only offers forgiveness and promises reconciliation to the man by bearing his sufferings; He shares in the man’s suffering, thereby intensifying the act of mercy.
Thus, the same applies to us when we approach Jesus, burdened by our sins. When we have consumed the poison of bitterness and resentment, realizing too late that it harms us rather than the intended target; when we hit rock bottom and the only way out is through metanoia—a transformative change of heart—Jesus does not merely save us. He compassionately joins us in our suffering. In this state of brokenness, Jesus offers comfort, healing, and salvation, promising that we will be transformed into the likeness of His resurrection.
Jesus assures us of reconciliation at that moment, promising that we will join Him in paradise. This notion of paradise harkens back to Genesis chapters 1 and 2, to a time of wholeness before we fell to the same temptations that Jesus overcame during His desert fast and upon the cross. Amidst our brokenness, we find wholeness by relinquishing our desire for control and accepting Jesus’ gifts of grace and mercy. This acceptance allows us to be reconciled with God, our Creator, and to experience the original state of wholeness in which we were created—a creation God deemed good!
Furthermore, recognizing that we are created in God’s image, it’s crucial to understand our ability to reflect God’s mercy and compassion to others, as demonstrated through Jesus. Amid His suffering, Jesus fervently prays from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” He doesn’t wait for an apology before seeking God’s forgiveness for His persecutors. Aware of the breadth of God’s mercy, Jesus intercedes on behalf of those who show Him no mercy—those unaware of the mercy inherent in their being as God’s children, blind to it and unable to embrace it.
How many of us respond with mercy and forgiveness when wronged by someone else? If you’re anything like me, your initial reaction might be driven by the limbic system. This part of our brain activates in response to perceived danger. Consider a moment when you narrowly escaped a severe car accident or almost fell from a significant height, risking serious injury. Perhaps you’ve been threatened by a bully or someone who does not regard you as someone worthy of dignity or respect. The automatic surge of adrenaline, increased heart rate, and flushed face are all physical reactions aimed at self-preservation, triggered by the limbic system. Commonly referred to as “fight, flight, or freeze” responses, our first instinct in such situations is not toward mercy or forgiveness. More often, we’re inclined to retaliate, flee as swiftly as we can, or freeze in place, hoping to go unnoticed. Seldom do we find ourselves reacting with the plea, “Lord, have mercy.”
Indeed, we possess the inherent capacity to forgive, as Jesus forgave His persecutors. However, embracing forgiveness is a process that starts with awareness and openness. It involves recognizing our own hurt feelings while, at the same time, being open to the possibility of the other person’s brokenness. Adopting this stance doesn’t mean excusing harmful actions but involves exploring the potential for achieving mutual wholeness by considering what God desires for both parties. This might involve creating a safe environment for a “difficult conversation,” or inviting a mediator to ensure both perspectives are fairly considered, especially when our limbic systems are engaged. Alternatively, it might mean releasing the other person through forgiveness even when reconciliation seems unfeasible. Forgiveness doesn’t always lead to a resolution, but it does necessitate empathy, compassion, respect, and dignity, paving the way forward. Disagreements don’t have to culminate in alienation—a crucial reminder amid strong emotions and feelings. The essential factor is acknowledging each other’s readiness to be vulnerable and collaboratively addressing the root of the conflict in a secure setting. If reconciliation is not possible, consider the possibility that all will be healed when we reunite with God in paradise.
I close with the words of the founder of our Community, Richard Meux Benson: “If we could live in such a perfect Church that there should be nothing ever to stir our indignation or make us angry with those that are around, should we be able to claim an entrance to heaven? Oh no, we should have failed to exercise that in which alone the likeness of God could be found, the attribute of forgiveness.”[ii] This is what it is to begin the journey towards the possibility of wholeness in the midst of brokenness.
[i] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/saint_augustine_384531
[ii] Benson, Richard Meux. A Cowley Calendar. London: Mowbrays, 1932. Print.
Br. David Vryhof
Jeremiah 7:23-28
Luke 11:14-23
If we were trying to come up with a theme for today’s lessons, I’d suggest the word “resistance.”
In the first reading, God reminds the Israelites of God’s generous offer: “I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and [you shall] walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” But the Israelites very clearly don’t hold up their end of the bargain. They do not listen or obey, but instead they walk “in their own counsels.” Despite repeated pleas from the prophets, they continue to “stiffen their necks” and refuse to accept God’s guidance and discipline. Why? Why do they return again and again to their old lives, refusing the new way of life God is offering them?
In the story from Luke, the theme again is resistance. Jesus heals a man by casting out a mute demon. The mute man speaks, and the crowd is amazed, but some challenge him by questioning the source of his power and by demanding further signs. Why couldn’t they rejoice in the healing? Instead of rejoicing and following him, they stiffen in their resistance and refuse to accept Jesus’ words and deeds. Where does such resistance come from? What were they resisting and why?
If we’re honest with ourselves, we can admit that we too, at times, find ourselves stiffening in resistance to something God is asking of us.
Perhaps we’re being prompted by the Spirit to forgive a person who has hurt us and to give them a second chance, but we choose instead to nurse our hurt feelings and stubbornly resist God’s invitation to forgiveness and reconciliation.
Or maybe God has been inviting us to change the way we are living. It may be an invitation to take better care of ourselves or to get our anger under control or to give up some habit that is harmful to us or to others. And yet we resist the invitation. We continue to live as we have been living and discover resistance whenever we think about actually making these changes. We carry on just as we always have.
Lent is a season that invites us to change, to repent, to turn around. It invites us into a new and lifegiving way and challenges us to give up our sinful or unhealthy ways. But it’s not easy to change. Consider how difficult it is for people to carry out their new year’s resolutions. It’s hard to follow through on a resolution, or to break a habit, or to form a new and healthier habit.
In their book Immunity to Change, authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey try to understand why it is so difficult for most of us to change. One part of their study focused on patients with serious heart conditions that were life-threatening. In every case, doctors had warned these patients that unless they changed the way they were eating and started to exercise, they could expect to die very soon. But if they could make these changes they could live on. Even when the stakes were life and death, the majority of the people couldn’t or wouldn’t change.
Kegan and Lahey suggest there are underlying assumptions or attitudes that cause us to resist change and they encourage us to explore the reasons why we resist change. Willpower is not enough, they say, we have to go deeper to understand what it is in us that resists this change, even when we know the change will be good for us. Then we have to deliberately challenge our false assumptions and act contrary to them, in order to give ourselves a chance to change.
Lent invites us to metanoia, to a changed life. It invites us to drop old and unhelpful ways of being to embrace a new and lifegiving way of life. As part of your “self-examination” in Lent you might want to look at a part of your life that you have wanted to change or tried to change, but without success. Think deeply and carefully about what it is in you that causes you to resist this change, and address the false assumptions that emerge. God waits to help and strengthen you.
Luke 18:9-14
Psalm 30
Philippians 1:15-20
Just over 1600 years ago, a young couple dreamed a dream:
“One night we went to sleep, greatly upset, and we saw ourselves, both of us, passing through a very narrow crack in a wall. We were gripped with panic by the cramped space, so that it seemed as if we were about to die.”
This young couple was Valerius Pinianus and his wife, Melania. They were two of the super-rich of the later Roman world. They were also Christians. And at this period in history these two things, wealth and Christian faith, were increasingly at odds with one another.
Pinianus and Melania, along with many of their contemporaries, were uncomfortable with their vast wealth. They grieved what their wealth afforded them. The open vistas of estates, the splendor and ostentation, the luxury of free time, had become for them a “narrow crack” and a “cramped space.” They grieved the weight of wealth on their souls. And this grief prompted them to make an unprecedented renunciation of their worldly wealth.[1]
Grief comes to each of us in a thousand shades and hues. We experience a vivid spectrum of grief. As loss—of loved ones in death, of relationships, of direction. As missed opportunities, roads not taken, paths unexplored. As things we may never be or do because of what we already are or have done. As limitations imposed on us, or by us.
For what do you grieve today? For what does your heart ache?
In Lent especially, we grieve our sins. We grieve how we have denied God’s goodness, how we have partaken of all that is not God, how we have treated others as if they were not fellow children of God. We grieve how we fail to see ourselves as God’s beloved children. We grieve what separates us from relationship with God and others.
The tax collector in our parable from Luke’s gospel grieves. Unlike the Pharisee, he knows he is a sinner. He grieves his sin. For me, the most important detail of this parable is that the tax collector stands “far off” and “would not even look up to heaven” (Lk 18:13).
How do you feel grief in your body? Whether it’s grief for sins, for losses, or for paths not taken, how familiar is the tax collector’s stance to you? How familiar is it to separate, to close in on yourself, to make yourself smaller? How familiar it is to contort yourself to the cramped space of your grief?
But if this parable is about grief, it is also about how God meets us in the midst of our grief: with mercy. It’s about how God’s mercy can open up the cramped, narrow spaces onto new, boundless vistas.
During my recent retreat, I spent a lot of time on rocks in front of the ocean. The blue-gray water stretched out as far as I could see, merging at the horizon with the blue-gray sky, a vast sameness. It brought back my favorite line from Shakespeare—“My bounty is as boundless as the sea”—and I felt in that boundless bounty what God’s infinite mercy means. At the same time, as the waves lapped up on the shore, or crashed on the rocks, I felt what it meant for that infinity, that vastness, to care particularly for me—to be merciful to me.
God’s mercy covers us, enfolds us, sustains us, and gives us strength to persevere. God’s mercy allows us to be in our grief, to bear the narrow and cramped space of our limited lives, to face our sins and failures squarely.
God’s mercy allows us to be in our grief because it assures us that we will pass through it, to pass through that grief to joy: “Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me,” the Psalmist cries, “You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy” (Ps 30:11, 12). “I will continue to rejoice,” Paul assures the church at Philippi, “for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision . . . what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance” (Phil 1:18-19).
“One night we went to sleep, greatly upset, and we saw ourselves, both of us, passing through a very narrow crack in a wall. We were gripped with panic by the cramped space, so that it seemed as if we were about to die. When we came through the pain of that place, we found huge relief and joy unspeakable.”
For what do you grieve today? Ask God for the mercy to come through it, and to bring you to the limitless horizons of joy unspeakable.
Amen.
[1] P. Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton, 2012), 291-94 (quotation at 291).
Br. Curtis Almquist
The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Mark 1:4-11
Jesus and John have known one another since they were children. Today we remember their encounter at the Jordan River, both of them now about 30 years old. Their parents have talked to one another about their boys since before they were born. John is the miracle son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were old enough to be his great grandparents; and Jesus is the miracle son of Mary who “reportedly” conceived him through an angel, not with her husband, Joseph. John’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, are Jesus’ aunt and uncle.
Jesus and John bear both the blessing and the burden of their destinies. Their lives were prophesied to be great: John was predicted to be the Messiah’s “advance man,” the Messiah’s “forerunner,” to set the stage. Jesus was predicted to be the Messiah. How can this be?[i]
The stories about angels and the miraculous conceptions of these two cousins are undoubtedly the makings for small town gossip and, I imagine, eye-rolling derisive humor, and people’s incredulity. If Jesus and John were supposed to be these bionic boys, why did they appear so normal and unspectacular, disappointing even? What would it have been like for these two cousins to grow up in each other’s shadows, most likely to live in close proximity, never finding their voices for almost 30 years, which is approaching old age in their own day?[ii] Their lives had been shrouded with such mystery, and speculation, and derision about their identities and their destinies. Neither of them married. Neither of them was all-that-special, really, at least for men who were supposed to become so great. What did they know about each other? What did they think about each other? How did they talk to one another? We don’t know.
All we do know is that at some point John left home and headed into the wilderness. He begins living out his destiny in his own rather eccentric way. He preaches eloquently about repentance. Now he draws the crowds. He officiates in cleansing baptisms in the Jordan River for multitudes of people who come to confess their sins. John was living into his destiny, preparing the way for the Messiah. But the unimaginable happens. This one particular day Jesus appears on the riverbank, asking John to baptize him alongside all the other sinners. Jesus’ arrival did not figure into John’s choreography. I can imagine this was something of an identity crisis for John. Either Jesus, who is John’s cousin,was the Messiah, or Jesus was not the Messiah after all. In my mind’s eye I can see John lunging after Jesus, seizing Jesus by the arm and marching him out into the water, far enough so they could be alone, where John says to Jesus, almost in desperation, “This is for sinners! What in the world are you doing here!?”
John does baptize Jesus. Immediately thereafter there is the sight of a dove and the sound of a voice from the heavens saying, “This is my well-beloved son.” Jesus sees this and hears this. Do John and the others see and hear this? We cannot be sure; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John remember this differently.[iii] Our Gospel appointed for today (from Mark) does not say that John and the others experienced miraculous dove and sound of the voice from heaven, but only that Jesus saw and heard this. Jesus leaves the riverbank and journeys on his own out into the desert. John labors on, baptizing, and, I imagine, wondering what Jesus is up to.
The early reports in the Gospels tell of Jesus’ returning to Nazareth, his home town, to teach the people. They were astounded. They asked themselves, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? …Where then did this man get all this?” which is not entirely a compliment.[iv] They were not all taken in by Jesus. Quite to the contrary. The Gospel account says that many actually took offence at Jesus. He reacts saying, “Prophets are not without honor… except in their own country and in their own house.”[v] So it seems, many who were close to Jesus did dishonor him. And many who were distant to him, who knew Jesus was from Nazareth, derided him, saying “What good can come out of Nazareth?”[vi]
According to the Gospel accounts in Matthew and Luke, even at the end of John’s life (when he was imprisoned, facing execution), John might not have been altogether sure that Jesus actually was the Messiah. John summons two of his own disciples. (John still has his own disciples!) John then sends his disciples to Jesus, telling Jesus that John had sent them. They are to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answers them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”[vii] People did take offense at Jesus, even though the miracles did happen. Both John and Jesus die in ignominy: John was imprisoned then beheaded, and Jesus had a crescendo of followers, ultimately was abandoned, then crucified.
This is not nice bedtime reading. Both John and Jesus pay the ultimate price for being true to life destinies. All of us would want to be spared their type of suffering, yet we may find enormous help and hope in their life stories, in how our own life story overlaps theirs.
For so many people, perhaps you, it is so very challenging to figure out what your life is to be about. For many people, this remains a lifelong question. You may not discover your life’s meaning until old age, when you have the perspective of hindsight. Or you may have an answer in your earlier life, what your life is to be about… but then life continues to happen, for better or for worse. For reasons perhaps beyond your control you have to revise your life purpose and your sense of destiny. Along the way you might stumble or get lost:
- lost in your family of origin who never did fully understand you;
- lost in love or the absence of love;
- lost in your work, or in the absence of work, or the absence of meaningful work;
- lost because of money – not enough money, or too much money, or too much debt;
- lost because of an addiction;
- lost in shame;
- lost in the crowd;
- lost because of your children, or lost because you have no children;
- lost in a consuming illness, or lost in grief.
Jesus knew what it was to be lost. In his adulthood, when Jesus finds his voice he teaches in parables. One of the recurring themes in Jesus’ parables is about being lost. I think Jesus’ parables are autobiographical. Clearly, they connected with a lot of people; however the source of inspiration for Jesus’ parables, including Jesus’ “lost” parables, was Jesus’ own life. It took Jesus, and it took his cousin John, so many, many years to live into their destinies, when they knew what their life was to be about, and how. And I think they both had to keep revising their life script because life kept happening.
The earliest followers of Jesus were not called “Christians.” They were called “followers of the way.”[viii] Jesus even takes this name himself when he says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” “I am the way.”[ix] Where did this notion of the “the way” come from? Jesus certainly would have heard this phrase in readings from the prophets. His cousin John uses this language in his own preaching. He proclaims, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” What is this way? The Greek word for “the way” literally means “a road, a journey, a path.” Jesus is “the way,” and it moves along.
Jesus’ being “the way” may give you enormous help and hope as you try to keep finding your own way in life. Life is not going to be what you thought. Your life script will keep changing. And you will probably go through seasons of life where you are overwhelmed and feel lost: having lost your bearings, lost your direction, lost your meaning, maybe lost your hope.
The good news is in Jesus’ real presence. Jesus is God Emmanuel, God with us. And his presence is real: not imaginary, not hypothetical, but real, really connected with what is means to be fully human, facing the ever-changing kinds of things we face in life. That you face in life. Really present and in a real way to you.
Pray your heart out. Wherever you are, however you are in life, Jesus quite understands. Jesus is with you all the way: his real presence really present. Really. Pour out your heart… and then keep your ears open for a revelation. We also have the witness, the presence, the companionship of his wild-haired cousin, John the baptizer, who ultimately lived and died a convinced man: yes, Jesus, his cousin, is the Messiah: John’s Messiah and ours.
[i] A riff on John 3:9.
[ii] Conjecture is that the average life span in first-century Palestine was about 35 years.
[iii] Jesus’ baptism is remembered by Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:32-34.
[iv] Matthew 13:53-16:20.
[v] Matthew 13:54-57.
[vi] John 1:43-51.
[vii] Luke 7:18-23: “The disciples of John reported all these things to him. So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ When the men had come to him, they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’”
Matthew 11:2-6: “When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’”
See also Acts 19:1-7, 18-25.
[viii] See Acts 9:1-2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22.
[ix] John 14:6.
Br. Luke Ditewig
Matthew 2:14-21
Fiber, beads, pigment, wax, wood, copper, historic rosters and photos, digital image and database software. We Brothers played with these and more for a week of creativity. Diverse mediums for diverse persons, each in the image of our Divine Maker.
Matthew opens his telling of the good news with a genealogy notably including four courageous women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Their stories and that of sinful husbands Judah and David are scandalous. All four are foreigners. Jesus’ bloodline is not only Jewish but also Canaanite, Moabite, and Hittite. Jesus came for the world from the world.[i]
Wise men from the East, magi, foreign astrologers come to worship Jesus by what they have learned by studying stars, not scripture. As gentiles and astrologers, like the four women, they were outsiders, and Matthew tells their story as part of Good News. There are different ideas about the magi. Here’s one that catches my imagination. As in Matthew’s genealogy, one can mark Israel’s history by the low point of exile in Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, took most of the city captive and moved them 900 miles away. Daniel was in a small group of exiles who served in the palace. One idea is Daniel learned astrology from magi and left a record with them about how to interpret a particular star, for which centuries later magi travelled those 900 miles to worship Jesus.[ii]
Grace amid captivity. Creative seed-sowing for expansive mission to diverse peoples. Grace amid scandal and sin. As Ray Bakke wrote, God came through a mixed-race family with a foreign welcome party, God in flesh for all humanity.[iii] Jesus came and is for all of us, in the diversity and messiness of our stories. No one is beyond reach of God’s saving power.
Pay attention for surprising grace in unlikely people and places. Give thanks for courageous grandmothers and visiting wizards. Our Divine Maker uses all mediums to reveal expansive love.
[i] Ray Bakke (1997) A Theology as Big as the City. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, p125.
[ii] Raymond Bakke (1999) A Biblical Word for an Urban World: Messages from the 1999 World Mission Conference. Valley Forge, PA: Board of International Ministries, American Baptist Churches in the USA, p55.
[iii] Ibid, p54.
Br. Curtis Almquist
Malachi 3:1-5
The prophet Malachi could not be using more extreme language. The messenger for the Messiah will come “like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.”
- A refiner’s fire is a metallurgy process dating back to antiquity. A refiner’s fire is a crucible that heats precious metal, like gold and silver, to a molten state from which the dross – the impurities – are skimmed off. It is a searing process that yields the pure, precious metal.[i]
- The fullers were the launderers. Fuller’s soap is a caustic cleansing agent, made from lye and other repugnant chemicals.[ii] Fuller’s soap was used to purify fabric and make it white. The fullers stamped on garments with their feet or used wooden bats in tubs of this blanching soap. The stench from this soap was so great that the fullers had to work outside the city walls of Jerusalem.
Similes and metaphors are woven into the scriptures, from beginning to end. What these two similes – the refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap – have in common are their extremes.[iii] A refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap are the most, most, most extreme similes we will find in all the scriptures. How do we come by them? We will be prepared to meet the Messiah, or to meet the Messiah again, like by a refiner’s fire and like with fuller’s soap. This would not be good news… unless this is familiar. You, like I, may be able to look back on our lives and see how suffering has purified our lives and clarified our needs, our values, our life purpose, our ultimate end.
I certainly do not think that all suffering is for the good. Some suffering is appallingly bad, sometimes insidiously evil. Look at today’s news reports. And yet there is a suffering we may personally know in life that is doing the work of a refiner’s fire or fuller’s soap in our own souls. Remember your former life, where what is ultimately good has been redeemed from what for you seemed so terribly difficult in the moment. This will get you in touch with hope amidst your present suffering. In the fullness of time, you may know this suffering to be a severe mercy.
[i] The image of the “refiner’s fire” appears numerously in the Scriptures, e.g., Isaiah 48:10; Jeremiah 9:7; Job 23:10; Psalm 12:6, 66:10; Proverbs 17:3; Zechariah 13:9; Romans 8:28; Hebrews 12:29; 1 Peter 1:6, 4:12, 5:10.
[ii] Fuller’s soap was made from many different substances, among them lye, white clay, putrid urine, and the ashes from the burning of certain desert plants.
[iii] Another severe metaphor appears repeatedly in the scriptures is of God being the potter and we, the clay, e.g., Isaiah 29:16, 41:25, 45:9, 64:8; Jeremiah 18:1-12; Ecclesiasticus 33:13, 38:29; Romans 9:21.
Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26
Psalm 147:1-12
Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5-8
We find ourselves this Advent in a world that seems to be breaking down. A litany could encompass all ills and lands and peoples, and still feel incomplete. We find ourselves, this Advent, hurting, injured, crying out. Crying out for hope. Crying out for hope in God’s promise of healing.
The season of Advent layers time: past and future, memory and expectation, already and not yet. And God’s promise of healing is present in both layers. Part of Jesus’s ministry, as we hear in our Gospel today, was in curing every disease and every sickness. In the next chapter he will answer the messengers from John the Baptist by pointing to his own healing: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, [and] the dead are raised” (Mt 11:5).
This healing is also in the future—at the end of things: the time of the harvest, in Jesus’s words. The prophet Isaiah reports God’s promise that, after the day of judgment, the people of Zion will weep no more, and that the Lord will bind up the injuries of God’s people, and will heal their wounds.
So as we remember the first coming of our Savior, and we await his second, we also call to mind the healing that has already been and will yet be accomplished.
But this isn’t all. Another reality of Advent is that Jesus is here, already present among us, now. Present in Word and Sacrament, and present in the hearts of his people. Jesus is present in you, and me.
And I think this is vital because this means that God’s promise of healing is also present now. The Lord, the psalmist writes, “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Ps 147:3); heals, not will heal. Jesus sends out the Twelve to cure the sick. We as Christ’s people, after our encounter with Christ in the eucharist, are sent forth to bear Christ to the world. Equipped and set out to be agents of healing.
What in your life is calling out for healing? How are you bearing Christ’s healing presence to your family, your community, the world—and yourself? How are you being Christ’s healing presence?
Amen.
Romans 8:18-25
I know that I have told this story before, but I’ll tell it again, partly for those who have not heard it, but mostly because tonight there is a significant point to it.
Years ago, as a young priest, and new to the practice of preaching on a regular basis, two members of my congregation approached me one Sunday after church. They were puzzled by something and wanted to ask me a question. Both Robin and Ann came from the Baptist tradition, and they had a concern about the lectionary. What would happen, they asked, if I felt it important to preach from a different passage of Scripture, than the one assigned by the lectionary. Would I be free, they wondered, to change the reading, or preach from a different text?
Nearly 40 years later, I can’t remember what I said in reply. I do remember the question. It has stuck with me all these years, and keeps cropping up every so often. Today, if one of you were to ask me the same question, I know exactly how I would answer.
The question, for me at least, is not what I would do if I felt it important to preach from a different passage, than the one assigned by the lectionary. The question for me is, what do I do when the lectionary points me in a direction I might not choose to go in, or would prefer to avoid? Because that’s the case tonight. If it were up to me, the gift and promise of hope is not something I’d gravitate to at this particular time. Yet tonight, of all nights we hear, in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.[1]
You would be forgiven, and I would totally understand it, if you told me that you were feeling pretty hopeless these days. In the face of everything that is going on: the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East; yet another mass killing, this time in Maine; the inability of Washington to function; and the very deep divisions in this country, never mind what may, or may not be going on in your individual life, it is no wonder we may feel hopeless. The world, this country, this monastic community, all of us as individuals, are facing some huge and daunting challenges, any one of which might make us feel hopeless. And when the gift and promise of hope is the last thing on our minds, that’s exactly what the lectionary offers us to ponder.
It’s not, what would I do if I wanted to preach about something other than what the lectionary might suggest. It’s what do I do when I want so desperately to avoid the very thing the lectionary holds before us. In that way, the lectionary itself becomes a vehicle of good news, as it proclaims hope to a hopeless world, one so clearly in bondage to decay.[2] Coincidentally, that decay which holds us in bandage, will come knocking at your doors tonight, in the guise of trick or treaters. Don’t be fooled by the cute costumes, because deeply imbedded in the origins of Hallowe’en is our fear of the very real decay of bodily death. And therein lies the gift and promise of hope.
In the aftermath of a ghastly, cruel, and horrific death, a small band of women approached a grave to do the things which tradition required. Exhausted, afraid, grieving, traumatized, these women discovered at that grave, not a dead body, but the gift and promise of hope in the person of the Risen Lord. In words that astonish then, and now, we with Mary Magdalene and her companions hear words full of hope, in the midst of all our hopelessness: ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my [disciples] to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’[3]**
The promise of Jesus, indeed the promise of God as testified throughout Scripture, is that God will meet us wherever we are, because God, first and foremost is not only a God who creates, but is also a God who encounters.
The story of Scripture is the story of encounter between God and humanity, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation. The God who walked in the garden at the time of the evening breeze looking for our first parents,[4] is the same God who stands knocking, waiting for us to open the door, so that the Holy One can enter and sup with us,[5] as the King James Version of the Bible puts it.
To put it another way, God is a God who seeks us out, and seeking us out, God finds us no matter where we are: hiding in the garden; behind closed doors; gripped by fear, grief, and trauma. Where are you?[6]God asks. Here I am, is our reply. It is in that question and answer, that our hope lies.
Where are you? God asks us this evening. I am gripped by fear, as I read the news from Maine. I am exhausted by worry, as I watch our politicians lock horns, and fail to do the very thing they were elected to do, which is govern. I am numb with grief as I contemplate the Jewish hostages or the Palestinian children. I am paralyzed by shock, as I consider this or that event in my life.
Where are you? God asks us who are gripped, exhausted, numb, and paralyzed in a world that seems so hopeless at the moment. I am here, we say, standing at the grave, looking into the blackness of the pit, as so many are today. What emerges from that pit shocks us for standing before us is not darkness, but light, not death, but life, saying do not be afraid … go to Galilee, and there you will meet me.
The promise and hope of Jesus, is that he meets us at the grave, and sends us off rejoicing, with the expectation we will encounter him again in the Galilees of our life.
There is much for which we rightfully may feel hopeless. I won’t, and don’t, and can’t deny that. Yet the promise of God, and the gift of Jesus, is that it is in those very places of hopelessness that God is searching for us, and asking where are you? Do not be afraid. Go to Galilee and there you will meet me.
Paul reminds us today that the gift and promise of hope comes to those held in bondage to decay. Decay, however, is not an easy place to be. The world today, is not an easy place to be. The tomb, that first Easter morning, was not an easy place to be. It is so human to stand in those places of decay, and be filled with a sense of hopelessness. Yet it is in those very places that God meets us, and fills us with the gift and promise of hope.
A lot of people are feeling pretty hopeless these days, but the good news from Paul is a reminder that in the face of it all, God is waiting to find us, and send us on our way rejoicing, and that alone is reason to hope, and is good news from the lectionary.
[1] Romans 8: 24 – 25
[2] Romans 8: 21
[3] Matthew 28: 10
[4] Genesis 3: 8
[5] Revelation 3: 20
[6] Genesis 3: 9
Br. Curtis Almquist
Romans 6:19-23
Saint Paul writes about our “sanctification” as if we would know what he is talking about. In the original Greek, the generic meaning of “sanctification” is “the state of proper functioning.” To sanctify someone or something is to set that person or thing apart for the use intended by its designer. A well is “sanctified” when it is used as a source of water. A wineskin is “sanctified” when it is used to store wine. For us, eyeglasses are “sanctified” when used to improve sight. In the theological sense, things are “sanctified” when they are used for the purpose God intends. A human being is “sanctified” when they live according to God’s unique design and purpose for their life.[i]
When we wake up each morning, we can presume God’s presence, and power, and provision. We have been kept alive for as much as one more day to know God, and to love God, and to serve God as only we, uniquely, can do. [ii] We wake up each morning on a mission to bear the beams of God’s light, and life, and love as only we, uniquely, can do. It’s why we are still alive. Which turns life into such an amazing adventure. This is the core meaning of “sanctification”: living our lives according to God’s unique design and purpose for our life.
Momentarily we will join together in singing about “sanctification,” the Sanctus: “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might…” We not only worship and praise the God of all power and might, but also receive the God of all power and might in the mystical form of bread and wine. “Behold what you are; may we become what we receive.” These are the words of Saint Augustine from the 5th century.[iii] “Behold what you are” you a living body of Christ, in whom Christ is uniquely alive and working. “Behold what you are.” And then, “may we become what we receive,” which is the Body of Christ, in the form of the consecrated bread and wine from the altar. “May we become what we receive,” which is for us, individually, to become ever-more like Christ who, in our baptism, comes to live within us. It’s about our life-life process of “sanctification.”
Our “sanctification” is an invitation for our cooperation, our co-operation, in God’s sanctifying work to make us whole, to make us holy.[iv]
i] Insight about “sanctification” drawn from Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (2001), by Walter A. Elwell, ed.
[ii] This is a paraphrase of Saint Ignatius’ “Foundation and First Principle” in his Spiritual Exercises.
[iii] Saint Augustine (396-430), Bishop of Hippo, modern-day Algeria.
[iv] The Old English hælþ: “wholeness, sound ,or well,” from the Old Norse helge “holy, sacred,” the Old English hælan “to heal.”
Br. Jonathan Maury
Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10
‘Are you saved? Have you been saved?’—the usual opening lines of the would-be Christian evangelist’s speech when accosting a supposed unbeliever. Sincerely held convictions and good intention usually lie behind these expressions of concern for our ‘spiritual’ well-being. But a ‘one-step’ profession of accepting Jesus as your Savior leading immediately to the state of ‘salvation’ is simplistic and can be dangerously ego-centered. Personally ‘achieving salvation’ is not a check-list item for being ‘admitted to heaven’ when we die.
Listen for a moment to words from an Anglican Communion evangelism document entitled ‘God’s Sovereignty and Our Salvation’: ‘Salvation is at the very heart of the Christian hope and the promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the gift of reconciliation and transformation, given to humanity by God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ Salvation as transformation and reconciliation, proceeding from the Triune God who is love and relationship: this understanding and promise signals an ongoing, dynamic, shared process. In this understanding, salvation, ‘being saved’, is a never-ending and ever-deepening relationship of believers with Christ, and with one another.
As the evangelism document goes on to stay, ‘The gift of salvation is understood first and foremost by Christians as given by God through the incarnation, cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ This is the salvation, the being saved, which is boldly proclaimed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel calls us to examine what it actually means ‘to be saved’; to embrace the fulness of this salvation and to understand its meaning and urgency for our mortal lives and how we shall live, in these present days.
The teachings of our Savior Jesus draw constantly on rich images of salvation in the ancient scriptures. Images which reflect the people of God’s lived experience of being saved abound: The Israelites’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt and exile in Babylon; as well as from famine, attacks from enemies and times of communal and individual suffering. Jesus teaching continues the theme of salvation as deliverance with a focus on liberation from sin, disease and death. Jesus refers frequently to salvation as healing, and as a movement from brokenness to wholeness. Jesus also taught the way of eternal salvation in his own person: in his coming among us, calling us to turn again to God; in healing the sick, providing for the hungry and lost and raising the dead Jesus taught the way of salvation above all by his faithful self-offering for our sake in his cross and resurrection.
Today in the Gospel according to John, Jesus cries out: ‘Whoever enters by me will be saved!’ In images drawn from the breeding and keeping of sheep, Jesus proclaims himself as the savior, the shepherd, the Good Shepherd. Jesus freely mixes together the imagery of being at once the shepherd and the gate of the common sheepfold. He is the one who comes in through the front gate—and not the enemy who sneaks in by climbing over the fence. He is the one who leads the sheep out to pasture for nourishment, and it is he who guarantees the safety of the sheep with his own life. He is the one whose voice the sheep know and can trust. ‘I am the gate’, Jesus declares. Only in the light of the cross and resurrection, can we truly understand what Jesus is saying: After my sheep are in the fold, I will lay my body across the opening. No sheep will step over me to stray, and no wolf can get in without getting past me first. ‘Those who enter by me will be saved.’
I experience here a challenge and an invitation from the Savior Shepherd. I am to follow him in the path of self-offering love and service after his example, whatever the cost. He is the shepherd and gate of the sheepfold who saves me from my wandering self-centered ways. This is the Shepherd who saves me even in the midst of my wrongs and bad choices. The crucified and risen One liberates me from the illusion that I am God—or at least that I am my own god. The eternal presence and action of the Good Shepherd is saving me. He is saving my life, all our lives, by transforming us in his own image and likeness that we may become the beloved of God’s fold, now and for ever.
We will never be abandoned by this Savior. The Good Shepherd has accomplished—and opened for us—the way of salvation. He who laid down his life for us has won and freely offers to us eternal deliverance from sin, disease and death. The grace, healing and protecting love which flow from Jesus’s self-offering still lead us—in and out—through every circumstance of life. By the Savior Shepherd’s power and love, we are being saved now. Salvation is a present reality—though not yet fulfilled in us. We need to be saved again each time each time we believe ourselves to have ‘arrived’ at salvation, either through illusions of our own success, superiority, knowledge—or even supposed goodness.
Our reading from Acts of the Apostles characterizes the community of salvation as one in which baptized disciples of Jesus ‘devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.’ We are being saved today by following the first disciples in this way of Jesus: through radical sharing of resources one with another; by seeing our possessions as the gifts they are; in making provision for all in need; in giving thanks for all things as our praise and proclamation of the Savior Shepherd. ‘And day by day the Lord was added to their number those who were being saved.’
In the beloved community to which we have been called, the Savior dwells within us, each and all. He is ever with us as the gate, giving admission, offering welcome and protection in the fold, and gathering us into his one Body. The good Shepherd is ever in us, living and serving through us, guiding and correcting, caring and nurturing, challenging us to live abundantly by following in his way of self-offering love. Jesus our Redeemer Shepherd is ever present for us, as the daily Bread for which we pray, the true food and drink nourishing us as servants in God’s pastures, the pastures of justice, peace and ever-saving love. Amen.
Sermon for 4 Easter, Year A
Br. Luke Ditewig
John 9:1-41
One of my friends sees as I don’t. He walks into a room and immediately senses things in others and in me to which I’m oblivious. Sometimes he says: “Don’t you see?” and I reply: “No, you’ve got to tell me. I can’t see.” That’s hard to say, to realize being in the dark while another can clearly see, to discover and experience limitation in the light of another’s ability.
In today’s gospel story, Jesus walks along and sees a person who is blind and who doesn’t ask for help. Jesus doesn’t ask what he wants. Jesus comes and opens his eyes. In response, a flurry of questions by the neighbors and the leaders: How did this happen? Was he really blind before? Who is Jesus? They struggle with question upon question, arguing, accusing, reprimanding, and rejecting. This community is stumbling, groping in the dark, trying to escape the truth that one born blind now sees because of Jesus.
As the community struggles and stumbles, this person grows to see even more. He is honest about limits: “I don’t know where Jesus is. I don’t know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” He also comes to know Jesus. First, he says “the man called Jesus” touched me. Then “he is a prophet.” A bit later “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” Finally, again face to face “Lord, I believe.” First, he receives literal sight, and second, insight, awakened to Jesus.
All of this is unexpected and unrequested. Jesus saw, came, and healed. Jesus looked to find the one driven out. Jesus sees people in need and goes looking for people rejected, freely giving as the Light of the World. Jesus comes also as the Good Physician, saying: I came to heal not those who think they are well but those who know they are sick. “I have come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”[i]
The man knew he was blind. In contrast the stumbling religious leaders are so self-confident, so sure that they can see and are well, that they refuse the plain truth that they are sick and blind. They are like world we experience which focuses on ability, climbing ladders, and covering weakness by getting caught up in rules, barriers, and pointing to splinters in others’ eyes.
In another story, Jesus corrects his followers from being excited by all they had accomplished. Then Jesus prays: Thank you, God, “because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.”[ii] Put another way: you have hidden things from those who think they know and instead revealed them to those just beginning.[iii] Hidden from people who ignore their need and revealed to those who acknowledge their need.
We are all born blind. None of us can see without Jesus shining on us. God does not invite learning self-sufficiency but traveling the way of the cross, growing from a seedbed of need. The first stage of becoming a monk, the novitiate, is about two years, and it is also lifelong. We are always beginners, always returning to basics. Over and over, we return to our need, and that it is God’s power at work in us by amazing grace.
Lent invites this basic return. We Brothers understand our vow of poverty as not only what we do with physical possessions. Poverty also includes acknowledging individual and communal weakness, brokenness, and need. In our Rule of Life, we Brothers say: “The knowledge and acceptance of our fragility preserves us from complacency and illusion, continually throwing us back on the mercy and compassion of God.”[iv]
Dear friends, what is your poverty? Where are you in touch most now with your fragility, your weakness, your need? As to the one born blind, Jesus comes here, particularly in these places, to meet you with power in mercy and compassion.
Sometimes when my friend says, “Don’t you see?” we burst out laughing for we know and accept the truth together. It’s wonderful to be known and loved in our weakness. It’s a gift to be companioned in our poverty, trusting that Jesus meets us here. For accepting we are blind, by God we can see.
[i] Luke 5:30-32
[ii] Luke 10:17-21
[iii] adapted from The Message
[iv] SSJE Rule of Life, Chapter 8: “Engaging with Poverty”
Matthew 5:20-26
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus offers us a stern warning regarding anger and the desire for retribution. He also offers us a corrective for that anger: to make peace with the one who has wronged us, or who we have wronged. The good news for us is that Jesus understands how limited we are, which is why in the Gospel lesson today we don’t hear him say that we will never fight with our neighbors or have disputes; but, he offers the way out. One of the great tragedies of being angry at our brothers and sisters is that there is a lot that we should be angry about in the world: we need to channel that righteous anger where it belongs, not project it onto our friends and loved ones.
Jesus’ warning that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” is very important here. The Pharisees and scribes are typically referred to by Jesus as being poor stewards of the kingdom of heaven, failing in their understanding of how they were meant to minister to the people of God. They had, in short, a limited and almost legalistic understanding of the sacred laws of God, in which the sacred covenant with God was more transactional than transformative. The words this morning from the prophet Ezekiel, seen in this light, are profoundly instructive for us today. The book of Ezekiel is deeply concerned with the people of Israel failing to live up to their covenantal relationship with God. As the chosen people of God, Ezekiel warned, like all the prophets before and after him, that the people would continue to suffer if they didn’t amend their ways and become true emissaries of the living God.
How can we hear this message today and act on it? In my own experience, I need to start by looking at what my own role is in perpetuating suffering, both my own and of those around me. Anger, or a lack of love and compassion for myself or my fellow humans, is certainly one way that I perpetuate the cycle of misery. Even when those little examples that I can point to in my own life may seem prosaic in relation to the true horrors that can be unleashed into the world from human rage, they matter immensely, because I can actually do something about it, right here and now.
One practice that I have recently taken up is to slightly change the Jesus prayer as I usually pray it. In the Jesus prayer, if you aren’t familiar, we pray “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” The form can vary, but the core is always Jesus Christ. Instead of “have mercy on me” I’ve changed it slightly to “save me from myself.” By emphasizing that I am very much in need of being saved from myself, this is profoundly freeing. Lent is a time for getting honest with ourselves and honest about our faith in Jesus: If we are going to challenge the highly destructive tendency to indulge our sense of righteous indignation, in other words, our anger, we are going to need God’s help. Jesus knows that, and He is with us in that journey, and He loves us, more than we can possibly imagine.
Isaiah 40:1-11
Matthew 18:12-14
If you’ve ever gone astray –
If by choice or by chance, you have found yourself separated – from God; from belonging; from the integrity, the dignity, or the honesty that once anchored you;
If you have found yourself in a place bereft of the guidance, the reassurance, or the forgiveness you so desperately needed;
Or from the touch or the glance or the words that would weave you once again into the fabric of connection, relationship, and love…
If yes, the question Jesus poses in tonight’s gospel is meant for you.
Does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
What do you think? Jesus asks.
What does your reason tell you? What does your conscience know to be right? What does your heart whisper into the dark?
Of course he does. The shepherd goes in search of the one who needs him.
It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
Throughout 2020, I had the opportunity to pray my way through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola with a spiritual director. These Exercises clarify a person’s desire for spiritual freedom, and make extensive use of prayer with the imagination.
Because it radically changed my experience of what it means to be found by Jesus, I’d like to share a scene that unfolded in my own prayer as I engaged with this parable.
You might choose to close your eyes and receive these words as the testimony of a lost sheep.
I find myself in an arid, desert landscape, forgotten in a vast expanse of wilderness. I am a young lamb, trapped inside a dense thicket of thorns. My face is free, but my entire body is immobilized. The more I struggle, the more caught I become, and the long, dark thorns tear through my fleece and the tender flesh beneath. I no longer have the voice to cry out and I am on the verge of despair. Vultures circle above me, waiting.
But then I see him, one like a Son of Man coming toward me. Is it a mirage? No, he is here now. I am afraid, but this man is my only hope.
I summon one long, feeble cry that is louder and stronger than I thought possible: it echoes from the cliffs, and in each echo a layer of my sorrow, my regret, my shame, my self-blame for this miserable situation.
The man bends down low. He must get on his hands and knees to reach me. He himself wears a crown of thorns, and his face is marked with streaks of dark blood like tears. He bears this crown with unfathomable grace. He gazes into my eyes and sees me: my fear, my despair. Our foreheads touch, and he whispers: “This isn’t your fault.”
And then; he plunges his strong arms into the heart of the thorn bush and wrenches it open. The thorns that hemmed me in on every side are now an open place, though they gouge the man’s own flesh. With one arm he holds the bush open and with the other he grasps me and lifts me free.
I breathe. I live. This is mercy.
The man hoists me onto his shoulders. From this vantage point, I now see in all directions: bush after thorn bush all the way to the horizon.
Each bush contains a lamb like me, captive and struggling for life.
In a voice clear and resolute, the Son of Man says,
“I will not rest until the last lamb is free.”
“I will not rest until the last lamb is free.”
Jesus said, It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.
The Orthodox archbishop Kallistos Ware, who died in August, often returned in his pastoral teaching to a fundamental question and aspiration: “Dare we hope for the salvation of all?”[i] By this, he meant not simply all who confess Jesus Christ as Lord but all – all who have been, and are, and shall be. All who, at the hidden core of their being, long for “the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”
What do you think? Jesus asks. What does the voice of this Shepherd whisper within you?
Though the Truth is God’s alone, the question is meant for each of us. Dare we hope for the salvation of all?
In Advent, we embrace the mystery of God’s plan of salvation. Wrapped in that mystery, we wait. With God’s own humility, we watch. God’s response grows in the deep womb of time, until Christ is all in all.
“He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom.”
We wait to discover just what that means – and we dare to hope for all.
Lectionary Year and Proper: Year A, Second Week of Advent
[i] https://www.clarion-journal.com/files/dare-we-hope-for-the-salvation-of-all-1.pdf
“What will the church look like in a year, never mind five? What will this country look like in a week, never mind a month? What will the world look like tomorrow, never mind the one our grandchildren will inherit? We look at what we have, and long for what we had, and our hearts sink as we gaze at the challenges ahead, knowing full well there are still other hills, still other sets of steep stairs, still other cliff edge paths, that we cannot yet see.”
Looking into an uncertain future, Br. James Koester echoes God's words of comfort and reassurance: take courage; I am with you; do not fear.
“I don’t know what comes next. I don’t have a theological card up my sleeve that can smooth over this part of the lived experience of the world, that can erase the mystery of the darkness and despair that very often shake the trees of faith to their roots. But I do know one thing: these experiences are named and given a voice in our sacred scriptures.”
Br. Sean Glenn tackles some of the darkest passages of Scripture and invites us to sit with their unbearable mystery, and we do our own pain and the pain of those alongside whom we journey.
“Not only does God want to bring each and every one of us back into the fold. God wants to bring each and every part of ourselves back into wholeness and completeness. God is not satisfied to let one of us wander off. Nor is God satisfied with only part of me, part of you. God wants all of you! The patient forbearance of God gives us every passing moment to recollect ourselves and draw nearer to God.”
Br. Todd Blackham marvels at the patient, persistent, searching mercy of God, which will bring us – all of us – home, into the depths of God.
“We come to Easter this year exhausted, not by our keeping of Lent, but by our keeping on, keeping on. We are exhausted by two years of uncertainty, sadness, and anxiety brought on by a global pandemic. We are exhausted, by two years of blatant inequality and injustice. We are exhausted by fear, that what is going on in Ukraine, will plunge the world into even more chaos, and uncertainty. We are exhausted, by the stink of these past two years, as the pandemic tide ebbs out revealing, what has long been hidden.”
Br. James Koester uncovers the promise of the resurrection to us and to all creation: If God can raise Jesus from the dead, then God can mend, heal, and cleanse a broken, stinking world, making all things new
“We hear proclaimed in our Gospel account that Jesus is resurrected. But one thing has not changed. Even though Jesus is resurrected, Jesus’ heart is still broken.”
Even as we celebrate Jesus' resurrection, Br. Curtis Almquist encourages us to acknowledge our own and the world's woundedness, to allow us to tap into Jesus' resurrection power in the here-and-now. Hallelujah!
“When we approach the spiritual life with the care and attention it deserves, we will arrive at thresholds we cannot cross without our inner lives seeming to get worse rather than better: more painful, more exposed, less manageable in all the old ways we know. God is love, but love is powerful. Love is a crucible that dismantles the self we have cherished.”
Br. Keith Nelson looks to scripture for examples of a profound truth of the spiritual life: we must go go into the darkness to find the freedom that waits on the other side.
“This transformation, indeed, this transfiguration, from scarlet to snow, and crimson to wool, from a people utterly estranged from God, and indelibly marked by sin, to the beloved daughters and sons of God, happens when we remember who and whose we are.”
Br. James Koester reminds you of the true nature of God's mercy and forgiveness in this Lenten sermon.
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits. In God’s word is my hope. I wait with expectation like those who watch through the night wait for the morning. Yes, I wait like that. Not just for the night shift to end but with trust that light will break through the darkness.”
Br. Luke Ditewig invites us into the hope that comes with waiting for God.
“How much we are alike, we who long for freedom from COVID, and Mary, Joseph, and the people of Jerusalem and Bethlehem from Rome. Although nearly 2000 years separate us, we are so, so alike. This longing for freedom is now at the core of our identity, just as it was theirs.”
On Christmas Eve, Br. James Koester puts a face on the freedom for which we all long: his name is Jesus.
“Perhaps you’re short on hope today. It may be that your life is complicated, and that you’re facing insurmountable obstacles. It may be that your world is a tangled mess. There is no denying the suffering and pain that are part of our human condition. But today we are given reason to hope even in the face of difficulties. Today we are encouraged not only to bear our sufferings, but to give thanks in the midst of them. Today, we are exhorted to 'rejoice in the Lord always.'”
Br. David Vryhof dares us to hope, to rejoice even, because we have an unshakeable confidence that in the end the purposes of God will prevail.