Fishers of People

As Preached by Sister Cecelia
October 23, 2016
Holy Wisdom Church

Is 6:1-8,1Cor 15:39-44,47-58, Lk 5:1-11    

In pondering the readings for this morning, the response of Peter and Isaiah to the Holy, to the divine, is insightful. What would our own reaction be if we came into the presence of something totally mystifying (mind boggling) and awesome?

 Their response reminded me of a story of two 17 yr olds. The girl was very unsure of herself, she wondered how she looked to others. In trying to evaluate her appearance, she wondered if her nose was too big, her mouth too small, her legs too skinny? How could she know? She also found that in the presence of others, she could not think of anything to say. She had no confidence in herself.

The boy felt like he was not proportioned very well. He had to buy extra large clothes for his chest and size small for his hips. It also worried him that he was never sure of what to say. Others always seemed so much wiser than he. Since he felt he had no contribution to give, he kept his mouth shut.

 Then the two of them met. When he saw her he said; “Oh, my -you are so beautiful!” When she saw him, she said; “You look so strong”. They talked for a bit and he said to her; “You are so witty.” She said to him, “you are so wise!” After that, he had no doubts about himself and she became the most confident mother you would ever meet. Notice what friends, lovers can do for one another.

After hearing Jesus preach from his boat and seeing this miracle of the catch of fish, Peter was struck with awe by the light and felt his own smallness and unworthiness in Jesus presence. Jesus encouraged him though and indicated he would not just fish for fish but his catch now would be a great many people to whom he would be able to spread the good news of the light of Christ.  Notice Peter’s feeling of inadequacy change with Jesus encouragement.

When Isaiah saw the Lord, the king of angelic hosts, he too felt so totally unworthy in the presence of this light. After being cleansed with a burning coal to his lips, he was assured of his worthiness. Upon hearing the Lords question of who to send, he was emboldened enough to cry out; Here I am Lord.  Send me.

God’s prophets called Jesus  the light of nations, the light of the world. Jesus knew himself to be that light. A light does not so much add something new as it provides visibility. We can see what we have not seen before. The light enables us to see but also, to do things we have not even thought of before. Jesus enables us to see who we are, how we are and, what we can and must do. He has told each of us; You are a child of God. You are my sister. You are my brother. I am your friend. Notice what Jesus, the light of the world, our friend and brother, has done for us.

To God’s question St Paul answered, “Here I am, send me” and was emboldened to preach to the very people he had been punishing for heresy before he experienced the Light of Christ. His attempt to answer the Corinthian’s question of how our bodies can enter heaven seems somehow philosophically poetical.

 Paul was assured that by Jesus rising from the dead with a glorified body, a body many of his followers saw, that we too, would pass from our earthly, corruptible bodies to one that is incorruptible. The first person, Adam, was made of the dust of the earth and the second, Jesus, is from heaven. We all bear the image of the first person and we bear the image of the second. Our perishable bodies must put on imperishability. By accepting our own meager virtues as well as our failures we have a chance to understand the failures of others. We have a chance to realize we each have plenty of room for growth. We can stop saying, Too bad, that is just the way I am, and begin to say “There is more that I can be”.

Does our faith in Jesus words give us the confidence we need to spread the Good news, to live the gospel as the early disciples did?  We have the Light that is Christ in our hearts. It is in this light that we discover ourselves, inding out what are our possibilities as well as our tasks. Let us answer well and say frequently, Here I am Lord, Send me.   

       

Christ is in our Midst!

                                               

Fishers of People

As Preached by Sister Cecelia
October 23, 2016
Holy Wisdom Church

Is 6:1-8,1Cor 15:39-44,47-58, Lk 5:1-11    

In pondering the readings for this morning, the response of Peter and Isaiah to the Holy, to the divine, is insightful. What would our own reaction be if we came into the presence of something totally mystifying (mind boggling) and awesome?

 Their response reminded me of a story of two 17 yr olds. The girl was very unsure of herself, she wondered how she looked to others. In trying to evaluate her appearance, she wondered if her nose was too big, her mouth too small, her legs too skinny? How could she know? She also found that in the presence of others, she could not think of anything to say. She had no confidence in herself.

The boy felt like he was not proportioned very well. He had to buy extra large clothes for his chest and size small for his hips. It also worried him that he was never sure of what to say. Others always seemed so much wiser than he. Since he felt he had no contribution to give, he kept his mouth shut.

 Then the two of them met. When he saw her he said; “Oh, my -you are so beautiful!” When she saw him, she said; “You look so strong”. They talked for a bit and he said to her; “You are so witty.” She said to him, “you are so wise!” After that, he had no doubts about himself and she became the most confident mother you would ever meet. Notice what friends, lovers can do for one another.

After hearing Jesus preach from his boat and seeing this miracle of the catch of fish, Peter was struck with awe by the light and felt his own smallness and unworthiness in Jesus presence. Jesus encouraged him though and indicated he would not just fish for fish but his catch now would be a great many people to whom he would be able to spread the good news of the light of Christ.  Notice Peter’s feeling of inadequacy change with Jesus encouragement.

When Isaiah saw the Lord, the king of angelic hosts, he too felt so totally unworthy in the presence of this light. After being cleansed with a burning coal to his lips, he was assured of his worthiness. Upon hearing the Lords question of who to send, he was emboldened enough to cry out; Here I am Lord.  Send me.

God’s prophets called Jesus  the light of nations, the light of the world. Jesus knew himself to be that light. A light does not so much add something new as it provides visibility. We can see what we have not seen before. The light enables us to see but also, to do things we have not even thought of before. Jesus enables us to see who we are, how we are and, what we can and must do. He has told each of us; You are a child of God. You are my sister. You are my brother. I am your friend. Notice what Jesus, the light of the world, our friend and brother, has done for us.

To God’s question St Paul answered, “Here I am, send me” and was emboldened to preach to the very people he had been punishing for heresy before he experienced the Light of Christ. His attempt to answer the Corinthian’s question of how our bodies can enter heaven seems somehow philosophically poetical.

 Paul was assured that by Jesus rising from the dead with a glorified body, a body many of his followers saw, that we too, would pass from our earthly, corruptible bodies to one that is incorruptible. The first person, Adam, was made of the dust of the earth and the second, Jesus, is from heaven. We all bear the image of the first person and we bear the image of the second. Our perishable bodies must put on imperishability. By accepting our own meager virtues as well as our failures we have a chance to understand the failures of others. We have a chance to realize we each have plenty of room for growth. We can stop saying, Too bad, that is just the way I am, and begin to say “There is more that I can be”.

Does our faith in Jesus words give us the confidence we need to spread the Good news, to live the gospel as the early disciples did?  We have the Light that is Christ in our hearts. It is in this light that we discover ourselves, inding out what are our possibilities as well as our tasks. Let us answer well and say frequently, Here I am Lord, Send me.   

       

Christ is in our Midst!

                                               

Be Prepared, Sermon 140

  9 Oct 16

 Ez 33:7-16; 1Cor12:12-21; Mt 25:1-13 

Preached by Brother Luke, Holy Wisdom Church

During our summer retreat I read a book by Brennan Manning entitled: Ruthless trust: the ragamuffin's path to God.  He made a comment in the book about how we should understand the Gospels. It gave me pause, simple as it was. He said we should realize that the focus of the Gospels is always Jesus Christ. He went on to say that all too often we can get caught up in the details of a particular story or parable and miss the point. It is sort of like missing the forest for the trees, or worse missing the forest for the leaves.

Today’s Gospel is a classic example of that problem. By referring to this story as being about the wise and foolish virgins or bridesmaids we can get off track immediately. We can begin to focus on comparing the actions of these characters before we even ask the question, where is Jesus Christ in all of this? So, for example, we can look at the actions of the wise virgins and conclude that they are stingy, lacking in compassion, arrogant, prideful, etc. But if we understand the story as a vehicle for Jesus to make a point about living for the reign of God, then that becomes our frame of reference. The main point is very simple: be prepared. It’s the Boy Scout’s motto. So we start there as we look at the actions of the various characters.

Indeed, the wise virgins could have given some of their oil to the foolish ones but to what end? Had they done so, they all may have run out of oil. But if the story had gone in that direction, the lesson about being prepared would have been lost. This is because the wise virgins, to use a more modern phrase, would have “enabled” the foolish virgins to escape the consequences of their actions and thus allowed them to avoid learning the lesson about being prepared. Sometimes we describe this type of response with the expression: tough love. The story is not intended to condemn anyone, rather, it is a wakeup call to be prepared.

This leads to the next question: be prepared for what? In this story the virgins are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive. They do not know when he will arrive.  And that is a familiar caution throughout the Gospels: you know neither the day nor the hour. But one thing is certain, they know that he is coming. And when he comes, they are to accompany him into the wedding banquet.

For us the question is: when is Christ coming into our lives? The answer can be deceptively simple: he is coming into our lives every day. Are we ready to receive him? And what might that look like? So its morning and the sun is shining, breakfast is ready, coffee is brewing, the kids’ lunches are ready, homework done, you drive them to school, head off to work, get news of a bonus for a job well-done, in other words, all is well. It’s easy to be open to the good news and to be grateful for it. However, meeting Christ in the midst of plenty is only part of the story. The next day you get up and it’s raining, you can smell the burnt toast, the coffee pot is broken, the kids’ lunches are not ready, you have a presentation to give at a meeting and you are hoping to get to work early to put on the finishing touches only to discover that the car has a flat tire. You’re not just going to be late; you are likely to miss the meeting all together. Not so easy to be grateful for what this day has wrought. But we can be prepared for both scenarios. Not because we desire to go through the messed up day, but because we know that it is all part of a reality that is larger than one day. Life presents itself in many guises. The storm at sea is calmed by Jesus because he is not thrown off by it. He faces it head-on.

So, the lesson of the bridesmaids’ parable is that we need to be prepared to receive Christ EVERY DAY. Being ready to receive him means being open to what comes to us each day. Open to face each day’s reality, not pining for some magic to change things or make them better. 

For me that reminder came again last Wednesday when my dog Quena who was just 6 years old, had to be put to sleep. Spondylosis had set in rapidly and her pain was acute. My playful and sweet companion would be spending the rest of her life managing her pain. It all happened too soon and too quick. You know neither the day nor the hour. These are always traumatic decisions. But we can’t avoid them. It is a path every living being must travel.

Even as Jesus was telling this story about the bridesmaids he too was on the path to Golgotha. No wonder we always hear this story during Holy Week. Jesus is showing us the way, not trying to find an alternate route. And for those who believe as St Paul so clearly affirms, that Christ rose from the dead, the end of the story is one of hope and not despair.

Christ is coming to us every day to keep us on the path to salvation, no matter what the terrain, smooth or rocky. So as Isaiah says, clear the way, level up, level up the road, we are coming and we’re not turning back.

Keep this in mind whenever we say, Christ is in our midst, he is and shall be: say it with assurance, say it with ruthless trust.

Homily October 2, 2016

By Sister Rebecca

Gospel – Matthew 11:25-30

      Today’s Gospel begins: “At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you Father for having revealed these hidden things...to babes.’”  Jesus is transcending the limitation of ordinary time and space to Kairos time—God’s time. In this passage we experience a sudden flash of the intimate relationship of Jesus with his Father. He invites his listeners into this very relationship.   It is through Jesus that God reveals these hidden things—that is, Divine Wisdom—to those who have ears to hear, to children.  Jesus calls “children” those who know they need God, and to these he unveils the path of spiritual transformation

     To these little ones Jesus says, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me…you shall find rest for your souls.”  
   A yoke* is what a laborer places upon the shoulders of two oxen in plowing a field. In this metaphor, the disciple is yoked to Jesus, that is, not only for his teaching but his enabling us to carry the burden of putting it into daily practice.  What makes this yoke light is total openness to God, knowing God is present and knowing that there is meaning and purpose in bearing life’s burdens: we are not alone.  And this trust, this intimate relationship of love gives us the energy to carry our burdens not from will power, by gritting our teeth and groaning, but from a spirit of willingness and surrendering ourselves to God’s presence in this particular situation.  This was Jesus’ own experience, and he lived into it to the very end.  

    Today we celebrate Saint Francis as a model disciple. A famous story is told of Saint Francis while he was traveling with his disciple Brother Leo.  It was winter, and they both shivered from the cold. Francis called to Leo:  “Brother Leo, little lamb, if the friars were to make the lame to walk, if they chase away demons and give sight to the blind,…this would not be perfect joy. If, when we arrive at our destination all drenched with rain and trembling with cold, all covered with mud and exhausted from hunger; if, when we knock at the convent gate the porter should come angrily refuse to open to us, and leave us outside, exposed to the snow and rain…if we endure such injustice, and contempt with patience, without murmuring, Brother Leo: This is perfect joy.” 

    This point of the story is not to recommend passivity and inertia when we are faced with adversity.  Like Jesus’ parables, this story is about the innermost joy and peace to be found in the midst of suffering. It is meant to completely upset our applecart and usher us onto the road of spiritual transformation.  It illumines the falsity of our clinging to self-designed happiness, and it sheds light on today’s Gospel. When we are faced with adversity, the greatest suffering is within our own minds: our minds can go wild with “what ifs” as we imagine a future with the worst possible scenario.  At such times the rest that comes from being yoked to Christ can truly bring us to peace of mind and heart.

    The rest Jesus speaks about points especially to soul-sick weariness: work extracted from compulsion, work motivated by fear, or work performed in the face of futility. Such weariness comes from having nothing that truly matters.

     This soul weariness is well illustrated in an article “I used to be a human being.”  The man who wrote this article, after years of denial, finally wakes up to the reality that he is addicted to the internet.  He says: “Endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts.  It broke me.  It might break you too.”  He was hooked to gossip like others to sugar.  We have gone from looking up—living into the real now—to constantly looking down into our phones.  After 15 years of this hellish existence, and with even his health jeopardized, the man began to meditate, to introduce silence into his mind, and as he says, “…to follow spaces I had once known where mind and soul are replenished.  The reason we live in a culture increasingly without faith is not because science has somehow disproved the (seemingly) improbable, but because the white noise of secularism has removed the very stillness in which faith in God might be reborn.”

      Jesus’ invitation to rest means not only stillness, but also an injunction to stop, to put down, to cease from what drains us.  Internet addiction is only one of many sources of our mental and emotional drainage. Maybe the call for each of us is a personal inventory.  Perhaps most of our suffering comes from exhaustion that is self-imposed, whether externally or internally.  Rest means to be still, and also it can mean being before God in meditation, as in Psalm 62: “Only in God is my soul at rest and from him comes my hope.”

     Jesus at one time says to his disciples: “Come away to a quiet place and rest awhile.” The rest Jesus is talking about here and in today’s Gospel is synonymous with the word Sabbath.  Do we take time to honor the Sabbath?  Where in my life is the reality of Sabbath (Sunday or another day of the week): a day of rest—rest from physical exertion, but even more important from our mind’s inner noise?  What really nourishes my soul?  What on the contrary leaves me feeling empty? What leads me to become rooted in an identity that is unshakable, my true self in God? The more we live from this innermost still point, the more we find rest for our souls and experience wholesome contentedness, no matter what. There is no “one size fits all.” We need to listen deeply to what and where our hearts find replenishment, what St. Augustine refers to in this way: “our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God.”  

*An added note on the “yoke” metaphor:  In offering us a life-giving yoke, Jesus could also have had in mind another kind of yoke, which is spoken of by the Prophet Jeremiah (cf. chapter 27), who speaks of yokes as bars attached to the shoulders of the Israelites who are dragged and deported on foot to Babylon by their captors. Jesus is aware of this kind of “yoke” not imposed by others, but by our own worries and preoccupations (Matthew 6:25-27). This kind of yoke may well apply to whatever in us today captivates us, leading us into a land of servitude of needless depletion and suffering.