Sermon 151 Nov 26: 2Kings 5:1-14; 2Cor 6:11-7:1; Lk7:1-10.

        Virtually every Orthodox liturgical service includes one or several litanies. Sometimes people refer in a dismissive way to litanies or petitions as “gimme” exercises.  A list of petitions asking God to do this or that for me looks like the ubiquitous “wish list” connected with many web stores which are especially popular this time of year. But if we take a closer look at the petitions we will notice that for the most part we are calling on God to remember people in need. We pray for those who are sick, those suffering from various ecological disasters, terrorism, war, civil strife, or that God remember loved ones who have passed away. We may also pray for peace, safety for travelers, a good harvest, success in various endeavors. The list will include personal needs too, such as forgiveness of sins. In a general sense we are praying for healing in our broken world. Do we expect these prayers to be answered? And if so, in what way? This is not like calling for a plumber to fix a broken pipe.

        In today’s gospel lesson the centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant. Although Jesus set out to go to the centurion’s home and personally attend to the servant, the centurion wasn’t expecting him to do that. Instead, his expectation was that Jesus could effect this healing simply by his intention to do so. The centurion’s servant was healed, not just because the centurion asked the question but because he recognized the power that Jesus had to bring about the healing. And Jesus recognized the great faith the centurion had in him to effect that healing.

        In the Old Testament reading we see another healing. But Naaman had  a completely different kind of expectation.  In his case he wanted a hands on experience, and he had in mind what that should look like. When Elisha gives instructions through another to Naaman on what he needs to do to be healed, Naaman is furious and storms off. His expectation of personal attention in a particular way was not fulfilled, and he was in no mood to do what Elisha had instructed him to do. It takes the intervention of a third party to get Naaman to reconsider his own actions and follow the guidance given to him by Elisha. Once he consents and does what Elisha told him to do, he is healed. The result? Naaman then comes to believe in Elisha’s God.

        Naaman and the centurion both experience the power of God, but the centurion had faith in that power from the beginning, Naaman approached that power with some reluctance but then through his experience his faith is transformed.

        So how does healing in our broken world come about?  Through faith and the active engagement with God to achieve God’s purpose in this world. Part of the reason faith communities pray and monastic communities exist is to model the kind of living relationships that can be a source of healing in this world. Prayers and petitions are calls to God to remember the needs of this world and also to be with us on the journey through whatever trial we may be facing on our path.  The petitions that call for healing are also ways to remind all of us to be part of the healing of our world. We can’t all be in every corner of the world where suffering exists but we can bring that suffering before God. Even more, we can be part of the healing in our immediate circumstances. Helping family, friends and neighbors in need puts hands to God’s intentions. It may be a direct act on our part or we may be like the third party in the Naaman story, the one who guides another back onto the path of healing. We can see examples around the world as well as in our own neighborhoods where people see needs and respond. And this is where saints and heroes are found.

        So both scripture and personal experience tell us not to be hesitant to take our personal cares and our concerns for others to God. By doing so, we  open the door to God’s salvific help. To do so with assurance as did the centurion is the message from Jesus; but if we are reluctant or timid, remember that Naaman’s hesitancy was the necessary first step that brought him the help he needed to see the power of God he sought but did not immediately recognize. The power of God is always there.

        Christ is in our midst.

Homily: Ancestor Sunday 2017

 As preached by Sr. Rebecca     

 December 24, 2017

Holy Wisdom Church

            Matthew's Gospel today focuses on Jesus' origins-his genealogy.  It manifests a struggle within Matthew's diaspora community in Syria some 10 years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 CE.  His is a minority Jewish Christian community which takes Jesus as its leader and strives to establish a way life rooted in obedience and love as Jesus lived and taught.  But it is surrounded by some Jewish communities who do not accept Jesus as Messiah.  There is a dire need for Matthew’s community to show Jesus’ person as legitimately rooted in Judaism...  A religious community needs an overarching vision, to know itself under a 'sacred canopy', living in a world where division, up-rootedness prevails along with incredible insecurities not to mention persecutions and poverty. 

       When we begin to unpack the individual lives listed by Matthew, the message resounds loud and clear:  Jesus fully entered our human condition with all its virtues and vices.   It shows the continuity of Jesus in the history and tradition of Israel.  He was the natural development of the long process of God's steadfast relationship with his people and the long-awaited climax.  It responds to the question:  who is this Jesus.  Matthew attempts to unveil who Jesus is for him and his community.

     When we scratch below the surface of the persons in Jesus lineage we cannot help but note that God writes straight on crooked lines.  Matthew makes no effort to 'sanitize' Jesus’ origins or even the members of his immediate family.  Jesus was not born of all saintly ancestors.  Rather, as the genealogy shows, his family tree contains as many sinners as saints.  Among his ancestors were scoundrels, liars, adulterers, murderers, power-mongering men, some scheming women, mostly wicket and or weak kings, corrupt religious authorities, and sinners of all sorts.

     Both persons and the institutions that gave birth to Jesus were a mixture of grace and sin, yet none the less, a mixture that mediated God's favor.  And of it Jesus was born.  This can be scandalous for our sense of propriety and integrity - high ideals of how God ‘should’ come to us that not everything that gave birth to Christmas was immaculately conceived.  The same holds true of what followed after Jesus' birth.  His earthly ministry was also partially shaped and furthered by the self-interest of religious and political authorities of his time and the fear and infidelity of his own disciples.  And this has continued throughout the 2000 years of history since.  No, Jesus' family tree up to our present day has a long list of selfless martyrs and selfish schemers, of virtue and betrayal. But by contemplating the mystery of Jesus Christ in Kairos (=eternal) time, with the innermost lenses of the Spirit, we perceive God's Light, shining in the darkness of our own present Chronos  (=24/7) time. This celebration of Christmas invites us to ponder and trust deeply that a loving a personal God guides each of us as well as in and through the tragic events of contemporary history and in our own personal lives.  This is an enormous challenge to us to today to trust that God is at work in our midst, in and through us, making crooked ways straight and that God's love does and will prevail. This trust is one of the authentic keystones of spirituality.  Matthew is assuring us that God does govern life and that nothing eludes God's power, that there is a guiding plan, beyond our comprehension, which gives meaning to our lives. Like a hidden seed, God's grace works, revealing divinity through people like us, in communities like ours, our very Churches, and in the world at large.

   In ending I would like to draw attention to the photo I posted in the vestibule: a picture of the Golden Repair-a broken pottery put together with a special lacquer dusted with powdered gold. Perhaps we may see in this an innate intuition inscribed in the depths of humanity’s heart that brokenness is not the end of the story: the repaired piece is more beautiful than the original, revitalizing it with new life.  May we trust that this points to what God’s grace is offering to us to embrace today?

(see added attachment for photo)

 Translated “golden joinery,” Kintsugi (or Kintsukuroi, which means “golden repair”) is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a special lacquer dusted with powdered gold.  Beautiful seams of gold glint in the cracks of ceramic ware, giving a unique appearance to the piece.

This repair method celebrates each artifact's unique history by emphasizing its fractures and breaks instead of hiding or disguising them. Kintsugi often makes the repaired piece even more beautiful than the original, revitalizing it with new life.

Thanksgiving: Mt. 6:25-34

November 23, 2017
As preached by Sister Rebecca

Holy Wisdom Church

     Jesus in today’s Gospel gives us a commandment:  do not be anxious.  Jesus is not saying we ought not to feel worry, anxiety but rather not be ruled by them or identified with them:

      The American physician and writer, Lewis Thomas observes that people are ruled by them: “We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present…

Mary Oliver offers another slant on worry:

“I worried a lot.  Will the garden grow?  if not,  how shall I  correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong?  Will I be forgiven, can I do better?

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it?   Am I going to get rheumatism, dementia?  Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.  And gave it up.  And took my old body and went out into the morning and sang.”

Mary Oliver relates to her worries.  They are ‘faced and heard’ then they drop away.

     Feelings are one aspect of who we are as human beings, but our true nature is, as Teilard de Chardin wrote:  “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Or another way of expressing it:  We are humans seeking God; the Divine is here and now having a human experience in and through us.  And not just with the good and pleasant, but the whole of our experiences, including pain, all sorts of feelings such as worry and anxiety. All of these and more are not obstacles on our path.  They are part of the path.  We do not need to try to transcend them, but to be willing to become deeply intimate with our lived and embodied experiences.

      In a most difficult of events, a woman, Dorothy Hunt, described the fact that she had breast cancer.  As she lay waiting for the surgery to begin, she described how she felt no fear, just a complete curiosity. “This is the Mystery having a human experience and everything is OK and everything is present.” Later at the time for her checkup, she shares “that waiting for the result of the tests she felt very anxious, but also not wanting her anxiety to be different.  She felt free.  She is celebrating both the human and the Divine: everything is welcome:  whatever is arising: sadness, anxiety, anger, awe and wonder.

      For centuries in the western world, spirituality has often taught or implied that feelings are a distraction to truth, and that we need to get away from feelings, to distance ourselves from them.  But all aspects of our human nature are not only to be welcomed but also celebrated leaving behind the addiction to the storylines.  We just stay in the raw and innocent feelings without resistance or getting entangled in them.  The psalms portray and express this over and over again.

     Richard Rohr shares: “As I learn to rest and trust in the faithfulness of God, the anxious knots of my life begin to untangle. It begins to be possible to meet each day, not with fear and uncertainty, but with openness and acceptance.  I only need to open to the abundance of life that constantly pours out in an unceasing supply of goodness and blessing.

I would like to end with the hymn we sing at the Divine Liturgy during the Anaphora:

In all things and for all things we praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, O Lord and we pray to you our God.

November 5, 2017 19th Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 57:14-19, 2 Corinthians 1:1-17, Luke 5:17-28

As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Chapel

The gospel this morning is such a good example of the scribes’ and Pharisee’s misunderstanding of the law. If Jesus had reversed the order of his words when he healed the paralyzed man, would the scribes and Pharisees have been as horrified? If he had healed the man and told him to take up his bed and go home, and then indicated his sins were forgiven, perhaps they would not have been scandalized? Perhaps. Most people in those days, and unfortunately even today, did believe that illness was a result of sinning, so if the man was healed it is obvious his sins were forgiven.

 It is the faith of the men carrying the stretcher, that prompted Jesus to heal the paralytic. Perhaps Jesus knew the paralyzed man considered his own sins to be the cause of his illness, and so Jesus had to put to rest whatever might prevent the man from being healed. The paralyzed man was truly transformed by his healing. He went on his way glorifying God.  So did many others who witnessed the event. Only those whose ego needs control and order did not give glory to God for Jesus’ compassionate act.

In the early days of Christianity, the person who chose Christianity chose to face trouble. There was most often abandonment from friends and family, hostility, and persecution from neighbors and the official powers of government. In our country today, the challenges we face are not always so obvious.   The comfort that St. Paul talked about in this morning’s epistle, though, is just as available for any of our afflictions as it was for St. Paul and his Corinthians. The physical and mental stresses we endure can sometimes feel like the weights that were used to crush the life out of people being punished in times gone by. How to live and be Christians can be stressful when we are faced with so many possible responses. St. Paul said much about the observances of keeping the Hebrew laws that had grown out of the original Ten Commandments given to Moses for his people. Basically, Paul said from his studies of the meaning, purpose, and limitations of the law that the law’s function was just to get us started. Instead, too often, the law just takes over.  Paul himself had been an enthusiastic perfect law-abiding Pharisee before Jesus spoke to him. Later, Paul must have wondered how keeping the law so perfectly could create such hateful and violent people as himself—as the person he had been before his conversion.

So, what are the laws of our religion really for? Surely, they are not to make God love us. God already does love us. For almost anyone involved in religion, the relationship between the grace of the Holy Spirit and the laws is a central issue. The tension is between the religion as requirement—that is, the dos and don’ts of any religion—and the religion of transformation, understanding what God wants of us. The grace of God must win. Laws can only give us information. They cannot give us transformation into love and mercy. Law often frustrates the process of transformation by becoming an end in itself.

Are there spiritual laws connected with this transformative process different from religious requirements, or laws of the church? To be able to follow the ethical ideals of Jesus, it seems some level of inner experience with God is necessary. It does not seem possible for us to obey any spiritual law regarding issues like forgiveness of enemies, self-emptying, humble use of power, or treating others as we would like to be treated, except in and through our union with God. It is the Holy Spirit within, enabling us to obey any law or to know its true purpose. Today, with the help of God’s grace, let us open our hearts to this understanding and the strength to carry out our purpose in life. And like Levi-Matthew, let us follow Jesus.

 Christ is in our midst!

Sermon 150; Sir 15:11-20; 1Cor 14:6-20; Mt 25:14-30. Use it or lose it

As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church

And to the one who has, more will be given, but to the one who has not, even that will be taken away. [25:29]

When I was a youngster in Elementary School, I played the cello in the school orchestra and took private cello lessons. But as circumstances would have it, my cello teacher was in a car accident and I had a series of substitute teachers, then it was summer break and I did not resume cello lessons after the summer. I don’t think I am alone as an adult looking back and regretting not having followed up with childhood music lessons. 

We have an expression in English: use it or lose it. I went online to discover a wide variety of applications of that expression. Today’s gospel lesson can be read as a warning or it can be seen as prompting us to value the gifts we have been given. In this case, I was given the gift of music lessons, but I let it go. Now it cannot be recovered. It is lost. It is a shame to let an opportunity like that slip away. Too bad as a child we often don’t have the foresight to see what could develop from that early opportunity. And later in life it is something that can make us sad when we imagine what might have been.  And that is a place of regrets, that is the place the gospel colorfully describes as outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But life, and this gospel message, isn’t just about lost opportunities. And of course, it is not just about childhood opportunities lost.

Gifts from God, what I would like to call opportunities, don’t stop flowing our way just because we grow older. It is an everyday phenomenon.  They may look different but they are still within our grasp. And as youngsters, we may well have seized many opportunities and grown with them. This is the part of the gospel that speaks of doing well with small things, and greater things will follow. We may hear criticisms of the understanding of the gospel as being about doing well and reaping rewards. This is sometimes described as the prosperty gospel.  And yet those who take joy in the gospel message might be forgiven for presuming that the message is not only about pain and suffering. An expansive view of the gospel message embraces both realities. And this gospel passage opens with the image of a wealthy man entrusting talents to his servants. How we respond to that gift is the main point. Jesus is not asking us to throw away such gifts as an act of humility or poverty but rather to use them.

We are heading into the fall which includes the celebration of Thanksgiving. Indeed, giving thanks is a fundamental part of Christian belief. Giving thanks for the gifts we receive from God.  This understanding can be expanded to encompass everything in life as a gift from God. How do we respond to what God has entrusted to us? Whether it is as basic as the gift of life or the world we live in and care for, or a specific talent we may have and can develop; if we engage with it and with life, more will flow from that effort.

Still, the last phrase sticks in our minds: Throw this useless servant into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.  I can remember being told many times by choir directors as we were practicing music that the final phrase, or the finale, is the most important part of a performance because this is what will remain in peoples’ minds and ears. No matter what else happens, try to end well. The whole piece matters but the end reverberates longer. So, it is with today’s gospel reading. The ending is what so often sticks in our minds.  And yet, the greater part of the story is devoted to the gifts and how by using those gifts still greater things will follow. So don’t be fooled by the last phrase, remember the beginning, remember the gifts. As the Psalmist says: Be strong, take heart and hope in the Lord. [Ps 31:24] That’s the real message here.