Homily September 28, 2019

As preached by Sister Rebecca
Holy Wisdom Church

The teaching of the prophet Micah this morning has resonated within me for many years: I have told you what God requires of you: to do justly, to act with love and to walk humbly with your God”.

I have not yet fathomed the depth and the practice of this message, even though I have struggled to understand what these words really mean and point to in my own life.  These words most certainly resonated in Jesus and were lived out in his life as we see in todays Gospel and in St. Paul’s, as in his letter to the Corinthians that we have heard today. 

I would like to single out the very heart of this message:

The literal Hebrew of ‘act with love’, is to act with Hesed. There are many translations in in our English Bibles:  the Hebrew word “Hesed”, is  translated : To love kindness, to love goodness, to love faithfulness, and so on, or to paraphrase: to treasure the Lord’s gracious love which conveys God’s unconditional love.

One of the difficulties in finding an adequate translation is because loving here springs forth as a deep feeling from the heart, the very center, the core of our being.  It is not an action.  But it is transmitted, channeled into action.  Within every human being there abides this capacity to love, and to live out God’s loving within us: to be conscious of it and awakened to it in all our relationships. This is why we are called to prayer of the Heart, contemplative prayer, meditation.

This kind of prayer is all the more important in living out this ‘hesed’ in our daily life.  It may seem at times to be ‘pie in the sky’…yet in times of emotional dissonances, or even upheavals, leaving us feeling helpless, despairing…we need to remember.  Remember what?  Remember the times when we experienced a spark, a fire of love.  We need to go to that space that is in the NOW…it was felt in the past.  But the reality of love has never left us; it is simply gone from our memory for the time being where other feelings have suddenly taken precedence.  At this time, we need to go inward without denying the present feelings and thoughts, but anchor our minds to Remembering God. -Not thoughts of remembering but actually remembering all the while feeling terrible.  This is what is meant by acting in love. And  remembrance of God will not let us down.  Recall the psalms…

Our Christian understanding of “hesed” is Grace as an unending flow of love that surrounds us all the time without our asking for it, without deserving it, without by force of will power.  Hesed is God’s unconditional overpowering abundance of God loving each of us and all humanity.  By extension this love enables us to love one another as we are loved by God.

Recently I heard a story from a Rabbi:  two Rabbis were having conversation.  One of them asked his friend: “Do you love me?”  The other, astonished at his question, said “Of course I love you, Abraham! How could you ask such a question?”  He answered: “Because you do not know what gives me joy and what gives me sorrow”.   

To love enables us to see what is truly in another’s heart.

This hesed is the most important part of Micah’s message, for within it is a prescription for healing the breach between our efforts see beyond the surface of people, to do justly and to walk humbly with our God. 

In the Gospel today, we can understand Jesus’ teaching as beckoning us to build relationships on that underlying love: that same Love that Jesus lived and taught:  Hesed holds the power to unite humans with the Divine and to transform our relationships to work together so that the Kingdom of God be truly realized on earth as it is in heaven. 

Just recently I asked an elderly monk who is considered a wisdom teacher both by Christians and Jews alike, what this love of God looks like in his life.  He very simply said:  part of my early morning prayer is to breathe in God’s breath and to breathe out God’s loving in my life.  How so I asked?  Well, like when I write a weekly homily, I say to God: “ok now, let’s write it together; and then when I have to go shopping and I get into the car and say: “ok let’s do shopping” and so on.  How simple can walking humbly with God get? And yet how deeper and authentic can it get?

To be conscious, and open, and to receive this wondrous, grace of God’s Love, what an awesome Reality to begin anew in the spirit the celebration this evening, when the Jewish community all over the world celebrates Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

On the Sunday of the Elevation of the Holy Cross Gospel of Mark 8:34-9:1

As preached by Brother Marc

Holy Wisdom Churc

Glory to Jesus Christ!

We heard it all our lives; and there is no escaping it; following Christ includes the Cross. The Road of the cross is narrow, but it follows a solid path, and it has clear directional pointers: love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; love expecting nothing in return; help others; keep praying; keep good company; make peace and rejoice. 

Negotiating this Road will bring us to deeper levels of the human heart, to maturity, wisdom and beauty of spirit. It is not a stroll down the road. 

When the 16^th century Spanish Carmelite friar John of the Cross, was nearly beaten to death, (it was a long story,) he asked, in desperation, “What is—grace?” And he heard the reply, “Everything that happens.” Everything that is includes our crosses, and even these are a stimulus to grow in the image of Christ.

How do we experience grace and the desire to take that narrow Road? It all seems too hard. It feels impossible. It includes pain and suffering. Don’t we have enough difficulties, some of them unexpected? At times we are our own worst enemies. We avoid the challenges of the cross; or we barely endure them. We make ourselves feel guilty. Even the apostles asked Christ, “Who then, Lord, can be saved?”

We forget the goodness of our essential selves. Where is the image of God reflected in us? Our childhood influences and habits from adolescence have clouded the mind, constricted the heart, and desensitized our spiritual intuition. Our determination to have it our way, with our favorite peeves and opinions, has brought disaster. 

We can be afraid to face it all and admit, “I can’t live this way anymore.” There is no app or recipe for us to wake up our sleepy and distracted hearts, but it’s smart to reach out for support. We might say the Road of the Cross is the way of external and internal spiritual sanitation and hygiene. The dust clouds in our minds and the murky waters of our hearts need to be gently cleaned up.

Here is a Zen poem that describes the process.

Like the little stream//

Making its way//

Through the mossy crevices//

I, too, //quietly//

Turn clear// and transparent.  —Ryoco

At first we can just sit down quietly for a moment every day. We muster our strength. We resolve our excuses that block us from making our way through the mossy crevices. The stream turns clear, the mirror of the mind gets polished, and our life’s energy flows. This too is grace.

A person on retreat here came to a nun and said, “I cannot do this. My mind wanders a thousand times!” The nun said, “Good.” She asked, “Why is that good?” The nun answered, “That means a thousand times to return to God.” Like driving a vehicle and riding a bike and hiking, we constantly return our eyes to the road. The Cross tells us it’s a matter of life and death. This is the truth of our new Road. We may grit our teeth, but then we become stronger. 

An elder monk I spoke with remarked about walking that long road, “Now I see the thread of my life and why certain things happened; now I know some interior calm, and a certain unity of heart and mind.

The icon of the Cross urges us to make the first move. When we take that hard and narrow road, it takes us, still carrying our cross, to the Lord of life who awaits us with open arms.

Exaltation 2019 Is 10:25-27,11:10-12, 1Cor 1:17-28, Jn 19:13-35

As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

 

Today we are celebrating the EXALTATION of the cross of Christ. Who among us can really understand the folly of the cross. There are many who have explanations for why we celebrate this cross and even all our other crosses. Crosses usually indicate pain, suffering, loss. The particular cross that is being exalted here is specifically the cross our lord and king was hung upon until he died. It is the love God has for us that ultimately caused Jesus to give up his life. That love is one reason we exalt the Cross. Connected with the dying on the cross is Christ being raised from death to life. That Resurrection gives us all hope that all the crosses in life we endure give rise to our own eternal life in God.   That hope is why it is said that death is swallowed up by death. We live still, after we die.

This week we commemorated 9/11 and all who have suffered and are still suffering from it. This past month we also commemorated the 400 years since the first black slaves landed on our shores. The unimaginable suffering that has occurred because of these two happenings are very real. How are we to deal with what history has shown us about these two happenings, as well as the Holocaust and other genocides? 

 To passively accept whatever comes our way might seem like the ascetical way to go. However, I am reminded of one of the sculptures in the NYC chapel near 9/11. It is a bust of Christ crowned with thorns but whose arms only extend half way to his elbows. The artist’s intention is that we have to be Christ’s arms and hands to bring about good in the world. There is no doubt that we should try to alleviate suffering where and when we can. We can’t work miracles as Jesus did but there is much that we can do. There must be a way to acquire a contemplative mindset besides the necessary carving out time for private prayer. Seeing God in every friendly face, every sunny day, every happy occasion is an invitation to encounter God. That is easy. Seeing more difficult people, places, and happenings as occasions for deeper, closer relationship with God is not so easy.

Most of us have come to see that the created world is not bad. It is what we do and what others do that can be bad. It is easy to recognize the difficult situations and people that come our way. The contemplative heart asks: are we open to letting these situations and people change us, free us to let Christ lead us?

The irrationality of sin and evil against those who have experienced abuse, slavery, and degradation leave behind timebombs of antagonisms and hatreds. Nothing can heal these absurdities but love. Only love can heal the deep scars of injustice on the soul, however they are acquired. Jesus disappears at his Ascension but his Spirit does not. In the Acts of the Apostles we see a lame man spring up and walk at the sound of Jesus’ name. We hear of the angry mob stoning Stephen while Jesus appears to him in glory. We see his disciples jailed, his apostles arguing policy, missionaries thrown out and communities split apart. We see all the dark corners in which we find ourselves even now some 2 millennia after Christ’s Resurrection. The power of the Spirit works even to enlighten us to see things in new ways, to discover what it really means to “love your neighbor as yourself”, to pick up pieces and put them back together in innovative ways so the image of God can shine more clearly in a world still held in the grip of darkness.

Hope encourages us that against present evidence, life is worthwhile.   Love is the only thing that “will wipe every tear from their eyes”. Rev 21:4   When faith and hope pass away, love remains. Love is the core of God’s very being, the heart of Christ’s incarnation, the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the purpose of our Christian life as disciples of Jesus. The cross is a symbol of our mission and the same as our goal: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Jn 13:34b