Sermon 200 September 14, 2024 Jn 19:13-35, 1 Cor 1:17-28, Is 10:25-27, 11:10-12 Exaltation of the Cross

As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church



In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

     The cross is everywhere in our society. It is in things we don't even think about as having a cross: windows, building structures [remember the 9/11 photos of the collapsed twin towers], tile walls and floors, lamps, telephone poles, appliances, and many others. This doesn't include all the things we know to be used as religious symbols: cemetery crosses, hand crosses, crosses worn as emblems, and of course the familiar act of crossing ourselves. There is also the terrifying image in the film The Mission of the priest tied to a cross and thrown over the Iguazu Falls in Paraguay. And we also have the Old Testament story of Moses holding up his arms during the battle against Amalek. Today's feast, the Exaltation of the Cross, commemorates the story of St Helena, Emperor Constantine's mother, finding the True Cross in Jerusalem in the 4th century [ca. 326]. It is also a reminder of how important the Cross is to the Christian faith.

     In thinking about today's feast I was constantly brought back to the concept of the True Cross. It is an obvious reference to the wooden cross that Jesus was crucified on. Yet it also opens up the possibility of meditating on the cross not as a physical object but as the essence of our faith. How do we human beings live a life linked to the Cross?

     John Behr in his book Becoming Human, offers a meditation on the nexus between our humanity and Jesus Christ's human reality. God becomes a human being so that human beings can become God. All of creation comes from God. We humans simply work with and manipulate what God has created. The fact that we live is from God. The fact that we die is our human reality since God does not die. The fact that Jesus Christ died on the Cross as a human being and passed into life eternal is the redemptive salvation that Christ bestowed on humankind. What he did, he did once for all.

     As John Behr says in his book Becoming Human: "Death is... the only thing that all men and women have in common from the beginning of the world onwards, throughout all regions and cultures of the world." [p. 21]. But that death is not about an end but rather a new beginning. On our journey in this life, the more closely we are able to align ourselves with Christ's life the more fully we will be able to experience the life eternal that Christ has prepared for us.

     As we continue to align ourselves with the life of Christ, the more powerful is the reality of the Cross in our lives. The Cross that we carry is not some external physical object. What is the true cross? Stand up and hold out your arms. No you're not being frisked! That is the True Cross for us, we are actually made in it's image and likeness! We are born with it and carry it all our life!

     Glory to the Holy and Lifegiving Cross! Glory Forever!

Sermon 199 July 28, 2024 Mt 8:28-9:1; Rom 6:8-18; Is 65:1-10. Costly.

 As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

       One never knows what the gospel reading is likely to stir up as we meditate on it. Today's gospel lesson dredged up for me experiences from my teenage years in LA. The early 1960s in America was one of great ferment which was played out in California as elsewhere in the States. The Viet Nam War, the Civil Rights movement, a presidential assassination, race riots, hippies, to name only the most obvious examples. A political furor was stirred up in California when the state legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act in September 1963. This outlawed discrimination against people of color seeking housing. Up until then it was legal to refuse to sell your home to someone on the basis of ethnicity. This practice was promoted by the real estate association in California. Their basic argument was that if people of color moved into white neighborhoods, property values would drop. So people should have the right to dispose of their property as they saw fit to protect the value of their property. So proposition 14 appeared on the November 1964 ballot to amend the California Constitution to nullify the 1963 Rumford Act. It passed with a 65% vote in favor of the proposition.

       So why would that vignette come to mind? A dramatic Act was undertaken to heal a sickness in society and the people rejected it. Saying basically, don't mess with the way things are because the cost is too high. The cost outweighs the benefit. Of course, that all depends on your point of view. Financial costs versus the benefits of needed healing.

       In today's gospel, the Gadarenes may have feared the possessed men, but when Jesus heals them and the village pigs end up being the cost to be paid for that healing, the people said no thank you. Please leave our neighborhood. You have destroyed our livelihood. And one might add the gloss that the livelihood was gain from an unclean occupation from a Jewish point of view. So Jesus walked away.

       There is a cost to discipleship and when we face that cost it is so very human to decline to pay it. It will always take us out of our comfort zone. It very likely will have financial implications. And we can say no, and Jesus will walk away. The Christian message is not about coercion. But it is about decision. The gospel elsewhere quotes Jesus saying "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." [Mt 10:34]. He came to change relationships. To rethink the tried and true. To reorient priorities. To find ways to fix inequities, to bring outsiders back in. To remind us that the father wants all to be saved. No one is to be left behind. Jesus can help us move in the right direction but the decision is ours, to accept or decline the offer.

       In 1965 the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 14 was unconstitutional thereby reinstating the Fair Housing Act. Jesus walked away, but what he did remained. The healing happened in spite of the views of the Gadarenes. In California the housing market was changed forever. However, some people's attitudes still haven't changed. But for many the new lived experience has helped people overcome their fears. It has taken a long time and the journey to healing is far from complete in California, or in our country. To be Christ's disciples requires that we go inward to soften our hearts. To remind ourselves that all are God's children, all, not just some.

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

June 23 2024 Pentecost Joel 2:23-3:5, AC 2:1-11, Jn 7:37-52, 8:12

 As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

Jesus cried out on the last day of the festival of Booths, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me ...and drink. Out of believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now Jesus said this about the Spirit which believers were to receive, for as yet there was no Spirit. That seems an odd thing to say, so what could it mean, there was no Spirit? We know the Spirit is spoken of quite often in the Hebrew scriptures. To mention just a few times, The Spirit of God hovers over the waters during creation. Genesis 1:2:  And the spirit of the LORD gripped David from that day on"1 Samuel 16:13. The Spirit of God is also mentioned in other places in the Pentateuch, including Genesis 6:3, Exodus 31:3, and Numbers 11:17. In many of these references, the Spirit of God "came upon" an individual and enabled them to speak or act on behalf of YHVH

Perhaps “no spirit” can be understood by thinking about nuclear power.  It has existed for eons but has only recently been aware of to be able to tap into for our use.

So the Holy Spirit has always existed but humankind never experienced the Spirit quite this way until Pentecost. We see now that the Spirit brings us the presence of the Risen Christ –who is always with us. The early church had a sense that Jesus was the hinge of all history: that with his coming, eternity had entered time. Therefore, life and the world would never be the same. In Jesus alone is salvation and the ones who believed would receive the Holy Spirit who was the dominant reality in the life of the early church.

From our second reading from Acts we heard that this mob was hearing the word of God in way that struck straight home to their hearts and that they could understand in whatever language it was spoken. The power of the Spirit had given these simple disciples a message that could reach every heart. The church was born on that day of Pentecost: the church was born universal! In all languages she proclaims the “marvels of God”.

The Good news needs to be translated, that is: the Word needs to be transmitted and explained. Are we translators of the Word of God to our brothers and sisters? The primary translation is faithfulness to the Gospel. The Gospel is the book for Christians. But the life of Christians is the book for unbelievers. Do our own hearts need to be converted to understand more fully the Covenant we made?

Just as the people of the Exodus, fifty days after coming out of Egypt, received the law of Sinai and entered into the Covenant, in the same way the community of Jesus, fifty days after the Lord’s Resurrection - his exodus from the world - received his law, which is the Spirit of Jesus, and entered into the new Covenant.

In our Covenant with God, God understands that we are human. As a result, our acceptance, our understanding, and our implementation of divine precepts will be stamped with the particularities of who we are and in what situation we find ourselves. The precepts of God are in the context of a loving relationship. They are gifts of love, even though we do not always understand them immediately. Mostly divine precepts are given to us to hold onto so that they begin to have a formative effect on our beliefs and values. It is only when they have been successful in bringing a change of heart that they begin to influence our choices and actions.

Is my personal relationship with Jesus a relationship between servant to master or an authentic relationship of love, of the Covenant of love?  May the grace of Pentecost enable the Spirit of love, love for everyone, all races, nationalities, genders and ourselves, be the law of our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon 198 June 16, 2024 Jn 11:47-52; Acts 12:1-7; 1 Cor 15:12-21 [Council Fathers] Father's Day, Tikhon of Amathus + Gregory of Narek - Divisions

 As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Today is Fathers' Day. Blessings to all our fathers. And by coincidence, our church also celebrates today the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council [325]. This was the Council that formulated the Nicean Creed: The symbol of faith that codified our understanding that Jesus Christ was both human and divine. The Creed emerged from this Council at Nicaea because it was tasked with dealing with the divisive views of Arius who held that Jesus was a prophet but not God.

       The creed also states that Christ died and rose from the dead. And as we heard in this morning's gospel reading, Christ's crucifixion flowed from the insistence of the High Priest Caiaphas that Jesus should die. The High Priest and Pharisees met to deal with Jesus who was seen as dividing the people by drawing them to himself and away from the established religious leaders and threatening the survival of Israel.

       Jesus understood this line of thinking because when he was accused of being in league with the devil [Beelzebub], Jesus replied that a house divided among itself cannot stand. Dealing with divisive impulses in the church and society have not disappeared from the human condition.

       Just look at where we are today in our Christian Church. Divided among ourselves not only between denominations but also within particular jurisdictions. And if we don't want to look too closely at our faith community, we can look at our country to see what being divided among ourselves is doing to our nation. It is the problem Richard Rohr is constantly warning us about: dualistic thinking. The dangers of thinking in terms of us vs them. It's a dead end, literally.

       Creating a creed for the church to bring uniformity to basic beliefs did not heal the divisions, it solidified them. This doesn't mean that the creed was a mistake, but it does point to a reality that goes beyond creeds. Christ told us that the most important commandments are to love God and to love one's neighbor. Notice, these commandments are not in the creed. However, for the creed to be effective, these commandments need to be in our hearts.

       The creed also speaks of Christ being born of a virgin which flows from prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. However, I suspect that Christ wasn't particularly concerned that his followers believe that he was born of a virgin, at least we have nothing in scripture to indicate that. But the image of virginity can be useful in helping us understand that purity of heart and humility, two essential qualities of the Virgin Mary, are worth striving for in our lives. And Christ said of himself, I am humble of heart. And we also profess that Christ was human in every way except sin, a level of purity truly in line with his divinity.

       We can take the creed and make it a litmus test for membership in the church but we can also take it as a teaching tool for helping us spread the message that Jesus Christ through his church brings hope to the hopeless, help to those in need, support for those striving to lead a life of virtue and salvation to all who believe.

       Resurrection is about new life. The fact that Christ's message of new life was gaining adherents upset the High Priest and the Pharisees, and so they concluded that he had to be stopped. His message was too good and too powerful. His death was their solution. But it backfired. His death didn't kill his message, it gave it new impetus following his resurrection.

       There may be many practical plans laboriously arrived at for overcoming divisions in our churches, in society, and between nations. But laws and agreements can be easily torn up and disregarded. This is why the Christian message of the Good News is never obsolete. Living a life that Christ calls us to live which recognizes a power and authority beyond human frailty and opens avenues for reconciliation, understanding and mutual respect is the soil in which concord rather than division can flourish.

As St Gregory of Narek, whom we recall today, wrote:

       You for our sake alone became flesh with us,

       So that you may make us for your sake like yourself.

       Light for all, in all things merciful, almighty, heavenly.

 

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

By the Pool of Bethsaida

 As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

1 Peter 1:1-13, Acts 8:26-40, John 5:1-15

Have you ever wondered what occupied the mind of the man who had been lying in one of the 5 porticoes of the pool of Bethzatha? During all that time—nearly 40 years—he still kept the hope of being cured of whatever illness he had. Perhaps he had memorized some psalms and prayed them over and over while he lay there.  When Jesus approached him and asked him if he wanted to be healed, his answer, immediately, was YES. When Jesus spoke to him, he did not hesitate to pick up his mat and start walking. When Jesus later revealed his name, we might wonder why the man went immediately to the authorities. The stringent Sabbath rules indicated that a person breaking them by carrying a burden was to be stoned. The poor man evidently felt he had to explain his behavior to the authorities to avoid death.   

Whether this man was praying the psalms or not, in our daily praying the psalms, I notice how often we plead for help.  At times, it can seem that really sincere prayer comes only when we are dealing with really dire conditions. When things go awry, we remember God and call for help. When all is well, we are inclined to manage on our own and not even think about God. Often, though, we do ask for God’s help when nothing extraordinary is threatening, and we also offer praise and thanksgiving to God.  

We abandon the illusion of total self-sufficiency when we call for help and remember to pray. The relationship between helper and helped is strengthened among us mere mortals when we call for help. How much more is this true with our God.   

The help given by God comes in different forms. Sometimes it seems by chance, sometimes by the good will of others. Sometimes God seems to inspire us to draw what is needed from within ourselves. It may be by triggering memories that motivate us to apply ourselves with greater determination. Sometimes it is sincere encouragement and approval from others that boost our flagging energies. God can help us in many ways to do what seems impossible. The effectiveness of such interventions is our willingness to accept help, and this willingness is best indicated by asking for help.

In this morning’s second reading, Peter is telling the crowd that they are to love as God loves. To the extent that we realize that living in accordance with this directive is a challenge, we often find ourselves asking God for assistance in following this path. This endeavor is inspired and prompted by God’s word, but it is beyond our meager resources. So we pray—pray that God will enlighten and strengthen us to do what God has commanded.

To have caught sight of the reality of the spiritual world, even if only for a moment, makes what happens in this world of space and time no longer the most absolute value. A profound desire that has its object in something beyond the world of space and time is not uncommon. All reality has an aura of mystery. We can perceive a portion of reality that impinges on our senses, but not what is beyond our sight and hearing.

If our notion of religion or spirituality is limited to its organizational aspect—beliefs, values, rituals, and social structures—something is missing. Expressions of faith are important and essential, but they are not everything. Desire to be more fully in the transcendent reality of God is at the heart of all spirituality. We benefit by seeking a more explicit awareness of the desire for God.  Louder and more mundane ambitions can block out this desire. The patient long-suffering hope shown by the sick man by the pool of Bethzatha is a lesson for us to not give up.

 In our own experience, what started us on the road of spiritual searching? We can bring that initial experience into line with our present circumstances and give it a voice in our choices. Let this psalm be not only on our lips, but also of our  hearts.

 “Lord let your hand be my help, for I have chosen your precepts” (Psalm 119:173).

This endeavor is not only a source of comfort; it contains also a note of challenge, demanding that we abandon narrow fixed perspectives and routines and venture into new territory. We praise God best by growing beyond narrow confines and allowing ourselves to be constantly reformed by the ever-creative word of divine self-revelation.

Christ is Risen!

Sermon 197 May 19, 2024 Mk 15:42-16:8; Acts 5:12-20; 1 Jn 4:16-21 Myrrhbearing Women

As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church

Christ is Risen [Truly Risen][3 times]

 
    When I am absolutely certain of something, convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt, and then run into the reality that I am wrong. What do I do? Run away? Try to make the new conditions fit into my old understanding? Shut my eyes and hope that when I open them again all will be as it should be? Doesn't work, does it? And even more frustrating is when the new reality is so much better than what I was expecting, and I still can't accept it!

    Welcome to the post burial and resurrection world of the friends of Christ; his disciples, apostles, and yes, the myrrhbearing women. But it's not just their world, it's our world too. We, maybe even more than our first century forebears, are conditioned mentally, physically, intellectually and spiritually, to have all the pieces of the puzzle fit together as expected. When they don't: it's trouble! We want to know that what we can touch and see and recognize is all there is to reality. Even our yearning for deeper meaning is too easily crushed by our environmental conditioning.

    The myrrhbearing women prepared for the wrong event. They thought they were preparing for the right event, but they found the unexpected. An empty tomb. But what did that mean? They didn't know and couldn't process it so they fled. There could have been a theft. That was one theory. What was the reality?

    After the empty tomb, Jesus then proceeds to appear to many of his friends in various places and over an extended period of time. If they won't believe the empty tomb, then personal appearances were necessary. Why? Because his physical presence on earth had to end, but his work had to continue. And that work was for those he left behind. He needed to energize them for the work still to be done. So they had to see and believe that the Good News was for real, that he did indeed rise from the dead. As St Paul says elsewhere: If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then we Christians are the most pitiable of people. But he did rise! And many people saw him after his resurrection. The myrrhbearers' fear was turned to joy. And those witnesses were so certain of what they saw and experienced that they were willing to proclaim the Good News, even to the point of dying for it.

    As the angel said: "Why seek the living among the dead? Why weep for one beyond corruption? Go! Proclaim the news to all who love him!"

    The work those first bearers of the Good News undertook is an on-going process. And that includes us. Just like them we have to overcome the skepticism of our minds and be open to the reality that is beyond the boundaries of our physical senses. And once that new "reality" sinks in, then, like the myrrhbearers, the joy they experienced and spread, also opens up for us a new life in Christ. And living that life with fidelity can be the opening to others.

    To do this is to live out the admonition we just heard in the reading from the first letter of St. John. If you don't love the neighbor you can see how can you say you love the God you cannot see. So as we often say, and can never say too often, the God of love, who is love, not only wants our love but wants us to share that love with others.

    Christ rose from the dead to bring us that joy of knowing that God's love for us is so great that it is both why were were created but also why God wants us to be with him forever. It begins here, and never ends.

Christ is Risen!

3rd Sunday of Lent, April 7, 2024

 As preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church

Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Peter 2:21b-25, Luke 9:18-27

The last sentence in this morning’s gospel was: “There are some standing here who will not taste death before seeing the kingdom of God”. What did Jesus mean by those words? And how should we understand them? Several different interpretations have been offered. The next words in Scripture are those describing Jesus taking Peter, James, and John up the mountain, where he was transfigured before them.  That is one way of interpreting His words. Those three men certainly viewed a bit of heaven when they saw Jesus transfigured.

Another thought is that many of Jesus’ disciples would themselves be transformed and would also see others transformed when they believed the teaching of Jesus. Before dying, their transformation IS the kingdom of God on earth. For the apostles became convinced Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, but He was not the Messiah they had been taught to expect. He even indicated he was to suffer and die—another hurdle for them in their transformation.

What is our response to the unexpected that comes into our lives? Have we learned to turn to God in prayer? Asking help from God is a sign that dependence on God has become a part of our approach to life. In some mysterious way, we know that God will come to our assistance. It is the kingdom of God affecting our lives. Help will come, whether by removing or reducing the causes of our trouble, or by increasing our inward resources, making us better able to cope with the situation. The petition in Psalm 70, “O God, come to my aid, O Lord hasten to help me,” can come to mind in many situations we face every day, as well as in the emergencies that confront us.

When life delivers experiences which are contrary to our preferences and expectations, we can become upset. Sometimes the degree of our disturbance is greater than the situation calls for. We are not reacting to the triggering event but to a more deep-seated source of resentment.

  A misspoken word or momentary delay can occasion anger that is out of proportion to its supposed cause. Remembering God and our prayer, “O God, come to my aid, O Lord make haste to help me,” serves as a counter-balance for the many irritants that undermine life. Bad things do happen, and sometimes others are blameworthy, but we must take charge of our own perspective on life.

Even if we do not face overt persecution on a daily basis, there can be many occasions when we face negative reactions from someone. While these sometimes grow into open hostility, at other times they can take subtler forms: distance, indifference, non-responsiveness, and rudeness. Whether we know the reason or not, we can just regard the difficulty as a reminder of our human condition, and use it as a springboard to strengthen our relationship with God. We can simply determine not to allow these everyday strains to grow into a major fracture. Rather than praying for vengeance, let our prayer be that our own hearts be expanded to make room for a wider acceptance of others who are different. When we learn to enter the sphere of divine compassion, we become a little less ready to hand down harsh judgements on others. We learn to look upon their obnoxious behavior more in pity than in blame.   Instead of despairing of repairing a broken relationship, we may be inspired to add a few grains of sand to the hourglass to bring about a balance so a measure of harmony is eventually restored.

For centuries the church has used the prayer of Saint Ephrem to remind us of one way of being in charge of our perspective on life:  

“Dispel from me the spirit of discouragement and slothfulness, of ambition and vain talk. Instead, give me the spirit of prudence and humility, of patience and charity.

Yes, my king and Lord, let me look at my own sins and refrain from judging others:
 For you are blest for ages of ages, amen.”

Christ is in our midst!

 

Some ideas from Michael Casey “the Longest Psalm”

 

Good Samaritan Sunday 4/14/24 Isaiah 49:1-7, Romans 13:8b-25, Luke 10:25-37

 As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

In this morning’s gospel, Jesus’ answer to the lawyer is clear: Anyone in need of help is a neighbor to be loved in whatever way we can. It takes a real Metanoia, a real change in our minds and hearts, to be able to love fully. Just as St Paul made very clear in this morning’s epistle.

The eclipse this past Monday that brought so many all across the United States to view this wonder of creation gave evidence that we can unite as one people. People from other countries, even, were here to view the sun’s eclipse and were welcomed. While many welcomed the eclipse as a boon to the economy, there was a great deal of actual relating with others.

We must be converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe and with each other. To be dominated by love, we must be able to become aware of God’s presence within. We become aware of the sacred in every single element of life. We must be healers in a harsh society. No matter what division and violence we see in our world, we are assured that Christ’s victory will be the final victory. How can we be in the world differently to help bring it about?  We want to live in a society where we don’t “pass by on the other side” as the priest and Levite did on the way to Jericho. People and communities are providing support by helping in homeless shelters, supplying foodbanks, and aiding refugees.

St John’s Chapel near the twin towers in New York City was used as a place for the responders to rest and treat the wounded after the towers were attacked. All the interior furniture—including the pews and altar—was emptied out and placed on the street which eventually basically destroyed them for further use. In time the chapel needed to be refurbished, and a special architect was put in charge to make the chapel a reminder of the destruction of the twin towers. One of the commissions for the chapel was a two-foot-high sculpture of the crucified Christ’s head and chest without arms. The artist’s intent was to remind us that we are Christ’s arms and hands. We are members of Christ’s body, and we can and must love.

The world is full of surprises, and by responding creatively to the unexpected, we can allow the full power of our latent potential to emerge. We would be wise to consider whether God is speaking to us in those moments when reality is different from what we expect. We are being asked to look in a different direction, open to the possibility that we are being asked to change.

It takes a special act of grace to accommodate ourselves to every condition of life, to carry an equal temper of mind through every circumstance. On one hand, only in Christ can we face poverty, pain, and sickness contentedly—that is, without losing our comfort in God. On the other hand, only in Christ can we face having plenty and not be filled with pride rather than gratitude. In the end, we will be judged by the life we live: not by the beliefs we hold, but by the way we have loved others.

May we continue forward, not as rigid keepers of the law, but with our minds and hearts open to all that comes our way, knowing that God is with us!

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Sermon 196 April 7, 2024 Lk 9:18-27-14, 1 Pt 2:21b-25 Is 49:1-7 Cross

 As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church



In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit!



Does the cross mean anything in our world today? In our popular culture, Easter, seems to be primarily, a day for family gatherings, easter egg hunts and bunnies. Easter has reverted back to the ancient spring festival from which the name is derived. And preparing for Easter with prayer and fasting and good works has devolved into an opportunity for fun in the sun in such warmer climes as Florida, the Caribbean and out West. But wrestling with our darkness and bringing it into the light of Christ may be unfathomable for most people.

In the Orthodox tradition, as we arrive at the middle of our Lenten journey, we are reminded of the passion of Christ by focusing on the Cross and its meaning in our lives and the life of our world. I happen to be reading through a rather large [over 3000 pages] medieval meditation on the Life of Christ written by a Carthusian monk. He draws upon every patristic source available to him at the time. And what I find fascinating is how, through meditation, the writer is drawing the reader into participating in Christ's life, and especially during his passion, into his suffering. How? By using contemplation to transform the events into a spiritual experience. Drawing on the approach of the fathers, he emphasizes that what we do today inflicts additional suffering on Christ. So, when I sin it is like spitting on Christ, slapping him, scourging him, indeed even nailing him to the cross again!

Curiously, this medieval approach connects to something much closer to our time. I recently, listened to a contemporary setting of the Saint John Passion by Bob Chilcott, an English composer of choral and vocal music, who for a few years sang with the King's Singers before breaking out on his own as a composer. The program notes began with a story from Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, who was a chaplain to the British armed forces. He wrote of an experience in WWI where he recalled 'running to our lines half mad with fright' during the Battle of Messines in June 1917. He stumbled over the corpse of a young German soldier. 'I remember muttering, "You poor little devil, what had you got to do with it? Not much of the great blonde Prussian about you." Then there came light. [...] It seemed to me that the boy disappeared and in his place there lay the Christ upon his cross. ... From that moment on I never saw a battle as anything but a crucifix. From that moment on I have never seen the world as anything but a crucifix. I see the cross set up in every slum, in every filthy overcrowded quarter... I see [Christ] staring up at me from the pages of the newspaper that tells of a tortured, lost, bewildered world.'

As I read that story I thought about how much these words fit with the medieval monk's meditation on Christ's passion and how much they still apply to our world today. It is not a stretch to think about how we humans crucify Christ over and over again. Whether it is something we notice in our own behavior or the behavior prompted by societal passions, not to mention played out on the world's stage.

But the Cross is not just a reminder of the depths to which we humans can descend, it is also a powerful symbol of hope. It points to the offering Christ willingly gave to the world by his death. By his willingness to take on the world's sins and transform them into building blocks of new relationships and new life. Every moment in history, including the one we are living now, can become the turning point toward individual and communal resurrection. If it points to where we have failed, it also points to where we can begin to change. No matter how evil and egregious the behavior, the opportunity to acknowledge error and initiate movement down new pathways is always available. It begins in each human heart and then spreads. This is our Lenten work. This is why we bring the cross to the center of the church to venerate and to meditate on its implications for each of us.

Christ is in our midst!

Sermon 195 Feb 25, 2024 Lk 18:9-14, Phil 3:5-9 Dt 6:4-18 Publican & Pharisee - Prayer from the heart

As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church


In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Lent is an old English word for Spring. So it marks the season for spring cleaning. Some of us may relish this time and others may want to flee it. The church in the English speaking world has coopted the term Lent and applied it to the period of preparation for our entry into the mystery of the Passion of Christ. How might we use this period to its fullest benefit? The church gives us a valuable starting point by placing before us, as Great Lent approaches, the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee.

The story presents a rather stark contract between the two characters: humility vs self-righteousness. But what if we back up a bit from this particular moment in the temple and ponder what might have led these two individuals to go to the temple to pray at this time. There is no indication that this was connected to any particular celebration or high holy day.  So, what might we imagine was going on in the lives of these two people?

We might assume that the pharisee had his own personal rule of prayer and that it included specific times set aside for prayer in the temple. So he may have gone to the Temple not just to fulfill an obligation but rather to engage in part of his regular practice of prayer. It was his routine. This would be expected behavior since he was a pharisee. This would also tend to show that he was a person who valued his prayer life and believed that by pursuing it he was doing God's will and living life in a way that pleased God. Probably not unlike many of us.

Now the publican's life was quite different and we have no way of knowing what kind of prayer life he may have had.  Instead, we have an image of a man who pursued a vocation that included serving the interests of a foreign occupier by collecting taxes on their behalf. It was expected that he would use his position to collect money for himself; a practice understood, but despised, by his fellow Jews, and seen as quite illegal by us today. My guess is that few of us would identify with the tax collector: aiding a hostile foreign power and using our position to "feather our nest" as the saying goes. Even if we translate these activities into something closer to home, such as: compromising our principles in order to keep our jobs and finding ways to varnish the truth to avoid paying our taxes, we most likely will not see ourselves in those roles either. And yet, the parable is telling us the tax collector was the righteous one in the end. How is that possible?

Prayer from the heart.

Whether our prayer is regular or spasmodic, it needs to be from the heart, not just from the head. And the heart needs to be open to God's urgings. Sometimes an open heart is created by prayer that softens an otherwise hard heart. Sometimes it may emerge from a crisis that finally challenges our assumptions about life and how we are living it. There needs to be an opening, that "narrow door," through which God can enter to help us find our way back to that better, or true, self we are all created to be.  We can't know, but we can surmise, that the publican had to be experiencing some kind of personal crisis of conscience that led him to the temple that day to pray for forgiveness. The pharisee, on the other hand, was still very secure in his view that he was doing God's will. But the scene in the temple that Christ creates, is showing us that our inner disposition informs our prayer. The publican had reached the place where his prayer, his desire for forgiveness, and consequently, for help in changing his life, was connecting with God's urgings. The pharisee, however, still secure in his image of his righteousness, was unable to see how far his prayer was from God's intensions. Did our tax collector change his life? We don't know, but we do know that Jesus was zeroing in on who this tax collector really was and not just on what he was doing. He was calling him, and us, to align our life to the true self God created us to be.

So, we enter this period of self examination, striving to soften our hearts and thereby to open ourselves to God's designs for us. To do this to the best of our ability, we need to live at all times mindful of God's love for us and strive to share that love with our neighbor and all creation.

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Reflections on Lk 19:1-10

As preached by Brother Theophan
Holy Wisdom Church

Today’s Gospel reading is about how the intensity of our desire to know God meets with God’s desire to know us, in a very personal way. Zaccheus was a rich publican - someone who made his riches in a kind of sleazy way, by extorting excessive taxes from hard-working people. Not only was he rich, he was also the chief of publicans, so to some extent had both money and power, but there was still something missing. There was a deep longing in his soul that none of these external things could fill, a loneliness that he kept hidden. So when he heard that Jesus was passing through Jericho, his heart caught on fire.  He was willing to feel the full force of his longing: deep in his heart he had an intuition that finally, he’s found that one thing that he was always searching for.

So he acted on this intuition. He stopped caring about what others would say or think about him: pride and vanity couldn’t hold him back. The crowds laughed at him, but it didn’t matter. He scrambles up the tree, above the crowd of distractions and doubts, hoping just to catch a glimpse of Christ. He was being magnetized to a greater Love. And what happened when this desire took over his heart? God arrives to meet him: the God who knows him by name. God wants to be a guest in his house - the human heart becomes God’s place of visitation. To be seen like that by God is to experience a love that nothing else in this world can offer. Zaccheus is overwhelmed and completely transforms his life, he corrects his past mistakes.

This Gospel is reaching out to what is most alive inside of us and giving it a shake: that something that wants to be in deep connection, that is like an open window to mystery. It’s asking us to fully feel our longing and desire for what is deepest in life - we call that God, the source of life, source of our being.  That source is always calling us but to be receptive we have to consent to feel our need for it and risk becoming completely vulnerable.  And only then do we start having the capacity to be filled up with a life force that is infinitely greater than what any of the so-called substitutes can offer. Our culture never stops offering us a whole range of substitutes and if you refuse to believe in these, rest assured someone will be there to ridicule you like they did Zaccheus.

This hunger for God can be experienced as a loneliness that nothing can cover up. Zaccheus shows us what happens when we consent to consciously own this loneliness without always trying to fill it up, or numbing ourselves to avoid feeling that aching homesickness for our own essence. Part of the Gospel teaching is to allow ourselves to fully feel the pure energy of desire and longing without settling for a quick fix. To risk falling in love with Love itself. If we can enter into this twilight of loneliness and longing, enter and then learn to stay in it, then God will appear to meet us there as a fountain of radiance and strength, of beauty and pure goodness. Then life will be full of meaning and we will have the answer to everything we were searching for out there.

Fr Thomas Keating said that we all have our own “emotional programs for happiness” - all the different ways of going after what we mistakenly believe will bring us lasting happiness. We learn these programs from an early age and they have a very strong influence over us. But sooner or later all of them leave us more or less disappointed - because human beings were made to be satisfied only by the infinite and yet we are always mistaking temporary spikes in happiness as the entire purpose of life. These programs hook us so that we forget about the one thing necessary. And as long as we aren’t conscious of them, the futile programs for happiness run our life. So when our needs for comfort, a good reputation, outside attention and approval are met we look around and we’re haunted by a sense of emptiness - and we think: what’s missing? Fr Keating defines metanoia or conversion as a radical 360 degree change in where we look for happiness. This is an ongoing process, not a one time and you’re done sort of thing.  We have to be willing to consciously unhook from the mistaken emotional programs and that’s a rocky road - it’s usually the last thing we want to do because we’re addicted to the quick-fixes and instant gratifications. But doing this spiritual homework is the only way God can enter in and the only way we can reconnect with our source.

I’d like to share some short reflections from St. Tikhon of Zadonsk about Christ as the fulfillment of our deepest longing-

Do you desire good for yourself? All good is in Me.
Do you desire beauty? What is lovelier than I?
Riches? All riches are in me.
Wisdom? I am the Wisdom of God.
Friendship? Who is a greater friend than I - I who laid down my life for all.
Happiness? Who can be happy without me?
Do you seek peace? I am the peace of the soul.
Do you seek life? In Me is the fount of Life.
Do you seek light? I am the Light of the world.

Glory be to Christ.

Reflections on Lk 5:29-39 2/11/24

As preached by Brother Theophan
Holy Wisdom Church



Christ tells us here that He came to save the sinners and not the righteous. Now it’s important to realize that there’s a kind of irony at work - because the righteous, the Pharisees, are righteous only in their own perception of reality, but not in the inner world, the heart, which is where Christ is always drawing our attention to. So the sinners are those who are mindful, conscious of their own sinfulness, while the righteous have their heads in the sand - thinking everything is just fine when the whole house is on fire.

It is easy, I think, for me to read this passage and pay lip service and make a half hearted admission of my sinfulness. But when I say this am I really feeling the truth of what I’m admitting to, with all of my being - body, soul and spirit? Or am I paying lip service? The Pharisees stopped at paying lip service only.

Now it would be really all too easy to become lazy and passive here. After all, I live in a monastery. I pray multiple times every single day. I go to church all the time. Am I a sinner? I am protected here from many temptations so how much trouble can I really get into to consider myself a sinner?

The saints often considered themselves the worst of sinners. St Paul counted himself chief among sinners. Were they being disingenuous? Was it “humble bragging”? I don’t think so - rather, in reading the lives of saints like St Silouan we know that the saints were aware of their sinfulness because they were graced with conscious experiences of the unimaginable light, beauty, love and compassion of an all embracing God and this gave them a vision of how far short they fell of it. Think of how tiny we feel sometimes looking up at the stars at night. This captures, I think, some of the cosmic scale that we are dealing with - it begins to put things in the right perspective. When the light is very bright you’re liable to see every mote of dust. It’s hard to notice the filth and disorder in a room if you never draw the blinds or turn on a lamp.

So I think it’s important here to go just a little deeper and consider what sin means. In Greek, the word is amartia and the literal translation, as we all know, is “to miss the mark”. To miss the bull’s eye. To go through life and really miss what it’s all about. The human tragedy, in a sense, is not to realize, to really realize in a way that affects us down in our guts, that we are, in fact, made in the image of God. That God has hidden unimaginable treasures deep inside of us. We are called to something cosmic, but day by day, we live under the tyranny of the trivial.

In many ways, the whole goal of the Christian life is to become who we really are - to consciously assimilate and live out of our deepest self, our inner core, the image that radiates with the light of Tabor.  To be mindful of that unceasingly. That is what is expected of us. And yet do I hit the mark? How often do I really live from this depth of myself - how often do I show and do even some of what I know of this wisdom that sleeps inside of me? How can I see myself in the way that Christ sees me and act in the way He trusts I am capable of? Metropolitan Anthony Bloom said a sinner is someone afraid of their own depths and so a sinner relates to life situations and others from a superficial level.

Now Christ is calling us to a radical shift - the old containers cannot be patched up and recycled to hold the major shifts we are being asked to make. This isn’t a small remodeling job - we are called to a new life in which we replace old habits with new ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, acting. To move past our all too human drift toward selfishness and the comfort of what is familiar and well rehearsed. This is a project that is meant to engage every fiber of our being.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow had many interesting things to say about something he called the Jonah complex which exists inside all of us. The Jonah complex is the deep awe, reverence and even fear we feel when we catch a glimpse of our authentic greatness. As a reaction, we are almost paralyzed by the calling that beckons to us from our depths. It sounds paradoxical but we are afraid, and even terrified, of our authentic greatness - so we sometimes boast and take flight into an imaginary, made up greatness or we feel sorry for ourselves.

It makes us deeply uncomfortable to shine with the Light of Tabor. It makes us deeply uncomfortable to see others shining in that same light because it may require us to do the work of throwing off the shackles that hold us back - fear, lethargy, forgetfulness. The wisest human beings saw this very clearly down through history - in one voice they tell us that most of the time we are sleepwalking through life, mired in the minor cares, worries, and obsessions that will not survive the grave. Sadly all too often we don’t have a vivid realization that the life we lived was a pale shadow of what God is calling us to manifest in this world - and that is to miss the mark, to be off the bull’s eye. Walt Whitman wrote ‘You have not known what you are - you have slumber’d upon yourself your whole life.’

But when we really come face to face with these treasures inside of us - which really are not our possession at all but God’s free gift to us, on temporary loan - our heart is pierced by a dimension that comes from a different place than our mundane existence. Something of the cosmic and eternal shines through. And we realize that this treasure is sort of like a pearl or a diamond with many facets to it - one facet is the sense of wonder reawakening, like we knew in childhood, another facet reflects beauty, gratitude, deep joy, humility. Our heart is tenderized by genuine contrition of having missed our hidden potentials; we experience a deep, aching longing to enter more into the mystery, to actualize these treasures God has placed inside of us. This is the call of our life. And we need Christ to be our Healer, our Physician, the Way we follow to get to our destination.

Feast of the Encounter 2024

 Homily by Sister Rebecca

 

We read this morning a passage from St Luke’s Gospel: “And Behold a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon...he was just and devout expecting the consolation of Israel, the Holy Spirit was upon him: it was communicated to him that he wouldn’t see death before he would see the Lord’s Christ.”

 

Note that the Gospel begins with the word Behold.

 

The word “behold” is found over 1000 times in scripture: it points to an immensely important revelation: open your eyes, pay attention. It denotes Wonder, Awe, Surprise!

 

And indeed, today’s feast of the Encounter is about the revelation of God, the one true Light to the world.  The word “revelation” involves removing the veil from our eyes…to see what really IS beyond the surface of things, to encounter the Divine Presence in our midst right now.

 

I ran across a quote from Carl Jung that might speak to us about this seeing:

 

“What a tragic delusion...theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing.” 

 

This feast presents us with an opportunity to zero in on this art of seeing as exemplified by Simeon and Anna. It invites us today to peer into the depths of seeing the true Light offered to us as we celebrate the revelation of the Light of Christ.

 

Simeon and Anna both see this light: they have over many decades of their lives nurtured the art of seeing. The scripture says this: that they have been preparing for this moment. We heard that the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon and that it had been revealed to Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He was able to see because of his devout vigilance, because the Holy Spirit had unveiled to him that he would see the Lord’s Christ before death. Anna too had been vigilant and watchful, like Simeon, preparing herself to see and receive the Messiah.

 

This ability to see—the art of seeing—doesn’t just come overnight. It must be nurtured and practiced for a long time. This practice of seeing, called nepsis, is about watchfulness, mindfulness. Without nepsis our spiritual lives wither, grow weak.

 

This practice is how we train ourselves to see what is before us without grasping, without holding on to what is good or pushing away the good we do not feel like accepting. This practice enables us to see things as they are now, and not as we want them to be—as happens when we are caught up in fear of what life presents us with.

 

Some of us here are familiar with Olivier Clement’s masterpiece The Roots of Christian Mysticism, in which he comments that people are leaving Christianity for Eastern religions because they can no longer find in the Church the very things that were at the heart of Christianity from the very beginning. These things are still in the heart of the Church. It is just that we have simply forgotten. We have forgotten the art of seeing, nepsis, being awake, conscious of union and communion with God. We must teach this again to all who want to learn the art of seeing.

 

In our present culture our sense of loneliness has become very pervasive. And this loneliness persists despite the abundance of social media, where many people have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook. Where does loneliness arise? Might it really be that people are estranged from their deep selves? That this yearning is actually our spiritual instinct that is knocking on the door of our heart?  God—the Sacred Presence—is striving to awaken us to see what really matters and fulfills us: our soul’s innermost space, where we see our deep connection with one another and all of life.

 

Thomas Merton described the faith journey in this wonderful prayer, part of which is given here:

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.

A similar image comes from the writer E. L. Doctorow: driving a car on a dark highway, during which the car’s headlights show only part of the road, but by following the headlights, the driver will reach the destination.  

The practice of mindfulness is “turning on the headlights.” As with Simeon and Anna in their long spiritual journeys, this means stripping away the layers of skin from our spiritual eyes of the heart—skins of fear, of self-centered desires and actions, of being entangled in unconscious living as if we are on automatic pilot.

 

The narrow path of vigilance and mindfulness is offered and open to all of us. It is a prerequisite to deep repentance, since it brings us to self-knowledge. This is not a sad journey. On the contrary, it leads to a deep, gentle bliss of mind and heart. It calls to mind the inner meaning of the first few verses of Psalm 119: “Full of blessedness, bliss, is the one who seeks the way of wholeheartedness to God, who is watchful and vigilant in walking in the presence of God.”

 

Simeon and Anna show us today what can happen when watchfulness is practiced consistently and with patience. Let us pray and trust in God’s gift to truly see the revelation that Christ is present and will dawn in our hearts as powerfully as the Second Coming of his kingdom.

 

NB: I would like to express my gratitude to Fr. Antony Hughes, Fr. Ronald Rolheiser and a number of others I cannot name for their inspirational thoughts.

Sunday after the Blessing of the Waters January 14, 2024

 As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

Amos 8:1-7; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 16:1-9 

About the rich fool who built bigger barns to hold his extra grain, St. Ambrose quoted when preaching that the bosoms of the poor, the houses of the widows, the mouths of children are the barns which last forever.

The Hebrews, too, believed that charity to the poor would stand to a person’s credit in the world to come. Making friends of the poor and needy by sharing one’s wealth with them was the way to go through life. A person’s true wealth consisted in what was given away, not what was kept for the self.

In one sense, that is what the steward did in this morning’s parable, and the master appreciated his shrewdness. The steward’s largesse, however, was not because he was thinking of helping others, only himself. The steward in today’s gospel had not been faithful in small things and eventually lost his job. If our integrity slips in small matters, it will certainly fail in more crucial matters.

We are only too aware of the tragedies and natural disasters that darken the present time, as well as our histories—to say nothing of the effects of human weakness, blindness, and malice. Nevertheless, those who have chosen to serve God will work together despite their differences.

I’m reminded of Samuel’s response to God after the 4th time he was awakened from sleep: “Here I am, Lord, your servant is listening." At our baptism we become not only God’s children but servants of God. Rebuilding is one of the charisms of creation. Creation is ongoing, and we can choose to help with the rebuilding or add to the tearing down. It is a decision, a choice to add to the building up.

Today’s Epistle indicates the qualities that enable us to make the choices to bring about a rebuilding of the future. Dealing with our everyday life with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience requires forgiveness on our part. It is by the dynamism of the desire to be instructed in the ways of God that we are gradually enlightened about the nature of divinity. Even though not an autumn leaf falls in vain, and does so without our understanding or permission, it is difficult to reach the point of believing there is a meaning behind all that happens in life. In the personal experience of God’s kindness, we begin to accept the possibility that there is meaning behind every event.

Very rarely, we can clearly spot God’s fingerprint in the details of a situation or a decision.  Most of the time it can feel like guesswork. Knowing how we can best serve God, how to go about the building up, can be anxiety producing. God’s will for us is not usually marked with a “Sign here” tab. Therefore, we shouldn’t worry about getting everything right on the first try. The aim at all times is to shift the focus from oneself as the center of the universe, in order to place oneself at the service of the Creator.

 It is much more important to be ready and willing, like Samuel, to repeat, “Here I am, Lord, your servant is listening.” Then we will find ourselves on the right path despite any detours we take in life. Spending our energies to come to an understanding of what is within our reach. and then working to improve matters. is a great accomplishment.

What choices will promote peace within ourselves and in the whole creation?

What do others learn of Christ by observing us?