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!