Annunciation Sermon March 25, 2022

As Preached By Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

Luke 1:26-38, Hebrews 2:11-18, Isaiah 52:7-10

 

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

            There was a time when writing letters was a sign of intimacy with another person. Since letters were hand written, one felt almost in touch with the other person, even to the point of judging their well-being by the state of the calligraphy. If the correspondence was between sweethearts or lovers, the letter might even be scented. In the more distant past, letters would often be hand delivered. Waiting for replies with expectation invested the correspondence with even more power and emotion. And what a delight when that unexpected letter from a seemingly long lost friend arrived! Letters were the basis of many biographies as well as a resource for other historical research. For many personalities of note, letters were edited and published.

            Fast forward to the 21st century. Writing letters seems to have become a lost art. Hand writing has all but vanished. Electronic correspondence is the norm. Email, texts, Twitter, and other platforms—not to mention cell phones, iPhones, Zoom, FaceTime, and other forms of image communication—have arisen. Communication is quick and often is in short sound bites. The pace of life has speeded up, and contacting people with messages can take seconds instead of days, weeks, or months. It is very efficient. But maybe something has been lost. Maybe we are tempted to go so fast that rather than living life we run right past it and miss it altogether.

            In the monastery, the expectation is that life is not about hurrying up but slowing down. This slowing down is not about indolence, but rather about introspection and contemplation. It is not about inaction but about refocusing on something deeper. It is about trying to open our hearts more fully to God. Seeking God's presence, entering into communion with God so that the lives we live are expressions of God's love for us and all humanity.

            Amidst the whirling activity of 21st-century life we may have lost the capacity to wait, to listen, to expect, to even notice when God is beckoning us to come closer to him. Do we even recognize messages from God?

            Tradition and scripture tell us that Mary was brought up in the Temple of God. The temple image intends to show us that she was brought up to experience the presence of God in her life. So when the message from God came to her delivered by the angel Gabriel, she was not overwhelmed by that message, overwhelming though it was. A lesson for us from her story is that she was prepared for the message from God, even though she was stunned by it. And her response was to accept the service to humanity that she was being asked to undertake. Disturbing though it was, she accepted it.

            So, for us, Mary gives us an example of how to respond to the word of God. Open and willing was her response. What might ours be? And how might we know that God is sending us a message at all?

            The human condition often leads us to place our will before that of God. If we want to go along with the message we will, but if it disturbs our plans, we fight it. To be open to respond in affirmation is our challenge.

            And in this fast-paced world of ours, slowing down to sift through the deluge of daily messages is the first step. Noticing what is really coming our way, and being willing to respond positively, particularly when we are being asked, or reminded, that loving God means loving neighbor and responding to the needs of others when that is in our power to do. Mary's yes to God was for the salvation of all humankind. It wasn't for her convenience. It was for others. Maybe that is a good measure to use when discerning from among all the incoming messages we receive from our world of overactive stimuli what might really be the message from God. Is it about us or others? Is it pricking my conscience? Is it prompting me to be more conscious of the needs around me? Our Lenten journey is a good time to sharpen our attentiveness to the needs of others. It takes time. Slow down, and give it the time it needs.

Glory be to Jesus Christ

                       

 

Sermon 176 Feb 13, 2022 Lk 18:9-14, Phil 3:5-9 Dt 6:4-18 Publican & Pharisee

 As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

February 13, 2022

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

Narcissism. How slippery the slope.

In recent weeks in the world of NCAA football, a couple of acronyms have been widely tossed about and they can cause confusion. They are NLI and NIL. And they relate to colleges recruiting high school football players. The recruiting process has created special days for promising young football players to announce what college they intend to attend. They do this by signing a Letter of Intent, hence the acronym NLI for National Letter of Intent Day. But now there is also NIL which stands for Name, Image, Likeness. And what is that all about? Kids going to college and playing a sport now can "sell" their names to advertisers to use to promote their products. Long forbidden, now it is de rigueur. And media meccas like Los Angeles will most likely benefit mightily. But will the kids?

Self-promotion is a rather common phenomenon in society today. Not that it was ever far from the surface in any society, present or past. But with social media, we have taken it to a new level: high or low? You decide!

Sometimes we are just talking about hype. Marketing. A company may bring out a new product, or try to resurrect an old one in a new guise, and they need to get peoples' attention in order to sell it. In the "old days" this may have involved billboards on roadsides around the country. When radio was king and TV was new, one company would sponsor an entire program! Ah for the good old days. Now, a seemingly endless parade of advertisements, often 15 seconds in duration, saturate the airwaves. This has taught us all about getting messages out in short sound bites. But it is no longer just hucksters. Social media has made it possible for all who want to weigh in, to become their own huckster. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are at the top of the social media pyramid.

And what do we find there? From the most benign perspective, we find the kind of personal information that may have been passed on in the past by letters and postcards to family members and special friends and acquaintances. But private communications are now on public display. And they can be designed to excite and titillate. But most importantly, they are about ME. The 1970s were supposed to be the Me Generation, as Tom Wolfe described them. Something tells me we have long ago surpassed that era in emphasizing ME.

But as today's gospel parable reminds us, this human itch for self-promotion, self-actualization, and self-absorption has a long pedigree. I remember my mother telling me "If you don't blow your own horn, who will?" Exactly! Who will?

If we stop to ponder this parable closely we may discover messages to us from all the characters. We may realize that we too can harbor thoughts about others that parallel those of the pharisee. We may be better able to keep them to ourselves, but they are still there, lurking in our hearts, waiting for the right trigger to launch them. After all, the Pharisee may not have gone into the temple planning to pray as he did, but those thoughts, always there, were triggered by standing next to the hated tax collector. And out came the hidden thoughts!

The Publican is no better than the Pharisee only he is in a different place in his prayer. He has reached rock bottom. He has finally seen his real self, the one who goes to poor villagers and exacts Rome's taxes and then extorts more for himself. Remorse has welled up in his heart and he now regrets always striving for more for himself without regard to the impact on others.

The antidote for self-promotion is a concern for others. Maybe that tax collector in the temple walked outside to become Zacchaeus in the Sycamore tree. After asking for mercy, he received the grace to recognize how to turn God's mercy into his mercy for others. Even the kids now signing up for the NIL promotions may not slide down the slippery slope but instead set up their own charities to help others. And maybe we too will turn that uncharitable thought about another into an act of mercy for that person. And just maybe, that is how we can embark on the coming Lenten Season, by turning self-denial into self-offering. And isn't that what Jesus did for us all?



Glory be to Jesus Christ!

2022 Blessing of the Waters

January 9, 2022 Blessing of the Waters
Malachi 3:20-24, Ephesians 5:8-20, John 1:19-34

By Sister Cecelia

“Be careful how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of your time, singing and making melody in your hearts. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5)

At the end of our Divine Liturgy today, we have our yearly service of blessing the water. In the book of Genesis, we read that God made all things, drawing forth the Creation from a dark and watery Chaos. We read how the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. Here the verb “moved” in Hebrew connotes the behavior of a mother bird brooding over her nest, protecting and nurturing her offspring. The Spirit of God at the Creation of this young world, earth, was caring for it like a hen over her chicks. That is an apt image, as at Christ’s Baptism a bird was seen hovering over Christ when he was baptized and the Father’s words were heard. Only two evangelists relate anything about Jesus’ birth, while all four relate the Baptism of Christ—an indication of its importance to us.

Water is used by John to indicate the person’s cleansing and turning to God—repentance, metanoia.

Water is used in our own baptisms, indicating that we are united as one with Christ.

Water is used for both good and bad, as Br. Luke mentioned on Thursday. This time the symbol of water is good, for in our created world, so much needs water. We do not survive without water.

In the wake of the feast of Epiphany, we receive the waters of chaos turned into the waters of life, and if we bring this blessing into our houses and businesses and offices, for drinking and for sprinkling, we declare our intention to become part of a new creation and to bring our family, our home, and our work into the Reign of God. That is an ongoing commitment that is to be renewed daily. When we receive the water that carries the divine presence, we declare our intention to live no longer according to the laws of survival and self-advancement and pride. Instead, we declare our desire to live according to the rule of love, of mercy, of justice and humility before God and humanity. This is the meaning of the service we do today: our acceptance of Christ as our way of life, and our commitment to following our leader in the time we have been given.

Recently I gleaned a few ideas about the time we have from the writings of Joan Chittister. “We Americans are obsessed with time. We’re a pragmatic, productive people, and time is the national idol. It shows in our language. We spend time, invest time, and need time. We lose time, save time, waste time, find time, gain time, and want time.”

Time, we Americans seem to assume, is for doing something, for producing things, for achieving goals. Our goal is to realize that life is about becoming.

As another year has begun, take time each day to give more serious consideration to what we are becoming rather than to what we are doing. Life is not a package of years; it is a lifetime of opportunities meant to make us everything we can possibly be: gentle, understanding, patient, kind, open, loving, joyful, not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude, not irritable or resentful or rejoicing in wrongdoing but rejoicing rather in truth, being courageous, persevering, and generous.

Make the most of your time, singing and making melody in your hearts.

Christ is in our midst!

 

Sermon 175 Jan 06, 2022 Mt 3:13-17, Ti 2: 11-14, 3:4-8 Ez 36:25-28, 33-36 Theophany

As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church



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

    When I was a kid, I wasn't good at getting up out of bed in the morning. So, when calling me to get up didn't work, my father would go into the bathroom, get a washcloth, soak it in cold water and then come into my room and put it on my face! Now that was an effective wake-up call. It definitely got my attention. A new day was about to begin and I was going to have to do my part.

    Water can be used for many things beyond drinking, irrigation, and cleaning. This is the time of year when we are inundated with football games leading to championship games, both college and NFL. At the end of a game, it is not unusual for the coach of the winning team to be doused with a huge barrel of water, or more likely, Gatorade. It can also happen in other outdoor sports, including baseball. It seems an odd way to celebrate a win. Being doused doesn't always have a positive connotation.

    Did you ever have the experience of thinking you had come up with an idea or plan that you thought was special and telling someone else about it only to have the whole idea dismissed with the epitaph "you're all wet!" That is the verbal equivalent of someone pouring cold water on your idea. No wonder babies cry or scream when they get baptized! They don't want to get this early preparation for being told their ideas are no good.

    The theme of water is explored from many angles in this feast. Prayers are said to purify the water of any unclean spirits. The purified water of baptism washes away our sins. The texts of the feast fill out the symbolic meaning. Here is the First Lity Sticheron.

    Today, Christ the savior is baptized: * He who wears light as a cloak was pleased to become like us to save us. * Today he is covered with Jordan’s streams. * Though he has no need of cleansing, * by that cleansing he himself receives, he regenerates us. * O what a wonder, that without fire he casts anew, * and without shattering he fashions anew. * And those who are filled with his light are saved by him, ** by Christ the savior of our souls.

    Today's celebration reminds us of our own baptism when we were submerged in water to symbolize dying and then rising to new life in Christ. Indeed, the Good News of the New Testament is about new beginnings, transformations from one state of being into another, transitioning from one life to an even better life. And indeed that is what our baptism represents, our entering into a new life with the promise of life eternal.

    The symbol of the voice of God descending like a dove and revealing the ultimate truth about Jesus is a message to all of us with more than one dimension. The truth spoken is: "This is my beloved, pay attention to him." And if we pay attention to him, we too become the beloved of God. Indeed, we are created as the beloved of God, but we do not necessarily always believe it, maybe because we, too often, have been doused with the negative message that we are not good enough to be God's beloved. We may have come to believe that God doesn't even know us or pay attention to us or care about us. Today's feast reminds us that God does care about us, so much so that he sent his only begotten Son to lead us back into that knowledge of God's love for us.

    Our joy on this festive day is waking up to the reality that out of love for us, God is always providing a new day for us, a new opportunity to grow in the likeness of Christ.

    Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Homily for New Year: January 1, 2022

 by Sister Rebecca

 

     Today: Another New Year.  We greet each other:  Happy New Year!  And we truly mean it: May it be a good year for you.  Last year at this time we thought: Oh! Finally 2021—a good year!  Then, the vaccinations were promised, and we could hope to get back to normal living.  Well, by now we are pretty much aware that there is no going back to a ”past normal.” We are facing the reality of the unknown future on numerous scores.  Doesn’t this sound to us like bad news?  Here I will share a story I heard from a Jesuit priest many years ago:

Good Luck? Bad Luck? Who Knows?

There once was a simple farmer who lived and struggled alongside his neighbors and friends, trying to exist and fulfil a peaceful life. One day news arrived, from far away, that his old loving father had died. His neighbors gathered to grieve, but the farmer simply said, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?"

In time relatives brought a very fine horse of great cost and fine breeding, left to the farmer by his father. All the villagers and neighbors gathered in delight with him to celebrate his good fortune, but he just said, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

One day the horse escaped into the hills, and when all the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills, and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this was very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

 

In some way, to judge, label, and categorize the year as either good or bad is to fragment reality.

 

This is not to say that some aspects of one year or another are not more challenging than others, not as fulfilling as another year, more happy or less happy.  The story doesn’t tell us to be passive, to say “I give up” and just roll with the dice. Rather, it means we must trust the mystery of life more than our assessment of life by thinking and analyzing.  God reveals to us that our life is neither found IN nor determined BY its circumstances, but IN and BY Jesus Christ, God with us: Jesus, the one whose name means “God saves.”  How does God save? By inviting us, challenging us, calling us to a metamorphosis, to transformation. And when God “calls,” “invites,” the call and the invitation include a promise.

A good metaphor is that of the butterfly, which is formed within a dark cocoon, like a cave, a grotto, but totally closed!  Nothing seems to be happening.  All is dark, but new life is being formed untampered by human hands.  Likewise, it is in these dark times—all the while cutting back on all that fragments us and distracts us, spending more time in silence, and solitude, and contemplation—when our covenant in God grows deeper, more luminous.  We are not destined to be like cocoons shrouded in the dark, at the mercy of dismal forces of nature.  Rather, we are meant to be transformed, our consciousness awakened, enlivened, to see luminosity within these somber times. We let God BE, allowing God’s Spirit to transform us into who we are meant to be. We call this theosis: becoming God-like. St John of the Cross said, after a life of many hardships and graces, “I have no other light than the one shining in my heart.”

On this New Year’s Day, let us pause before the coming days give rise to new challenges and deep joys. May we soak in the rich poetic lines below, for the lean days will one day sprout wings.

 

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~ John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

Homily November 7, 2021 1 Samuel 20:1-6, 2 Corinthians 1:18-22, 2:14-16, Luke 6:1-12

 As Preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

The two incidents we heard in this morning’s Gospel show the Pharisees coming out into the open in opposing Jesus. In one story, they clearly charge Jesus that he and his disciples are breaking the Sabbath laws. But they were not breaking any law against stealing or theft, because one of the merciful laws of the Hebrew testament is that anyone was free to pluck the grain from the fields, provided they did not use a sickle, except on the Sabbath.

Jesus and his disciples had broken four Sabbath laws. They were guilty of reaping by plucking the grain. Guilty of threshing by rubbing the grain in their hands. Guilty of winnowing by flinging away the husks. By eating the grain, supposedly they had prepared the food.

Jesus defended his followers by using an example the Pharisees all knew quite well from their education in the Hebrew testament: David provided his hungry followers with the sacred bread, which generally only the priests were allowed to eat. Jesus asked the Pharisees: “Have you not read what David did?” Their answer was “yes,” but it seems they never knew what that action meant. The Pharisees considered that their codes of conduct and rituals were essential to the daily life of religious observance. Jesus’ real concern was not the external behaviors but what is in the heart.

We also have codes of conduct and our rituals, so in many ways we are like the Pharisees: we have prescribed rituals for how to celebrate the Eucharist, how to pray the liturgy of the Hours or other devotions, how to live as a Christian, layperson, or professed religious. Many of these codes and rituals can be readily seen when they are carried out or when they are broken. Most of these rituals are based on our Scriptures. It is possible to know the scriptures from cover to cover and be able to quote from them verbatim, but completely miss the real meaning of any of it.

When we read Scripture we must not say, “Listen, Lord, for your servant is speaking” but rather, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

In listening, what do we understand about the rituals surrounding the Eucharist? The Eucharist is not only the center of our worship, but the center of our concern for our quest for the value and meaning of human life. What we need is to see in Christ the model of what it means to be a human person, fully alive, and to recognize in others the image of God.

In the next story we heard this morning, Jesus knew he was being watched. Without hesitation, he beckoned the man with a withered right hand to come to the center for all to see. What do we see in the heart of Christ, and what do we make of the hatred in the hearts of the Pharisees? The absence of love is the greatest poverty. Jesus asks, “Is it a good thing to do good on the Sabbath? Is it good to save rather than to destroy?” Luke points out that it is the right hand of the man that is withered. Perhaps the man is a right-handed stonemason who cannot work because of to his withered hand. Kindness and goodwill are indispensable attributes of the heart that human beings need to be fully alive. The absence of love is the greatest poverty.

The need for all of us to pray is clearly indicated by this morning’s Scripture.  Jesus frequently went to a mountain and prayed. After one particular night spent in prayer, Jesus chose his twelve apostles from his many disciples. These were ordinary men, not an influential person among them. In fact, they were quite diverse in their occupations and personalities. Peace and harmony are attainable if we look to Jesus to lead us. In Christ even the most opposite people may be united in their love for him. If we really love Christ, we learn to love one another.

Christ is in our midst!

 

 

 

 

 

Homily: Matthew 25:14-30

Parable of the Talents    October 17, 2021
by Sister Rebecca
Holy Wisdom Church

 

In this Gospel we have the well-known Parable of the Talents. Jesus said that the Kingdom of heaven is like a man who goes on a trip and entrusts his goods to three of his employees.  The first two immediately go to work.  When the owner returns, they bring him the results: each one has doubled the talents he was given. Their work is generously rewarded because they were responsive to the master’s expectations.

The third employee does something very strange.  The only thing that occurs to him is to bury the talent he was given and keep it safe until the master returns.  The master condemns him as wicked and lazy, and he casts him out of his household.  This servant was motivated by fear, and it was this fear that had become the controlling power and influence in his life.  “What happens if I invest money and lose it all? I know the master is a hard man; what would he do to me then?”

Part of what is confusing in this parable, and others like it, is that it was not unusual for Jesus to use persons of less than admirable qualities to provide lessons in his parables. We can easily miss the point by turning the parable into an allegory in which this master would represent God, leading us to think of God as some sort of harsh, severe, and arbitrary character who uses fear as a motivation.

This servant who buries the talent given to him can’t think straight because his heart has been full of fear.  He acts out of fear. He wants to play it safe.  We can do the strangest things when we are afraid—right?  A heart of love, on the other hand, has an enlivening effect on the mind. Acting out of fear is the opposite of faith.  Faith involves risk.  To live in faith is to live with fear yet not be overcome by it. 

This fearful servant doesn’t love the master; he is afraid of him.  “I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” He has no clue about his responsibility.  He doesn’t understand what active, creative faithfulness involves.  He is not engaged.   For many today, Christianity seems to have reached a point where the main goal is to conserve, not to courageously seek out new ways to face and accept life’s challenges and proclaim Christ’s burning desire for the reign of God. Now, more than ever, in our times we need to listen carefully to this parable.

We need to ask ourselves if our religion is seen as a system of beliefs and practices that protect us from God and from what God urges us to do: that is, to live creatively.  Status quo religion leads to sad, sterile, joyless lives devoted to safeguarding or protecting the institution rather than risk to love into action.

The inner motivation of third servant is like this: “Here is your gospel, your project of the reign of God.  We have kept it safe.  We haven’t used it to transform our life or introduce your reign to the world.  We didn’t want to take chances.  So here it is undamaged.”

The message is clear.  We cannot hand our life back to God and say: “Here, you have what is yours. I didn’t use it for anything that makes me afraid.”  It is a mistake to live a religiously, morally correct life without taking the risk to move out of ourselves, out of our comfort zone, away from predictability, to connect with persons who might not respect us, who may treat us unkindly.  Jesus urges us to love others courageously, audaciously, and creatively.

When we mostly care about saving our life in any given area, protecting and defending it, we lose it.  If we are so afraid of failure that we don’t follow the aspirations of our heart, we have already failed.  The Spirit of God speaks to us in very subtle ways, like nudges, to allow us to freely choose.  The first reading from Sirach says: “that God in creating us, left us in the power of our inclinations and to act faithfully is a matter of our own choice.” If we fail to listen, if we don’t take the initiative in areas that seem foreign to us and to our temperament, or if we are afraid we are wrong, then we are already wrong.  This is tantamount to burying our very lives.

Jesus’ life and words invite us to live with a certain intensity and the courage to make the Gospel real.  We need to stoke the fires of our creative imagination, listen to the Spirit, and invent Christian love for today.

The greatest mistake of the third servant in the parable is not that he buried his talent. Rather, he surrendered his God-given inner power to fear. He mindlessly assumed that he was responding faithfully to God by keeping his talent safe from risks.  Fidelity to God does not consist in leaving things in a state of status quo…unchanged.  Maybe we need to ask ourselves this question: Do we harbor an attitude that masks habits of passivity, fear of conflict, paralysis, comfort seeking? And at bottom: a lack of trust in the creativity of the Spirit of Christ?

When we act out of faith, we give up the need to control the outcome. It is not what we choose that matters so much, but why we choose or do not choose.   When we operate from faith and not fear, then the Spirit of God, the Energy of Heaven, flows through us. This is the spiritual challenge before us.

A word from Mary Oliver may stoke the embers in our heart: “Let us risk the wildest places, lest we go down in comfort, and despair.”