Homily June 25, 2017: 3rd Sunday of Pentecost

As Preached by Sister Rebecca

June 25, 2017

Holy Wisdom Church

     Today’s Gospel is part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus begins his teaching with the beatitudes.  The following two chapters throw light on the path leading to the realization of the beatitudes in our lives.

Jesus’ teaching begins with: “The lamp of the body is the eye.  If your eye is single (or clear) then your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is evil then your whole body will be full of darkness.”  Mt6: 22-23.

Here, as in other sayings, Jesus is using Hebrew figures of speech, idioms, well-known to the Jewish people in Jesus time. 

We have our own idioms, too: “she just hit the ceiling” or “it is raining cats and dogs”, all which, literally, do not make sense. Likewise, a number of Jesus’ sayings contain cultural idioms that we simply do not understand but make perfect sense in Hebrew.   By understanding the Hebrew idioms in today’s Gospel we can get a much clearer understanding of Jesus’ teaching.

1.      The first idiom:  The lamp of the body is the eye:  The Biblical communities of old understood that the eye was an organ that actually projects light or particles of energy from within a person, similar to the light of a lamp.  The metaphor “lamp” is a person’s heart; the eye is the lamp’s light, meaning inner vision, attitudes, dispositions, and intentions of the heart. If your eye is said to be single:   the word, ‘single’, describes the person as one of integrity, wholehearted devotion to God, who does not have a secret agenda of self-advancement and self-aggrandizement, and one who trusts in God.

2.       “If your eye is evil”: The word evil is a hard one: as it has overtones of superstition, or something demonic.   We may dismiss this word because it scares us to think we could have evil within us. But in this context, the evil eye is simply a heart that conveys ill will, meanness, miserliness, stinginess, and discord within oneself. Perhaps in the light of today’s understanding of our inner world, it would be better to speak of our inner blind spots, places in us hidden more or less from our consciousness.  These words of Jesus challenges us to face the dark side of our personality and the emotional investment we have made in false programs for happiness and in our particular conditioning.  We are hard-wired to God but when we lose focus our inner ‘single eye’ we tend to react in ways that are negative, and dark for ourselves, and others, not to mention the ripple effect it has on God’s creation.   

3.          

 Today’s gospel invites us to be open to the gift of truly seeing. The enlightened person seeks no personal gain like Jesus who emptied himself and had nothing to gain for himself by coming into this world.  It urges us to become like Jesus who summons us to trust God with a whole and undivided heart and serve as he did.  Jesus expressly calls his followers to live in the present moment away from anxious worrying about life’s challenges.

By taking time each day for a period of prayer, a place of rest where our faculties are relatively calm and quiet, we learn to see our thoughts, our worries, our agitations fading away in the light of God’s presence and so we gradually let go of them and turn our lives in trust to God. 

 The poet Mary Oliver, a writer with a deep, natural mysticism, writes of a life free of egoistic constraints in these lines, "The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees - to learn something by being nothing." In other words, it is her prayer that we shift our attention to the soft gurgling sounds of a moving stream, to open our eyes to the light in the trees, the sun through the branches and therefore to God who shines in them and through them to be clear-sighted, consciousness, awake and aware, unencumbered and free. And if we look deeply enough with mindful, unobscured vision, what we shall see is God peeking through all things. The eye that is single sees the truth “That the cosmos is one vast burning bush, permeated with the fire of the Divine”. 

Homily June 11, 2017

As preached by Brother Marc
Holy Wisdom Church



In the gospels, the Lord urges us to trust in him and trust in God. He says, “Not a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing. Are you not worth more than many sparrows?”

Theologians try to analyze the nature of God and prove God exists, and philosophers argue whether God is alive and relevant. We know these agendas are poor substitutes for seeking the presence of God.

So who is God? The anaphora of the liturgy says God is indescribable. Those who say they experience a certain closeness to God find they are unable to understand or define God. They can only “be there” in mute wonderment. It is too much to take in. It may shake the foundation of their beliefs.

We need the a mysterious hidden wisdom to make sense of Jesus' teaching on God’s love, on loving our enemies. We need deeper insight on the Beatitudes: “Blest are you when they insult you on my account."

One day Mother Teresa went to a bakery to ask for some bread to give to orphan children. The baker was outraged at people begging bread from him and spat in her face. Mother Teresa calmly took out her handkerchief, wiped the spit from her face and said to the baker, "Okay, that was for me. Now what about the bread for the orphans?" A dead silence followed and the baker filled her a basket of bread.

This moment was a flash of light and a dash of salt for the orphans, for the baker and for humanity as well. It did not spring from a feel-good mentality. It was the carrying of her cross and the following of Christ.

The German theologian Karl Rahner wrote: "Have we ever done something without expecting a bit of gratitude or appreciation in return? Have we ever acted unaware how decent and unselfish we were at that moment? …If we did, we can be sure the spirit was inspiring us. We encountered Eternity. We found out the spirit is more than simply one ingredient in a passing world.

Rahner wrote, “This explains the remarkable lives of the saints… They know there is a grace that can brighten the dull cycle of daily tasks well done. It can bring us a step nearer to God, and we may scarcely notice. We really do touch the realm of divinity." (Karl Rahner SJ 1904-1984 in Belief Today, 40-41).

“Blest are the gentle, the earth will be theirs...Blest the peacemakers, they will be called the children of God." When our burdens are weighing us down and like the saints we do something loving and unselfish, there is a strength in us that is more than ourselves...

The beatitudes are not another set of commandments and obligations. They do not make us saints, but they can point out the path of holiness and happiness. The saints and the beatitudes are signs of God's presence and incarnate love. The beatitudes help us recognize Jesus’ spirit here and now, in our weakness and vulnerability. “Blest are you who mourn...Blest are you when they insult you on my account…"

At times we might feel untouched by love or beauty, and separated both from the natural world and our intuition. Something blocks us from being the persons we are meant to be, except for moments we can probably count on the fingers of one hand.

Suddenly the curtains of inner noise, distraction, skepticism, and fog open up. We are caught up by someone else’s great energy, good mind or perfect beauty. A song, an ancient chant, or a poem, painting, icon, or yes even an indescribable sunset might stagger us with its intensity. Or we may be whelping a litter of puppies, witnessing the miracle of birth. For a brief moment, we perceive what is perfectly real, good and bad alike, in full color and stereo. We might feel the touch of happiness. The experience is a flash of light and a dash of salt for us. It's more than a feel-good mentality. We are sure God's indescribable Spirit is present. We know we are not alone in a passing world: we have encountered Eternity.

Homily for the Sunday of the Nicene Fathers 2017

As preached by Brother Christopher

Holy Wisdom Church

“By his death, Jesus was to gather into one the scattered children of God...”

It is fitting that we celebrate the Feast of the Nicean Fathers on Sunday immediately following the Ascension. Today we’re commemorating the affirmation of faith those fathers made long ago in 325: that Jesus is “homo ousios” with the Father, of one essence, consubstantial, co-eternal. Those are big words - loaded words - potentially open to misinterpretation. Without in any way diminishing his humanity, the Fathers of Nicea made it clear in the Creed that Jesus shares a divine nature as well, that he is God’s self-revelation to the world. That is as relevant to us today as it was to them when they declared it. It is a perennial truth.

After the joy of the Paschal season in which Jesus physically appears to the disciples in his risen state, Jesus has now been ‘lifted up’ to be enthroned with the Father. This demands a new level of faith from us. It challenges us to let go of his earthly, more limited identity and embrace his cosmic one. With the feast of the Ascension, we are presented with a paradox: Jesus ‘ascends’ to heaven -- leaves his physical, bodily presence on earth so that he can be present in a more spiritual, universal way to us, indeed to the whole of creation. This is why in the Gospel of John Jesus told his disciples that it was to their advantage that he go, that he physically depart because then he would send the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit to empower the entire Church.

If we reflect on this, it means that Jesus is as present to us here in this humble celebration, as he is present to believers anywhere else in the world... be it Constantinople, Moscow, Rome, or Canterbury. Jesus is universally present and we need to take this with an earnestness of faith that it deserves. The Eucharist that we celebrate today draws us into his risen body, and in so doing puts us in communion with every other member of the body of Christ. That is a mystery beyond fathoming.

Which is why, despite his physical departure from earthly life, the feast of the Ascension has a very deep element of joy to it. Jesus leaves us so that he can be more fully present to us, more universally present. This is the joy we sing of in the feast’s Kondakion: “When you had joined earth to heaven, and fulfilled your plan of redemption O Christ our God. You ascended into heaven while remaining in our midst. For you assured us who love you, that no one has any power over us, for you yourself are with us.”  

Mid-Pentecost 2017—Christ is risen!

As preached by Brother Marc

Holy Wisdom Chapel

Is 55:6-13; Ac 7:30-37, 40-49; Jn 7:11-29


How many years has it been since the dedication of this church?

To use a Zen metaphor, we won’t make the mistake today of honouring “the finger that points to the moon” more than “the moon to which it points.” God is revealed magnificently in all of creation. Yet a church is an extraordinary and special place worthy of honour. It’s here that we stand together celebrating our religious life and spiritual aspirations.

Building temples, shrines, and churches is a natural poetic instinct. We humans need symbols and rituals even more than food and water—like when Jesus said, “My food and my drink is to do the work of my heavenly Father.”

To paraphrase Isaiah, “This house is a house of prayer ideally open to all peoples and not marginalizing anyone.” In Walter Brueggemann’s words, this is a place for “the practice of alternative imagination.” Does he mean images, remembrance, or spiritual, artistic, personal and religious creativity? There is room for all of this. We are all working together here to become Christ’s body. Christ is the rising Sun to which we are pointing.

Psalm 84 is used for the dedication of a church and begins, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.”

Sounds like romantic literature, with a soul that “longs” and “faints”, and “heart and flesh” that “sing for joy”. But the psalm is far more than poetic or romantic. It has expressed extreme love and yearning for a hundred generations. The psalmist is passionate about a place where the experience of something greater, the presence of God, is overwhelming and transforming.

The Hebrew word for “lovely” is translated everywhere else in scripture as “beloved.” Twice in the Gospels a voice from heaven called Jesus the “beloved” and pleasing: Jesus personifies the love and wisdom of God; “Listen to him,” the voice said. At the Transfiguration we h, ar about the powerful beauty and goodness that embrace in him.

The beloved Son of God is also the truth of God. He revealed the true aim of our life. He shows the right direction of my own life.

The iconoclasts and the puritans forgot that the things of church life are not products of human vanity but truly works of love and expressions of faith. Whether large or tiny, this is our beloved and intimate place. This is our platform of transcendence and unity, the face of our witness to the world.

When we enter the church do we expect too little from our singing and our silence, our praying and liturgy? Have we lowered our expectations because we are too familiar with this space? Is its light becoming dim and it’s ‘thinness’ predictable?

“One day in your house is worth more than a thousand somewhere else!” The psalm expresses deep kairos time: We delight in this holy place because we are unfinished temples of the spirit. We don’t want to miss those moments, those deep questions and elusive answers, when God and eternity intersect with our mundane work.


Today let us rededicate this place. We in fact do this daily by our presence here. Each time we say in our hearts, as St Peter said to the Lord, “You know I love you,” we infinitely deepen the meaning of our life. By this love and in this beloved place we ourselves are called beloved and made holy.

May 7 2017 – 1 Peter 1:13-25, Acts 8:26-40, John 5:1-15

As preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church

Christ is Risen!

Peter is telling the people that they have to “roll up their sleeves” and get to work to be ready for a most strenuous mental endeavor. They must think things out and not be content with an unexamined faith. It may be that they will have to discard some things, and it may be that they will make some mistakes. Peter counsels them to gain a balanced judgement of what they believe. They need to set their hope on the grace given to them by the coming of Jesus Christ. The grace enables them to steadfastly pursue the truth. Peter assures them that what they will be left with will be theirs in such a way that nothing and no one can ever take it from them.

Through the centuries past, God had insisted that his chosen people must be holy because God was/is Holy. That idea was not to be discarded but is still valid. The root meaning of hagios –holy – is different. The temple is hagios because it is different from other buildings. The Sabbath is hagios because it is different from other days of the week. The Christian is hagios because weare called to be different. To be chosen by God is to be given, not only great privilege, but also great responsibility. The Christian is called to live for God and obey God’s law and reproduce Christ’s life while on earth. We reproduce it when we learn to live as God would have us live. The Christ-filled (Christian) life is a life of sincere, hearty, and steadfast love for all. Is it not the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that enables us to look at all life with great reverence? The Christian must live life in reverence for all.

The deacon Philip was chosen by God. God let him know there was someone who needed him to do something different from what he was doing. Philip was willing to obey God’s commandment and engage with the chancellor of the Queen of Ethiopia, which led to his request for baptism.

The chancellor had been thinking things out and examining this faith. After the help he received from Philip, there is little doubt that he acquired a faith that no one could take from him. We cannot imagine that this fellow kept his newly found treasure to himself but spread this good news to any who would listen. His baptism by immersion in the river contains several symbols. As his body was

cleansed by the water, so his soul was also cleansed of any impurities. Descending into the water was like the dying of Christ on the cross. Rising from the water was being born again in and with Christ.

Jesus coming along and asking the lame man, who had been waiting for 38 years to be able to get to the pool when the waters were stirred, if he wanted to be well, elicited a yes of great hope as well as a certain resignation. Jesus merely said for him to pick up his mat and walk home, and the man did. When the man eventually found out who it was that told him to carry the bedding on a Sabbath, he went back to the authorities to say it was Jesus who had told him to carry the bedding home. Such work on the Sabbath could result in his being stoned to death according to the interpretation of the lawmakers of his time.

Humans have a tendency to make infinitely complicated rules and regulations that are not helpful in bringing about the Kingdom of God. Notice how God’s rule to keep holy the Sabbath day of rest became delineated and lacking in common sense. As just one example, an animal could be rescued if they fell into a pit, but a human being could not be cured.

It was only later when Jesus found the man again that Jesus told him he must not sin again. In gratitude for his healing he should strive to be as holy as God is and desires him to be.

The lesson from these readings today is to “roll up our sleeves” and get to work to be ready for strenuous mental endeavors. We must think things out and not be content with an unexamined faith. It may be that we will have to discard some things and it may be that we will make some mistakes. Trust in the grace that God gives us. God does want us to make the effort to know what is required of us to be able to love as God loves.

We have the rest of our lives to witness to our love and belief in God, the creator of all who became incarnate, lived, died, and rose from the dead to show us the way. Let us use our time well!

Christ is in our midst!

Pascha Homily: April 16, 2017

As Preached by Sister Rebecca

Holy Wisdom Church

     Christ is Risen! He is truly Risen!  If we were to invite a reporter to go around our Church with a camcorder and ask each one of us:  What does this mean for you: “Christ is Risen”?  Do we really mean what we proclaim today?  What is our connection to this event as expressed in the Gospel today: “The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.” Jn.1:5

    It is easy to simply say the words: “Christ is Risen!” just like we also say our ‘Amens’ at the appropriate liturgical times.  In order to really understand what it means for us personally to say: “Christ is Risen” requires that we really relate it to our own experience.   Christ did not rise from the dead in a vacuum, abstractly – rather Christ invites us into this divine reality through our own experiences of dyings and risings.

   We can encounter the Risen Christ only if we are willing to follow him to where we are not yet, to seek him where he goes before us.  We must leave behind the safety of our preconceived notions.  We must roll away the stone of our limited consciousness, go inward, and open inner hearts to experience the gift of the Spirit of the Risen Christ dwelling in the core of our being, trusting his promise of new life in our own dyings and risings. 

      Last week, the day before Palm Sunday we celebrated the Jesus’ raising of Lazarus.  During the matins service, we heard a reflection by Rev. Suzanne Guthrie:  she recounts a friend’s conversion experience in this way: “She is Lazarus come out of the tomb.” In a way it was true, the first of a series of conversions and awakenings, like a hermit crab molting, leaving behind an exoskeleton time after time and, in successive increments living for something unseen and beyond herself.  Life in Christ demands successive deaths and re-births.  Maturing, growing in consciousness requires painful re-engagements with life-cycles of rebirth, self-sacrifice, transformation, dying and being born again.  She adds, once the creative life emerges, then you cannot go back anymore.  I know I am called to come out of my tomb, to become fully alive.  Am I due for another molting?

     Dove-tailing this call to come out of our tombs I would like to share thoughts from another reading on this theme from our Holy Week: “Leaving a String of Empty Tombs”:

  “Spring and Easter: a conspiracy between nature and religion..to make newness, to thaw out, .. to rejuvenate, to make the sunshine,  to warm frozen places and to produce new buds on trees and new enthusiasm in the heart! It is the season of resurrection…of the melting earth and melting hearts.”

    ‘Like nature needs springs each year, so too, we need regular resurrections.  How so? Much of our lives lie frozen.  It is possible to be dead and not to know it, to be asleep and still think we are awake, to be bitter and think we are loving.  Physical death comes last, but before that, there is the long series of other deaths, crucifixions, diminishments, and losses.  It is precisely in those areas most precious, most sensitive, where we bear God’s image in us that invariably get crucified.   And on the contrary, what is calloused and tough survives and we can go through the motions of our life on automatic pilot – almost lifeless.  And then before actually being buried in our graves, we are buried in our lives.  We make do: a life without enthusiasm, without fire, joy frozen.  Christ is us is lying in the tomb, and what is most precious within us is frozen under bitterness or numbness.  Some years back the author, Ronald Rohlheiser, received an Easter card which said: “May you leave behind you a string of empty tombs!”  That is the challenge of Easter:  To resurrect daily, to leave behind us a string of empty tombs, to let our crucified hopes and dreams be resurrected. Like Christ, our lives will radiate the truth that, in the end, everything is good, life can be trusted.  Love does triumph over apathy and hatred, togetherness over individualism so rampant in our society today.  We need regular resurrections.  We need to be open to new possibilities, to surprise.  Given any chance, life wins out, brokenness heals, bitterness melts, numbness awakens, new seeds form and life bursts forth from what once appeared to be dead.’ 

‘Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us.  If it is, may we be awake and present and breathe in this new life.  Let us pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.’ (Quote adapted from Martin Luther King)

“The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.” Jn.1:5

Quotes and paraphrasing above is from Ronald Rolheiser is from The Passion and the Cross

Sermon 145: 1Jn1:1-7; Ac 3:25-4:21; Jn 20:19-31 [23April17]

Preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church

          In the tradition of the desert fathers and mothers, younger monks would go to an Abba, possibly their spiritual father, and ask: Abba give me a word, that I may be saved.” One of those stories that has stayed with me through the years involves the Egyptian, Abba Macarius. The word he gave to a brother who came to him was: “’Go to the cemetery and abuse the dead.’ The brother went there, abused them and threw stones at them; then he returned and told the old man about it. The latter said to him, ‘Didn’t they say anything to you?’ He replied ‘No.’ The old man said, ‘Go back tomorrow and praise them.’ So the brother went away and praised them, calling them, ‘Apostles, saints and righteous men.’ He returned to the old man and said to him, ‘I have complimented them.’  And the old man said to him, ‘Did they not answer you?’ The brother said no. The old man said to him, ‘You know how you insulted them and they did not reply, and how you praised them and they did not speak; so you too if you wish to be saved must do the same and become a dead man. Like the dead, take no account of either the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved.’” [1]

Now, the main message in the gospel we read on Thomas Sunday is about believing in the risen Lord even if we have not seen him ourselves. Jesus’ words to Thomas are addressed to us as well: “Be not unbelieving!”  And while not losing sight of this teaching, I believe Jesus is also modeling for us something else. The exchange between Jesus and Thomas is very revealing of the approach Jesus takes in his ministry.

        Thomas is, to put it mildly, a little cheeky when he says, “Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” I can just see him standing there with his arms tightly folded across his chest as he makes this demand, almost like a little kid. And what is Jesus’ response? He comes to Thomas and tells him to do just what he demanded: touch the scars. This is how Jesus shows us the mind of God. He meets us where we are. No scolding for the attitude. No push back, questioning the temerity of Thomas to ask such a question in such a fashion. No condescension, “you dare question me?” His objective is to foster faith, to encourage those who are doubtful, to draw us closer to the love that God offers to all of us.

        The story of Abba Macarius is drawn from the attitude of Jesus on display not only in this instance toward Thomas but throughout the Gospels. However, Jesus shows us that there is more to it than just being able to refrain from responding in kind when provoked. As we heard in the matins readings Holy Wednesday this year, Ronald Rolheiser explains that Jesus doesn’t just absorb the sin of the world and our sins, but transforms them in his loving response. This is why Jesus’ death does more than take on the role of a scapegoat by taking away sins. Rolheiser says it beautifully:

Jesus took away the sin of the world

by taking in hatred and giving back love;

by taking in anger and giving out graciousness;

by taking in envy and giving back blessing;

by taking in bitterness and giving out warmth;

by taking in pettiness and giving back compassion;

by taking in chaos and giving back peace; and

by taking in sin and giving back forgiveness. [2]

So Thomas’ faith is revived, resurrected if you will. And we are also invited to share in that faith. A faith in Jesus and his message, a message of love and transformation, a message we can all carry from this temple into the life of the world.

Christ is Risen!

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[1] The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: the alphabetical collection. London, 1975, pp.111-12.

[2] The Passion and the Cross, by Ronald Rolheiser, London, 2016, p. 54