Homily October 15, 2017: Matthew 24: 32-44

As preached by Sister Rebecca

October 15, 2017

Holy Wisdom Church 

            

We have just heard from the Gospel:  “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branches become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.  So also when you see these things, you know that he is here at the gates.  Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.

            What is Jesus talking about when he says twice:  these things.  What ARE these things Jesus is referring to?  To understand what this we need to go back to what precedes today’s gospel.

            Jesus is sitting with his disciples on the Mount of Olives and begins a long discourse of what is to happen in their lifetime. In short, Jesus is predicting: There will be false prophets pretending to be the Messiah, lawlessness will reign, hearts will grow cold.   “Jesus goes into detail about the coming of the horrors and the chaos: at that time there will be great suffering such as not been from the beginning of the world until now and never will be.  In the midst, though, of all this chaos the good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed.

            These are the things that Jesus is telling his disciples and us today.  They are to see in these things the Presence of the glorified Christ.  But Jesus is telling them they need to stay awake, to be watchful, vigilant. Jesus is urging them to ‘wake up’: be mindful and behold with their inner eyes the Kingdom of God’s time, the Eternal time NOW even in the midst of oppression from the powers that be: the Roman occupation.  They are not to have recourse to violence: “whomever takes up the sword (read weapons) will perish by the sword.”  However, their minds are still locked into an image of the Kingdom of God as a tangible political kingdom that is going to free Israel from suffering the Roman occupation.  The disciples inquire:  when is this going to happen? What is the time frame?  Jesus contrasts chromos time and kairos time.  Chronos time is time as one moment after another, calendar time.  Kairos time is deep time.  It is the time when suddenly an insight breaks through: Oh! I get it.   The dots connect.  There is a sense of time coming to fullness right now in this moment.   It is seeing with the inner eyes, and there is deep meaning in what is happening in chronos time now.   The awakened mind beholds what is hidden from one’s ordinary mind.

            In today’s passage Jesus goes on to warn his disciples that life is more than making merry, pursuing happiness in things that pass.  He is not saying that they should stop taking seriously the things of life or enjoying them or taking care of ones needs such as eating and drinking, getting married, and so on.  These things yes, but at the same time all of this will pass-and to deeply realize this.  Then one doesn’t get so engrossed in how things turn out, success or failure, feeling good or not feeling good about this or that, or worrying about the future.  God’s presence is here and now.  Often we can get so wrapped up in everyday life that we don’t heed the reality of God’s presence until something drastic happens. Then we are shocked into awareness of our need for God.  It is like an event when the rug is pulled out from under our feet. Suffering has an awakening aspect to it.  Let us now recall the Beatitudes:  The Kingdom of God Jesus proclaims is encapsulated in the Beatitudes.  God’s time, time of true peace, harmony and happiness lies in the NOW where God is perceived in the daily no matter what it looks like.  Yet chronos time is important.  And there is a sacred dimension to everything that happens. Stay in the present moment and everything has the possibility of leading to new life, to the Kingdom of God Jesus is striving to awaken us to and it is right now in our present moment.  Treat everything that happens in chronos time – in this very moment, in the light of kairos time.

            The challenge today for us is to go inward in our troubled times. We look at the front page of the newspaper or the latest news on TV and we see what a mess we are in.  We need to wake up.  We live in a time where authentic leadership has never been more urgent or confused.  When everything is in flux and old institutions are dying and so many misguided leaders lend their energy only to resist rather than light the way down a new road; when moral standards have been uncertain and the loss of integrity blurs vision.  This is because more energy is being channeled into what is transitory, crumbling, and dying instead of giving soul energy to the ’what’ the direction the Spirit of Christ is beckoning us toward.

            This morning a prayer from Teilard de Chardin comes to my attention that seems an apropos ending to our reflection on today’s Gospel and applies to our times to seeing God in every aspect of life.  He writes in a historical era whose traumatic upheavels foreshadow our own. His prayer is:   “As, you know it yourself, Lord, through having borne the anguish on certain days the world seems a terrifying thing: huge, blind, and brutal. . . . At any moment the vast and horrible thing may break in through the cracks—the thing which we try hard to forget is always there, separated from us by a flimsy partition: fire, pestilence, storms, earthquakes, or the unleashing of dark moral forces—these callously sweep away in one moment what we had laboriously built up and beautified with all our intelligence and all our love. Since my human dignity, O God, forbids me to close my eyes to this . . . teach me to see you concealed within it.

Sermon 149; Is 49:13-18,22,23; Gal 2:15-20; Mk 8:34-9:1 Cross

As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Chapel

September 17, 2017

When I die, and I am laid out in a coffin I will be holding this cross to my heart. Inscribed on it will be the date of my profession and the date of my death. Though I will not die on a cross, holding on to that symbol in death is a statement about what the cross means for believers. The texts for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross are a wellspring of images about the cross. The text we use at Psalm 51 is almost a sermon in itself.

“O cross of Christ! Be our strength and our protection! By your power make us holy that we may honor you in faith and love. You are the hope of Christians and the guide of those who have strayed, haven of those tossed about by the storm of life, pledge of victory for all who battle evil, and resurrection for the fallen! By its power, O Christ, have mercy on us all!”

We don’t always need a lot of words to get the message across. During our retreat, I happened to pick up a slim volume by a French priest, Pierre-Marie Delfieux, who was the founder of the Jerusalem Community. The book of meditations is on the 7 last words of Christ on the cross and the 15 stations of the cross. Fr Pierre-Marie spent 2 years in the Algerian Sahara Desert in the hermitage of Charles de Foucauld, the famous French religious of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Fr. Pierre-Marie then took from his desert experience the idea that the prayer, silence and peace one can acquire from the desert is desperately needed in urban environments. The mission of the Jerusalem Community is to offer that kind of oasis in Paris, Montreal and other urban settings. His little book reflects that experience.

While using that volume for meditations I was particularly struck by two short phrases that truly captured for me the essence of the symbol of the cross.

The first comes in connection with the word of Christ given to the thief: very truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. To this Fr Pierre-Marie adds: “it is not so much our flesh that is buried when we die, but rather our past.” For the thief, that meant a full pardon for whatever he had done so that the path to heaven could be opened to him. And for us, the cross symbolizes the total forgiveness that Christ’s passion represents. So, as I hold on to this cross, whether in life or in death, I am grasping at that promise of forgiveness that is the foundation of God’s love for us. I am also being reminded that such forgiveness is our mission to others.

The second phrase is tied to the statement: woman this is your son, son this is your mother. Part of the meditation on that word of Christ is tied to the scene when the centurion uses his lance to spear the side of Christ and from that wound flows blood and water. That image has often puzzled me. Why the emphasis on both blood and water? Fr Pierre-Marie gives a beautiful answer: it is the blood of our life and the water of our pardon. Christ shed his blood for our salvation. He gives it to us again at every communion. The water symbolizes cleansing and purification to which the many examples in scripture testify. Water is used to wash away our sins, especially in Baptism. Water, living water, is what Jesus offers to the woman at the well. The water we bless at Theophany is then used in turn to bless others and our environment. It is the water turned into wine at the wedding feast that brings joy and foreshadows the eucharistic celebration.

So, as we continue to celebrate this feast of the exaltation of the holy cross, may our gaze upon that cross help us to see in it God’s gifts to us and to pass them on: the gift life, the gift of understanding, the gift of forgiveness, and the gift of love.

Homily for Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

As Preached by Sister Rebecca

September 14, ‘17 

Holy Wisdom Church

            There are 2 levels in which we behold the Holy Cross of Jesus: in the Chronos Time: the cross of abasement, of unthinkable suffering, of losses beyond counting of Good Friday.  The second level is Kairos Time, God’s eternal time when today we are celebrating the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  We behold this Cross through the lenses of the Paschal mystery: the Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost.  During the feast of the Transfiguration, we also receive a glimpse of its glory. 

            We have just listened to Johns Gospel of Jesus’ death on the cross.  John wrote his Gospel approximately 70 years after the event.   He recounts Jesus’ dying on the cross in the light of the paschal feast: it is laced through and through with allusions of the already glorified Christ. It differs dramatically from the Synoptics: How so?  Let us reflect on the last sentences of our Gospel:

“Jesus knowing that all was now finished said to fulfill the scriptures: I thirst…so they put a sponge full of the vinegar to his mouth.  “When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said: “it is finished and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

Two key words here:

1.  “It is finished” may be translated from the Greek as:  “it is completed, accomplished.  What is completed?  John tells us in Ch. 4:34: when Jesus answered his disciples: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work”, the work given to him by his Father.

      Scripture scholars perceive Genesis 2: 2-3 as backdrop illuminating our text:‘On the 7^th day God finished his work (of creation) …and rested on the 7^th day … God blessed the 7^th day and made it holy because on it God rested from his work from all his work in order that it may be completed.’

            Jesus is declaring his work finished, completed-the work God the Father had given to the Son to accomplish on earth. Nothing was wanting.

2. The second keyword is bowed or rested:

The Gospel says: “Jesus bowed his head” but this could also be translated from the Greek as “he laid his head to rest”. This is the Rest where Jesus, having completed the work of his Father, now enters fully into God’s Holy Sabbath and opens it for all humanity.

     Jesus’ cross in Kairos time reveals God’s unconditional love.  The cross tells us, more clearly than any other revelation, that God is utterly vulnerable and the cross invites us into this same vulnerability. 

            We, humans, are forever connecting God to coercion, threat, guilt, shame, and to the idea that a power should somehow rise up and crush by force all that is evil.  “Why doesn’t God do something about this hopeless world of ours?” God is not the great avenger of evil.   Rather, God is love, light, truth, and beauty; a gentle if persistent invitation and one that is never a threat.

            God’s power lies at the deepest base of things and will, in the end, gently have the final say.   It is also the only power upon which love and community can be created because it and it alone ultimately softens rather than breaks the heart.  Its power invites us in.  Surrendering to this invite we do not give in to bitterness and grow mean when we are slighted when our dreams are dashed, when we feel helpless and there is nothing obvious that we can do about it.   When we remain in trust and in stillness we are acting in a divine way, in that vulnerability in which lies our coming to love and community.

This morning, what message may we open our hearts to as we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross?

PRAYER

God of all time, You call us out of the ordinariness of our everyday lives to see the world anew in your time. Help us to respond to your call to see in all things: both a completion and a new beginning; both an end and a renewed start; both sadness and joy. While our time marks your death on a cross as an end, Your time marks the Transition from one life to the next. Enflame in our hearts a desire to see in life and death the Transition and transformation your life, death, and resurrection has brought forth in the world. Your time is a time of fulfillment that makes little sense to the world, for what is logical is replaced by what is Kingdom-oriented, and this way of thinking appears as foolishness to the worldly. Help us to live as your fools, willing to announce your Kingdom. Give us the strength to keep your time, where relationships take priority and we start over, again and again, to serve the least among us.

Christ is in our midst!

(I did not include the following in  the homily as it would make the homily too long.)

One of the key revelations inside the cross: We have a redeeming, not a rescuing God! It took Christians some time to grasp that Jesus doesn’t ordinarily give special exemptions to his friends, no more than God gave special exemptions to Jesus.   So like us, they struggled with the fact that someone can have a deep, genuine faith, be deeply loved by God and still have to suffer humiliation, pain, and death like everyone else.  God didn’t spare Jesus from suffering and death and doesn’t spare us either from them.  Jesus never promised us rescue, immunity from cancer, or escape from death.  Rather like this morning’s feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he promised that in the end there will be redemption, vindication, immunity from suffering and eternal life. 

Homily August 13, 2017

As Preached by Brother Christopher
Holy Wisdom Chapel

Many years ago I remember the time that Archbishop Iakavos, the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese came to visit New Skete. He stayed with us for a weekend and after sharing Divine Liturgy with us on Sunday, he accepted our invitation to speak informally with the Monks, Nuns, Chapel Community and visitors. Sitting at our dining room table during coffee hour, he graciously answered a variety of questions we asked him. I’ll never forget his response to a question about the time he marched with Dr Martin Luther King Jr to the Selma Courthouse in 1965, something that was, at the time, highly controversial. He replied, “Unlike most of you, I was not born in the United States where I could enjoy democracy. I came from Turkey, where I was a 3^rd class citizen. So when Martin Luther King had his walk to the Selma courthouse, I decided to join him. It was my way of witnessing against all those who would oppress other people. Some called me a traitor... others said I should be ashamed of what I had done because I had violated the tradition of how a hierarch should behave publicly. I even received death threats. But in my heart, I knew that at that time I had to stand publicly with all those who were oppressed, whose civil rights were being violated.” What a paradox: at that time in 1965 Archbishop Iakavos was the public face of Orthodoxy, on the cover of time magazine with Martin Luther King Jr, a traditional bishop acting in the most “untraditional” of ways.

Tradition is a precious gift that has been passed down to us from the past. Tradition – from the Greek ‘paradosis’ – ‘to hand down’. Each of us understands that the faith has been passed down to us as an act of love. We are accountable for it.

However, there is such a thing as tradition with a big T and tradition with a small T. Tradition with a big T is the Gospel law of love, the commandment of God. This is tradition that is always unyielding, always to be obeyed. But then there is tradition with a small “t”, tradition that is merely custom and human convention, not law and never absolutely binding. It is simply how we’ve always done things. Whether it’s nuns wearing veils, monks wearing klabuks, chanting X amount of stichera at Vespers, or particular fasting practices, so much of our religious practice is built on convention and not on gospel law. That doesn’t make it good or bad. It is simply how things are done in a particular place.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus recognized that people could get hung up on tradition with a small “t” and miss the bigger “T” tradition. And he was absolutely resolute in challenging this whenever he encountered it. This morning’s Gospel is a perfect example of this: Jesus confronts the scribes and Pharisees because they were using small ‘t’ “traditions” for their own selfish ends. And notice how he throws Isaiah back in their faces: This people honors me with lip service, but their hearts are far from me... their reverence of me is worthless.”

The real test of our faithfulness as disciples of Christ is not our conformity to small “t” tradition, but always looking to follow the Gospel of love. Whenever religion gets stuck in small ‘t’ rigidity, we dishonor the core tradition that Jesus passed on to us: Love one another, as I have loved you.” 

Sermon 148; Mal 2:5-7, 3:20-24; Acts 13:25-41; Mk 9:2-13 Pilgrimage Saturday of Transfiguration

As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

“Don’t tell anyone what you have seen…” --Mk 9:9

Whenever I think about the feast of the transfiguration the expression that immediately leaps into my mind is to “see the light.” I wonder if that expression might have this feast as its origin. The light surrounding Christ is a central feature of the story. This feast is about seeing the light that illumines the deeper reality of who Christ is.  But what happens when we, or in this case, the three apostles, see the light? Does the reality of the event become immediately clear? The tradition, as expressed in the icon of the transfiguration, would seem to indicate that the apostles are bowled over and thrown into confusion rather than brought to a new and clearer awareness of the reality of Christ. So, seeing clearly in the moment may not be the message here. The Transfiguration of Christ may not be violent as an explosion [the atom bomb], but maybe what is happening here is a clearing away of our expectations and preconceived notions so that a new opportunity to see clearly emerges.

        After all, the apostles had lived with Jesus for a long time. They heard him preach. They ate with him. They traveled with him. Now they are about to approach his passion and yet they remain in the dark about what is really going on. It reminds me of driving a car into either the morning or evening sun. Rather than being illumined by the light, we are blinded by it. And it’s scary! Our first inclination might be to pull over, stop the car and wait until the angle of the sun changes enough so that we can get our bearings and see again. A reasonable and human response, but not often possible. No surprise then that Peter proposes setting up shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah to freeze the moment. But that moment passes as quickly as a turn in the road moves the sun into another less threatening trajectory and we heave a sigh of relief. Moses and Elijah are gone and only Jesus remains. And in their confusion and bewilderment, Jesus guides his three companions back down the mountain to the reality of his passion and death that will unfold in a relentless and steady way. The moment on the mountain is not to be talked about now, it is to be reflected on as the days pass and then understood after the resurrection.

        Isn’t it often true that we understand confusing circumstances in our lives through twenty-twenty hindsight? It is the later reflection on what happened that finally helps us “see the light.”  And isn’t this an axiom of life? If someone does something that triggers anger in me, the best response is to wait and reflect first, not to immediately react. A marriage falls apart; it may not be best to marry the next person you meet! Lose a job; don’t sign up for the first available position, but rather take the unemployment check and do a thorough search for the right position for you. And elsewhere, what does Jesus say? Slapped in the face? Turn the other cheek. This is not to encourage us to become floormats for others but rather to avoid taking the easy route of immediate reaction that will simply escalate the situation rather than resolve it. So, the Transfiguration of Christ may very well be about the transfiguration of the moment as much as the transfiguration of the person.

Today, we are very fortunate to have Dr. Roberta Ervine as our guest presenter who will speak to us this afternoon about this idea of transfiguration as understood and depicted in the Armenian tradition.  I encourage all of you to come back here at 1:30 for her presentation. I know you will not be disappointed.

Christ is in our midst! 

Homily: Feast of the Transfiguration:

As preached by Sister Rebecca

August 06, 2017

Holy Wisdom Church 

     This morning’s Gospel describes Peter, James, and John witnessing Jesus’ transfiguration: “His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light”… Peter’s immediate reaction was to make three tents:  for Jesus, Elijah and for Moses.  He no sooner said this that a bright cloud cast a shadow over the disciples and then from the cloud, a voice said:  This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him”.  Upon hearing this they were full of fear and all fell on their faces.

Instead of tents that Peter would like to make, a different kind of tent, not from human hands, covered the disciples, as in the hymn at this morning’s matins:  

     “You were transfigured on Mount Tabor, O Jesus, and a shining cloud spread out like a tent covered your friends with your glory.  The hymn continues: “At once they turned their gaze earthward, for they could not bear the sight of the unapproachable glory of your face, O Savior Christ.”   I would like to pause here to reflect on the shining cloud that covered the disciples and their inability to sustain the sight of the uncreated Light shining forth from Jesus’ person.

     First of all, the luminous cloud spread out like a tent covering the disciples:   This imagery is full of meaning.  One important aspect of it: it is a cloud blinding our normal, everyday consciousness-that is, our minds that reasons, plans, figures things out in our daily.  This luminous cloud trans-figures the ordinary mind.  It goes beyond trying to figuring things out, like Peter not knowing what to do about this awesome sight. It is not a question of doing something: it is a question of being.   This luminous cloud may be described as the Cloud of unknowing, or rather a deep heart knowing of awe and wonder, which cannot be contained by anything-even words.  It is beyond human control; it points to a divine visitation in what the Gospels call Kairos Time, Eternal Time, God’s time and the Kingdom of God. It is in this ‘space’ that the 3 disciples hear the Word of God piercing through their hearts:  “This is my Beloved Son,..listen to him.”  Just prior to this event they all heard Jesus words about his passion and imminent death.  However, they heard the words but missed the meaning; they were unable or unwilling to listen, that is, catch the meaning.  Even after the Transfiguration experience, they still did not get it. They fled during Jesus’ passion and death.           

Transfiguring experiences or enlightening ones are not immediately transformative.  It will take the coming Pentecost experience for this to happen in them.

    What about our lives?  Can we relate to transfiguring experiences?  Yes, even when we share in humanity’s broken condition.   There are cracks in the soul where Light and new life can break through.

This is alluded to by Gerard Manley Hopkins when he describes the world as ‘charged with the grandeur of God” or Elizabeth Barrett Browning who presents a similar image: 

“Earth’s crammed with heaven

And every common bush afire with God;

but only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

The rest of us sit round it and pluck blackberries.” (Eliz Barrett Browning: Aurora Leigh)

     Both Hopkins and Browning were able to experience the grandeur and sacredness the Divine Light because their inner eyes welcomed awe and wonder.   What smites us with an unquenchable amazement is not that which we can grasp or control.  The overemphasis on reasoning and doing ends up on the shore of the unknown.  The ineffable dwells in the immense expanse beyond our everyday mind.

     True transformation begins when we let go of control, grasping, and willful trying to figure out our life’s direction.  The mystery of transformation we are reflecting on more often happens when something old falls apart-a deep hope, an ideal.  The pain of something falling apart invites the soul to listen at a deeper level and this sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place-the liminal space of the cloud of unknowing.  Transformation needs to become a process of living in the confusing dark space for a while and allowing ourselves to be spit up, like the prophet Jonah onto a new and unexpected shore.

     Wonder transforms perception.  It gives us new eyes. Nothing we do can produce wonder.  We can, however, be open to it and welcome it.  We can make space for it.  The setting can be wherever we find ourselves. Now, I invite us to simply clear a space within ourselves and pray:

Jesus, as you made your light shine on that glorious day, now let it shine on our souls, O Gracious master.”

6th Sunday after Pentecost. The healing of the Paralytic

Homily by Sister Cecelia

Micah 4:6-10, Romans 7:14-24, Matthew 9:2-8

A cousin of mine was telling her daughter that she did not like all the time she was spending with her new boyfriend.  The daughter, Monica, exploded and answered her mother in a not nice way. Monica later said to me that she did not know why she had answered that way, as it was not like her to be like that. As St Paul indicated this morning in the epistle, we are all capable of sins against others and against God, even as we know we don’t want to be “like that.”

When we behave in ways we would prefer not to, consider this: are we more concerned about our own lack of victory over our weaknesses than we are about grieving the heart of God? Don’t we like to think ourselves as above average, not quite as wretched as those who commit really ugly offenses against God? For those with understanding and insight, every evil, no matter how small or great, is ugly. If we find ourselves quite intolerant about any failure in our struggles with evil actions or thoughts, it is likely because we are success-oriented rather than because we do not want to offend God. Are we being more self-centered than God-centered? St Paul indicates we will succeed only if we rely on God’s help. We can’t do it alone.

 The men who brought the paralytic to Jesus believed that Jesus could help—and their faith ultimately brought healing to the man who was paralyzed. Jesus had been preaching and healing long enough for many to have faith in him. But not the scribes. To the scribes who were scandalized by his words “Your sins are forgiven you,” Jesus asked: “Why do you have such wicked thoughts in your hearts?” They readily accepted that if the man was sick, he must have sinned. That was the cultural belief of that time. All sin was an offense to God, so only God could forgive.  The scribes found unacceptable Jesus’ saying that the paralytic’s sins were forgiven. Jesus was equating himself with God. The scribes were unable to think outside their boxes of ritualized do’s and don’ts and were scandalized that Jesus was making himself God. We never hear whether any scribes were open to Jesus after witnessing the paralytic’s sins being forgiven and his obedience to Jesus’ directions to get up and go home.

One direction Jesus has given us is to be of one mind and one heart with one another. It is a difficult thing to really achieve, as we are so different from one another. We have had different experiences; we are different temperaments, of different origins and families. We have different talents and different responsibilities. We have different views and understand each other imperfectly. Being different from other people, we may well grate on them, weary them with what we are, what we think, what we do, and what we feel.

We may not achieve empathy for all, but we can be of one mind in Christian forbearance, each bearing the other’s burden. I bear the burden that the other is to me simply by being himself or herself, because I know I am a burden to him or her simply by being myself. Besides praying for understanding and a peaceable, forbearing heart, we can take that person who is a burden into our prayer. Would we then find our heart a little lighter, more at ease, more patient if we did this? Say to God: “Here is someone I truly find a pain in my side. You put up with me, let me put up with him or her.  You, Lord, might not like the way the person is, but you not only allow the person to be, you love them.”

Mutual harmony and understanding—being of one mind—is difficult for us. We can only bear with each other, bear with one another’s burdens. Jesus showed us the example of true humility. Only by acquiring the same kind of humility will we be able then to love others and not just be able to bear with one another. Then we will be doing our best to be of one mind and heart.

Today we commemorate the successful testing of the atom bomb. May we all take all those responsible for nuclear warfare, and all those who have suffered from nuclear warfare in the past and will suffer in the future, into our prayer as well.

Remember: only in God, in whom we live and move and have our being, is being of one mind and one heart possible. 

God is in our midst.