August 6th 1 Kings 19:9-14, 2 Peter 1:10-18, Matthew 17:1-8

As preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church

Jesus had been warning his followers that he had to go to Jerusalem, where he would suffer and be put to death. His followers would not hear of it because the Messiah was supposed to free his chosen people, not die. What was this message Jesus was trying to foist upon them?

Scripture says that Jesus took just these three—Peter, James, and John—up a mountain, we can presume to pray. Was Jesus himself not sure that going to Jerusalem, and all that meant, was what God wanted him to do? It is possible that God sent Moses and Elijah to assure Jesus the path he saw for himself was indeed what needed to be done.  Jesus, being human, needed strength to carry out his mission, so he prayed often. This possible uncertainty happened earlier in Jesus’ public ministry. Towards the end, He was still praying in Gethsemani that his suffering and death could pass. It is a mystery that he would not know for sure what was being asked. How much more so it is for us: to not be sure if our own choices in day-to-day living are the best. 

Pray and listen.

It is possible Moses and Elijah were sent for the disciples’ benefit. The law, symbolized by Moses, and Elijah, symbolizing the prophets who so often spoke for God, prepared the way for Jesus. Being transfigured and then hearing God’s words to listen to, Jesus should leave no doubt in the three men, in spite of their incredulity, that their beliefs were being fulfilled.  Think how difficult, how terrifying, to realize one’s beliefs might not be true.

Jesus’ words of comfort “Do not be afraid” are meant for us as well.

In these troubled times, are we afraid? Hopefully we have been inspired to pray and reflect on the meaning of our lives, since for some, it has been drastically difficult. It is so encouraging to hear of people going out of their way to help others in so many different ways. It is distressing to hear of the many ways, too, of harm being done to the other.  

Being quiet, being still, and listening for God to speak to us is a benefit that can come from this pandemic to help us in our metanoia. This morning’s first reading told us that God was not in the strong wind, or the earthquake, or the fire; but in the silence, Elijah did experience God. Do not be afraid of the silence.

Be open to the ways God is inviting you to grow. Recognize the goodness of the person God has created us to be. First find God within yourself. Then we can more easily find God everywhere else.

 Do not be afraid of studying scripture, to attempt to understand what Jesus was trying to teach us.  Study life itself to find God in all things. We can find God in the whirlwind, in fire, in earthquakes, and in all of creation, even this pandemic. How much more can we find God in humans, who are made in God’s image and likeness.

First, we have to find God within ourselves. Then we can more easily find God everywhere else.

 God is in our midst!

 

 

Homily July 19, 2020: 2 Kings 4:25–37/ Matthew 9:18–26

by Sr. Rebecca

 

Two of today’s scripture readings are about new life given to two persons – one the son of the Shunammite woman, the other a daughter of a local synagogue officer. Both died and were brought back to life.  The Gospel also recounts the healing of a third person: the woman suffering for 12 years of hemorrhaging.

I feel drawn to center our attention on those three living persons who manifested extraordinary love, faith, and trust in God in the midst of these incredible afflictions: the Shunammite woman, the bleeding woman, and the officer of the synagogue. All of them engaged themselves in pursuing life in the midst of a crisis, of heart-breaking losses. 

            Whence does this trust, this passion for life arise in them? In all three there is great suffering. Did they succumb to self-pity or wallow in their pain? No! Their pain generated energy.  They all engaged in doing something: to bring life into chaos!

            The Shunammite woman wasted no time to get on a donkey and take off to see the prophet Elisha. In those days, for a woman to travel such a distance and alone was certainly dangerous. But nothing was going to deter her. She was determined to move the prophet’s heart to come to her home and bring her son back to life. She was not going to take no for an answer. 

We see a similar passion in the woman who also took the risk of being crushed by the crowd following Jesus, or by being shunned because of her condition as a woman and, to boot, a bleeding one. she was determined to touch Jesus’ garment—her last chance to be healed. The third, the officer of the synagogue, was taking a huge risk of being ridiculed and demoted from his position in the synagogue by the powers that be—the synagogue authorities—the enemies of Jesus.

All three readings deal with the gap between suffering, death, and then new life. We hear of the gap of time between these events. The gap was 12 years for the woman with the flow of blood.  When we read or hear the stories in the Scripture like those today, we go so quickly from the suffering and loss to the experience of new life that we barely pause to realize what people go through in the middle—the gap between what was, and when, after a certain length of time, the healing or new life is experienced. Within the gap there is immense suffering, grief, pain, even anger and bitterness of heart and mind. The past 5 months in our own lives have been filled with gaps—disturbing ones, to say the least. We don’t need to search for them in our own lives; we all experience them. 

Gaps: in these past months and now, our lives are filled with gaps. The daily news breaks our hearts. We see fear. We see death. We see protests. We see anger and violence in the streets. We see prejudice and racism. We see arrogance and self-serving privilege. We see unemployment, incredible poverty, and economic hardship. All of these are gaps—the open wounds of our country—and we are hemorrhaging. We are bleeding, and some cannot breathe. 

One of the biggest gaps we face in this pandemic is uncertainty.

            There remains much uncertainty about the bigger picture, which is far from easy to deal with. Where is the COVID-19 pandemic taking us? Will there be an effective treatment and a vaccine? Will it be with us like the flu? How long must we suffer social isolation—some for whom the virus might mean a death sentence? Thoughts like these are certainly emerging one after another like a runaway train.

Not knowing: are we not in the dark regarding this and many other things in our lives? Uncertainty and unknowing are basic ingredients of our human condition and are especially acute today. This dark unknowing today, and the consequences in our daily living, affect many people with what feels like depression. Yet, for those I hear about and with whom I personally am in contact, it is not clinical depression but the effects of life being turned upside down and inside out.

We are in this crisis, this chasm of dark unknowing. But it does have a flip side, a positive value, because when we hit rock bottom and there is nowhere to go, it invites us to trust in God. The 14th-century Sufi poet and mystic Rumi wrote, “Return to the root of the root of yourself.” His words remind me that I often live on the periphery or circumference of life, disconnected from the root of my being and existence. To “return to the root of the root” of myself ultimately means returning to God. For me, that returning necessarily involves intentional silence and solitude. 

This is a time for going inward, to face these uncertainties, setting aside the ideas that fill our minds. We need to be still and quiet before God. This is a time to recognize that something greater than ourselves is at work here. It seems that it is always in the midst of crises, of messy times, that Light pierces the hearts of people: that is, when they face the suffering, allowing themselves to feel the passions of anger, eros, and of deep sadness and take them to God—for example, by meditating and praying the psalms, and not acting until a clear call is felt—along with knowing that their own lives are at stake. It is within THIS GAP that the energies of the passions are transformed. It happened to the prophets, to Jesus, and to multitudes of others, right up to our present times, as in the very recent news of the death of John Lewis.

God is everywhere present and filling ALL things! Perhaps ending with a poem from Mary Oliver may inspire us. Was it written, when, like so many people today, she found it hard to go into that “gap” and pray alone?

 

The Summer Day

“I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver

 

Note: I am deeply grateful to Fr. Michael Marsh for his own shared thoughts that have inspired me as I was preparing this homily.  He helped me find words for some my own innermost feelings and especially to perceiving God’s Spirit at work in me and in all of us during these most disrupting and painful times.

  

June 28th, 2020 Sir 13:1-11, Rom 3:284:8, MT 7:1-11

As preached by Sister Cecelia

Holy Wisdom Church

The image of the beam in a person’s eye wanting to remove the speck in the neighbor’s eye is quite a visual picture. Picture it!  It gives us an idea of just how far off our judgments of another can be. How accurate can our view of the other be if such a large object is blocking our view? There are times when we see actions of the other which annoy us. It is frequently our own disliked behavior we are projecting onto the other.

So how do we go about preventing ourselves from making these erroneous judgements?

 Following this picture of bad judging Jesus tells us to ask and we will receive: to Seek and we will find. We are encouraged to ask for everything from the fulfillment of quite lofty ideals to the very humdrum of everyday tasks. When asking, we can be very specific, even to the smallest things. At the end of every request we make, though, pray that “your will be done, not mine” as you know, Lord, what will bring about the good for me and for whomever I am also asking.

Getting back to erroneous judgments, we see what we see but we must remember we cannot know the motivation behind another’s behavior.  In St Paul’s epistle this morning the law to be upheld is the law to love our neighbor as ourselves, one of the Ten Commandments. We would all like our neighbor to give us the benefit of a doubt in our actions.

Perhaps wanting to remove the speck from another’s eye indicates a desire to help, to serve others. To serve others well we need to know what shortcomings in ourselves need to be worked on. To be able to face ourselves, to know ourselves, is what we need in the here and now. We can’t do that without God’s help. Again, ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find. Pray always and know yourself!

Spend time pondering this mystery of God being everywhere. Asking and seeking for this understanding leads us inexorably to the wonder of God’s creation. It leads us to experience the joy of seeing the sunrise or a sunset, the beauty of a flower, the exuberance of the dogs running in both the snow and fields of weeds. Seeing the faltering first steps of a puppy learning to walk can bring us to gratitude to the God who made all things.

How often pain and suffering have also caused us to turn our minds to God. While physical pain can be extremely difficult, the psychological pain of no longer experiencing the presence of God is more so. It takes faith to be able to wait patiently for God.

Peter and Paul, whose feast we celebrate today, surely had their share of both the joys and sorrows of serving their God. Peter needed a special vision to realize nothing created was profane. Paul needed a special vision to know he was persecuting Christ when he was persecuting the followers of Christ.

We need faith to believe that God is in all things created. God is not far away, being also within us, we can commune instantly. Much quicker than email.

Our time on earth is given us to get to know God even if only a little at a time.

Sermon 174 Mar 22, 2020 Lk 9:18-27, 1Pt 2: 21b-25, Is 49:1-7 Cross

As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

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

        A few weeks ago I read a news report that was very disheartening for me. Many of you may have also seen it. It was about Jean Vanier who founded L’Arche, an organization that established communities around the world to care for the disabled. His story was a beautiful one. After serving in the Canadian military, he retired in 1950 and devoted himself to “following Jesus” as he said. He wrote about community life and the spiritual life including a wonderful meditation on the Gospel of John. He died last year at the age of 90. But in February of this year, it was reported that he sexually abused 6 women in the town of Trosly, France, between 1970 and 2005. He apparently learned these ways from his spiritual father Thomas Phillipe [d. 1993], whose own sexual misconduct in the same town was investigated in 2014. Such behavior is particularly distressing when we discover that it was done by someone held in high esteem. Feelings of anger, betrayal, disgust, bewilderment, and dismay inevitably well up in our hearts as we try to process such a revelation.

        Over these weeks of Great Lent I have wrestled with this incident and its broader implications. If we are called to love as God loves, then how does God see this? How do we understand God’s love in light of such behavior? What does the church give us to help us deal with our feelings around this? The Church gives us the cross [show it]. This is not jewelry or a token to show membership in some club. The Cross is the instrument of our salvation which takes us down into the abyss and out again. We die with Christ so that we might live in Christ. These images from our baptism are also the destination of this Lenten Season: Christ’s death on the Cross, burial, and resurrection. 

        This story of real-life encompasses two types of tragedy for those directly involved. The first is the harm done to those 6 women. The extent to which their lives were forever damaged by this experience. The cross for them is the path they seek for healing. The many people: medical professionals, spiritual directors, friends, support groups, and other caregivers, who may be able to help them, are the extension of God’s love for them. Their situation is analogous to what the world is going through now with the COVID-19 pandemic. Lives being turned upside down and death coming to loved ones in ways that seem beyond human power to contain. And yet this tragedy draws from us remarkable examples of selfless giving that mirrors the love of God. This is putting on the cross of Christ.

        The other tragedy is Jean Vanier who died before these revelations were made known. He escaped the opprobrium that would have come his way in life, but he also lost the chance to come to terms with what he had done and make amends to those he harmed. And now his reputation will be forever damaged by his personal failings. All the good he did is tarnished. But not necessarily in God’s eyes.

        Does God still love Jean Vanier and the good he stood for, and can I also? The cross has taken us down into the abyss. How do we get out of that abyss? Another Gospel lesson may help here. The woman caught in sin. We need to be careful about this story. The danger is to focus on the particular sin and forget that her sin is only a symbol of all our sins. After the confrontation with her accusers, Jesus asks her to look around to see if anyone has condemned her. He tells her to notice that those who had condemned her ultimately left the scene realizing that they too had sinned.  Jesus says to her that he does not condemn her nor did any of those who had brought her to him. So, he tells her to go and sin no more. 

        Jesus message to us is that God is not interested in condemnation but rather in healing and forgiveness. Isn’t that a primary message of Lent, this year and every year? Repent then go and sin no more. It is not about condemnation. It is also not about denial. Jesus didn’t say that she had not sinned, he did not condone her actions. He said she was forgiven. This is the same for Jean Vanier and indeed all of us. There is no denial of the sin nor diminishment of the hurtful consequences of it. Rather, God wants us to learn, to grow and to heal in order to lead a better life. As I heard from an Orthodox clergyman in Europe 50 years ago: “If God can forgive, how can we do any less?” Make that our cross.

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Homily March 15, 2020 Gospel: Mark 5:25-34

As preached by Sister Rebecca 
Holy Wisdom Church

This morning I would like to reflect with you on the Gospel story of the woman who had endured a flow of blood for 12 years.  This woman is nameless.  Perhaps the evangelists—all three of the synoptics—purposely left her nameless? Does she represent a part of ourselves? I invite us to ponder, to imagine what it feels like to be considered by others as unclean, isolated, penniless, ostracized. 

This woman was condemned by religious law as unclean. She had to be ostracized.  Everything she touched became unclean. She was responsible not to contaminate others. 

            We learn that she approached Jesus “in fear and trembling.”  She hoped nobody would notice her.  She could not help but be aware that in touching the hem of Jesus’ garment she made him unclean.  She internalized the condemnation of her society and her religion: she had been socialized to think of herself as dirty, soiled, filthy.

Socialization is such a strong force in our lives.  Even if we know differently, intellectually, we often act the way we have been socialized.  How so? Society has rules or customs that are considered “normal.”  If we think differently, we are deviants, we are abnormal, inadequate.  We are deemed inferior.

This woman, stripped of any kind of support, acted against this false identity.  What gave her the courage to act differently? Besides feeling desperate because of the failure of her doctors to heal her, and being financially ruined? That would certainly push most of us to go against the grain.  But what really gave HER courage was that she had not given up.  She believed in herself enough to struggle. That is what pushed her on to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment.  This struggle emerged from a deep recognition of her own power.  She would no longer wait for others to fix her life.  She refused to identify herself with the demeaning circumstances of her life.  Deep within she knew: “If I but touch his garment, I will be made well.”  She intuited that Jesus offered a life that was “unleakable”—one that could never be drained from her.  By embracing her own “power-touch,” like a magnet, her own power called forth Jesus’ power. And Jesus said, “Power has gone forth from me.”  When she touched his hem, she was transfused with the power of God.  No longer did life leak out from her, but life flowed into her.

There is still more to this story.  It begins with her being nameless.  But Jesus is not about to leave her drift off in anonymity. He wants to establish a connection, a relationship with her. Jesus names her “Daughter.”  She now has a personal identity, a place, a sense of who she really is. Daughter? Of who?  She is God’s daughter.  This naming is so vitally important:  Jesus’ life of ministry, his own sense of empowerment of who he really is, happened, at the Jordan when he descended into the deep dark waters. In rising he heard the words that changed his own personal identity, his life’s purpose: “You are my Son, my Beloved.” 

In her encounter with Jesus, as this woman is healed, she too experiences wholeness of being: Beloved Daughter of God.  Jesus transmits this enlightened transformation of consciousness not only to this woman but to us. We see it throughout the Gospels, in countless beings ever since, and even at certain moments in our lives.

            To realize this belonging is a true homecoming, a consciousness of total unconditional acceptance of the person I really am.   From this space, as we see in this woman, who rises from a dark, deadened image of herself, we too, today, can join her in embracing our innermost freedom and go in peace.

Surely everyone here has moments of feeling hopeless, tired, and weak, as though our life has a hole in it. Do we feel drained, like a bucket with a hole at the bottom: empty, with nothing that can fill it?  Do we experience at times—we ourselves or for those we care about—a sense of being drained of life? 

            During this time of national—even worldwide—lockdown, when we are suddenly invited to isolate ourselves physically and socially from those outside our homes, are we called to take this time to go inward, find our innermost God-given power to embrace this present condition, not as isolation but in a deeper level of our hearts, to commune with the whole human race with our trust in God, to be creative, to go beyond our personal selves to seeking the wellbeing of others, especially those whose lives are more drastically altered and threatened.

            Whenever we live in times that threaten to make us feel drained of life, may we touch the hem of Jesus’ mantle in this spirit: “I need you now!” May Jesus’ power transfuse us with his life, his love, and his power.  God cannot resist those words: “Oh my God! Help me.”