Br. James Koester

Isaiah 58:9b-14

We used a pretty strong word this morning. In fact, we said it three times within a single prayer, and then, it appeared in our reading from Isaiah. We said, “We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.”[1] Shortly after, we heard Isaiah say, “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil . . .” (Isaiah 58:9b).

Few of us, I hope, would describe ourselves as evil, but we have just said that evil enslaves us, and that we do evil things. More boldly, we have admitted that others do evil on our behalf. So, while you and I may not be personally evil, evil surrounds us. We cannot escape it. The news, and our lives, are full of evil.

The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia, while the world watches seemingly helpless, is evil.

We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.

The trafficking of minors to wealthy, powerful men, for the purposes of sex, is evil.

We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.

The killing by government agents, of civilians engaged in legal protests, is evil.

We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.

The use of political office primarily for personal gain, is evil.

We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf

When we speak of evil, we are not speaking of the convenient lies we tell to get ourselves out of an unwanted social obligation, we are talking about something much more primal.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”’ But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.’” (Genesis 3:1-5)

It is this desire to be like God, which leads to evil. But the thing is, to be like God does not require us to act like petty tyrants, despots, or narcissists, and so do evil things. It requires us to behave as Isaiah would have us behave: “if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday” (Isaiah 58:10).

To be like God does not require our reaching out toward unfettered power, privilege, and prestige, and so separate ourselves from God, as did our first parents. Rather to be like God is found in acts of humble service, on our knees, carrying jug, basin, and towel, as we will each do in a few short weeks following the example of the One who came to serve and not to be served.[2]

Evil enslaves us. We do evil. Evil is done on our behalf. And the antidote is not denial, but mercy. The antidote is not denial, but service.

If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday and you will be like God.

[1] From the General Confession, Enriching Our Worship (New York, 1997), 56, as used at the Monastery during Lent.

[2] See Mark 10:45

Br. Jack Crowley

Luke 9:18-25

Our Gospel passage today features one of my favorite words that Jesus uses. That word is “daily.” Jesus tells his disciples that they must take up their cross daily and follow him. Jesus could have said, take up your cross when you are ready or take up your cross when the time is right, but instead, Jesus says plainly, take up your cross daily.

I always appreciate how Jesus does not sugarcoat the truth. The daily grind of taking up our cross is something we all know too well. We each have our own version of this. Each day’s cross carries its own little splinters, its own knots in the wood, and it can rub us the wrong way on different days. In my own experience, how I carry the cross one day doesn’t always translate to how I must carry the cross the next day. In other words, I’m relearning or remembering how to take up my cross each day, but with a slightly different accent or technique each time.

In this season of Lent, we have forty daily reminders of the cross we must bear. Forty daily reminders that we never really know for sure what’s going to happen when we put that cross on our back and set out into the desert. Sure, we have plans and disciplines and boundaries and routines, yet the weight of the cross has its way on all of them.

The good news is that we know six weeks from today will be Maundy Thursday. We’ll gather here and wash away the sands from the desert of Lent in warm water. Our feet will be toweled off, and we will gladly kneel to wash the feet of another. We all know our journey with the cross will have a glorious, healing, and cleansing ending.

Yet, in the meantime, there is still our daily cross. As sure as the sun rises, our cross will be there waiting for us when we wake up in the morning. Remember that we are not carrying our cross for no reason or without direction; as Jesus said, we take up our cross and follow him. We follow Jesus. We are not walking aimlessly in the desert; we are following Jesus. We are answering his beloved invitation to come and see.

I wish you all a glorious Lenten season. Amen.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Janani Luwum

John 12:24-32

In 1972, an Ugandan military dictator, Idi Amin, overthrew the elected Ugandan government and began terrorizing and butchering the population, especially two groups: academics and Christians. Some called it the Ugandan holocaust. In the calendar of the church we remember today an Ugandan Archbishop, Janani Luwum. He was a gentle, zealous, courageous man who met face-to-face with Idi Amin, confronted him on his atrocities, and asked for atonement.[1] Leaving the meeting, Archbishop Luwum told his companions, “They are going to kill me. I am not afraid.” The next day his body was found riddled with bullets.

Uganda fifty years ago may seem far away; however, we need only witness the governmental terrorizing in our own country to see how the seeds of an Ugandan-like incursion have found a home here. We witness daily trauma and injustice for persons whose first language is not English, persons of color, persons who do not follow an exclusive brand of Christianity, persons who are not straight or cisgendered, and many others.

Tomorrow begins the season of Lent. The Ash Wednesday liturgy presents us with a “Litany of Penitence.” We will confess and repent for where we, individually, have lapsed in our baptismal promises, including “our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty.”[2] What will come of this? Those of us who make this confession will each have our own reasons, each of us will have our own resolve, and each of will have our own reach as we seek to amend our own lives and others’.

Will our resolve require courage? No, I don’t think so. Courageous people do not see themselves as courageous. They did what needed to be done, what they had prepared for or promised. A clear moment arose, and they acted or spoke as only they could. In that moment, it’s what their life was all about. The word “courage” arises in the voice of the witnesses. We see someone as courageous. Archbishop Luwum did not see himself as courageous.

I have a suggestion, as we individually anticipate making our confession tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, for “our blindness to human need and suffering, our indifference to injustice and cruelty,” and a great deal more. I suggest we overlay our confession with what we know about “the suffering, injustice, and cruelty” that surrounds us, and what we are prepared to do about it. This is not a preparation for being courageous. Courage will take care of itself. This is about clarity, about being clear what our life is to be about, each of us in our own way, as we lay down our lives to follow Jesus, we each being like “a grain of wheat.”

Blessed Janani Luwum, whom we remember today.

[1] Janani Luwum was married, the father of nine children. He was educated at St. Augustine’s College, Canterbury, and at the London College of Divinity. The anniversary of his death, January 16, is a day of remembrance and a public holiday for the 52,000,000 people of Uganda: “Archbishop Janani Luwum Day.”

[2] The Litany of Penitence is found within the Ash Wednesday liturgy in The Book of Common Prayer (1979), 264-69.

Br. Keith Nelson

The Sunday of the Transfiguration: The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Matthew 17:1-9

At its heart, the Feast of the Transfiguration is about the revelation of who God is in and through Jesus Christ – and who God is in and through Christ’s followers, as we are transfigured by this life-changing relationship of love.

But the transfiguration account we just heard, and its counterparts in Luke and Mark, are all preceded by a stark prediction, by Jesus, of his violent death. And in all three, this prediction is followed by an equally stark condition of discipleship: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Luke adds, “every day.”

So while the mountaintop vision reveals Jesus, shining like the sun as he speaks face to face with the ancestors Moses and Elijah, they speak of his coming death.

And while Peter cries, “It is good for us to be here!,” in response, when the disciples hear the voice of the Father and are overshadowed by the bright cloud, they are filled with fear.

The touch and the reassurance of Jesus, “Get up and do not be afraid,” brings them back to familiar, everyday reality. But the veil has been pierced; they cannot unsee the true identity of their Master; they cannot escape those mysterious but disturbing instructions:

“Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

As disciples of Jesus, we glimpse what Peter, James, and John glimpsed on that mountain: an alternative order of reality open and available to us in God’s Beloved Son. “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom,” says Jesus (Matthew 16:28). Belonging to that order of reality, which Jesus calls the kingdom of God, means that we participate in his belovedness. Come what may, nothing can now separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:31-39).

I find this utterly vital to remember as we live through a time rife not only with competing visons of human thriving and definitions of happiness but, more fundamentally, competing orders of reality.

The bewildering and disturbing events unfolding hourly in our national life and their cascading global consequences induce – for many, many of us – the feeling that we are living within a nightmare from which we cannot wake up. The order of reality fabricated in the halls of power,  is deftly and seamlessly woven around us. Those paid, promoted, privileged, and protected to weave it seek to unravel any good, true, just, godly, or merely sane alternative – any counter-narrative that exposes the illusion or breaks the spell. And the constant cognitive and moral dissonance of bearing up under such a system can threaten both our endurance and our hope.

It is time to say not merely, “Those are not my values” or “I have a different definition of happiness.”

It is time to say, clearly and explicitly: “That is not the order of reality to which I belong.”

Because in the transfiguration, we also glimpse the awesome responsibility that comes with being loved so deeply: to follow a Master whose cross is also our cross. To spend our lives spending ourselves for the sake of others, especially those deprived of power as the world defines it; to undergo what T.S. Eliot called a “lifetime’s death in love.”[1]

What do I mean by order of reality?

What we value; what we nourish and cultivate; the ways in which we spend our time; the people, communities, and endeavors to which we give our attention and our devotion; these are the things that shape who we become. Who we are, deep down, shapes the way we engage or disengage from the material and immaterial structures of human and creaturely being.

There is an order of reality being woven by the unregulated, unreflective, and wantonly profit-driven proliferation of artificial intelligence, which now plays a part in most areas of human life and behavior. Some of it is helpful. Much of it is harmful in ways we cannot yet fully understand because of the pace of its development. All of it operates with unprecedented power. The underlying motive is to push the limit of technological possibility without adequate safeguards or boundaries and see what happens.

There is an order of reality being woven by massive climate and environmental de-regulation. Most significantly this week, the repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding by the entity called the Environmental Protection Agency effectively de-regulates the oil, coal, and gas industries in the U.S. The underlying motive is to prioritize industrial profits over fundamental creaturely needs for fertile soil, clean air, and the right of future generations to these basic conditions for life.

There is an order of reality being woven by so-called Christian Nationalism, which has been analyzed seriously since 2020. Episcopal Bishop Rob Wright calls it “a set of beliefs, practices and policy goals which are fundamentally at odds with the gospel but presented as harmonious with the gospel and as having been with us from the church’s beginning.” Bishop Wright specifies that “it should not be characterized as simply a difference of theological or political interpretation or emphasis” but is rather “a deceitful rendering of Jesus’ teaching for the purpose of manipulation and the increase of mammon . . . to serve the interests of a political system where government has total power.”[2]

There are many others you can probably think of.

For a long time – in some cases, decades – these social, political, technological, economic and religious issues have been propelled by evolving bundles of values. But as their influence pervades our culture, their master narratives more seductive and much more organized, they have become something more.

The order of reality we choose – consciously or unconsciously – is the story that molds our most basic experiences: of time, memory and history; relationships, milestones, accomplishments and losses; dreams, goals, aspirations; what is broken in us, what is in process of being healed, and what has yet to be; how and by whom we will be remembered.

By our birth into this world, God our Creator gives every creature a longing to find the story, sing the song, or dance the dance that will order all these givens in a particular direction. In humans, this becomes a relentless pursuit of our purpose. These are the raw materials that are transfigured – pierced, infused, and taken up into God’s new creation – in Jesus Christ.

In the midst of a counterfeit order, what is accomplished by claiming this alternative as the only true order of reality worth giving our lives to?

Simply speaking words of truth can break the fangs of an illusion.

When we are overwhelmed with anxiety, grief, or a creeping sense that there is no escape from the cruelty and misery, to pause, to breathe God’s air given to all without measure, and to say: “That is not the order of reality to which I belong,” can make real our resistance.

Communities – first and foremost here today, the Church – can more actively and explicitly claim: “That is not the order of reality to which we belong.” This is utterly crucial in the current landscape of American Christianity.

We can also look to our ancestors in faith, as Jesus spoked with Moses and Elijah – those prophets who saw through the lies and disguises of their own social order and chose to win hearts back to God by telling a different story.

One such story told by a master storyteller and Christian of the twentieth century is The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Because I was given this story before I was given my first Bible, I often turn to its profound wisdom in moments of spiritual perplexity. I return often these days to this beloved exchange between the hobbit Frodo, tasked with carrying a truly great burden, and the wizard Gandalf:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”[3]

This decision will look different for each of us as we seek to live transfigured lives in our different vocations and circumstances. What will unite our decisions is an existential and spiritual resistance, a realignment of consciousness itself with God’s purposes. That brings the freedom “for which Christ has set us free.” No one and nothing can ever again enslave the child of God who claims that freedom.

“It is good for us to be here.” Transfigured by that freedom, we descend the mountain, again and again, in every age, “strengthened to take up our cross” in this time God has given us; to do what lies in our power with God’s help; and to keep our hope alive and our conscience sharp.

[1] T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, “The Dry Salvages,” V.

[2] https://episcopalatlanta.org/news/christian-nationalism-and-christian-witness/

[3] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2.

Br. James Koester

Cyril and Methodius

Philippians 1:15-26

This morning, we conclude the sermon series “A Lifetime of Developing Response.” Over the last few weeks, we have heard from each of the senior Brothers, as we have reflected on our years as members of the community. Today it is my turn. Now, don’t read too much into that. I am not sure that my having the last word is meant to signify anything of great importance! But you never know.

I must admit, I find it difficult to comprehend that I am one of the senior members of the community. Yet the reality is that when I came to the community, those who were then the senior members, were not that much older than I am now, and the things we say in the Rule about the gifts and challenges of old age were written with them in mind! So, like the others who have preached on these Saturdays, I find myself in the odd situation of discovering myself where I least expected to be.

I also find myself reflecting today on the feast of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, two brothers who are known as the Apostles to the Slavs. Among the things which fascinates me about them, or at least about Cyril, is that several years ago I found myself quite by accident at his tomb. I was on a visit to Rome. One day I discovered myself at the Basilica of San Clemente. For Rome, San Clemente is rather new. It was built about the year AD 1100. What is fascinating about the church is that what you see is the second church built on the site. It had been built on top of the earlier fourth century church, which everyone believed had been destroyed during the rebuilding project one thousand years ago. That is, they believed that until the 1860s when a workman opened a door that had not been opened in centuries, descended a flight of stairs, and discovered the fourth century church beneath, more or less intact, including the tomb of St. Cyril.

It is this image of going deeper, into unknown places, that resonates with me as I ponder the mystery of aging, and the gifts to be found, not at the bottom of a flight of disused stairs, but buried in a lifetime of experiences.

We say in our Rule that “our older brothers will . . . be able to contribute their experience of what is essential in our life with God, a sense of perspective, wisdom, their appreciation for the community, and joy in the younger members.”[1]

As I read that line, I am aware that over the past 37 years, a major shift has taken place within me. Then I was an eager, enthusiastic, excited, and rather nervous and certainly naïve 32-year-old when I arrived one hot day at the end of June 1989. It is not that I am no longer that person. I have moments when I am very much that person. But something has changed. Over the last 37 years I have begun to explore the hidden passages of my soul that lie at the bottom of my own forgotten staircase. It is that opportunity for exploration for which I am most grateful, despite the pain, loss, and confusion it has sometimes caused. We recognize that in our Rule when we say, “stages of genuine transformation are marked by experiences of confusion and loss.”[2] To be honest, I am confused and lost a great deal of time. Frankly today is no different, as I navigate those mysterious basement passageways of my soul, to discover what it means for me to be the former Superior, and what all that went before, means now.

And perhaps that is the thing I am learning in this season of my life: that all that went before continues to have meaning for me today. We say something like this in the Rule when we remind ourselves that “[these] hearts of ours are not empty vessels but inner worlds alive with images, memories, experiences and desires.”[3] Scott Cairns puts it this way in his poem, “The Ruminant”:

So that was why the monk’s thin lips

There was a time when I swallowed whole: food, experiences, emotions, tasks, roles, and, mostly, I got a stomach or heart ache. At times I still swallow whole, and the stomach and heart aches are the same as ever. In this stage of life, however, I am more and more discovering the grace of mulling matter over and again and find that life is the sort of gum whose sugars will not quit, nor ever quite hold still.

As I do so, I find that I now want other things out of life than I once did. It’s not that the things which that eager, enthusiastic, excited, and rather nervous and certainly naïve 32-year-old wanted were wrong or bad. After all, they brought me here. Nor is it that I want more. In many ways I want less. In an odd way, the older I get, the less I want, but the more I want it, and I begin to understand what Paul hinted at when he said, “for to me, living is Christ, and dying is gain . . . my desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:21, 23). Or, as Father Benson put it, “cling to Jesus, cling only to him.”

My hunch is that what is true for me is true or will be true for many of you. What you wanted, and needed out of your marriage, your relationships, your family, your life, your job, your vocation, your community when you were 30, is, or will be different when you are, or will be 70. That will change again no doubt when you are 80, or 90, or . . . There will be a stripping away of everything, even those things which gave purpose and value to your life, until you stand naked, at least metaphorically, before Christ, saying, “this is all I am . . . and all that I am is yours.”

Once upon a time, I could not have imagined any of this. The idea of wanting less out of life was unfathomable. The idea of wanting to depart and be with Christ was, well, morbid. The idea that I wanted to creep down those stairs and explore the hidden rooms in the basement of my soul was scary beyond words.

Yet the workman who risked opening that door in San Clemente nearly two centuries ago and crept down those stairs discovered a vast treasure beneath, including the forgotten shrine of a saint. Maybe, just maybe, as I mull my life over and again, sucking on the sugars of past experiences, I too will discover the body of a long-forgotten saint buried deep within my soul, and will be able to say with Paul,  “for to me, living is Christ, and dying is gain . . . my desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better.” And to follow Father Benson’s lead and cling to Jesus, cling only to him, and in so doing, witness to my Brothers what really is essential in our life with God.

[1] The Rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (Lanham, MD, 1997), 94.

[2] Ibid., 75

[3] Ibid., 40.

[4] S. Cairns, Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected (Brewster, MA, 2006)

Br. Lain Wilson

Mark 7:31-37

In the last decade of his life, my grandfather’s progressive hearing and memory loss caused him to turn inward. He would sit silently at meals, both unable to hear what was said and unable to follow the conversation. We loved him, of course we did, but it was also easy to notice that the everyday currents of relationship could skirt him by, like a boulder in a river – in the water but not moving with it.

I imagine that this is the kind of life that the deaf man in today’s gospel reading led. Unable to hear, with limited, if any, ability to speak, he would have been cut out of so much of the life of the community. I can’t help but notice how often in scripture we hear or read words like “spoke,” “said,” “proclaimed,” “shouted,” “cried,” and “sang.” How isolated must this man have felt in a time before widespread literacy and automatic captioning?

But there’s one detail of today’s reading that really catches my attention: “they brought to him a deaf man.” They brought. We don’t know who “they” are. This formula is used throughout Mark’s gospel, and one of its early appearances is explicit. “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5). Their faith, the faith of those who brought someone who couldn’t otherwise, was determinative.

As the paralytic couldn’t have come under his own power to Jesus, the deaf man could not have heard Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom, or about Jesus’ other healing miracles. But those who brought him to Jesus had, and it was their hope, their faith, and their conviction that bore this man to stand before Jesus for healing. Although the deaf man may have found himself cut out of so much of the life of the community, he still belonged, enough for these unnamed people to have faith that Jesus could heal this man.

We live in a time of unprecedented levels of connection at the macro level; and yet, so many of us feel ourselves to be alone, isolated, drawn inward. We may not suffer from hearing or memory loss, but so many of us experience the loss of another critical faculty – the feeling of belonging, to each other, to something more than ourselves. But we are called to belong to each other; indeed, God created us to belong to each other. Jesus’ healing of the deaf man – and the paralytic, and undoubtedly countless others not recorded – shows us that even when we feel most cut off, most isolated, most alone, nevertheless we do still belong. Recognizing this truth is where we may most need to come – or be brought – to Jesus for healing.

Amen.

Br. Luke Ditewig

Scholastica

Matthew 6:5-8

Young children often call out: “Look at me! See me play. See what I can do.” Adults don’t often yell it out so directly, yet we want to be seen. We receive love by being seen and known. This this core need can get distorted. A good desire to participate, help, and lead as well as to be seen can become overly focused on attention.

Eugene Peterson wrote: “Hypocrisy is slow-growing. In its early stages it is difficult to detect. And that is why no one is conscious of becoming a hypocrite. . . . Distraction from intended good ends up as hypocrisy.”[1] Distraction. Jesus says: The world is not a stage for you to show off good deeds. Beware of practicing your piety in order to be seen by others. Don’t announce your compassion. What you could receive can distract from the good you do. Doing good can distract from being.

Jesus commends praying in secret, not seen by others. We brothers pray a lot together in public. We work to do it well: to listen to each other and sing together. We also pray in secret, that is alone in solitude. This private prayer sustains and is the well-spring from which we pray much together in public as well as all our other work and ministry. Private and public, personal and communal. As monastics we are alone together, solitary in community.

Today we remember St. Scholastica, sister of St. Benedict. After he founded a monastery, she founded a convent of sisters. Gregory the Great tells the story that Scholastica and Benedict annually met for conversation and worship. Once when Benedict was about to return home, Scholastica asked him to stay. Benedict said he could not because of his community’s norm. Scholastica prayed, after which there was a sudden storm, and thus Benedict stayed with her that night for further conversation. We remember Scholastica for strong community leadership as well as holding up love and friendship amid the keeping of norms.

There is opportunity and tension for all of us, whether as religious in monasteries or convents or not, in cultivating both solitude and community, in being alone and together with God. For balance in life, serving, resting, and praying, we need times alone as well as together. In solitude and silence, we hear afresh our Divine Parent and Friend: I see you for who you truly are. You are my beloved, fully known and welcome.

Come show yourself, laugh and cry, be held and hugged, and simply be. Be yourself with the One who truly sees. From such prayer, look with love at friends and community like Blessed Scholastica whom we remember today.

[1] E. H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers (Grand Rapids, MI, 2008), 140.

Br. Lain Wilson

The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple

Luke 2:22-40

Today we commemorate a feast of many names: the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, the Purification of the Saint Mary the Virgin, Candlemas, and the Hypapante, or “meeting.” But set amid other scenes of angels and miraculous pregnancies and wise men and voices from heaven, the events celebrated today can easily get lost.

These events are, on one level, commonplace. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus would’ve been just one family of many who made the same journey to fulfill the same religious obligations, even that same day. They could’ve been just one among many who could only afford a pair of turtledoves for sacrifice. This story could be the story of any number of young boys in first-century Israel-Palestine.

But of course, this isn’t the story of any number of young boys, but of one particular boy. It’s his story because of what happens when he arrives at the temple. This particular infant boy, who has been announced by angels and hailed by wise men, this particular infant, on this particular day, is not met by heavenly choirs or exotic gifts, but by aged human hands.

I try to imagine what life must have been like for Simeon and Anna. Simeon was told that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. How long must he have waited? I imagine that in his long wait his own imagination ran free: who was this Messiah? What did he look like? How would he appear to him? What must Simeon, living under political occupation, have dreamed of when he though of the Messiah? Was he surprised that the Messiah came to him as an infant, surrounded by others just like him, in this commonplace scene?

I’m not immune to fantastic imaginings, of expectations of how Jesus will come to me, of all the ills that he will cure. I imagine the same may be true of you. What hopes and expectations do you carry with you today that lead you to look past the Jesus who comes?

And Anna. “She never left the temple,” we are told, “but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2:37). Day after day. Even the most devout will experience times of dryness and fatigue, as we Brothers say in our Rule. Many, if not most, days were filled with grace, but how many, over so many years, were instead gray days of drudgery and routine? How might this have cultivated a hardened resistance to encounter?

I’m not immune to those gray days of drudgery and routine and dryness and fatigue. I imagine the same may be true of you. Where does this lead to your own hardened resistance to encounter with the Jesus who comes?

This day of meeting, of encounter amid the commonplace, can so easily get lost among so many more “miraculous” days. The faithful testimony of Simeon and Anna, though, reminds us of one truth: Jesus comes to meet us, whether we’re ready or not. Jesus, the Light of the World, comes when we may least expect him. Jesus comes, banishing the fantasies of our own imaginings and expectations and softening our callused resistance.

Jesus comes to meet us, even here, even now. May we, like blessed Simeon and Anna, meet him with clear eyes, open hands, and ready hearts.

Amen.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Galatians 5:22-26

A college roommate and I share a monthly conversation. He recently asked me whether I remembered a place on our college campus that was particularly significant. His question evoked lots of memories; however, the most significant place for me was actually not on campus. It was off campus in a nearby park to where I frequently rode my bicycle. In the park was a particular tree I always climbed. I would sit in stillness and silence on a large, outstretched limb and look down on life. I was trying to get a perspective on life and to figure out where I belonged. Though there was every outward sign that I was thriving, on the inside I was lost.

Following my college graduation, I had had an adventurous and fulfilling life, mostly; however, what I had sought as a college student was still my presenting need: a place to belong. The psalmist says, “My boundaries enclose a pleasant land” (Psalm 16:6). And that is what I discovered here, within the enclosure of our monastic community: a very challenging, fulfilling container in which to abide as I “worked out my salvation” (Saint Paul’s words, Philippians 2:12). A place to thrive.

My quest to belong had been informed and complicated by several things. For one, my family of origin. As I had grown up, my life had teemed with love and provision, which I experienced in so many wonderful ways; however, truth be told, I did not feel that my family really understood me, try as they did. How could they? I did not understand myself.

Secondly, I have a lot of energy, interests, and abilities, too much for one lifetime, so it felt some days. Blessings can also be burdens, don’t we know? The words that were spoken by the visiting angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary seemed both poignant and personal to me. Mary is told what she is to bear in life. Her immediate response was incredulity: “How can this be?” Mary’s response articulated for me the unanswered questions about the meaning of my own life: “How can this be?”[1] Mary had her reasons, and I had mine.

Thirdly, I am gay. I knew this as a very young child, long before I had either the language or the understanding for what this would mean. In any rate, there was no one to tell. And though I say “gay,” that word did not exist in the vocabulary of my childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. But I did know this is trouble. I was growing up in a very conservative, heterosexual culture where most every adult, man and woman, was married. Which would not fit me. That was my secret.

But the greater crisis was actually spiritual. In my adolescence, I had fallen in love with God, was smitten with God, whom I knew loved me. Sort of. Yet the message I heard again and again in the church was that “thems” like me were abominations, were degenerates, were eternally damned. I remember, almost 40 years ago, repeating the very words that Job (in the Hebrew scriptures) said about his own insufferable experience of God. Job cried out, “Though [God] slay me, still will I trust [God]” (Job 13:15). I prayed those same words. “Though [God] slay me, still will I trust [God].” That was true also for me, in such a mysterious way. I loved God whom I was not sure loved me.

You might wonder whether I became a monk because I am gay? No. It’s exactly the opposite. I believe God had intention for me to become a monk. The only way I would have discovered and freely chosen monastic life, found this to be the fit for my life, was by my being created not to fully belong to the culture of my origin. There are no monks in my family lineage. I can trace back many generations. There are no monks; I am the first. My sense is that I did not choose monastic life; I was chosen for this life.

Paradoxically, it’s all about love. In the religious life we are enabled to become lovers. I’m quoting a great English religious sister from this past century, Sister Mary Edna.[2] She wrote how the boundaries and practices of the religious life “canalize” love. That is, this life creates a canal for love, the intensity of which would be a danger to ourselves and others if it were not consecrated, if it were not “canalized.” I have found monastic life such a good fit to love living and to live loving. I have experienced the truth in Jesus’ parable about “the pearl of great price.” Jesus said, “the merchant, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Life here in the monastery has been the pearl for me.

So now I am one of the “elder brothers.” I would have never guessed I would live this long. For many decades my personal mantra has been: “Curtis, this is your life, these are the terms, what is the invitation?” Several things. I have been doing what the poet David Whyte calls “corporate downsizing”: downsizing the corpus my life.[3] All of us Brothers have a “cell,” a small, personal space in which to rest, pray, read, and enjoy life in solitude. A cell, in which to be alone with God. For several years I have been intentionally downsizing, parting with one thing after another so that I am living lighter. You might ask, “lighter,” in terms of less stuff surrounding me, or “lighter” in terms of inner light, what Saint Paul calls “the eyes of our heart being enlightened.”[4] My answer is yes.

Another invitation is the grace to hear and follow Jesus in a very fresh way. Jesus said we all are “to change and become again as children to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:2-3). Becoming childlike has always seemed beyond my reach, given how strong-willed and stubborn I am. Yet now, in my aging, the gift of “childlikeness” is being handed to me as a gift. We acknowledge in our Rule of Life how some gifts of the soul may come to maturity in old age. Quite. We also acknowledge “the needs and struggles that accompany [old age].[5] Quite. I am now experiencing life, both as an old soul and as an increasingly dependent child of God. I am actually finding this last chapter of my life quite an intriguing adventure. Daily I experience such deep gratitude and freedom within my soul for being able to live life abundantly: past, present, and future.

Our Psalm we prayed today, Psalm 19, includes the phrase: “One day tells its tale to another, and one night imparts knowledge to another” (v. 2). How very true. Each day and each night have informed the next. My 38 years in the monastery have been wonderful, absolutely transformative. Using Saint Paul’s language, my experience has been “far beyond all that I could ask or imagine.”[6] It’s been spectacularly good . . . except when it has not been. Those difficult moments have also been an invitation, the grist for my ongoing conversion to Christ, and the honing my membership in our life together and the life to come.

[1] Luke 1:26-34.

[2] Sister Mary Edna was a member of the English “Deaconess Community of St. Andrew.” She graduated from Cambridge University where she studied English and Law, then graduated from King’s College, London, where she studied Theology. She is quoted here from her book, The Religious Life (Penguin, 1968), 19.

[3] David Whyte in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (Many Rivers Press, 2014), 30.

[4] Ephesians 3:14-19.

[5] The Rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, “The Gifts and Challenges of Old Age.”

[6] Saint Paul writes: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Br. James Koester

Vincent of Saragossa

Some of us will remember that when Tom was the Superior, he would often pray at the midday Office that the gift of martyrdom be given to the community. These prayers became so frequent that some of us were more than willing to assist him in making these prayers come true, by offering him as the first martyr. The reality, however, is that the gift of martyrdom has been given to the Society, and Tom’s prayers have been answered, but not in ways that are perhaps obvious at first.

For many, perhaps most, perhaps you, and certainly these days for the press, martyrdom is about violence, and ultimately about death. Martyrs are people who die violently for a cause. However, in a larger sense, martyrdom is not simply about dying violently. It is about surrendering our lives, by living with integrity and without fear. We say in our Rule that:

“The grace to surrender our lives to God through our vows has been given to us in Baptism whereby we die with Christ and are raised with him. It is the same grace that gives strength to martyrs to submit gladly to death as witnesses of the resurrection. From the beginning monks and nuns have been encouraged to understand their own commitment in the light of the freedom and trust that enables martyrs to give up their lives to the glory of God. The witness of the martyrs should never be far from our minds as we go forward in the vowed life day by day.”[1]

In many ways, all of us who have been baptised into the death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as those of us who live under monastic vows, have become martyrs, or rather witnesses, to the power of the resurrection, for the word martyr simply means witness. Some of us are witnesses to Christ through our “strength and courage to love and serve [him] with gladness and singleness of heart.”[2] Others are witnesses to the power of life over death given to us in the resurrection of Jesus by offering our very life, demonstrating that we do not fear death in the face of persecution. In either case our witness to the power of God to give life to all who love Jesus is our martyrdom, and it comes through living boldly, or dying bravely, or both.

This week the church remembers some of her earliest martyrs: the Apostle Peter,[3] Fabian,[4] Agnes and Cecelia,[5] and today, Vincent.[6] Each of them were willing to live boldly, and die bravely, as witnesses of the resurrection.

May God grant to us all the grace to do the same, and may God continue to grant our Society the gift of martyrdom, as we witness to the mystery of Christ’s resurrection in our lives, by living boldly, and perhaps dying bravely.

[1] The Rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist, “Life Profession,” 79.

[2] The Book of Common Prayer, 365.

[3] Confession of St. Peter the Apostle, 18 January

[4] Fabian, Bishop and Martyr, 250, 20 January

[5] Agnes and Cecelia of Rome, Martyrs, 304 and c. 230, 21 January (in some places the feast of St. Cecelia is kept on 22 November)

[6] Vincent of Saragossa, Deacon and Martyr, 304, 22 January