Br. Curtis Almquist

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

When Jesus says, “Come to me, all that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” this is not about rest for the body, but rest for the soul. Jesus is speaking about relief from the heavy burdens of following the scribal law. The scribes – who copied, interpreted, and taught the scriptures – had taken the broad principles of the Hebrew scriptures and created a rule and regulation for every imaginable aspect of life. Jesus says the scribes “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4).[1]

For example, according to scribal law, if someone were to write something on the Sabbath, that would be work, prohibited. But then writing has to be defined. So scribal law dictated that one who writes two letters of the alphabet with their right hand or with their left hand, if they are written with different inks or in different languages, is guilty of breaking the law. Even if they should write two letters from forgetfulness, they are guilty, whether they have written them with ink or with paint, red chalk, vitriol, or anything which makes a permanent mark. Also one that writes on the Sabbath on two walls that form an angle, or on two tablets of their account book so that they can be read together is guilty. But, if anyone writes with dark fluid, with fruit juice, or in the dust of the road, or in sand, or in anything which does not make a permanent mark, that one is not guilty. If, on the other hand, one writes one letter on the ground, and one on the wall of the house, or on two pages of a book, so that they cannot be read together, that one is not guilty.[2]

Jesus transforms the carrying of these heavy burdens when he speaks about his yoke. A yoke is a wooden bar placed over the necks of a pair of oxen so they can pull together. We are yoked to Jesus. When Jesus says his “yoke is easy and his burden is light,” the underlying Greek word here translated as “easy” actually means “kind.”[3] A good yoke is kind to the creatures, a yoke that is carefully shaped to match the builds of both animals, and so that there will be a minimum of chafing.[4]

Jesus’ yoke is kind to our shoulders and to our heart, enabling us to carry the load more easily. And what is the load? It is the work of love. Jesus does not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it… which we do, as he says, by loving the Lord our God “with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves” (Matthew 22:37).[5] The fulfillment of the law is no longer purely objective – following a checklist of dos and don’ts. It is now much more subjective, emanating from our heart and all about love, which is certainly kinder.

And as for this work of love being easy, that is not my experience. Love is not easy, certainly not always. Tough love or tender love is neither easy nor sustainable without the help of Jesus to whom we are yoked. And so we pray to Jesus: “Please supply for what you command.”[6]

Amen.

[1] By the third century CE, this work of the scribes in Jesus’ day came to be codified as the Mishnah.

[2] Detailed codes from scribal law regarding Sabbath prohibitions.

[3] From the Greek chrēstos: kind, good, useful, benevolent.

[4] See Douglas Hare, Matthew: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Interpretation, 2009), 129.

[5] Matthew 22:37.

[6] A shorter version of a prayer attributed to Saint Augustine: “Give what you command, and command what you will.”

Br. Lain Wilson

Isaiah 7:1-9

When I lived in DC for a decade before moving to the monastery, I had three bad cycling accidents. Not “broken-bones-and-hospital-visit” bad, but “ice-and-painkillers” bad.

The last and worst one took place about twelve miles from home. I was cycling down a path at a reasonable clip when I hit a root and went flying over the handlebars. I came down hard, cleaned myself up, and spent the next several minutes somewhat comically trying to fix a flat tire with one hand. Then I got back onto the bike and slowly cycled home.

The only reason it wasn’t a hospital-visit accident was because I was wearing my helmet. And the only reason I felt assured that I could get back home was because I was still wearing my helmet. It was a risky situation, but I trusted my equipment.

In our reading from the prophet Isaiah, King Ahaz of Judah finds himself in a risky situation. The other two named leaders, the kings of Damascus and of the northern kingdom of Israel, have aligned against the Assyrian Empire. Rezin and Pekah move against Ahaz as part of this larger conflict, with the aim of deposing or killing Ahaz and replacing him with someone more sympathetic to their cause. Meanwhile, a potential alliance between Judah and Assyria, which might offer some protection from Damascus and Israel, runs the risk of turning Judah into a client state.

Into this situation, Isaiah comes bringing a word of hope – and a warning: “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint” (Isaiah 7:4). Rather, stand firm, trust in God: “If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9).

This is one of the most important statements on the meaning of faith in the Hebrew Bible. In Isaiah, as Walter Brueggemann writes, faith is “a matter of quite practical reliance upon the assurance of God in a context of risk where one’s own resources are not adequate.”[1]

Isaiah alerts us to the flesh-and-blood quality of faith: that Ahaz’s action taken in faith can be the difference between victory, and defeat and exile. And for us, this flesh-and-blood quality of faith has practical implications for the way we navigate the risks inherent in how each of us lives our life. In how we get to work, relate to our loved ones, struggle to pay down debt, find our civic voice.

Where do you notice these risks in your own life? Where do you feel what you are or have isn’t enough for what is demanded of you?

We will all face risks in this life. And this is where Isaiah enjoins we will most need faith.

But faith doesn’t guarantee that nothing bad will happen to us. Faith doesn’t guarantee that we won’t fall, or fail, or be injured. Faith doesn’t guarantee that we won’t flip over our handlebars.

Rather, faith allows us to persist through risk and assures us that we aren’t alone in this life to face the riskiness of each day. Faith is the trust that seeming failure isn’t the end of our story. Faith not only allows us to stand, but to stand back up when we fall, to face forward with courage and confidence, knowing with bone-deep certainty that God will see us safely home.

Amen.

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1–39 (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 67.

Br. James Koester

Benedict of Nursia, Monastic, c. 543

Perhaps no one, other than Thomas Cranmer, has had greater influence on English Christianity, and Anglicanism in particular, than Benedict, whose feast we keep today. Born about AD 480 in central Italy, he was educated at Rome when Rome was no longer the great city it had been. Scandalized by the manners and morals of his fellow Romans, he literally fled to the hills where he began to live a life of discipline and asceticism. Over time, a community of like-minded men grew up around him, and sometime around AD 540, shortly before his death, and after a lifetime of prayer, worship, silence, solitude, and community life, he compiled his famous Rule.

The purpose of his Rule was to give a framework, flexible enough to be adaptable and rigid enough to support those who chose to follow along the narrow path to salvation in this school for the Lord’s service which he called his monastic community.[1] Gregory the Great[2] described the Rule as remarkable for its discretion and elegant language. Gregory’s endorsement helped popularize the Rule, as did his use of monks who followed the Rule as evangelists. In AD 597, just a generation or so after Benedict’s death, Gregory sent Augustine to England where he established his mission at Canterbury.

While Christianity in Britain preceded Augustine’s arrival by at least three centuries,[3] few Christian communities existed in southern England at the time of Augustine’s arrival. However, four centuries later, the fabric of English Christianity was firmly in place, and this included the curious English practice of monastic cathedrals and monk bishops. While not all cathedrals were monasteries, and not all bishops were monks, this was largely true in England. Many of those monk bishops and monastic cathedrals were followers of Benedict’s Rule. This remained true until the English Reformation. Even after the Reformation, the monastic pattern of prayer, worship, and community life inspired by Benedict’s Rule continued, and indeed continues, in many of England’s cathedrals and great churches.

Because of this, Anglicanism has always had a deeply Benedictine ethos, and whether or not we are aware of it, Benedict’s Rule, along with Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer, is one of Anglicanism’s foundational documents. What better description of Anglicanism is there than these words, which come to us from the Prologue to the Rule of Saint Benedict:

“And so we are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord. In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome. But if a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity, do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation, whose entrance cannot but be narrow (Matthew 7:14). For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love. Thus, never departing from His school, but persevering in the monastery according to His teaching until death, we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13) and deserve to have a share also in His kingdom.”

So today we give thanks for the life of Benedict, not only for his role as one of the principal founders of Western monasticism, but for his continuing influence on all of us as Anglicans and followers of Jesus along this particular (and peculiar) narrow way that leads to salvation and life, so that we, like the saints, may share in Christ’s everlasting kingdom.

[1] Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue.

[2] Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome (540–604), feast day March 12.

[3] British bishops were among those who attended the Council of Arles in AD 314.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Matthew 9:32-38

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Matthew 9:36-38).

What is this labor for which the laborers are so few? Here Jesus is inviting us to co-labor, to collaborate with him. And what is the labor? It is to be agents of God’s mercy.1 Jesus has compassion for the crowds “because they were harassed and helpless.” And why was this the case? For the same reasons as today. People suffering from poverty in many forms: fear, loneliness, violation, powerlessness, discrimination, injustice, homelessness, hopelessness, hunger, and more.

Compassion, which is the gift of mercy, springs from the heart of God. In the absence of compassion, in absence of God’s tender loving mercy at work in our hearts, we will become what the scriptures call “hard hearted.”2 Being “hard hearted” will affect all of our relationships: our relationship to our own self; our relationship to others; our relationship to God.

Here’s a suggestion for converting hard-heartedness into a heart of compassion. Start with an enemy: someone who is out to get you, or just someone who has a way of ruining your day (or ruining your life).3 Find a place where you can be quiet. Ask Jesus to shed light on the features of this person who has caused you such suffering, or irritation, or disappointment. Regard their qualities you despise or find insufferable. Try to imagine what makes this person happy and what causes suffering in their own daily life. Contemplate the person’s perceptions; try to see what patterns of thought and reason this person follows, because they are learned. Ask Jesus to see how their views and insights are open and free or not, and whether they themselves have been hurt by the experience of prejudice, narrow-mindedness, hatred, anger, or violation? What are they facing with each new day? You might continue your own version of this kind of pondering and prayer – what the scriptures call “enlightening the eyes of your heart”4 – until you feel the trickle of compassion rising within you, like a well beginning to fill with fresh water. You might need to practice this prayerful reflection many times concerning the same person before you move on. And you will. Because this gift of mercy is of the essence of God, and it may well be brought within your grasp through the very one whom you might otherwise find an obstacle.

For some of us, the prayer for compassion might need to begin with our own selves. If the truth be known, we can be our own worst enemy and we are prone to love others like we love ourselves. So your pondering and prayer begins with yourself, to seek a heart of merciful acceptance for yourself, as God knows you and loves you.

For some of us, the prayer for compassion may need to begin in our relationship with God. Perhaps you harbor resentment, or impatience, or residual apathy towards God. This is about compassion for God. (It must be very difficult to be God.)

I am not saying that compassion is the only way to navigate life. In the face of injustice, violation, or danger, sometimes we must intervene, we must be confrontative, protective, strong-willed; however, I am saying that without some degree of compassion in our hearts for other people, all people, we risk becoming the very thing we condemn or hate.

The wellspring of compassion flows from the heart of God, encircles us all, and flows back to God: a circle of life. At a time in our world so full of hardness of heart, and hurt, and hate, the grace of compassion – God’s “tender loving mercy” – can make a world of difference.

1 Jesus says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13).

Br. Lain Wilson

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30; Romans 7:15-25a

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend time on Lake Hosmer in northern Vermont learning to scull, that is, rowing a single boat with two oars. If you’ve spent time in the morning looking onto the Charles River, you’ll see any number of scullers peacefully and effortlessly navigating the river.

(Peaceful and effortless did not characterize my experience.)

One of the most helpful things brought up by the coaches was the concept of “wearing the boat.” That is, treating the boat as something you put on, an extension of your body, rather than as a tool you use. Rather than gripping the oars and sitting ramrod straight on the seat, “wearing the boat” is about being light and loose, relaxed and responsive.

I can honestly say that I did not begin the week wearing the boat. I death-gripped the oars, locked my arms and shoulders, and grimaced in concentration. Every reminder to relax instead prompted microadjustments to keep myself from tipping into the lake.

Despite all this, it was a fun week, and a revealing one. It laid bare something surprising. Each time I pushed away from the dock, I found myself carrying something into the boat with me. I found myself carrying my own expectations.

Expectations that my experience with sweep rowing would translate to sculling. Expectations that I could control the boat. Expectations that I should have the capacity to learn and grow. Expectations that I would perhaps fall in love with sculling and find a new hobby. Unsurprisingly, I found that trying to “wear the boat” while being laden with the weight of these expectations led to a very awkward fit.

All of us know what it feels like to bear the weight of expectations, and this features prominently in our readings this morning.

These may be ones that we impose on ourselves, that we should behave in a certain way, do (or not do) certain things. Saint Paul, in his letter to the Romans, questions why he can’t do the good that he desires. When he knows what he should do, he ends up doing the opposite. He holds high expectations for himself and his behavior, and he finds himself constantly falling short of the mark.

I’m sure each one of you has experienced this. We all know the pressure and disappointment of falling short. Why can’t we just be strong enough to do what is right, to accomplish what we resolve? Paul identifies sin as the cause of our failure, and we can see this in our own lives as well. We can see it in the forces that steal our attention and redirect our intentions. We can see it in the social pressure to conform, to divide us and them. We can see it in a culture of shame that drives us to act in darkness, silence, and secrecy. We can see it in the sheer power of inertia and the lure to just keep on keeping on. The sobering reality of our humanity is that we are more often than not powerless before these forces.

These expectations may also be imposed on us. Jesus points to this. John the Baptist came preaching repentance, turning back to God, and was criticized for his fasting, for living what he preached. Jesus himself came preaching the bounty of God’s love and mercy, reaching down and out to all people and circumstances, and was criticized for feasting, for living what he preached. They were both consistent in their actions but didn’t meet whatever expectations others imposed on them.

“I expected better of you.” “You aren’t living up to your potential.” How many times have we heard this or something similar? It’s startling to encounter a version of yourself formed solely from the expectations of others, and to find yourself suddenly bearing its weight, dragging it along through life.

And these expectations may be those we impose on others and the world around us. The weight of our own agendas and plans and dreams, and the inevitable disappointments that can be so dispiriting. Each frustrated expectation is another blow to our desire for control and agency.

Where do you notice this weight in your own life? How have you been formed, or deformed, by the expectations you place on yourself, that others place on you, or that you yourself place on others?

Now, we can understand expectations in this way – as something that is due, necessary, or required. As the have-tos and shoulds of our lives. But both Paul and Jesus invite us to understand them differently.

What happens when, instead of seeing only failure in the expectations we impose on ourselves, we expect – that is, await with assured hope – the promise of God’s provision? “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,” the psalmist sings. “The Lord upholds all those who fall; he lifts up those who are bowed down” (Psalm 145:8, 14).

What happens when, instead of feeling ourselves powerless, we expect the gift of God’s liberating grace? “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25).

And what happens when, instead of dragging the weight of our own expectations, our human agendas and plans and projects, around with us, we let ourselves lay those aside and come to Jesus? “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. . . . For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28, 30).

If our expectations can cause us to handle life with an iron grip, and if their frustration all too often results in us finding ourselves unsettled and tipping precariously, Jesus invites us to relax our grip, to loosen our shoulders, to let our gaze rest easy. As I was told to try to “wear the boat,” Jesus invites us to cooperate with him in this life in an attitude of humility, surrender, and trust.

Something changed toward the end of my week on Lake Hosmer. I noticed that so many of those expectations I came in with and dragged into the boat with me were gradually falling away. I wasn’t rowing any better, but maybe every twentieth or thirtieth stroke, I felt like the boat was beginning to fit me better, that I was able to wear it more lightly. Instead of asking what I expected from myself, or others expected from me, or what I expected of the boat, I could notice for the first time what the boat expected of me. And it was simply this: to put on its lightness, to be present and easy to its minor shifts, and to let myself trust that it wanted to stay level and to go forward, to work with and not against it.

I imagine that God expects something similar from us. To put down the burdens of our own agendas and anxieties and shame, all the have-tos and shoulds that weigh us down. To lay all that aside and come to Jesus, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. And to let ourselves work with God, rejoicing in the freedom and grace that God has given us, and to be set alight with God’s love. Amen.

Br. Luke Ditewig

Matthew 9:1-8

Jesus sees faith in the friends. Matthew tells it starkly. Mark paints a picture. Four carry their friend to Jesus. Because of the crowd, they can’t get in the door. They climb up, dig through part of the roof, and lower their friend down in front of Jesus (Mark 2:1-12). See their faith: persistent, risky, and unembarrassed effort.

Imagine being the one brought, coming face to face with Jesus. I see excitement and eagerness as well as fear. What will Jesus do? I imagine shame I know well: Will Jesus accept me? Was all this effort worth it? Am I worth it?

Jesus sees faith. Jesus sees the friend brought. Seeing awe, fear, shame, and all that is, Jesus says: “Take heart” (Matthew 9:2). Have courage. Jesus reassures. Jesus reassures deeper still: “Your sins are forgiven.” You are alright with God. Then for mercy and to show authority, Jesus heals. With forgiveness, the once paralyzed walks free.

Where do you identify with this story today? How have others brought you to Jesus, pointed, lifted, encouraged, prayed? How are you seeking and encountering Jesus? For your need, your pain, how you’re trapped, what you lack – perhaps with a mix of desire, doubt, and shame.

How have you heard or are hearing Jesus’ reassurance? Take heart. Have courage. You have been forgiven. You are my beloved child. You are enough and more. You are precious.

Jesus sees you, knows your pain. Jesus knows your back story, the understory. Jesus declares forgiveness, dismisses shame, and invites moving with freedom. Name your desire and what feels stuck. Listen to Jesus’ reassurance. Take heart. Have courage. I love you.

Br. Jack Crowley

Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

John 21:15-19

“Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go” (John 21:18).

These are some of the final words spoken by Jesus to Saint Peter. “Someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” Jesus’ words hit us at a gut level. They hit us at a gut level because we have all experienced our own little version of what he is talking about – some notion that at some point in the past, our lives were perfect, we were carefree, and we seemingly had the freedom to do as we please. Then at some point in life as we matured, it felt like our hands got tied. We felt like we were tied down and bound to some situation, some person, some job, or some dream we desperately held on to. We said to ourselves, “If just this one thing, this one problem, was loosened from my hands, then I could really start living.” Very frequently you hear people in situations like this say that their problems are killing them, as if they were being martyred.

“Someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”

These words are not full of sunshine and rainbows, but they are true. Jesus was warning Peter that one day he would be arrested and martyred. Tonight we remember the martyrdom of both Saint Peter and Saint Paul, two Christians who helped form the foundation of our church and were killed for their beliefs.

I know it always feels a little grim to remember the martyrs, yet it is important to remember that blood has been spilt for us to have this moment together. Blood has been spilt for our salvation, and blood has been spilt to give us a renewal of life.

Most likely, none of us here will end up being martyrs in the traditional sense. We are lucky enough to have the privilege to celebrate the Eucharist freely and openly. Many Christians in many parts of the world do not have the opportunities to do so. Most likely, none of us here will be martyrs, but we will all feel at different points like something is killing us or sucking the life out of us. We will all feel at different times like our hands are tied and we are being led somewhere we do not wish to go. We all have our own little version of martyrdom: a death by a thousand cuts instead of a crucifixion.

The great question of our lives is: What do we do with these feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, and despair? How do we navigate through them and find God in them? How do we look for the resurrected Christ when our eyes are bloodshot?

If the martyrs have anything to teach us, it is that difficult situations are crucibles of faith. The great irony is we can find ourselves feeling the most alive, present, authentic, honest, and real when death is close at hand. We strip away whatever characters we’ve been playing, whatever customs of personality we’ve been inhabiting, and get in touch with whatever truth we continue to hold in our hearts underneath it all. Of course, this is not a pleasant process, nor is it ever clean. The formation of faith in life is inherently messy and can turn rocky at any given moment.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul were two Christians of courage. They fought the good fight and abided in their spiritual convictions through the very end. They stood in the breach of life and for the sake of God. We too must fight the good fight. Not with our fists, but with our hearts, and our minds, and our prayers. The battles of our age are spiritual battles – battles of bitterness versus forgiveness, battles of strife versus healing, and battles of insanity versus the collective wisdom our Creator has endowed us with.

We fight these good fights with every moment of our lives. It’s in the way we smile, it’s in the way we wash dishes, it’s in the way we take care of ourselves while helping others. We find God in every corner of the universe and we look for his son, Jesus Christ, in everyone we meet.

This good fight of ours is not an easy one, for sure. We will get exhausted, sweaty, overheated, and begging for a break. We’ll crave that living water with everything we have.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul did not die in vain. Here we are, two thousand years later, proclaiming our faith for all to see – proclaiming to the world our love of God and the wonders God has done for us. The good news is that God is with us every step of the way. Every fight, every battle, every time we course correct, God is right there with us. God sticks to us and we must stick to God.

Br. Curtis Almquist

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Jeremiah 28:5-9

Matthew 10:40-42

Not so long ago someone complained to me that the church should stick to religion and keep its nose out of politics. Didn’t I agree? Well. I asked them to define their word “politics.” “Define?” they barked. And then with considerable heat and clenched teeth they lectured me how I must be blind or deaf to the nasty public discourse going on all around us if I did not know what “politics” is.

Of course, none of you heard this conversation, though most of you could imagine the points this person was making, and with many examples. They asked for my response. I pondered, and then I told them that I actually agreed with many of their points. However, I said, I thought their disdain was largely about partisan issues, which are not insignificant; but as for “politics,” I told them that if the church was not involved politically – that is, involved in conversation and action around the principled exercise of power on behalf of the people, all the people, especially those most in need – then the church was, at its best, simply a bastion of nostalgia for well-behaved, privileged people, or at its worst, the church was simply in passive collusion with the misaligned power of the privileged. I said, “The church is not a country club.”

What inspired my response were some words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “We will have to repent… not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people” (Martin Luther King Jr., “The Negro Is Your Brother”).

Our liturgy today is a prime example where politics impinge on the life, the prayer, and the witness of the church. We are confronted by the prophets. This morning we have heard repeatedly (eleven times) references to the Hebrew prophets. Our opening prayer – the Collect – names how the church’s foundation has been built upon the apostles and prophets. Our first reading from Jeremiah is all about the witness of the prophet Jeremiah and the prophet Hananiah (Jeremiah 28:5-9). Then, in our Gospel lesson, we hear Jesus speak of the important role of prophets: about our welcoming prophets (Matthew 10:40-42). Which is poignant.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the most revered twentieth-century scholar of the Hebrew prophets, said that the prophets are not primarily predictors of the future. Rather, the prophets hear and then speak in the voice of God Almighty with a moral urgency about the present moment. About now. Prophets are either “enraptured or enfevered”: enraptured with the beauty and wonder of life, and enraptured with the love and compassion of God for all of creation, for all people; or prophets are enfevered with the anger of God for justice denied those most in need.1 The Hebrew prophets react intensely to oppression, exploitation, violence, and hypocrisy. They communicate God’s sorrow, God’s anger, God’s judgment, God’s compassion, and God’s love especially for those whose dignity, wellbeing, and inclusion are denied.

Rabbi Heschel was a close friend and spiritual colleague of Martin Luther King Jr., the two of them as men of God and passionate civil rights activists. Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel walked arm-in-arm with other marchers from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965. So many of the issues that Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King confronted in the 1960s are the very issues repeatedly named by the Hebrew prophets, which are issues we still face today: the disregard or exploitation of the poor; the neglect and oppression of widows, orphans, and foreigners; the corruption of the legal system; and dishonest business practices.

What to do? All of us must pray for justice. The prophet Amos says: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). We must pray for justice and provision for those most in need. And all of us must act in concert with God’s intentions.

Now I am not about to give you my list of what I think, as followers of Jesus, we each must do politically at this crucial time. There is certainly plenty to be done; however, each of us is a unique person with a unique formation. The scriptures give us the metaphor of our collectively being like a body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). We, as followers of Jesus, are as the body of Christ, each of us uniquely representing a different body part: eye, hand, ear, foot; some of us stronger in muscle; some of us stronger in mind. Some of us write; some of us speak; some of us listen; some of us march. We are all wonderfully different, by God’s design, and so where and how we each engage with God’s desperately needy world will be different. What is it that moves you? What or who brings tears of compassion or conviction to your eyes? What breaks your heart open? That kind of passionate experience can inform what you are called to do, each of us quite a different part of the body of Christ.

But what we must not do is pretend not to know what is going on around us. And we must not presume that the world will be fixed and just fine if everyone gets with our program, if everyone looks like, speaks like, acts like, and values our values, my values. We must not corral the world by who belongs and who does not. We must not worship only our own values, which would be to create God in our own image. We must not cut out of the Bible the demanding witness of the prophets nor the inclusive love shown by Jesus, especially to the least, and last, and lost.

This week, on July 4th, we celebrate the adoption of our Declaration of Independence in 1776. That’s 250 years ago. And there is much for which to give thanks. You will know that Thomas Jefferson was the primary drafter of the Declaration, which “hold[s] these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This is challenging language for us. “All men” created equal is not just the vernacular of the day. “All men” mostly means “all men.” (Where are the women?) And that “all men… are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These “unalienable Rights” of “all men” for “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” did not pertain to Native Americans, who would face genocide, nor to African Americans, enslaved, on whose backs our economy and our emerging nation would be built. Jefferson’s opening words in the Declaration sting, terribly.

But this is not the only writing of Thomas Jefferson. You may know that Thomas Jefferson also wrote what he called “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.”2 Jefferson cut-and-pasted Bible passages that largely focused on ethical principles: our personal responsibility for loving one’s neighbor, showing mercy, caring for the poor, fairness, humility, and treating others with respect. But not under his own roof. Jefferson was a slave owner. Over the course of his lifetime, Jefferson owned 609 slaves, from which he, not his slaves, garnered “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Like Jefferson, twelve of the first eighteen American presidents owned slaves. We must not collude with the revising of our American history to forget our past.

And we must listen to the Hebrew prophets, who were Jesus’ teachers. The prophets did not write with xenophobia, the fear of strangers. The prophets wrote with philoxenia, the love of strangers. Philoxenia, not xenophobia. The love of strangers was the way of Jesus. We must open our prayer, open our hearts, and open our actions to follow Jesus’ lead on behalf of this immensely diverse world which God so loves.

Lord have mercy.

1. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, vol. 2 (New York: HarperCollins, 1962), 92. (Note: Reference to “enraptured or enfevered”)

2. Thomas Jefferson, The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (c. 1820).

Br. Jamie Nelson

Matthew 7:21-29

I need to start with a confession: I’ve been that foolish builder who built his house on sand.

I’m thinking back to a college field trip I went on to a Central Oregon ranch. The timing of the trip was dictated by convenience for the class syllabus rather than by the season, so it was quite early in the spring when we went. My classmates and I decided to pitch our tents in a low-lying meadow next to a beautiful little creek. Waking up at sunrise to the musical sound of the flowing water was sublime. I remember taking it all in as I drank my morning cup of coffee.

However, later that morning, big gray clouds rolled in, and a wall of rain began to fall. And it just kept coming down heavily all day.

I bet you can imagine what our makeshift campsite looked like when we returned late in the afternoon – yep, water everywhere. There were puddles of water in our tents, and the creek was a lot louder and wider than it had been that morning, far too near for comfort. We had no interest in us or our belongings getting swept away in the middle of the night.

And so we worked together to move the tents to higher ground, unstaking the pegs, carrying, restaking, drying the tent floors as best we could. Unfortunately, the higher ground was covered with gravel. We weren’t very comfortable on our rocky mattresses that second night, but at least we were out of reach of the rising creek.

The situation I found myself in would have sounded familiar to the crowds that Jesus taught this story to. The countryside of Galilee contains many canyons with seasonal streams. I imagine that a number of those canyons have sandy flat bottoms that look like an ideal place to build a house, that is, when it’s the dry time of year. But when the rains fell, flash floods could come down the canyon and sweep everything away. No, much better to build on higher, rockier ground, someplace not located in the middle of a floodplain.

This passage from Matthew about wise and foolish builders concludes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. After sharing some well-known teachings, such as the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Golden Rule, Jesus said to the crowds, “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock” (Matthew 7:24).

In the life of Christian discipleship, discerning where to build is oftentimes an ongoing process that requires attunement to changing conditions. Sometimes a heavy storm provides immediate clarity, but it doesn’t always work that way. Rivers do not usually transform the landscape all at once. Most of the time the water’s movement is much more gradual, meandering over the seasons. Only after many years does it become fully apparent that the river’s channel has shifted.

The same can be true in our spiritual lives. We may discover that a particular way of living, praying, or serving that once brought us closer to God no longer fits where we are now. Rather than simply ascribing such situations to personal failure or foolishness on our part, we can read them as signs that the landscape has changed, that God’s invitation for us is to pull up the stakes and make our way to higher ground. And we don’t have to do it alone. One of the great gifts of Christian community is having other people around to help us notice those invitations, to point the way, and to lend a hand in moving our tents.

The rains may come, the creek may rise, and the landscape will change over time, but Jesus is always there, glad to welcome us to higher ground.

Br. Luke Ditewig

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Isaiah 40:1-11

Acts 13:14b-26

Luke 1:57-80

John grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness. Like Zechariah said, John grew up to be “called the prophet of the Most High,” going ahead of Jesus to prepare the way, to give knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sin (Luke 1:76-77). John knew God was to act in a big and new way, that One was coming to usher in freedom. Who, or how, wasn’t clear, but John sprinted into his calling as forerunner by alerting, challenging, proclaiming, and inviting.

John wasn’t much to look at. One had to leave the city and go out to hear him in the wilderness. Clad in camel skin like the prophet Elijah eight hundred years before, John cried out. People listened. People came and turned and were baptized. People looked and waited for God.

John looked and waited, too, in the wilderness and in prison. John asked Jesus from prison by messenger, “Are you the Messiah, or are we to await another?” (Luke 7:19). Jesus replied, “Yes, I’m doing what you said. I’m healing and liberating, perhaps not as you expect.” Though clear and forthright in his own call, John misunderstood Jesus.1 Jesus surprised everyone, including John.

God gets our attention by coming in unexpected ways, people, and times. John came as a miracle. Elizabeth and Zechariah giving birth to John, and Mary and Joseph to Jesus, was unexpected and impossible. John and Jesus were both raised with courage amid disgrace. That included Elizabeth having been barren and Zechariah becoming mute, and both choosing the name John against family expectations.

In Acts, Paul recounts the grand biblical story, for “to us this message of salvation has been sent” (Acts 13:26). God came through frail flesh and families with improbable parents, impossible births, and wondrous stories.

God comes to us where it doesn’t make sense, where we can’t imagine what we could do, or how another could help. Today, give thanks again for how God saves and surprises you, recalling what you knew at first and came to understand more with time. Recall those who share good news. Give thanks with this harbinger of Day, this foreshadow of Light, John the Baptist, whom we remember today.