SSJE Sermons

Br. Curtis Almquist

The Blessed Virgin Mary

Luke 10: 17-24

Jesus expresses thanks: “What God has “hidden from the wise and intelligent [God] has revealed to infants.” To infants and, presumably by extension, to young children whose cognitive abilities are underdeveloped; and to those without formal education; and to the elderly whose mind is slipping away. I’m wondering whether what God “has hidden from the wise and intelligent” in someway includes his own mother, Mary, whose improbable pregnancy was announced to her by an angel.[i] No reasoning, no wisdom could explain to her what she was being asked to do, or how, in becoming the birth mother of the Messiah. There was nothing to figure out. The angelic invitation and revelation to Mary was deeper than her mind. The poet, Madeleine L’Engle, writes:

“…Had Mary been filled with reason

This is not to denigrate our God-given ability to think and to reach conclusions that we deduce from reasonable facts. However Jesus is talking here about something More. The etymology of the English word “educate” comes from the Latin educere – “to bring out, to lead forth” – which presumes a kind of inner revelation that is being brought forth into our awareness, a way of knowing that may be “hidden from the wise and intelligent.”

I have the privilege of listening to people talk about their lives as they face questions and make decisions aboutwhat path to follow. I often will ask, “How will you know?” This is not a test question; it’s an experiential question. How have they come to know what they know to bring them to this point in their life? I usually hear a symphony of revelations a person has experienced and come to trust, and it is always more than the matters of their mind. This is certainly true for me, personally, and perhaps also for you. How have the eyes of your own heart been enlightened for you to make the significant decisions you have made in life?[iii] What do you trust?

To quote again Madeleine L’Engle, writing in the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

“…The angel came and gave, did not explain.

But God does know all of that which you contain. This surely includes your mind. Your mind matters. But you are much more than your mind. For your own discernment in life, pray for revelation that you will recognize and trust. Use your mind, to be sure, but keep in mind that God is bigger than your mind. God is with you. Pray you will have the clarity to know how to know what you need to know, and the freedom to say “yes.”

[i] Luke 1:26-38.

[ii] A poem of Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007): “After Annunciation”

This is the irrational season

[iii] A riff on Saint Paul’s words in Ephesians 1:18.

[iv] A poem of Madeleine L’Engle: “Young Mary”

I know not all of that which I contain.

Luke 10:1-18

We don’t always know where our motivation comes from. Sometimes we wake up in the morning ready to go. Other times we’re tired all day. Motivation is unpredictable.

Jesus knew motivation. He knew how hungry people are for something energizing. He knew how much people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something meaningful, something true, something they can give their lives to.

In our Gospel today, Jesus is sending out seventy-two disciples on mission. He leads his speech to them by saying “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”. I’ve heard this phrase probably a few thousand times in my life, and it always motivates me.

It’s a fascinating phrase from a motivational perspective. Jesus is saying there is simultaneously an opportunity and a problem. The harvest is plentiful…but the laborers are few. It’s kind of like saying to a group of chefs there is a ton of good food for you all to make, but there’s not many of you to make it. Simultaneously Jesus’ words pull you into the mission but also push you to realize the limitations you and those around you are working with.

In our journey with God, we frequently find ourselves in circumstances similar to what Jesus is describing. We find our problems and opportunities mix, our stress and excitement comingle, and the solution to today’s crisis becomes next week’s problem. Our lives and mission are rarely as clean cut, neat, and clear as we would we like them to be.

Finding some sort of motivation that can persist through the changing circumstances of our life is essential. This is not a one-time task; this is a day-by-day reality of the Christian life. Our lives are constantly changing and so are the lives of absolutely every single person around you.

The harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few. We are born into this harvest, and we start laboring before we know it. To be in the thick of that labor is to do the work of God.

Br. David Vryhof

Isaiah 11:1-10

Common of the Incarnation

It has been the custom in monasteries such as ours to honor Mary, the Mother of our Lord, on the Saturdays in Ordinary Time between the seasons of Pentecost and Advent.  Mary’s example – particularly the graciousness, generosity and humility with which she responds to God’s call – has been an inspiration to monastics throughout the ages, and to all who have sensed that God is summoning them to a particular task or way of being in the world.

The call that comes to Mary is a daunting one.  God promises, through the angel Gabriel, to bless her with a son, who “will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High,” and through whom God’s people will be established forever.  This, despite the fact that she is a virgin. Remarkably, she accepts the intervention and the promise with openness and trust, and responds with those familiar words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).

I suspect we would all like to think that when God calls us to some special task we would respond as Mary did, saying, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord…”  But we know that we are also capable of turning away, of delaying our answer, of looking for a way out.  We see our best selves responding with openness and generosity, but we know also that selfish side of ourselves that loves to have its own way and doesn’t like being moved out of its comfort zone. And sometimes, if the truth be told, the call is, well, daunting, and we just don’t see how we can do it.

We’re not alone in this.  Consider the reluctance of Moses, who responded to God’s call by insisting that he was not the right man to appear before Pharaoh (Exodus 3:11).  Or think of Jeremiah who, when God called him, protested that he was too young and inexperienced to be a prophet (Jeremiah 1:6). Or Jonah, who hopped on a ship headed in the opposite direction from where God had called him to go (Jonah 1:1-3).  Or even Mary, whom we remember today, whose initial response to the angel’s message was “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). We, too, may feel overwhelmed or afraid or unqualified in the face of God is asking us to do.  We may be tempted to turn away, to go our own way, or to look for a way out.

God’s response to our fear and anxiety is always the same.  To Moses, God says, “I will be with you” (Ex 3:12).  To Jeremiah, God says, “Be not afraid…I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer 1:7-10). To Mary, God offers comfort and assurance, saying, “Do not be afraid… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:30, 35).  In like manner, God says to us, “Do not be afraid.  I will be your strength in weakness.  The work is mine; I will do this work in and through you.”

Whatever this season of life is bringing you; whatever challenges it puts before you; whatever God is asking of you now – God is with you; God’s power is available to you; God has promised to do God’s work in and through you.  Keep in mind that the work is God’s.  Your job is not to be successful, but to be faithful.  “Do not be afraid.”  Put your trust in God.

Br. Luke Ditewig

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

What were you arguing about? Jesus asked. Perhaps best scout for new outreach and lodging sites. Expert at crowd control. Food and goods purveyor. Scripture knowledge. Who is Jesus’ favorite. The greatest disciple.

Playful jostling can turn to comparing power and privilege, background, connection, and status. We wrestle and worry over: what am I worth? Am I enough? What do I have? What if Jesus asked you and me: What were you so anxious about?

Jesus said: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Servants were last, and the servant of all was the servant at the bottom with the least. This upends us seeking power, access, security, and more than we need.

Jesus “took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, and [Jesus] said to them ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.’” Like servants, children had no status or power. Let go of ego. Don’t cling to gifts, abilities, or background.

Jesus came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. Jesus is the Good Physician for the sick.[i]Jesus-followers have troubles because they are human and needy. James wrote to an early Christian community struggling how to follow Jesus in daily life: Who is wise among you? Show it by how you live.

Imagine what prompted James to write this. Perhaps people thought they were wise, who knew a lot, had ideas, good, no great, ideas, and touted their great ideas, and listed their achievements. “Show wisdom by how you live,” James writes. Envy and selfish ambition lead to trouble. “But wisdom from above”—from God—“is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

Who have you seen live this way? Acting peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy. Might they also acknowledge their own need, ask for help, and be vulnerable? Perhaps elders, a parental figure or teacher. How about a child? Peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, dependent, asking for help, vulnerable.

Children and youth surprise with an honest openness. We host youth groups here and tell them about our life. Middle schoolers are the most fun. They ask questions older youth, collegians, and adults shy away from. Children are less inhibited. Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus tells adults to be like children. Jesus prays thanks that God gives revelation to infants, not to those who think they know it all.

Children have a kind of unencumbered wisdom. They ask for help or cry and flail for help. They then slump receptive to love and care given. Children are also present to the moment, engaged with what right here. Adults have the benefits of impulse control, self-regulation, and self-reflection. To live well we choose to be present, not just think but play and create. We are saved by grace, a gift, not earned or deserved. Children model the receptivity of being saved while adults are born again for a childlike perspective receptive to grace.[ii]

Competition is helpful for creating and improving. Trying to be great and greatest, we often abuse power. We hurt and kill one another both humans and non-human neighbors. “Where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.” Our fragile mother earth bears the wounds of our ambition as well as the wonder of our Creator.

Welcome the little, last, and least, what we tend to overlook, not see, not stop: people and every creature, every created thing. Take a cue from children. Stop to crouch down on the ground. Attend with all your senses. Those of you in-person were invited to take a small thing as you arrived, a cardamom pod or star anise. Please look at it. Those of you online, gaze any small object near you or look at a plant or leaf. Perhaps hold it in your hand.

With childlike curiosity and wonder, gaze at this. Notice shape, texture, smell, maybe even taste with your tongue. Greet any memories this evokes. Give thanks.

Dear children of God, welcome those who are little and last among all God has made. Doing so, we welcome God who loves us all.

[i] Mark 2:17

[ii] Brian Edgar (2017) The God Who Plays. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, p20.

Commemorating Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)

Br. Curtis Almquist

Micah 6:6-8

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? … He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

We commemorate today Dag Hammarskjöld, the much beloved Swedish diplomat and Secretary General of the United Nations. In the church calendar he is called “Servant of Peace,” having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Hammarskjöld led the United Nations in negotiating the release of U.S. soldiers captured by the Chinese in the Korean War; in addressing tensions in the Middle East, particularly on behalf of Palestinians; in disarming the conflict around the custody of the Suez Canal; in establishing the first U.N. Observation Group in Lebanon; and in negotiating the horrific wars in Southeast Asia which began looming large in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Much of his work he called “preventive diplomacy.” He died in September1961 in a plane crash in central Africa while negotiating a peace accord in the warring Congo.

Hammarskjöld was such a powerful witness to the Prophecy of Micah: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”  In his journal entitled “Markings,” Hammarskjöld describes his entries as “negotiations with myself… and with God.” He writes, “At some moment I did answer Yes to [God] and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”

Saying Yes to God is foundational in our stewarding the life God has given to us. It is possible to live life “kicking against the goads” (to paraphrase Saint Paul): resisting or resenting the hand we have been dealt in life. In saying Yes to God, I am not suggesting our being passive in life, letting life roll over us, choosing to be a “victim” in ways over which we actually have the power and dignity to make changes. I am saying that our life is a gift from God. God is God; God operates in our life. God invites us to co-operate in stewarding the life to which we have been entrusted, to the opportunities afforded us, and to the limitations which surround us. To say Yes to life… which is hugely challenging and, I would say, equally necessary… and quite possible if we are to live a whole life, the whole life that God has given us.

Blessed Dag Hammarskjöld, whom we remember today.

Br. Luke Ditewig

Psalm 139

Today is our monthly requiem in which we remember the dead, the dying, and our mortality.

Psalm 139 says: “Lord, you have searched me out and known me.” Jesus knows everything about us, both what we don’t mind sharing and what we try to hide. Jesus knows our sitting down and rising up, our thoughts, our ways. Jesus knows all the places we’ve gone, all the journeys we’ve taken and where we’ve stopped to rest. God knows all.

But we try to hide. We often shy away from God by denying death, pretending God can’t see or that we don’t need to speak. We like to think “the darkness will cover [us],” but as the psalmist says: “darkness is not dark to you [O God]; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.”

God sees all and invites us to risk praying it. What is dark and terrifying for you today? Perhaps it’s the grief of death, someone or something you have lost. Perhaps it’s the grief of dying, someone or something changing, being taken away. Perhaps it’s the grief of mortality, knowing what you hold today will have to be let go. Remember, too, our non-human neighbors who have died and are dying, for those endangered and hurting by our human greed.

Nothing is too heavy or difficult for Jesus. Risk expressing, praying your grief. Nothing is out of God’s sight or reach, certainly not you! Jesus is here with us. Let yourself feel and be seen. Let yourself be shaken and trust yourself to be held. Pray the hard with words such as writing freeform or your writing own psalm. Pray with silence such as coloring, collage, or gazing as light and shadows move. Pray with movement such as literally shaking and clenching, then releasing to stillness. Lean against a wall or lie down feeling your yourself supported and held.

As you pray in the dark, facing death, see the Light. Look to Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, who has, who is and who will keep rising in triumph, raising us and all of creation to life.

Br. David Vryhof

Micah 5:2-5a

As some of you know, I was raised in the Reformed tradition of the Church.  Reformed churches are among those that emerged out of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.  Central to our particular denomination was a statement of faith written in 1563 called the Heidelberg Catechism.  It was composed of a series of questions and answers conveniently organized into 52 sections – called “Lord’s Days.”  Each Sunday – that is, each Lord’s Day – the pastor would preach on one of these sections, thus explaining the whole of the faith over the course of a year.

There was one question and answer, the first in the Catechism, that most of us knew by heart.  It asked:

            “What is my only comfort in life and in death?”

(Think for a moment.  How would you answer that question?)

The Catechism’s answer began with these words:

“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” 

Our “only comfort in life and in death,” the Catechism taught us, was that we belonged to Christ.  And what a comfort that was – and is – for us who believe.

We are followers of Jesus.  We belong to Christ, body and soul.  This is our comfort and hope.  We have been created by God, we have been rescued from the bondage of sin and death by God, we have been given new life in Christ, we are sustained and protected by God, we are told not to fear – because we belong to God.

This is the theme behind St Paul’s words to the Romans in today’s lesson.  He reassures and encourages these early believers – many of whom were facing hardship and persecution – with these words: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to [God’s] purposes.” (Rom 8:28).

God has called us according to God’s own purposes, says Paul.  And why has God called us?  Listen carefully.  We are called, Paul says, in order that we may be “conformed to the image of his Son.” (Rom. 8:27)

This phrase is the one that most captured my attention in today’s readings.  We are called by God; drawn into the family of God; chosen, called, justified and glorified for this purpose: that we may be conformed to the image of his Son, Jesus Christ.

What does it mean to be conformed to the image of Jesus?  It means we are to be like him, to act like him, to speak like him, to love like him.  It means that we are to be “Christ-like” in everything we do and say.

What is it about Jesus that we should imitate?  So much could be said here but let me offer a few suggestions that I believe have direct implications for us today, in our personal lives and in our communities, and in this country, especially as we approach one of the most important national elections in our history.

Jesus taught us that the chief commandment was this: to love God with all our soul, heart, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

He taught us that our neighbor is not only the person who lives next door to us but everyone we meet, including strangers and foreigners and those we might consider to be our enemies.  His story of the Good Samaritan illustrates the kind of compassion we are to have for our neighbors, even when they are different from us.  The Samaritan, considered an ‘outsider’ by Jews, was the hero in that story, caring for one who would have considered him an enemy.

Jesus taught us to respect the dignity of all, and to recognize that every human being is created in the image of God and is entitled to respect.  Jesus consistently showed compassion and respect to those who were poor or oppressed or outcasts.  He associated with the marginalized and treated them with dignity.  For those who imitate him, there is no place for maintaining one group’s superiority over another.  Nor is there room for denying the human dignity of anyone based on the color of their skin, their sexual orientation or gender status, or their religious faith or lack of it.

In Christ, Paul tells us, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28)

The “kingdom” that Jesus came to bring – the Kingdom of God – was unlike any of the world’s kingdoms.  It was an “upside down” kingdom, in which the first were last and the last first, in which the greatest was the servant of all.  It was completely contradictory to the world’s values, which emphasize wealth, power and privilege.  Its hallmark was humble service.

Jesus called us to be “peacemakers,” reconcilers – not instigators of conflict and division, mistrust and hatred.

Are these our values as well?  Are we being “conformed to the image of Christ,” day by day and year by year?  Do those whom we look up to and choose to follow live by these principles?  If our purpose is to become more Christ-like, how will that be reflected in how we live, how we relate to others, and how we vote?

We belong to God.  God has called us for this purpose, to be conformed to the image of his Son.  This is not only our comfort and our hope, but also our purpose and our life’s direction.  We live for God.

Mark 7:24-37 

Ephphatha. Jesus looked up, breathed out, and said: Be opened.

And the man was opened: brought back from a closed-off place where no words could get in and no meaning could get out. Let through to a wide-open place of many possibilities, where moments before there had been few, and life was merely survival.

How wide can one human heart be opened to the life of God?

This gradual opening of the heart in an ever-expanding trajectory marks the entire arc of Jesus’ life, words, and actions among us. He stood at the center of an ever-widening and expanding circle of relationships. His gospel shows the way toward an ever-widening and expanding circle of participation in the life of the kingdom: the astonishing reality that we are called to direct participation in the inmost life of God.

This is the heart of Jesus.

But this was not – and is not – effortless. It required the deliberate crossing and breaking of boundaries – boundaries that sought to arrest that unfolding momentum at every turn. He met voices that said:

“We determine who has the right to participate in God’s favor.”

“God’s love extends this far; to this shape; to this arrangement – but no farther.”

Jesus was continually saying: No. Stretch even farther.

Put on “the mind of Christ,” as St. Paul urges. This mind has powered the momentum pushing the boundaries of participation outward in every successive age of the church. Stretch farther. Imagine more. Topple yet another wall so the words can get in and the meaning can get out, up, over and through, so that everything that has breath may praise the Creator.

Be opened. Until, in God’s time, the far frontier is found: the consummation of all things, when “Christ will be all in all.” All means all.

This is the largeness – the wide-open horizon of the heart – that comes with humility.

In this Season of Creation, we are called to contemplate the humility of the creature before the Creator. This is a humility with proportions both cosmic and microscopic; it is vast as our expanding universe and it is intimately particular as, say, the community of microbes in your own digestive tract, without whom you would be less of you.

Humility is the spiritual gift of seeing ourselves as we are. It is neither grandiosity nor an inferiority complex. A humble person knows her own wingspan, and is unafraid to unfurl those wings and fly. And a humble person knows how and when to fold his wings – to make space for the flight of another.

True growth is impossible without humility, if only because it takes making mistakes to grow. We cannot see or acknowledge those mistakes to others, and to God, if we are wedded to a vision of ourselves as perfect beings. It is often in admitting our shortcomings and making apologies that we begin to acquire character and form lasting relationships.

The wide-open heart of Jesus was marked by this earthbound humility.

In today’s gospel reading from Mark we encounter a pair of stories that are actually the second half of a series. This is important context for understanding how humility spurs Jesus to break boundaries – including his own – to widen participation in the life of God.

Earlier in Mark Jesus has had encounters with two other figures: Jairus, a male Jewish leader with a 12-year-old daughter in need of healing; and an unnamed Jewish woman with an issue of blood (for twelve years) that makes her ritually unclean. Jesus heals both of them.

Today’s diptych of stories is the sequel, as well as its foil. In the region of Tyre, a Gentile city, an unnamed woman who is not Jewish but a Greek-speaking pagan asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Then Jesus travels to the Decapolis – ten city-states with an overwhelming Gentile majority, and all Greco-Roman in cultural origin – and he heals an unnamed deaf man we can reasonably infer is also a Gentile.

Anyone brought into healing contact with Jesus participated in the life of God which Jesus called the kingdom. We cannot infer any chronological development in Jesus’ attitude toward offering this larger life to those outside the Jewish covenant. But in the literary structure of Mark, the personal attributes of these characters follow a clear pattern, beginning with a Jewish, male, person of honor; then an unclean, Jewish woman, lower in status by her gender; then two Gentiles, lower still in status and unclean by default in the ancient Jewish worldview; the first a woman, and the second a man impaired in hearing and in speech. This cast of characters is arranged in a careful sequence, from most to least likely to participate in the fullness of God’s covenant love.

Jesus’ interaction with the Syrophonecian woman offers a further window into the creaturely hierarchy in the background of all this boundary crossing.

He replies to her request: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

She answers: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

 Jesus concludes the dialogue: “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter.”

Their interchange evokes a movement downward in space: we imagine a parent bending down to feed a seated child at table; and the messy hands of a child scattering bits of bread even further, to the dirt floor and the waiting mouths of hungry dogs. Children had no social status whatsoever and were utterly dependent on caregivers, though were of course cherished and protected. Dogs were viewed in one of two ways: valued in the ancient Near East as work animals for hunting, guarding, or herding, dogs could rank in the lowest tier of a household, so to speak along with its other domesticated animals. But in ancient Israel, as in many countries today, scavenging, semi-wild dogs also roamed streets or congregated in packs on the outskirts of villages. Dogs were not ritually impure as a species, but touching a corpse transmitted impurity, and scavenging dogs routinely did this. So, the association between dogs and impurity is ambiguous and contextual. Which kind of dog, and in what situation?

I think that ambiguity is crucial in this interchange between Jesus and this woman. Jesus’ reply conjures up a semi-wild scavenger. But the woman’s reply is a pointed reminder that there are dogs who live alongside humans, right there under the table. Are they scavengers? Technically, but of the most benign variety.

The woman insists, in so many words: Though to you I may rank the lowest, I am a member of the household, and my hunger entitles me to my share of the food, however meager.

Taken in light of the entire New Testament, I would even say that the woman’s comment anticipates the words of St. Paul, when he writes in 1 Corinthians, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” Her reply also anticipates Galatians 3: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

While it is challenging to imagine a very human, perhaps impatient, culturally conditioned, Jewish male Jesus calling this woman a scavenger, I think his final words to her are meant to underscore Jesus’ great humility. His consent to her request and the extension of healing to her daughter is also a way of saying to her: You are right. I was wrong – I didn’t see the whole picture, and now I see a little more of it. My heart is open to stretching farther.

There are creatures toward whom we, as humans, give only the scattered crumbs of our regard now and again. And there are creatures whom we relegate to the outskirts of our attention, barely conscious that they, too, are held in being moment by moment by God’s creative Word. Yet is it not humbling to think that humans comprise only 0.01% of Earth’s total biomass, while for instance, plants comprise 82.4%? Bacteria comprise 12.8%, trillions of them forming beneficial microbial communities inside each of us, barely separable from our own flesh.

There is a wide-open place of many possibilities to which we can be opened, and to which we can open others, in the household of God’s creatures. We can begin here, in this liturgy, by the ways we lift other-than-human creatures up to God in prayer, in active remembrance that our humanity subsists in relationship to their creaturehood in its astonishing complexity, diversity, and belovedness.

In a few moments, when we celebrate Holy Communion, we will use for the first time a Eucharistic Prayer composed by our Brother Lucas and authorized by our Bishop Alan, especially for this Season of Creation. I invite you to bring your prayerful attention to its expansive language. These are words that seek to shift our human consciousness; to let in the myriad beings beyond these walls who pray without ceasing; and to learn from their unique participation in the feast of Life.

As we renew our human vocation to be servants and priests of creation, may our hearts be opened to the humility of Jesus: true God, true human, and true creature, until the day when Christ is all in all.

 Amen.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Psalm 37:1-12

In the portion of Psalm 37 appointed for today’s liturgy, one verb appears several times: “fret.” “Do not fret yourself.” Fretting, which is jealous, angry teeth grinding when we see evil doers, the unscrupulous, the insidiously clever people getting ahead. In just a few verses, the psalmist repeats this mantra three times: “Do not fret yourself.” “Do not fret yourself.” “Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.”[i]  Which is easier said than done when we see in the news every day how good things happen to bad people.

We need good peripheral vision. On the one hand, we need to keep in touch with history and see, in the long view, how the playing field eventually levels. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”[ii] Quite. Remembering how justice will eventually thunder forth can help us claim hope. In the fullness of time, things will come round right, if not in this lifetime, then in the life to come.

With our peripheral vision, we also need to live in the present and to look ahead, claiming our own agency for God’s will to be done on earth as it shall be in heaven. What is our vocation, what is our calling to be and to do amidst somuch that is wrong? To quote again Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”[iii]

The psalmist gives us an elixir for living fully alive in a troubled world:

But do not fret.

[i] Psalm 37:1, 8, 9.

[ii] Martin Luther King, Jr., originally quoted in a 1958 article printed in “The Gospel Messenger” periodical.

[iii] Martin Luther King, Jr., from his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” an open letter written on April 16, 1963.

Br. James Koester,
Superior

Proper 17 B

There is a lot going on today. It’s the Sunday of the Labour Day weekend, a holiday marking the social, economic and political achievements of the labour movement. (As an aside, in the Nineteenth Century, our own Father Field was a great proponent of the move to implement a 5 ½ day work week for child labourers. He created a half-day fund, and each Saturday would take as many boys as he could find, sometimes in the range of over 200, out into the country for an afternoon of games and a picnic, bringing them back to the city in the evening tired, well fed, and happy.) Today is also the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, sometimes known as the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. Over this is laid the first Sunday in the Season of Creation, when many parishes, including us, focus their attention on the beauty and wonder of creation, and our need to protect its integrity. Closer to home, I stand before you in the last moments as my time as Superior. Later this morning we will install our brother Keith as our new Superior.

All around us, different things are happening, and it’s hard to know where to look, where to focus. Some things are ending, while others are just beginning. Still others are in mid-course. What is true for the monastery and the church, is no doubt true in your own lives. It is certainly true for the world. So much seems to be changing all at the same time, with some things coming to an end, or even dying, while others are just beginning, and coming to life. Still others are somewhere in between.

But isn’t that what renewal looks like? Renewal is not things simply changing. For renewal to happen, some things must come to an end, while others take their first steps and move into place. The Prayer Book puts it this way,

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord….[1]

This is very much a season when things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new.

This image of ending and beginning, of dying and rising, of the old being made new, doesn’t simply come to us from the imagination of a liturgical scholar working away at their desk. This image, indeed, this process, is deeply imprinted in the human soul. We know the Collect to be true, not because it’s in the Prayer Book, but because we see that process, in our own lives; and in the lives of others around us. We know it to be true, not because we see the coming and going of Superiors. We know it to be true because we see that process in creation itself.

Father Congreve of our Society put it this way:

The stillness of the evening clouds expresses for me the patience of the creature waiting for God: “My soul waiteth still upon God.”[2] Standing there, watching the night fall, as the day dies, listening to the crashing of the waves upon the shore, and everything, he writes seems to be absorbed in the solemnity of divine mysteries, everything seems awake to the infinite, and to breathe the awfulness of eternity… Here God visibly touches nature… We rise and stand upon our feet to hear what He is saying to us, as our hearts burn….[3]

Who among us has not watched the sky, golden with the praises of a sunset, or blackened by a threatening storm, and not thought silently, it is the Lord? Who has not been saddened at the first sign of autumn, and whose heart has not rejoiced when the first robin of spring is spotted. It is the Lord.

As we watch creation die and renew itself day by day, century by century, eon by eon, humanity has seen in it a revelation of the Divine, who makes all things new.[4] We see this same revelation of the Divine, as creation is renewed today, upon the altar.

Here on this altar, as on altars around the world, the creatures of bread and wine are taken, blessed, broken, and given. Again, as Father Congreve says, Christ the High Priest takes these creatures into His hands and offers them to the Eternal Father; they become the Lord’s Body and Blood, and so they are raised from the sphere of the perishing world, and consecrated to become powers of eternal life, uniting earth and Heaven. These are creatures which have shared our curse (cursed be the ground for thy sake), [now] lifted in the hands of our Lord to an immeasurable dignity.[5] In this way, created matter, this time bread and wine, becomes a revelation of the Divine, and a means and sign of God’s grace and love. By them, and in them, and through them, we hear the voice of God speaking to us and saying, ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.[6]

There is a lot going on today, but in reality only one thing is happening, in creation, in our world, in this nation, here at the monastery, and in each of our lives, and that is that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things [including you, and me, our community, this nation, and all creation] are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, … Jesus Christ our Lord….

And that, my friends, is a cause of hope, for just as creation is being perfected on this altar today, so that it will be for us a revelation of God, so too are you, and I, and we Brothers being renewed and perfected to be a revelation of the Divine who says to all of us, arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

[1] TEC, Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 515

[2] Congreve SSJE, George, The Spiritual Order, The Sorrow of Nature, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, 1906, page 53

[3] Ibid, page 54

[4] Revelation 21:5

[5] Congreve SSJE, George, Christian Progress, The Fellowship of Man with all Created Things in Sorrow and in Hope, Longmans, Green, and Co., London, 1910, page 263

[6] Song of Songs 2: 10 – 13