SSJE Sermons

Br. Keith Nelson

Feast of St. James & St. John, Apostles

Matthew 20:20-28

In the collect for today’s feast of St. James and St. John, we prayed: “Pour out on the leaders of your Church that Spirit of self-denying service by which alone they may have true authority among your people.”

I recall a line I love from Matthew chapter 7, when Jesus has concluded the Sermon on the Mount: “The crowds were astounded, because he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew 7:28-29).

Jesus was a humble person who actively shunned personal reward. He was a master at side-stepping the adulation of his personality if that adulation distracted others from the deep truths of the kingdom he came to reveal. His teaching style was holistic: the Gospels portray a person with tremendous sensitivity to how a few words or a simple gesture could communicate as much as or more than a lengthy discourse. What he said had such a ring of truth to it that it awakened a thirst deep inside his listeners for more – even if more was hard to understand and came at great personal cost.

In everything he did, he “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

If the authority of Jesus is the measure by which all Christian leaders ought to gauge their leadership, well, I can only say that I fall very far short. That is true in my ministry as the community’s Superior, but it is also true of the more fundamental leadership to which I am called as a baptized member of Christ’s Body. I stand deeply in need of Jesus to show me where and how I go amiss. And I stand in need of fellow disciples – in my case, primarily my Brothers – who can show me what I can’t quite see about myself. In my case that includes both the sharp edges and the hidden treasures.

I think, by God’s grace, that that was Jesus’ intention for his apostles. Just as his authority came only from his radical dependence on the one he called Father, so any authority given to the members of his Body comes only through radical dependence on his grace in the midst of our frequent failures.

In today’s Gospel reading, James and John fall short in a particularly public way.

These two disciples want something very good: They want to be close to Jesus, to learn from him and to enjoy his presence in the kingdom he has come to inaugurate. We might say they want to become saints. The trouble is that their perception of the kingdom, and the way authority works within it, is conditioned by the values and power structures of worldly kingdoms.

We might pause to ask ourselves: What are the ways we sometimes continue to think about participation in the kingdom of God through the filter of our worldly conditioning – through the values that the world tells us are most important?

Ambition; competition; the posturing and image curation that are standard expectations on social media. The craving for public recognition for beauty, intelligence, business acumen, or net financial worth. There are many other examples.

Though we as the Church are Christ’s mystical Body, we are also a collection of fallible human beings. Our minds and hearts are not automatically immune from the subtle influence of these values and expectations. There is the pressure to be busy all the time, even if we are busy doing good things for others; the pressure to make a virtue of never having an empty calendar; the pressure to find innovative solutions to the many obstacles faced by our congregations and our denomination; the pressure to be available at all times, or to be all things to all people. I am certain you can think of more.

James and John had to face both the disappointment of hearing Jesus’ denial of their intended favor and then the anger of the other ten disciples when they heard about it. In praying with this passage, I noticed that they responded with anger, which seems to suggest several possibilities. The ten may have been angry at their presumption: “Who do they think they are, that they should have that privilege?” may well have been the voice in their heads. They may also have been angry because they carried their own subtle sense of entitlement: “I’m just as worthy of a place next to Jesus as they are, and you don’t see me asking my mom to get it for me!” In the end, then, Jesus’ final words about servant leadership are aimed not just at James and John, but at any one of them tempted to separate true greatness from humble service.

I imagine James and John may have had a miniature meltdown for a few days, but one thing is clear: they didn’t run away, or collapse under the weight of humiliation, or turn against the other apostles in bitterness. They stayed the course, and we remember them as saints. I can only imagine that, however slowly, they saw their mistakes, made humble apologies, and set about learning more of the truth. In God’s time, that would mean drinking the cup entrusted to them by Jesus: participation in the mystery of his life, his death, and his resurrection.

Blessed James and John, Apostles, whom we remember today.

Br. Jamie Nelson

Saint John Cassian

Psalm 70

“O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.”

If you’ve spent much time here in this chapel, those words will sound familiar. It’s a line from scripture: the first verse of Psalm 70. We recite it at the beginning of most daily prayer services: Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline. The Brother who is officiating chants the first phrase, and the congregation responds with the second.

That monastic ritual has been in place since St. Benedict first wrote his Rule around AD 530. Yet the tradition’s origins are even older than that. St. Benedict included it in his Rule because of the influence of an older monastic author: St. John Cassian, whom we celebrate today.

St. John Cassian was born around AD 360 in the region of present-day Romania. As a young man, he made his way to Skete, one of the early seedbeds of monasticism located in the Egyptian desert. Devout men and women had migrated to the desert to pursue a solitary life of prayer, following in the example of St. Anthony of Egypt a century before. Others banded together into small communities with daily life shared in common, much as we Brothers live out our life today.

Cassian stayed fifteen years in the desert, being formed through prayer, relationship, and daily life with God. After time in the two most influential Christian cities of his day, Constantinople and Rome, he founded a monastic community near present-day Marseille, France, where he lived out his days. The community he founded was a double monastery, with buildings for both men and women, including his biological sister.

If St. John Cassian were to have a stained-glass window in our clerestory monastic founders series, his window would be located between Augustine[1] and Benedict.[2] He was a contemporary of Augustine; the two were born and died within just a few years of one another.

If St. John Cassian were to have a stained-glass window, it would be to honor him as the author of two major works in monastic spirituality, the Institutes and the Conferences. These writings served as key theological and structural roadmaps for St. Benedict as he wrote his Rule. Not only did they inspire the content, in several chapters Benedict directly recommended both works as daily reading fare.

The Conferences are structured as a sort of oral history of the Desert Fathers. It recounts conversations with fifteen elders from Cassian’s desert days, describing the lived experiences, memories, and traditions of a since-vanished community.

One of the elders interviewed for the Conferences, Abba Isaac, shared his wisdom on unceasing prayer using Psalm 70:1.[3] He saw the verse as a universal prayer formula attuned to every human experience, noting, “It embraces all the feelings which can be implanted in human nature, and can be fitly and satisfactorily adapted to every condition.”[4] He advised repeating the verse over and over while going about one’s daily life: while working, walking, or worrying.

You might consider carrying this verse with you this week. Let it accompany you from the time you wake up until you fall asleep at night. For every prayer begins from the same longing: to draw nearer to the God who is already near to us in loving relationship (1 John 4:19).

So join me now by saying: “O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.”

[1] “Augustine,” SSJE, April 13, 2025.

[2] “Benedict,” SSJE, April 13, 2025.

[3] John Cassian, Conferences 10.10, “Of the Method of Continual Prayer”.

[4] Cassian, Conferences 10.10.

Br. Jack Crowley

Romans 8:12-25

Just to warn you, I’m going to start this sermon with a personal story that makes me look bad. So hold on to your hats.

Back during the COVID lockdown, I joined an online men’s support group. It had about forty men in it, and we met weekly to discuss issues like toxic masculinity, mental health, emotional expression, and so on. Every month one man would volunteer to chair the meetings on Zoom and make sure everything went smoothly.

So one month there was a man, whom we will call Steve, who volunteered to chair the meetings for the following month. Steve was the worst Zoom host I’ve ever encountered. He was frequently a few minutes late, he would constantly forget to unmute himself and start yapping away – if you can imagine the image of forty men on little Zoom boxes gesturing wildly trying to communicate that the host is muted – and what bothered me the most, and what I judged him the most about, was frequently he would be talking to someone off-screen. Sometimes he would even get up and go take care of something in the middle of the meeting.

Now mind you, I could have chosen to focus my attention on the dozens of other men in the group who were alternating between vulnerably bearing their souls and listening intently, but no, I chose to focus on how bad of a Zoom host Steve was. Then finally, on the last night of the month that Steve was the host, at the end of the meeting, Steve expressed his gratitude to the group for letting him be the host that month. He went on to explain that his father with dementia had recently moved in with him and he was struggling to take care of him. He said his father’s symptoms got worse later in the evenings when we had our meetings, but most of the time he could get his father to sit quietly beside him and look at the Zoom screen together. Steve got emotional and explained how he knew he didn’t have much time left with his father and apologized if he had appeared distracted during his time as our Zoom host.

This happened at least five years ago, and I’ve actually never told anyone this story before, but as Steve’s story hit me, all I could think was, “Oh Jesus Christ,” and that month of frustration was flooded over by compassion. I had been so wrong about Steve, and it took a revelation – a burning away of my ignorance – to understand what God already knew.

I’m sure you’ve all had your own moments in life like this, moments when what you thought you knew about someone or a situation ended up being this tiny speck of experience compared to the truth. These are moments when whatever narratives of frustration, judgment, or superiority crumble and we are left humbled, staring at level ground. Of course these moments when we are floored by God are arduous, and they stick with us. These moments when we are decked by revelation can make us feel tiny, like we just want to crawl into a hole. But these moments are also moments when we can learn to be grounded in the Holy Spirit, planting seeds that bear fruit in due season. Fruits of the Holy Spirit like kindness, gentleness, patience, and self-control – fruits I was not offering to Steve in my own ignorance.

But in order to plant these seeds, we often have to spend some time in the weeds. We often have to fall to our knees in the soil of our own foibles. We often have to be so wrong about something that it takes God to right us. We often have to be like Jacob, using a rock as a pillow and learning to call it holy.

As Jesus said in our Gospel this morning, much of our life is spent in the weeds (Matthew 13:24–30). Much of our life is spent trying to distinguish good from bad, what should be done versus what is happening, and how to find God in the midst of it all. Jesus knew full well what he was talking about; he knew how to weed his way through life. How to take what was in front of him and make the most of it, how to appeal to his Father in times of need, how to heal those who were afflicted, and how to live a humble life, fully human, grounded in reality.

Of course we live in a world where the weeds of fear always threaten to strangle the joyful fruits of our labors. Fear, that annoying reminder that we are still human, crops up all too often and wreaks havoc in our garden paradise. We fear that there is not enough to go around – not enough bread for the crowd, not enough wine for the wedding. We fear that we will not be understood, that our deepest hopes and ambitions, our most vulnerable expressions of self will go unnoticed. We fear, and we fear, and we fear until we reach a breaking point and let God into the deepest recesses of our soul, and that is the soil of prayer.

The good news is that like the disciples, we have access to Jesus. We all have access to Jesus in a personal way. Like the disciples, we can approach Jesus in a deeply personal way, seeking understanding, craving communion, and just wanting to get a sense of what is going on here. We must go to Jesus with our deepest fears and express ourselves totally, holding nothing back. We must speak to Jesus on the most intimate and personal of terms, with the brutal honesty of a broken heart or a frustrated soul.

In my experience, what happens next is often miraculous: when we go to Jesus on that personal level and express ourselves, hope springs forth. Hope – not necessarily a solution, or an answer, or optimism, but hope. A sense deep down inside of ourselves that this is all right and holy and this is all happening for a reason. A sense deep down inside of ourselves that more shall be revealed. A sense deep down inside of ourselves that even when the power goes out, we still have the power of God in our souls.

This hope, this energy, cannot be stolen from you. You can keep it in your heart and offer it to the world, and we all know the world needs it right now. Sometimes all we can offer is our own hope. Sometimes all we can offer is our own warmth. Sometimes all we can offer is our own joy. Deep down we all know these offerings go a long way to light up the world.

Amen.

Br. Lucas Hall

Matthew 12:18-21

“Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,

This may well be Matthew’s thesis statement. Matthew often gets relegated to being the Gospel about Old Testament prophecy, and how Jesus fulfills it. Compared to Mark, with his rough-and-tumble, ragged Jesus, driven by the Spirit; to Luke, with his beautiful, composed prayers and obvious concern for the marginalized; and to John, with his high Christology and insistence that the gospel is not mere biography, but the story of the Wisdom who made the worlds . . . I don’t know, Old Testament prophecy maybe falls a bit flat. It seems less relevant, less real, more esoteric. But it’s my view that Matthew’s real intention, from the very beginning of his gospel, is to present a Jesus who subverts expectations, and to explain how it is that subversion of the dominant ideas, the unquestioned expectations of the society around him, that both genuinely fulfills the prophetic vision and genuinely is good news. Further, despite Matthew’s delight in provoking these sensibilities, it’s ultimately his goal to assure his fellow Israelites that this subversion is not to be feared, but is the very work of the God they have worshiped from the beginning. And that’s a more interesting, more relevant proposition for us.

Today, we hear of Matthew’s insistence that Jesus acquiring a large and eager following among the Gentiles is not just acceptable, but necessary, for it has long been prophesied that this anointed one of God would bring hope, not just to the people of Israel, but to the whole world, forever. It’s a transgressive idea, especially for a people so used to defining themselves against the surrounding cultures. But it turns out that idea is not just transgressive for Israelites. Paul, in his letter to the early Christians in Rome, insists that the fact that many of his fellow Jews did not embrace Jesus does not represent a removal of God’s covenant from them, and seems to warn the Gentile converts against vaunting themselves above the Jews, insisting rather that hope and grace had come to all, Jew and Gentile alike, and that God had allowed rejection among the Jews so that all alike may be saved not by righteousness but by God’s mercy. This is not the holy-making of one group at the expense of another; all will receive this outpouring of mercy.

Which leaves us here with a rather solemn charge. Is there anyone, anyone at all, any group or individual, in whom we cannot imagine God’s work taking hold? Anyone who we hold in scorn, contempt, dismissal, even deserved scorn, contempt, dismissal? I will answer for all of us: yes. Of course. It does not take much to look at the world, or even at our own interpersonal lives, and find people we just find repugnant on some level. And this is not a cause for panic in itself; “Love your enemies” presupposes you have enemies (Matthew 5:44). What is a crisis, a point at which a crucial choice must be made, is the realization of this enmity. When we recognize those dispositions in ourselves, we must not bury them, and we must not indulge them. We have an obligation to accept what we have heard this day: “Somehow, somehow, even them. Lord, have mercy.”

Br. Luke Ditewig

Isaiah 38:1-6, 21

Today is our monthly requiem in which we remember the dead, dying, and loss, and our mortality. Sick, dying, and told he would die, Hezekiah prayed asking God to remember how he had followed, and he wept bitterly. Tears express beyond words: fright, distress, sadness, anger, confusion, and distress. God replied: “I hear you and see your tears. I will save you.” Hezekiah recovers and then writes a lament (Isaiah 38:10–20).[1] He pointedly describes hurt and suffering: “My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom …” (Isaiah 38:12).

Psalm 6 is similar: “Heal me, Lord, for my bones are racked … My spirit shakes with terror … My eyes are wasted with grief …” (Psalm 6:2–3, 7). The psalmist and Hezekiah describe pain and loss and call for God to listen and deliver. The psalmist ends with trust: “The Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies shall be confounded and quake with fear; …” (Psalm 6:9–10). Hezekiah ends with gratitude: “the living, they thank you, as I do this day …” (Isaiah 38:19).

How are you in touch today with death, loss, and mortality? What invites your prayer? Perhaps it is the grief of death, someone or something you have lost; or the grief of dying, someone or something changing, being taken away; or 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, or who are endangered and hurting.

Pray with the psalmist. Let a lament be or shape your prayer. Be specific about pain, cry for help, and name trust. Like Hezekiah, write your own psalm with your own metaphors. Tears are a gift. Pray beyond words weeping, groaning, and clenched.

Perhaps you are in the midst. The hard is right now. Perhaps you look back on something before, like Hezekiah after he recovered. Pray your life now and pray back in your life. Trust God hears and sees. “Save us, O God, in your mercy.”[2]

Amen.

[1] We chant this alongside psalms of lament and the Book of Lamentations in Holy Week at Tenebrae.

[2] The repeated antiphon for the psalm of the day.

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.