SSJE Sermons

Br. Jamie Nelson

Acts 18:23-28

Today’s reading from the eighteenth chapter of Acts paints a vivid picture of the networks of relationship by which early Christian communities grew and developed, and invites us to think about how we embody that growth today.

It is easy for us present-day humans to get access to basically everything we might want to know about being Christian. We have Bibles at our fingertips, which collect the teachings of Jesus and stories about his early followers. We can easily look up the history of the Christian tradition and find out what two millennia of scholars have taught about matters of doctrine.

That was not so for the early followers of Jesus. Their growth in faith came out of relationships, not from mass-market published books or YouTube videos by popular influencers. It was person-to-person human connection and mentorship that fed the growth of first-century Christianity.

We see this play out in Acts 18, where we meet Apollos, a man of passionate faith and a desire to preach in the Christian gatherings of the city of Ephesus. Apollos is mentioned briefly in the New Testament, both here and in Paul’s letters. However, we never hear from him in his own words.

Originally from the Jewish community of Alexandria, somewhere along Apollos’s journey from Mediterranean city to city he had learned about Jesus of Nazareth and come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. He had also learned about the baptisms that John conducted in the Jordan River, perhaps even having undergone the ritual himself.

However, he had not learned about something that other Christians in Ephesus knew about, even if they had not been present when it first happened: the day of Pentecost and the enduring power of the Holy Spirit. I do not blame Apollos. He did not have issues of Christianity Today to read, or a monastery ordo to ground him in the traditions of the church year. He just had his own life experience of following Jesus to preach from, and by all accounts he did a good job at it.

So Paul’s colleagues Priscilla and Aquila took him aside. They privately shared with him the miraculous events at the harvest festival of Pentecost in Jerusalem, when the Holy Spirit had descended upon a group of Jesus’s followers with a sound like a mighty wind, with divided tongues of fire resting on each person, enabling them to preach the gospel in many languages.

Priscilla and Aquila did not shame Apollos or tell people not to listen to him because he had not heard the whole story. They recognized his giftedness and his potential and were committed to his growth and development as an evangelist. They saw Apollos as someone to mentor, not as their competition or an upstart to put in his place.

And we do not hear about any pushback from Apollos. He does not seem to have been defensive or threatened by learning that his message was incomplete, and he definitely does not quit preaching the gospel.

Instead, after receiving guidance, he is sent to preach in another region, Achaea, three hundred miles away by sea, with the full support of the Ephesian church. We hear that his work there made a considerable impact in those churches, which the Apostle Paul later summed up by saying, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6).

In our modern-day context, we often feel pressure in our work lives to appear polished, certain, and fully informed. But today’s reading reminds us that it does not have to be that way in our lives of faith.

We can be talented, effective, and still have many things to learn. We do not need to have it all perfectly figured out to begin. Instead, we can remain open to learning and growing, and look for God’s grace to be revealed through networks of relationship.

Br. Jack Crowley

Ascension Day

Luke 24:44-53

Back in my twenties, I taught English as a second language. I had the pleasure of meeting thousands of people from around the world. There was one particular summer when I had a group of students all from Germany, and I think they spoke English better than I did. Frequently, they would show up early to class and we would get to talking before class started.

One morning, out of the blue, one of the German men asked me if my grandfather had been in World War Two. I could see the other students stiffen up a bit. I smiled and said yes. I told him I had one grandfather who was a Marine and served in the Pacific, and my other grandfather was in the Air Force and served in Europe. I asked the student about his family’s experience in the war, and he nodded and inhaled and proceeded to tell me that in World War Two his grandfather was in the Air Force as well. There was a long, awkward silence as our eyes met, and then we both kind of nodded at each other with a knowing smile and looked upward, as if to say: here we are – our two grandfathers flew against each other in a world war, and their grandsons are in a classroom together speaking a common language. Now certainly, we did not achieve world peace in that classroom that morning, but some progress was made.

I think we have all had moments like that, when we look skyward and know something greater than ourselves is at play. Something greater than ourselves is at work. The comedy and tragedy of our life, the joys and challenges, the ups and the downs, somehow coming together full circle – and we can look up in wonder.

Tonight we celebrate the Ascension of our Savior Jesus Christ. Every year on this date, I always spend more time than usual looking upward. I try to put myself there with the disciples, imagining Jesus lifting up his hands, closing my eyes, Jesus blessing me, and when I open my eyes, Jesus has ascended. I am often reminded of the feeling I have gotten when someone close to me who is advanced in age has passed away peacefully, and I have this overwhelming sense of peace imagining them floating off to the next adventure.

One of the great challenges of our lives is how to stay in touch with this feeling of ascended glory. To hold in one hand the truth that God is gloriously shaping our lives, and to hold in the other hand the truth that there is suffering in the world and we will go through times of desperation. We are caught somewhere in the middle, holding these two truths, waiting for an answer.

So the question becomes: how then do we live with these questions? What do we do after the glow of the Ascension has faded? What do we do when it feels like we are just left with one another?

First, do not be embarrassed by any feelings of confusion, fatigue, anger, angst, anxiety, or boredom. When we look down from the heavens and meet the world in the eye, we are all going to have different reactions day to day, moment to moment. When we see the concrete realities before us – or in our monastery’s case, when the concrete is being jackhammered outside our door – it is natural to have a reaction. We are human, after all.

Second, soak in your desire for God. Hold fast to those memories of intimacy with God, times when it felt like everything made sense, times when it felt like you could see God so clearly it was as if God were standing right in front of you. Those memories will sustain you when the well goes dry.

Third, look for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is present in every moment. Look for the Holy Spirit in every situation in your life. If you cannot find it, at least be open to it. Jesus promised his disciples they would be clothed with power from on high. Allow God to dress you with that power – to dress you and address you, to call you and send you where you need to go, whether that be a literal place or a state of mind.

Fourth, always remember that we have one another. That could be a good thing and, or, a bad thing. For better or worse, we are all stuck on this earth together. We must ask ourselves: what on earth should we do, and what should we do on earth? Do we want to express ourselves with bombs and bullets, or do we want to learn a common language? Do we want to heal generations of trauma, or do we want to continue the insanity of violence? Do we wish to work together, or do we wish to drift apart?

One thing I learned in all my years in the classroom is that deep down, people really do want to work together, but fear gets in the way. Fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of being betrayed, fear of being abandoned – all these fears add up and calcify, leaving us hardened, a stiff-necked people unable to loosen up and join in. Sometimes all it takes is a smile, a nod, a wink, an exhale, a lifting up of the head, and you can communicate so much with so little.

Always remember that the forces that pull us together are stronger than the forces that push us apart. Deep down, we all want to be reconciled, we all want to learn multiple languages, we all want to understand what someone else is saying – and those tongues of fire inspire us all.

Finally, always remember that after the Ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Never lose touch with joy. Find it at the core of your being and let it flow. I wish you a glorious Ascensiontide. Amen.

Br. David Vryhof

I Corinthians 3:10-14, Matthew 6:19-24

The great spiritual leader of India, Mahatma Gandhi, once said, “We become what we yearn after. Hence the need for prayer.”[1] What could he have meant by this?

“We become what we yearn after” does not mean that we will get whatever we desire. I may yearn to become wealthy or popular or successful, but this is no guarantee that I will become any of those things.

What it does mean is that the things I yearn after will invariably shape and form me. If I yearn after wealth, for example, my desire to become wealthy will influence everything: the friends I choose, the neighborhood I want to live in, the type of work I am willing to do, the material possessions I work to acquire, and the people who matter most to me. I will choose those things that will enable me to become wealthy, and I will leave aside the rest. I am likely to overlook the beggar sitting outside my gate. This yearning for wealth will shape who I am and what I will become.

“Hence the need for prayer.” Since this is the case, Gandhi suggests, we need times of prayer to examine ourselves, our motives, our goals, the ways we relate to others, and our vocation or calling in life. Only when we look at our lives through the lens of God’s values and God’s purposes can we see what is worthwhile, what will endure, and what choices will best reflect the purpose for which God has made us.

“We become what we yearn after; hence the need for prayer.” Our desires will shape and form the type of person we become; hence the need to examine and reflect on our deepest values, our priorities in life, and our motivation for making various choices.

Gandhi, who was not a Christian, valued the teachings of Jesus and would have assented to the truth of Jesus’ words in our Gospel text today: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). See also Luke 12:33-34 and Matthew 19:21.

With these words, Jesus invites us to reflect on the difference between “treasures on earth” and “treasures in heaven.” Earthly treasures are temporary material possessions – money, property, goods – that are subject to decay and theft, while heavenly treasures are eternal rewards gained through good works, generosity, and faith. Jesus calls us to spurn the first in order to embrace the second. Earthly treasures pass away, but heavenly treasure lasts forever. It is not subject to corruption or theft; it endures beyond the grave.

In our lesson from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul suggests that we are builders who must “choose with care how [we] build.” For there will come a day when what we have built using our time and our talents will be put to the test, to see whether it will last or whether it will be consumed.

So choose wisely. Choose prayerfully. Choose to put your time and effort into those things that will endure.

[1] Mahadev Desai, diary entry quoted in Krishna Kripalani, ed., All Men Are Brothers (New York: World Without War Publications, 1972), s.v. Gandhi.

Br. Luke Ditewig

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:15-21

Easter was six weeks ago. Should we be confident in the Resurrection by now? The first disciples were not. Their dream of Jesus had shattered. Seeing him alive was not an immediate fix. They often did not recognize him.

Near the empty tomb, Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. On the road to Emmaus, two followers had a long talk with Jesus, thinking he was a stranger. While fishing, others did not realize that it was Jesus speaking to them on the beach. The frightened followers locked the doors when they gathered. Why were they so excited? Had they not heard correctly? Had they made a huge mistake? What in the world should they do now?

When Jesus appears, the disciples are terrified. Jesus says, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19; Luke 24:36). Jesus says this over and over to reassure them. Resurrection scenes echo Holy Week, with Jesus reassuring them. Our Gospel lesson today comes from the last great conversation on Maundy Thursday. Jesus speaks to his followers, frightened in Jerusalem, where death threats loom heavily. Though afraid, they do not know what is about to happen. Jesus is about to be arrested and killed. Jesus does know, and he prepares them.

While Matthew, Mark, and Luke move through this evening rather quickly, focusing on instituting the Lord’s Supper, John spends five chapters on it. As Eugene Peterson wrote, John slows the reader down, inviting us to listen: listen to Jesus love and teach his followers to love.[1] Listen to Jesus reassure, encourage, and prepare them for his leaving.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Jesus began the evening showing love, visible and tactile, in washing feet. Love touching deeply, feet first. Be humble and tender in serving. Be vulnerable in receiving. Figuratively, feet are our fragility, fears, wounds, and heartaches. “Follow my example,” Jesus said (John 13:15). Love by washing each other’s feet. This is the “new commandment” – love one another in this way. Let yourself be seen and heard. Receive help, and care for others. Love one another tenderly.

“I am with you only a little longer.” “Where I am going you cannot follow.” Jesus prepares them for his absence, both in death and in resurrection. Jesus comforts and encourages them with the promise of the Spirit. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” (John 14:16). What? How? Though true, Jesus is not particularly understandable in this long discourse. What he says raises questions. Peterson wrote that Jesus “is not making things clear, smoothing out ambiguities; [rather, Jesus] is making them vivid, pulsing.”[2] When someone comforts or encourages you, what is most apparent? What do you most remember? Coherent words or plans? We remember presence, soothing, slowing, one being with us.

Vivid now and after leaving. Promised presence beyond absence. Slowing pulse. When we touch and hug, our bodies calibrate breathing and pulse. We can slow down with and by another body. Breathing. Pulsing. Soothing. Standing with to withstand.

Jesus reassures us with promised presence. “I will ask the Father, who will give the Spirit. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. Because I live, you also will live. You will know that you are in me and I in you” (John 14:16-20). This is tender love. Jesus is further washing feet. This is teaching a song to sing, ways to move, sowing seeds for resurrection, and poetry to live in coming grief.

The Spirit is here, hovering, mending, working resurrection even unseen. Receive God’s touch and pulse, and share them by loving one another. Practice being, listening. Amid heartache and much to do, pause to be.

Someone shared with me the joy of a relaxed reading of a novel. They noted a new, relaxed presence instead of shifting and skimming: joy at being present to the characters, plot, pace, the gift of story. As a new retiree, they are intentionally seeking more such being.

Susanna Wesley, mother of Methodism, had ten children, including the famous John and Charles. She sat or knelt in the kitchen and pulled her apron up over her head. All knew not to interrupt when the apron was up, because for those few minutes she was alone with God in prayer. Amid a noisy, full life, Susanna cultivated stopping to be, if only briefly.

“Because I live,” Jesus said, “you also will live. You will know that you are in me and I in you” (John 14:19-20).

Pause to be, feel, and follow the pulse of the Spirit. Receive and share. As promised, God loves with tender presence.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 235.

[2] Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 237.

Br. Lain Wilson

Julian of Norwich

The fourteenth century was a lousy century. Famine, plague, war. Absolutely lousy.

You wouldn’t know it reading Julian of Norwich, whom we remember today.

Julian would’ve been about six years old when the Black Death swept through England. She likely didn’t have any, or many, memories of this devastating event, and would’ve likely heard stories as she grew up. But we don’t know what she thought of it, or of any of the other horrors of her time. Her “Showings,” which testify to a series of visions she received in 1373, at around the age of thirty, are fundamentally optimistic.

 “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,” Jesus assures Julian, and so she assures us, several times throughout, when so much of what was going on around her would’ve argued against that.

Optimistic, maybe, but not naive. Julian does not expect only good things to happen, but rather that the goodness of God enfolds the bad in love and mercy, that the light of God’s loving care is what allows us to see our sins and faults and failings: allows us to see them and, in seeing them, know that they are forgiven.

For Julian, this is an expression of what she calls God’s courtesy: “Our Lord in his mercy reveals our sin and our feebleness to us by the sweet gracious light of his own self, for our sin is so foul and so horrible that he in his courtesy will not reveal it to us except by the light of his mercy.”[1]

God’s courtesy shows that we fail, but that we aren’t our failings; that we sin and do horrible things, but that we are not those things. God’s courtesy assures us that we are loved, loved for all of who we are, which is known fully and completely only by God.

We who cannot know the full truth of ourselves, let alone that of others, can nevertheless partake of God’s own courtesy. We can do that by showing kindness and grace, especially toward those whom we do not know, whose stories we cannot know. This isn’t about being nice (or just about being nice), or turning a blind eye toward fault, but rather acknowledging that God is at work in their lives in ways unknown to us, that the experience of frailty and failure may be the place where God is reach out to enfold them in love, and that the simple act of kindness from us may be what they need to accept that love in that place of great vulnerability. In our act of kindness, we recognize God’s courtesy at work in them.

“All shall be well,” indeed.

Amen.

[1] Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. E. Colledge and J. Walsh (Paulist Press, 1978), 332 (ch. 78).

Br. Curtis Almquist

John 14:27-31a

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

This word “peace,” which we hear in our Gospel lesson, is not the mere absence of acrimony and conflict in the world that surrounds us. That would be the peace the world gives, which, of course, is desperately needed in our very torn world. However, Jesus is here talking about peace from the inside out. He’s talking about being at peace in the storm. This entails two things.

For one, our own inner peace comes from surrendering to the terms by which God has given us life. It is otherwise possible to live rejecting, or resenting, or regretting one’s whole life long, or to live one’s life in complaint or comparison, which is no way to live. Don’t wait until the end of your life for peace, when you hope to rest in peace. Receive now this gift of peace Jesus promises us. You may need help with this. Many people, certainly I, have needed help to receive Jesus’ gift of peace. Get help. You’re worth it. Get the help you need so that you can receive and unwrap Jesus’ gift of peace, which Jesus has promised us.

There’s also Jesus’ promise of peace for other people: the desperate need for peace for those near and those far away. This gift of peace is not a standalone. Peace for our world can only come as an outgrowth of justice. In the absence of justice, “peace” can be a form of oppression, the strong imposing virulent obedience on the weak. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” [1]

The peace Jesus promises us is addressed in Greek with a plural second-person pronoun. Jesus is saying, “Peace I leave with you all; my peace I give to you all. I do not give to you all as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [2] This is how we can understand the coupling of peace with justice, peace-receiving through justice-making. This is where we have agency. This is where we must act in some way within our own reach to redress, in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ power, and in Jesus’ love, the egregious injustice that surrounds us, and “to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.” [3] Then we – we all – can fully appropriate the gift of peace Jesus has given us. [4]

[1] Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, 10 December 1964.

[2] The Greek pronoun is ὑμῖν, plural, “you all.”

[3] Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, 10 December 1964.

[4] See James 2:14-17.

Br. James Koester

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 7:55-60

One of the fun things about Jerusalem is the multiplicity of holy sites scattered around the Old City. What is even more fun is that there are multiple sites commemorating the same thing. There are, for instance, two upper rooms: the Upper Room, up,[1] and the Upper Room, down.[2] In one you go upstairs to enter. In the other you descend a flight of stairs. There are two places that commemorate the resurrection: the Church of the Resurrection[3] within the Old City, and just outside, the Garden Tomb.[4] Clearly the pilgrim industry operates on the principle that if one is good, two is better.

This principle includes not one, but two places tied to the martyrdom of Stephen. Tradition holds that he was stoned outside what was once called St. Stephen’s Gate, on the east side of the city. Tradition also holds that he was stoned outside what was also once called St. Stephen’s Gate, on the north side of the city. So, we have two places, two gates, two parts of the city, both claiming to be the site of his martyrdom. Thus, we have two different meanings of the story. So, what’s the story, or rather the stories?

As you know, tradition is history, but not necessarily historical. Add theology to the mix, and you get a powerful combination of history, tradition, theology, and myth. None of this means the stories are untrue. It means there is a deeper truth than first meets the eye.

So, what of these two traditions, and what truths are they telling us?

In the first instance, St. Stephen’s Gate, now called the Lion’s Gate,[5] on the east side of the city, faces the Mount of Olives. This is the gate you go through to get to the Kedron Valley, the Mount of Olives, and beyond that, Bethany. That is significant, because mountains in scripture are places of encounter. They are places of encounter between humanity and God. When we think of mountains, we think of Mount Sinai,[6] the Mount of the Transfiguration,[7] and Mount Moriah.[8] Each of these are places of encounter, and there, facing the Mount of Olives, Stephen was stoned. And what happens just before his death? He has an encounter with the risen Lord. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56). With that he is dragged out of the city, to this place of encounter, and stoned. As he dies, he prays, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).

Located here, on the east side of the city, facing the Mount of Olives, the story of Stephen’s death is a resurrection story in which Stephen encounters the risen and glorified Lord.

But there is another tradition, another gate, another story.

This time Stephen’s death takes place outside a gate on the north side of the city, once, of course, called St. Stephen’s Gate, but now called the Damascus Gate. This is the gate you go through on your way north, to the seacoast, and beyond that to Damascus. It was, and continues to be, a major place of trade, as well as the beginning and ending of countless journeys. It is also the gate through which the early Christian community fled immediately after Stephen’s martyrdom. Luke tells us that on the day of Stephen’s stoning “a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1). An unintended consequence of Stephen’s death is that, in an instant, the early disciples of Jesus became missionaries, telling everyone they encountered, as they fled, what the Lord had done, and the mercy that had been shown to them.[9]

Located here, on the north side of the city, at the Damascus Gate, on a major trade route heading north to the seacoast and beyond that to Rome, the very heart of the Empire, the death of Stephen became the impetus for the church to obey Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Now all of this is interesting, and fun, and a little quirky. In other words, the stories of Stephen’s death are everything that appeals to me. But so what? Who cares, besides me? More to the point, why should you care? Why should you care where Stephen was stoned? Does it matter that tradition tells us he was stoned facing the Mount of Olives, or on the road to Damascus? Well, it does, and it matters as much today as it did when Luke first put pen to parchment. It matters that Stephen’s death is both a story of encounter with the risen and glorified Lord and the beginning of the church’s missionary venture.

It matters today because the narrative of Christianity, at least in this country, is in the hands of Pete Hegseth and those who would call upon God to destroy their enemies in the name of Jesus. Hegseth’s gospel is not the good news of Jesus. Yet for many it is the only news of Jesus they hear, because it is the loudest, and, rightly, they turn their backs on it.

But we have another gospel to proclaim. That gospel, Stephen’s gospel, is a gospel of forgiveness, reconciliation, and love. The day of quiet, polite, discrete evangelism is over. Our gospel, the gospel of Jesus’ love, the new life offered by his resurrection, the story of God’s mercy, and our witness to the Spirit’s renewing energies, needs to be shouted louder than the Hegseth gospel of vengeance. The time has come for us to be loud and proud that we are Christians, who, like Stephen, have seen the Lord and are prepared to head into the very heart of the empire to proclaim the good things God has done for us, even if it means stones will be thrown in our direction.

Where Stephen died matters today, because it tells us who we are: a people who know the transforming power of Jesus’ resurrection and a people who have been sent to proclaim that power in love. Say it loud, say it proud, we have a gospel to proclaim, a gospel of love, reconciliation, and mercy rooted in our encounter with the risen Jesus. And that, friends, is really good news.

[1] The Cenacle is located on Mount Zion near Dormition Abbey.

[2] St. Mark’s Syriac Orthodox Church is in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem.

[3] Also called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

[4] The Garden Tomb is located a few hundred yards north of the Damascus Gate on the Nablus Road.

[5] It is called the Lion’s Gate because of the carving of a lion’s head on one of its pillars. It is also called the Gate of Our Lady Mary because it is near St. Anne’s Church, the traditional birthplace of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

[6] Mount Sinai was where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

[7] The Mount of the Transfiguration was where Jesus was transfigured.

[8] Mount Moriah is the traditional site of the binding, or sacrifice, of Isaac and is now the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

[9] See Mark 5:19.

The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows

The Feast of Saint John

As has become my custom in recent years, I began the first days of the year at a contemplative prayer retreat with dear friends and colleagues. On the very first day of our gathering, our retreat leader, Brother James Dowd, who leads the Contemplative Underground community out of Omaha, Nebraska, posed a question. Well, he posed many questions, but the one we were asked to journal about was this: “What made me run to Jesus?” As a runner, I loved this question. As a Christian, I loved this question even more. The context of the question was the invitation to a time of stillness. The threefold way of stillness, silence, and solitude would be the anchor of our prayer practice and retreat, and it was the reminder I needed that running to Jesus was not really about my body’s ability to run toward Christ. Rather, it was an invitation for my heart to yearn for and run toward Jesus and new life.

As we celebrate the feast of St. John the Evangelist, the patronal feast of this community, I cannot help but wonder whether this tension between running toward Jesus and the new life he offers, and the stillness that allows space to be attentive to the divine presence, is at the heart of the spiritual life.

Having logged many miles here, along the Charles River and streets in Boston, I am captivated by the image of the disciples running on that particular first day of the week. I can imagine that Mary Magdalene is just flat-out exhausted – physically and emotionally. After all of the drama of the days before, she has run back and forth from the tomb a few times: first to discover that the stone had been rolled away, and then to tell Simon Peter and John, the Beloved Disciple, of her discovery. Then, presumably, they all run back to the tomb.

When Simon Peter and John run to the tomb to see for themselves, the small detail that John outran Simon Peter always stands out for me. This is not simply a commentary on John being more fit and just faster, though I have often wondered whether Simon Peter was too weighed down by his denials and desertion at the cross to pick up the pace. We do not really know – and it is not really a competition. They were not trying to break the tape at the Boston Marathon. Though Simon Peter entered the empty tomb first, it is the steadfast, eager, and beloved disciple who would be the first to believe. I think each of these devoted followers of Jesus reveals some truths of the spiritual journey for us.

The question posed on my retreat was a reflective – backward-glancing – question: What made me run to Jesus? The question, or invitation, I want to pose today is this: What keeps us running toward Jesus? What keeps us running to tell others about the risen Christ, like Mary Magdalene? What keeps us moving with haste in the direction of the empty tomb, toward new life in the resurrected Christ, like John, the Beloved Disciple? And what happens when we are stuck and dragging our feet a little because we are filled with doubts, or questions about worthiness, or wonderment about what new life will bring, like Simon Peter?

The beauty of our gospel texts, even when they challenge us, is that they make space for the many ways we are prone to show up in our spiritual lives. We need both Mary and Martha of Bethany to mirror for us the spiritual life, with its moments for contemplation and time for action. And we need these three to remind us that there are times when we find ourselves sprinting for resurrection and new life with all the zeal of a recent convert, and other times when we are not sure whether we can really believe God’s promises and wonder whether God could really love us that much.

That caution, or the inclination to pump the brakes when confronting the possibilities of new life that Jesus offers us, has always been part of the human condition. The gospel accounts reveal that even those closest to Jesus had moments of doubt and sought to hide away. Huddling behind closed doors was an understandable response in the wake of the crucifixion and in the face of questioned faith in Jesus’ promise to rise again.

Knowing the ebb and flow of the spiritual life helps us to have compassion for those to whom we want to bring the good news, but who resist it. In our day, this caution looks like what our sister Canon Stephanie Spellers notes in her book Church Tomorrow: indifference to the spiritual life, religious trauma, giving up on God, or the individualistic tendency to isolate and avoid community – spiritual or otherwise.

But I do not know how to do this life without community. It is in community and fellowship that the promises of new life and resurrection are made known. I imagine Mary Magdalene encountering the empty tomb and running to her friends because there was no way such good news made sense alone. For most of us, believing in and living the good news of the Resurrection, of new life, of God doing something new, requires a community – even when it is just two or three. This is the essence of Christian living: we are meant to accompany one another on the journey with and toward the risen Christ.

Simon Peter reminds me of God’s patience with us when, for whatever reason, my heart is yearning for new life in Christ – forgiveness, reconciliation, a full life where I am open to seeing God’s love, grace, and mercy at work – and I hold back a little. I may want that life, and yet, knowing the cost of discipleship, the life I must lay down to fully say yes, like Simon Peter, I am happy to let someone else go on ahead.

Being a member of the Fellowship of St. John for some twenty years is one of the ways I remember that running toward Jesus is not a solitary act. This dispersed community of prayer partners, and its great cloud of witnesses on both sides of glory, attests to the necessity and gift of seeking the risen Christ with others … and it almost did not happen for me.

Prior to committing, I was on probation for a very long time – for several years. I would write to Brother Eldridge Pendleton about my struggles with wanting so much to be a member of the Fellowship, but believing my prayer life to be deficient and feeling unworthy. I was not sure my practice of centering prayer was fully in line with the Rule. I wanted to get it right or not commit at all. But in the ways that we hope God is with each of us, Brother Pendleton was patient and steadfast and clear that my desire for God in prayer – whatever form it took – was enough. Brother Eldridge, and over the years Brother Jonathan, and this community were not going to give up on me.

Just as in baptism, committing to a community that never gives up on you, like the Fellowship of St. John, teaches us how not to give up on this world and the people who might cause us to despair. This Fellowship helps us keep our commitment to seek to be like John, the Beloved Disciple – whom we ultimately remember not for his speed in running, but for his belief in the risen Christ and his ability to be still when it mattered most: to abide, to remain, and to love Jesus from the foot of the cross to the glory of the empty tomb and beyond.

What or who keeps you running toward Jesus? May they ever be steadfast with you on the journey, drawing you deeper into the heart of Christ, whose joy it is to abide, to remain, and to love each of us however we are to be found: the hesitant, the willing, and the eager. Amen.

Br. Jack Crowley

Marie de l’Incarnation

John 15:14-17

Whenever I pray with the life of a saint, I look at two things. The first is what the saint thought God was calling them to do. The second is what actually happened in their life. These two things don’t always overlap smoothly, yet somehow, saints always find a way to serve God.

Today we celebrate and pray with the life of Saint Marie of the Incarnation. When Saint Marie was fourteen years old, she told her parents that she wanted to join a Benedictine abbey. This was in France in the early 1600s, and her parents responded to her request by saying no and arranging her marriage to a silk worker. Saint Marie married and had a son. Tragically, six months later, her husband died. So in a short amount of time, Saint Marie had gone from a young woman looking to join the religious life to a teenage widow with a baby and her husband’s business to run. Certainly this was a wide gulf between what she thought God had been calling her to do and what actually happened.

We don’t have time to go into the seventy years of her saintly life and all that she did to become a saint, but the point I’m trying to make is even saints have to deal with the curveballs of life. They become saints not by quitting or resenting, but by persevering. They keep finding a way to serve God even if it’s not in the way they originally thought they would.

I think we all have our own version of this. Times when we say to God if only this or that happened, then I could really start serving you. We may even feel forsaken by God, wondering why God called us to do something and for that thing to suddenly change. It’s important to remember that even Jesus himself felt this inner turmoil.

Although it is beautiful to put our saints in stained glass windows, we must remember their inner lives were just as human as our own. They too had to deal with the same doubts, pet peeves, and anxieties we deal with. Yet somehow they transformed these into something greater, something that could serve God and others.

We don’t always have a full idea of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. Yet, as Christians, we are called to do our best. No matter what form that might take, we are called to do our best, and let God handle the rest.

Br. Curtis Almquist

Saint Mark the Evangelist

Ephesians 4:7-8, 11-16

In the calendar of the church, we remember today a gospel writer named John Mark.[1] Call him Mark. Mark was not one of the original twelve apostles; Mark was among a wider circle of seventy disciples whom Jesus also appointed.[2] We know from the New Testament that Mark became a companion on missionary journeys with Paul, with Barnabas, and with Timothy.[3] We infer Mark had a close relationship with Peter, who writes about “my son Mark” (1 Peter 5:13). And according to the Acts of the Apostles, the home belonging to Mark’s mother in Jerusalem became a house church for Jesus’ followers.[4] Mark was martyred in Egypt in year 68, and the Coptic Church remembers Saint Mark as its founder and patron.

The Gospel according to Mark does not begin in eternity before all time (like the Gospel according to John); nor does Mark begin with Jesus’ infant birth (like the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke). Mark begins with Jesus’ baptism. Jesus is already an adult. Soon Jesus’ public ministry becomes shrouded in secrecy. Jesus will ask something, or listen to something, or do something miraculous, and then Jesus will say, “Don’t tell anyone.” In many instances, Jesus insists on others’ silence.[5] And it’s not just with strangers. The same pertains to his twelve apostles. Early on, Jesus asks them, “‘Who do you say that I am?’ Peter answers, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And [Jesus] sternly orders them not to tell anyone about him” (Mark 8:29-30).

Many followers were wowed by Jesus’ miraculous provision of food, by his power to heal, by his wise yet profoundly simple parables drawn from everyday life. Jesus would teach: “You have heard it said . . . but I say,” and what followed was good news about God’s love and mercy for everyone. Among those who followed Jesus were some with political aspirations. The prophets had predicted the Messiah would be the “King of Kings.”[6] Those attracted to that kind of power – including some of his own apostles – could not wait to get to Jerusalem for Jesus’ political takeover and their own ascendancy.

Hence, the secret. The secrecy is not for Jesus’ sake. The secrecy is for the sake of his followers.[7] Jesus knew his followers were not ready to know where all this was leading. Not only would Jesus face crucifixion, but his followers would probably meet a similar death. Jesus knew his followers could not take this in, so he did not talk about the cost of discipleship. Not until the end, at his crucifixion. By then, virtually all of his disciples and the multitudes who had followed Jesus had abandoned him.

And then there is the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus had promised his followers “resurrection power,” and they got it![8] The secret was out, and so were the apostles. Saint Mark writes: “[The apostles] went out and proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ everywhere” (Mark 16:19-20).

The postlude is there remains an element of secrecy pertaining to all of us in our personal relationship to Jesus. The secret is what we are not ready to know about what is ahead in our own life, what awaits us. We are not yet ready to know, God knows. Our own future is shrouded in some mystery. We bank our faith in Jesus – God Emmanuel, God with us – that when and how we face what awaits us, day by day and at our end, we will find the power of Jesus’ resurrection in the here-and-now. In the meantime, we are hidden from knowing more than we can live with. It’s a secrecy of love. Saint Mark discovered this, as did the other apostles, and have so many, many others down through the centuries.

Blessed Mark, whom we remember today.

[1] Except for being referred to as “John” in Acts 12:25, 13:5; 13, and 15:37, elsewhere in the New Testament he is called by his Latin surname, Mark. Mark may have been Saint Barnabas’s cousin (Colossians 4:10).

[2] Luke 10:1.

[3] Mark accompanied Barnabas and Paul to Antioch (Acts 12-13; 2 Timothy 4:11). Later tradition identifies Mark with the young man fleeing naked at the time of Jesus’ arrest (Mark 14:51–52). Saint Mark is traditionally represented as a lion, derived from Mark’s description of John the Baptist as “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (Mark 1:3), which artists have imagined as a roaring lion.

[4] Acts 12:12.

[5] Mark 1:39-2:5; 7:31-36; 8:22-26; 8:30-33; 9:4-9; 9:30-32.

[6] 2 Samuel 7:16 – “Your house and kingdom will endure forever before Me, and your throne will be established forever”; Isaiah 9:6 – “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

[7] Mark 9:30-32.

[8] Mark 1:50.