Br. Curtis Almquist

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22C)

Luke 17:5-10

This is one of Jesus’ parables, and I find it deeply troubling. Jesus’ parables are familiar scenes from everyday life. Jesus tells parables to teach his good news. Here he is speaking to his own apostles when he asks the rhetorical question, “Who among you would say to your slave . . . ?” And Jesus tells this parable: It is supper time, and the slave has come in from tending the sheep. Does the slave sit down with the master to eat? No, of course not. The slave is commanded to prepare the meal for the master. Should the master thank the slave? No, the slave has only done what a slave ought to do. And only later does the slave eat, “the worthless slave.”

Here Jesus does not denounce slavery. Rather, he acknowledges the presence of slaves and their required service. Jesus clearly presumes his apostles would understand how a master and a slave deport themselves: “Who among you [apostles] would say to your slave . . .” And the Gospel according to Luke presumes that we also, the reader, would understand the conduct expected between masters and slaves. This is not the only time Jesus tells a parable about slaves.[1] We could ask, how can this be that Jesus is on such comfortable speaking terms with slavery? The “good news” in this parable is elusive.[2] I want to take one step back in history before we search for Jesus’ message for us today.

Slavery was widely practiced in Israel for about 600 years, from around year 200 BCE to 400 CE, and slavery was regulated by Mosaic Law. In the Hebrew scriptures, especially in the Torah, there are many references to slavery: the enslavement of others, being enslaved themselves, and if-and-when slaves are to be emancipated. For example, we read in the Book of Leviticus: “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you. . . . You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property” (Leviticus 25:44-46).

Meanwhile Jesus’ homeland, Palestine, was occupied by the Roman Empire, where slaves comprised upwards to 30% of the population. For both Jews and Romans, those whom they enslaved was not a matter of their race. Slaves were often prisoners of war, debtors, or those born into slavery. Their work and their conditions varied from master to master, some slaves serving as household servants, some as laborers in bakeries, agriculture, construction; some worked as miners; some were gladiators in the amphitheater. Both the Roman and Jewish cultures were highly reliant on slaves.

Saint Paul lived a generation after Jesus, when slavery was still very much a factor of life, even for followers of Jesus. In his writings Paul makes several references to slavery, which he does not denounce. He addresses both slaves and masters, urging them to treat each other with respect, but Saint Paul does not write as an abolitionist.[3] For example, Saint Paul’s letter to Philemon is focused on a fugitive slave, Onesimus. At some point in Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, Onesimus and Paul met. Onesimus became a follower of Jesus and helped Paul during in his imprisonment. Paul complies with the legal requirement to send Onesimus back to his master, Philemon. Paul writes of his love for Onesimus, who has become like a son, and Paul urges Philemon to treat Onesimus with forgiveness as a “dear brother” in Christ; however Paul does not explicitly ask Philemon to free his slave, Onesimus. Slavery was a constituent part of the culture for both Jesus and Paul.

Why this especially matters to us is because of our own nation’s appalling practice of slavery. You will know how scriptural references to slavery were used in our own country to normalize, condone, and bless the enslavement of African people. Even after the “emancipation” of slaves in 1867, the Jim Crow Laws ravaged the black population, and leaving the residual racism that has only grown over the years. Consider what is going on around us in our country just now in terms of racism, prejudice, and the rampant fear of the “minority” culture, those most vulnerable.

So back to Jesus’ very challenging parable about slavery and what his parable means for us today. Where do we find Jesus’ good news as we try to make meaning of this passage from the Gospel according to Luke? Here is what we know:

So what are we missing in this disturbing parable where Jesus heralds the master and puts the slave in their place, which is a very low place? What are we missing?

I don’t know. We sometimes have to struggle with the scriptures to understand what is being revealed. I don’t understand this parable. The only way I know to hear Jesus’ parable about the master and the slave is in the broader context of what we do know about Jesus: who he was, what he taught, how he gave of his life in love as a liberator for everyone. About that we can be absolutely clear. I am also clear about my personal relationship Jesus, who has set me free from the inside out. You may know the same. And I am clear about our vocation as followers of Jesus  – as Jesus says – to follow him in “laying down our lives” for one another, which is so crucial during this very frightful time in which we are living.[8]

We continue to see the insidious residue of slavery and racism in our own country and beyond. Where do you see people whose race, or religion, or language or culture of origin, or education stigmatizes them, constrains them, discriminates against them, traumatizes them, incarcerates them?  Here is a question for each of us: Who is within our own reach to carry the emancipation of Jesus’ love, and hope, and help? What is our own personal calling, now? In the 19th century, Frederick Douglass, the sometime slave who became the most brilliant orator and abolitionist, spoke some words for us today: “A slave is someone who sits down, and waits for someone to free them.”[9] Who is waiting for us? Who is waiting for you?

[1] Slaves are named in Jesus’ parables: Matthew 18:23-34; Matthew 24:45-51; Luke 16:1-13; Luke 17:7-10.

[2] The Greek word translated into English as “Gospel” is εὐ  = good, well + ἀγγέλιον  = message, announcement.

[3] Saint Paul writes of slaves, e.g., in Ephesians 6:5-9 and Colossians 3:22-25.

[4] Colossians 4:14; Acts 28:8-9.

[5] The same Greek word δοῦλος (doulos) “slave” is used in the New Testament both literally and metaphorically.

[6] Saint Paul describes Jesus with the very word for slave, doulos: “[God] emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).

[7] Saint Paul writes, “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might gain all the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not outside God’s law but am within Christ’s law) so that I might gain those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I might become a partner in it” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

[8] Jesus calls us to “lay down our lives”: Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23, 14:27. See also Romans 12:1.

[9] Frederick Douglass (1818-1985) escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1838. He became a very compelling social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He is remembered as the most important leader in the 19th century for African-American civil rights.

Br. David Vryhof

Francis of Assisi

Today we remember Francis, the little poor man of Assisi. There is a lot about him that is worth remembering.

Saint Francis was fascinated by the poverty of Christ – his lowly birth in Bethlehem, his inauspicious upbringing in Nazareth, his wanderings through Galilee and Judea as an itinerant preacher and healer, his terrible suffering on the Cross. He sought to imitate that poverty in his own life, forsaking his family’s wealth to embrace a life of simplicity and suffering. Like Christ, he was drawn to the poor, the sick and the outcasts, and overcoming his initial repulsion, chose to live and work among them.

We remember today his boundless love for God and for God’s Church. He frequently wept at the sight of a crucifix and spent hours and even days in prayer. He was a charismatic preacher and many chose to follow him. Thousands joined the religious orders he founded: friars and nuns and lay people embraced his message and his values. He was a peacemaker, a reconciler, a lover of all.

On this final day of the Season of Creation, we remember especially his love for the whole of creation and for every living creature. In the created order he saw God’s love revealed for all to see, as the psalmist did when he wrote: “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows God’s handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). Every creature was precious – every living thing offered to God its unique praise and thanksgiving by reason of its very existence. Every mountain and hill, every valley and river, the sun and moon and stars of the sky – they all spoke to him of the majesty, the power, the wisdom, the generosity and love of the Creator. He was in awe of it all and lived each day with a profound sense of wonder and gratitude. He called the sun his “brother” and the moon his “sister.” Every object or force of nature, every creature, was a gift in his eyes, and he recognized his deep connection with them all. How we need his witness today to remind us of the beauty and preciousness of the earth on which we live, and of the sacredness of every plant, every animal, and every person that calls it home. Francis modeled for us a kinship with all created things and vehemently challenged our notion of ourselves as owners with license to use its resources in whatever way we wish.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II declared Saint Francis of Assisi the patron saint of ecologists because of the unique bond with nature he exemplified. His unwavering commitment to simplicity and his renunciation of material wealth, coupled with his desire to live in harmony with every living thing, serve as a timeless example for those who strive for a more sustainable and harmonious relationship with the earth.

Today we remember the little man of Assisi and honor him. But we also pledge ourselves to follow his example: to live simply, to honor and love the earth and all its creatures, to forsake the pursuit of material wealth, to recognize our kinship with all that God has made.

Blessed Francis, pray for us.

Br. James Koester

Nehemiah 8:1-12

Both yesterday, and now today, we have heard short portions of the book Nehemiah. It’s not a part of scripture most of us are probably drawn to. In fact, we might even have a hard time finding it! Yet, even though it is, in a sense, hidden away, it bears some study, for like all scripture, while it was written within a certain context, it speaks to us who are in a very different context nearly three thousand years later.

Briefly, Nehemiah is the cup bearer to the Persian king, Artaxerxes, and finds himself in a place of deep “sadness of the heart” over the fate of “the place of his ancestors’ graves [which] lies waste, [with] its gates . . . destroyed by fire” (Nehemiah 2:2b, 3). Nehemiah is granted permission to return to Jerusalem where he successfully supervised the rebuilding of the city, in spite of tremendous opposition from near neighbors.

With the walls and temple restored, the priests and Levites purified, “and all Isreal settled in their towns,” we come to today’s reading when, with “all the people gathered together [they] told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses. . . . [and] he read from it” (Nehemiah 7:73; 8:1, 3).

In many ways, this is a throw away line of little significance to us, unless of course you understand its significance. The physical reconstruction of Jerusalem, while important, was only one aspect of the task Nehemiah had set himself. The spiritual renewal of God’s people was the point of Nehemiah’s mission, and that began, as it had centuries before on Mt. Sinai, with the reading of the Law of Moses to all the people. It was with the proclamation of the word of God that “the kingdom of God [comes] near” (Luke 10:9) and the people of God are made whole, and holy, once again.

Like Moses, Jesus’ mission was to usher in the reign of God. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus said in the synagogue at Nazareth, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18). It is with the proclamation of the word of God, by Moses, by Ezra, by the disciples, by Jesus, by us, that God’s people are made whole, and are made holy. Today we see that in the reading from Nehemiah, and we experience it as we gather around this altar to hear God’s word and receive holy gifts for holy people. We, like those assembled in Jerusalem nearly three thousand years ago, are those people who are made holy by hearing again the word of God proclaimed to all the people.

Br. Keith Nelson

Saint Michael and All Angels

Revelation 12:7-12

“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”

In the Nicene Creed, we affirm our faith and trust in God our Creator in these terms. As the earth all around us proceeds from a divine source, so too does heaven: the nearer presence of God to which we are invited for eternity. As the beings and things around us manifest to our senses constitute the “material expression of God’s love,” so too do those unseen beings of the same created order share a mysterious role in God’s unfolding plan for us, albeit one hidden from our natural senses.

This, in a nutshell, is the theological ground of our celebration today: The feast of St. Michael and All Angels. We prayed in today’s collect, “Grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment may they help and defend us here on earth.” Angels – and angel simply means “messenger” – act as mediators between earth and heaven, the seen and the unseen. The angels point us to the perennial question: “How is God present in the world? And what is our response to that presence?”

The ministries of angels may seem too fanciful or abstract a place for the modern mind to begin, so we can turn first to the ministrations of everyday creatures.

Through this liturgical season of Creation, we have affirmed and celebrated God’s presence to us in the creatures God has made and called “very good”: other humans, but also the sun, moon, and stars; the sky above and waters below; the soil and plants, birds and four-footed beasts. God is present in the world to us through them.

Perhaps you have experienced moments in the presence of God’s non-human creatures when you felt quiet and still, wordlessly available to the simple goodness of that being in its otherness. A plant or a stone, a river or a bird, can indeed minister to us, and we to them. This is not simply human projection, but a glimpse of God’s original intention for creation: a relationship of harmonious companionship, in which our mutual presence lifts one another beyond complexity, difference, and enmity, closer to the heart of the Creator.

I feel this especially when I am in the presence of certain very old trees. An old oak tree, encountered individually in this way, hums with its own distinct life and personality. Yet it also acts powerfully, even selflessly, as an ambassador of its entire species. To encounter one Oak is to encounter all Oaks, all oak-kind. In the life of one is the life of all. This is corroborated not only by global folk wisdom but by modern tree science.

Perhaps angels are not all that different than oaks.

Though today we celebrate St. Michael, and by extension other named angels such as Gabriel, Raphel, and Uriel, the vast majority of scripture’s many angels are anonymous. In the life of one angel is the life of all angels: and this life, in its essence, is a life centered in the nearer presence of God. It is the glory of God, not themselves, that the angels are intent on communicating.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews asks, “Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Christian tradition has interpreted this to suggest that, as spirits, angels are invisible and immaterial creatures. Summarizing the tradition in the thirteenth century, St. Thomas Aquinas maintains that angels possess individual consciousness, but consciousness that is utterly unlike ours because it is not mediated or organized around a body. As “bodiless powers,” angels have no physical senses, no appetites, and presumably no gender. They communicate and receive communication from God and from one another beyond language, non-discursively, and instantaneously. And they act in response to such communication with an efficacy of will that far surpasses ours.

Tradition holds that they appear to us in forms legible to our senses, and remarkably like our own, because this is the most effective means to inspire awe, to establish relationship, and to draw our minds, hearts, and wills into harmonious alignment and obedience to the divine will.

Perhaps you can see where this is leading: all angels point us toward the mystery at the core of our faith, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the greatest messenger of God’s presence. The incarnation of Jesus Christ – God made human – has bridged the divide between heaven and earth in a way no angel could: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of a Father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” Jesus answers most fully the question of how God is present in the world: not simply like one of us, but as one of us; with a body like ours; joys like ours; pain and sorrow like ours; a death like ours; and a resurrection from the dead that has destroyed the power of death. In Jesus, we participate in that resurrection life even now. The first letter of Peter affirms: these are “things into which angels long to look!”

If visible creatures and invisible angels are our neighbors in God’s created order, the demons are, by their own choice and proclamation, our unseen enemies. As the loud voice in heaven proclaims in our reading from Revelation: “Rejoice then, you heavens, and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

The great sin of the fallen angels is pride: not the rightful sense of satisfaction in a job well done, but that spiritual presumption that fails to recognize that no gift is inherently our own, but a gift of the Creator to be used for the good of all creation.

Here is how one early monastic writer, John Cassian, describes the origin of pride in the fall of Satan:

“We see that the angel who, on account of his great splendor and beauty, was called Lucifer was cast out of heaven for no other vice than this one. . . . This thought alone was his first downfall. Because of it he was abandoned by God, whom he did not believe that he needed. At once he lost his balance; he tottered, became fully aware of the frailty of his own nature, and lost the blessedness that he has enjoyed as a gift of God. . . . In his belief that he could attain to the glory of the Godhead by his own free will and effort, he lost even that which was his by the grace of the Creator.”

St. Michael the Archangel (art by Br. Keith Nelson)

I will end with an image. You have before you a small token of today’s feast, an image of the archangel Michael I created based on an early medieval prototype.

In the upper left of the image, we see the cross of Christ, held in the right hand of St. Michael. In and by the cross, every enemy of love and truth is conquered. The cross surmounts a spear. While the tail of Satan, depicted as the dragon of Revelation, raises its own barb at God’s angel, St. Michael fearlessly holds Satan in his proper place and at his proper distance. The spear tip is aimed at the mouth of the dragon, who is is “the deceiver of the world” through the lies he speaks. The truth of God’s salvation in Christ is the antidote to every lie. In his left hand, St. Michael holds a sphere that symbolizes the world, held safe in the hand of God its Creator.

The name Michael means “Who is like God?” The answer of course is: no one is like God. The humility before God at the heart of Michael’s name is the source of his victory.

While most images depict St. Michael and the dragon, Satan, as inverse opposites, there is one telling detail in this image that reveals their common origin: their wings. Unlike later images of Satan, with leathery bat-wings, his wings here are identical to Michael’s. This is a pointed reminder that Satan and his host are fallen angels. In this we find something profound: they are not evil by nature. They have become evil by their own choice to turn from God. Nothing created by God is inherently evil. Genesis declares, “And God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

Like the angels, we are gathered here before the heavenly throne to pray on behalf of all and for all. Like St. Michael, we are called to hold the world’s evils at the proper distance, rising above it in thought, word, and deed, with God’s help. But with the angelic host we worship a God of unrelenting Love, extending prayers to the farthest depths, where we see only evil, hatred, even antichrist with his many masks. Persisting to the end, we “shall see greater things than these: heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Br. Lain Wilson

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 21C)

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

When I came to the Monastery three years ago, the big television show at the time was Succession. I loved it. So when I saw that the showrunner had a movie coming out last year, I jumped on it.

Mountainhead, like Succession, is a dark satire of the contemporary ultra-ultra-rich. It’s one of those movies in the genre of “horrible people doing horrible things in a beautiful setting.” Four tech bros gather for a weekend at a mountain retreat. Fellowship quickly descends into sniping at the relative size of each others’ fortunes and disingenuous shows of empathy for a world set on fire by forces at their literal fingertips.

It’s a hilarious and horrifying depiction of power, narcissism, and inhumanity, all reinforced by the distorting and destructive effects of technology. Even the most sympathetic character is just as reprehensible as the others and, at the film’s end, we as viewers frankly aren’t left with much hope either that these men are capable of change or growth, or that they—or the forces they represent—can be a source of healing for our own fragmented world.

Like the film, our parable this morning of the unnamed rich man and the poor Lazarus reveals a society of haves and have-nots: rich and poor, those inside the gates and those without, those with power and agency and those denied both.

Both film and parable pose a similar question: where can we find hope in a fragmented world?

The parable continues a theme we’ve explored over the last several weeks of how Luke foregrounds the materially poor in Jesus’ revolutionary preaching and proclamation of the kingdom. The gate, separating the feasting rich man from the starving Lazarus, acts as the unbridgeable gulf between these two men, echoing the “great chasm” in the afterlife that separates them. Death is a pivot point, reversing their fortunes.

Like our reprehensible billionaires, the rich man of the parable doesn’t change; he doesn’t grow. He attempts to behave in death as imperiously as he did in life, demanding first water to slake his thirst, then a messenger to warn his brothers about his fate. He is not a dynamic character capable of the conversion of heart that Jesus proclaims, or that Paul advocates in his letter to Timothy: “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17). Jesus and Paul are speaking to living, breathing people, capable of change; their message is meant to effect a conversion of heart in its hearers, including us.

This, then, is the first source of hope in our world: that we are empowered, indeed, that we are commanded to grow and change, that we are called to a conversion of our own hearts so that we can be agents of reconciliation.

How are we to do that?

The parable is fundamentally about how the use and misuse of wealth. But wealth is just one of many power dynamics. So many others exist in our world, that we face or participate in day by day. So many seemingly impassable gates or unbridgeable chasms separate the haves and have nots, those with power and those without. We are empowered in so many ways, expected and unexpected. And we may suffer silently, unseen, disempowered, in so many ways, expected and unexpected.

We can be drawn, entirely unintentionally, in so many ways into complacency and acceptance that we deserve the blessings of our power and the suffering of our powerlessness.

Where do you have power in your own life, maybe even in ways you don’t expect?

How might you, completely unwittingly, be ignoring those who are powerless?

In our conversion of heart, Jesus and Paul call us to break out of our complacency and assumption of deservingness. They remind us that all we have—wealth or ability or power or position or whatever—is a gift, a gift given so we may use it for others, and for the glory of God. When we discern what we have been given, and know that it is not ours, we may begin to fling open our own gates. We may begin the work of constructing bridges.

To hope the conversion of our hearts can be a reconciling force in a broken world is to participate in God’s own kingdom, in God’s own future.

In discerning our power and inviting those denied power, in whatever form, to participate in it, we ourselves participate in God’s own “almighty power,” in the words of today’s Collect, chiefly declared in “showing mercy and pity.”[1]

And in laying the foundation of bridges between haves and have nots, we lay a good foundation for our own future, as Paul puts it, taking hold of “the life that really is life” (1 Timothy 6:19).

But even more than that, in our reconciling work in the world, we express our faith in our ultimate hope as Christians. In working to make the world more just, in even the smallest ways we can with the power entrusted to us, we express our hope, as the catechism puts it, “to live with confidence in newness and fullness of life, and to await the coming of Christ in glory, and the completion of God’s purpose for the world.”[2]

We will soon sing this hope in God’s purposes, in our offertory hymn: “O Master . . . make haste to heal these hearts of pain . . . till all the world shall learn thy love, and follow where thy feet have trod; till glorious from thy heaven above, shall come the city of our God.”[3]

Our first lesson this morning anticipates this hope in God’s redemptive plan for the world. The prophet Jeremiah hears the word of God commanding him, in the middle of the siege of Jerusalem, to redeem the land of his kinsman. The enemy is at the gate, and he is being told to invest in land that may soon pass beyond his control! Why should he throw his money away?

The answer is hope, hope founded upon trust in God: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land” (Jeremiah 32:14-15).

Whatever loss you may suffer now—however the world may change, whatever darkness you may encounter—you may dare to hope that houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought. You may dare to hope that God will put it to rights. You may dare to hope—we may dare to hope—because God is faithful.

Jeremiah is commanded—and empowered—to participate, through his actions, in God’s redemptive plan.

And so too are we commanded and empowered, through our own actions, through the use of the power given to us, to participate in the fulfilling of God’s purposes, so that we may be “partakers of [God’s] heavenly treasure.”[4]

We are called to be fundamentally a hopeful people. To be bearers and beacons of hope for those who may sit unseen and unheard outside our gates by using our power to throw open those gates. And to live out our own hope in the confession of—in the conviction of—God’s redemptive purpose for the whole world: “till all the world shall learn thy love, and follow where thy feet have trod; till glorious from thy heaven above, shall come the city of our God.”

Amen.

[1] The Book of Common Prayer (New York, 1979), 234.

[2] Book of Common Prayer, 861.

[3] “Where cross the crowded ways of life,” The Hymnal 1984, no. 609, stanzas 4-5. Words by Frank Mason North (1850-1935), alt.

[4] Book of Common Prayer, 234 (Collect for Proper 21C).

Br. Luke Ditewig

Thomas Traherne

Today we remember Thomas Traherne, a priest from the Welsh countryside known only after his death for his great quantity and quality of spiritual writing. He died at age 37 and his treasures kept being found and published.

Traherne saw and pointed to God in all creation. “Suppose a river or a drop of water, an apple or a sand, an ear of corn, or an herb; God knoweth infinite excellencies in it more than we. . . . O, what a treasure is every sand when truly understood! Who can love any thing that God hath made too much? [God’s] infinite goodness and wisdom and power and glory are in it.”[1]

As you pray, what wonder of creation catches your attention? Stop, stay, and gaze at it. Behold this treasure, like you, created good.

Traherne wrote about how God is revealed in scripture. Traherne wrote of the psalmist for Psalm 105 and 106, “celebrateth the ways of God in former ages with as much vehemency, zeal and pleasure as if they were new things, as if [the psalmist] were present with them seeing their beauty and tasting their delight that very moment.”[2]

As you pray, remember how God has saved, healed, protected, formed you.   Recall God’s faithfulness. Retell your story. Recall our story as in Psalms 105 and 106. Feel again the zeal and pleasure of being found, the delight of seeing God act.

Traherne was a theologian in poetry and prose, expressing God is infinite and beyond as well as intimate in flesh as shown in this prayer:

“O eternal wisdom instruct me,

Blessed Thomas Traherne whom we remember today.

[1] Landscapes of Glory: Daily Readings with Thomas Traherne, introduced and edited A. M. Alchin (London, 1989), 41 (from Centuries of Meditations, 2.67).

[2] Ibid., 46 (from Centuries of Meditations, 3.92).

[3] Ibid., 60 (from Bodleian MS, The Church’s Yearbook, 112).

Br. Jack Crowley

Saint Matthew

Matthew 9:9-13

Follow me. Those were the two words Jesus said to Saint Matthew when they first met. Follow me. Saint Matthew heard those words, got up from his tax booth, and followed Jesus.

Now in most situations, if a stranger comes to your place of work and tells you to follow him, it’s probably not a good idea to follow him. Yet, we know Jesus had a way with people. Jesus knew the hearts of humanity, and Jesus knew how to read a room. So when Jesus saw Matthew sitting at his tax booth, Jesus only needed two words to convince Matthew to leave it all behind. Follow me.

I would love to know what was going through the mind of Matthew when he first saw Jesus. I always wonder what kind of day Matthew was having. I mean we’ve all had our bad days at work when we think to ourselves I gotta get out of here.

One time, I was flying on a plane and the man seated next to me started talking to me. I wasn’t wearing my habit but he still opened up his life to me and told me all about it. At one point in the conversation, he said that sometimes he felt like quitting his job and joining a monastery. He asked me if I ever had that feeling. I said yes.

There is also a chance that maybe it was a normal day when Matthew met Jesus. Maybe Matthew just sensed that there was something special about this guy. This down-to-earth stranger who spoke so plainly to him.

Clearly, Jesus and Matthew had a moment. Something happened. We’ve all been there, when you meet someone special and you just know in a way beyond words that something beyond yourself is going on. Something that feels both beneath the surface and heavenly. Who wouldn’t want to follow that feeling?

We all have our own story of how we came to follow Jesus. Trying to put that story into words is close to impossible. Instead, we put words into our story. We do our best to describe and analyze our connection with Jesus, but ultimately we know what’s in our hearts can never be fully verbalized. There are some things that will just be between us and God. Thank God for that.

Like Saint Matthew, we also all have our own little tax booths. Some situation that comes between us and Christ. Some barrier we stay seated behind and watch as our lives go by. We tell ourselves one day I will get up out of this. One day I will fully follow Christ with all my heart.

Every day of our lives, we must get up out of own tax booth. This is hard. It’s always tempting to stay seated in the status quo. Yet throughout scripture, the status quo rarely survives an encounter with Christ.

The good news is that Jesus knows all of this. He knows what we’ve been through, what we are going through, and where we’d rather be in our lives right now. He knows we’ve all missed the mark a few times. He knows sometimes we land in our own tax booths despite our best intentions.

The good news is that Jesus is ready to help us to move. Jesus is ready to help us change. Jesus is not only ready for us to follow him, Jesus wants us to follow him.

We celebrate Saint Matthew because he had the courage to follow Jesus. He left it all behind to follow Jesus. He had no idea what he was getting into, but that did not stop him.

We too must have the courage to keep following Jesus. We must heed the call of Jesus every day of our lives with our own lives. We must get comfortable with depending on Jesus, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

The alternative is a life built solely on self-reliance. A life stuck behind the tax booth of our own selves. That is an exhausting life. That is a life that gets old quickly.

To radically depend on Jesus is intimidating, yet so many who have gone before us did so. The lives of saints were often built on leaps of faith. I don’t know of any saints who lived a quiet, comfortable life. I don’t know of any saints who lived a life free of challenges.

Saint Matthew followed Jesus all the way to martyrdom. He gave up his life to that call. We all do the same in our own way. Follow that call. Amen.

Br. David Vryhof

The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20C)

Amos 8:4-7

In 2021, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the “Pandora Papers,” a massive leak of almost 12 million documents that revealed how the ultra-rich and powerful used offshore accounts and shell companies to secretly preserve vast fortunes, to avoid paying taxes, and to hide assets potentially acquired through corrupt means, including bribery, money laundering, human rights abuses, and other wrongdoings. Over 330 politicians and public officials were implicated, including current and former world leaders, as well as celebrities, billionaires and criminals. The report also revealed that several U.S. states, such as South Dakota, Florida and Texas, had enacted laws that promoted secrecy, attracting wealthy overseas clients to hide wealth from their home countries and thereby avoid taxes.

So here’s a question: What would Jesus have said about this?

A surface reading of today’s gospel might leave us wondering if Jesus would praise these shrewd money-managers for their clever maneuverings, as the rich man in the parable praises his dishonest manager “because he had acted shrewdly” to guarantee his own financial security (Luke 16:8).

But we know Jesus, and we know that Jesus’ intent in telling this parable could not have been to condone dishonest or deceitful behavior. The scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, clearly condemn those who take advantage of others to line their own pockets with wealth. Consider our reading from Amos this morning, where the prophet writes,

“Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land . . . [you who say,] ‘We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’ The Lord has sworn. . . . Surely, I will never forget any of their deeds.” (Amos 8:4-6)

Jesus knew the law and the prophets and knew how frequently they speak against those who exploit and oppress the most vulnerable members of society – especially widows, orphans and “strangers in the land.” He himself is critical of the rich and powerful – even religious leaders – who act with deceit and prey upon the poor. He repeatedly warns his listeners of the dangers of loving money and of building their lives upon wealth. There can be no doubt that he would condemn those whose greed prompts them to use offshore accounts and shell companies to hide their money, to avoid paying taxes, or to cover up their dishonest dealings.

If that is the case, what then is the meaning of this parable, which seems on the surface to approve of devious and self-serving behavior?

There are a number of clues that help us get at the real meaning of this parable. The first clue is that Jesus is telling this parable to his disciples (Luke 16:1); that is, to those who have already chosen to follow him, which suggests that this parable is about more than what’s on the surface. Jesus often used analogies or metaphors to illustrate deeper truths. This is not a parable about business ethics; it aims to teach us something else.

The dishonest manager knows he is about to lose his job and needs to find a way to secure his future. He takes action in his present situation with a future goal in mind. However dishonestly he acts, he uses the resources available to him in the present moment with an eye to the future; his goal is to be financially secure after he has been dismissed as manager.

Jesus suggests that the “children of this age” – that is, those who belong to this world and whose lives are shaped by its values – have a clearer grasp of this principle than do the “children of light.” They understand that what we do now has a direct influence on what we hope for in the future. We can use the riches we now possess – time, talent, possessions, money – to build up riches for the future.

Of course, Jesus is speaking of true riches – that is, of the things that make us rich towards God. He is teaching his disciples to weigh their current decisions with the future in mind.

In doing so, he is underscoring his earlier teaching about building up “treasure in heaven.” In chapter 12, Jesus challenges his followers with these words:

“Sell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:33-34)

Jesus and his followers have their eyes set on the “kingdom of God.” Jesus is saying, “The children of light (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5) can learn something valuable from the children of this world; namely, to use possessions so as to gain, not lose, their future.” Jesus is well aware of the dangers that riches pose, but he is claiming here that it is possible to manage goods in ways appropriate to life in the kingdom of God.

What do you think that might look like? What would it mean for you to use the earthly treasures you have been given – money, possessions, talents and gifts – with an eye to the future . . . not just your future, but God’s future? How could you use what you have been given to build up the kingdom of God and thus lay up for yourself treasure in heaven?

He says this to his disciples, who are not wealthy. Even the little that they have can become heavenly treasure if they direct it towards the building of God’s kingdom.

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much,” Jesus says, “and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” (Luke 16:10-11)

Most of us will never possess great power or vast riches, yet each of us has some power and some riches. Like the disciples, even the little we have can be used to extend God’s reign on earth. “Whoever is faithful in little is faithful also in much.”

Act faithfully in the present, act wisely in the present, using what has been given you to build for the future. “Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven” and become rich towards God. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Br. Keith Nelson

Luke 8:4-15

Some truths – about ourselves, about those we love, about the world around us, even truths about God, who is the heart of all Truth – can be very hard to receive.

Sometimes this is because our present perception is based on lesser or partial truths. It can be threatening, destabilizing, or at the very least inconvenient to accept a larger, more complete encounter with truth.

On a global and political level, we might consider the human causes of climate change. In this, we face (or flee) at least two uncomfortable truths: the severity of its consequences and the grief we experience at our complicity.

Everywhere Jesus went, the kind of Truth he offered provoked a response in others.

For some, Jesus offered a challenging but exhilarating invitation into a freedom they had never imagined was possible. Even for those who would welcome it, this grace could be shattering, as when Peter responds to Jesus: “Lord, go away from me, for I am a sinful man.”

For others, the words, the actions, even the simple presence of Jesus felt intolerable – as if a potent allergen had been introduced into their bodies. The force of this presence was so threatening, so destabilizing, so inconvenient that they could only respond by retreating into a willed refusal to see.

Their hearts were like ground where no seed could grow.

The parable of the sower, in both Luke and Matthew’s version, contains a challenging interchange between Jesus and his inner circle. Luke reads: Jesus said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets (or mysteries) of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.’” These last words are a quotation from the prophet Isaiah, whose mission was to provoke from the people of Israel this allergic response to God’s Truth.

One scripture scholar writes that the parable form “arrests the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” Parables introduce uncomfortable questions. Meditating on a parable invites the disciple, in every age, to put on the mind of the master: the mind of Christ. By gradual and partial glimpses, we come to behold more of the Truth, until “we see him as he is.” To that end, the parable is like an irritant: the grain of sand inside the oyster that eventually produces a pearl. We become like him by learning to see the world as he sees it.

But a parable could also diffuse or absorb the unalloyed shock of Truth in the midst of those who, frankly, couldn’t handle it, or simply weren’t ready to change their minds and enter the kingdom, there in their midst, in the person of Jesus.

Jesus always respected the freedom of others to choose what to do next: whether to turn toward Truth or to flee from it. As the Way, the Truth, and the Life, he always intends the discomfort or strangeness he brings to our lives for the purpose of our transformation.

In his company, seed is scattered, with astounding generosity, in every direction, in every condition, on every kind of ground.

Its growth depends on how receptive or resistant we are to Truth.

Br. Lain Wilson

Dag Hammarskjöld

Matthew 16:24-27

“In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”[1]

So wrote the Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld, whom we commemorate today. His tenure as the second secretary-general of the United Nations was cut tragically short amid the complex Congo Crisis, when he perished in a plane crash in 1961 on his way to a ceasefire negotiation.

Hammarskjöld’s public life was an active one; there’s no doubt about that. And his journal, Markings, reveals a correspondingly rich spiritual life, drawing deeply on the Christian mystical tradition.

One theme that arises clearly is Hammarskjöld’s own understanding of his call to Christian discipleship, to the Way of the Cross: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).[2]

In a lengthy meditation on Jesus’ time with his disciples before his crucifixion, Hammarskjöld imagines Jesus preparing to set out on his own Way: “A young man, adamant in his commitment, who walks the road of possibility to the end without self-pity or demand for sympathy, fulfilling the destiny he has chosen—even sacrificing affection and fellowship when the others are unready to follow him—into a new fellowship.”[3]

Seven years later, as secretary-general, he sounds many of the same notes in describing some of the sacrifices his own path entailed: “One of the great sacrifices is exile from the environment by which you have been molded. . . . one simply has to learn that part of the price of this effort is isolation, compensated by the feeling of a deeper and wider solidarity with the many people, known and unknown, who have fully accepted the same demands.”[4] An entry from later that same year is starker: “Didst Thou give me this inescapable loneliness so that it would be easier for me to give Thee all?”[5]

What do the life and witness of Dag Hammarskjöld offer to us today? I think two things.

First, that the Way of the Cross is a way of active commitment, and commitment to action. We all have God-given gifts, God-given power, God-given agency. We are all in the world, with all its suffering and all its need, and we are all called to be coworkers with God in this world.

What are your gifts? What is your power? How does God call you to be God’s agent?

And second, this active commitment, our participation in Jesus’ Way of the Cross, inevitably entails sacrifice. Hammarskjöld is blunt about his own experience: “I realized that . . . the price for committing one’s life would be reproach, and that the only elevation possible to man lies in the depths of humiliation.”[6]

The way of discipleship, the Way of the Cross, entails sacrifice, but we are assured that we do not walk that Way bereft and alone.

“Have mercy upon us,” Hammarskjöld wrote in his famous poem-prayer two months before his death.

“Have mercy

Give us

Thou

Amen.

[1] D. Hammarskjöld, Markings, trans. L. Sjöberg and W. H. Auden (New York, 1964), 122 (entry dated 1955).

[2] R. Lipsey, Hammarskjöld: A Life (Ann Arbor, MI, 2016), 84-89.

[3] Hammarskjöld, Markings, 69 (dated 1951).

[4] Quoted in Lipsey, Hammarskjöld, 334 (letter to the Swedish novelist Pär Lagerkvist, dated January 31, 1958).

[5] Hammarskjöld, Markings, 166 (dated July 29, 1958).

[6] Hammarskjöld, Markings, 205 (dated Whitsunday 1961).

[7] Ibid., 214-15 (dated July 19, 1961).