An Advent Invitation

(This is my first post since moving to Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery - our monastic community in Grahamstown, South Africa. I will be posting more frequently from here than I have in the past.)

This past Sunday I was taking a walk on a part of our beautiful property that I had not yet explored and had my first encounter with a grey rhebok.

This beautiful animal (the photo is not mine - but looks a great deal like the reebok I encountered) is part of the antelope family and the male, which is pictured, defends itself and the herd with those apparently very sharp horns. When we encountered each other my friend the rhebok stared me down for a very long time while I just watched him and reveled in his beauty. These creatures of God live naturally only in southern Africa and at elevations above 1,000 meters.  As we watched each other from a safe distance my friend became remarkably still and waited and waited and then waited some more until suddenly he bolted into the high grassy area from which he came. And at the time, I said to myself "that rhebok knows himself, he is just doing what he is meant to be doing." 

I'm not really sure why I said that to myself, but I think it was because I was disappointed that it ran off, as I wanted to spend more time with him and I hoped that he could sense that I would not harm him. I suppose that's the side of me that at one point considered a Franciscan vocation as opposed to a Benedictine vocation. But we monks have a pretty decent record in the area of loving all creation too!

But I also think that statement to myself was the beginning of the formation of a question I have periodically asked myself since I was a teenager. On my walk back to the enclosure, I began thinking about what it means to know myself. I've thought about it all week. 

And then this morning during the Office of Vigils the second reading of the Office, which is generally taken from one of the Church Fathers or some other holy source, our brother John, announced that the reading was an excerpt from the "Refutation of All Heresies" by Hippolytus of Rome (170 - 235 A.D.).

Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus (d. 202 A.D.) who is perhaps my favorite theologian but I will admit that the first thought that entered my head when I heard this was "6:00 in the morning is way to early to listen to anything about heresy, even if it is from a disciple of Irenaeus." But in the end, I'm very glad I did listen. That is, after all, the first thing a monk is supposed to do -  listen.

I'm glad I listened because the question that my friend the rhebok helped me to formulate was brought full circle with an answer from my friend Hippolytus when he said:

     This, then, is what it means to know yourself: to recognize and acknowledge in ourselves the God        who made us in his image. If we do this, we know that we in turn will be recognized and                      acknowledged by our Creator. 

To my ear that sounds like the work I ought to be doing this Advent - or any Advent - or for that matter at any time of the year. To believe that our God came in the past at that first Christmas is accepted by most Christians; and to believe that our God is coming in the future is sometimes a bit more difficult, but again, most seem to be on board with that. But to "recognize and acknowledge in ourselves the God who made us in God's image and that this image looks exactly like me...

...seems nearly impossible most days!

 In fact, I think it is the most difficult spiritual work of all. It is easy for us to look at Mary the Mother of God, or St. Joseph, or St. John the Baptist or even the shepherds and acknowledge that God dwelt within them and that God's image radiated from them. But look in the mirror or at a photograph of yourself and see God dwelling there? Forget it. We are just too aware of our own shortcomings, failures, weaknesses and sins to believe that we are made in God's image. 

Then there are those who go to bed hungry every night; those who don't have a bed to go to; those who have been violated physically, sexually, emotionally; those who stand at a border begging to be let in; those who find themselves wrestled to the ground and unable to breathe just because of their race; and imagine how difficult it is for them - for us - to recognize and acknowledge in ourselves that God dwells within and not only that but created us in God's image. 

But to only know that side of yourself is to only know part of the story. It is not to know how precious you are in the Creator's eyes - so precious that God would give part of Godself to you, in you. 

So here's is my Advent invitation to you: Look at that picture of me that I so boldly placed into this blog entry and replace it - either in your mind or actually by copying and pasting - with a picture of yourself. See God's image begging you to set it free by recognizing and acknowledging that you are in fact created in God image. That little by little this Advent, this Christmas, this Epiphany, this Lent, this Easter-tide, this Pentecost - you are getting to know yourself. And in getting to know yourself you are getting to know God a little more deeply, a little more fully. 

To do this requires, I believe, living more deeply each day into a contemplative life. That does not mean you have to run off to a monastery (though that is a great choice!). It does mean you have to sit down with yourself, or take a walk, or meet a rhebok, or study the wisdom tradition of our faith - in silence, in solitude - as well as in community - and learn to be with God. And in learning to be with God, I think we learn who we are. In fact, I'm not sure there is any other way. 

If you do this there are enormous implications and that is what I'll be exploring in these next few entries. May the God who created you in God's image bless you and keep you as we enter these last days of Advent. 

Peace be upon you. 

Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace

Just a little more than two weeks ago, the Episcopal Church concluded a conference, held in Oklahoma City, entitled "Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace", which was a gathering of lay people, religious, clergy and bishops, to dialogue about the epidemic of violence here in the United States, and to begin to discern where God might be leading us as a Church to confront this epidemic. There has been a good deal of press coverage for this event, but I wanted to add my own take on the conference as well.

Frankly, I thought the conference was extraordinary, not because we solved the problem of the epidemic of violence, but because we took time out of our lives, the week just prior to Holy Week, to at least begin this dialogue. A dialogue that we, and so many denominations, have been seemingly absent from for a long time.

We all know that violence is a major problem in our country. We all know the names of previously obscure towns - Newtown, Aurora, Lynchburg - that have become infamous for one reason - gun violence against innocent people, often children or young adults. But we seem only to get outraged over the latest shooting spree and then give a collective shrug of our shoulders and blame the NRA or the lack of effective mental health care in this country for the problem. But we don't ever seem to look to ourselves.

While we at least know the names of those towns, we do not ever seem to acknowledge the level of gun violence in our cities, or the level of domestic abuse, or human trafficking, or rape or bullying. And all of that is to say nothing about the level of violence afflicted by our government on our own citizens with the high rate of incarceration for non-violent offenses, and in capital punishment that occurs throughout the year. Rarely, do we speak of the levels of violence our government uses to enforce its will upon people around the world. So, the epidemic of violence is real. But that is not really news.

What does seem to be news is that we Episcopalians are really looking for ways to address this problem. Some folks are working on domestic abuse, others on human trafficking, still others on gun violence, or the campaign to end capital punishment. Yet others are campaigning about drones and nuclear weapons. 

It's not that we haven't had a witness for peace in the past because we have, most notably the Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF). But now not only EPF, but others throughout the Church are joining in prayer and work to struggle with this issue. What I was most struck by at the conference is that we clearly have the church searching for a non-violent tradition within the broader Christian tradition. 

Having been founded as a state religion, Anglicanism has struggled with this over the centuries. Here in the United States, while never having been the state religion (we, of course, have never had one), we Episcopalians have certainly been, if not the Established Church, the establishment church, and that makes it difficult to speak out, in particular, against state sponsored violence.

But the Holy Spirit never gives up on us! And I believe that we Episcopalians made a giant leap forward in the prayer, work and study we engaged in together to reclaim that Gospel of Peace. A Gospel so filled with God's love and tender compassion that we cannot help but to respond by working and praying for a better world, a world in which the Reign of God is foremost in our minds, hearts, and actions. 

The old phrase and song "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me" is what we were about in Oklahoma City. Perhaps the biggest take-away from the conference was that peace must begin with me, with my parish, my monastery, my denomination. And let's join with other Christians as well to make this a truly world-wide movement of peace. Who will join us? I'll have a good deal more to say about this over the coming weeks, months and years. Non-violence is the only way forward in building a world in which God's reign is paramount. Whether you were at the conference or not, let's move forward together. Let's work toward a church that is grounded in the great tradition of the first Christians:  A tradition of non-violence. 

I'd love to hear from anyone interested in exploring ways that we can move forward together. 

Peace be upon you. 

Holy Saturday

He Descended to the Dead

Every morning at Matins, when we pray the Apostle's Creed, we pray the phrase, “He descended to the dead” as in “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead.” And for such a bold but unexplained statement I find the way our Eastern Christian brothers and sisters understand theology a much more comfortable way to approach such a mystery. For the Orthodox, theology is, well, an art form. It is as much about icons, poetry, hymnody, liturgy and prayer, as it is about intellect and study. It's not that they don't engage in lots of study, they certainly do. But that's not the only thing they do to seek Christ, as we might say in our Benedictine tradition. And make no mistake, theology for the Orthodox is not so much an academic pursuit, but rather the very seeking of Christ.

Now many people have told me over the years that Holy Saturday is, for them, a day of emptiness. A few will say, a day of waiting or anticipation, but most of those who have spoken to me about it say that they experience Holy Saturday as a day that is empty. Akin, perhaps, to the day after a funeral of a loved one. And while I am not going to tell you how or what to feel today, I would like to suggest that there is another approach to Holy Saturday, an approach that is artful, prayerful, even mystical. But one that I think is available to all of us.

Within the Eastern tradition there are many approaches to the descent of Christ to the dead, or into hell as it is often termed. But it is the approach that Cyril of Alexandria takes, that most appeals to me. Cyril takes the view that Christ, after his death, descended to hell to preach to all those who were present there. And in so doing, as he says in his Paschal Homilies, Christ “destroyed hell and opened the impassable gates for the departed spirits. He left the devil there abandoned and lonely.”

Now pre-Christian hell was conceived  not as we sometimes think about it as a place where unrepentant sinners go. Rather, it was a place for the dead. For anyone who has died. In their thinking, the Fathers of the Church were divided on what the spiritual consequences of being dead before the time of Christ were, but it is clear for them that all humanity descended to this nether world of captivity.

Now let's just take that it in for a moment. Christ, having just been murdered in a gruesome way, continues to experience what all humanity experiences by descending to the dead. He descended to hell to preach to the dead. Christ's plan for salvation is not only for those who were living during his earthly life or for those who would come in the future. No, Christ's plan for salvation is for all of humanity for all time. That includes, according to Cyril, not only the Righteous Jews, but also all pagans. Those two groups, for him, represented all of humanity at the time of Christ.

If we extrapolate out the modern understanding of what the totality of humanity consists of, that means that Christ was preaching to people who had been dead, in some cases, for millions of years. And the theological point that I think is important here is that Christ's plan for salvation is for all the living, all the dead, all those yet to be born. And Christ will stop at nothing to preach, reach, touch, save, love all of us. All of humanity. Every member of every religion, every race, every culture, every language group. Every captive.

The Russian Orthodox monk and theologian Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, says that “Clearly, Cyril perceived the victory of Christ over hell and death as complete and definitive. According to Cyril, hell loses authority both over those who were in its power and those who are to become its prey in the future. Thus, the descent into Hades, a single and unique action, is perceived as a timeless event. The raised body of Christ becomes the guarantee of universal salvation, the beginning of leading human nature to ultimate deification.”

What humanity experiences on Holy Saturday is something outside of chronos, chronological human time, and is better understood as being experienced in kairos, that is, a season for God to act in a time that humanity may not fully grasp. That experience of Holy Saturday is nothing less than the emptying of hell because Christ desires for humanity to turn from worshiping death toward worshiping Him, the very fountain of life.

However, though Christ has led captivity captive and brought salvation even to the nether world, the lure of death and hell are powerful. Even though Christ has emptied hell, he still searches among the dead, the lost, because so often we human beings seem to have some kind of proclivity to choose death rather than life, to make our own hells on earth. Just think about the last hundred years and the way in which humanity has created its own hell by continuing to turn from worshiping God in order to worship death: Death in the form of mustard gas, concentration camps, killing fields, lynch mobs, napalm, drones, nuclear weapons.

From the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, to the latest drone attack that occurred in Yemen this morning, humanity has chosen, time and again, in an unprecedented way over these last hundred years, to worship death and to create our own hells on earth, even though Christ left the devil “abandoned and lonely”. It has been a century of darkness and death.

This proclivity for darkness and death is almost beyond the explainable, yet even now, Christ will never give up on us. Just as he searched the darkest corners of hell to save every member of the human family, Christ still searches for us even as we modern humans have embraced an unprecedented worship of death. And that embrace is sadly shared by all of us. For most of us in this church, that embrace is shared primarily through ambivalence or complacency. But that complacency allows the purveyors of death to rule our lives whether we want to admit that or not.

And so my invitation to all of you this Holy Saturday is to listen for Christ's preaching in those areas of your life in which you might have died. Has your zeal for peace died within you? Has the virtue of love for the least brother or sister died within you? Has your greatest patience with prayer or service to the poor died within you? Listen my sisters and brothers with the ear of your heart and know that Christ preaches to that which may have died within you this day. Christ never gives up on you! Not on any of you!

And knowing that – believing that – will then give us the strength we need to accompany Christ into all the darkest places that we human beings have created on earth. Those places where we as a people have died: in the slums we have established in order to neglect the poor; in the camps we've filled with refugees we'd rather fence in than liberate; in the limousines of gun manufacturers who are laughing all the way to the bank as our children are slaughtered in their classrooms; in the factories of death that our government calls nuclear weapons laboratories.

Let us go to those places and preach like Christ to the dead. Let us announce this Holy Saturday, that a new and different century is about to begin - a Century of Light and Life. A century in which we preach, reach, touch, save, love all of humanity. Let us proclaim that Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. That he descended to the dead. That on the third day he rose again and that he ascended to heaven. From where, this Holy Saturday, he sends us forth to preach to the dead. Holy Saturday empty? I'd ask you to consider a different approach in your prayer today. AMEN.

The Lenten Journey to Non-Violence

For the Fourth Sunday of Lent, I had the opportunity and blessing to be with the good people of St. Mary's - Harlem and preached this sermon. The readings for the day are below. 

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

The Lenten Journey to Non-Violence

This morning, while there are many approaches I could take with the Gospel reading, I would like to focus our attention on what I call the Lenten Journey to Non-Violence, which I think this particular Gospel passage speaks to quite strongly.

In fact, I actually believe that all the middle Sunday's of Lent, the second through fifth Sundays, speak to this issue of non-violence. From Nicodemus on the second Sunday, to the Samaritan woman at the well last week, to the blind man this week, to the raising of Lazarus next week, what we have is a tangible way to commemorate liturgically the walk to non-violence that Jesus engaged in on his way to the entry into Jerusalem, the Cross and the Resurrection. That walk consisted of inviting all he encountered into the community of those who would make up the kingdom of God.

Community is, of course, key to non-violence. It is what we monastics like to think we know something about. And what Jesus does, throughout John's Gospel is to demonstrate various ways that the community is to be built. All are welcome: from the Establishment figure of Nicodemus; to the ethnic and religious outsider of the Samaritan woman, to the blind man presumed to be a sinner and also, importantly, a poor person; to the dead Lazarus rotting in his tomb. The community is for all: the living and the dead, the powerful and the weak, the sick, the poor, the outsider. All are welcome. All are welcome.

Now, this is what Martin Luther King would refer to as the “beloved community” which is established by four principals that the non-violent work toward. Dr. King would say that first, non-violence is “not for cowards: it does resist.” In other words, the beloved community is not passive, it will take a stand. Second, that “non-violent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.” Third, that non-violence is “directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those evil forces.” And fourth, non-violent resistance “avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit.” Dr. King goes on to say that “at the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”¹ That principle is the core of the beloved community.

And all along the way, Jesus works to create that beloved community. In John's Gospel, Jesus takes the time to have long conversations with people, who by the rules of his culture, he should not have. And in each case, he invites them into the beloved community. Some accept immediately, some refuse, some take their time to consider. But anyone is welcome to join.

So let's take the blind man of today's Gospel. How do the four principles of the beloved community apply to this story? First, Jesus is not passive in the presence of the blind man. It would have been much easier to simply walk on by. But instead, he acts. He answers the disciples question, he assures them, and by extension, assures the blind man, that he is not responsible for his condition, and then he actually heals the blindness.

Next, Jesus neither seeks to humiliate nor defeat the disciples who asked what could be construed as a cruel or silly question nor the Pharisees who are, after all, out to trap him. Jesus simply states his truth with love and honesty to the Pharisees and leaves it at that.

Third, Jesus directs his action against the forces of evil, and not the man. In this case the evil is represented by the blindness and the resulting economic injustice. He does not blame the man for his condition, he simply heals him. And that point is crucially important to understand this story in the context of non-violence. For as bad as blindness would be, in and of itself, for anyone at any time in history, at this particular time in history, blindness means that the man must beg for his food and for anything else he needs. He is destitute and, in a time of no social services, has to live off the charity of others, which was often not readily given. The act of Jesus giving the blind man his sight is not only an act of healing, but an act of economic empowerment. It turns the class system of the culture – with Pharisees near the top and blind men near the bottom - on its head. It empowers the man not only to see the sun and the moon, the olive trees and the Temple, but to earn his own living. And, as Dr. King wrote, “when the underprivileged demand [or gain] freedom, the privileged at first react with bitterness and resistance. Even when the demands are couched in non-violent terms, the initial response is substantially the same.”² The Pharisees use the fact that this healing took place on the Sabbath as a way to attack Jesus because he is doing a great deal to unsettle and even uproot the established order. This always, in every circumstance, makes those in power nervous. They feel that their way of life might be threatened and react accordingly.

Finally, Jesus works to not only avoid any violence toward the spirit of the blind man, but to heal that which has been caused by the Pharisees. As soon as Jesus sees that the Pharisees have driven the man out, Jesus finds him and assures him that God loves him. He affirms his spiritual life and allows him to worship. This gift of dignity is priceless to the human soul and furthers the healing of the whole man.

And so, what are the implications of this Lenten journey to non-violence for us here today? Well, first, I hope that we can begin to think of non-violence as a way of life, not simply as an approach to a particular issue. When you really study Dr. King's work, that is what he was aiming at, especially toward the end of his life. Non-violence had become for him not just a strategy to gain civil rights for African Americans, but a way of transforming his own life, the lives of his fellow Americans, the Church and ultimately, the world. Later this week, we will commemorate the forty-sixth anniversary of the martyrdom of Dr. King, among the very greatest practitioners of non-violence that our world has ever been blessed with. He is, for me, a great hero. May I suggest that we spend some Lenten time this week, in prayer and meditation on what this journey of Jesus and Dr. King might mean for us. Prayer and meditation are key enabling aspects of how we live more deeply into a non-violent life. We cannot hope to live that life, without prayer and meditation.

Second, perhaps we could begin a discussion on what the beloved community means to us, to this parish, to my monastic community. You have a great reputation as a community of believers that care for the poor and the sick, but as we know, there is always more work to do. And I cannot help but to wonder what it might mean for us today to not just care for the physically or emotionally sick or injured, but to heal them in such a way that the very economic structure of their lives, or of the economic structure of the neighborhood, or of the city, or country might get upended.

Our brother Martin taught us that “a religion that professes a concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion.”³ But to pay attention to these issues, and to work on them, while trumpeting to all that they are welcome is to form the beloved community. It is to live more deeply into non-violence.

My other hero of non-violence, Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, whose thirty-fourth anniversary of martyrdom we commemorated last week, said, on many occasions, and which communicates better in Spanish: “hay que cambiar de raiz todo el sistema”: In other words, we must uproot the whole system in order to bring justice to the poor and peace to our land.

And for us today, here in the United States, I believe we have to do some uprooting ourselves because the cries of the blind, the poor and the powerless rise up from our city streets, our suburbs, our rural areas. Those cries sound to me like whimpers that are slowly but steadily growing into wails.

For example, we have a system of so called justice that has imprisoned young men of color for non-violent crimes in outrageously disproportionate numbers. And then, upon release, these men are dumped on our streets with no jobs, no money, no hope. This is the same as what the Pharisees did – the powerful keeping the poor in their place in order to keep the class system we live with in its place.

We have laws that allow virtually anyone, no matter how inappropriate, to own guns in this country. While our homes, neighborhoods, schools, churches, malls and movie theaters are being shot up like the OK Corral. This is a pharisaic approach to the letter of the law we know as the Second Amendment. Its purpose only to keep gun manufacturers and their allies flush with cash.

We have a foreign policy that uses our young men and women as battlefield fodder to die in wars that never needed to be fought. These “preemptive” wars only enrich the arms makers and their political allies while gravely harming our best and brightest. This is an approach to foreign policy found in some parts of the Old Testament that says we can kill anyone and justify it in the name of God; equating God and flag a most dangerous form of idol worship.

This is a system that needs to be uprooted. Because, yes, if you listen closely, you can hear the cries of the despairing prisoner unjustly incarcerated, the forgotten homeless desperate for sleep under a bridge or in a park, the neglected veteran suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the children of Newtown. Listen to their cries. Do not drown them out by putting on spiritual headphones. There is no better beloved community than the Church to start digging away at those roots, planting a new garden, while learning to sing a new song.

This morning we heard Christ say that “as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Toward the very end of John's Gospel, when Jesus appears to the disciples after the Resurrection, his first words are “Peace be with you...” His next words are: “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.” My sisters and brothers, Christ is still in the world, in each one of you and in me. The light remains, it is up to us to let it grow and glow into a beautiful, beatific, beloved community. This is the call of non-violence. This is the call of the Gospel. AMEN.

1King, Martin Luther. “Non Violence and Racial Justice” Christian Century 2/6/57. From the Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. p. 7-8

2King, Martin Luther. “Pilgrimage to NonViolence” in Strength to Love by Martin Luther King. p. 160.

3Ibid. p. 159.

Icon of Courage

This is my sermon for Lent III, preached at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Salt Lake City. I spent a week with the really great community there leading a Lenten mission retreat. What a great experience! 

Ex 17:1-7
Rm 5:1-11
Jn 4:5-42

Icon of Courage

One of the greatest aspects of Eastern Orthodox monastic spirituality that has begun to spread to the Western Church is the use of icons in both our personal and our communal prayer life. For the Orthodox, icons are a central piece of their faith journey and, over the years, that has become true for myself, as well.

And so I will often spend time not only praying and studying with the Scripture text, but with one or more icons that depict the particular biblical story that I am preparing a sermon for. Now, yesterday, at our retreat day, we spent time with the Western monastic practice of Lectio Divina, which is a particular approach to the prayerful reading of Scripture. This morning, I'd like to emphasize an approach to Scripture through Visio Divina, in this case, the prayerful interpretation of an icon. 

This practice is almost as old as Christianity itself and is allowed for us, as opposed to our Hebrew forebears, because the Incarnation, that is, God becoming human, so revolutionized our way of relating to God. The Incarnation allows us to relate to God in a much more personal way, for God dwelt with us right here on earth.

This mornings passage from St. John's Gospel presents to us the story of the Samaritan woman which is quite a long one filled with many different insights to preach on. Very often, preachers will focus on Jesus' rather unusual actions, for example just speaking to a woman, or a Samaritan, or his demand for the woman to give him water.

But I would like to spend our time this morning focusing on the Samaritan woman, on her courage, and on her modeling for us, how we might live as Christians in the world today.

First of all, the Greek Orthodox tradition has named the Samaritan woman, once she was baptized, Photini, which translates as “Enlightened One.” In fact, they claim that she is the first to proclaim the Gospel because upon her return to her town, Photini converts her five sisters, two sons, and much of the town. And she is remembered by the Orthodox as a “Holy Martyr and Equal to the Apostles.” This is high praise indeed for anyone.

And I have to say, as I have studied the various icons of Photini and of the scene at the well, and delved into John's beautiful writing of this story, I have found myself more and more drawn to Photini and her courage. The icons depict a woman of great courage that has been quite an inspiration to me.

From the story, we know that Photini had gone to the well about noon – a time when no woman would go to any well because of the heat of the day. From archaeological digs, we know that she went to a well further from her town than she had to. So, it is clear that both in the context of the time of day, and the location of the well, Photini was avoiding the other villagers. She was, after all, in the words of the Prayer Book, a “notorious sinner”, having had five husbands and was now living with yet another man. This was wholly unacceptable behavior in her day. No one in that society would have accepted it. She was a sinner and an outcast.

And so she went to a well further from the village than necessary, and at a time when she should not have encountered anyone, to draw water. Often, the commentary is made that she was avoiding the other women of the town, but she may have, in fact, been banned from the well near town because of who she was and what she had done.

But what I love about so many of the icons that depicts this scene is that Photini appears, at least to me, as sassy. That's right – downright sassy. She is often depicted in dialogue with Jesus – not simply listening, but gesturing to Jesus, just as he is gesturing, in a way that does not look to be argumentative, but rather, like I said, sassy. By the rules of the culture, a man should not be speaking to her, a Jew should not be asking her for water, and a stranger could be quite dangerous. But there she is, engaged with Jesus in what appears to me to be a very courageous way. She is speaking her mind, asking probing questions, and then, really listening to Jesus.

And when Jesus tells her that the spring of water that he will “give is a spring of water gushing up to eternal life”, Photini, spiritually parched, truly opens up to Jesus. She does not totally get him at first, who ever does? But she knows that she needs forgiveness. She knows that she needs a Messiah. She knows that she needs this gushing spring to quench the very thirst that is slowly destroying her soul.

And once she drinks from this spring of water, Photini will never be the same. What was courageousness in the guise of sassiness now becomes the courageousness of faith. We know from Scripture that Photini returns to town and begins to tell everyone about the Christ and about the fact that he knows all her sins. That, in and of itself, is courageous. We know from Tradition, that Photini would go on to further evangelize Samaria and throughout the region, finally culminating in her martyrdom by the Emperor Nero.

So what does any of this have to do with us? It just seems to me that in Photini, we have an icon of courage, and therefore an example to us in how we might behave in our day to day lives. First, to be willing to have a real encounter with Christ takes courage. Now this is not just showing up to church on Sunday, but when you do – and when you pray in the privacy of your own lives, really being open to Christ, bringing all that you are – the good, the not so good, the sassy, the frightened, all of it – bringing all of it to Christ is the first courageous step you can take.

The next one is to really, truly listen. Give Christ your burdens, your sins, your fears, and Christ gives back to you his living waters. But not just any old water, no, springs of waters. Not just a drop or two, no, water gushing eternal life in which you will never be thirsty again. It takes courage to listen. And even more to step up for a drink of that spring. And more still, to be gushed all over.

Finally, Photini shows us that an experience of faith is not just for us. It is not a singular event meant for an individual. All faith experiences are meant for the entire community, even though they may only occur to one person. The first thing Photini does after encountering the Christ was to go back to her town – a town in which she was an outcast – to proclaim the gospel. The Good News was so liberating for her that she had to share it with courage and faith.

That is why I think Photini is a model for us today. We all need to encounter Christ more fully, to truly listen to his healing, forgiving message, and to proclaim that to our families, our towns, our world. This Lent, may you have the courage of St. Photini and the blessing of Christ the Living Water. AMEN.

Garden and Desert

During the first weekend of Lent, I was privileged to share time with Trinity Church, Princeton, NJ. This is a very active and alive parish which had a great turn out for a prayer workshop on Friday evening, a Quiet Day on Saturday, and then, of course, Holy Eucharist on Sunday. This is my sermon for Lent I with that community. 

Garden and Desert

In the monastic tradition the images of both the garden and the desert play a strong role in our spirituality. And in today's reading, this first Sunday of Lent, we see why that is the case. Laid out before us are two of the great stories of Scripture, the first, from Genesis, is an attempt to explain the origin of both personal and communal sin. While the second, from the Gospel of Matthew is an attempt to explain how that sin, either personal or communal, can be defeated. And interestingly enough, the garden – where life is abundant and beautiful - is the location that enables sin, while the desert – where life is scarce and treacherous – is the location that enables the victory over the sin.

And this is what Lent is about I think. In a famous sermon for Ash Wednesday, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, perhaps the greatest monastic figure of the Middle Ages, begins his sermon with the sentence: “Today, beloved, we enter the holy season of Lent, a season of Christian warfare.”¹

Warfare? Really? That kind of language does not usually sit well with contemporary congregations. Certainly not of the Episcopalian stripe. And yet, it is commonly found in the literature and liturgies of Lent. There is sin to defeat, that sin is a grave enemy, and we must wage war against it. So what does this all mean? Well, I think by spending time with these two readings from Scripture, we might find a path into Lent that could open us further to the Lord.

Our first reading from the Book of Genesis has caused all sorts of problems from ancient times. One of the few things you could get any Christian to agree to is the fact that sin exists in the world. What almost no one agrees on is how that sin came to be in the world and from whence it came. In many cases, you could not even get Christians to agree on which behaviors or lack thereof are sins and which are not.

In our reading from Genesis, some people want to blame God for the “fall of man” because it was God who created a fruit of a tree that would be so tempting, it would be impossible for Adam and Eve to resist it. Others want to blame the snake, who came to be known as Satan for looking to destroy all that was good in the Garden of Eden and in the lives of Adam and Eve. Others still blame Eve, and by extension, all women, for the “fall of man” because, well, you know, women are just that way. And I've even read some others who want to blame Adam for just standing there and not reigning in his woman more and stopping her from going down a sinful path.

And I think any and all of that totally misses the point of the story. The intention of this very important story is clearly not to assign blame for the origin of sin. The purpose of the story is to acknowledge that sin is real and in what the causes of sin in our own lives and in our communal life might be. And I really believe that is what the total purpose of this story was. We have spent so much time over centuries upon centuries trying to make more of it that we have completely forgotten the point. Perhaps that's even been a way for us to avoid having to delve into the true point of the story, because the consequences of that story are massive. The central lie that the serpent tells Eve is that if she will just eat of the fruit of the tree she “will be like God.”

That is the sentence in Scripture that tells us everything we need to know about the origin of sin. Whomever it came from, this story in Genesis, is a way to help us understand the root cause of sin within any society. And that root cause is pride. The pride of equating ourselves with God. Thinking that the power we wield, or the money we have, or the weapons we wave about, makes us equal to God. That is sin on a profound level. It is so profound that it can rise to the level of pure evil.

This pride is what deceives us into choosing who lives and who dies and is acted out by spending enormous sums of money stockpiling weapons rather than feeding the hungry; or by allowing a tiny number of people to horde the vast majority of the wealth, rather than housing the homeless.

The first effect of the sin of pride after the fruit of the tree was eaten was Adam's and Eve's feeling of shame. Both Adam and Eve became aware of their own nakedness and hurried to cover it up. In other words, as soon as the sin of pride was committed, they knew that they were anything but God. The lies they listened to from the serpent had become their own lies and now they were caught in the act. Caught with their pants down, as it were. Completely exposed as the frauds they had become. The first sin recorded after the expulsion from Eden was the murder of Abel by the hand of his brother, Cain. Murdered by his brother. The sin of pride leads to total destruction. It represents the greatest threat to the spiritual life, and even to life itself.

But Christ shows us a way to respond to the temptations of the devil. But first it is important to remember that in the desert we are looking at a story of Jesus the man. Christ, having humbled himself by becoming human, is presented with three temptations, all of which were an attempt to appeal to his pride. And this is where the image of the desert becomes important. When we speak of the Incarnation – God becoming man – we often use the Greek word kenosis which mean a pouring out. A complete emptying of oneself. A total self-giving. That is what Christ did when he took on our humanity. He engaged in kenosis. Going into the wilds of the desert and fasting for forty days was a way to re-enact this pouring out in order to prepare himself for his public ministry.

In that preparation, Jesus prays and gives of himself totally to God, not as God's equal, but as God's son, as God's creation. As subject to God's will and direction. This total self-giving allows Jesus to resist the temptations of the devil no matter how difficult that forty day fast in the desert had become. It is this kenosis that will allow Jesus to heal the sick, proclaim the kingdom, resist the temptations of many followers to become a military messiah, and to ultimately resist the evil, in a non-violent way, of the Sanhedrin and of Pontius Pilate. To clench life from the jaws of death. To affirm a non-violent way of being that looked past the crucifixion and toward the resurrection.

And this is the paradox of the garden versus the desert. Everything we know of the way the world works teaches us that the garden should be the symbol of life. Abundant, perhaps overgrown, teeming with life it provides everything we need. It makes us comfortable, but that comfort seems to lead us into trouble and perhaps even to violence and death.

The desert, on the other hand, allows for that pouring out. That kenosis that each of us are called to. A pouring out of our need for power, our quest for success, our hording of money, our stockpiling of weapons. God calls us to at least attempt to imitate the example of Jesus. This Lent, I encourage you to give it a shot. What would it mean for you to practice kenosis in just one way. To pour yourself out in service to your neighbors? To this parish? To the poor of Princeton? Or, to pour yourself out in prayer to God? What would that mean? Or, ideally, what would it mean to do both? Service and prayer are the two great pillars of Lent. I encourage you to deepen your experience of both within the context of the desert of your own lives. AMEN.

1Bernard of Clairvaux. Sermon One for Lent. p. 24.   

Ash Wednesday

I had the great privilege of spending time with the Episcopal Church at Princeton (the chaplaincy at the University) for Ash Wednesday and the following few days. Holy Cross Monastery has a growing relationship with this community and it was a great joy to be among them for the beginning of Lent. We look forward to the visit of that community to the monastery in April.  There are present at the University any number of faithful students, faculty and staff, many of whom shared in the Holy Eucharist for Ash Wednesday. This is my sermon for that liturgy.  

Choosing Between Life and Death

In a few minutes, we are going to engage in a rather old and somewhat odd custom of imposing ashes on your heads while saying the words “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” This action and those words seem to ask us to take heed of this ominous warning and get to work on reforming whatever part or parts of our lives we need to reform. It seems to want to warn us that death is near and that we better listen up and pay lots of attention.

And so given that, I have been wondering about preaching to you a group of mostly young adults who, God willing, are many, many decades away from death and what would it mean to you to hear such a warning. And as I have thought about all of that, it has made me realize that I needed to re-think Ash Wednesday and Lent in general to come to a deeper understanding of what this great liturgical tradition is offering us.

Yes, Lent begins today with a reminder of death. Each one of us will die and that is a fact that cannot be disputed. It is something that is, occasionally, worth thinking about whatever your age is. But this reminder of death is just that, a reminder. It is not a warning or some downer just looking to ruin your day. It is a reminder that death happens.

But it is also a reminder that what follows death is life. Because, you see, Lent ends with a celebration of life. That is the counter intuitive part of Lent. First comes death, then comes life. It goes against everything we are taught about from the time we are young, and yet, there it is. First thing, remember your death. Next thing, now choose to live. Learn what it means to be truly alive in your faith. To live in joy, live in peace, live in faith. Let all those who do not want joy and peace and faith choose death. But we Christians...we choose life. As an aside here, as I use that phrase “choose life” please do not confuse it with the debate around abortion. This sermon has nothing to do with abortion one way or the other.

But that phrase is important. Choose life. It is important because that is what the God who created us, and who conquered death for us, calls us to. No matter our age, no matter our health status, no matter our relationship status, no matter how many papers you have due, God calls us to choose life today, here, in this place, at this time. Yes, it is good to remember that you don't have an eternity here on this earth. And it is good for one reason...to help you to hear the call of life.

And how do we choose life this Lent? This is where today's Scripture readings come in handy. The first reading we heard from the Prophet Joel warns of imminent grave danger coming – a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day when a great and powerful army comes to conquer. But the prophet tells his listeners that it is not to late, that “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart.”

In other words, it is never to late. Do not worry yourself with rending your garments (an ancient version of giving up sweets). No, rend your hearts. That is quite a graphic image. Rending garments had to do with tearing them and creating big holes in those garments to indicate repentance. But God calls us to much more, God wants us to rend our hearts. To tear open our hearts to become totally available to God.

That, my sisters and brothers, is choosing life. Making ourselves totally available to God to allow God to turn us upside down and inside out. Two weeks ago, yesterday, a very close friend of mine died. Catherine was only 57 years old, a single mother of a 16 year old, an extremely talented psycho-therapist, and a budding spiritual director who was pursuing her Masters of Divinity at Yale. I loved her dearly and really miss her. She died a long, agonizing death from cancer but I know that she is with me here as I preach this sermon to you.

I know she is here because she is the most recent example in my life – and a particularly powerful one at that – of a Christian who knew how to choose life, even under the most dire of circumstances. She had been in the hospital for months and as it became clear that she was not going to be leaving the hospital she continued to say that she was not dying, but rather living, today. Catherine was not in denial. She knew well the various doctor's prognoses. I sat there with her as they told her “just a few more weeks.” She fully understood and said, after the doctors left the room, “then I have weeks to live life the fullest I can.”

And for her that meant spending as much time loving her son Will, talking to me about our friendship and how much that had meant to the both of us, reconciling with her estranged brother, showing great kindness and compassion to nurses, doctors, orderlies and other hospital types, and praying to God in new ways – because the old ways no longer worked, but the new ways did.

So remember that when you receive your ashes. You live not until the day you die. You live until the moment you die. Or at least, you are given that choice. Catherine could have wallowed in her suffering. And it's not that she didn't have her bad days. But she always chose life over death. Love over despair. Service to others over self indulgence.

You see, one the the most grievous theological mistakes that is often made by Christians is that somehow we must earn eternal life. That gift was already given by God, and what God gives, God does not take away. The question then, for us, is whether or not we accept that gift. And, if accepted, what we do with it. Life, for us, is a gift that is given every day, on Ash Wednesday, on Good Friday, on Easter Sunday, and on every other day of the year as well. To choose life is to embrace all that life has to offer and to give back to God, to your community, to the stranger, a heart so perfectly rent that it is open to love in a way that you could not possibly imagine. A heart that is exploding with life. That is what I think it means to remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

So, my sisters and brothers, as we enter into Lent I want to call each of you, and this community as a whole, to consider what it means to choose life. I would encourage you to not spend much – or any – time on giving up sweets or drinking less beer. These might be great things to do for your health and, if so, do them for that reason. But focusing on those type of Lenten practices is often the modern equivalent of the hypocrisy that Jesus was talking about in the Gospel passage from Matthew.

Instead, what if you were to focus on choosing life this Lent? What would that look like in terms of giving to charity? In terms your prayer life? In terms of fasting? What would it look like for this community to focus on choosing life this Lent? How might that affect your life together as a community? What would it be like to use the example of my friend Catherine for your Lenten practice. That is, not to deny that death will happen one day, one moment – but that every minute God has given you on this earth as beings created in God's image and likeness should be used to embrace life, share love, welcome strangers, care for the poor, and become more fully alive with each and every moment.

Think of what a gift to give back to God that would be this Lent. Remember what the liturgy teaches you: that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return. But remember too, what I am teaching you: you are each beautiful children of God. Choose to live and love each and every day as if you truly believed that. Live to love and love to live. What a beautifully rent heart that would be to offer God this Lent. AMEN.