The Communities of New Skete

Scripture Reading: Jn 9:1-39; 1Pt 3:13-22;Ac 9:32-42

Reflections from a Monk

Christ is Risen!

Who sinned? This man or his parents?

When I was growing up I can remember, when I did something wrong in public, being corrected with the words: “People will wonder what kind of upbringing you had!” It was a matter of family honor, do something wrong and the family gets the blame. The sins of the parents need not be only their personal sins, they could also be the sin of not teaching their children the proper way to behave. “Well, you know what kind of family he comes from!” So, if we think that this idea of the sins of the parents being visited upon the children is some ancient mind-set, think again! It is still very much alive and well in the 21st century.

We still hear it said that bad things happen to people because of their sins. For example, earthquakes happen and people are injured or die because of their sins. AIDS exists to punish the sin of promiscuity. Imagine being told you lost your job because you sinned!

Notice at the end of the gospel lesson the Pharisees claim that the blind man was a sinner from birth! Rabbis in times past wrestled with the issue of how early in life a person might be able to commit a sin. Was it from the moment of birth? Was it from the moment of conception? Some argued that sin could actually be committed by a fetus in its mother’s womb! But in any case, someone had to take responsibility for things that happened to people that made them less than perfect. Whether it be illness, misfortune, or even birth defects! Who sinned? Who caused this to happen? The person in question or someone else?

St. John’s gospel lesson about the blind man begins with the quandary about sin. Everyone knew that the cause of his blindness was sin, the only question was who sinned? And note, its not those bad Pharisees asking this question, it’s the good guys, Jesus’ own disciples! This was the common understanding.

What does Jesus do with this issue? He totally dismisses it and points in a completely different direction. Who sinned? This man or his parents? Neither! This happened so that the glory of God might be manifested! Notice he does not say that God caused this blindness, but rather that it will be the cause of revealing the glory of God. In Mark’s gospel the compassion of Jesus is often the emphasis, whereas in John’s gospel it is usually the glory of God that is stressed. But they are really the same thing, God’s glory is most clearly seen in his compassion.

And we can see this in our own lives, families, communities and parishes. We do not have to look far a field, it is right in front of us, if we but open our eyes! And that is the ultimate point of this gospel passage, it is not so much about blindness as it is about vision! Can we see how God’s glory is made visible, especially in the midst of suffering?

I want to take two examples from our community life to underscore this point. We just said farewell to our dear friend Nadya Goldsmith. At her funeral on Thursday, we heard many wonderful vignettes from her life story. The stories did not portray Nadya as some perfect person but rather that goodness and beauty shown through the fullness of her humanity. Her delight in beauty was infectious and it prompted acts of kindness in others as we saw in the outpouring of love for Nadya by so many of her friends who spoke about her. Their words reminded us of her humanity, her faith and most especially of her love of beauty particularly as expressed through flowers. We at New Skete benefited from her special gift by all the spectacular flower arrangements she made for the church during the growing season. What greater reminder of God’s glory than the beauty we saw in her garden and on display in the church? She passed on her love and knowledge of flowers to others so that this display and appreciation of beauty might continue. The other side of the equation is God’s glory and compassion as shown through the support and attention given to Nadya by her many friends and caregivers during her illness. Jesus does not look for people to be perfect, but rather for people to be loving and caring. So, Nadya’s life and her illness became, as Jesus said of the blind man, “a demonstration of what God can do. We must do the works of him who sent me while day lasts.”¹ So we cannot wait around for someone else to “do the works” of God, we must do them and do them now while the opportunity presents itself.

Our Brother John just spent over seven weeks in the hospital and will soon go back again for another hip operation. His experience was nothing less than life changing. Why? Because, just as in the story of the man born blind, Br John’s illness became “a demonstration of what God can do.” The attention and care and concern that people showed to him during this period was nothing short of miraculous. The hospital staff tended not only to his considerable physical needs but also spared no effort to help him come to grips psychologically with all that was happening to him. Then on top of that, many members of the Chapel community, people who work here at the monastery, friends and clergy who lived near (and some quite far from) the hospital in Windsor, Vermont, visited, called, sent cards, and kept him in their prayers. They took an interest in him and his well-being. This is only half the story, because, in our house, few of us are more attentive to the needs of others than Brother John. He has always genuinely cared about others. He not only takes time for people when they visit, but he also calls and writes. He also is supervises kitchen matters, and in that task he is always concerned that we have enough food for guests and that they are properly cared for. Is he perfect? Is anyone? No!

As Jesus said to his disciples in so many words, that’s not the point.

Jesus tells us to forget the debate about “who sinned”. Stop looking for the culprit, stop trying to find someone to blame for human suffering. Place no litmus test on those in need. Instead, take human need as an opportunity to “do the works of God…while day lasts.” The man born blind became an opportunity for the display of God’s glory. We are God’s hands and feet. Do we see all the opportunities around us to be the conduits of God’s glory and Jesus’ compassion? Or are we like the Pharisees who think they see the truth but are really blind? Give glory, as the Pharisees demanded, but do it, not in testimony, but in action. Or as St. Peter says, “become zealous for the good.”

Christ is Risen!

1. William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 2, p. 37 (1975). His translation of v. 9:3. [↩]

Scripture Readings: 1 Pt. 1:18-25; Acts 9:1-19; Jn. 4:3-42

Reflections from a Monk

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Today’s gospel brings to mind a remark by Van Jones, the founder of Green for All based in Oakland, California. He was the inspiration for the federal Green Jobs Bill that the U.S. Congress and the president incorporated into law a few years ago. He remarked that “I’m not looking for the points of difference. I’m looking for the points of commonality. I’ve trained my mind so that people can say twenty-seven things that might be objectionable, but as soon as they say one, that twenty-eighth thing, that’s in the right direction, that’s where I’m going to go in the conversation. I think that it’s really important in a country as diverse as ours, to listen.”

In our gospel this Sunday Jesus is thirsty, tired and hungry and meets a sort of outcast from a country and village of outcasts from ordinary Jewish society. In those times there were three reasons he should not be speaking with the Samaritan woman: her gender, her religion, and her social status. But now they both needed water, and the practice of hospitality to strangers seems to be the final code of behavior here.

The setting is not your ordinary street corner or café but a place called Jacob’s well, which in those days was already around a thousand years old. Its name makes it culturally significant, and it is 100 feet deep; usually only the women would gather here to draw water. It was also outside the village, in a somewhat isolated spot, and so in this story it is a sort of sacred location charged with a sense of expectancy for something wonderful and beyond ordinary everyday things.

The story was included in a gospel for an early Christian community only fifty years after the death of Jesus. It was crucial for them to hear how Jesus personally enabled a community to overcome its deep tensions and long-lasting differences. This particular community of St. John was somewhat like the crowds listening to St. Peter speak on that first Pentecost eight decades earlier. Here were women and men of very different social, religious, or ethnic backgrounds. They too were filled with deep religious and political tensions like in the gospel.

An infinite flash of enlightenment came to those crowds and to the Samaritans from the one person in the whole world who you could say never did merely what he liked but always what was consonant with what God likes. Forty-four times in the gospel of St. John it says that Jesus was sent to accomplish this. Not only did he bring the message of John the Baptist and the prophets but he actually enabled them to become open, to accept and to accomplish what is right and good and healing.

Beneath the surface of the miracle portrayed by this story is the reality of the living water springing up to the fullness of life we yearn for, and the bread of communion and unity, along with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. The experience of the Samaritans with Jesus is really a sacred example of listening and discussion, of redemption from isolation and bitterness, and also of salvation from the dark prejudices that poison and justify our opinions of each other both as individuals and as members of social groups. Through Jesus they were liberated from a certain kind of imprisonment or isolation from centuries of antagonism, persecution, and defensiveness.

I think this sounds a little like our world today. We are living now with war, terrorism, religious tensions and political injustices, famine, disease, over-consumption and the vast consequences of industrial growth and pollution, with social inequality, clash of cultures, and corporate greed. The gospel work of dissolving religious tensions and separation is pointed out for whoever has ears to hear.
This also reminds me of the stories of Gandhi from early in the last century. He went to England from India to study and become a lawyer. His experience of the western world filled out his knowledge of the religions and spirituality of India. Included in this was his knowledge of the Christian gospels. By reading the words of Jesus—and of course this story of the Samaritan woman—he developed his ideas of unconditional love, compassion and justice and how to live them. Martin Luther King once remarked about his own ideas that Jesus supplied the spirit and Gandhi the strategy.

Thirty years ago the composer Philip Glass wrote an opera about Gandhi called “Satyagraha.” In an interview he says most people including King were not aware how extensively Gandhi was influenced by the teachings of Jesus. He is referring to the gospel works of mercy such as feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the imprisoned and sick, and the words “Even as you have done this to my brothers and sisters you have done this to me.” He says, “…that is the most powerful statement of compassion that I know of. I think that that’s where Gandhi’s understanding of justice as love came from. And finally he mentions right behavior toward your enemies as a model of the practice of non-violence.

These great individuals, in spite of their own limitations, powerfully embody the strength of this light from Jesus today. Neither was assassinated because he was only a reed blowing in the wind, or from inaction or lack of courage but from taking action to do what is right and needed. You can see on film how they acted on their unbending intent to love, to seek reconciliation, and to practice compassion for everyone. They help keep these alive for us in each generation. By their words and deeds they truly and deeply identified with their fellow human beings and our essential oneness with each other in Christ.

Christ is in our midst!

Mid-Pentecost May 13^th 2009 Is 55: 6-13, Acts 7: 30-37, 44-49, Jn 7:11-29

Thoughts from a Nun

Have you ever given any thought to what kind of things Jesus might have been teaching when he said “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me.”? This one who sent Jesus we believe to be none other than God. What did he say that were not his words but the words of the One who had sent him?

Do you think this sentence “My teaching is not mine” is a mistake? It seems Jesus was trying to convince them he was not tooting his own horn as that would be a good reason to doubt his words. Prophets were generally the mouth pieces for God but never claimed to be the Son of Man or to be one with God. There are plenty of times when Jesus indicated “when you see me you see God” that He and God were One and the same. He was also the Way, the Truth and the Life for us.

The crowd only saw Jesus as human, even if he had healed someone on the Sabbath. And though some thought Jesus might be the Messiah, the Messiah was not god but only the anointed one of God that was to save God’s people.

What was Jesus teaching? Perhaps he was expanding on the words of Isaiah we heard this morning. “Seek the Lord while he may be found” “and my ways and thoughts are higher than yours.” At another time, His teaching was to add to the teaching of the Hebrew Shema which was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all soul, (with all your mind,) with all your strength.” He added a second command to love the neighbor as one would love oneself and then expanded the neighbor to include the ritually unclean and even those not of the same race –the Samaritan.

Liturgically it is now midway between when Christ rose and Pentecost when the Spirit he had promised his followers would come and teach them, showing them the way. It’s been about 2000 years since these things took place and I wonder how we are affected by these teachings of Jesus.

One of the evangelists said there were many more sayings of Jesus but they could not all be written down. We do have the Evangelist’s gleanings of Jesus’ teachings though in the New Testament. While I think it is an excellent idea to become quite familiar with the New Testament, I believe if a person began their day with reciting those two commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all soul, and with all your strength.” and “Love your neighbor as yourself, and would throughout the day check their thoughts and actions against these two commandments, we would have some real saints in our midst.

There is a book entitled the “Jesus Creed” This Creed is the answer given to the question, Master, what must I do to gain eternal life? It is these two commandments I just mentioned. The author gives all kinds of examples of individuals taking to heart these words and putting them into action. He constantly points out two other things. One; we are all born with a spark of divinity that is able to become a consuming fire if we cooperate. Two; what makes many, if not all, able to become a consuming fire is the belief, the awareness, that we are loved by God. We do not have to be perfect to be loved by God. We don’t have to do anything to be loved by God. We can refuse to even accept God’s love. While the awareness of God’s unconditional love does not always come easily, we can always pray to Jesus as did the blind man, “Lord, help my unbelief!” Each of us is made in God’s image and likeness and each of us is uniquely made like no other. We can and must be creative in how we return God’s love with our own unique abilities and even inabilities.

What will you do today, tomorrow, by this coming Pentecost to put into practice Jesus teaching to love God with your whole being and to love others as you love yourself?

Christ is Risen ! Truly!