The Communities of New Skete

Sermon 83 [28June09] Scripture Readings: Mt6:22-34;1Pt 3:13-22;Is49:13-19

You know the expression: beauty is in the eye of the beholder? This immediately raises the question, how clear is my vision? The gospel lesson begins with the phrase: “The lamp of the body is the eye.” A lamp throws light so that we can see. Our eye allows us to see. So, when we open our eyes we let a flood of light into our consciousness. We need light to see, and not just external light but also internal light, that light which is our perception of reality or how we understand what we see. The gospel goes on to say “if that interior light is darkened, what darkness that will be!” That darkness could be cynicism, fatalism, defeatism, fear, depression, disillusionment, or despair, whereas, the light could be joy, beauty, appreciation, expectation, enthusiasm, peacefulness, optimism, encouragement, and hope. The gospel phrase is a poetic way of talking about how we see the world. And how we see the world has an enormous impact on how we live our lives.
In today’s gospel, we are being asked to see the world with God’s eyes rather than our own.
God, the creator of the universe and all it contains including all aspects of the human condition.
God, “the only lover of humankind.”
God, who through the holy spirit is “everywhere present and fills all things.”
God, who loves all and forgives all and gives all as a free gift. It is that perspective that we are called to adopt.
This does not mean that we should put on a pair of rose colored glasses and imagine that everything is great even as the house is burning down! Its does not mean that we live in denial when we get the news that we have a terminal disease. Rather, it means that as we pass through this life, we are able to meet whatever comes our way without panicking because we have faith that God will provide what we need. None of us will complete the journey of this life without running over many bumps in the road. We will also experience great joys and satisfactions.
The gospel then goes on to say if the eye is sound your whole body will be filled with light. Sometimes it translates “sound” as “singular”, which can mean singularly focused on the light, which is God. If we are one with God’s light then we begin to see with God’s eyes. And we are always free to let that light in or to pull down the shades. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” What do we let in and what do we filter out?
A few months ago a neighbor lost their small prefab home in a fire. Recently that home was replaced with what appears to be a prefab building that is much larger than the one that burned down. As it turned out, their insurance covered the cost of the replacement and the replacement was secured via an auction at a reduced price. So, the bad economic times, actually benefited this elderly couple. I do not know how they approached this disaster-turned-boon, but it shows that good can come from what appears to be bad. In the face of problems we can throw up our hands in despair or we can search for alternative possibilities.
Searching for possibilities implies work on our part. Sometimes this gospel can be interpreted as telling us that God provides so we don’t need to do anything. After all, it seems to say the birds do nothing and the flowers do nothing yet God provides for them. This is not really a true understanding of that passage. The birds, for example, have to do a lot to care for themselves and their young. They do what they do naturally, according to the gifts God has given them. We as humans need to do the same.
In this gospel the evil is not work but anxiety. And at the root of anxiety is a lack of faith and trust. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, anxiety is all about control. Whose in control of our life anyway? If we think we can rely on no one, especially not God, then we will be forever worrying about “what am I to drink or what am I to wear.” If we have faith, then the urge to worry dissipates. We know that God will help us through whatever crisis we are facing. St. Peter also exhorts us to have no fear in the face of persecution, remembering that our hope is in Jesus Christ. And Isaiah calls for “shouts of joy … since the Lord has consoled his people” and in the midst of destruction God speaks of rebuilding. This is the beauty God beholds.
This gospel always reminds me of Mad Magazine and Alfred E. Newman’s famous line: “What, me worry?!” Christ says: “Oh you who have so little faith, do not worry.” We have been listening to a series of talks on Radical Self-acceptance by Tara Brach and in passing she told the old Jewish Mother joke in which the mother writes to her son: “Start worrying: details to follow.” How we see the world affects how with live our lives. If we begin with the premise that things are bad and can only get worse, then we will live in a way that fulfils that expectation. On the other hand, if we approach every moment in life as pregnant with possibilities, if we choose to see beauty around us and not just decay and litter then we will begin to see the world as God created it to be.
Christ is in our midst!

1 Kings 19:19-21; Rom. 1:7-17; Mt. 9:9-13

St. Matthew, like all his neighbors, hated the Roman occupiers. But being a really smart guy, he thought: I can make the best of this situation and live a decent and comfortable life. Let’s go with the realities! He knew how to write up reports, do accounting, keep records, and deal with people. So he sold out to the Romans.

But as a tax collector, he became alienated from his own people, the synagogue and God. He worked for Rome but did not have the rights of a citizen. Worse still, he was enmeshed in a system of oppression, which can turn abusive even to those who try to cooperate and do the best they can with it.

Along comes the well-spoken of healer and teacher Jesus, not from the establishment but just maybe destined to be an opposition leader. He claimed authority and yet was loved by the people. The powers that be were wary of Jesus and they could not buy or entrap him…

A feeling of liberation, a dream of personal freedom, probably buried in his heart for years, flares up in Matthew at the sight of Jesus. Then a look, a wave of the hand, a word and a call—and Matthew is shocked into attention. He sees how despicable his bondage is and how it turned him sour. In the next instant he gambles all for this chance to make something better of his life. Is it really possible to leave all that behind, begin anew, a bit wiser, and learn from the Master?
Jesus invites him and he freely responds. He joins the group of disciples and does not care whether they approve or hold his past against him, or are simply surprised.

He heard Jesus say that it is not those who think they are well and all set, but those apparently sick at heart and still searching, and the so-called sinners, who need the physician’s help or a teacher! Jesus peeled away the rotten bandages and the dead skin of the human wound, to expose the simplicity and beauty of the fragile human heart. Jesus was confident and courageous, a person of knowledge and depth, able to stand up for what he was doing and defend his friends. Truly altruistic, 100 percent un-self-centered, but God-centered and showing the love of God: He was not ethically self-righteous, or a representative of a school of divisive social or religious observances and of conventional arbitrary customs or oppressive standards. He offered to ordinary people the mercy of God instead of a menu of anger and guilt. He desired to shelter them, he said, as a hen with her chicks; he needed workers for his Father as would the harvester of ripe wheat.
In so many ways He says: I am the sign of God, I am the gate of heaven, I am the way to the truth, I am the persecuted and risen, I am with you always, I am the divine Spirit, I gather the marginalized and the poor and the rich. Come to me everyone who labors and is over-burdened… !
Jesus did not fulfill a promise of an easy new life for Matthew, but the life and growth of the soul and liberation of spirit which surpassed political freedom, and where, paradoxically, he said …you will find rest for your souls!

In a recent book called Power, Ambition, Glory, about leadership business secrets, Steve Forbes uses a Christian monastery as the perfect example of right attitude even for the business world: He says the secret is that the monks are not profit-driven people who happen to have a sideline interest in service for public relations purposes. Rather, they are in the business of serving God by serving one another and their neighbors. They are spiritual people who happen to run businesses; He points to charity, or what in its much larger sense the monks call caritas, which means living from the heart: it begins with a transformational change of heart, and this is what they join the monastery to find and what the monastic life provides.

This all overflows into their work and relationships with suppliers, customers, neighbors and visitors.

And so this brings us back to selflessness: the famous poet T.S. Eliot defined life as “one long purification of motive.” Forbes says for monastics this means keeping a watch on my own inner motivations; respecting deeper values until it becomes second nature; intense mutual training for each member and of new members, individual personal accountability; and finally using monastic practices to keep centered and alert within oneself in the middle of the distractions and necessities of life.

This is part of the work of Christ today and an attitude of following the gospel recorded in the name of Matthew: Matthew himself had finally discovered the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field.

Christ is in our midst.

Homily at Michael Csernica’s burial service, New Skete 6-20-09.
Glory to Jesus Christ!

In recent years I have been privileged to be present with so many people we know and love as they have passed away. I am always amazed at that journey an ill and dying person travels, especially when surrounded by family, friends, and hospice. I still feel awestruck and a bit hesitant in the presence of this mystery. Maybe only the miracle of birth is anything like it.

Each of us is so different, of course, and it seems to me individuals are also unique in how they act and react in their passing from this life. Tragedy, pain, conflict, anger, denial, and tears, are all a part of dying, but so are love, deep feeling, new ways of acting, peace, and the healing of troubled relationships in the midst of so much sadness and loss. We move a little closer to one another, even relaxing into a kind of forgiveness when that is needed.

Many of us have also seen or felt great determination and courage in those most difficult times imaginable, and how it has been enough just to put one foot in front of the other and remember to breathe. We may have asked ourselves about the things we did or did not do – but also the questions why now, why them not me, why have I survived so much – yet I have also heard in these crises the advise to be kind to yourself and carry a loving attitude toward yourself and toward each other.

All of those who lie buried here at New Skete are a part of our daily lives: and we pray for them and pass by their markers. But at every new death we become more profoundly aware of our belief handed down from generations before us. In a way beyond our senses, as good or not as good as they are, Michael’s life as well as all the others’ continues in another sphere of existence that is so real yet, beyond any words to describe it. The holy apostles knew this after the death of Jesus; believers and unbelievers before us have felt or somehow experienced it.

At one time or another we ourselves might have been witness to the certainty and unusual signs and signals that those we love who have just died are here with us. But we know too that they are going into the light and love of Christ that is greater than space and time as we know it.
All of us have a limited time to pursue new and wiser ways of living together on this earth. This can be both liberating and painful. And like those whom we mourn, we too can learn how crucial it is to get it right with the people we know, and with ourselves, and with God. Then when our own final moment of lucidity comes, we might even faintly smile and whisper in the hearing of whoever is present, “I love you.”

Is 43:1-7, Ac 5:27-42, Mt 5: 1-12; Second Sunday after Pentecost

Thoughts of a Nun

To be human is to listen to the rest of the world with a tender heart, and to learn to live with our arms open and our souls seared with a sense of responsibility for everything that is. Any human who does this is surely a saint. How do we become this kind of human as we celebrate all the saints today?

Most scripture scholars agree that the sermon on the Mount containing the beatitudes is a collection of the teachings of Jesus done over a much longer time than one sitting down and opening of his mouth. This sermon is the concentrated memory of many hours of heart to heart communion between the disciples and their master. Delving into the meanings of these blessings from today’s gospel would certainly cause us to be fully human if we could understand them the way Jesus meant them.

How much of this concentrated teaching of Jesus do we understand? How do we understand it?

For instance, the poor in spirit are not those who are destitute. Material poverty is not a good thing. Jesus would never have called living in slums or on the streets and not having enough to eat a blessed condition to be in. One aim of Christianity, even of just humanity, is to eliminate that kind of poverty. The poor are blessed because having realized their own helplessness, have put their whole trust in God to lead them. They are living in the Kingdom of God, wanting to do what God wants of them. The Evangelist Matthew wanted to make sure his listeners did not think being poor financially meant an automatic ticket to the kingdom of God.

In the next Blessed, the Greek term for Mourning means the greatest of grieves one might have. Such as for a very dear one who has died. Another way of saying this is: Blessed are those who are intensely sorry for the sorrow and the suffering in this world. Undoubtedly it also means blessed are they who are sorry for their own sins and failings. The joy of forgiving and of being forgiven is the greatest of comforts. The essential kindness of our fellow human beings reaching out also shows us the comfort and compassion of God.

Aristotle defined meekness as the middle between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness. It is the happy medium between too much and too little anger.
A rule of thumb for this type of meekness could be to not get angry over insult and injury done to oneself but be only right to be angry at injuries done to others. Another understanding, perhaps a better one, of meekness is lofty–heartedness meaning a true humility which banishes all pride. Without this humility a person cannot learn, for the first step to learning is the realization of our own ignorance. This humility or awareness of our own ignorance allows for a certain kind of gentleness in our approach to life.

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness, in other words, goodness. In the time of Jesus there were those who would literally die because of no food or water. Even today there are places where this is so. It is not our condition or state but if it were, do we value goodness as much as we would value food or drink if we were starving or dying of thirst? Most of us have an instinctive desire for goodness. Are we prepared though to make the effort and sacrifices real goodness requires? Think what the world might be like if we desired goodness more than anything else.

The Lord’s prayer; “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” and “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy” seem almost synonymous and are pretty clear in meaning. In looking up some of the words in the Greek though, the meaning of mercy (Chesedh) means the ability to get right inside the other person’s skin so that we see, think and feel as that person does. We are able to experience what the other is experiencing. Think how much easier it would be to understand, to sympathize, even forgive and be kind in a helpful way if we were experiencing what the other was experiencing. In a sense, did not God do just that? In Jesus God became human, being able to see things, feel things and think things as a human.

To be human is to listen to the rest of the world with a tender heart, and to learn to live with our arms open and our souls seared with a sense of responsibility for everything that is. That is what Jesus does. He has shown us the way. We don’t have to go to other countries or nations. Be this kind of human to the person next to us. Let us continue pondering these teachings and learn how to live them as the saints did, each of us in our own way.

Christ is in our midst!

Reflections of a Monk on June 7, 2009: Pentecost Sunday

Jl 2:23-3:5; Ac 2:1-11; Jn 7:37-52,8:12

Within the Trinity there is an unparalleled harmony: a harmony so perfect that this unity of persons can actually be described as one.

The angels – choirs of angels – reflect that music. In the book of Isaiah we hear the angels chant: Holy, Holy, Holy. And what are they doing? This isn’t merely, “Oh wow.” It is rather the reflection of the beauty of God – not just the power of God but the love expressed within that relationship and which pours over into and through everything else.

And God creates a universe. We speak of the harmony of the spheres. We talk about how it all works together so well. Even decay has its beauty: undecayed cheese is milk. All of this is harmony.

And God said, “I want to create an instrument of music which has the possibility of changing music. And God created the human heart. And God gave the human heart amazing power. We have the power to allow the Spirit of God to play the flute of the heart to make the music of God. We have the power to transform even the greatest of sorrows into a form of joy through hope and love. We also have the power to turn the music off. To take the music of God and turn it into a concerto for unaccompanied ego in the key of me by filling that instrument with sin, with death, with my concerns, with how important I am, with what I need to be. I can close down that great creation of God, that beautiful instrument, by filling it in with junk.

For there to be music, the heart must be empty. A flute that is filled in is a stick — the hollowed out is the flute. The emptiness is what is essential to what is human. It is only when we present ourselves as empty that God can fill us. The chalice can only be filled because it is empty.

God creates the human heart – and we fill it up. And God says, “Let me help you empty this.” And Jesus comes and shows us, in his kenotic (emptying) reality; Jesus comes to us and says, “I will set aside the fullness of divinity in myself. I will come to you – totally empty – and I will let God fill me. And I will let the Spirit play through me for you so that you can hear the music of God once more.

We listen to that music and we try to emulate Him. And that is great music.

We fill ourselves up again. And sometimes that filling is like filling the heart with concrete. And God comes and says, “I will give you things that will break your hear open. I will destroy that hardened heart for you if you but let me. And in my rising, your heart will be healed so that once again can the Spirit play.”

Are we willing to let God empty us? Are we willing to set aside our music for the music of God? Are we willing to set aside our raging for peace? Are we wiling to set aside our whining for responsibility?

Are we willing to hear the music of those around us? Can I rejoice with the music of rejoicing or do I set up the discord of envy and jealousy? Am I willing to harmonize with the music of sadness and loss – of mourning – or do I throw in the ratcheting of impatience? (“Why aren’t you over this yet?”)

God loves music.

Are we willing to be the instruments of God? Are we willing to reflect back with the angels that beauty — that harmony — presented to us as the essence of our nature?

In a few minutes we will recite the Creed. That Creed as Br Christopher pointed out last week is something that binds us together. In the Greek text of the liturgy, the invitation to the recitation of the Creed is not, “With one mind,” rather it is, “In harmony let us profess Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” In harmony! Because each of us is different and yet, as we listen, as we balance – we become harmonious with each other and with the One who made us.

This is work. If you were among those who had a chance to participate in the music workshop with Kevin Lawrence last week, you know: it was work. Getting us to stay on pitch — was work. Understanding how a true third really works as opposed to what we were singing as a third — is work! But it’s worth it.

The inner-life – is work.
To be in harmony with the will of God — is work.
To be in harmony with the people around me — is work.
To develop the intimacy, the awareness required, so that, so that in listening to each other we are together — is work.
Anybody here married, knows that when your marriage works — it’s work!

And yet, the harmony that is there, the beauty that is there, the growth that is there when we allow ourselves to be instruments of God through which the Spirit plays, makes the human voice prophetic: the voice of God comes through me to you and that same voice comes through you to me. And that voice is music because it transcends all language; it transcends everything in its purity, in its depth, in what it does to us. So that all of me is nothing but ear and voice: feeling – knowing – the love of God and reflecting that divine love back to divinity like the angels.

Christ, who heals and empties and raises, 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!