Theo's has migrated to Awakened Heart. Subscribe now at https://johnkirkley.substack.com/. Thursday, May 26, 2022
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
A Soul on Fire
I recently finished reading St. Teresa of Ávila’s The Book of My Life in a superb translation by Mirabai Starr. Starr’s rendering conveys the personality, vitality and humor of this 16th century Spanish mystic. It is a delight to spend time with this blessed saint.
It is easy to become fascinated by the visions, locutions, and miracles St. Teresa experienced, but what is most important is the fruit that it bore in her life. The through-line of her story that deserves our attention is the gradual transfiguration of her interior life, the dispossession of the self, that she undergoes. Although the details of her experience are particular, the basic structure or progression of this transfiguration is remarkably congruent with the witness of mystics before and after her.
St. Teresa sounds like Evagrius or Cassian (4th century monks) when she writes about the relinquishment of egocentricity through the healing of stuck emotions, obsessions, and compulsions. These are surrendered to God, seemingly dropping of their own accord when we realize the truth that they no longer serve us very well. We don’t strive to let go of these things (that just keeps us locked in self-preoccupation), so much as they are lifted from us when we are willing to trust God’s presence and action in our life.
A soul who has been given mastery of her own desires has a huge advantage. But she does not bequeath this dominion to herself. It is a gift from God. Someone who does not have this kind of detachment cannot understand what it’s like. It is not a matter of self-control; it comes naturally, without any labor on our part. God does it all. And he does it by revealing truths in such a way that they are imprinted on our souls. It is obvious to us that this detachment is a divine gift, because we never could have acquired it so quickly and easily on our own. (p. 312)
Teresa is describing the ideal of apatheia, freedom from disordered passions and attachments, that leads to metanoia, a larger consciousness in which the soul becomes transparent to the divine energy of agape. The fruit of the awakened heart is truly creative action in conformity with the invitations to love made possible by a new clarity of vision (purity of heart). We no longer receive our identity from the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, or our attachments to external sources, but from God.
It’s amazing! When we are united with this fire, it annihilates the old self, with all her cravings and faults, her insipid misery. We are like the phoenix, which is completely burned and then rises again from those same ashes. And so the soul, once she is consumed by the fire of love, becomes something altogether different. She has new desires and tremendous fortitude. She is not what she was before, and she follows the way of the Lord with new purity. (p. 333)
St. Teresa combines a rare humility with a bold affirmation of the endless possibilities for the evolution of human consciousness. Our Beloved desires such wonderful things for us. By grace we can become so much more than we think we are capable of becoming. We can become a living flame of love (as St. Teresa’s friend, St. John of the Cross, would say).
Friday, May 20, 2022
Prayer of the Heart
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| Prayer of the Heart Retreat Participants, The Bishop's Ranch |
I feel sorry for people who only have books to rely on. It’s amazing how different what we think we understand is from what we learn later through experience. - St. Teresa of Avila
I'm a person who loves - LOVES - books. Some of my best and longest-standing friends are books! I've drawn sustenance from them and even a kind of energetic vibration that resonated within me while reading them. Even so, there are some things we can only learn through direct experience, and that is certainly true in the life of prayer. I've just finished leading a two-day intensive Centering Prayer retreat with a half-dozen beautiful souls, who embraced the intimacy and transfiguring power of shared silence and holy conversation. I'm so grateful for their vulnerability, wisdom, and desire for God.
The focus of our time together was the practice of Centering Prayer, which Cynthia Bourgeault describes as "The prayer of the heart in meditation form." It is a method of meditation that brings the mind into the heart, awakening the heart's capacities as an organ of spiritual perception beating in rhythm with the heartbeat of God. It fosters what Jesus called metanoia - transcending or expanding the mind to embrace a larger consciousness that perceives the divine energies suffusing all of reality in love. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
St. John of the Cross perhaps best describes the experience of the awakened heart.
The soul feels its ardor strengthen and increase and its love become so refined in this ardor that seemingly there flow seas of loving fire within it, reaching to the heights and depths of the earthly and heavenly spheres, imbuing all with love. It seems to it that the entire universe is a sea of love in which it is engulfed, for conscious of the living point or center of love within itself, it is unable to catch sight of the boundaries of this love.
Centering Prayer helps us to stabilize our identity with this living center of love within ourselves, which is our true identity in the imago Dei. When we do so, we begin to love others as our selves because they are: we begin to radiate the energy of agape, of self-emptying love.
The practice of Centering Prayer literally reconfigures our brains - metanonia written in neural pathways that increase our capacity for wisdom and compassion, as contemporary neuroscience is beginning to discover.
What we do matters. How we pray matters. It matters for the development of human consciousness, which may be an evolutionary imperative for the healing of the earth. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." May it be so, in us.
Monday, May 16, 2022
The Way of Wisdom
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| St. George's Chapel, The Bishop's Ranch |
Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight. - Proverbs 4:6-7
For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. - I Corinthians 1:22-24
Drawing on Hebrew scripture's image of Divine Wisdom as a preexistent feminine figure through whom God created all things, the New Testament describes Christ as the Wisdom or Sophia of God. She is incarnate in Christ. This image is taken up in the prologue of John's Gospel and in St. Paul's letters (see John 1:3 and Colossians 1:15-15). In later tradition, we see Anselm of Canterbury referring to Christ our Mother in his Prayer to St. Paul, and St. Julian of Norwich, too, in her Revelations of Divine Love, refers to Christ as our True Mother. They are implicitly referencing and transposing this biblical image of Sophia onto Christ.
We often reserve the "divine feminine" to Mariology, if we honor it at all, but that does not do full justice to the range of images in Christian tradition. How delightful, then, to worship at St. George's Chapel at the Bishop's Ranch yesterday, and pray in these words written by Father Brendan Williams, CSR, the chaplain at the Ranch:
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so to perfectly know your Divine Wisdom, embodied in our living Master, Jesus Christ, that we may steadfastly follow her steps in the way that leads to illumination, and thereby attain to eternal life; through the same Divine Wisdom, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit: One God, now and forever. Amen.
And to affirm our commitment to the Way of Wisdom, in this Affirmation of Faith also authored by Father Brendan:
You, O God, are supreme and holy.
You are absolute Being, Consciousness, and Bliss,
from before time and forever.
You continually give birth to the world,
and give life to all beings.
Like waves on an ocean,
in and from you all things arise,
and, in your time, they return to you.
You, O God, are infinite Love,
and goodness beyond all measure.
You have revealed your compassion for all Creation
in Jesus Christ, the embodiment of your Wisdom,
who lived and died and rose again.
You, O God, are ever living, eternal,
birthing all things in the breath of your Spirit.
May we know your Truth and be freed
from every error and illusion.
May we be one and whole,
united forever with your Life,
in which there is no death.
Amen.
Father Brendan's liturgical innovations, rooted in Eastern Christian tradition and enriched through encounter with other Eastern Wisdom traditions, skillfully and poetically weave together themes of creation, incarnation, and the divine feminine that we desperately need to recover to heal our fragmented world. They give fresh expression to the Mystery of God, who is calling us into a future that requires us to deepen our capacity for imagination and compassion. A deep bow to Father Brendan, with thanksgiving.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
On Burning Down the House
This is Andrew Harvey commenting on Rumi:
Desperation, let me always knowHow to welcome youAnd put in your hands the torchTo burn down the house.
When you are desperate, it is often a clue that you need to leave an old way of being, and old way of life, an old understanding. Often, we smother that desperation, we cuddle it, we comatize it. But Rumi says, "Have the courage of your desperation" and put in the hands of your desperation the torch, the flame of Love and insight, and burn your house down. Allow desperation to be a Master instead of something that drives you deeper into coma.
We are at a desperate moment in human history. The world is in terrible denial of what is actually going on, because people are simply afraid of the level of desperation that they would feel if they faced what is going on. The point is that we have to face what is going on and allow that desperation to rise in us, and we have to follow that desperation right to its home which is in Divine initiation, Divine transformation. We have to let that desperation "take a torch and burn down" all our concepts, limits, fantasies, and banal solutions, because it is far too late and none of them are going to work.
Light the incense!You have to burn to be fragrantTo scent the whole houseYou have to burn to the ground.
Incense is made out of all sorts of dark things, just like the ego. If you want the incense to scent the house, you have to light it, light the ego. In disappearing, it releases the Divine perfume everywhere. If you want to scent the whole universe as Rumi did, you have to burn away. That is the Law.
- Andrew Harvey, The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1994), p. 70 -71
Or, as Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell
you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." - John 12:24-25
Saturday, May 7, 2022
Clearing the Path
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| Outdoor labyrinth at the Bishop's Ranch |
I am currently on a three-month sabbatical, and am spending the first month as the Prayer Resident at the Bishop's Ranch. In exchange for leading Morning and Evening Prayer preceded by a period of silent meditation, I receive room and board. It is a wonderful program, allowing me to enjoy the peace and beauty of this remarkable camp and conference center that I have been visiting regularly for 26 years.
When I arrived at the Ranch, I noticed that the outdoor labyrinth had become overgrown. Many of the rocks marking the path were completely covered with moss-like soil, and the path itself was filled with branches and weeds. I decided I needed some labora (work) to go along with my ora (prayer). I spent the past three mornings patiently clearing the path. It was close work, much of it on my hands and knees.
I found the work to be contemplative, focusing my attention on the present moment. Rake the path. Remove weeds. Rake the path again. Remove what you missed. Place weeds in a bucket. Dump in the refuse pile for composting. Repeat. I was like the Karate Kid: "Wax on, wax off." It took me about nine hours over three mornings to clear the path. It was tiring, but satisfying.
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| weed pile |
Spiritual practice is about clearing the path. We are all on a journey toward wholeness. We all desire to live from the center, from the realization of our true identity as manifestations of divine love. The truth is that this center is everywhere. As Cynthia Bourgeault describes it, it isn't so much a place to which we go as it is a place from which we come. We carry it with us in the awakened heart.
The problem is that we forget our true identity. We lose sight of the path, overgrown with anxiety, compulsions, and attachments like so many weeds. We become identified with the story about ourselves, and the related emotional repertory, that we have internalized over many years. It requires patient work to dis-identify with this familial and cultural identity. We have to clear the weeds so that we can see the living stones that mark our path to the center.
For me, the spiritual practice is Centering Prayer. Twenty minutes
every morning, twenty minutes every evening. Wax on, wax off. Those
damn weeds keeping popping up, no matter how many times I rake the
path! But as I clear the path, gently letting go of the weeds (which
really are nothing other than good compost for spiritual growth), I find
my way back to the center.
Clearing the path isn't easy. Sometimes, it literally drives us to our knees. It requires a posture of humility and a willingness to persist in our spiritual practice. It isn't a one-and-done experience. It is an iterative process, moving us ever more deeply into the depths of divine love that flows from the awakened heart. With time and practice, we begin to stabilize our capacity to live from the center. Having removed the log from our own eye, we can now see how to aid our neighbor in removing the splinter in their eye. We mirror the divine light shining through them, so that they can find their way to the center too.
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
This Night: An Easter Vigil Sermon
“How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined, and we are reconciled to God.”
This night, this Great Vigil of Easter, is hands down, my favorite night of the year. I have my mother largely to thank for this. We were always an Easter Vigil kind of family. I remember being a small child, enchanted as I watched the new flame spark into life outside the Catholic churches where we worshipped. I remember the feeling of awe as our little candles were lit from that flame, and the sanctuary slowly filled with a soft glow. I remember being drawn into the readings from scripture, those strange, evocative accounts of God’s saving deeds. And I remember watching adult catechumens experience the sacrament of baptism and witnessing their joy as they were fully welcomed into the life of the church.
As I got older, the Easter Vigil was one of the places where I began to feel my own love of the Christian faith beginning to take root and grow. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that during this time when I was realizing that church was something I felt drawn to in my own right, I was also falling in love with science fiction and fantasy. While I was memorizing the Nicene Creed, serving as an acolyte, and probably annoying all the other kids in the religious-ed classes at our church, I was also wandering across Middle-Earth with Frodo and Sam, slipping into new corners of the universe alongside Meg and Charles Wallace Murray, and searching for Narnia in the back of my disappointingly mundane bedroom closet.
With apologies to every single one of my seminary professors, I came to love church, through the Easter Vigil because it felt like magic. I yearned so badly to be a part of a story that would take me out of the ordinariness of my little middle-school life and allow me to live in a brighter, more fulfilling version of the world.
Now, quite a few years have passed since those formative vigil experiences, but I am still captivated by the sheer mystery of this liturgy, and I am even more firmly convinced that the present reality we occupy cannot be the only story God intends for us. We gather for the Easter Vigil mere hours after we recount the narrative of Jesus’ trial at the hands of earthly powers and his horrifying death on the cross. By rights, after experiencing the desolation of Good Friday, we should have no reason to hope. We can imagine how utterly lost and uncertain the disciples must have felt this night, after laying Jesus in the tomb. We can imagine the grief and the real fear carried by the women who went to that same tomb early the next day.
And God knows, all of us have likely experienced similar feelings, especially after these last two pandemic years. The world today, can feel like a dark, uncertain, and frightening space as we are faced with images of violent conflict abroad, as we confront the history of discrimination and abuse that has shaped the culture of our own country, and as we continue to live into a world reshaped by growing ecological crisis. Tonight might be the first service of Easter, but we cannot ignore the reality that Good Friday is also still very present in our life together.
And yet. This night, this space created by the words spoken and actions performed during our time together – they remind us that the tomb may be dark, and it may be empty, but it is not a meaningless or terrifying void. Rather, it is a space of potential, of anticipation. It is a space alive with the knowledge that something truly incredible has occurred. It not an end, in fact, it is the beginning of a story – a story that called a small group of people into an utterly new way of life two thousand years ago and that continues to shape the way all of us, gathered in this space tonight, choose to live in our lives now.
There is a special kind of remembering that we do when we come together as the Church. The word for this kind of remembering is anamnesis – we remember in a way that makes a past event somehow present. This Great Vigil of Easter, this entire service is basically an anamnesis. We have just heard the “record of God’s saving deeds in history.” We have been reminded that God was and is the creator of all that we call good. We have been reminded that God was the liberator who brought the Israelites out of Egypt and is still standing with those who remain in bondage today. We have been reminded that God was and is powerful enough to restore life to even the most barren and broken corners of the world. We have been reminded that God was and is in our midst, rejoicing with us and renewing us with love. As we have heard these stories about how God acted and spoke, we have been reminded of who God was, and is, and will continue to be.
But these ancient stories are not just about God. They are also about God’s people. They are about us. In just a few minutes, we will renew our baptismal vows. In doing so, we will not only affirm what we believe about our triune God and God’s church, we will also recommit ourselves to the promises that we made as people who have chosen to live in this world as followers of the risen Christ. I know it’s dark and you’ve all got candles, but just go ahead and take a look at the baptismal covenant – it’s next up in your bulletin (BCP 304). You will notice that these baptismal promises are full of gorgeous, active verbs like persevere and proclaim, seek and strive. These promises are about worship and prayer, yes, but they also call us outside the walls of this building, into deeper relationship with our neighbors and the wider world.
These baptismal promises move and inspire me every time I am called to reaffirm them, and they are one of the reasons why I came to love this Episcopal Church. While I was baptized as an infant, I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church as a teenager, and I think I can claim at least a small degree of kinship with those adult catechumens I saw baptized during the Easter Vigils of my childhood. The faith that I have found in this church is one that I chose to claim when I was sixteen and have continued to choose to claim every day since. Our baptismal covenant reminds us that the Christian faith is not something that we simply observe or receive. Rather, when we choose to accept God’s grace and love, we are called into an entirely new way of being, as members of Christ’s resurrected body and agents of God’s transformative, ongoing work.
I never did find Narnia in the back of a wardrobe, and my Hogwarts letter remained stubbornly lost in the mail. And although 12-year-old Catherine is still a little sad about this reality, present-day Catherine has received the gift of a story that is so much bigger and so much more hopeful than anything I’ve ever read in a novel. The story of God’s saving action through the glories of creation, God’s relationship with the people of Israel, and Jesus, God’s own child, who became human, lived among us, and died so we could enter new life, this story is the one that I have chosen to orient my life around because it is a story that has not ended. It is a story where I – and all of you! – have a real and meaningful part yet to play.
When we boldly profess that Christ has died, is risen, and will come again, we are stepping into a story that pushes us out of our finite, fundamentally human ways of thinking and opens space for a whole realm of possibilities. We can acknowledge, decry, and lament all the spaces where the death-dealing forces of this present time remain heart-breakingly active, while also joyfully proclaiming that God’s promised future is still to come. And what’s more, we can anticipate that future by cultivating hopeful spaces for resurrection and renewal to take root and flourish in our own lives and communities.
And so, my friends, before we move through the rest of this glorious liturgy and into the full celebration of this Easter season, let us linger here in the darkness for just a moment longer. In this night when earth and heaven are joined, let us pause to both remember and reclaim our deepest hope in the mystery of God’s yet-unfolding story that is alive and present in each and every one of our lives, tonight and always. Amen.
- preached by the Rev. Catherine Manhardt, St. James Episcopal Church, April 16, 2022
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
While it was still dark: Easter Day Sermon on John 20:1-18
There is so much in this resurrection story that speaks to my heart. It has the ring of authenticity. Our text tells us that hope began “while it was still dark.” That is when Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, carrying the weight of grief. She came to anoint Jesus’ body, to try to get some closure, but the body was gone. Mary is frantic. What have they done with him? Where did they take him? Will this nightmare never end?
Easter begins in the dark; not with bright banners, painted eggs, and the scent of flowers, but with broken hearts, blood-stained linens, and the reek of death. It is an appropriate place to start because that is where so many people find themselves. Easter begins where we are: lonely, afraid, uncertain, anxious, bereft, numb, distracted, indifferent. We all have to look loss, and fear, and failure in the face eventually. We are all vulnerable. If you find yourself in the dark today, please know that you are not alone. You’ve come to the right place.
Mary Magdalene is the brave one. She is willing to acknowledge reality, even when it is painful. She doesn’t run away from her grief. She is doing the best she can. But finding the body missing is the last straw. Then Mary does something even braver. She runs to Peter and the unnamed disciple whom Jesus loved and shares with them what is going on. She asks for help.
Easter begins in darkness, but the first rays of dawn’s light emerge when the darkness is shared, as the burden you are carrying is made lighter because you are no longer carrying it alone. This is the first step in the renewal of hope. For some, that first step takes them into an AA meeting or a therapist’s office. Many have found hope renewed at their first Black Lives Matter protest or Take Back the Night march. That first step might even be tentatively crossing the threshold of the church door. Easter becomes possible when we are no longer alone.
Sharing our vulnerability with others, trusting that they will hedge that vulnerability round with dignity and care, opens us to the possibility of new life. Peter and the Beloved Disciple, like Mary Magdalene, struggle with their own responses to the empty tomb. Still, at the very least, they reassure Mary that the tomb is indeed empty. She isn’t crazy. The trauma and loss are real. But even more, they begin to struggle toward making some meaning of this experience; even the possibility that Jesus is still with them somehow, as he had promised.
The male disciples return home, leaving Mary weeping outside the tomb. She musters her courage once again, and peers inside the tomb to see for herself what they have reported. Sometimes, maybe for quite a long time, what keeps us going is the hope that we might share the healing that others seem to enjoy. We want what they have; if they can get it, maybe it is possible for me too. But that only gets us so far. It is one thing to credit the witness to hope of others. It is quite another thing to experience its fulfillment yourself.
Mary, perceiving with the eyes of the heart, is able to see what the others could not yet see: not just the possibility of resurrection, of new life, but the reality. This capacity turns on the ability to entrust oneself, not only to the care of others, but to the care of God. This brings us to a whole other level of healing.
First, the angels appear, raising the question, “Woman, why are you weeping?” The divine messengers cut to the heart of the matter. They invite Mary to fully embrace her grief. There are no shortcuts in the spiritual life. Articulating a story about our fear, our failure, our loss is an essential step in healing. The formation of memory makes the past, the past, so that we can begin to imagine a future no longer limited by it.
As soon as Mary names her grief, the shape of healing immediately comes into view. But it is not a clear vision. The Risen Jesus stands before her, but she is not able to recognize him immediately. She thinks he is the gardener! He asks again, “Why are you weeping?” Healing is rarely a one and done sort of thing. We circle around our wounds again and again, until an answer to the question appears.
The answer comes clearly into view for Mary when she hears Jesus say her name. Easter is not an abstract theory, a generic offering of resurrection and new life. It is always specific. There is resurrection for Mary, for Peter, for the beloved disciple, for you, for me. It is always an experience of personal encounter, in which the Holy One whispers our name, and we recognize, finally, that we are held, wounds and all, in a love that never dies. This is the high noon of resurrection light, which we could not possibly have imagined at dawn. In its light, everything looks different.
Of course, Mary can’t hold on to this moment or to Jesus. Healing is always a great letting go, an unconditional openness to reality. Knowing that she is loved, Mary can let go of the past – even her past experience of Jesus – so that she is free to embrace the new way of being with Jesus that is opening up for her and for us. Mary is free to embrace the future that God has promised: a future in which all things are being made new.
Mary runs to tell her friends, “I have seen the Lord!” That is, after all, what friends do: they share the new life they have discovered so that others may experience it for themselves. And so, Easter comes, again and again and again.
Friday, April 15, 2022
Jesus' Jewish Imagination
On Palm Sunday and at yesterday’s celebration of the Holy Eucharist, I spoke about the importance of grief and voluntary suffering as aspects of prophetic criticism and resistance to evil. To follow Jesus means following him in the way of the cross, rekindling the fire of divine love through tears and hard work.
But lament is not the only tool in the prophet’s toolkit. The other tool is imagination. Prophetic imagination envisions alternatives to the way things are: the possibility of life beyond oppression, suffering, and death. Grief must be paired with hope. On Maundy Thursday, we celebrate Jesus’ prophetic imagination, expressed through the signs of a shared meal and an act of humble service. His is a specifically Jewish imagination, and it is important to acknowledge and honor the Jewish roots of our own practices of hope as we celebrate the rite of foot-washing and the sacrament of Holy Communion.
In Jewish practice, every common meal as well as the meals held on festivals is an act of thanksgiving for God’s gifts of creation and redemption. Thanksgiving is expressed in the table blessings prescribed for every meal, and include a specific commemoration for the various festival meals. The host of the meal recites a special blessing at the breaking of the bread at the beginning of the meal. At festive meals, a special blessing is also recited over the cup of wine at the conclusion of the meal.
Our accounts of the Last Supper depict Jesus reciting these blessings over the bread and wine consistent with traditions familiar to every Jew from their earliest childhood. Such table fellowship, however, was not only an act of thanksgiving but also a sign of unity and peace. To share a meal with someone was to include them in the promise of God’s future reign of justice and peace. Eating constituted community. This is why some of Jesus’ contemporaries were scandalized by his eating with tax collectors and sinners. It signified an invitation to them to share in the blessings of the future reign of God.
For centuries before Jesus, the prophetic tradition of Israel imagined the reign of God under the sign of a celebratory banquet or meal. Jesus’ table fellowship during his public ministry was a visible sign anticipating the fulfillment of God’s promised reign now. It was an enacted parable of the kingdom.
The Synoptic Gospels present the Last Supper as a Passover meal, the festival celebrating the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt, and connect it to Jesus’ death (and resurrection). Through the lens of the Passover, we are invited to interpret Jesus’ death and resurrection as an act of redemption (liberating us from sin and death) and renewal of God’s covenant (re-establishing a community of justice and peace). The Church takes up this symbolism in our practice of Holy Communion, a ritual meal signifying the future to which God is calling us and gifting us with a foretaste of that future now. Only, in our table fellowship, Christ’s death and resurrection, rather than the Exodus from Egypt, is the sign and guarantee of God’s promise of salvation for the whole creation.
Sharing this meal is a practice of hope. It manifests our union with God and one another, and nourishes our capacity for faith and love. By it, we are given the grace to persevere in the work of love for God’s promised future, and the blessing of tasting the fulfillment of that promise in our life together now. The sacrificial love of God manifest in Jesus’ death and resurrection is made real in this meal. Each time we gather around the table, we affirm that life is meant to be like this; not the world of division and death that we too often experience. There is another way to live.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus adds another dimension to our practice of hope. Unlike the leaders of his time and ours, who are preoccupied with status and control, Jesus admonished his disciples that he has come to serve, not to be served. At the table we set to celebrate God’s reign, the leaders are servants. How much better would the Church be, if its clergy could only understand that we are the wait staff! Jesus underscores this understanding of leadership by washing his disciples’ feet after sharing the Last Supper with them. God’s reign is manifest in a community where power is exercised through mutual vulnerability and love, rather than through domination and manipulation.
Imagine a community in which all are welcome at the table, and no one goes hungry! Imagine a community in which leaders are trustworthy servants. Imagine a community that gives thanks for the gifts of the earth, and shares them freely and equally in the service of liberation and life! Imagine a God who comes close to us to break bread, pour wine, wash our feet, and die to set us free to live because God loves us that much, and for no other reason. Imagine! And give thanks for our Jewish brother, Jesus, and for our Jewish siblings then and now, for this gift of prophetic imagination. May Passover and Easter inspire us to realize God’s hope for the world.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Suffering joyfully?
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
When was the last time you prayed, as our collect for today does, “to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed?” I feel a little uncomfortable with this prayer. It is not a way of praying that I would commend to someone in the midst of great trauma or loss. It leaves something to be desired as a pastoral response to other people’s suffering. So, what do we do with this prayer?
I am reluctant to tell other people how they should respond to their suffering. At the same time, there is a sense in which religion is precisely about what we do with our suffering. If our faith cannot help us meet the challenge of suffering, then what good is it? I am reluctant, but I can tell you what I do with this prayer. Take what is helpful and leave the rest.
There is a big difference between suffering that I can or cannot accept – suffering that presents itself to us as a choice – and suffering that is imposed upon us, that simply crushes our will. We might call this the difference between voluntary and involuntary suffering. It is not always so easy to distinguish between the two, but I believe it is a distinction that makes a difference.
Any choice to serve a good that is larger than myself involves a kind of voluntary suffering: the sacrifices one makes to raise children, or create art, or secure human dignity and freedom. Jesus’ suffering, it seems to me, is voluntary in this sense: the result of his absolute commitment to stand in solidarity with all who suffer and to embrace them in the healing power of love – no matter what.
Suffering undertaken voluntarily is always done in the hope of a better future: confident of the glory that shall be revealed. We may not experience that future. Like Moses, we may not get to the Promised Land, but we will suffer so that others can get there. It seems to me that such suffering is an unavoidable aspect of the evolution of human consciousness, and the realization of love in the concrete circumstances of life.
If you’ve ever participated in a movement for justice or shared in the life of a congregation to which you are committed, you have probably experienced the paradoxical joy that comes with voluntary suffering: the sense of meaning, of community, of discovering one’s rightful place in the world; dare I say, discovering God’s will for you. Such joy is not about pain or pleasure. It is about purpose.
And it is about love. The love of God and God’s love for us, can be stronger than every form of affliction. This is the mystical core of our capacity to accept suffering joyfully. In her profound and lyrical book, simply titled, Suffering, Dorothee Soelle beautifully expresses this understanding of “accepting” suffering.
She writes,
It is paradoxical but true that unconditional love for reality does not in the least defuse passionate desires to change reality. To love God unconditionally does not mean to deny our concrete desires and accept everything as it is. To put it in mystical terminology, unconditional love can allow itself the most absurd desires – it can pray for them and work for them, precisely because it does not make the existence of God depend upon the fulfillment of these desires.
Mystical love . . . transcends every God who is less than love.[1]
We can pray with the psalmist, “O Lord make haste to help me,” even as we willingly accept the suffering occasioned by the resistance we face in our determination to persist in the work of love. All of our scripture readings today are addressed to communities facing persecution and suffering, precisely because of the resistance to the work love they were facing. It isn’t so much that they chose suffering, but that they were willing to suffer for choosing love.
In each case, they were encouraged to persevere because (a) all suffering is temporary and (b) God will vindicate the work of sacrificial love. Such voluntary suffering is a participation in the “glory” of God: it is a sharing in the reputation or identity of God. The image of God is revealed within us through the tempering fire of sacrificial love. We cannot love what we do not accept. And we cannot change what we do not love. That seems to be the order of the divine economy: we do not need to change in order to be loved, but having been loved we will be changed. Thus, Jesus washed the feet even of Judas, the one who betrayed him, and accepted Judas’ betrayal as a step toward sharing God’s glory.
Now, there is also involuntary suffering. Suffering we do not and should not choose. When it comes to involuntary suffering, love demands that we seek to ameliorate the causes of that suffering and repair the damage that has been done. It is for this purpose that we accept voluntary suffering. This is the clear teaching of holy scripture from Moses to Jesus.
And, yet, I have witnessed a capacity for acceptance of even involuntary suffering when circumstances cannot be changed. “Acceptance” in this sense does not mean that such suffering should be desired or that it is somehow justified – a punishment for sin or a necessary lesson. It is the very opposite of thinking that suffering is sent by God for our own good. “Acceptance” in this sense is the freedom to integrate suffering into our experience without being defined by it, without it reducing our world to a single point of pain, confident of God’s vindication. Love is stronger than every form of affliction.
Moses did not enter the Promised Land. Not everyone experiences liberation from suffering in this lifetime. We know this. Even so, I take comfort from the image of Moses and Elijah with Jesus on the holy mountain where Jesus was transfigured. The horizon of love’s healing power extends far beyond the compass of our lifetime. This is not a reason for quietism or withdrawal from the work of love; rather, it is a source of strength, as the glory that will be revealed is even now reaching out to embrace us from beyond the horizon. It is in the light of the Resurrection that the darkness of Holy Week casts its shadow. Amen.
Monday, April 11, 2022
Saying Their Names: A Palm Sunday Sermon
As we begin our observance of Holy Week, let us pause with Jesus as he stands weeping just outside of Jerusalem. I have diverted from the lectionary, which would have us read Luke’s Passion narrative today, so that we could take this moment with Jesus in his grief. You see, Holy Week isn’t only about Jesus’ passion. It is about the suffering of all the victims of injustice for whom Jesus weeps. Let us pause and take all the time we need to acknowledge our collective failure to recognize the things that make for peace; our failure to recognize God’s presence with us. We must mourn for Jesus this week, but not for him alone.
Palm Sunday is often described as the celebration of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, hailed as the long awaited king of Israel. But Jesus didn’t see it that way. He rode into the city with tears streaming down his cheeks. “In the world of feeling, tears are the criterion of truth.”[1] Only Luke’s Gospel has the courage to show us the truth of Palm Sunday and it is a bitter truth; there is no way to sugar-coat it. Jesus’ tears break through every attempt to deny, minimize, or avoid the suffering of God’s people.[2]
Jesus refuses to act as if everything is just fine. Neither is he naïve about the prospects for change around the edges of the system. He knows that things are about to fall apart. Indeed, they need to fall apart, so that something genuinely new and live-giving can break through our indifference, conformity, and complicity with the way things are. We cannot solve the problems we have created from within the level of consciousness that created them. We must undergo metanoia, the transfiguration of our consciousness and awakening of our conscience generated by the breaking-open of our hearts.
This is why lament is one of the central tools in the prophet’s toolkit. Grief acknowledges the reality that things are not as they should be. This isn’t easy. Amma Syncletica said “We must kindle the divine fire in ourselves through tears and hard work.” Acknowledging reality is hard work. We can become so inured to the suffering within us and around us that it requires effort to break through our numbness.
Jesus was anything but numb. He wept over Jerusalem, acknowledging that the failure to pursue peace would have devastating consequences for his people. He wept over the broken bodies, broken lives, and broken hearts that he encountered wherever he travelled; the crowds of suffering people clamoring for food, for healing, for justice, for life. He knew their stories. He knew their names. His love for them drove him to Jerusalem to plead their cause and share their plight.
Prophets, like Jesus, name names and grieve the losses that others refuse to acknowledge. This is the root of the veneration of the martyrs. “Saying their names” is an ancient prophetic practice that roots our energy for healing and reconciliation in compassion. The Black Lives Matter movement has powerfully reminded us of this truth: prophetic criticism is energized, not merely by anger, but overwhelmingly by love: Love for Trayvon Martin, for Ahmaud Arbery, for George Floyd, for Breonna Taylor, for Tamir Rice, for Addie Mae Collins, for Cynthia Wesley, for Carole Robinson, for Carol Denise McNair, for Martin Luther King Jr., for Medgar Evers, for Emmett Till and a litany of other victims of racist violence in the United States. So many names. So many tears. So much love.
We cannot change what we do not grieve.
Grief is a form of criticism. Tears are the criterion of truth. In the prayers of the people, we have been naming names: of loved ones suffering and grieving, of neighbors who have no home to retreat to at night, of refugees fleeing terror and hunger. All is not well. The system isn’t working. All this is obvious to the awakened heart.
“Weep. Truly, there is no other way but this” said Abba Poemen, echoing the example of Jesus on the threshold of Holy Week. Why is grief so important to our collective spiritual evolution? Because, as Margarete Mitscherlich-Neilson observes,
the defense against shame, guilt, and mourning leads to emotional emptiness in the individual and, in consequence, to psychological and political immobility, to a lack of ideas and imagination in society.[3]
Tears cleanse the lens of perception so that we can acknowledge reality and begin to imagine new possibilities. Things don’t have to be this way. Jesus weeps as he rides into Jerusalem. Then he goes to the Temple and drives out those who were using it as a pretext to exploit the poor, quoting the prophets before him, “It is written: ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” The people are spellbound by Jesus’ teaching and his action, because he imagines and enacts a future different from the way things are.
Walter Brueggemann, reflecting on Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, argues that
The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings . . . Jesus knew what we numb ones must always learn again: (a) that weeping must be real because endings are real; and (b) that weeping permits newness. His weeping permits the kingdom to come.[4]
During Holy Week, we pause to weep with Jesus. We rekindle the divine fire of love within ourselves through tears and hard work. On Holy Saturday, we will symbolize the renewal of our imagination, the love that inspires new possibilities for life together, as we kindle the new fire and carry the Light of Christ back into the world. But for now, let us pray for the gift of tears and for the courage to remember the names of those for whom, for too long, we have failed to weep. Only then, will we be able to perceive the new thing that God is doing, the things that make for peace. Amen.
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