Julia Slayton, in a meditation on this gospel several years ago, considers the opening line of the gospel reading:
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’
I want to go with this thought because I had never looked at today’s gospel reading in quite these terms.
‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus. We want to get closer to see and know him for ourselves.’
She reflects on how there are people whom we want to see, those people who draw you to them for reasons you sometimes don’t know. Perhaps you’ve had that happen?
We want to know those people in life who bring Jesus closer to us, don’t we? They exist. Some of us have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity in our lives to meet such a person. Archbishop Desmond Tutu always comes to mind but there are others. Archbishop Martín Barahona is another one of those people.
Last Monday at the Catedral Metropolitana in San Salvador, I finally met, after several years of email correspondence, someone who is almost a blood brother to me. He is a 79 year-old retired Episcopal priest in Buffalo, dealing with asthma, congestive heart failure, and the issues of mortality that come along with aging. Our connection is through El Salvador. He knew Oscar Romero and worked with him for five years. He was there at the time of Romero’s death and burial. He is also the last person to whom Romero gave communion… ever.
I said it must have been incredible to have been in Romero’s presence. He answered that Romero was one of those people who could take your pain away. Just spending time in his presence was enough to release the suffering. The church’s human rights officer, who would come into Romero’s office with 100 new cases of disappeared or tortured people in his hands, would walk out a restored person because of Romero’s healing touch on his forehead.
‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus… now.’
There is the desire of meeting the person of Jesus and then the desire to meet him now.
‘Now’ is the operative reality for the gospel. Now, the present moment. Now is the time to live fully into our baptism that has been given us through Christ’s life, death and baptism. Not tomorrow, not yesterday but fully in the present.
The Ash Wednesday epistle, which we heard six weeks ago says: ‘See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!’ Now is the time to enter into the life of dying and rising anew.
Our Christian life can be lived on the spot where we stand. This spot can encompass dying and rising anew. It can encompass the cross and resurrection. We just need to make our hearts open to that journey that happens in the present.
Do we know the hour, the now, the here?
The now is in Darfur. The now is in Sudan. The now is in the hospital. The now is in Russia. The now is in Haiti. The now is El Salvador. The now is in the Anglican Communion. It is here now and always.
‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’
Of course, when we say ‘We wish to see Jesus,’ Jesus sometimes will take us where we don’t want to go. There are ‘now’s which seem too much for us. Taking care of an aging parent. Walking alongside a dying person. Dealing with a child suffering from learning disorders. Giving up everything to follow Jesus. Don’t we go through those moments saying: ‘There’s no way I can be doing this. It has to be God who is doing this through me’?
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This Tuesday in Holy Week, the gospel asks us: Where are you bidden to abide, to stay, to watch, to pray?
Is it in the home of Mary and Martha with Lazarus?
Is it at table with Jesus and the twelve?
Is it at the trial?
Or in the garden?
Or on the cross?
Or at the tomb?
Where and when will Christ’s hour come for you?
Where is God’s glory redeeming the world now?
What is the now before you?
Remember, we cannot limit God’s power to our own terms or imagination — God’s power is far greater than that. So where do we see God’s glory redeeming the world now?
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Hymn 333 uses the words of Jaroslav Vajda that express this sense of here and present:
Now the silence
Now the peace
Now the empty hands uplifted
Now the kneeling
Now the plea
Now the Father’s arms in welcome
Now the hearing
Now the power
Now the vessel brimmed for pouring
Now the Body
Now the Blood
Now the joyful celebration
Now the wedding
Now the songs
Now the heart forgiven leaping
Now the Spirit’s visitation
Now the Son’s epiphany
Now the Father’s blessing
Now
Now
Now
Christ’s now is here with us. Here, now. Let us glorify God now, here.
[based in part on Nancy Roth’s meditation on Hymn 333, New Every Morning, Year C, 2000, 46-50]
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday of Holy Week
Every year we hear the same texts during Holy Week. They have become like friends to me, familiar poem-like words despite the harsh truths they may contain. As known and comforting as they are though, I have to pay attention to the story they tell — namely, Jesus’ walk to the cross. So, in their beauty paradoxically lies suffering.
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Jesus is in the house of Martha and Mary. The two women do for Jesus what no one else has done — they minister to Jesus with grace and love. They offer Jesus a place where he can be himself — vulnerable, mourning… a place where he, as a suffering man, can ask questions and doubt. We know that Lazarus has just died. Jesus, arriving to resuscitate Lazarus, is approaching his own death, too. Surely it was an excruciatingly painful moment for Jesus… coming to his dead friend… saying that ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ but daring to trust to believe that?
Then Mary anoints Jesus’ feet. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. Not on his head as one would do for a king but on his feet, as one would do in preparation for burial. Her prophetic gift to Jesus will anticipate what Jesus will do for his disciples at the last supper — wash their feet with water instead of anointing them with oil. Interestingly, the Greek sentence that describes Mary’s action spills over into the description of the fragrance that permeates the house. It is as though the anointing and its result run without interruption. In Mary’s act, she holds nothing back in expressing her love for Jesus, her love for the man who brought her brother back from the dead, for the man who will make all things new. The oil that covers Jesus’ feet and fragrance that permeates the house is like Mary’s love for Jesus — abundant, flowing, sweet, spendthrift.
The Jesus of the Gospel of John from which we hear tonight knows more than in any other gospel what will happen to him. It seems, at times, as though he is orchestrating his life and death. The others are not aware of this and so, this gift of perfume from Mary must seem without reason, out of context. But it is not out of context — she seems to know, too, what is going on. She anoints Jesus for his burial. She understands the significance of Jesus’ presence.
And then… people begin to complain… in particular, Judas of Iscariot, the very one who will betray Jesus. He is so blinded by his imminent betrayal that he cannot smell the fragrance of God’s love that permeates the house. He can only see an economic waste. Despite his complaint, he does not succeed in demeaning Mary’s action. Instead, the gospel affirms once again the spend-thriftness of love. Mary spends a year’s salary for love of Jesus. Judas tries to set up a choice between the poor and Jesus; Mary, on the other hand, shows how one can love Jesus and the poor.
Mary’s action is loving as well as being an example of the very service that Jesus commands his disciples to do. She is the first in this gospel to present an example of diaconal service (indeed, diakonia is the word later used at the last supper). More important, she models in her action the mandate of mutual love that Jesus commands his disciples to do at the Last Supper. That you love one another as I love you…. Indeed, the depth of Mary’s love for Jesus is shown in the incredible generosity of her gift. She is the first person in the gospel of John to live out the commandment of love that Jesus gives to his disciples. She shows what it means to be a disciple of Christ: one who serves, loves one’s sister and brother, and most of all, who participates in Christ’s suffering and death.
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Would that we could anoint with pure nard or whatever the most expensive oil there is, the feet, hands, and foreheads of all the suffering people in the world — those suffering today from violence, degradation of their humanity, the loss of home, nation, identity. For all the refugees, for the displaced, for those hated because of who they are. For those looking into their own tombs. Their number is legion.
If we cannot anoint the world, if we cannot love with the same extravagance that Jesus did in a global way, we can at least start in our own community. Start small, with one another. Start with our neighbours, particularly the difficult ones. Find peace and live it out in daily life. Work each one of us to stop hatred of those who are considered ‘other’ or ‘different’ for whatever reason. Remember that we are all God’s children and God’s extravagant love extends to all of us—Iraqi, Palestinian, Albanian, Muslim, Jew, Christian, man, woman, child.
On this Monday of Holy Week, as a reminder that we are called to love and serve extravagantly, let us pray the prayer of Saint Francis, found on page 833 of the Prayer Book. And then let us live our lives in that same spirit of service and charity.
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Jesus is in the house of Martha and Mary. The two women do for Jesus what no one else has done — they minister to Jesus with grace and love. They offer Jesus a place where he can be himself — vulnerable, mourning… a place where he, as a suffering man, can ask questions and doubt. We know that Lazarus has just died. Jesus, arriving to resuscitate Lazarus, is approaching his own death, too. Surely it was an excruciatingly painful moment for Jesus… coming to his dead friend… saying that ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ but daring to trust to believe that?
Then Mary anoints Jesus’ feet. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. Not on his head as one would do for a king but on his feet, as one would do in preparation for burial. Her prophetic gift to Jesus will anticipate what Jesus will do for his disciples at the last supper — wash their feet with water instead of anointing them with oil. Interestingly, the Greek sentence that describes Mary’s action spills over into the description of the fragrance that permeates the house. It is as though the anointing and its result run without interruption. In Mary’s act, she holds nothing back in expressing her love for Jesus, her love for the man who brought her brother back from the dead, for the man who will make all things new. The oil that covers Jesus’ feet and fragrance that permeates the house is like Mary’s love for Jesus — abundant, flowing, sweet, spendthrift.
The Jesus of the Gospel of John from which we hear tonight knows more than in any other gospel what will happen to him. It seems, at times, as though he is orchestrating his life and death. The others are not aware of this and so, this gift of perfume from Mary must seem without reason, out of context. But it is not out of context — she seems to know, too, what is going on. She anoints Jesus for his burial. She understands the significance of Jesus’ presence.
And then… people begin to complain… in particular, Judas of Iscariot, the very one who will betray Jesus. He is so blinded by his imminent betrayal that he cannot smell the fragrance of God’s love that permeates the house. He can only see an economic waste. Despite his complaint, he does not succeed in demeaning Mary’s action. Instead, the gospel affirms once again the spend-thriftness of love. Mary spends a year’s salary for love of Jesus. Judas tries to set up a choice between the poor and Jesus; Mary, on the other hand, shows how one can love Jesus and the poor.
Mary’s action is loving as well as being an example of the very service that Jesus commands his disciples to do. She is the first in this gospel to present an example of diaconal service (indeed, diakonia is the word later used at the last supper). More important, she models in her action the mandate of mutual love that Jesus commands his disciples to do at the Last Supper. That you love one another as I love you…. Indeed, the depth of Mary’s love for Jesus is shown in the incredible generosity of her gift. She is the first person in the gospel of John to live out the commandment of love that Jesus gives to his disciples. She shows what it means to be a disciple of Christ: one who serves, loves one’s sister and brother, and most of all, who participates in Christ’s suffering and death.
+
Would that we could anoint with pure nard or whatever the most expensive oil there is, the feet, hands, and foreheads of all the suffering people in the world — those suffering today from violence, degradation of their humanity, the loss of home, nation, identity. For all the refugees, for the displaced, for those hated because of who they are. For those looking into their own tombs. Their number is legion.
If we cannot anoint the world, if we cannot love with the same extravagance that Jesus did in a global way, we can at least start in our own community. Start small, with one another. Start with our neighbours, particularly the difficult ones. Find peace and live it out in daily life. Work each one of us to stop hatred of those who are considered ‘other’ or ‘different’ for whatever reason. Remember that we are all God’s children and God’s extravagant love extends to all of us—Iraqi, Palestinian, Albanian, Muslim, Jew, Christian, man, woman, child.
On this Monday of Holy Week, as a reminder that we are called to love and serve extravagantly, let us pray the prayer of Saint Francis, found on page 833 of the Prayer Book. And then let us live our lives in that same spirit of service and charity.
Palm Sunday sermon
Every year, someone asks me in the weeks preceding Palm Sunday: ‘What happened to Palm Sunday? How come we have Palm/Passion Sunday?’ Usually the sentiment behind the query is one of consternation: why do we so rush through Palm Sunday to arrive at Passion Sunday? What are the two events jammed together?
As I spent half an hour last night in the silent church strewing palms, throwing others in the aisle (yes, it’s OK to walk on them, they haven’t been blessed, and they truly are a sign of hospitality), I kept coming back to two thoughts that express to me the paradox of this morning: ashes and palms, and the words to the Bach chorale found in hymn 158, ‘Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?… Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee. Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee: I crucified thee.’
First, ashes and palms. There’s nothing like Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and Palm Sunday to bring people out in droves. People want their palms as much as they want the ashes on their foreheads. Maybe it’s childhood recollections of the festive nature of waving palms around in the air, the one time that one could cut loose a bit, or maybe (as a child), it was having something sanctioned to play with during the liturgy. For whatever reason, people love their palms. When I used to strip the palms up at Saint Mary’s, I selected out the thin palms, remembering how I, as a child, always wanted the fat ones. Palms become the ashes that get crossed on our foreheads the following year on Ash Wednesday and so the cycle of death, crucifixion, resurrection and redemption continues, even as it comes full circle this morning.
It would be lovely to linger at Palm Sunday, to stop the liturgy with the reading of the procession into Jerusalem as we used to in the lectionary of the 1928 Prayer Book, because it’s a triumphant moment, it’s a moment of anticipation, it’s a moment of celebration. There are still those of us who remember that stopping point, but increasingly, the church is becoming populated by people who only know Palm/Passion Sunday as found in the current prayer book. Perhaps the day would make more sense if we were to observe it the way fourth-century pilgrims to Jerusalem did, namely, holding a procession with palms with stations along the way, and then breaking for a time certain before returning to the eucharist at which the focus was at the passion. What we are doing nowadays is consolidating time and that tends to bring on the confusion.
Besides, the progression of thought from palms to ashes to death and resurrection forms the basis for this day. After our brief moment of celebration, we listen to the passion gospel according to the gospel appointed for the year, in this case, from Luke. And that is where the English translation to Bach’s chorale comes into play because, in my mind, I am like those people in the crowd who once threw palms as a sign of hospitality and then just as quickly turned on Jesus and betrayed him.
Nancy Roth in her book of meditations on selected hymns, writes of hymn 158:
‘Was it really you and I who caused Jesus’ death?
‘In our era, we have moved so far from the point of view in [this] hymn that we often do not take responsibility even for our own sins, much less the corporate sinfulness of humankind. We seek excuses for ourselves and for others, refusing to name the truth: “We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”
‘As a result, we have difficulty in dealing with the evil around us. Whether conflict is international, national, local, or familial, we tend to “demonize” our adversaries, rather than acknowledge the complexity of social, political, and historical reality or the fact that those with whom we do not agree are human beings made in the image of God.
‘[…] When we have recognized our violations of love, however small, we will realize that each of us does, indeed, have the capacity for evil. To say “I crucified thee” may be going too far. But the sum total of those things which estrange each human being from God adds up to the destructive power that creates wars, cruelty and crucifixion.’
I think then, that some of people’s discomfort with Passion Sunday lies in our confrontation with this capacity. Perhaps that is why people simply want to linger with Palm Sunday and not get to the Passion part just so quickly — after all, it will be with us soon enough on Good Friday. And some of us skip it altogether and won’t return here until next Sunday when a lifetime journey will have passed within these walls.
Roth continues: ‘To recognize that such a capacity exists in each of us is the first step in healing and reconciliation. As we stand at the foot of the cross, we see both the effects of sin, and its remedy. Forgiven by the victim, we need no longer be victims of our guilt, but may go forward in life, absolved and healed.’ (1)
Allow yourself to inhabit the paradox of this morning — the festive palms, a symbol of welcome, and the confrontation of our capacity to do harm to one another, consciously or unconsciously. We can live in the paradox because we have already been forgiven and redeemed.
And then, having made your way through the internal chaos that this day sometimes brings, come walk with us the rest of the week to Easter Sunday because it will begin to make more sense as it unfolds over seven days.
END NOTE
(1) Nancy Roth, Awake, My Soul! Meditating on Hymns for Year B (New York, NY: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1999), 107-8.
As I spent half an hour last night in the silent church strewing palms, throwing others in the aisle (yes, it’s OK to walk on them, they haven’t been blessed, and they truly are a sign of hospitality), I kept coming back to two thoughts that express to me the paradox of this morning: ashes and palms, and the words to the Bach chorale found in hymn 158, ‘Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended, that man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?… Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee. Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee: I crucified thee.’
First, ashes and palms. There’s nothing like Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and Palm Sunday to bring people out in droves. People want their palms as much as they want the ashes on their foreheads. Maybe it’s childhood recollections of the festive nature of waving palms around in the air, the one time that one could cut loose a bit, or maybe (as a child), it was having something sanctioned to play with during the liturgy. For whatever reason, people love their palms. When I used to strip the palms up at Saint Mary’s, I selected out the thin palms, remembering how I, as a child, always wanted the fat ones. Palms become the ashes that get crossed on our foreheads the following year on Ash Wednesday and so the cycle of death, crucifixion, resurrection and redemption continues, even as it comes full circle this morning.
It would be lovely to linger at Palm Sunday, to stop the liturgy with the reading of the procession into Jerusalem as we used to in the lectionary of the 1928 Prayer Book, because it’s a triumphant moment, it’s a moment of anticipation, it’s a moment of celebration. There are still those of us who remember that stopping point, but increasingly, the church is becoming populated by people who only know Palm/Passion Sunday as found in the current prayer book. Perhaps the day would make more sense if we were to observe it the way fourth-century pilgrims to Jerusalem did, namely, holding a procession with palms with stations along the way, and then breaking for a time certain before returning to the eucharist at which the focus was at the passion. What we are doing nowadays is consolidating time and that tends to bring on the confusion.
Besides, the progression of thought from palms to ashes to death and resurrection forms the basis for this day. After our brief moment of celebration, we listen to the passion gospel according to the gospel appointed for the year, in this case, from Luke. And that is where the English translation to Bach’s chorale comes into play because, in my mind, I am like those people in the crowd who once threw palms as a sign of hospitality and then just as quickly turned on Jesus and betrayed him.
Nancy Roth in her book of meditations on selected hymns, writes of hymn 158:
‘Was it really you and I who caused Jesus’ death?
‘In our era, we have moved so far from the point of view in [this] hymn that we often do not take responsibility even for our own sins, much less the corporate sinfulness of humankind. We seek excuses for ourselves and for others, refusing to name the truth: “We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”
‘As a result, we have difficulty in dealing with the evil around us. Whether conflict is international, national, local, or familial, we tend to “demonize” our adversaries, rather than acknowledge the complexity of social, political, and historical reality or the fact that those with whom we do not agree are human beings made in the image of God.
‘[…] When we have recognized our violations of love, however small, we will realize that each of us does, indeed, have the capacity for evil. To say “I crucified thee” may be going too far. But the sum total of those things which estrange each human being from God adds up to the destructive power that creates wars, cruelty and crucifixion.’
I think then, that some of people’s discomfort with Passion Sunday lies in our confrontation with this capacity. Perhaps that is why people simply want to linger with Palm Sunday and not get to the Passion part just so quickly — after all, it will be with us soon enough on Good Friday. And some of us skip it altogether and won’t return here until next Sunday when a lifetime journey will have passed within these walls.
Roth continues: ‘To recognize that such a capacity exists in each of us is the first step in healing and reconciliation. As we stand at the foot of the cross, we see both the effects of sin, and its remedy. Forgiven by the victim, we need no longer be victims of our guilt, but may go forward in life, absolved and healed.’ (1)
Allow yourself to inhabit the paradox of this morning — the festive palms, a symbol of welcome, and the confrontation of our capacity to do harm to one another, consciously or unconsciously. We can live in the paradox because we have already been forgiven and redeemed.
And then, having made your way through the internal chaos that this day sometimes brings, come walk with us the rest of the week to Easter Sunday because it will begin to make more sense as it unfolds over seven days.
END NOTE
(1) Nancy Roth, Awake, My Soul! Meditating on Hymns for Year B (New York, NY: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1999), 107-8.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Bâtiment historique — Historic Building
Go here for recent photographs of the former cathedral, la Cathédrale de la Sainte Trinité, in Port au Prince, Haiti, taken by the Rt Rev'd Pierre Whalon, Bishop of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe.
[crédit photo Projet Partenaires d'Haïti]
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Possibility
Having started with the theme of poverty, moved through that of probability, we move to that of possibility. In Christian terms, we understand possibility as hope. Hope enables us to think in open terms, that all things are possible with God. We can take risks, trusting that God is with us through our successes and our failures. The sky is the limit. Beyond that, the Christian hope is the resurrection — that life promised us through baptism.
[reading of the Annunciation]
The Feast of the Annunciation is 25 March. It is one of those moments when we momentarily leave the solemnity of Lent and we turn backward or forward, whichever way you’d like to go, to the story of the Annunciation. Hearing the familiar story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary always comes as a shock in the midst of Lent, but given that tradition observes the Annunciation nine months before Christmas, we experience this delicious juxtaposition annually. (In 2035 and 2046 we will celebrate Easter Sunday in lieu of the Annunciation, but who’s waiting?)
Yet the story of Mary’s, ‘Yes,’ to God, and that of our Lenten journey find common ground because both speak of saying, ‘Yes,’ to that which is unknown. Both speak of the soul’s journey on an unknown path that can pierce our hearts, while bringing us a step closer to redemption.
Gabriel comes to Mary with the familiar words of greeting, ‘Hail, o favoured one.’ We know scripture well enough to remember that any angelic greeting with those words signals impending upheaval in the listener’s life. Gabriel’s greeting is no different. We know well his announcement of God’s outrageous plan for Mary as much as we recall her response, ‘Here I am’—that, in its simplicity, is so remarkable, heartfelt and unexpected.
Annunciations are fearsome and potentially dangerous things. Annunciations speak of God’s way for us and that way is some times contrary to our reason or desires. Mary’s simple response astounds us because, even after hearing and listening to the outrageous plan God has for her, she responds out of faith: ‘Here I am.’
Her response is reminiscent of other biblical persons of faith who have responded with the same confidence, yet not knowing where God was leading them. There is Moses, who, upon hearing God’s plans for Israel, asserts: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One.’ There is Samuel who asks to hear more saying, ‘Speak, Lord….’ There is Isaiah, who assures God he will still be there, ‘I will listen as one who is taught, and given ears to hear.’
Mary listens in her bones. Despite Gabriel’s message, which portends potential havoc for her life, Mary trusts. The Gospel of Luke states she pondered these things in her heart. Whatever she heard and understood from Gabriel she took the message deep into her heart and let it rest in her soul until it was ready to be born of God.
What a response of faith and trust hers is, particularly when she will later hear another annunciation even more troubling than the first. Think of the presentation of Jesus in the temple when Simeon tells her, ‘A sword will pierce your heart.’ This second annunciation disturbs greatly because it speaks of a reality fulfilled, the birth—and death—of Jesus. Surely there are moments of panic and worry. Yet Mary’s second response is as tranquil and confident as the first, ‘Let it be.’
With each progressive annunciation, astonishingly, Mary welcomes what is being revealed for her. She learns more about her life and who she is called to be and what road she walks. Through a series of progressive ‘Yes’s, each one leading her deeper and deeper into God’s desire, Mary enters into her true identity and becomes her true self. God’s word always calls us more fully to being. Mary’s ‘Yes’ leads to the cross, and then to the resurrection — through her suffering and joy, Mary remains faithful to her initial response to God, ‘Here I am.’
There is another piece to Mary’s ‘Yes.’ Remember how Gabriel assures her that ‘nothing is impossible with God.’ She is not alone. Before Mary can say ‘Yes,’ she needs a human voice to address her and human arms to embrace her. That person is Elizabeth who, through her own improbable experience, gives Mary the freedom to cry out the Magnificat, that great hymn of reversals.
Did Mary really understand when the angel came to her that her heart would be broken, a sword thrust through it, a cross marked on it? Did she know what would happen when the angel Gabriel came to her and announced that she would bear Jesus, the Son of God?
I don’t think so. She, like many of us, started out on a journey of which she did not know the outcome. She, like many of us, did not know where she was going or what it would mean. Perhaps she found out a little in her walking the way. Whatever the case, she trusted.
Though the Mary we meet in today’s Gospel is a young woman, the betrothed of Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth, she still takes on the unimaginable. Alone she hears deep within her someone, something pulling at her heart, calling her to do and be what is unthinkable.
Mary, God’s favored one, becomes a woman of hope, because, in the face of hard and fearful times, she said Yes to God, a Yes that would draw her far beyond her imagination, capacities and understanding.
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It is no big thing to be hopeful when things are going well, when we have a meaningful job, when our relationships with those we love are rich and joyful, when we are in good health, when the world is at peace. But when everything seems to be out of alignment, then it is harder to hope and convey it to those around us. And, in times when we are waiting for what we don’t know, it is even harder to know how to hope, how to pray or even how to say yes to God.
Yet the hope of which Mary is an example is the Yes we say to God and to ourselves precisely when all around us are fear, grief and uncertainty. Hope is the freedom to live with love and compassion in the midst of hard things that are out of our control. Hope is the capacity to care when the caring will break our heart. Hope sets us free to care and care and care again, to keep vigil in those circumstances when grief threatens to overwhelm us and those around us.
Perhaps these days Mary is the mother of hope because she is the one who brings to us this much-needed word. Hope is an active, chain breaking energy. Hopeful people move out and change things, take risks and are able to sacrifice their good for a larger good. Mary’s Yes comes from her heart of hope…. You, O God, have remembered your promise of mercy, the promise you made to our forebears, to Abraham and Sara and their children forever.
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While not the only way to respond to God’s call, I have some thoughts about the way to say YES to this call, and to make a difference.
Sometimes we must live and serve faithfully and not be captured by our desire for results. It is like being willing to pray for healing for someone who will soon die.
Sometimes we are called not to be the solution but to be a sign, a witness to God’s dream for the world. When we pray and work for peace and the end of violence, we have to be ready to witness by word and action, take risks, and yet not see much happen as a result of our witness and prayer. We need to trust that God will use our sign.
Sometimes we are called simply to show up, to be present when we can do nothing. It is like being called to sit for hours by a friend who has just lost her child; befriending an alcoholic whose entire life has been lost and who has to start all over again; being in solidarity, sharing in the struggles and hope of people impoverished and abandoned. . .simply being present, silently some times when no spoken word, no action is adequate.
Sometimes we are called to be prophets: that is, to know and believe deeply in our hearts the Dream of God, and to live and struggle for that dream among the people God calls us to serve. As in the case of a small mustard seed, or a pinch of yeast, God can and will make something of this small witness of ours. I think of a small group of Palestinians and Israelis who for many years have believed in and worked for reconciliation and peace between their two peoples, and who are still at it even in these dark times.
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Are we not all like Mary, making our way along paths uncharted?
What keeps us, like Mary, going on those roads whose ways are not clear to us and whose outcomes are unknown? Do we have the same sort of trust that Mary did—a trust that is not based on an awful lot, but on the abiding presence of God?
Can we say yes to God’s tuggings at our hearts, a ‘yes’ that is not as the sure response of having life in control, but is as a risk, as a leap into the unknown?
This sense of trust in God’s ways is a lot to ask of us, sometimes. It is hard for us sometimes to let go of that control, to take that leap into the unknown. Letting go can bring incredible pain as our roots that we have lovingly set down over time are ripped out of the ground. Yet letting go and trusting in God can help us let go of our preconceived ideas so that we may dare to hope and dream of God’s desire for us.
Something new, something wondrous, something beautiful can come of our letting go and trusting in God. When we try something new, when we let go of something old, when we grow and are transformed, we find God in our midst.
Hymn 689
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
he moved my soul to seek him seeking me;
it was not I that found, O Saviour true,
no, I was found of thee.
I find, I walk, I love, but oh,
the whole of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee:
for thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
always thou lovest me.
Part of Lent is to walk more intentionally God’s road, to go into those places we might not enter otherwise. Part of Lent is to take tentative steps toward answering God’s calls with an unconditional ‘yes.’ Part of Lent is finding those people, those places and those forms of prayer that lead to a greater trust—a trust that can undergird all that we do.
Antonio Machado has said, ‘Traveller, there is no road; the way is made by walking.’ Embarking on that journey, however, is costly. Yet as God’s chosen, we can do none other than walk, journeying on God’s road. We can do none other than trust, as did Mary. Perhaps, then, in our walking and trusting in God, we, too, can reach the point where we can answer with integrity, like Mary, Here I am… let it be. And so today we pray for the capacity to say YES to God, for hope, for the freedom not to have to flee from times or places where we or others struggle with need, fear or grief, but like Mary to be able to give of ourselves and come to know the hope that sets us free to care and care and care again.
And so poverty, probability and possibility co-exist… but of these three, the greatest is possibility, that open place where God can work within us, allowing us to do far more than we even would have imagined possible.
Questions for third meditation
Where have you let God enter your life without restriction?
When have you said YES to God, not fully knowing where it would take you? What happened?
When have you been set freed when you least expected it?
Reading for meditation: Luke 1.26-38
[reading of the Annunciation]
The Feast of the Annunciation is 25 March. It is one of those moments when we momentarily leave the solemnity of Lent and we turn backward or forward, whichever way you’d like to go, to the story of the Annunciation. Hearing the familiar story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary always comes as a shock in the midst of Lent, but given that tradition observes the Annunciation nine months before Christmas, we experience this delicious juxtaposition annually. (In 2035 and 2046 we will celebrate Easter Sunday in lieu of the Annunciation, but who’s waiting?)
Yet the story of Mary’s, ‘Yes,’ to God, and that of our Lenten journey find common ground because both speak of saying, ‘Yes,’ to that which is unknown. Both speak of the soul’s journey on an unknown path that can pierce our hearts, while bringing us a step closer to redemption.
Gabriel comes to Mary with the familiar words of greeting, ‘Hail, o favoured one.’ We know scripture well enough to remember that any angelic greeting with those words signals impending upheaval in the listener’s life. Gabriel’s greeting is no different. We know well his announcement of God’s outrageous plan for Mary as much as we recall her response, ‘Here I am’—that, in its simplicity, is so remarkable, heartfelt and unexpected.
Annunciations are fearsome and potentially dangerous things. Annunciations speak of God’s way for us and that way is some times contrary to our reason or desires. Mary’s simple response astounds us because, even after hearing and listening to the outrageous plan God has for her, she responds out of faith: ‘Here I am.’
Her response is reminiscent of other biblical persons of faith who have responded with the same confidence, yet not knowing where God was leading them. There is Moses, who, upon hearing God’s plans for Israel, asserts: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One.’ There is Samuel who asks to hear more saying, ‘Speak, Lord….’ There is Isaiah, who assures God he will still be there, ‘I will listen as one who is taught, and given ears to hear.’
Mary listens in her bones. Despite Gabriel’s message, which portends potential havoc for her life, Mary trusts. The Gospel of Luke states she pondered these things in her heart. Whatever she heard and understood from Gabriel she took the message deep into her heart and let it rest in her soul until it was ready to be born of God.
What a response of faith and trust hers is, particularly when she will later hear another annunciation even more troubling than the first. Think of the presentation of Jesus in the temple when Simeon tells her, ‘A sword will pierce your heart.’ This second annunciation disturbs greatly because it speaks of a reality fulfilled, the birth—and death—of Jesus. Surely there are moments of panic and worry. Yet Mary’s second response is as tranquil and confident as the first, ‘Let it be.’
With each progressive annunciation, astonishingly, Mary welcomes what is being revealed for her. She learns more about her life and who she is called to be and what road she walks. Through a series of progressive ‘Yes’s, each one leading her deeper and deeper into God’s desire, Mary enters into her true identity and becomes her true self. God’s word always calls us more fully to being. Mary’s ‘Yes’ leads to the cross, and then to the resurrection — through her suffering and joy, Mary remains faithful to her initial response to God, ‘Here I am.’
There is another piece to Mary’s ‘Yes.’ Remember how Gabriel assures her that ‘nothing is impossible with God.’ She is not alone. Before Mary can say ‘Yes,’ she needs a human voice to address her and human arms to embrace her. That person is Elizabeth who, through her own improbable experience, gives Mary the freedom to cry out the Magnificat, that great hymn of reversals.
Did Mary really understand when the angel came to her that her heart would be broken, a sword thrust through it, a cross marked on it? Did she know what would happen when the angel Gabriel came to her and announced that she would bear Jesus, the Son of God?
I don’t think so. She, like many of us, started out on a journey of which she did not know the outcome. She, like many of us, did not know where she was going or what it would mean. Perhaps she found out a little in her walking the way. Whatever the case, she trusted.
Though the Mary we meet in today’s Gospel is a young woman, the betrothed of Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth, she still takes on the unimaginable. Alone she hears deep within her someone, something pulling at her heart, calling her to do and be what is unthinkable.
Mary, God’s favored one, becomes a woman of hope, because, in the face of hard and fearful times, she said Yes to God, a Yes that would draw her far beyond her imagination, capacities and understanding.
+
It is no big thing to be hopeful when things are going well, when we have a meaningful job, when our relationships with those we love are rich and joyful, when we are in good health, when the world is at peace. But when everything seems to be out of alignment, then it is harder to hope and convey it to those around us. And, in times when we are waiting for what we don’t know, it is even harder to know how to hope, how to pray or even how to say yes to God.
Yet the hope of which Mary is an example is the Yes we say to God and to ourselves precisely when all around us are fear, grief and uncertainty. Hope is the freedom to live with love and compassion in the midst of hard things that are out of our control. Hope is the capacity to care when the caring will break our heart. Hope sets us free to care and care and care again, to keep vigil in those circumstances when grief threatens to overwhelm us and those around us.
Perhaps these days Mary is the mother of hope because she is the one who brings to us this much-needed word. Hope is an active, chain breaking energy. Hopeful people move out and change things, take risks and are able to sacrifice their good for a larger good. Mary’s Yes comes from her heart of hope…. You, O God, have remembered your promise of mercy, the promise you made to our forebears, to Abraham and Sara and their children forever.
+
While not the only way to respond to God’s call, I have some thoughts about the way to say YES to this call, and to make a difference.
Sometimes we must live and serve faithfully and not be captured by our desire for results. It is like being willing to pray for healing for someone who will soon die.
Sometimes we are called not to be the solution but to be a sign, a witness to God’s dream for the world. When we pray and work for peace and the end of violence, we have to be ready to witness by word and action, take risks, and yet not see much happen as a result of our witness and prayer. We need to trust that God will use our sign.
Sometimes we are called simply to show up, to be present when we can do nothing. It is like being called to sit for hours by a friend who has just lost her child; befriending an alcoholic whose entire life has been lost and who has to start all over again; being in solidarity, sharing in the struggles and hope of people impoverished and abandoned. . .simply being present, silently some times when no spoken word, no action is adequate.
Sometimes we are called to be prophets: that is, to know and believe deeply in our hearts the Dream of God, and to live and struggle for that dream among the people God calls us to serve. As in the case of a small mustard seed, or a pinch of yeast, God can and will make something of this small witness of ours. I think of a small group of Palestinians and Israelis who for many years have believed in and worked for reconciliation and peace between their two peoples, and who are still at it even in these dark times.
+
Are we not all like Mary, making our way along paths uncharted?
What keeps us, like Mary, going on those roads whose ways are not clear to us and whose outcomes are unknown? Do we have the same sort of trust that Mary did—a trust that is not based on an awful lot, but on the abiding presence of God?
Can we say yes to God’s tuggings at our hearts, a ‘yes’ that is not as the sure response of having life in control, but is as a risk, as a leap into the unknown?
This sense of trust in God’s ways is a lot to ask of us, sometimes. It is hard for us sometimes to let go of that control, to take that leap into the unknown. Letting go can bring incredible pain as our roots that we have lovingly set down over time are ripped out of the ground. Yet letting go and trusting in God can help us let go of our preconceived ideas so that we may dare to hope and dream of God’s desire for us.
Something new, something wondrous, something beautiful can come of our letting go and trusting in God. When we try something new, when we let go of something old, when we grow and are transformed, we find God in our midst.
Hymn 689
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
he moved my soul to seek him seeking me;
it was not I that found, O Saviour true,
no, I was found of thee.
I find, I walk, I love, but oh,
the whole of love is but my answer, Lord, to thee:
for thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
always thou lovest me.
Part of Lent is to walk more intentionally God’s road, to go into those places we might not enter otherwise. Part of Lent is to take tentative steps toward answering God’s calls with an unconditional ‘yes.’ Part of Lent is finding those people, those places and those forms of prayer that lead to a greater trust—a trust that can undergird all that we do.
Antonio Machado has said, ‘Traveller, there is no road; the way is made by walking.’ Embarking on that journey, however, is costly. Yet as God’s chosen, we can do none other than walk, journeying on God’s road. We can do none other than trust, as did Mary. Perhaps, then, in our walking and trusting in God, we, too, can reach the point where we can answer with integrity, like Mary, Here I am… let it be. And so today we pray for the capacity to say YES to God, for hope, for the freedom not to have to flee from times or places where we or others struggle with need, fear or grief, but like Mary to be able to give of ourselves and come to know the hope that sets us free to care and care and care again.
And so poverty, probability and possibility co-exist… but of these three, the greatest is possibility, that open place where God can work within us, allowing us to do far more than we even would have imagined possible.
Questions for third meditation
Where have you let God enter your life without restriction?
When have you said YES to God, not fully knowing where it would take you? What happened?
When have you been set freed when you least expected it?
Reading for meditation: Luke 1.26-38
Probability
Probability is playing the game, hedging one’s bets. We do things, gauging how much people will like what we have done, how successful we are, how much income it might bring us and all sorts of controls. It does not completely paralyse us as poverty may but it does clip our wings because we are too busy worrying about the outcome to allow ourselves to soar.
Long before she went off into an odd sort of mysticism, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross changed the way we accept hearing bad news, particularly that involving our death. She spoke of five stages, stages now that many wish they had never heard of! One of the stages in coming to acceptance with death is bargaining. Think of Faust, bargaining with the devil.
Sometimes people bargain because they think it will buy them time. They will bargain with God — Job’s friends figured he would, but Job knew that to do so would compromise his relationship with God. Jonah tries another tactic: he simply hedges his bets. By jumping on a ship, he thinks he can flee God. Eventually, when the ship is about to sink in a storm, he realizes that it probably is his presence that is causing the turmoil and offers to be cast overboard. He’s still betting though; maybe if he does this, he’ll be left alone. Even after getting swallowed up and spat out, he thinks he can escape God. We don’t know the end of the story; the parchment is damaged, but we do know that for all his gambling, Jonah ends up sitting under a shrub (ha qiqon, the only place where this appears), waiting for Nineveh to get its due. And when it doesn’t, he complains.
Another gambler, less directly is the rich man, sometimes called Dives.
[Luke 16.19-31]
+
The story in this gospel reading can lead us off into many different directions — asking questions about the resurrection, justification by works, punishment for one’s actions on earth. Initially, I’d like to consider how it provides us an example of someone who bargains with God when it is too late. It is a cautionary tale at the least. Once we have looked at the bargaining aspects of the story, then we can move onto the effects of bargaining on our relationship with others.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus is another story that is unique to the Gospel of Luke, though this one has its roots in Egyptian and Jewish story-telling traditions. The rich man, often called Dives, from the Latin translation of the word, ‘rich,’ and the poor man, Lazarus, whose name in Hebrew means ‘God helps’ or ‘God provides’ are opposite characters both in life and in death.
The rich man is nameless in the story, which is remarkable since one would usually think that the rich would be famous and have a name… but not in stories of God’s kindom. The rich man feasts daily — truly an extravagance for the times. If you remember the story of the prodigal son, the father runs out and kills the fatted calf for him — even the wealthy saved up such bounty for special occasions. Yet the man in this story feasts every day. His purple robes and white linen clothes also signify extreme opulence (what I call ostentatious opulence — opulence that exists for the sole purpose of being seen): the dye for the purple robes came from snails (don’t ask me how that is done); and it is assumed that the linen clothing was the man’s underclothing. Not bad. Some people have nothing while others can afford expensive underwear.
In contrast to the rich man stands, or rather lies Lazarus. This contrast is a violent one, a harsh one. Lazarus, the one whom God helps, is the only person in all the biblical parables that has a name, no small detail. His name indicates someone dependent on God. In addition, his name suggests someone who, though unrecognised by people, is dearly known and loved by God. The name also sets up a poignant detail later: the rich man shows he knows who Lazarus is.
Lazarus is beyond being dirt poor. He lies at the rich man’s gate in the hopes of receiving food, mere table scraps. He is probably crippled and has literally been thrown down, cast down at the gate. The gate is high and ornate, almost like those gates which serve as entrances to cities, temples or palaces. Lazarus is not only crippled, he is suffering. And unlike the rich man who is clothed in sumptuous apparel, Lazarus is covered with sores. His situation is as desperate and tragic as the rich man’s is full and luxurious.
Lazarus has a basic desire — to eat — even the scraps of bread which, having been used as napkins to wipe one’s face and plate, are thrown on the ground. It is unlikely the rich man responded to Lazarus’ request.
To add insult, Lazarus has to endure wild dogs, curs, licking his wounds and sores. Again, this is not a gratuitous detail: Lazarus becomes unclean and in the Jewish system of the times, to be unclean meant to be out of place and unwelcome.
But nowhere in this sad description do we read of Lazarus attempting to bargain with God. There’s none of the psalmist’s if I suffer or go to Sheol, I cannot praise you, God, any more. Lazarus somehow endures gracefully.
Then Lazarus dies. There is no mention of burial. In lieu of that, the gospel states that Lazarus is borne up immediately by angels to Abraham’s bosom, a place of safety and protection and intimacy. Lazarus goes from being a lonely sufferer at the rich man’s gate to an accepted, blessed saint at the side of Judaism’s patriarch.
The rich man also dies. The rich man has a burial — to both Roman and Jew, a proper burial was imperative for respect and cleanliness. But in death, the rich man’s stature and wealth no longer count for anything. He is in Hades, the closest equivalent to the Hebrew, Sheol. The rich man looks up and sees Lazarus at Abraham’s side. Between the two groups is a chasm neither can cross.
Yet even in death, the rich man presumes his former status. For the first time ever, he really notices Lazarus, but his noticing him is only because he wants Abraham to send Lazarus with water. The use of Lazarus’ name in his appeal suggests that the rich man knew all along who he was, making his neglect of Lazarus even worse. The rich man asks for a drop of water, a request for something small, just as small as Lazarus’ requests for crumbs. But just as there were no crumbs for Lazarus, there will be no water for the rich man. The difference is the rich man has no hope of reversing his fortune. He has sealed his own fate by his actions.
Abraham’s response to him makes it perfectly clear. You are reaping what you sowed. You did not care for your neighbour while you were living. You are not condemned because you were rich but because you became indifferent to your neighbour. You ignored your neighbour, while squandering your God-given wealth on yourself.
And here is where he begins to bargain with God. He is so miserable, he sort of understands that something went wrong, enough that he wants God to send an angel to his brothers so that they do not befall the same fate. Maybe he is not bargaining for himself, but he sees that he bet and lost; maybe there is a way he can spare his brothers the same. This is when he learns that he is stuck. He lost his bet.
+
We run the risk of being the rich man ourselves. We have God-given gifts and wealth. The question we must honestly ask ourselves is what do we do with this wealth? How do we use it? Do we hedge our bets? As Bishop Mary Adelia McLeod once reminded us, what is the first cheque we write each month? Is it to God or Mastercard? If we live with our fists tight, and our cards close to our chests, hedging our bets, how can we let God in then? Do we live in a circumscribed world where everyting is predictable and safe and no one is different? And then…
Have we ignored our neighbour or have we served our neighbour? And who is our neighbour? As Anglicans, we have sisters and brothers scattered throughout the world. As Anglicans, we are connected to them through our common belief in God (a belief that, as shown by the Lambeth Conference, varies widely in its expression throughout the world). We may never know our brothers and sisters face-to-face. In some ways, that makes it easier to ignore them in the way that the rich man chose to ignore Lazarus who lay at his gate. But to do so would be also to ignore the biblical imperatives, found in both the Hebrew and Christian portions of scripture, namely, to love our neighbour.
Who is our neighbour? This morning there are neighbours in Haiti and Chile who desperately need our help. Tomorrow, they may be on the other side of the world of street. (I took notice that BROC and The Bus did not get their requested amounts in Tuesday’s town day votes; you can bet we will see the fall out of that decision.)
They are the neighbours we sometimes would like to ignore because: ‘They are far away from us, they look different from us and they are poor,’ a state of being in which none of us really wants to be. Yet they are our brothers and sisters and we are called, as children of God, as children of the light, to respond to their needs.
Nelsa Curbela of Guyaquil, Ecuador wrote:
When you choose an ideology, you can fool yourself. When you choose the poor and are one of them, you can be sure you won’t fool yourself. The reading of history depends on the place in which we locate ourselves… And we locate ourselves in and with the poor, with the cultures that are oppressed but alive, like the yeast in the dough, like the seeds that tolerate the hot sun and the desert but are ready to germinate, to flourish and provide food with the first dew and early rain that nourishes them.
In other words, when we let go of our cards, open our heart, enter into a place where we can no longer control things, we find freedom even in poverty, even in probability. There is a French proverb which says: ‘When you die, you carry in your clutched hands only that which you have given away.’
In other words, those of hymn 9:
To give and give, and give again,
what God have given thee;
to spend thyself nor count the cost;
to serve right gloriously
the God who gave all worlds that are,
and all that are to be.
That truly is letting go of a bargaining stance, one based on probability.
+
As a postscript, a slightly different approach to this question of probability, a non-bargaining approach is that of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet and bathed them with her tears. She did so, not because she was trying to win his favour or pardon but because she wanted to. Somewhat problematic in our theology is the thinking: if I repent of my sins, God will forgive me. Would God never forgive me? Or is it more: If I don’t repent of my sins, I will never know God’s forgiveness which is already there? I go more with the latter thinking: God’s forgiveness is already there but we must have the disposition of heart to know to ask for that forgiveness. If we never ask, then we will never know God’s graciousness.
I can’t help but think that God desires us to let go of our fears which hold us, to stop calculating so that God can work freely in us.
But neither is probability the whole story. There is more….
Questions for second meditation
Where in your life have you taken a risk, gambled and lost?
Where have you held your cards close to your chest?
Where have you taken risks and not counted the cost?
Where was God in all this?
Readings for meditation: Luke 16.19-31; Matthew 26.6-13; Mark 14.3-9; John 12.1-8)
Long before she went off into an odd sort of mysticism, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross changed the way we accept hearing bad news, particularly that involving our death. She spoke of five stages, stages now that many wish they had never heard of! One of the stages in coming to acceptance with death is bargaining. Think of Faust, bargaining with the devil.
Sometimes people bargain because they think it will buy them time. They will bargain with God — Job’s friends figured he would, but Job knew that to do so would compromise his relationship with God. Jonah tries another tactic: he simply hedges his bets. By jumping on a ship, he thinks he can flee God. Eventually, when the ship is about to sink in a storm, he realizes that it probably is his presence that is causing the turmoil and offers to be cast overboard. He’s still betting though; maybe if he does this, he’ll be left alone. Even after getting swallowed up and spat out, he thinks he can escape God. We don’t know the end of the story; the parchment is damaged, but we do know that for all his gambling, Jonah ends up sitting under a shrub (ha qiqon, the only place where this appears), waiting for Nineveh to get its due. And when it doesn’t, he complains.
Another gambler, less directly is the rich man, sometimes called Dives.
[Luke 16.19-31]
+
The story in this gospel reading can lead us off into many different directions — asking questions about the resurrection, justification by works, punishment for one’s actions on earth. Initially, I’d like to consider how it provides us an example of someone who bargains with God when it is too late. It is a cautionary tale at the least. Once we have looked at the bargaining aspects of the story, then we can move onto the effects of bargaining on our relationship with others.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus is another story that is unique to the Gospel of Luke, though this one has its roots in Egyptian and Jewish story-telling traditions. The rich man, often called Dives, from the Latin translation of the word, ‘rich,’ and the poor man, Lazarus, whose name in Hebrew means ‘God helps’ or ‘God provides’ are opposite characters both in life and in death.
The rich man is nameless in the story, which is remarkable since one would usually think that the rich would be famous and have a name… but not in stories of God’s kindom. The rich man feasts daily — truly an extravagance for the times. If you remember the story of the prodigal son, the father runs out and kills the fatted calf for him — even the wealthy saved up such bounty for special occasions. Yet the man in this story feasts every day. His purple robes and white linen clothes also signify extreme opulence (what I call ostentatious opulence — opulence that exists for the sole purpose of being seen): the dye for the purple robes came from snails (don’t ask me how that is done); and it is assumed that the linen clothing was the man’s underclothing. Not bad. Some people have nothing while others can afford expensive underwear.
In contrast to the rich man stands, or rather lies Lazarus. This contrast is a violent one, a harsh one. Lazarus, the one whom God helps, is the only person in all the biblical parables that has a name, no small detail. His name indicates someone dependent on God. In addition, his name suggests someone who, though unrecognised by people, is dearly known and loved by God. The name also sets up a poignant detail later: the rich man shows he knows who Lazarus is.
Lazarus is beyond being dirt poor. He lies at the rich man’s gate in the hopes of receiving food, mere table scraps. He is probably crippled and has literally been thrown down, cast down at the gate. The gate is high and ornate, almost like those gates which serve as entrances to cities, temples or palaces. Lazarus is not only crippled, he is suffering. And unlike the rich man who is clothed in sumptuous apparel, Lazarus is covered with sores. His situation is as desperate and tragic as the rich man’s is full and luxurious.
Lazarus has a basic desire — to eat — even the scraps of bread which, having been used as napkins to wipe one’s face and plate, are thrown on the ground. It is unlikely the rich man responded to Lazarus’ request.
To add insult, Lazarus has to endure wild dogs, curs, licking his wounds and sores. Again, this is not a gratuitous detail: Lazarus becomes unclean and in the Jewish system of the times, to be unclean meant to be out of place and unwelcome.
But nowhere in this sad description do we read of Lazarus attempting to bargain with God. There’s none of the psalmist’s if I suffer or go to Sheol, I cannot praise you, God, any more. Lazarus somehow endures gracefully.
Then Lazarus dies. There is no mention of burial. In lieu of that, the gospel states that Lazarus is borne up immediately by angels to Abraham’s bosom, a place of safety and protection and intimacy. Lazarus goes from being a lonely sufferer at the rich man’s gate to an accepted, blessed saint at the side of Judaism’s patriarch.
The rich man also dies. The rich man has a burial — to both Roman and Jew, a proper burial was imperative for respect and cleanliness. But in death, the rich man’s stature and wealth no longer count for anything. He is in Hades, the closest equivalent to the Hebrew, Sheol. The rich man looks up and sees Lazarus at Abraham’s side. Between the two groups is a chasm neither can cross.
Yet even in death, the rich man presumes his former status. For the first time ever, he really notices Lazarus, but his noticing him is only because he wants Abraham to send Lazarus with water. The use of Lazarus’ name in his appeal suggests that the rich man knew all along who he was, making his neglect of Lazarus even worse. The rich man asks for a drop of water, a request for something small, just as small as Lazarus’ requests for crumbs. But just as there were no crumbs for Lazarus, there will be no water for the rich man. The difference is the rich man has no hope of reversing his fortune. He has sealed his own fate by his actions.
Abraham’s response to him makes it perfectly clear. You are reaping what you sowed. You did not care for your neighbour while you were living. You are not condemned because you were rich but because you became indifferent to your neighbour. You ignored your neighbour, while squandering your God-given wealth on yourself.
And here is where he begins to bargain with God. He is so miserable, he sort of understands that something went wrong, enough that he wants God to send an angel to his brothers so that they do not befall the same fate. Maybe he is not bargaining for himself, but he sees that he bet and lost; maybe there is a way he can spare his brothers the same. This is when he learns that he is stuck. He lost his bet.
+
We run the risk of being the rich man ourselves. We have God-given gifts and wealth. The question we must honestly ask ourselves is what do we do with this wealth? How do we use it? Do we hedge our bets? As Bishop Mary Adelia McLeod once reminded us, what is the first cheque we write each month? Is it to God or Mastercard? If we live with our fists tight, and our cards close to our chests, hedging our bets, how can we let God in then? Do we live in a circumscribed world where everyting is predictable and safe and no one is different? And then…
Have we ignored our neighbour or have we served our neighbour? And who is our neighbour? As Anglicans, we have sisters and brothers scattered throughout the world. As Anglicans, we are connected to them through our common belief in God (a belief that, as shown by the Lambeth Conference, varies widely in its expression throughout the world). We may never know our brothers and sisters face-to-face. In some ways, that makes it easier to ignore them in the way that the rich man chose to ignore Lazarus who lay at his gate. But to do so would be also to ignore the biblical imperatives, found in both the Hebrew and Christian portions of scripture, namely, to love our neighbour.
Who is our neighbour? This morning there are neighbours in Haiti and Chile who desperately need our help. Tomorrow, they may be on the other side of the world of street. (I took notice that BROC and The Bus did not get their requested amounts in Tuesday’s town day votes; you can bet we will see the fall out of that decision.)
They are the neighbours we sometimes would like to ignore because: ‘They are far away from us, they look different from us and they are poor,’ a state of being in which none of us really wants to be. Yet they are our brothers and sisters and we are called, as children of God, as children of the light, to respond to their needs.
Nelsa Curbela of Guyaquil, Ecuador wrote:
When you choose an ideology, you can fool yourself. When you choose the poor and are one of them, you can be sure you won’t fool yourself. The reading of history depends on the place in which we locate ourselves… And we locate ourselves in and with the poor, with the cultures that are oppressed but alive, like the yeast in the dough, like the seeds that tolerate the hot sun and the desert but are ready to germinate, to flourish and provide food with the first dew and early rain that nourishes them.
In other words, when we let go of our cards, open our heart, enter into a place where we can no longer control things, we find freedom even in poverty, even in probability. There is a French proverb which says: ‘When you die, you carry in your clutched hands only that which you have given away.’
In other words, those of hymn 9:
To give and give, and give again,
what God have given thee;
to spend thyself nor count the cost;
to serve right gloriously
the God who gave all worlds that are,
and all that are to be.
That truly is letting go of a bargaining stance, one based on probability.
+
As a postscript, a slightly different approach to this question of probability, a non-bargaining approach is that of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet and bathed them with her tears. She did so, not because she was trying to win his favour or pardon but because she wanted to. Somewhat problematic in our theology is the thinking: if I repent of my sins, God will forgive me. Would God never forgive me? Or is it more: If I don’t repent of my sins, I will never know God’s forgiveness which is already there? I go more with the latter thinking: God’s forgiveness is already there but we must have the disposition of heart to know to ask for that forgiveness. If we never ask, then we will never know God’s graciousness.
I can’t help but think that God desires us to let go of our fears which hold us, to stop calculating so that God can work freely in us.
But neither is probability the whole story. There is more….
Questions for second meditation
Where in your life have you taken a risk, gambled and lost?
Where have you held your cards close to your chest?
Where have you taken risks and not counted the cost?
Where was God in all this?
Readings for meditation: Luke 16.19-31; Matthew 26.6-13; Mark 14.3-9; John 12.1-8)
First talk of the Quiet Day — Poverty
When I was an aspirant for Holy Orders, my sponsoring diocese had us participate in a Ministry-Study year. During that year, we were sent forth from our sponsoring parish to another one to 'try out' ordained ministry. We worked with a seasoned priest, doing whatever fit. Once a month, those of us in the process, eight when I went through, met having read a book in common, and written a paper. One of us would read the paper to the rest and we'd launch off into a discussion.
The priest with whom I worked said pretty early on, that whenever he was stuck on a sermon, he would visit someone and post visit he would get the necessary inspiration. I have always held those words in mind and so, this when the Holy Spirit (or muses) seemed recalcitrant, I was casting about. Then on Tuesday, in a conversation, I heard these three words put together — poverty, probability and possibility. Bingo! There was the thread. The original conversation focused on Sir John Smith and his Hope Institute but they work here.
POVERTY
Poverty is probably one of the most pervasive and paralysing aspects of the human condition. It is everywhere we turn; it is near and far. We struggle with Jesus’ saying that the poor will always be with us because surely that is not what God intends for creation.
I could show you any series of photographs of places in the world where there is extreme poverty and ultimately it would become numbing. Grinding poverty is like chronic pain: it wears down the soul until there is little fight or will left. Hope seems gone; God seems absent.
The images coming out of Haiti and now Chile are breathtaking in their devastation. Some of us saw just a few photos of Haiti last night but God knows, there are plenty more on television or in the paper. They are breathtaking when you think of the loss of life and the loss of potential. I don’t really think I need say more… and to show the photographs is perhaps even to descend into voyeurism.
This winter I saw a photo essay of Detroit. So much of the city now is abandoned that the local government is talking about razing the abandoned houses and moving people out of neighbourhoods if too much of one is empty. In fact, the city has lost half its population. A recent NPR report states: Drive down the Chrysler Freeway, and you see wave after wave of rotted-out, burned-out homes. Much of the city is a mausoleum of enormous, empty auto plants that need new life. It is astounding to see such landscapes in our country but we know they exist.
Then there’s the poverty that can surround us in our beautiful state of Vermont. Garret Keizer writes of Island Pond in his A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry:
‘Island Pond is like no other place on earth. Island Pond confirms no one’s belief in reincarnation: I cannot imagine anyone standing for the first time at the intersection of its main streets and thinking: “I’ve been here before.”
‘When I close my eyes and try to imagine Island Pond — or Brighton, as it is properly called — I find that no single mental picture can contain it. Instead, I see a kaleidoscopic view of discordant images — from the Old West, from Appalachia, from the blue-collar neighborhoods around Paterson, New Jersey, where I grew up, yes, from Vermont, too, turning slowly in the pale light of a mid-winter sun, and captioned with the original settlement’s name of Random. The same thing happens when I think in terms of time. Island Pond is not Lake Wobegon, “the little town that time forgot,” nor is it, as I once quipped, “the little town that time forsook,” but a town in which time has come undone. At least that’s how it seems, as one’s eyes move from the classic brick railroad station, to the boom-box-toting kinds leaning against the sheriff’s car, to the gray-haired hippies leaving the new supermarket, to the World War II tank parked outside the American Legion Hall, to the kerchief-covered heads of the women of an ever-growing religious sect that has chosen Island Pond as a good place to wait for the Apocalypse. …
‘Without a doubt, there is something depressed and depressing in this town, even for someone like me who has grown to love it. If a number of vacationers come here, so do a number of social workers. One magazine journalist called its main street “ugly,” much to the resentment of many Island Ponders, but I’ve never heard anyone call the main street “picturesque.” Actually, it’s the lack of anything even remotely precious that forms some of my affection for the place.’ (1)
There is local poverty, too. We don’t have to look far. Mary Pratt described it in her poem, ‘Benedicite Around the Block.’ (2) While dated, it describes well our neighbourhood.
Throughout the past year, I have been attending meetings of the downtown business partners. I say I am the odd one out because my business is a bit different than theirs — I am not selling anything to make a profit; I am inviting people to come and see, but some of our issues are the same as theirs. All you have to do is look out the door to see how empty West Street is between Church Street and Merchants Row. It would seem as though dissention between business owners, the city and the downtown partnership impedes cooperation and networking.
Physical poverty is very real for us. You can probably come up with your own examples.
+
Spiritual poverty is just as present but perhaps harder to pinpoint. There is one form, acedia, the noon-day funk that was the enemy of monks.
The concept of acedia begins with the ever-observant desert fathers and mothers who first perceived and diagnosed the condition. Their first impulse was to shoo it away like a pesky insect by keeping occupied, as in the narrative of Anthony beset ‘by many sinful thoughts’ and cured by angelic advice to stay busy plaiting rope. Poemen avers that ‘acedia is there every time one begins something, and there is no worse passion, but if one recognizes it for what it is, one will gain peace.’ And John Cassian adds:
It is also good to recall what Abba Moses, one of the most experienced of the fathers, told me. I had not been living long in the desert when I was troubled by listlessness [i.e., acedia]. So I went to him and said: Yesterday I was greatly troubled and weakened by listlessness, and I was not able to free myself from it until I went to see Abba Paul. Abba Moses replied to me by saying: So far from freeing yourself from it, you have surrendered to it completely and become its slave. You must realize that it will attack all the more severely because you have deserted your post, unless from now on you strive to subdue it through patience, prayer and manual labor.
Clearly acedia is not willful sloth or indolence, less so ‘sin,’ but a spiritual lethargy or indifference, a turpitude that affects the well-intentioned. Amma Theodora says:
You should realize that as soon as you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul through acedia, faint-heartedness, and evil thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakening of the knees, and all the members. It dissipates the strength of soul and body. ... But if we are vigilant, all the temptations fall away.
John Cassian went further than his conversation with Abba Moses to describe the physical symptoms so literally, even to the hour of the day when they peak, that acedia became known as the ‘noonday devil.’ He provides an excellent description of the psychology of acedia as well, indicating that acedia is a ‘tedium or perturbation of heart ... akin to dejection and especially felt by wandering monks and solitaries, a persistent and obnoxious enemy to such as dwell in the desert.’ He goes on:
When this [acedia] besieges the unhappy mind, it begets aversion from the place, boredom with one’s cell, and scorn and contempt for one’s brethren, whether they be dwelling with one or some way off, as careless and unspiritual-minded persons.
The listlessness of acedia is akin to a feeling of inertness, John Cassian notes, producing no spiritual fruit, a sense of any practice being ‘empty of spiritual profit.’ John’s remedy, following desert tradition, is a level of sustained activity approximating rigorous physical labor and what were to be called works of mercy, which fend off cynicisms. Physical labor as a solution is seen in the example of the first Christian desert hermit Paul, who regularly wove baskets of palm leaves. But being too far from a market to sell them Paul would burn his handiwork once a year and start over. (3)
Acedia might be seen as tedium of soul but what to do with those moments of the dark night of the soul, those moments when the poverty of the soul is so great that one feels unable to move? Those times are the moments when one touches the bottom, and perhaps finds out that despite it all, it is solid, even if one feels like a hermit crab scuttling for shelter. Those are the moments we call outright depression. And if the soul is troubled, so then, is the mind and the body because all operate in a trinity of energy.
If the soul is troubled, how does one function?
The writer of Psalm 22 expresses so well that despair in the opening line, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me and are so far from my distress?’ My reaction to this psalm is Pavlovian because we say it on Maundy Thursday as we strip the altar and chancel, and then pour wine on the horns of the altar before washing it entirely, rendering the altar a mortuary slab as a presage of Good Friday. I can hear the congregation praying this psalm as the altar party quietly and reverently removes everything that is not nailed down.
And then we pray this psalm again on Good Friday prior to the reading of the Passion according to Saint John. The theme of abandonment and desolation threaten to overpower us. We can scarcely breathe, so deep is our grief unleashed by the events of so long ago that take on the losses and sorrows of the current day.
Psalm 22 aptly is called a psalm of desolation. It probably is one that you have uttered in some form or another at some point in your life. Despair is understandable. Feeling as though God has abandoned you is equally understandable. But even Simone Weil, a French Jew, writing in the 1930s perceived that even when we have turned our face away from God our feet are nailed to the ground at the foot of the cross and God is still there, waiting for us to turn back again.
The psalm alternates between utter desolation —
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? *
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; *
by night as well, but I find no rest.
6 But as for me, I am a worm and no man, *
scorned by all and despised by the people.
7 All who see me laugh me to scorn; *
they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,
8 He trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him; *
let him rescue him, if he delights in him.’
12 Many young bulls encircle me; *
strong bulls of Bashan surround me.
13 They open wide their jaws at me, *
like a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water;
all my bones are out of joint; *
my heart within my breast is melting wax.
15 My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; *
and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.
16 Packs of dogs close me in,
and gangs of evildoers circle around me; *
they pierce my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
17 They stare and gloat over me; *
they divide my garments among them;
they cast lots for my clothing.
to moments of hope and confidence:
9 Yet you are he who took me out of the womb, *
and kept me safe upon my mother's breast.
10 I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born; *
you were my God when I was still in my mother’s womb.
11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near, *
and there is none to help.
18 Be not far away, O LORD; *
you are my strength; hasten to help me.
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
As with any psalm of desolation, by psalm’s end, the tone has changed into confidence. The psalmist says he will praise God in the great congregation. By psalm’s end, the psalmist promises:
My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him;
they shall be known as the LORD’S for ever.
An unknown Jew wrote on a cellar wall in Colgone, Germany during WWII:
I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when I cannot feel it.
I believe in God even when he is silent.
It is possible to move from a place of acedia or, worse, desolation, with God’s mercy and grace. Even when we are in those moments, we do discover that the bottom is solid. There are even people walking with us. And, yes, God has not abandoned us even though we might feel as much.
Poverty is real. But it is not the whole story.
END NOTES
(1) Garrett Keizer, A Dresser of Sycamore Trees (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 1991), 39-42.
(2) In Women’s Uncommon Prayers, Elizabeth Geitz, Marjorie Burke, Ann Smith, eds., Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000, 32-33.
(3) http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/acedia.html
Questions for first meditation
Where in your life do you feel poor?
Where is there spiritual poverty?
What does being poor in heart mean?
Where do you find consolation?
Where is God in all this?
Psalms for meditation: 22, 103
The priest with whom I worked said pretty early on, that whenever he was stuck on a sermon, he would visit someone and post visit he would get the necessary inspiration. I have always held those words in mind and so, this when the Holy Spirit (or muses) seemed recalcitrant, I was casting about. Then on Tuesday, in a conversation, I heard these three words put together — poverty, probability and possibility. Bingo! There was the thread. The original conversation focused on Sir John Smith and his Hope Institute but they work here.
POVERTY
Poverty is probably one of the most pervasive and paralysing aspects of the human condition. It is everywhere we turn; it is near and far. We struggle with Jesus’ saying that the poor will always be with us because surely that is not what God intends for creation.
I could show you any series of photographs of places in the world where there is extreme poverty and ultimately it would become numbing. Grinding poverty is like chronic pain: it wears down the soul until there is little fight or will left. Hope seems gone; God seems absent.
The images coming out of Haiti and now Chile are breathtaking in their devastation. Some of us saw just a few photos of Haiti last night but God knows, there are plenty more on television or in the paper. They are breathtaking when you think of the loss of life and the loss of potential. I don’t really think I need say more… and to show the photographs is perhaps even to descend into voyeurism.
This winter I saw a photo essay of Detroit. So much of the city now is abandoned that the local government is talking about razing the abandoned houses and moving people out of neighbourhoods if too much of one is empty. In fact, the city has lost half its population. A recent NPR report states: Drive down the Chrysler Freeway, and you see wave after wave of rotted-out, burned-out homes. Much of the city is a mausoleum of enormous, empty auto plants that need new life. It is astounding to see such landscapes in our country but we know they exist.
Then there’s the poverty that can surround us in our beautiful state of Vermont. Garret Keizer writes of Island Pond in his A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry:
‘Island Pond is like no other place on earth. Island Pond confirms no one’s belief in reincarnation: I cannot imagine anyone standing for the first time at the intersection of its main streets and thinking: “I’ve been here before.”
‘When I close my eyes and try to imagine Island Pond — or Brighton, as it is properly called — I find that no single mental picture can contain it. Instead, I see a kaleidoscopic view of discordant images — from the Old West, from Appalachia, from the blue-collar neighborhoods around Paterson, New Jersey, where I grew up, yes, from Vermont, too, turning slowly in the pale light of a mid-winter sun, and captioned with the original settlement’s name of Random. The same thing happens when I think in terms of time. Island Pond is not Lake Wobegon, “the little town that time forgot,” nor is it, as I once quipped, “the little town that time forsook,” but a town in which time has come undone. At least that’s how it seems, as one’s eyes move from the classic brick railroad station, to the boom-box-toting kinds leaning against the sheriff’s car, to the gray-haired hippies leaving the new supermarket, to the World War II tank parked outside the American Legion Hall, to the kerchief-covered heads of the women of an ever-growing religious sect that has chosen Island Pond as a good place to wait for the Apocalypse. …
‘Without a doubt, there is something depressed and depressing in this town, even for someone like me who has grown to love it. If a number of vacationers come here, so do a number of social workers. One magazine journalist called its main street “ugly,” much to the resentment of many Island Ponders, but I’ve never heard anyone call the main street “picturesque.” Actually, it’s the lack of anything even remotely precious that forms some of my affection for the place.’ (1)
There is local poverty, too. We don’t have to look far. Mary Pratt described it in her poem, ‘Benedicite Around the Block.’ (2) While dated, it describes well our neighbourhood.
Throughout the past year, I have been attending meetings of the downtown business partners. I say I am the odd one out because my business is a bit different than theirs — I am not selling anything to make a profit; I am inviting people to come and see, but some of our issues are the same as theirs. All you have to do is look out the door to see how empty West Street is between Church Street and Merchants Row. It would seem as though dissention between business owners, the city and the downtown partnership impedes cooperation and networking.
Physical poverty is very real for us. You can probably come up with your own examples.
+
Spiritual poverty is just as present but perhaps harder to pinpoint. There is one form, acedia, the noon-day funk that was the enemy of monks.
The concept of acedia begins with the ever-observant desert fathers and mothers who first perceived and diagnosed the condition. Their first impulse was to shoo it away like a pesky insect by keeping occupied, as in the narrative of Anthony beset ‘by many sinful thoughts’ and cured by angelic advice to stay busy plaiting rope. Poemen avers that ‘acedia is there every time one begins something, and there is no worse passion, but if one recognizes it for what it is, one will gain peace.’ And John Cassian adds:
It is also good to recall what Abba Moses, one of the most experienced of the fathers, told me. I had not been living long in the desert when I was troubled by listlessness [i.e., acedia]. So I went to him and said: Yesterday I was greatly troubled and weakened by listlessness, and I was not able to free myself from it until I went to see Abba Paul. Abba Moses replied to me by saying: So far from freeing yourself from it, you have surrendered to it completely and become its slave. You must realize that it will attack all the more severely because you have deserted your post, unless from now on you strive to subdue it through patience, prayer and manual labor.
Clearly acedia is not willful sloth or indolence, less so ‘sin,’ but a spiritual lethargy or indifference, a turpitude that affects the well-intentioned. Amma Theodora says:
You should realize that as soon as you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul through acedia, faint-heartedness, and evil thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakening of the knees, and all the members. It dissipates the strength of soul and body. ... But if we are vigilant, all the temptations fall away.
John Cassian went further than his conversation with Abba Moses to describe the physical symptoms so literally, even to the hour of the day when they peak, that acedia became known as the ‘noonday devil.’ He provides an excellent description of the psychology of acedia as well, indicating that acedia is a ‘tedium or perturbation of heart ... akin to dejection and especially felt by wandering monks and solitaries, a persistent and obnoxious enemy to such as dwell in the desert.’ He goes on:
When this [acedia] besieges the unhappy mind, it begets aversion from the place, boredom with one’s cell, and scorn and contempt for one’s brethren, whether they be dwelling with one or some way off, as careless and unspiritual-minded persons.
The listlessness of acedia is akin to a feeling of inertness, John Cassian notes, producing no spiritual fruit, a sense of any practice being ‘empty of spiritual profit.’ John’s remedy, following desert tradition, is a level of sustained activity approximating rigorous physical labor and what were to be called works of mercy, which fend off cynicisms. Physical labor as a solution is seen in the example of the first Christian desert hermit Paul, who regularly wove baskets of palm leaves. But being too far from a market to sell them Paul would burn his handiwork once a year and start over. (3)
Acedia might be seen as tedium of soul but what to do with those moments of the dark night of the soul, those moments when the poverty of the soul is so great that one feels unable to move? Those times are the moments when one touches the bottom, and perhaps finds out that despite it all, it is solid, even if one feels like a hermit crab scuttling for shelter. Those are the moments we call outright depression. And if the soul is troubled, so then, is the mind and the body because all operate in a trinity of energy.
If the soul is troubled, how does one function?
The writer of Psalm 22 expresses so well that despair in the opening line, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me and are so far from my distress?’ My reaction to this psalm is Pavlovian because we say it on Maundy Thursday as we strip the altar and chancel, and then pour wine on the horns of the altar before washing it entirely, rendering the altar a mortuary slab as a presage of Good Friday. I can hear the congregation praying this psalm as the altar party quietly and reverently removes everything that is not nailed down.
And then we pray this psalm again on Good Friday prior to the reading of the Passion according to Saint John. The theme of abandonment and desolation threaten to overpower us. We can scarcely breathe, so deep is our grief unleashed by the events of so long ago that take on the losses and sorrows of the current day.
Psalm 22 aptly is called a psalm of desolation. It probably is one that you have uttered in some form or another at some point in your life. Despair is understandable. Feeling as though God has abandoned you is equally understandable. But even Simone Weil, a French Jew, writing in the 1930s perceived that even when we have turned our face away from God our feet are nailed to the ground at the foot of the cross and God is still there, waiting for us to turn back again.
The psalm alternates between utter desolation —
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? *
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; *
by night as well, but I find no rest.
6 But as for me, I am a worm and no man, *
scorned by all and despised by the people.
7 All who see me laugh me to scorn; *
they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,
8 He trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him; *
let him rescue him, if he delights in him.’
12 Many young bulls encircle me; *
strong bulls of Bashan surround me.
13 They open wide their jaws at me, *
like a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water;
all my bones are out of joint; *
my heart within my breast is melting wax.
15 My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; *
and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.
16 Packs of dogs close me in,
and gangs of evildoers circle around me; *
they pierce my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
17 They stare and gloat over me; *
they divide my garments among them;
they cast lots for my clothing.
to moments of hope and confidence:
9 Yet you are he who took me out of the womb, *
and kept me safe upon my mother's breast.
10 I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born; *
you were my God when I was still in my mother’s womb.
11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near, *
and there is none to help.
18 Be not far away, O LORD; *
you are my strength; hasten to help me.
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
As with any psalm of desolation, by psalm’s end, the tone has changed into confidence. The psalmist says he will praise God in the great congregation. By psalm’s end, the psalmist promises:
My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him;
they shall be known as the LORD’S for ever.
An unknown Jew wrote on a cellar wall in Colgone, Germany during WWII:
I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.
I believe in love even when I cannot feel it.
I believe in God even when he is silent.
It is possible to move from a place of acedia or, worse, desolation, with God’s mercy and grace. Even when we are in those moments, we do discover that the bottom is solid. There are even people walking with us. And, yes, God has not abandoned us even though we might feel as much.
Poverty is real. But it is not the whole story.
END NOTES
(1) Garrett Keizer, A Dresser of Sycamore Trees (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 1991), 39-42.
(2) In Women’s Uncommon Prayers, Elizabeth Geitz, Marjorie Burke, Ann Smith, eds., Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000, 32-33.
(3) http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/acedia.html
Questions for first meditation
Where in your life do you feel poor?
Where is there spiritual poverty?
What does being poor in heart mean?
Where do you find consolation?
Where is God in all this?
Psalms for meditation: 22, 103
Quiet Day
The Daughters of the King Alpha Chapter of Vermont sponsored a quiet day today. For right now, here are the prayers we said at the end of the day. They are based on the talks so when you see them, the prayers will make more sense.
+
Gracious and loving God, we come to you today with open hearts, asking your blessing on all we do. We ask that you be with us as we seek to walk your ways, that your grace will guide us. And we ask that you set us free...
... from listlessness of spirit,
May you set us free.
... from lethargy of soul,
May you set us free.
... from indifference,
May you set us free.
... from turpitude of spirit,
May you set us free.
... from sloth,
May you set us free.
... from faint-hearted spirit,
May you set us free.
... from dissipation of spirit,
May you set us free.
... from the noon-day devil,
May you set us free.
... from inertness in prayer,
May you set us free.
... from tedium of soul,
May you set us free.
... from despair and desolation,
May you set us free.
... from acedia,
May you set us free.
... from the poverty of spirit and soul,
May you set us free.
Gracious God, we ask that you help us trust in you in all that we do. Grant that we not hedge our bets, or bargain with you but that we have confidence in your Holy Spirit leading us. As we serve you and our neighbour, may we let go of our fears and doubts but rather find the hope that has been promised to us, that all will be well.
Finally, when you call us may we say YES...
... to journeying to the unknown,
May we say YES.
... to approaching holy upheaval without fear,
May we say YES.
... to your annunciations,
May we say YES....
... to that which may seem contrary to our reason or desires,
May we say YES.......
... to those holy moments of love that will later pierce our heart,
May we say YES....
... to those demands of God which seem impossible,
May we say YES....
... to caring for others when it will be costly,
May we say YES....
... to taking risks and changing the status quo,
May we say YES....
... to being a prophet,
May we say YES....
... to living and serving faithfully,
May we say YES....
... to being an icon of God’s inbreaking shalom,
May we say YES....
... to simply showing up,
May we say YES....
... to walking on unchartered roads but trusting in you,
May we say YES....
... to being a witness to and bearer of hope,
May we say YES....
... to seeking you to find that all along you have been seeking us,
May we say YES....
Lord’s Prayer
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
Christ crucified draw you to himself. May you find in the cross a sure ground for faith, a firm support for hope, and the assurance of sins forgiven.
+
Gracious and loving God, we come to you today with open hearts, asking your blessing on all we do. We ask that you be with us as we seek to walk your ways, that your grace will guide us. And we ask that you set us free...
... from listlessness of spirit,
May you set us free.
... from lethargy of soul,
May you set us free.
... from indifference,
May you set us free.
... from turpitude of spirit,
May you set us free.
... from sloth,
May you set us free.
... from faint-hearted spirit,
May you set us free.
... from dissipation of spirit,
May you set us free.
... from the noon-day devil,
May you set us free.
... from inertness in prayer,
May you set us free.
... from tedium of soul,
May you set us free.
... from despair and desolation,
May you set us free.
... from acedia,
May you set us free.
... from the poverty of spirit and soul,
May you set us free.
Gracious God, we ask that you help us trust in you in all that we do. Grant that we not hedge our bets, or bargain with you but that we have confidence in your Holy Spirit leading us. As we serve you and our neighbour, may we let go of our fears and doubts but rather find the hope that has been promised to us, that all will be well.
Finally, when you call us may we say YES...
... to journeying to the unknown,
May we say YES.
... to approaching holy upheaval without fear,
May we say YES.
... to your annunciations,
May we say YES....
... to that which may seem contrary to our reason or desires,
May we say YES.......
... to those holy moments of love that will later pierce our heart,
May we say YES....
... to those demands of God which seem impossible,
May we say YES....
... to caring for others when it will be costly,
May we say YES....
... to taking risks and changing the status quo,
May we say YES....
... to being a prophet,
May we say YES....
... to living and serving faithfully,
May we say YES....
... to being an icon of God’s inbreaking shalom,
May we say YES....
... to simply showing up,
May we say YES....
... to walking on unchartered roads but trusting in you,
May we say YES....
... to being a witness to and bearer of hope,
May we say YES....
... to seeking you to find that all along you have been seeking us,
May we say YES....
Lord’s Prayer
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
Christ crucified draw you to himself. May you find in the cross a sure ground for faith, a firm support for hope, and the assurance of sins forgiven.
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