Invitation, Acceptance, Power, and Humility

(a homily)

Invitation is a powerful notion. To invite another person or group into your life or your home or your group is an act involving power. It is not a power that lords over the other, but one that empowers the other; to invite is to lower yourself in order to clarify that you see the other as worthy of your company, significant in your sight.

Conversely, the acceptance of an invitation is also an act of lowering and empowering. Acceptance is a gracious disposition, a humbled manner of facing the other and the world. It is living with thankfulness of heart and a true sense of dependence. Within this framework we see the deep significance of the invitation of the woman from Thyatira, Lydia, and Paul and the other's welcoming acceptance. The giving and receiving of invitation and acceptance give us a vision of the spiritual life, the life lived worthy of the Gospel, the testimony of Jesus in the Spirit.

Worship and the Eucharist teach us how to invite and accept. We worship God in response to God's invitation. The conversation of worship leads us to invite others into our personal lives, even into our communal life together. Even when others do not know how to accept our invitation, we continue to lovingly offer ourselves to them, empowered as we are by the Advocate who proceeds from the Father. Our life in the Spirit draws us into fellowship with the Triune God.

Worship humbles us so we might invite God into our hearts. The seventh or ninth century Palestinian monk, Theodorus the Ascetic, profoundly writes concerning the life with God:

The Lord makes his abode
in the souls of the humble,
for the hearts of the proud
are full of shameful obsessions.
Nothing strengthens the obsessions
so much as arrogant thoughts;
nothing uproots the weeds of the soul
so quickly as blessed humility.
[Quoted in The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives, Trans. and Intro. John Anthony McGuckin (Boston: Shambhala, 2003) 58.]

May our worship and the high praises of God in our throats lead us to blessed humility. In this humility we are delivered from the kind power that finds its source in arrogance and instead we are empowered by the love of Christ which guides us in a way of invitation and acceptance of the other.

(Acts 16:11-15; Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b; John 15:26—16:4a)

The Holy Spirit, and the Heavens, the Earth, the Seas

(a homily)

Does our vision, our way of life, have an advocate? Do we rightly see that the heavens and the earth are God's, that the Lord made them, that we are on the earth as a gift? We have being because of the overflowing love of a Creator God, who is so full of love that perfect union is known in a community of Three, a God who is not only transcendent and above the creation, but also immanent, present, desiring dwell in the lives of those who keep the word of love in Christ. This love, this presence, this union is manifested among us by the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, our Teacher, our lens. Do we allow the Advocate to re-mind us of Jesus words, to make our minds new, to dwell in our thoughts, our hearts, our hands, our eyes, our own words?

Vision is easily skewed. We may see the work of God before our very eyes, but attribute the deed to a false god, a god in our own image. Our world struggles today with the affects of the philosophical turn that made humans the image of divinity, the bearers of power in the earth. We wrongly think that the earth and the sea and all that is in them, even the heavens, belong to us.

Now, it is not wrong for us to see that our fate is the fate of the world, but it is misleading for us to believe we control that fate. Humans seeing themselves as masters of the earth has led to the earth's destruction, and the earth's destruction in turn leads to humanity's misery. The creation groans in pain; we too must learn to weep with it. The source of our tears, the source of living water that wells up in our innermost beings, is the Holy Spirit, the Liberator of the creation, the giver of New Life, the presence of God. It is this Spirit that makes holy that which we do in the love of Christ, by the direction of the Word. The Spirit makes us holy, makes us advocates of the creation, gives us vision to see the image of God in others and the work of God in all that is.

May all we do serve to remind us of Christ's words, that we may hear anew the promise of being made the dwelling of God. Let us listen to the teaching of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, listen to the breeze through the grasses and trees, and go forth knowing that the God who heals, who can help us to see aright, is the God who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them.

(Acts 14:5-18; Psalm 115; John 14:21-26)

Lay Down

(a homily)

What shall we lay down? What is there that causes us to fuss, to exclude? Who are we to hinder God from granting the gift of life to the world, even ourselves?

It seems that more questions arise than answers are received when we face the word of the Gospel. In the light of the love of God we are humbled; we ask ourselves, if we are willing to reckon Christ the rightful role of shepherd, Why are we not following the Voice of God? This is such a troubling question to ask, for we must look deep within ourselves to find the answer, and break through the barriers we've built up between our hearts and God. Such a view is not flattering.

But let us be at peace in the knowledge that God desires us to bid the Holy Spirit to come, to send forth light and faithfulness so that we might be led to the dwelling place of God to find rest. God desires to pour out the Spirit upon all flesh, to unite humanity, to bring together all people into one flock. We, as the church are called to be a part of this work. We have been granted life-giving repentance, and so we can turn away from death, from exclusion, and turn towards the still, small Voice, towards trust, love, contemplation, and selflessness. We can lay down our lives.

The Eucharist teaches us this way of life, the way of giving and receiving and giving, of being broken and being made whole. Let us give ourselves to the Good Shepherd who will lead us in the way of love, in life baptized by the Holy Spirit.

Eunucized Mind

I admit, I want to
spread my seed,
sow my virile
oats. To leave a mark,
a point of
remembrance for
my name. But, no,
not now, not when
marks mark the
lands with the
works of hands
led by minds
corrupt. My name
is enough, my thoughts
and my touch
are of love and
possess only themselves,
them being held
by the fingernail
that scraped the
humus and humanized
the dirt, moved by
the breathing wind.
Enough, this is.
Enough and no need
to leave marks.
The humus already
stands to be consumed.

When Did He Get Here?

(a homily)

"Teacher, when did you get here?" the crowd asked. It seems the evangelist John meant to imply that the people were dumbfounded that Jesus had made it to the other side of the lake during the night, alone, without a boat. Even more, they were upset that he had gone on his way because their meal for the day left with him. But Jesus looks through their questions. He doesn't bother addressing their intrigue, but instead leads them to consider deeper things than transportation and dinner: food that does not perish, everlasting food, the Son of Man's food; this they are to look and work for. We are to look and work for.

But what is our work? We are very much like the crowd, going to church, going to various places, looking for Jesus, looking for something. Christ is there, but I'm sure at times we wonder to ourselves, When did he get here? We recognize there is work for us to do, work for imperishable food, but what is it? (Manna, Exodus 16.) And what is imperishable food, anyway? Such a thing seems inconsiderate to imagine in a world plagued by hunger, cruel to people suffering from the havoc wrought by unjust economic systems and the greed of others.

And yet, perhaps we get a glimpse of the work of the Jesus of John's Gospel in the action of St. Stephen. Stephen, who's speech and story we will hear in the following days, spoke in the Spirit to the people with great wisdom. And what was his work, his task that occasioned great wonders and signs? Waiting tables and distributing food to widows. (Now, at the same time, the twelve apostles were going about their work of prayer and teaching--this too is a work for imperishable food.)

So, what is our work? To believe. If we could, in English, make "faith" a verb, "to faith." (We wouldn't have such a problem in Greek.) Our work is to give our whole selves to the one God sent, Jesus Christ. It is to allow his word to cut through our questions, so that we might be given a new petition, to say with the psalmist, "Remove from me the way of falsehood, the way of truth I have chosen." Our work is to pray, to feed on the meal Christ gives, to seek justice for the poor and the widows and the orphans, to create a place in which the apostles' teaching can be received. People will ask, "When did Jesus get here?" and we will be able to say, "We are working for an answer."

(Acts 6:8-15; Psalm 119:23-24, 26-27, 29-30; John 6:22-29)

The Believe is to Breathe

(a homily for Adoration, Hopwood Christian Church)

We often think that to believe is to simply give mental ascent, to appreciate in our minds and probably with our lips that “such and such is true” or that some particular proposition is trustworthy. Such is the legacy of Western “enlightenment.” On the other hand, it seems that those who have become aware that belief is not merely a mental thing, but a bodily way of life, often run the risk of becoming busy-bodies. “There are so many problems to be taken care of in the world, and if I don’t do something, who will?” such folks ask. I must admit that I think active believers are probably going more so in the right direction than merely rational believers. They say, like “doubting” Thomas, “I want to touch the scars of Christ.” Our Gospel reading tells us that Thomas was not with the other ten disciples when the risen Lord appeared to them. Some Christian traditions hold that Thomas was absent because he was already out doing the work of the Gospel. The other ten, were, in a sense, still in a state of shock, and they locked themselves up in a room trying to wrap their minds around the news they had received from Mary of Magdala, that she had seen the risen Lord. The question arises, however, as to which type of disciples we should try to be like: the active, physically oriented Thomas type or the hiding, mentally oriented type? All of us are potentially like Thomas and the other disciples. Perhaps there’s a way to bring both together.

What if our mentally-minded friends are not entirely wrong, just merely misguided by the likes of Descartes, talking head politics, state education required aptitude tests, or that great disembodying device, television? It is to be our hope that all are able to be made new; such is the promise of the Resurrection. But where does Resurrection Reality bring the ephemerally fanciful mind back into fellowship with the hardened, busy body, those parts of the person never meant to be considered divided? Well, take a deep breath. No, really, breathe deeply.

We must regain our hearts, the seat of our very beings. The Greek term in the New Testament and other ancient Christian writings often translated as “mind” or “intellect,” is nous. Nous is, however, something more than “mind,” or the faculty of reason. It is our “spirit,” that essential part of us that connects to God, being even the image of God in humanity. Thus, as the Eastern spiritual fathers express, true prayer and worship is “to descend with the mind (the nous) into the heart.”[Timothy Ware, in Introduction, The Art of Prayer, compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), 17f.] If we’ve forgotten, or never learned, the profundity of the mind, that it’s not only for thinking and mental ascent, it will be difficult for us to let it reconnect with the heart. However, a practice that can help us do this is that of being attentive to our breathing. Perhaps a selection from a poem by the contemporary poet Scott Cairns about the subtle meaning of nous will help to illustrate:

“… Dormant in its roaring cave,
the heart’s intellective aptitude grows dim,
unless you find a way to wake it. So,

let’s try something, even now. Even as
you tend these lines, attend for a moment
to your breath as you draw it in: regard

the breath’s cool descent, a stream from mouth
to throat to the furnace of the heart.
Observe that queer, cool confluence of breath

and blood, and do your thinking there.

[Scott Cairns, “Adventures in New Testament Greek: Nous,” Compass of Affection (Brewster,
MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), 104-105.]

When we become mindful of our breath, when we slow down to take notice of something so easily unnoticed as breathing, we become profoundly aware of the inseparable nature of our mind—our spirit—and our body. We come to recognize that the mental aspect of believing is wedded to the flesh, to our mouth, our throat, our lungs, our heart. We find that to believe is to breathe.

Now, I must tell you that we are not to do all of this believing and breathing alone. Bringing the mind and the heart and the body back together, mending the internal divide caused by sin, deception, and a philosophical inheritance will be a trying process. And thus we find, at least in part, the wisdom of gathering here together in this place to fellowship and foster friendship in the context of worship. We need help in believing, that radically active disposition that takes hold of all we are, and points us towards all we are becoming. When we find it difficult to breathe, our fellow believers in Christ are a peaceful presence. In worship, in receiving the body and blood of Christ, we are given true breath and we learn how to breathe in the everyday.

Here in this place, and in life’s mindful encounters, the risen Jesus comes among us, his disciples, and he says to us, “Peace be with you,” and he shows us the marks of his crucifixion, those gruesome and glorious reminders of the reward of fulfilling the law of love, of faithfully living the Gospel. Jesus tells us, and he shows us, that believing is not something simply done “up here, in the mind, with sheer thoughts.” Belief is done in and with the body—in our wrists, in our sides, with our hearts, with our very breath. But neither is belief merely physical; it is truly spiritual, the mind’s activity of repentance and purification, the turning of our whole selves towards God to be cleansed and renewed. Let us breathe. Let us believe. Let us think not only about the body of Christ, nor simply touch Christ’s scars, but let us be the body of Christ, broken for the world and raised to new life.

Jesus, breathe on us anew, that we may receive the Holy Spirit, the Advocate sent by your Father. Thank you for the gifts of worship, prayer, life, doubt, belief and breath. Give us breath, so we may live in a way that gives you glory. Amen.

(Gospel: John 20:19-31)