Dogmatic Joy

OT Reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16

Gospel reading: Luke 1:26-38

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mystery begins where words end.

There are some aspects of the Christian faith that cannot be expressed in words— they are mysteries to be intuitively felt, not propositions to be analyzed. The Blessed Virgin Mary, and her place in the story of salvation, belongs to this realm of mystery.

We do not preach Mary to the world. We preach Christ crucified and risen. That is our outward proclamation. But Mary remains a part of the inward memory of the Church, part of the inner tradition— “the secret joy” of the Church. Her presence is real, if elusive.

Mary is the one who says “yes” to God by saying yes to the Archangel Gabriel. He approaches her with the mission of being the Mother of the Messiah— of bearing God incarnate within her. And she accepts: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to thy word.”

Mary says yes to Christ— another way we can put it is that she makes room for Christ. There has always been a space in the world for God to dwell. He dwelt in the Tabernacle while the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. He dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem. And now He comes to dwell in a new temple— a temple made not of stone but of flesh and blood. A living temple. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” But where did he first become flesh? In the silence of her womb.

So Mary is the one who makes room for Christ, makes room for him in her body but also in her life. By accepting this calling to be the Mother of the Lord, her life will change forever. Her life will now revolve around him. Any new mother will tell you that since the birth of her child, her life has revolved around that child— bathing him and clothing him and feeding him and caring for him. And even as the child grows up and gains more independence, the identity as the Mother remains.

This life that Mary shares with her Son is a mystery. We have various stories in the Gospel about her and Jesus— the birth of Christ, the visit of the Magi, the finding in the Temple, the wedding at Cana. But the great majority of their life together is not recorded for us in the Gospels.

We know that she raised him, that he grew up with her. They spend years together, as Jesus grows from infant to toddler to child. She nurses him, she teaches him and plays with him. He becomes a teenager and grows into a man, and she sees the changes. Between them pass thousands of hours, thousands of conversations, countless little moments. That intimate relationship between Mother and Son is a mystery: unrecorded and undisclosed.

And so Mary is also the one who contemplates the Word-made-flesh in silence. Because the mystery of Christ is not revealed to her all at once. A book does not drop from heaven that explains the meaning of Christ and of his life and of her life. It becomes clear to her only gradually, in the quiet moments she spends with him in those hidden years in Nazareth. She ponders all these things in her heart, in silence. And so she gradually realizes who he is, and therefore the dignity of her own role as his Mother. The mystery is revealed to her in that luminous silence. And it is the silence of Mary, not her words, that distinguishes her in the Gospels.

Certainly, she speaks in the Gospel— she speaks with the Angel Gabriel, she magnifies the Lord in her song of praise, she intercedes with Jesus to help the family at the wedding in Cana. But mostly she keeps silent. At the foot of the Cross, she doesn’t utter a word. And on the Day of Pentecost, when the other disciples begin to speak in the Spirit and St. Peter gives his sermon to the crowds, her voice is not heard. We may even say that they were granted the gift of tongues, and she the gift of silence. Mary is the one who attends to the Mystery of the Word in prayerful silence.¹

By reflecting on Mary, we begin to see our own calling. Do we make room for Christ in our lives? Have we created that interior space where we can attend to Christ in silence? The world is so loud, so filled with noise and information. If we’re not careful, we can fill ourselves until there’s no room left in us for silence or mystery. Mary came to know her Son and her God not by mastering information, but by prayerful attention.

When we make space for Christ in our souls, he reveals himself to us. “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him” (John 14:21). Christ reveals himself to us, not in words but in silence; not in information but in personal communion. We must make room for this silence. For it is abiding in the peace of that silence that we gain the strength to speak and sing and celebrate the mystery of Christ.

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas this evening, and especially as we head into the New Year, let us remember that Marian silence. We too can say yes to Christ. We too can make room for Christ and contemplate him in that interior space in our souls beyond words. We too can ponder these things in our hearts… and like Mary bear God within us. Amen.

References

1. Zelinksy, Vladimir. “Mary in the Mystery of the Church: The Orthodox Search for Unity” in Mary: Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate: Theological Foundations II (Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing 1997), page 188.

This homily was also inspired by the poetry of Karol Wojtyla, especially “Her amazement at her only child.”

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

“Becoming Good Soil”

Gospel text: Matthew 13:1-23

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In all the Gospels, the Parable of the Sower is the first parable of Christ. It is also, according to the Lord himself, the key to all the other parables.

As he asks his disciples, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables?” (Mark 4:13)

This is the one. If we understand what Jesus is saying here, the other mysteries of the Kingdom will open up for us. If we don’t understand it, they will remain opaque.

The parable concerns a sower (that is, a farmer), indiscriminately casting seed on the ground. He throws seed on the path, on shallow soil, among the thorns, and on good soil.

If taken literally, he does not seem like a very smart farmer…

• We are familiar with this parable, but of course the disciples are hearing it for the first time
• They don’t get it
• So they ask Jesus for an explanation, which he gives them privately:

The Sower is the Son of Man, Christ.

The Seed is the Word of God.

The Soil is different kinds of hearts, which receive the Word or not, for different reasons.

The Soil: The Heart (cf. Matthew 13:19a)

According to Scripture and teaching of the Fathers, the heart is the innermost self, the center of our being, where we will and love and know most deeply

Four kinds of soil: four kinds of hearts

First: The seed on the path

The Word never took root. They never understood or they never wanted to understand

Usually, persons who belong to this category are inattentive, scattered.

God is casting the Word onto the soil of their heart, but distractions and idle thoughts are snatching the seed away.

This is especially a problem for modern man. There are so many impressions that can be made on the mind. Countless distractions and entertainments— there’s the Internet, our iPhones, a constant news cycle. Many birds to snatch away the seed that is cast on our hearts.

If we are scattered, if we’re always going to the next thing, then we cannot be still and open to receiving the Word that God deigns to sow in us.

Second: The seed on the rocky ground

These receive the Word with gladness but the soil of their heart is not deep— they’ll accept the Good News of the Gospel and being a disciple of Jesus, as long as it’s not too hard. But when it gets too difficult, too challenging, they fall away.

They like the idea of being a Christian, they can accept it intellectually, but they have no root. The Gospel hasn’t gone from their mind to their heart, from the surface to the depths. And so when things get challenging, they fall away.

Third: The seed among the thorns

These have received the word and it has begun to take root and grow. The problem in this case is not that the soil is too shallow but that something else is growing alongside the plant— the thorns.

Worldly cares, anxieties, unsanctified ambitions, the desire for wealth and other worldly comforts

These thorns choke out the Word and prevent it from being fruitful

Finally: The seed sown on the good soil

This is soil that receives the seed, the soil is deep, the seed is allowed to take root, and nothing else grows up alongside it to choke it.

These are those who hear the Gospel, understand it, and respond to it in repentance and faith. They allow the Gospel and the demands of discipleship to take root in them. They nourish the life of God in them with prayer and rightly ordered Christian living. They don’t allow the things of this world to choke out the saving knowledge that has been planted in them.

And for these reasons their lives are fruitful to God and the world— they patiently bear fruit, thirty- or sixty- or a hundredfold. This is what we want to be.

Notice: In all four cases, the seed is the same. The soil is what makes the difference in whether the plant grows.

Now, this parable could become for us a source of anxiety. There are four kinds of soil, and three of them are bad, and only one is good. So it’s very important for us to know: How do we become the good soil?

The Good News, beloved, is that through Holy Baptism, through hearing the Word of God and through reading it in Scripture, through receiving the Body and Blood of Our Lord in Holy Communion, the good seed has been sown in your heart.

The question is, will you water it? Will you tend and preserve it, so that it grows?

And this is not a mystery as to how to do this, how to nourish the Word sown in our hearts.

There are spiritual practices, disciplines, that help us to tend the seed that has been planted in our hearts:

• Repentance
• Faith
• Prayer
• Fasting
• Thanksgiving
• Acts of mercy
• Service to others

When we do these things, we nourish what has been sown in us.

And so each of us must look at our lives to see what threatens to turn us from good soil into bad soil.

Perhaps you need to be more on guard against distractions.

Or maybe you need to clear away some worldly cares and anxieties that are threatening to choke out God’s life in you.

Maybe you haven’t watered the seed in a long time and need to make the effort to be more regular in prayer and other spiritual disciplines.

With God’s grace, each of us can become and remain good soil.

And this is not a question of just trying really hard, in our own power = God is with us, God helps us with His grace.

And ultimately it shouldn’t be too torturous, because the Word of God is natural to us. It is not alien or foreign to us. Sin is what’s unnatural, sin is alien to who we truly are.

The divine life of God is the most natural possession of the human soul. So the seed is not foreign to the soil. It is what the soil was made for.

And when the seed is truly sown in the good soil, the plant grows up, gradually, mysteriously— as the Lord says in another parable, “day and night, it springs and grows up, he knows not how” (Mark 4:27).

The Gospel will take root in your heart, and when you water it and tend it, it will bear fruit in ways that may even surprise you. You will change, from the inside out, and become a more loving, gentle, generous person— that is, more like Christ. More like God made you to be.

Things that would have sent you off the rails or stolen your peace won’t anymore. Where you used to be stingy, you’ll be giving. You’ll be more attentive to God and more attentive to others. The seed will grow into a beautiful plant. And the birds of the air will find shade under its branches. Glory to God. Amen.

A sermon outline

Reading: Genesis 24:34-67

“The Meeting of Isaac and Rebekah”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In romantic comedies and sitcoms, the “meet cute” is the scene where the two romantic leads meet for the first time.

In any love story, the one thing that needs to happen for there to be a story is that the boy and the girl meet. But it can’t just be a normal first interaction— there has to be something interesting about it. As a character in a 1955 George Axelrod play explains,

“Dear boy, the beginning of a movie is childishly simple. The boy and girl meet. The only important thing to remember is that— in a movie— the boy and the girl must meet in some cute way. They cannot… meet like normal people at, perhaps, a cocktail party or some other social function. No. It is terribly important that they meet cute.”

So to be anachronistic, our Old Testament reading today features the “meet cute” between Isaac and Rebekah— it’s the first time these two biblical figures meet. And whether or not it’s cute, the way it came about is at least interesting. There are several moving parts.

To give some context for this story: Abraham is 140 years old. Isaac is 40 years old. The sacrifice of Isaac, which was thankfully halted by the angel from heaven, has already occurred. Sarah has already died. And Abraham is nearing the end of his life. He has constantly kept God’s promise in his heart that his descendants would be as countless as the stars and that they would inherit the land of Canaan. God has already provided a miracle by granting that Sarah conceive and give birth to Isaac even in her old age.

But the next step is for Isaac to start having children. For that, he needs a wife. Isaac is already 40, which is kind of old to be unmarried, even in our day, but especially so in that day. He’s waited a long time. He’s ready.

So Abraham summons one of his servants, who is not named in the text, but some rabbinic traditions hold that it was Eliezer of Damascus, who was the heir of Abraham’s estate before the birth of Isaac. Abraham makes him swear to find a wife for Isaac. And Eliezer is to find her among Abraham’s kindred, not from the various pagan tribes of Canaan. The servant vows to do so, and sets off on his mission.

Our reading from the lectionary doesn’t give the whole account. Genesis actually presents the story in the third person and then has the servant recount the entire story in the first person, which is what we have here (which is, by the way, the longest speech by a slave in the Hebrew Bible, at 238 words in the Hebrew).

The servant has been invited into the home of Rebekah and her brother Laban and he recounts his story:

“I am Abraham’s servant…”

“I came today to the spring… and I prayed…”

Asks for a sign: generosity

Rebekah passes the test

The servant recounts this story and everyone agrees that it was ordained by God. Of course, back then, marriages were most often arranged, so Rebekah doesn’t have much of a say in this, but they do ask her, “Will you go with this man?” And she says, “I will.”

“So they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse…”

This is it— this is the first time they’re going to meet. “Isaac went out in the evening…”

And of course, Isaac and Rebekah will become the parents of Jacob and Esau, who will have their own role to play in the sacred drama.

Learn from this story?

Three lessons

1. The providence of God
   a. The timing at the well
   b. Knew the sign the servant would ask for
   c. Knew Rebekah’s character
2. Purity of intention; single-mindedness of purpose

The servant: earnest, no ulterior motives

3. Being open to opportunities to be generous (Rebekah was generous, though it could have been easy to say no)

Three major actors in this story: God, the servant, and Rebekah. All played their parts.

When you wake up in the morning:

1. Know that God is overseeing all things…
2. Strive to be single-minded in your undertakings, to be simple and earnest in your dealings with others
3. As you go throughout your day, be open to opportunities for generosity

And then we too will find that God will make our ways straight and bring all loving His purposes for us to fulfillment. Amen.

A sermon outline/transcript

June 18, 2023 

Readings: Genesis 18, Romans 5, Matthew 9-10

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

“Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

So declares St. Paul in his magisterial letter to the Romans. What does it mean to have peace with God? 

This question has not been a theoretical one for many Christians throughout history. Some sensitive souls have been afflicted with what is called scrupulosity— an obsessive concern with displeasing God, a constant worry that they are not in the right with God, which leads to all manner of compulsive activities meant to alleviate these anxieties.  

St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Therese the Little Flower, John Bunyan, and Martin Luther— all of them experienced obsessive thoughts about God being displeased with them. Luther in particular struggled with this. As an Augustinian monk, he felt that no matter what he did, he felt insecure in his relationship with God. He always felt uncertain as to where he stood with God. Every morning he’d wake up and feel like he was already in debt. God was displeased with him, and Luther had to work hard to get into God’s good graces— he would pray, he would fast, he would perform works of mercy and piety. But no matter how much he did, he never felt secure. He did not feel at peace with God. 

So the discovery that we are justified— that is, that we are restored to a right relationship with God— through faith and not through works, changed his life— and eventually the course of Western Christianity. 

Yet the subject of justification by faith, which is so central to our Epistle reading this morning, is by no means simple. Luther himself said that a preacher who could properly distinguish Law and Gospel deserves a doctor’s cap.  

Two extremes to be rejected: mere exhortation or antinomianism

This morning I want to look at what it means to have peace with God, according to St. Paul’s letters.

What it does not mean: 

Not about changing God (Romans 5): God is already “for” us, which he proves by sending His Son

The Gospel is not about affecting a change in God. We are the ones who need to change.

Still, some are not at peace with God (God is not at peace with their alienation from Him!) 

How are we restored to a right relationship with God? Paul’s argument in Romans: Not through works, but through faith 

Not through works (whether works of the law like circumcision, Sabbath observance, keeping kosher… or good works in general) but by faith 

What God wants most from us is faith—TRUST  

Cf. Genesis reading (Abraham, “reckoned to him as righteousness”, Sarah’s childbearing “is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”) 

We are restored to a right relationship with God not through our works but through faith. 

Effect on our spiritual life: Frees us up (anxiety to serenity) 

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Peace, joy: Our relationship with God is not predicated on our performance, but on His goodness and love for us 

What, then, of the place of good works? The attitude of the antinomian described

Response: The faith that justifies us is a living faith (“faith without works is dead,” “faith working through love,” FAITH WORKS) 

If we truly have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we will demonstrate this faith in the way we live.  

Grace is not just something that covers us, but something that fills us and changes us from the inside out (“the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”)  

Good works are the fruit of faith: the expression of a living, saving faith 

In this context, good works have been transformed— rather than our works emerging from anxiety and compulsion, they emerge from a grateful heart 

And in any case, they’re not really “our” works

Galatians 2: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Christ lives in me, doing his work

1 Corinthians 15: I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Key verse: Ephesians 2 [salvation is by grace through faith but necessarily includes good works]

“Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

St. Paul is clear that we are saved by grace through faith, but that believers are made for good works and indeed, that we are the handiwork of God. If you are a Christian, not only will you do good works, your life will become a good work, that is, the good work of God.

Good News:

God loves us, even though we were far from Him, even though we have all rebelled against Him in different ways, God loves us so much He gave His only begotten Son to live and die and rise for us. For you to be restored to a right relationship with God, what God requires of you is not to perform a series of works but to turn from your sin and trust in Christ. And trusting in Christ with all your heart, reaching out in faith and holding on to the hem of his robe, you receive forgiveness and healing. You will have peace with God.

And God will live in you through the Holy Spirit and change you from the inside out, and your faith in Christ will express itself in how you think and speak and act. Your faith will be a living faith that works through love, and your good works will be the expressions of a grateful and joyful heart. You will move through life, not with anxiety or compulsion, but with joy and peace and confident serenity. That is what God wants for you.

And not only will you do good works, your life will be a good work: God’s work, as He works in you and through you. This is Good News, beloved. Since we are justified by faith, we have with peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

“Givenness and Gratitude”

Readings: Genesis 1, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, Matthew 28

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today’s sermon is going to be about gratitude. Being grateful. Sometimes it’s good to give the answer at the beginning. That way you’re not searching for it the whole time. “Gratitude” is where we’re going to end up.

But what does gratitude have to do with Trinity Sunday?

Unique commemoration in the Church Year

Most feasts days are about Events in the life of Christ or his Mother or the saints

Trinity Sunday: not an event, but a teaching

Dogma of the Holy Trinity: One God in three Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)

Mystery, beyond human comprehension

The apostles did not come up with the dogma of the Trinity because they thought it was clever. It emerged out of sustained, prayerful reflection on their experience.

The God of Israel, Christ, Holy Spirit (e.g., Baptism of Christ)

They didn’t have an agenda; this dogma emerged out of their experience of the Incarnation and the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church

Not only experience, but Scripture (raw data)

Readings, aptly chosen

• Genesis: God creates through His Word and Spirit
• 2 Corinthians: Trinitarian benediction
• Matthew: Baptism in the Name…

The data is there, but how is it synthesized? How does the Church express the truth that there is only one God, but that this God exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

There’s a reason for the Prologue to John’s Gospel is written the way it is—as poetry

The apostles and their successors needed to find the language and the ritual to express this truth about God— and this was a process that took several centuries. They had to not only put forward what was true about God but reject what was false.

Heresies (opinions): Arianism, Modalism, Divinity of the Spirit denied

And after centuries of prayerful reflection on the Church’s experience of Christ and the Spirit, after centuries of wrestling with the teaching of sacred Scripture, the bishops and confessors of the faith assembled, took a deep breath, and formally confessed the belief of the Church:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father before all ages, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, being one in Essence with the Father, through whom all things were made.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.”

Every Sunday, when we repeat the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, we confess the same faith that our forebears confessed. We are expressing our continuity with their understanding and experience of God the Holy Trinity.

Givenness of Christian doctrine

We don’t construct the faith anew every generation. We humbly receive what has been passed down to us. Because the identity of God is not something for us to construct anyway

God to Moses from the Burning Bush: “I am who I am”

God just is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the eternal Verity, the truth beyond and behind and between all things. This is what and who God is, not because we came up with it, but because it is what has been revealed.

Throughout Christian history, there have been some speculations about why God is triune rather than a Monad. Some have even asked why are there Three Persons and not four or five? And perhaps there is insight to be found in such reflection, but the truth is that God has revealed Himself as three Persons, not two or four or five or whatever.

This is what has been revealed. This is what has been given.

There is a givenness to the Christian faith, a sense that our religion is not what we construct, but what we receive with gratitude and even a sense of responsibility.

But this givenness applies not only to the realm of doctrine. Everything that exists is a gift of the loving triune God. Ultimately, everything has a givenness to it.

Genesis 1: In the beginning, God created “the heavens and the earth” (Hebrew idiom for everything that is): God declared it good, very good

Everything we have, everything we are, God gave to us

Our existence, our time on this earth, our relationships, the food we eat and the clothes we wear, the gift of thought and expression and art– everything that is good and lovely in the lives of men and women– is a gift from a loving God.

So our fundamental posture as Christians should be gratitude— to receive God’s gifts in gratitude. And not only to receive, but to give it back in thanksgiving– Eucharistia

That is our vocation, to be priests of the New Creation, to offer back to God all that He has given to us:

“All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine have we given thee.”

Or as the priest says in the Eucharistic prayer: “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

So on this Trinity Sunday, we remember that God’s identity is not something we construct, but something revealed and handed down to us. We remember that all things are the gift of the loving triune God, to be received in humble gratitude and offered back to God in thanksgiving and love. Givenness and Gratitude.

May the blessing of the Life-Giving Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, rest upon us evermore. Amen.

May 21, 2023

“Our Hero’s Journey”

Readings: Acts 1:6-14 / 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 / John 17:1-11

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces is an influential book first published by Joseph Campbell in 1949. In it, he describes The Hero’s Journey, the archetypal story that Campbell claims is reflected in most legends, myths, and sacred narratives. His thesis is that basically all stories, from The Odyssey to The Lord of the Rings, have the same basic structure. In so many words, there’s really only one story. And it goes like this:

Our hero is living a more-or-less normal life when he receives a call to adventure. The hero leaves his familiar world and crosses a threshold into an unknown and challenging new world. The hero is helped by mentors and friends, opposed by foils and enemies. In pursuit of his goal, the hero struggles against increasingly greater obstacles until he enters the greatest challenge of his life— the abyss. Once there, the hero experiences death and rebirth and returns to his old world a changed person, with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

That’s the Hero’s Journey in brief. And of course, a lot has been written about it since Campbell first published his ideas, lots of discourse and critique, but the overall idea has remained relevant for storytellers the world over.

I’ve been thinking about this because the life of Christ is indeed a story, “the greatest story ever told,” as one film calls it. The earthly life of our Lord has a beginning, middle, and end.

So as we draw near to the end of the Eastertide season, we should be feeling a sense of narrative closure. There should be a feeling that the sacred events we have been commemorating since Holy Week have been progressing and have an end in sight.

Our Lord was betrayed, arrested, crucified— he died and was buried— he rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples for forty days… and then what? Have you ever thought about how the Resurrection story could end, if not with the Ascension? What if Jesus rose from the dead, and just stuck around? Just stayed on earth, never to die again? The Paschal Mystery would be a sort of open-ended story. But it was not meant to be that way.

The Ascension of Christ into the heavens after his Resurrection is an essential part of his hero’s journey. This is the way his earthly life was meant to conclude: by ascending into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father.

The reason for this is not arbitrary. There is a beautiful symmetry in the life of Christ. In the Incarnation, Christ descends to bring God to humanity. Now, in the Ascension, Christ ascends to bring humanity to God. He went forth from God and he returns to God. He unites humanity to himself, defeats our enemies, and then returns from whence he came.

The whole of the life of Christ is one grand movement downward and upward. The Word of God comes down from heaven, leaves his “familiar world,” we might call it, and becomes human in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. He is born into our world and experiences the full range of the human condition. He knows the joys and frustrations of family life; the diligence needed to learn a trade; moments of triumph and perplexity in his ministry. He tastes the bitterness of betrayal and the desolation of the Passion. Christ has experienced the depths of our common human experience.

And like the archetypal hero, he descends into the abyss of his Passion to do battle against the greatest Enemy of all— a battle to the death. And against all expectation, he triumphs over his enemies by rising from the dead and being exalted to the right hand of God, with the power to bestow gifts on his fellow man— above all, the Gift that contains all gifts: the Holy Spirit.

The most holy life of Christ is a story, and the Ascension is its fitting conclusion.

So what does this mean for our stories? For our own journeys? I would offer two thoughts. The first is that our stories have now been swept up into his. Our stories are unfolding in the light of his story. If we are truly in Christ, if we are united to Christ in the mysteries of the Church and the life of prayer, then we share in Christ’s victory, just as he shared in our struggles. If we remind ourselves that our stories participate in the victory of his story, we will be able to drive away despondency and despair.

Secondly, it means that, while his journey is completed, even though “the strife is o’er, the battle done,” we still have work to do. The disciples were given a mission right before the Ascension: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” To the ends of the earth. Even to Sherman and Grayson County. We too are charged to take our witness to Jesus into our own time and place. Our witness is our testimony of who Christ is and what he means to our lives. That is what the local church is for: not primarily to meet the needs of members, but to reach out to those who have not yet heard the testimony about Jesus or who need to hear it afresh.

This mission is long-term. It is not accomplished overnight. And it requires certain commitments of us, which are mentioned in our readings. After the Ascension, the disciples “constantly devote themselves to prayer.” So if we want to bear witness to Jesus, we will pray. We will follow St. Peter’s exhortation to “discipline [ourselves], to keep alert.” We will humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt us in due time. And in the midst of all this discipline and hard work, we will cast our anxiety on the Lord, because He cares for us.

Beloved: Our Lord has completed his journey on this earth. The Hero has triumphed, the Villain has been defeated. And all are our stories have participated in this victory. Take your part in the narrative. You too have a role in the Story. May God grant that your life be a powerful and beautiful witness to the Risen Lord, the Hero who triumphs over all. Amen.

May 14, 2023

“The Motherly Love of God”

Readings: Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss Catholic priest and theologian who was one of the most prolific authors in modern history. He wrote 85 books, over 500 articles and essays, and almost 100 translations of other people’s work.

Yet in all this prodigious output, all those thousands of pages he wrote, there is one insight of his that I find most memorable. And it’s simple but profound.

Von Balthasar writes that our first experience after birth is being placed in the arms of our mother and seeing her face… where the “I” encounters the “Thou” for the first time, and the “Thou” smiles in a relationship of love and sustenance.

Our mother is the first person who sees us, who knows us and loves us. Our mother is the first person we see, the first person we learn to love. We first learn what it means to love from our mother, as she cares for us and feeds us and holds us in her loving embrace.

(When one thinks of the birth of Christ and his relationship with his mother Mary, one begins to see why so many throughout Christian history have felt such affection for her).

Mothers teach us what it means to be in communion with another person, which is what Christian maturity is ultimately about: learning to become persons. Not atomized data points or statistics, not consumers, but persons.

And our relationship with our mothers is a reflection of the love which God has for us. God is the One who knows us first, who loves us first; “we love Him because He first loved us.” God is the One in “whom we live and move and have our being,” as St. Paul says, the One who is closer to us than we are to ourselves. God is the One who, more than any other, tenderly cares for us. Mothers have the dignity and privilege of reflecting the love of God in their own way.

The whole of the Christian life in the Church, in fact, is rightly seen as maternal. Because after all, what does a mother do for a newborn infant? A mother bathes her child, clothes him, feeds him. And that is what happens for us in the Church: We are helpless, lost in sin, unable to cleanse ourselves or care for ourselves. But God, who is merciful, cleanses us in the waters of baptism, clothes us with the righteousness of Christ, and feeds us with the holy nourishment of Word and Sacrament.

It is in the Church where we learn that life is not ultimately about things, whether material things like possessions or immaterial things like success or comfort. Life is not essentially about using things but about enjoying communion with other persons.

So it is personal language that Jesus uses in his farewell discourse: “The Spirit of truth will abide in you and will be in you. On that day, you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me, and I am in you.”

This is what the Christian life is truly about, this is what human life is about: union and communion with the One who loves us. He in us and we in Him. We receive the love of God made manifest to us in Jesus, and with God’s grace, we are empowered to love God in return.

And our love for God is demonstrated through keeping the commandments of Christ, as he says in our Gospel reading: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” If we love Christ, we will strive to do what he would have us do and avoid what he has forbidden.

Even here there is a parallel with human parenting. A mother tells her child, “Don’t stick your finger in the electrical socket!” not because she is capricious, but because it is for the child’s good. The commandments draw boundaries in the world, which we respect for our own good and disregard to our own detriment. And for that reason, obedience to the commandments of Christ is never a merely legal matter, never merely about keeping the rules or doing the “right” things. Keeping the commandments is the concrete way of abiding in that communion for which we are made, as Jesus says: “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Obedience here is not primarily legal but relational.

Brothers and sisters: Remember the great love which God has for you. Remember that with motherly care, God has cleansed you and clothed you, taught you and corrected you, fed you and sheltered you within the haven of the Church. And remember that you were made for communion: communion with God and communion with other people.

I want to return to the image I used at the beginning: mother and child locking eyes for the first time. I spoke of the mother as the one who sees us first and loves us first, and I related that to God, who is truly the One who sees and loves us first. But the analogy does eventually break down.

For while it is true that one’s mother is the first person we get to know, the one who is present right from the moment of our birth, she is usually not someone who is present at our death. For most of us, our mothers die before we do, and so they are present at the beginning of our life, but not the end.

But it is not so with God. At the hour of our death, just as at the hour of our birth, God is present… as not only the One who loved us in the beginning, but as the One who loves us at our mortal end.

And beyond death, we will see God, not through a glass darkly, but face to face. And our eyes will find His, and we will see the Face of the One who has ever loved us and cared for us. We will see Him truly for the first time, and there will be… recognition. We will recognize Him as the One who has tenderly cared for us all this time. And that recognition will be the beginning of endless joy. Amen.

Outline/transcript

May 7, 2023

“Keeping Our Eyes on Jesus”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles is beautifully depicted in the stain-glass window in the back of the sanctuary.

Stephen, the first deacon of the Church, looks to heaven as his persecutors lift stones to stone him. His gaze is steady, his expression unafraid. He sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Usually, Jesus is spoken of us as sitting at the right hand of God, but now he stands, perhaps as a way of respecting Stephen’s courage.

And after commending his spirit to the Lord Jesus, and asking forgiveness for his killers, Stephen dies, becoming the Church’s first martyr.

This reading reminds us, now that we are deep into the Easter season, that the Resurrection of Christ was not only a message of surprising joy…

It was a message for which the followers of Jesus were willing to die.

Testimony before the authorities (Jesus is the Messiah…)

Detail in St. Luke’s account of the martyrdom of Stephen whose significance it is easy for us to miss:

“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Allusion to Psalm 31

Into your hands I commend my spirit (trust—asleep, death)

Jesus’ dying words (gives up his spirit and dies on the Cross)

Jesus commended his spirit to God, and now Stephen is commending his spirit to Jesus.

To say, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit” or “receive my spirit” is something you would only say to God.

And here is Stephen, looking into heaven, his eyes fixed on Jesus, addressing Jesus in prayer and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!

This is truly revolutionary! Addressing Jesus in the same way one would address God. Of course, for us, this is not so surprising, but we have twenty centuries of Christian history in the rear view. This is just a few years after the Resurrection of Christ.

Addressing Jesus in prayer and commending one’s spirit to him like you would commend your spirit to God

These early disciples of Jesus are addressing him as if he was God.

We already see evidence of this in the life of Christ—forgives sins, accepts worship, he refers to himself using divine titles…

Gospel reading (Last Supper) …

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes… If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father…”

“Have I been with you so long, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

Jesus speaks of himself here as the Image of God, the one in whom the glory of God is perfectly reflected, so that, if you see Jesus, you have seen God in the flesh.

Rowan Williams, the former ABC, reflects on this stunning claim in his book Tokens of Trust. He writes, “Here is a human life so shot through with the purposes of God, so transparent to the action of God, that people speak of it as God’s life ‘translated’ into another medium. Here [in the life of Jesus] God is supremely and uniquely at work…

“[And so] Christians approach Jesus now as though he were completely with God, associated with God, able to do what God does, and so correctly addressed as if he were God.” (end quote)

Jesus is saying to his disciples, I am the perfect Image of who God is. What I am doing is what God is doing. What I am about is what God is about. If you want to know God, get to know me… for I am the way to Him, and the truth about Him, and the life that He gives to the fallen world.”

It is a stunning claim for a 1^st century rabbi from a backwater town to make. But the Resurrection of Christ vindicates Jesus’ claims and life. God vindicates Jesus by raising him from the dead, triumphant over death, his enemies, and all those who would malign him.

What does this mean for us? If Jesus is indeed the one shows us the Father, if he is the way to God, the truth about God, the life of God made manifest to us, how does this affect how we live our daily lives?

I would suggest that if we know that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life, then that means we would be appropriately discerning about what we encounter in this world. There are indeed many ways, many “truths”, and many ways of life to choose from. Many people are consumed by politics—whether conservative or liberal doesn’t matter—politics and “being right” is the way and truth and life for them. For others, it’s entertainment, or comfort, or ideology. There are so many different things calling out to us, saying “This is the way! This is the truth! This is what life is about!”

There are so many things in this multitudinous, jostling, busy world that call out to us, vying for our attention and energy. Some of them are worthwhile. There are some things that are worth thinking about, and worth talking about, and worth doing. And there are many things that are not. And the way we know the difference is by keeping our eyes on Jesus.

He is the way and the truth and the life. And if we keep our eyes on Jesus, like St. Stephen, and look at the world in light of Jesus, then we will know what is worthwhile and what is not. If we keep our eyes and minds and hearts on Jesus, then our lives will be balanced, healthful— everything in its proper place. And after a lifetime of keeping our eyes on Jesus, we will be prepared, in the hour of our death, to commend our spirits to him, as to the faithful God. Amen.