St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, Lincoln, Neb., celebrates the Holy Eucharist on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The parish’s rector, Father Jerry Thompson, asked me to lead worship on Tuesday, December 27, 2011. This is the third day in the Octave of Christmas and the Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist.

Readings

1 John 1:1–9
Psalm 92
John 21:19b–24

Homily

In Advent, we heard the cries of John the Baptist calling to us from the wilderness, baptizing and saying, “Repent” (Matthew 3:2) and “Behold, here is the Lamb of God” (John 1:36b). As John’s Gospel reminds us, “[The Baptist] came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light” (John 1:6–8).

Today, we celebrate the feast of the other John, the saint and apostle and evangelist. In his letter, he reminds us that the apostles say, “… this [word of] life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it” (1 John 1:2a). Their testimony is simple and pure, like the clear ringing of a bell that cuts through the noise of our lives and calls us to silence, to reverie and prayer.

John’s testimony is this: “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Right there is the Good News in a simple sentence. Jesus Christ, who is the Word in the flesh, is the light that shines in the darkness and overcomes it.

Even when we may feel that darkness presses in upon us like a wall of unbreakable stone, like a wave of irresistible force, the light—who is Christ—shines in our lives. He breaks that wall; he repels that wave. Darkness may seem unstoppable when Christians die in bombings in their churches on the Feast of the Nativity, when families lose loved ones in tragic house fires, when relatives do not speak to one another, when congregations face division and disintegration, and when we know that “we lie and do not do what is true” (1 John 1:6).

Darkness may look victorious. But John tells us: stick to the light; walk in it; live in Christ. As he says in his letter, “If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

And so, here we are, coming into the light, gathering around the table, offering our gifts in sacrifice, praising God our Father, receiving the body of God the Son—the bread of heaven—and the blood of the Word—the cup of salvation.

Soon we will leave, heading back into the darkness. But we will bear the light that shines unstoppably. We will testify to the light—Jesus Christ—who overcomes all darkness. Amen.

Memories are sometimes fluid and elusive.
We can come to believe
that we recall an event
in the kind of vivid detail
that only arises from personal experience.

But as we turn the memory over and over in our mind’s hands,
and look at it from different angles,
it gets hard to tell when our actual recollection ends
and our memories about the stories of those memories begin.

It’s what happens when we look at faded snapshots
taken when we were children.
Do we remember the lived event
or have we just built a memory
around the image in the photograph,
the stories our relatives have recounted over the years?

It’s hard to tell.
But in the end,
I don’t think it really matters,
because memory is not a transcript, a recording, a documentary.

It’s less than that, but infinitely more.
It’s our personal story,
and even if it’s not accurate in every detail,
it bears the truth of the meaning of the memory of the event.

That’s why our original memories
get overlaid and adorned and filigreed
with snapshots and anecdotes and stories and new memories
about those times when we have shared our old memories
with friends and family.

The picture we can envision
to help us understand ourselves
is of an attic, with boxes and chests
scattered in delightful disarray.

Some of these treasures are well marked,
but others are just a jumble,
waiting for us to come and to sort through them,
to make sense of them,
to put them in order.

This common and familiar experience
is what I imagine we share with Mary, the mother of our Lord.
Luke’s familiar telling of the birth of Jesus
reminds us how she and Joseph
found themselves swept up
in the Spirit’s whirlwind of action.

We know that God’s angel, Gabriel,
had announced to Mary
that the Spirit would come upon her
and she would conceive and bear a child,
the Son of God and Savior of the world.
That’s why the Church calls her Theotokos, or God-bearer.

And Mary remembers all of this, vibrant with detail.

And then the political powers
do what they do,
and upend the lives of the common people
to achieve their own ends.
So Mary and Joseph journey to Bethlehem
in the midst of her pregnancy.

And Mary adds to her memories.

They end up finding shelter with the beasts.
Then Jesus—God in the flesh—is born among the animals
and rests his head in a feed trough.
Soon the shepherds come and testify to the angels’ message:
“Do not be afraid. A Savior, the Messiah, the Lord is born.”

And Mary remembers this as well.

As St. Luke tells us,
“But Mary treasured all these words
and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19, NRSV)

It’s the treasuring and pondering
that draws a picture for me
of the ministry of memory we share with Mary.
As the years go by and Jesus grows up,
Mary finds time to go to the attic of her memory,
she kneels beside a great big box,
and takes from it some straw,
a long strip of cloth,
a curl of lamb’s wool.
They are reminders to her—
in an age with no cameras
and in a time when she had no money
to pay scribes to write the memories on scrolls—
of the miracle of her son’s birth.

And “Mary treasured all these words
and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19, NRSV)

The Greek words Luke chooses are powerful.
What we read as “treasured” is the Greek word suntereo.
It means “to preserve (a thing from perishing or being lost),”
or “to keep within one’s self, keep in mind (a thing, lest it be forgotten).”
(http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/suntereo.html)

And where we read, “pondered,” the Greek is sumballo.
This means “to throw together, to bring together,
to converse,
to bring together in one’s mind, confer with one’s self,”
or “to encounter in a hostile sense.” (http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/sumballo.html)

It’s the work of a lifetime
to sift through memories such as these,
to keep them fresh in one’s mind,
to sort through the jumble,
to let the conflicts that arise work themselves out.

This was Mary’s work,
but it is ours as well.

We are like Mary in being swept up by the Spirit,
having our lives changed by the birth of God’s Son,
finding our journeys redirected,
walking to places we had not imagined,
meeting people we had not anticipated,
hearing messages we had not expected.

This is what happens when God our Father
gets to work in our lives,
when he breathes his Spirit into us,
when he comes among us in the flesh of his Son,
the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is nothing else for us to do
but to follow Mary’s lead,
to “treasure[] all these words
and ponder[] them in our heart[s].”

And as we do,
we can kneel together
before the manger
and tell one another in gentle whispers
how this helpless infant,
so “tender and mild,”
how this Son of God,
has touched us, changed us,
given us life and freedom,
blessed us with love
that we might follow him,
no matter what and no matter where it leads,
even to the foot of that baby’s cross. Amen.

St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, Lincoln, Neb., celebrates the Holy Eucharist on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The parish’s rector, Father Jerry Thompson, asked me to lead worship on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. This is Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time. The Feast of Saints Simon and Jude was transferred from October 28 for this mid-week Eucharist.

Readings

Deuteronomy 32:1–4
Psalm 119:89–96
John 14:21–27

Homily

This Friday is the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude. Jesus chose them to be his apostles. And that’s really all we know about them. Beyond that, Tradition tells us that they preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia and Persia—present-day Iraq. Their shared ministry eventually led to their martyrdom in that land on the same day.

It’s helpful to be reminded by these apostles what most lives of service look like. Few of us can expect to be remembered for the details of our discipleship. We’re not Peters or Pauls. Instead, we are much more like Simons and Judes.
Jesus Christ has called us, like Simon and Jude, to be his disciples. He gives us faith in him, leads us to praise his Father, and empowers us by their Holy Spirit to witness and to serve.

One time my wife, Anne, and I were visiting with one of her cousins who had become the family genealogist. As she was flipping through these large binders of family history, she would stop on a page, point at a picture, and say one sentence about that person’s life. I don’t remember what she said, but each sentence was something like this: Harry lived in a white-frame house and collected old phonograph records.
What has stuck with me ever since that day is a haunting question: What one sentence will some future family genealogist use to describe my life? What sentence would you write to describe your life? Simon and Jude were called by Jesus to be his disciples and apostles. It’s only one sentence, but it really does say all that we need to know about them.

The First Reading appointed for today from Deuteronomy contains a verse that captures the voice of the faithful—the people of Israel, Simon and Jude and the other apostles, along with the great crowd of unnamed disciples who have labored for the Lord over the centuries. It’s a thought we can hold in our hearts and speak with our lips. It’s only one sentence, but it says all that we to say about our lives of faith:

For I will proclaim the name of the LORD;
ascribe greatness to our God
(Deuteronomy 32:3, New Revised Standard Version). Amen.

In the second creation story in Genesis, we hear that “the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7, NAB). And later, the prophet Isaiah proclaims to God, “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands” (Isaiah 64:7, NAB)

How long does it take for a lump of clay, pounded, kneaded, picked free of stones, thrown onto a wheel, pressed under strong hands, shaped by firm muscles, drawn up into graceful curves, adorned with patterns, and then set aside to dry, to face the fires, to be glazed and fired again—how long does it take for that lump of clay to fathom the potter’s mind and heart?

How long does it take us to begin to glimpse the splendor of that potter’s creative vision? How long to come to appreciate the intricacy and the beauty of the design pressed upon us, the plan guiding the throwing of a whole set of pieces, the compassion of pounding down a misshapen pot and beginning anew until the lump takes just the right form?

At least a lifetime. At least all the days we have received as gifts from our Master Potter. And so we begin. From the day he washed the dirt from us in Holy Baptism and made us his children, we have confessed, “I believe in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Then we have learned to ask in company with those who have gone before us, “What does this mean?”

And for the hints of an answer, for insights into wisdom that lies beyond us, we turn to the Scriptures, the Creeds, the Confessions, the Church’s Traditions of Liturgy, and her Teachings of Morality. We look in these places for the palm prints, the impressions of the divine hands that shape us, that turn us from formless muddy lumps into creatures fashioned in the image of God, people redeemed from death by the Son’s sacrifice, sinful saints living only by the power of the Spirit.

How long does it take? Maybe that’s the wrong question. Perhaps we ought to ask God, “We won’t ever finish exploring your mind and mission, will we?” Why would we want to? What else could possibly matter more, be more significant, consume us so fully, fill us so completely?

Because we are God’s pottery, we are not God, but instead his handiwork. The shape we have, the grace filling us, the promise that leads us all come from him and not from within us. And so for us to learn about God is to come to appreciate the form he has given us, the marks he has pressed upon us, the design he has worked into his world, the plan for our redeeming. We learn about God when we receive our form, shape, and pattern, our ways of thinking and reflecting, our wisdom and understanding from what comes to us from beyond us.

That’s why we, as God’s pottery, do well when we embrace our learning as formation rather than education. Formation reminds us that our shape comes from outside of us and is pressed upon us. Education leads us instead to focus upon what we draw out of ourselves—the word’s root meaning.

What is the end—the purpose—of our formation? St. Paul offers a prayer for the Ephesians that speaks of us, as well:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14–19, NAB).

Amen.

Emmanuel Lutheran Church, east of Beatrice, Nebraska, invited me to preach and preside at worship on Oct. 16, 2011, the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Readings

Isaiah 45:1–7
Psalm 96:1–13, antiphon v. 7
1 Thessalonians 1:1–10
Matthew 22:15–22

Homily

Let us pray …. May the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Freedom from Want, Norman Rockwell

One of America’s most beloved and iconic images is this one [Show print.] Sometimes it’s called “Thanksgiving Dinner.” Norman Rockwell painted it during World War II as an illustration for a war bonds poster. Then it appeared as the cover art on the March 6, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Called “Freedom from Want” in that issue, it was the third of four paintings to appear in the magazine to dramatize the Four Freedoms that President Franklin Roosevelt outlined in his January 1941 State of the Union address.

I think we’d be safe in saying that this image rests in our memories more as the ideal of Thanksgiving than as a reminder to us of war bonds or even of the President’s speech. Even so, the themes of Thanksgiving and Freedom from Want somehow tie together.

Here in the painting, a family gathers in joy and peace around a table dressed in white. Young and old together, they are all smiling, except the grandmother who may be more focused on finding a space for the turkey platter and the grandfather who perhaps is resisting the urge to guide the platter to its resting place. And we are there too, at the foot of the table, taking in the scene, our eyes caught in the gaze of the gentleman in the corner looking expectantly at us.

The turkey is large; the fixings are simple and not overly abundant. The drink is water. A good meal in wartime; surely the family will be praying in just a minute, basking in the diffuse white light filtered through the curtain from the sun, shining on a land and a people caught in the throes of war.

It’s funny, though. Our understanding of words has changed over the years. This was a painting about Freedom from Want, but if you look at the food on the table, you see a meal that offers freedom from need, not want. Or perhaps the family in the painting wanted less in the middle of World War II than we do today.

Even so, despite the differing interpretations we might make of this painting, it sticks in our minds’ eyes as an illustration of Thanksgiving, of gratitude for the sufficiency of God’s gifts in our lives.

But sadly, now as then, not all people can look forward to placing enough food on the table to feed a family. They cannot afford what they need to eat, much less to pay for what they might desire beyond their needs.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report released last month notes that across the United States in 2010, about one in seven households experienced what experts call “food insecurity.” That level of insecurity shows the effect of lacking the resources to afford to purchase the food needed to eat nutritionally sound meals. So it’s easy to see that poverty and hunger go hand-in-hand. In 2008, government statistics showed that 15.4 million Americans found themselves living in extreme poverty, where their family annual cash income didn’t amount to one-half the poverty level. That meant that their income was less than $10,000 for a family of four. (http//www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm, accessed Oct. 13, 2011, citing http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR125/err125.pdf.).

Numbers and statistics can quickly cause our eyes to glaze over. So, it helps to keep faces in mind. Perhaps you know someone who doesn’t get enough to eat, or some family facing questions of what they might find to eat, rather than figuring out if the leftovers in the fridge are still safe after a week or more.

Those are the faces to envision as you gather your offerings for the food pantry. Picture the joy on the faces of a family as its members gather around their table—lifted up by the generosity of the community—and prepare to give God their thanks and to eat the meal he has provided through your contributions.

Why do we give canned and dry goods to the food pantry? For a variety of reasons. First, we and others give because it is a kind and neighborly thing to do. America is not always all about competition and getting ahead, making a killing off of those trying to make a living, just as it is not always about getting one’s fair share without contributing the sweat of one’s brow.

A great and deep strand in our national heritage is to reach out to others, to help them when they have a need, just as they will help us when we face a need. As Christians, we can ands ought to give for this reason, working alongside of others who do not share our faith in Jesus Christ.

This type of charitable work is good. We see a need. Someone is hungry. So, we share our food. That’s our basic humanity at work.

But for us as Christians, other, deeper motivations take root. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’s pointed parable about the judgment of the sheep and the goats reminds us that the righteous king will say on the last day, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me …. Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25: 34–36, 40, New American Bible).

So beyond acting out of basic humanity and basic decency, we can trust our Lord’s promise that when we feed people who are hungry, we are offering food to him. And so, in our minds’ eyes, our Lord joins us around the table spread in white. He comes to eat whenever we give our food to someone in hunger.

And finally, there is a third reason to give food to hungry people, to share what God has given us with the food pantry and other ministries that serve people in need. St. Paul hints at this third reason in his first letter to the Thessalonians. In today’s second reading, we heard him say:
For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction … (1 Thessalonians 1:4–5a, New Revised Standard Version).

The message of the gospel comes not only in words, but also in power and in the Spirit and with the full force of conviction. And so, we give food to hungry people because it is humane, because by feeding them we feed the Lord who gives us life, and finally, because our actions proclaim the gospel with power. We can say that God loves his children and that he calls us to care for others. Once we have said that, we can share God’s love and care by giving food.

And beyond that, if someone asks us why we give food to people who are hungry, we can say we do so because we are neighborly and because we are grateful to God. But in truth, when our giving prompts someone to ask why we give, then our proclamation comes fully to life, “in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” as we take that opening as an invitation to tell them about the love and grace we have received from Jesus Christ.

So, when we discover the opportunity to share food, we have privilege of giving to meet a need and the chance to proclaim the grace of Lord. For that, we can say, “Thanks be to God!” Amen.

Emmanuel Lutheran Church, east of Beatrice, Nebraska, invited me to preach and preside at worship on Oct. 2, 2011, the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

Readings

Isaiah 5:1–7
Psalm 80:7–15, antiphon vv.14–15
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33–46

Homily

Let us pray …. May the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Jesus’s parables have a sneaky quality to them. Not because He sets out to be devious, but because He takes the ordinary parts of daily living and transforms them into vessels filled to the brim with the power and insights of His Father’s desires for His people.

Today’s Gospel shares with us Jesus’s well-known teaching, the Parable of the Vineyard. It’s familiar, but it’s probably not fair to call it a beloved parable. It is one of His teachings that speaks a little too clearly for our comfort, that leads us to squirm beneath the pressure of its message.

As we listen to the story, we cannot help but see our own faces reflected in the angry and twisted expressions of the tenants. Like them, we have worked hard at home, on the job, in the church. So we feel we have earned the fruits of our labors. But then, the landowner—God Himself—sends first His slaves and finally His own Son to claim what is rightfully His—the harvest from the vineyard.

That doesn’t sit well with the tenants. And so, after killing the slaves, they turn on the landowner’s Son as well. This brings down upon them the judgment of the landowner. At the end of the parable Jesus leaves His listeners, both then and now, to ponder the shape and the depth of that judgment.

Of course, we don’t really work in a vineyard, although saying that in Nebraska is not quite as safe as it once was. A quick Google check reveals that Nebraska has twenty-five wineries scattered all over the state. So maybe you do work in a vineyard, or you know someone who does.

That little familiarity we might have with vineyards makes it easier for us to see why Jesus, along with Isaiah and the Psalmist before him, settles on the daily workings of a vineyard as an image and expression of God’s dealings with us, His people. As His children, we live together in communities God has chosen to cultivate. Raising up communities that live according to His will requires patience, the same kind of patience one needs when cultivating grapes.

The lives of the tenants in the vineyard help us to appreciate this long-term project. They must find the right soil, the best light, and the land with appropriate moisture. They must pick the varieties of grapes that thrive in the local climate. They must plant tender, young vines and train them, prune them, bind them gently to supports, and then wait for several years before the first bunches of grapes appear. They must hope that mold and pests do not overrun the vineyard and kill off the vines. Then they must wait for the right time for harvesting to capture the grapes at their peak of flavor and sweetness. Finally, they must know how to press the grapes, to extract their juice, and how to encourage the fermentation that changes juice into wine.

A good vinedresser lives with the vines, getting to know them, their environment, and their responses to those changing conditions. It takes knowledge and skill to make fine wine to please the palate. We can see how a sense of ownership can grow, how tenant vinedressers can come to think of the vines as their own possessions. They can lose sight of the truth that the owner of the land also owns the vines, the fruit that grows on them, and the wine that flows from the winery.

That’s the way it is with us. We live in a country that recognizes our right to own property. One of our country’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, took to heart the thoughts of John Locke, who had claimed in the 1600s that “life, liberty, and property” were the natural rights of human beings. Jefferson changed the emphasis slightly in the Declaration of Independence, citing our “unalienable rights … [of] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Even with that change, we in this country still cling to our shared belief that God, the source of natural rights, has given us the right to own property. Much of our law is written to define who owns property and how they may use it. We have procedures for how property can be taken for the public good, regulations to govern how we may use our property, a tax code to cover the levies imposed on various forms of property, and estate laws that shape the ways we pass on property when we die.

But in the midst all of the work we have put into gathering property and possessions and into protecting and defending our ownership, we often lose sight of the truth that Jesus speaks to us in this parable. Our world, its abundance, and even our own lives are not ours; they are the possessions of God our Father. He is the landowner and we are the tenants He has called to work in His vineyard.

On the one hand, that sounds a little harsh, a little extreme. Isn’t there something that we can really call our own? Isn’t there some thing we can ultimately control and dispose of as we choose. Isn’t this my life? Don’t I own my house? Haven’t I earned this money? Isn’t this my body? No, not really.

We did not choose to be born. We cannot make out of nothing the matter and the energy that comprise our world. We can shape and adapt and use and misuse what God has made. But we cannot become gods ourselves, beings who create and redeem and sanctify.

That’s the hard and the good truth. It is good to be creatures of God and to be the tenants in His vineyard. We are blessed to be the ones our Father has chosen to care for this creation, to share the Good News of His Son, and to live in the community empowered by their Holy Spirit.

The parable tells us about God’s judgment and about His blessing. The point at which judgment and blessing part ways comes when we face the question about how we will live as tenants. Will we be the ones who welcome the Son of the landowner or the ones who seize Him, throw Him out of the vineyard, and kill Him.

As Jesus says to His listeners, we hear Him say to us,

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom (Matthew 21:43, NRSV).

One way to look at these “fruits of the kingdom” is to return to the vineyard, to the grapes God causes to grow from His vines. A branch of the vine is the Church, grafted onto the base stock—the trunk—that is Israel, the chosen people of God. We are the grapes that sprout from this vine. By the grace of God we grow lush and full. He harvests us and presses us and ferments us into wine.

By planting, pruning, picking, pressing, and fermenting us through good times and bad, through blessing and trial, God makes us follow in the path of His Son. He was pressed upon the cross, so that His blood can be poured out as wine to heal the world of its sin. He was baked upon the cross, so that His body can be broken as bread to feed all who hunger for righteousness.

When God makes us to be the fruit of the kingdom, then by His own hands, He breaks us and pours us out so that others may see what He has done with us. This is what leads them, by the Spirit, to join us in saying, “Jesus, we give you all that have. We give you ourselves. Harvest us and gather us into your Father’s kingdom.” Amen.

St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church celebrates the Eucharist on Tuesdays. Father Jerry Thompson invited me to lead worship on July 12, 2011. As is the parish’s practice, the service remembers a saint or other figure, transferring an observance if one does not fall on that particular date. Since July 11 is the memorial of St. Benedict, Abbot, I prepared a liturgy remembering his life and contribution to the Church.

Readings

Reading: Proverbs 2:1–9
Psalm: Psalm 1
Gospel: Luke 14:27–33

Homily

On July 11, the Church remembers and honors St. Benedict as the patriarch of Western monasticism. This movement of many branches traces its roots to his writing, entitled Benedict’s Rule.

Most of what we know of St. Benedict’s life comes from The Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, written in the sixth century.

Born in Nursia, a town in Umbria, Italy, around A.D. 480, Benedict studied in Rome, where he grew discouraged by the increasing coarseness of late imperial culture.

He decided to become a hermit, moving to a cave near Subiaco, a small town about forty miles west of Rome. Word about his holy living spread, and he soon attracted followers and disciples who desired to live according to his example.

After a time, due to conflicts with local residents, he moved to Monte Cassino, about halfway between Rome and Naples. This became the home of the first Benedictine monastery.

St. Benedict wrote his Rule, based upon The Rule of the Master, which was longer and more stringent than his own Rule. His little work is treasured for its balance and wisdom. In its Prologue, he wrote,

Therefore we must establish a school for the Lord’s service. In its organization, we have tried not to create anything grim or oppressive. (RB Prologue 45–46).

St. Benedict filled his work with references to the Scriptures. It helps those who follow his Rule to hear our Lord’s voice, to follow it, and to find ways to abide by it while carrying out the tasks of daily life.

Benedict’s Rule begins with a simple plea:

Listen, O my son, to the teachings of your master, and turn to them with the ear of your heart. Willingly accept the advice of a devoted father and put it into action. Thus you will return by the labor of obedience to the one from whom you drifted through the inertia of disobedience. Now then I address my words to you: whoever is willing to renounce self-will, and take up the powerful and shining weapons of obedience to fight for the Lord Christ, the true king. (RB Prologue 1–3)

The Rule ends by reminding all who follow Benedict’s teachings that the Christian life is always one of beginning anew:

Therefore, if you long to attain the heavenly homeland, with Christ’s assistance carry out this modest Rule for beginners that we have sketched out. (RB 73:8)

In addition to the multitudes of religious in the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions—both monks and nuns—who live by Benedict’s Rule, there are thousands of Christians who have become oblates of St. Benedict. They are not monks and nuns, but they are people who find themselves drawn to the quiet beauty of a life that emphasizes sufficiency, stability, and obedience and that practices humility and hospitality.

They continue their vocations in daily life, while attaching themselves to a religious community and making promises to offer themselves as oblations to the Lord’s service. Lincoln has a chapter of oblates attached to the Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, South Dakota. Colleen Baade, Pastor Gretchen Naugle, Steve Lichti, and I are oblates you might know.

Whether Christians take religious vows, make the promises of oblates, or simply embrace their desire to live out the covenant of Holy Baptism, St. Benedict’s teachings are a guide. Toward the end of The Rule, he writes:

They should bear each other’s weaknesses of both body and character with the utmost patience. No one should pursue what he judges advantageous to himself, but rather what benefits others. They must show selfless love to the brothers. Let them fear God out of love. Let them prefer absolutely nothing to Christ, and may he lead us all together to everlasting life. (RB 72:5,7,9,11–12)

Today we bless God for giving St. Benedict to the whole Church as our guide for faithful living. Amen.

The Landing at Williamsburg, a senior living facility of Immanuel Communities, holds worship on Sunday mornings. This is the homily from June 3, 2011, the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

Readings

Acts 1:6–14
Psalm 68:1–10, 32–35
1 Peter 4:12–14, 5:6–11
John 17:1–11

Homily

This past Monday was a windy day. As I spent time working in the yard at home, I gradually grew acclimated to the gusting breezes, making sure I kept my cap pulled down on my head so the wind didn’t catch the brim and blow it away. The sound of the leaves in the trees was a rustle that drowned out the calling of the birds.

But every now and then, the steady winds would cease, and the woods would grow quiet. The sound of silence felt almost palpable, like a presence, in its contrast with the wind. And then, after a break, the breezes would blow again.

That eerie silence—that calm between the gusts—was like the place in which we find ourselves this morning in the Church’s year. This past Thursday was the Feast of the Ascension, the day when we mark the departure of the risen Christ after his forty days of appearances among his followers. And next Sunday, we will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church, a gift which comes down upon us like flames of fire and the rush of a mighty wind.

But today, we’re living between those two feasts: Ascension and Pentecost. It’s like a break, a pause, a time for silence and reflection. These are good times to have, to treasure as moments when we can sit and ponder, when we can meditate upon the sometimes turbulent lives we lead.

Jesus himself made time for such quiet moments. He would go away to lonely places to pray, leaving behind the crowds that never grew tired of seeking him out. He followed in the footsteps of tradition, like Elijah before him, who sought refuge from conflict, hiding in a cave on Mount Horeb. There Elijah witnessed great storms and violent earthquakes before he heard the voice of God coming from “a sound of sheer silence,” (1 Kings 19:12b, NRSV) or “a tiny whispering sound” (1 Kings 19:12b, NAB).

In that tradition of seeking to hear the voice of God speaking to us from the pauses, the rests, the times between, we pause to hear some words for us in today’s readings.

In the passage from Acts, Jesus shares some final words with his apostles before his Ascension, making a promise to them:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalm, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8, NRSV).

In the reading from 1 Peter, the apostle writes words of encouragement:

But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed (1 Peter 4:13, NRSV).

Finally, in John’s Gospel, Jesus prays to his Father for the Church:

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3, NRSV).

A slender thread winds it way among these verses, tying them together, and binding us to them. As we listen to their message in this day of pausing and resting, we can hear the voice of that thread speak to us.

In the passage from Acts, Jesus tells his apostles, and us, that we will be his witnesses. That word—witness—comes from the Greek word martyria. That’s the root of our word “martyr.”

So Jesus is telling us that he will give us the Holy Spirit. This gift will in turn give us the strength we need to witness to him before others, to become martyrs for the faith. It’s another way of saying that the Spirit empowers us to take up our crosses and to follow our Lord.

And that leads us to the verse from 1 Peter. The apostle reminds us that we can rejoice in sharing Christ’s sufferings. This tells us what it means to live with the power of the Spirit, to be witnesses, to become martyrs, to take up our crosses. We share in Christ’s sufferings, but then that means that he shares in our suffering for his sake.

John’s gospel, finally, brings to mind the old saying about how we truly come to know someone when we have walked in his or her shoes, when we have shared the joys and sorrows of another’s life. I think that’s what Jesus had in mind when he prayed to his Father on our behalf and bound together the gift of eternal life with knowing God our Father and his Son in the love of their Spirit. He prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3, NRSV).

When we hear that word, “know,” we easily take it to mean knowing like we know the cashier at the grocery store, or maybe the person who delivers the mail, or our next-door neighbor, or maybe a son or daughter, a niece or nephew. We can identify them by their hair, their shapes of their faces, their distinctive laughs, perhaps the lists of hobbies and pastimes that bring them joy.

And that’s all part of knowing. But to know God is much more. It’s a little like how you know, when you get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, just where the light switch is—so many steps, so far from the doorway, so high up on the wall—that your hand just goes to the right spot without needing to think about it.

Knowing God is like that. It’s knowing about him, about his mighty works, his acts of power and mercy, but it’s also knowing him with our whole selves. That’s why Jesus said the great commandment was, “… you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30, NRSV).

We can only do that because Jesus has given us the gift of his Holy Spirit. That’s where we get the strength to persevere, to be obedient, and to serve. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we become witnesses, martyrs for the faith. We receive the blessing of grace so that we can rejoice in sharing Christ’s sufferings. We come to know God with all that is in us. And in that knowledge, we share in the eternal life that the Father and the Son enjoy in the communion of their Holy Spirit.

So, in these days that fall between the times, between the wonder of the Ascension and the mystery of Pentecost, we can rest together in the peace of God—the peace that does pass all understanding—we can listen to the voice of our Lord, and we can get ready to join Peter and the whole Church and “be glad and shout for joy when [Christ’s] glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13, NRSV). Amen.

St. Mark’s on the Campus Episcopal Church, Lincoln, Neb., celebrates the Holy Eucharist on Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The parish’s rector, Father Jerry Thompson, asked me to lead worship on Tuesday, April 26, 2011. This is Tuesday of Easter Week.

Readings

Acts 2:36–41
Psalm 118:19–24
John 20:11–18

Homily

When we are weeping,
our tears cloud our vision,
our grief weighs down our hearts,
our sorrow rests heavy upon our shoulders.

In our sadness,
we do not see clearly,
whether we mean with our eyes
or with the eyes of our spirits.

The world around us turns misty;
the clarity of God’s purpose fades;
we do not know what to do or where to turn.

And so, like Mary of Magdala,
we rest in the rote motions of our days.
We occupy ourselves and fill the hours.
We walk the dog,
make the bed,
and pull the weeds.

Mary was broken by the burden of her loss.
Not ready to move on,
not knowing what to do,
filled with pain and grief,
she stood outside the tomb of her rabbi and she wept.

Then the angels and the stranger all asked her,
“Woman, why are you weeping?”

They knew why.
But we believe they also knew she needed to know for herself.
And so they asked,
and so she answered.

I miss him. He is gone. He is dead,
and I cannot let go, move on, begin anew.

The response she receives is what exactly she needs—
reassurance and a reminder.
The Lord calls her by name,
he reveals himself to her,
he gives her a mission in his name,
turning her from one who grieves
into one who proclaims to others
the message of his resurrection.

And she does what he commands.
She goes to her friends and says to them,
“I have seen the Lord.”

Mary of Magdala is the one in this gospel
in whom we see reflected our own images.
We share her feelings of loss,
we can see ourselves in her confusion,
and by the blessings of the Spirit,
we receive the same mission from our Lord.
He calls us to go to our brothers and sisters
and tell them the Good News.

Thanks be to God
that Mary did what Jesus told her to do.
Because of her faithful obedience,
the message of our Lord’s resurrection
did not die in the garden unspoken and unheard.

She passed on what she received.
And those who heard her then told others.
And so on until the message came to you and to me.
And now the mission is ours.

To whom is our Lord sending us?
Who needs to hear what we know to be true?
By his grace, we will find the ones we need to tell,
“The Lord is risen and we have seen him alive!” Amen.

The Spirit Driven Task Force is a lay-led group of almost three dozen members of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, formed to pray and study together and to examine the life of the congregation in the light of God’s guidance in Scripture and Tradition. The group held its first gathering on Sunday, April 17, 2011. This is the meditation I shared as part of the group’s devotions to begin the gathering.

Reading

Luke 22:39–46

Meditation

This week—more than any other—
reminds us that we are followers of “The Way,”
disciples of a Lord who bears a cross,
who carries that cross and us and our sins
into the depths and to his death.

This is the week we mark a procession
from palms to hyssop to garden,
moving from triumph to betrayal,
from trial and to burial.

As we know and trust and confess,
that grave did not contain him,
death did not have the last word.
And in a few short days,
once we have shared in his Supper,
contemplated his crucifixion,
we will gather again to raise our shouts of joy.

But along the way,
we stop in the garden,
with our Lord and our fellow disciples,
and find it is no place of peace.

Our Lord Jesus comes here to pray,
to ask for the bitter cup to pass him by.
But in the end, he himelf is obedient.
And so Jesus, the Son says,

Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me;
yet, not my will but yours be done (Luke 22:42, NRSV).

We could say that the crucifixion begins here.
It starts with the submission of the Son to the will of his Father.
And so, if we want to be followers of our Lord,
then we begin here as well.
We begin by saying, “Not my will but yours, Father, be done.”

In truth, that is what was said for us
on the day we each were baptized.
Someone, on your behalf and mine,
made a vow to God Almighty,
that we would follow his Son, in obedience,
according to their will, not ours.

Our mission statement says the same thing.
When we are “Spirit-driven,”
then God and his will drive us,
and not the other way around.
The Spirit of the Father
inspires our worship, energizes our witness,
deepens our learning, molds our service,
and directs our support—
all to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our task in these gatherings, as people of The Way,
is to recall one another and our whole community
to the path of obedience to our Lord, to the way of the cross,
to deny ourselves, and to embrace our Father’s will.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and martyr,
writes for our sake in The Cost of Discipleship (p. 88),

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self,
to see only him who goes before
and no more the road that is too hard for us.

This is the truth: no road is too hard,
no way too treacherous, no solution out of reach,
for us who follow our Lord Jesus Christ
and who bear his cross
marked upon our brows and laid upon our shoulders. Amen.