Reconciling The World Unto God

4th Sunday of Lent

God is filled with grace and forgiveness and reconciliation. In Christ, God is reconciling the world unto God. There is unconditional love, boundless grace, inspiring beauty, and heart-melting compassion. When any of us find our way to God, we find there a place with greater expanse then we were led to believe or understand.

When any of us find our way to God we wonder, where did I get the idea that you were the God who condemns? Who punished? Who hated persons who were different than us? When any of us find our way to God, we recognize the beauty and grace found in all peoples, all ideals and faiths promoting the ways of faith, hope, love, compassion, peace. We wonder how any government can invoke the name of God to wage war? We wonder how any religion or ideology can invoke condemnation upon other religions and ideologies? We wonder how any tradition or system of belief can believe that they hold the exclusive truth and revelation of the divine and cosmic mysteries? We wonder who created that God who hated the gays, the western ways, the eastern philosophies, the liberal perspective, the conservative platform?

Who is this God of political power and abundant wealth? Who is this God that favors the dominant cultures and powers that inflict segregation, discrimination, and down-right oppression upon the vulnerable peoples they govern? Who was that God who rejected those who could not and would not accept a belief in such a God? Who rejected those who suspended belief and trust in anything beyond their own understanding or reason? Who promoted the highest accountability upon humanity, not for the sake of religious zeal, but for the sake of a better world?

Why did I grow up being taught that Christianity was the only true religion, a gay person was sick, white people are privileged, and men should be in charge? These are all cultural ways that work well for those they favor but that does not mean these ways are the ways of God. In God, through Christ, the whole world is being reconciled, brought forth into the ways of compassion, wellness, equity, and beloved community.

In God, I see how BIG God is. I see God greeting all God’s creation coming home from their ways of squandering the riches of God on bigotry, pride, arrogance, greed, discrimination, hatred, and judgment. I see hearts melting for those once hated. I see the right hand shaking the left, both embracing the other in mutual affirmation for a broader view. I see the children of Abraham sharing community together. I see the West affirming the depth of the East, I see the East affirming the wisdom of the West.

I listen to the news about chaos in parliament over Brexit, hunger and revolution in Venezuela, nuclear warfare threatened between superpowers, our own government crippled by partisan ideology and politics. And I hear some proclaim that God is in this restoring the ways of yesterday. It is hard for me to see God in governments, ideologies, or dominance. I don’t see God in great wealth or in poverty. I don’t see God only with us and not with them. I see God reconciling the world, the whole world, in Christ, NOT IN CHRISTIANITY, but in Christ, the One in whom all live and move and have their being. In Christ, the one who laid down his life for the whole world, not just our part of the world! In Christ, the one who loved his neighbor as himself and included those who were not of his own. In Christ, the one who said do not judge, do not live only for yourself, but love one another as I have loved you. In Christ, the healer, the teacher, the wounded, the redemptive.

We are living through contentious, judgy, factious times. The internet promised world unity but we have made it the voice of contention and hatred. These are not the times to proclaim our own righteousness. This is a time to leave the ways of pigs and self-indulgence and make our way back to the arms of God, the arms of compassion, of forgiveness, of grace, of reconciliation. The only arms big and wide enough to restore beloved community amidst the broad diversity that is the world, the same world God is reconciling in Christ.

Amen

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Padre's Post – Lent

In the season of Lent the church turns her attention to the challenges and suffering in life. At St. andrew we walk the Stations of the Cross three times a week as a Lenten observance. This ancient devotion does not shy away or deny the agony and suffering that is present in life; nor does it deny the human emotions of feeling persecuted, abandoned, and despised amidst our darkest hours.

All you who pass by, behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. My eyes are spent with weeping; my soul is in tumult; my heart is poured out in grief because of the downfall of my people. “Do not call me Naomi (which means Pleasant) call me Mara (which means Bitter); for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.” (13th station)

Walking the stations at Lent reminds me the church's place is not only in the joyful and triumphant experiences in life, but also a companion upon the path of sorrows and suffering that are prevalent in these times.

Fr. Richard

The Celtic Cross

The Celtic cross, with the circle forming a frame for the intersecting pieces of the Christian cross, is a beautiful symbol of the balance between heaven and earth, soil and seas, flesh and spirit, grace and grit that Celtic spirituality offers. In the Celtic cross we see divine beauty, symmetry, and balance demonstrated by the circle juxtaposed by the reality of suffering, injustice, sacrifice, and redemption demonstrated by the symbol of the Cross. These two contrasting symbols are held together by the non-dualistic theology and thought that exists within Celtic spirituality.

It makes sense for the circle to be a divine symbol. When we look into the heavens, we see the bright circular sun that lights and warms the day, and the translucent moon, when in its fullness, glows in the night sky, the most beautiful of circles. When we look out into the distance, we observe the curvature of the horizon, and with each passing day we watch the sun make its semi-circle journey from its eastern rising to its western setting; the moon following its path by night. Each year, the seasons come to us in their due time and order, marking the annual journey from the rest and conception of winter to the harvest and dying of autumn. This ancient and eternal pattern is seen in our own Catholic faith as we walk the seasons of the Christ, from his conception to his resurrection through the holy seasons of the church.

Here at St. Andrew, we have been contemplating the symbol of the circle and what it can teach us in our day; the idea that in a circle, people are facing each other offering mutual commitment to maintain the balance and integrity of the circle. A circle can only be a circle when left is in sync with right, when top and bottom maintain a rotational exchange of position. In a circle, members do not form parallel and opposing lines facing off against one another, but instead each hold a place at the periphery, living together in balance around shared ideas and purpose, even while holding diverse position and perspective.

Our lives consist of circles: the circle of our relationships, the family circles, the friendship circles, our community circles, our business, religious, political, and world circles. If mutual affection and respect are not practiced and maintained, then what we are left with ceases to be a circle: but instead become broken and opposing lines and fragments; and God in Christ is not fragment, but is the whole circle in which all move and breath and have their being.

When Patrick brought the message of Christianity to the Celtic culture of Ireland, he himself was converted to the divine symbol of the circle. The circle was the template by which the system of Celtic society was developed. He did not find the hierarchical pyramid, or distinct lines and strata of classes prevalent in the Roman Empire, but instead he found tightly formed and decentralized clans. Patrick introduced the message of Christ, a man in whom god was incarnate, thus joining heaven with earth, flesh with spirit.

Christ was the sacrament of God, the outward and visible manifestation of the invisible mystery and grace of the divine. In Jesus, the Christ, the circle was evident by the Lord of all becoming a servant, the almighty becoming vulnerable, the holy one taking upon the harsh realities of great suffering and cruelty and pain, eternal life taking upon death. The circle was shown with the shame of our lives being embraced and absolved by the grace of God’s love. The circle was shown by how this Jesus himself became a chieftain, who gathered around himself a small circle of disciples and followers, who, though he was the eternal light, did not seek a throne or a kingdom, but instead walked the way of the poor, the powerless, the sick, the peasant, and the poet.

Being the eternal light he entered the darkness of the tomb. Jesus did not rule, he taught. Jesus did not condemn, he absolved. Jesus did not hurt or threaten, he healed and redeemed. Jesus was the great circle who turned our lives and our world upside down. He brought together, east with west, north with south, jew with gentile, male with female and showed all of creation that we are not fragmented or separate from each other, but co-exist in the great circle that is the Christ.

We are in a time of examining and contemplating the conditions of the circles in our own life and time; the way we live with ourselves, our family, our parish, our community, our nation, and our world. We are contemplating the conditions of our culture and society, and we are asking what will heal our own sense of isolation, what will mend our tattered and torn society?

I believe the Celtic cross, with its marriage of the encompassing circle around the harsh but redemptive cross gives to us the path of bringing together the great diversity and contrasting perspectives of our times. This symbol for us becomes a powerful totem that heals where the circles and bonds of community have been broken, with the love and redemption that God has made incarnate in the world through the life, teaching, and suffering of Christ symbolized by the Cross.

May our own circles be healed as we practice the ways of humility and forgiveness, grace and hospitality. May our own circles be healed as we renew our attention and our affection for all who share the circles of family, of parish, of city, of nation, and of world. May we choose to be healers and teachers. May we choose to serve instead of control, may we choose to listen instead of opinionate. May we build bridges instead of walls. May we see our life and our world with same view as that of the countless satellites that orbit our planet see – a beautiful and holy circle; guided along a symmetrical path by invisible forces. Held together by diverse and countless factors working together to sustain and inspire our world.

Amen

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Remember That You Are Of The Earth

As I impose ashes on Ash Wednesday I say the words, “Remember that you are of dust, and to the dust you shall return,” But in my mind I say, “Remember that you are of the earth, and to the earth you shall return”. For me, Lent is the season to return to the elementary foundations of our life. The word translated here is humus, from which the word humility is derived. We are called back to the simple ways of God; the ways of love, of kindness and generosity. Being from the earth, we, like all creation, rely upon the primal elements of light, and water, nourishment from the land around us. For me, Ash Wednesday is a day calling us back to the origins of the goodness, and divine relationship by which this whole spiritual journey is about.

The whole season of Lent is about returning to the humus, to the place of our belonging – that place of receiving rain from the heavens, food from the seed, meat from livestock, love from God. The story we read and see and hear throughout the sacred scriptures, written upon the page and in our lives, is the story about returning to the place of gracious belonging – a relationship from which we receive in faith, and we give back in faith.

Our modern culture with its mass production techniques has realized the destruction caused by taking from the land without giving back. Farming techniques that exploit the natural resources and replace them with chemicals have created a crisis in both the land and in our diet. This is not the natural or the divine way to live. From the beginning, the children of God are instructed, “when you have come into the land of your inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord, your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and bring it to the priest…” The passage in Deuteronomy instructs the descendants of Abraham to remember from where they have come and to remember all the ways by which the land which God gave to them, has given them a home and provided blessing and sustenance.

The ritual of giving back in faith at the altar of your God is the beginning of the eternal balance; from the creator of all we have received, and from what we have received we return in thanksgiving upon the altar of faith. Jesus said it in simpler terms; freely you have received; now freely give. It is the most basic and simplest way to prevent your life from only receiving; from only taking. The act of bringing your offering to the altar of your God, is an act of faith, of gratitude, and of humility – a conscious declaration that all things come from Thee, O God, and from thine own we give.”

Lent calls us back to the earth, sharing with all of creation this relationship of dwelling in the shelter of the most high. As Jesus taught, the sparrow is fed, the lily is adorned, and we are given all and more than we need. Where does it all come from? How did our lives become so full? Who do we have to be thankful? Is it so hard or foolish to give back, in a similar spirit and generosity in which we have received?

Early in our life together, Annie was explaining to a family member our practice of giving back a portion of our income as a faith and thank offering to God. He thought the whole idea was a little kooky and risky. I remember thinking, what is so kooky about giving back from all that we have received? And the idea of it being risky? Well, I suppose a synonym for faith and trust, is taking a risk. But this simple act of bringing to God an offering of faith is the opening statement of a whole life narrative of living under the shadow of God’s nurturing and loving wing. It is for me, the ground of faith. Giving back in kind and substance, an offering of love and gratitude and sacrifice, for all that has been so generously been provided to me and my family.

Amen

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The Mount Of Transfiguration

Why is the mount of transfiguration observed on the last Sunday following the epiphany? Perhaps it is the ultimate epiphany of Jesus’ divine nature? Perhaps, it is that iconic “mountaintop experience” that we all must descend from to face the struggles and suffering in life, as Jesus did turning his face toward Jerusalem, the church turns her face to LENT? Perhaps it is the image of being so close to Jesus as Peter, James, and John were, and still not understanding the significance of his life? They, like ourselves, still naïve and foolish in our understanding of the unseen and divine wonders that are all around us. Thus, calling us to a deeper walk, a walk of mindful reflection and willing to bear the suffering in this world, and intercede on behalf of the suffering and powerless in this world which is the call of LENT? There are various good answers to the question, why is the mount of transfiguration observed the Sunday before Lent.

I find the timing and placement of this story within our liturgical journey of the church very telling and appropriate. The spiritual journey is all about coming to new awareness of life, followed by a dying process, followed by resurrection to new life. If any of us reflect mindfully upon our lives, we will recognize this cycle time and again. Like Jesus, our lives emerge from anonymity to peaks of glorious realizations and affirmations, followed by the challenges and struggles of life, resulting in a dying/suffering process, culminating in resurrection, being born into new life, new realities, new awareness, greater depth. We see our lives cycle from lows to highs to lows to highs and along the way we have the invitation to walk in the grace, the hope, the faith, the boundless love of the Christ, God incarnate in creation, or we can suffer and experience all that life brings with a sense of selfishness or isolation. I choose the former, to see my life within the full embrace of the divine who says to me, just as it was said to Jesus, while in the womb of Mary, lying in the manger in Bethlehem, being lifted out of the waters of the Jordan in Baptism, and upon the mount of transfiguration, “You are my beloved Child, with whom I am well pleased.”

We not only see this cosmic cycle from conception to resurrection happen in individual lives, we see it in whole cultures, civilizations, cities, and communities, such as our own parish life together. This parish of St. Andrew walks the holy path of Jesus’ life every year, along with the turning of the seasons in creation, but it experiences its own cycle of life to death to resurrection in its own natural course throughout its history. I have been here long enough to have experienced this cycle at least two times and in my observation we are presently in a season of resurrection and new birth. Much of what was our life together has changed, much of the old has passed away, behold new things are being born all around us, and in all of my learning and observation, the joy and enrichment of life , along with the eternal resurrections of life, belong to those who allow themselves, along with the world around them, to be born, again. Not to be born OVER, again, repeating the same life course and choices, But, born again to live life in new ways, with deeper perception, with greater understanding, in more intimate communion with the divine within and all around us.

As we enter the season of Lent, I, along with the vestry, are committed to the much needed revitalization and re-imagination of the parish. As spring emerges all around us, we follow her cue to nurture and cultivate the new life that is emerging around us, along with all that has been given to hibernation and rest. It is our prayer and intention to see Lent as a season of reorganization and revitalization of our parish. Our Wednesday soup suppers will be devoted to strengthening the circle that is our parish family and to see the formation of the smaller circles of service, outreach, and fellowship. Bring a crock pot of soup and/or a large bowl of salad to share and let us do the work of reviving the life and function of our shared life together.

Life transfigures us. We are born in the appearance of infancy, and allowed the natural course of a full life, we are in the appearance of one worn and aged by the sands and tides of life. Together with our bodies, our minds, our hearts, our souls are transformed as we experience all that life brings our way. It is all done within the cosmic and mystical presence and grace of God incarnate upon the earth, the same spirit that dwelt in Jesus dwells in and with us, being our companion along the way.

Allow this Lent to be a time of renewal and return to the intimacy of that fellowship with God through your faith in Jesus, the Christ. Allow the Stations of the Cross to reveal God’s grace in the midst of suffering and struggle. Allow the beauty of our common worship at Lent to renew the bonds of affection we share in this parish. Attend the formation class facilitated by Karen Altergott Roberts on spiritual renewal and centering prayer, commit yourself to offering the daily office in the chapel at least once/week during this season of Lent, come on Wednesday nights to revitalize the circle of our parish, give yourself to the season of Lent for intentional personal and communal renewal of mind, body, and soul.

Amen

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