The Three Hidden Truths of Lent

Sermon for Lent III, Year B

Exodus 20:1-17

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

Christ The King Episcopal Church

Stoneridge, NY

March 11, 2012

Title: Three Hidden Truths of Lent

It is a real joy for me to be with you today; to join you in worship and to share in this holy season of Lent. I know so many of you from your visits to the Monastery, from Education for Ministry, from Centering Prayer and now you have welcomed me to your pulpit—you have welcomed me like family and that is a spiritual bond that I truly treasure. And I trust you all know the bond we share goes beyond me. The entire Community of Holy Cross Monastery shares a great bond of affection with you. I bring you their greetings and blessings for the Lord’s Day.

I grew up in the evangelical south in a family of Baptist preachers. You hear a LOT of stories when you’re surrounded by preachers all of the time. I’ll never forget the Sunday morning my step-father took the pulpit gleaming with pride at the completion of the church’s new nursery. It had been a long project. From the capital campaign to the construction, and now they were finally able to better meet the needs of young families with babies. Leaning over the pulpit my step-father said “I want to talk to all of the ladies here this morning. Ladies, if you will just work with me, I promise you together we will fill this nursery.” As the words fell out of his mouth he realized what he said. Turning 13 shades of red and ready to dodge the ire of husbands he wanted to crawl under the pulpit. For years, and I mean years, he got teased about this. It was a story that never died. Long after his retirement people would ask him — “So preacher, hows that nursery coming?”

English is a tricky language. From nuances to shades of meaning right up to double entendre’s it is easy to miscommunicate. In college I had befriended an exchange student from Korea. He so struggled with the double meanings hidden in our language. One day he came up to me quite forlorn over insulting his host at a party the night before. You see he had learned that it was a nice thing to say to someone “you’re cool!”. So when he went up to his party host and said to her, “you know, you’re not so hot!” he was shocked to discover he had totally missed on the meaning of opposites in our language.

Lent is a season filled with the language of double meanings. Ash Wednesday tells us we are nothing but dust. Then immediately we jump into scripture readings that introduce us to an angry, vengeful-sounding and wrathful God. One that calls for blood sacrifice to avenge our wretched sins. The biblical narrative lays down a law that is summarized in the Decalogue—10 commandments that no human being can ever live fully into 365 days a year throughout the decades of a lifetime. You may not be a murderer, and maybe you’ve never stolen as much as a paper clip ever in your life, but at some point you’ve coveted your neighbors donkey, or maybe it was their Jaguar.

For years I have had the habit of reading the Bible through each year. This year it just so happens that the Book of Numbers fell into Lent. Reading Numbers during Lent is not just about slogging your way through a census. But it is interwoven with stories of broken vows, wrongs against self and wrongs against others. When Moses prays to God about what to do with these individuals God’s answer comes back saying “take them outside the camp and stone them!”. It’s tough reading.

But this is the Bible. The Bible is a book filled with conflicts, paradoxes, and even historical inaccuracies. There are no glib one-sentence answers to satisfy these dilemmas. And that is precisely the point. It is by our learning to struggle with the seeming paradoxes of scripture that we learn to grow up.

Now just imagine for a moment if I had come this morning bearing a whip of cords and came into your sanctuary throwing and thrashing about the chairs, overturning every piece of furniture, yelling like a maniac, creating total chaos. (No worries Alison, I left my whip of cords back at the Monastery.) After everyone scattered and ran for cover, no doubt someone would whip out a cell phone to call 911. This is just the scene we enter in our Gospel reading this morning. Jesus was outraged and it was holy havoc. No tables were left unturned and no one was left untouched. Crashing furniture, money and coins bouncing across the floor, animals squealing and running wildly, turtledoves flapping frantically, man and beast ducking for cover. If we only read this through the eyes of our own human experience we get the message that God is angry, fierce and destructive.

Richard Rohr tells us that the Bible is an honest conversation with humanity about where power really is. All spiritual texts, including the Bible, are books whose primary focus lies outside of themselves, in the Holy Mystery. The Bible illuminates our human experience through struggling with it. It is not a substitute for human experience but an invitation into the struggle. We are actually supposed to be bothered by these texts. When God changed Jacob’s name to Israel it was because he had struggled with God. The very word “Israel” means one who struggles with God. So here is the first of 3 hidden truths I want to share with you: it is through our struggle that we come into consciousness. It is through our struggle that we wake up and grow up. It is through our struggle that we meet our real selves. We actually need the struggle.

When I hear this story of Jesus cleansing the temple I see throngs of people who have gathered for the most important religious festival of the year—Passover. They are there following their devotion. And they want to do it right. They want the right sacrifices and they want the right money to pay their temple tax. They are following the customs of their faith and the norms of their culture. They are simply doing what they have been taught to do. They are much like us traveling through this season of Lent following the rituals of Ash Wednesday, maybe giving up chocolate for 40 days, and being more penitent...seeking a greater awareness of sins. Now enters Jesus overturning the tables of our literalism, disrupting our image of who God is, using His whip of cords to cleanse our inner temple. Just when we think we understand the Christian life Jesus enters like a wild man and everything is thrown into chaos: we face a crisis in our health, someone close to us dies, we loose a job, a relationship ends, something happens and the security of normal-ness and routines abandon us.

Daniel Clendenin tells us the cleansing of the temple is a stark warning against any and every false sense of security. Misplaced allegiances, religious presumption, self-satisfaction, and spiritual complacency are just some of the tables Jesus would overturn in his own day and in ours. We so want to have it all figured out. We desperately long to control our lives, even to the extent of controlling God in our lives. And this brings us to our second hidden truth—God is not bound by our ideas of Him. God is not bound to act, behave, or function in the way we expect. God is not bound to following our conventions. He is not even bound to acting consistently to our past experiences of Him. There comes a point in the spiritual journey when God ask us to let go and let God be God—on His terms.

We have domesticated Jesus into a meek and mild Savior. Then the day comes when God enters our lives like a sledgehammer. We’re not comfortable with an angry God. We’re not even comfortable with our own anger. That’s because we’re struggling to learn that anger is a mode of connectedness to others and at its root anger is always a vivid form of caring.

Consider Job for a moment. Job is our model for a Godly life. But in a matter of days he lost all of his possessions, he lost his livelihood, he lost his family, he lost his health, he lost his image of God. The only thing he didn’t loose were 3 friends who hung around telling him that all of these horrible looses were his own fault. But would Job have learned who God really is if he hadn’t gone through the shattering experiences that brought an end to his naive conception of who God is? Would Job have met God in the whirlwind of transformation and restoration if he hadn’t passed through his own “night of the spirit.” Job needed to learn to let God be God on his own terms. And when Job did just that he not only found God, he found himself.

This leads us to our third hidden truth—one way or another God arranges the circumstances of our lives forcing us to take a leap of faith into the unknown. One way or another we have to let go of everything we know, of everything we expect, of everything we have figured out and let God be God.

When theologians consider todays Gospel reading they get weighed down arguing over where it fits chronologically into the gospel narrative. For me, that totally misses the point. Something fundamentally changed when Jesus cleansed the temple. He was shocking His followers awake and into the consciousness that how we know God would change from this point forward. The trappings of our piety only take us so far. To really know God we would need to turn within and find Him on the altar of our hearts. “The kingdom of God is within you” is the breakthrough epiphany that Jesus was acting out. A “temple not made with hands” is what He was pointing His followers to. And if the kingdom of God is within us that means we find the kingdom of God in the other: in the divorcee, in the widow, in the homeless, in the hungry, in the downtrodden, in the jobless, in the sick, in the prisoner. It means we find the kingdom of God outside the walls of sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, and yes even outside the walls of capitalism.

These are just some of the tables that I want to see overturned this Lenten season. But in all honesty it would be wrong of me to use this text as a whip of cords against my favorite injustices. Because this text is deeper than that. This is a text which calls you to take up your own whip of cords to overturn the tables of injustice in your own life. The text pushes you to imagine a Jesus entering your own sanctuary, overturning your own cherished rationalizations and driving you out in the name of God. This is a text that ask you to find God within—within the temple not made with hands. This is a text that calls you into the chaos, into new alignment, into a place of queasiness, into the unknown, into your own leap of faith where everything will change.

This is a text that calls us into our Lenten journey, into resurrection and into new life.

Amen!

The Scream -- Sermon for Epiphany IV, Year B

Edvard Munch -- The Scream -- 1893 The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway

Epiphany IV

Holy Cross Monastery

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Psalm 111

1Corinthians 8:1-13

Mark 1:14-20

The Scream

Reading the Gospel of Mark is a bit like reading a set of Cliff Notes—and a paired down version at that. It is a fast moving Gospel, details are spotty, and years worth of events get packed into a few sentences. In this opening chapter to Mark’s Gospel we go from the Messianic Predictions of Isaiah to John the Baptist and Christ Baptism, His wilderness temptation, the launch of His Galilean Ministry, the calling of His first disciples and immediately into a series of healings and miracles. These opening 45 verses to Mark’s Gospel gives us a sweeping overview of Christ life and ministry. Reading it is like watching a movie trailer to an action packed adventure. Even those great beings who devised our Revised Common Lectionary seem to understand there would be much to unpack in this core narrative of the Good News. There are a total of six Sundays in Epiphany. However five out of six Sundays give us Gospel lessons from the first chapter of Mark.

Todays lesson brings us to Capernaum, where we find Jesus teaching in the synagogue. And in the middle of His discourse He is interrupted by a deranged man yelling out at Jesus. The text paints the picture of a demon possessed heckler who is no longer in control of his own body. The evil spirit is now speaking through the man. But we are given the fewest of details and I find myself wishing to know a few more facts to better understand the story.

1. Why was this man in the synagogue? Demon possession was a sure sign that you are unclean, impure and not worthy of presenting yourself in the synagogue. In the first century those who have mentally lost it lived out by the tombs, in the cemeteries or in the desert wilderness. Most of the demon possessed people that Jesus encountered during His earthly ministry dwelled in one of these “outer” places. In fact these were the places feared and avoided at all cost. When it was time to bury the dead you got in and out of the cemetery as quickly as possible. If you lingered your chances of encountering an evil spirit increased. Or worse yet, you may pick up a demon who goes back home with you.

2. What kind of evil spirit did this man have? What was it nature and character? It isn’t made clear to us what the mans unnatural or pathological state was. Did he suffer addictions or was he bi-polar? Was he completely schizophrenic or did he still have some hold on reality? Was he a victim of abuse? Did he come from a broken home or a loving home? Did he know he was lovable and loved in God’s eyes? Had anyone ever taught him to have self-compassion?

Or maybe it was something simple and far more common—something experienced by all of humanity. Did he suffer from the non-stop commentary, those internal voices of on-going negativity and judgement, running in his head. The Church Fathers called it Sin. The Church Mystics called it Brokenness and The Human Condition. It is the universal fate we have all been born to. Quite possibly our deranged heckler was traversing the dark night of sense and his outcry was more of a cry for help. Edvard Munch’s classic painting of an impressionistic landscaped with a lone dark figure standing in the foreground whose hands cover his ears as if to say stop the inner voices, with mouth wide open is a painting of both stunning beauty and stark reality. The painting is simply titled “The Scream.” And it is a painting that we have all found ourselves living in at some point in our lives.

Our questions could go on. The list of unanswered details are endless. Mark did not write with the agenda of giving us a complete picture. Instead he leaves us with an open invitation. An invitation to write the details of our lives into the story. If this is the story of the “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” then it must be a story we can write ourselves into. It must be a story we can identify ourselves in.

Not that long ago as a green and “wet-behind-the-ears” novice I posed a question to my Novice Master in a novitiate class. I asked “where have all the demons gone?”. The response was a quizzical look, as if to say “what are you talking about?”. Well, in the life and times of Jesus and in the life and times of the early Church there seemed to be a strong focus on Satan and his minions—the demons. But in our post-critical age of scientific enlightenment we don’t talk much about demons. Respectable Anglicans can go decades without experiencing a good smiting of the devil. We don’t even seem to poke fun at the devil in our culture the way we did in times past. Long gone are the days of comedian Flip Wilson and his character “Geraldine” and that classic line “the devil made me do it.” Long gone are the days of Dana Carvey’s “The Church Lady” from Saturday Night Live who week after week had the recurring epiphany “Could It Be Satan?”.

But maybe our consciousness is changing. Earlier this week I was asked by a Princeton Seminarian student if we as a Monastic community ever experience a sense of being up against forces of darkness, principalities and powers that push against us in our ministries. And if so, how do we fight against these forces. (With questions like this you know why we brace ourselves when we have seminarians come for a visit. They’re wonderful and they keep us on our toes.) The truth is the dark forces are never that far away. Our modern day demons include: alcoholism, drug addiction, prejudice and hatred, fear, depression, jealousy and envy, loneliness and isolation, materialism and a drive for power, even boredom and meaninglessness, acedia. These demons do not point to something that has taken hold within us. It would be more correct to think of these demons as pointing to a LACK of something within us.

Jesus did not take something out of us to make us good. The good news is that he came to make us aware of something inside...truth, love, forgiveness...our central core of goodness.

Jesus came to the synagogue well equiped to deal with evil spirits. He had just spent 40 days in the desert facing down his own demons. The image of Jesus as exorcist is an image of someone who has experienced his own demons. It is the classic image of the wounded healer. Jesus faced three temptations. They are the 3 temptations of the false self. They are the 3 temptations that we all face in our broken humanity: our twisted needs for control, power and affection. To dismantle the programs of control, power and affection is to dismantle the false self. And when you have dismantled the false self you have authority when the devil, or when life, tries to knock the wind out of you. Jesus only had to speak two words to take authority over the evil spirit. Be Silent, sometimes translated Be Still. They were the same two words He used to calm the raging sea. It has been said that silence is God’s first language. Everything else is commentary.

“What is this? A new teaching—with authority!” Absolutely right! Jesus not only teaches in parables in the synagogue but He IS the parable of God. From this first chapter of Mark and all throughout the Gospels he appears as an enigma wrapped in mystery. What He actually says seems straightforward enough, at least on the surface. Yet sufficiently cryptic to tempt and tantalize us to be drawn in deeper.

We are also left without the details of where our deranged heckler went next. What happened to him? What became of his future? His story never recurs in Marks narrative. And once again we are left with the invitation to write in our own story and become the living Gospel.

Today we are the ones who come to temples, synagogues, churches, houses of worship, and even monasteries seeking transformation. And in two words Jesus becomes our boundary-breaking, demon-dashing, law-transcending Lord commanding us to “be silent, be still.”

Through His healing silence we go forth with restored meaning to our lives. Through God’s silence all the evil spirits that are wrapped up in our control, power and affection issues are dismantled leaving us in the wonderment of being filled with God’s love. Through the realization of the fundamental woundedness of our humanity is where we discover healing, freedom, transcendence.

Through Jesus’ own woundedness of battling satan’s temptation in the wilderness he healed this man in the Capernaum synagogue. His woundedness took him all the way to the cross fulfilling Isaiah’s prophetic words, “by His wounds we are healed.” In the woundedness of Christ He became the source of life for all of us—even for you, even for me.

Amen

An Advent Wilderness

Sojourner Truth

An Advent Wilderness

St. John's Episcopal Church

Kingston, NY

Advent 2B - RCL

Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13

2 Peter 3:8-15a

Mark 1:1-8

It is a real joy for me to be with you today; to join you in worship and to share in this holy season of Advent. Honestly, St. John’s feels like my second spiritual home. I know so many of you from the Monastery, from the Education for Ministry program, and your work and ministry with Angel Food. And now you’ve welcomed me to your pulpit, you’ve welcomed me to share my journey in Contemplative Prayer, you’ve welcomed me like family. It is a spiritual bond that I truly treasure.

It is as if we are working backwards through Advent this year. Last Sunday our Lectionary pointed us to apocalyptic events and Christ second coming. Today we have the opening prologue to Mark’s gospel and there are no birth stories to linger at.We meet not one but two prophets speaking to us from the wilderness. This backward movement through the days of Advent may strike us as odd but it will ultimately point us toward the coming of the Christ child. It does point us toward the manger where we will get our first glimpses of light, life and love. It does point us toward new hope, peace, and joy.

But before we arrive at the foot of the manger we must first go through the travail of the wilderness. The wilderness, which can seduce us with its beauty and its majesty, has many faces. In one part of the country it is dense with forest and lush vegetation which delight all of our senses. In another part of the country it is stark and barren and seems to purge us of any affectation. All the while it holds a grandeur that takes our breath away. If you have ever visited some of our great National Parks out west, especially those in southern Utah, you know of the grandeur of which I speak. The wilderness is a place of wonder and exploration. It is also a place of respite and rejuvenation. Unless, of course, we become lost in it. Then it is transformed into a place of dread and terror. A place where all hope can be lost. The wilderness is a place that supports life only if we possess the survival skills necessary to navigate its mysteries. Without those survival skills we are at the mercy of a disinterested, even hostile, environment.

On this second Sunday of Advent the calm of our lives is startled awake by voices from the wilderness. With Isaiah we hear one crying out for the construction of a passable route through the desert; then from an entirely different time, even a different desert, we hear the voice of John the Baptist, our wild and wooly prophet, giving us an unsettling call to repentance. In fact, any honest look at all three of our scripture readings this morning bring us face to face with the issue of repentance.

Trust me, no guest preacher wants to go into a parish his first time and preach on repentance. Any homiletical professor will tell you there is no surer way to loose you audience. Mere mention of the word cause most people to roll their eyes back, shut down their hearing, or brace themselves for an olde time religion that is as worn out as its name. Apparently our attitudes and feelings about repentance are about as popular as they were in the time of John the Baptist and Isaiah: they only preached about it when they were out in the middle of nowhere.

What does this have to do with Advent? Everything! While our calendars may suggest that Advent is the season of preparation for the celebration of the Nativity, the Advent readings broaden our view and insist that we are really preparing for the coming of the reign of God in our lives. This backward march that begins with the second coming of Christ and ends on Christmas Day at the manger points us to the mystery of Advent. A mystery that links the historical coming of the promised Messiah with the coming of Christ into our own hearts and the coming of Christ again at the end of all time. A mystery that will ask us to pause and look into our hearts, our real and honest selves.

We are being called to prepare for a time when kindness and truth will meet, when justice and peace will kiss, when truth will spring out of the earth, and justice will look down from heaven. Now these are phrases that normally make us think of when the world “out there” will finally be set right by God. But I am talking about the world “in here”. I am talking about when kindness and truth will meet “in here”. When justice and peace will kiss “in here”. No I’m not talking about when the wars of distant lands will cease, I’m talking about the wars that rage within our own thoughts will cease. The conflicts, the wounds, the troubles, the hurts, the disappointments, the fears, the self loathing, the self hate—because this is the wilderness that most of us find ourselves lost in today. This is the wilderness where the good news of Christ cries out to touch and change our lives.

Advent is a time serious road construction—and we all know the joy that brings. Isaiah is not describing minor repairs, such as filling in potholes or repairing curbs. He is calling for major reconfiguration of the terrain: filling in valleys and leveling mountains; smoothing rugged land and rough country. He is calling for serious transformation of the landscape of our lives. It is a call to go in a new direction. Or as Fr. Thomas Keating so lovingly tells us it is a call to change the direction from where you are looking for happiness. That is how he defines repentance. It is when we get to that place where we say “this isn’t working anymore” and we turn around and go a new way.

One day I was on my way to Woodstock and came upon road construction and was detoured onto unfamiliar roads. Now I know this must be a guy thing but for some reason I thought I could figure out a better route than where the detour was sending me. After about 45 minutes of going in circles and ending up where I began, still blocked by road construction, I decided I would follow the detour signs. You know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. How many times in our lives have we been trapped by this? It is not really the definition of insanity but it defines the human condition we find ourselves captive in.

This past week I found myself captive of an unexpected wilderness. It was by no means how I had envisioned I would spend my first week of this blessed time of Advent. A season I regular refer to as my favorite time of year. My wilderness sent me off to jury duty. And by wilderness I really don’t mean the interruption that jury duty brings. Changing plans, rearranging schedules, not having time to use it as I want to. I’m not even referring to the drudgery we all feel by the need to perform our civic duty, that task of doing something we “should” when we honestly would rather not.

The wilderness I’m speaking of is when you are called to step out of your own life and into the lives and events that belong to another world. A world where tragic things happened and a series of events have transpired all culminating in bringing a roomful of strangers together in a courtroom. So my first week of Advent was not filled with times of Contemplative Prayer, saying my Rosary, joining my monastic community in our daily celebration of the eucharist, not even joining in the daily office to chant the Psalms. My first week of Advent did not give time for the spiritual reading I had planned or the practice of spiritual disciplines that I look forward to in this blessed season. By Friday I was dry, parched, empty. Mentally exhausted, spiritually drained I said God “why?”. Friday evening I walked out of the court house in uptown Kingston and found myself standing right in front of a monument to Sojourner Truth. That great abolutionist who marched up the very steps of that court house and won the right to a trial which resulted in the return of her son from a slave owner that had hauled her son all the way to Alabama. She got custody of her son back and spent the rest of her life to bring an end to slavery and injustice. The inscription on the monument quotes Sojourner Truth speaking from her own wilderness: “I talk with God and He talks with me”.

“I talk with God and He talks with me”. That is a divine relationship at its very purest. That is the conviction of one who has turned around and walked in a new direction to find her happiness. That is one who went through the wilderness with the only survival skill that will bring you through it: clutching God’s hand. That is one who made a new path and toppled mountains of injustice, even the injustice she found within herself and found the light, life and love within the manger of her own heart.

“I talk with God and He talks with me”.

Have a blessed Advent. Amen.

Living In-Between

Living In-Between

Sermon for the 1st Sunday of Advent

Holy Cross Monastery

RCL - Advent 1, Year B

Isaiah 64:1-9

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

On this first Sunday of Advent, as the Church begins its telling of the Christian story once again, our Gospel reading tells us to “keep awake”. Honestly, this command to keep awake I find to be a bit annoying. Most of us do not need to be told to keep awake during Advent. We are already operating in a state of sleep deprivation. Instead of being accused of being asleep we are more likely to be accused scurrying through the rush of holiday shopping, parties, and to-do list, being highly over-scheduled, and burning our Advent Candle at both ends. There’s endless shopping, gifts to prepare, parties to plan, travel arrangements to make, lots of extra cooking and baking. Squeezed in to our already busy lives will be Christmas pageants, Cantata’s and Lessons and Carols. The joy of being with family and friends is a gift but it is also a stress. Visiting relatives and in-laws mean extra work and somehow it all has to get done. The pressures of the holiday season will be over-shadowed by a constant reminder of how many shopping days left until Christmas morning. In case you’re wondering you have 27 days and about 15.5 hours. So it occurs to me that the real pastoral action needed for most of us is not to be told to keep awake, but to pass out sleeping pills with chamomile tea to minister to our over-caffeinated, stressed out selves.

The fact that we are exhausted and stretched to our physical limits is not just a reality of Advent and Christmas--it’s a reality of our lives all year long. Sleep, or the need to get more of it, has actually made it onto the list of spiritual disciplines. This is simply recognizing that it is hard to progress spiritually when we’re exhausted. James Bryan Smith in his book “The Good and Beautiful God” says that the number one enemy of spiritual formation today is exhaustion. Many retailers opened their stores this past Friday (Black Friday) at midnight Thursday. Some even pushed their opening hours earlier and opened on Thanksgiving Day. We’re loosing the sanctity of setting aside a holiday as a time of resting from our busy lives.

Our culture is caught up in a mad rush of busy-ness that is pointed toward Christmas morning, but it is not pointed toward the coming of the Christ child. We may not be physically asleep; quite the opposite actually. But in our wakefulness to the realities of the holiday rush we can fall asleep to the spiritual season of the coming Christ. So on this first Sunday of Advent Mark’s gospel gives us a wake-up call by telling us that the coming of Christ is both near and at hand. But which coming of Christ does Mark’s gospel point us to? Advent is a special season indeed linking the historical coming of the promised Messiah with the coming of Christ into our own hearts and the coming of Christ again at the end of time. Our lection this morning is known as the little apocalypse and is filled with references to the end of all time. Not unlike many today the Disciples wanted Jesus to give them a date. They were ready to mark their calendars. So Jesus gave them a metaphor--the Fig Tree. A fig tree would be a well known reference point for someone living in a Mediterranean world in the first century. When we encounter figs today they tend to be mashed inside a moist little biscuit. But for us, is the sign to the end of the age really to be found in a comfort food cookie? I think not.

For us this is a metaphor pointing to a paradox. The wake up call in Mark’s gospel is calling you and me to awaken to paradox. In fact, it is one of the most important paradoxes found in the Gospel. It is the paradox of already but not yet.

• It is the already but not yet drama of how we live our life with God.
• Christ has already been born but not yet has the world come into His light and love.
• Already Jesus has established the means for our relationship with God, but not yet do we live in complete union with God.
• Already the Prince of Peace has come but not yet have we learned to end our wars.
• Already Christ has taken our wounds but not yet have we been able to let them go.
• Already the realm of God is evident all around us, but not yet is God’s realm fully established in this world or even in our hearts.
• Already God’s economy is at work, but not yet have we moved our hope from Wall St.
• Already God has filled the earth with plenty but not yet have we learned to share it with all.

Jesus was telling His disciples, and through this gospel text He is telling us, we are the one’s living “in-between” His first coming and His second coming. This already but not yet paradox is how Mark’s gospel breaks right into our lives today speaking to us who live in-between. Mark’s gospel is not an apocalyptic message for those left behind, it is an apocalyptic message for those left between. For those living in this challenging meantime between the already and the not yet.

Just like the fig tree that knows how to respond to the seasons of the year Advent calls us to a season to go within. All of nature moves deep inside and all living things have dug their roots deep into the earth for sustenance and protection. We too are invited to turn inward during this blessed time of preparation for the Lord’s coming. This is the season to let Christ be born anew in our hearts, in our minds, in our souls. This is the season to live fully into the reality that although Christ was born in human weakness, He manifested His divinity to the world. This is the season to open our hearts to His spiritual coming in our inmost being where Christ is born anew and to let His light shine within us. This is the season to wait and watch for His final coming at the end of time where He will manifest His glorified being through all creation.

As I was preparing my own heart for the Advent season I was going through my journal and came upon an entry I had written years ago. The entry has the simple title of “Three Questions”. I’m not for sure what impressed me to write it down at the time. But today I would tell you that the Holy Spirit knew I would need it at this point in my life. I have taken these 3 questions and placed them on the inner tabernacle of my heart. It is as if they sit in the cradle of my being, the Holy Spirit working them through me as He knows best. I don’t even try to provide an answer to these 3 questions. I am simply letting them be within me, allowing my heavenly friend to engraft them into my life. I will journey with them these next 4 weeks of Advent. They will be my guiding star leading me to the cradle of my Lord. I share them with you in invitation for you to journey with them during this season of Advent.

What needs to be forgiven?

What needs to be healed?

What needs to be celebrated?

Three questions that hold and carry us through the paradox of already but not yet of our lives with God. Three questions that stand with us in solidarity (quite literally) in this in-between place of our Christian journey. Three questions that we can welcome keeping awake with through this holy season of Advent.

Have a Blessed Advent!

Amen!

Utter Madness or Magnificent Good Fortune? -- The Saint John's Bible

There is a new Bible in my life. I actually take a bit of teasing from my Brothers about my love of Bibles. Currently I have 14 Bibles in my cell, plus another one in my choir stall. And if I really looked around I’m sure I would locate a few more. Some have a family history, some I bought because I wanted to read in a new translation, others because of their study notes. You might call me a bible-holic. It comes from honest roots, growing up in the Baptist church, learning to study scripture at an early age, being influenced by my grandfather, a beloved Baptist preacher, in how he studied scripture. It is a love that has stuck with me all of my life.

For one who loves scripture and all things Bibles, The Saint John’s Bible, nearly sent me into an apoplectic orbit. It is more than a Bible...it is an experience!

Donald Jackson, in his Scriptorium in Wales, showing original pages from the Book of Psalms

The Saint John’s Bible is entirely hand written in calligraphy. This is something that hasn’t been done since the invention of the printing press, over 500 years ago. It was commissioned by the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey. They commissioned Donald Jackson, longtime scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Crown Office. From his scriptorium in Wales he set out to fulfill a life-long dream. To create an entirely hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible using ancient methods yet creating something relevant to the 21st century. The project began in 1998. Thirteen years later, in fact, just this past June, the Bible was completed. Completely unbeknownst to me when I boarded a plane to visit St. John’s Abbey this past June, I would be participating in multiple events celebrating the completion of the Saint John’s Bible. I can only say it was God’s providence at work in gifting me with such a meaningful experience. I was able to meet and visit with Donald Jackson, artistic director and creator of this Bible. I held in my hands many of the original pages of the Bible, specifically the Epistles and Revelation. I saw God’s Word come to life in a way I never dreamed.

Br. Julian visiting with Donald Jackson, Creator of the Saint John's Bible.

The pages of the Bible are calf-skin vellum. They’re enormous. Each page measures 15 7/8” wide by 24 1/2” tall, so wether you are holding it or just seeing it you know it is something special, unique, important. Donald Jackson created a special calligraphy script for the Bible. It is far different from what we are used to in modern book type but I was surprised how readable the script is. It is a script that causes you to slow down your reading, to read intentionally, even meditatively. Perfect for the Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina or sacred reading. The inks used are ancient Chinese hand-ground inks. And the pens used to write the text were not pens. Quills from goose, turkey and swan were used, each hand cut for the calligrapher. The care, the level of intentionality, and attention to detail that went into a single page is mind boggling. And there are 1150 pages to complete the entire Bible. As I reflected on the ancient methods and materials used to create The Saint John’s Bible it dawned on me that this gives an entirely new context to the “word becoming flesh”. God’s word is literally recorded on the flesh of an animal, even written with a feather quill, something living and given by another being.

Then there are the illuminations, about 160 of them. Some fill an entire page, some spill over into a double-page spread. Then others fill a column or partial column. Gold, silver and platinum, egg tempura paints, and rare inks come together to bring scripture to life on the page. The illuminations pull you in and cause to you stop and sit with them for awhile. As you do you start to discover images you would have missed with only a quick look. From the story of the loaves and fishes and Jesus feeding the 5000 you begin to see the Eucharist multiplying throughout the illumination. In the Gospel of Luke there is an illumination simply titled “The Luke Anthology” that illuminated a series of parables: the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, even Mary and Martha are found in this illumination. Then all of a sudden you realize you are looking at a depiction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the iconic symbol of 9/11. Donald Jackson explains that he was working on this illumination shortly after 9/11 and he was compelled to include it with this gospel illumination. He said “it is going to take a lot of love to get ourselves out of this one” and that is why it is there.

In a way the entire Psalter becomes an illumination. The Book of Psalms is a song book. So Donald recorded Benedictine monks chanting the Psalms in Gregorian Chant. He took those recordings, digitized them, then printed them. What might look like the line drawings from an EKG become a musical thread running through the entire Psalter in gold leaf. Once you see it running through the pages of the Psalter it simply takes your breath away.

With over 160 illuminations I could write volumes about their imagery, symbolism, and their ability to bring scripture to life in fresh new ways. Experiencing the illuminations is an act of sacred seeing. So much so it has coined a new term for Benedictines: Visio Divina. I laughed the first time I heard this. I thought they made this up. And most likely they did. Lectio Divina has its foundation right in the Rule of Benedict. But made up or not, Visio Divina has its place. Sacred Seeing brings a new sense and a new dimension to praying with scripture. Combining the two is a powerful way to engraft scripture into your heart and life.

Since returning home from St. John’s Abbey I have been motivated to find ways to make it a part of my life. Even though its original pages will live in a museum that is far from the entire purpose of this Bible. It is meant to excite people to fall in love with scripture all over again. It is meant to show the beauty and power of sacred art. It is meant to stir our hearts in hearing and seeing God’s word in fresh new ways. There are reproduction volumes, 7 in all for the entire Bible, about the size of a coffee table book, perfect for home use and perfect for a personal lectio practice. I have long had a practice of reading through the Bible each year. Now as I do my reading I am using the illuminations to add a whole new dimension to my time with scripture. But there is one more practice that I basically stumbled into that I am finding very meaningful. The practice of writing scripture. While at St. John’s Abbey I heard Donald Jackson speak about the power of just sitting down and writing scripture. Letting it pass through your fingers, your hands, your eyes, your thoughts as a way of hiding it within your heart. I’m not a calligrapher, nor do I think I’ll acquire that skill at this stage of life, but I have started a journal where I just write out important passages of scripture. Some are short, some are long. It has added a whole new dimension to my life and love affair with scripture. It is a practice I hope you will try. I promise it will amaze and bless you.

When St. John’s Abbey began this project 13 years ago they said that “this whole project is either utter madness or magnificent good fortune”. At that moment they were not for sure which one it would work out to be. I understand both of those statements. Witnessing for myself the final gold leaf cross burnished onto the last page of Revelation, at a special Vespers service to officially complete the Bible, we now with hindsight can say it was “magnificent good fortune”. This Bible already lives way beyond the walls of St. John’s Abbey and Donald Jackson’s scriptorium in Wales. This Bible is a gift for the entire Church, for all Christians everywhere.

You're Going To Gehenna!

Br. Julian's Sermon for Pentecost VI, Proper 12

I Kings 3:5-12

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

I have often wondered what it is like for the first time visitor to Church. I sense their uncertainty, awkwardness, unfamiliarity, shyness and questioning heart. They come no doubt because they are searching, spiritually hungry, maybe even in need of finding peace with God. So many times they do not even know why they have come...they just do. What I really wonder is what message do they take away from their church visit. For us who are steeped in church, know when to stand, bow, kneel, cross ourselves, and all the rules of our pew aerobics, we easily forget how uncomfortable and strange the experience is to the uninitiated. And then...we tell them “you’re going to hell”.

Did you hear it in today’s Gospel reading? We began with some familiar parables about mustard seeds and leaven, hidden treasure and fine pearls, but we ended up with good and bad fish, angels swooping in to call out the evil ones throwing them into the furnace of fire. The subtext is very clear—if you are a bad fish you’re going to hell. There will even be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This is our second Sunday in a row for us to hear about hell. Our Revised Common Lectionary has taken this 13th chapter of Matthew, sliced, diced and chopped it into two separate readings of parables. Both readings end with the evil wrongdoers being cast into a furnace of fire. Both readings end with weeping and gnashing of teeth. So if last week didn’t scare you into salvation by the threat of eternal damnation in hell there is another opportunity today.

I wonder if we wouldn’t do a better job of sharing the gospel if we edited some of these scriptures. You know, have them sanitized for our well-being. In some cases our Lectionary does skip over passages of scripture. They simply don’t show up for a Sunday morning reading. This doesn’t mean those scriptures do not have their proper place. But we do say the place to deal with them is not at the Sunday morning Eucharist. Even as Monks we choose to sanitize the scriptures for your betterment. We chant through the entire book of Psalms every two weeks, all 150 of them. Well...actually not all 150. If you read the fine print in the opening pages of our Monastic Breviary you’ll see there is a group of Psalms we skip over, leave out. They are known as the Imprecatory Psalms, or cursing Psalms. Somehow we just don’t feel it will add to your retreat experience of silence, solitude and rest, to hear us sing in Gregorian Chant about babies heads being bashed against rocks. Do those scriptures have their place? Yes they do. But we choose to make sure they are heard in their proper context.

As soon as we hear Jesus talk about the furnace of fire with weeping and gnashing of teeth the very next words out of His mouth are “have you understood all of this?”. And the disciples answer Him by saying “yes”. Now I’m thinking REALLY!? They truly get it? Are they honestly grasping Jesus’ meaning through His coded language of parables with apocalyptic references to the end of all time? Well possibly they understand more than we realize.

In order for us to understand we have to look at context. Context, context, context--it is the beginning, the middle and the end to interpreting the meaning of scripture. The importance of context was never made quite so clear to me as when I met a foreign exchange student from South Korea on the campus of Stetson University. I was attending a national conference on forensic debate and public speaking. My new friend from Korea looked at me and said “I am having such a hard time grasping the nuances of the english language”. He had heard that it is nice, positive, even a compliment to tell someone they are “cool”. So when he was at a party he wanted to pay his host a compliment. Going up to her he says “you know, you are really not so hot”. Context! It is very important.

In order for us to answer Jesus’ question that He put to his disciples, “have you understood all of this?”, we have to ask a few questions ourselves. What did these words mean to the gospeler who recorded them decades after Christ’ death and resurrection? What did these words mean to those who first heard them? How was it heard within the context and culture of a first century Jew? What would they have meant to Jesus Himself when he spoke them and how would His disciples have heard them?

This furnace of fire with weeping and gnashing of teeth was a literal place to Jesus. And when Jesus spoke of it His disciples would have had a instant connection to a real and literal place. In Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, the word we translate as hell is Gehenna. Gehenna occurs 12 times in the New Testament and comes from the Aramaic/Hebrew word ge-hinnom. It means valley of Hinnom, an actual valley located southwest of the city of Jerusalem. The valley served as a boundary line for the land inheritance of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. It is a place with an interesting and dubious history in antiquity, one that would be known to a first century Jew. Throughout the time of the Hebrew kings and through the time of the Hebrew prophets this valley saw much bloodshed. Canaanite worship of the gods Molech and Baal demanded child sacrifice through the practice of passing them through the fire into the hands of the gods. A practice nearly impossible for us in the 21st century to wrap our minds around.

During times of war soldiers piled dead bodies in the Hinnom Valley where they were burned for what seemed like forever. During times of relative peace the bodies of criminals were dumped there and disposed of in the same manner. This is all hard to hear. But my point is the Hinnom Valley, or Gehenna, had a reputation as an abyss, an accursed valley where only the guilty ended up where their bodies would seem to burn forever, to dwell in eternal darkness at the outer limits of civilization. In the Jewish mind it was a place where hell existed on earth.

In Jesus’ day the valley had become a refuse heap. It is where Jerusalem sent its trash to be burned day and night. The fires of Gehenna were never extinguished. Beneath its surface it was a smoldering incineration of rotting smelly garbage. Smoke rose from this valley without end. Think of the smell. You can even think of it as the first century’s attempt at being green. I could be a lot more graphic but I will spare you. But make no mistake, to the Jewish mind it was the vilest place on earth. When Jesus spoke of it His listeners would instantly think of it. Their fears of falling in or ending up there would immediately come to mind. It was a real place where your teeth would gnash together.

Now for us, our difficulty today is that all of the occurrences of the word Gehenna in the New Testament have primarily been translated as hell. Let’s do a quick survey of all of these scriptures on hell to see what we would learn: (And as we do our survey remember that each occurrence of the word “hell” has its root in the word “Gehenna”.)

• Hell is an ever burning garbage dump just southwest of Jerusalem
• Bodies are thrown into hell by Jesus, angels, unknown entities, and kings servants
• In hell, there is unquenchable fire
• In hell, worms don’t die
• Those who cause a child to stumble are thrown into hell
• Those who do not cut off their hand or foot or poke out their eye if it causes them to stumble are thrown into hell
• Those who don’t hate their father and mother, sisters and brothers go to hell
• A man dressed in the wrong clothes goes to hell
• Angels live in hell--the sinful ones that is
• Whole cities and entire towns can be cast into hell
• Hell has gates and those gates can’t prevail against Jesus’ followers
• People in hell see those who are in heaven and people in heaven see those who are in hell
• Jesus, as risen Lord, has the keys to hell
• And finally in Revelation hell itself will be thrown into the lake of fire

What is most revealing about our list is that the Bible’s language of hell is entirely figurative or in parable form. In some cases the details of hell differ so drastically we cannot take them literally. Hell cannot be all these things at the same time. When we hear Jesus speak of mustard seeds being the smallest of seeds (which it isn’t) and growing into a great tree (which it doesn’t) we have no difficulty seeing this as parable and metaphor. But only a few lines later in the text when Jesus speaks of hell our minds want to change the genre of the text. We don’t hear it as a continuation of the parable. We loose its metaphorical significance. Wether it is mustard seeds and leaven or hells furnace with weeping and gnashing of teeth Jesus is pointing us to a truth. He is trying to teach us something. He is pointing us to a reality. But what reality?

Was the lesson Jesus was teaching about having the right confession of faith, holding the correct creed, holding to a certain set of orthodox beliefs? And if you don’t the consequence is torment burning in the fires of hell for all eternity, all time, with no option for conversion, no possibility of restoration, no opportunity for redemption. Is that the real message of the gospel?

Five chapters later, in Matthew 18, Jesus speaks again about Gehenna. In this discourse He makes a very declarative statement: “I have come not to cast the lost into hell (Gehenna) but to seek and to save the lost”. His point and emphasis actually has little to do with hell. His intent was not to teach the disciples about the nature of hell, who goes there, and how long you will suffer. In fact if Jesus was speaking to us today in our vernacular, in the context of our language and culture he would say something like “where do you think you already are?”. Gehenna is the current reality of the human condition.

In the context of Jesus teachings, He focuses on salvation, He focuses on liberation from sin, on healing and transformation of souls. The eternal fire, gnashing of teeth, darkness, and fiery furnace that Jesus speaks about are all metaphors meant to bring about life conversion. He is telling them about their salvation and His role in it.

Whatever theological belief about hell you hold to it must harmonize with the nature and character of God as Jesus revealed Him. It also must harmonize with the major themes of the Bible of God’s mercy, love, justice, faithfulness, AND His desire to reconcile with all of creation. Reconciliation and restoration is the reality behind Jesus’ linguistic strategy in referencing Gehenna. He is shocking His hearers into realizing that He has come to bring liberation. Liberation from sin, spiritual death, and all of the evils of our lives and world.

The good news of the gospel is that our damnation, our torment, our despair is only for a season. It is not an eternal condition. Nor is it for anyone. There is only one thing that is eternal for all time and that is God, His love, His restoration, His reconciliation, His healing, and His liberation.

Now our only question is the one Jesus posed to his disciples: “Have you understood all of this”.

Amen

The Way Forward

Title: The Way Forward

RCL - Easter 5A - May 22, 2011

Acts 7:55-60

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

Well, in case you missed it, yesterday was May 21st -- the end of the world. Billboards have dotted the American landscape, along with t-shirts and leaflets stating the Bible guarantees it, buses painted with “The End of the World” messages from bumper to bumper, and of course all of those “believers” shouting over bullhorns in the public square that the rapture was to occur on May 21st. A visit to the website of “judgementday2011.com” earlier this week touted sale prices for t-shirts because there were only a “few days left”.

The May 21st movement within the far right evangelical community has at its center Harold Camping of FamilyRadio.com and his ability to decipher the hidden secrets of scripture about the end of time. However, this is not the first time Harold Camping has set a date for the return of Christ. He first predicted Christ return on September 6, 1994. How did he know Christ would return on this date? He equated the 2000 pigs mentioned in the 5th chapter of Mark’s gospel as 2000 years. Then following a complicated numbering scheme arrived at September 6, 1994. That of course didn’t happen so banking on the short memory of his followers he set a new date: May 21, 2011. Harold Camping is not alone in the field of prophecy pundits. Jack Van Empe has set a date in 2012. And there are other prophecy pundits who have set dates in 2014. And what is their motivation for such prophetic announcements? Could it be connected to the over $80 million in donations FamilyRadio.com received in the years 2005 to 2009?

Here’s the truth of the matter. There is absolutely no evidence in the Bible whatsoever, nary a clue, as to when Jesus Christ will return. There is no scripture in the Bible that can reveal the date of the Second Coming. Furthermore, all prophecy pundits have one characteristic in common. They are 100% wrong 100% of the time. Now if you are sensing that I have some energy on all of this you’re right. These charlatans (and that is what they are) who are dominant in some portions of American Christian culture are robbing thousands of the true message of Christ, His words, the true meaning of the Gospel. When the Evening News, NPR, CNN and host of other media outlets cover these stories as viable news it sidetracks the real dialogue that needs to be heard on Christ love, and on His works of mercy and justice, taking care of the poor, feeding the hungry, and ministering to the sick. As I have heard one commentator put it “the hucksterism of Left Behind/Rapture theology causes us to lose the meaning of consecrated life through the pursuit of justice and peace.”

There have been countless news stories of individuals and families giving up their jobs, liquidating their assets and savings and it is heartbreaking to hear. There are hundreds if not thousands of people who awoke to the reality of this Sunday morning who will now have to find a new way forward. That way forward lies right in today’s Gospel.

The 13th through the 19th chapters of John narrates the last 24 hours of Christ earthly life. Our reading today falls right in the middle of what is known as the Johannine Farewell Discourse. Jesus knows His passion is eminent and it is through these farewell discourses that Jesus does all He can to prepare his disciples for what lies ahead, for life after tomorrow. So He begins with reassurance, He begins by setting aside their fears, which is always the beginning place of any true work of God, by saying “Do not let your hearts be troubled”. John has his own ordering of the events of passion week. By the time we get to today’s reading Jesus has already washed his disciples feet, predicted Judas’ betrayal, and Peter’s denials, and He has called on His disciples to “love one another”. What he is really doing is preparing His disciples for what their lives will look like once he has departed from this world and returned to His Father.

As it is throughout much of the Gospel of John the dialogue is pushed forward through a series of questions. The first question actually comes in the preceding verses from Peter: “Lord, where are you going?” Then Thomas ask how they can know the way to where Christ is going if they do not even know the destination. What the disciples are failing to grasp is that Jesus is telling them that the Father IS the destination. The next question comes from Philip asking Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus’ response only confuses them further by saying you’ve already seen the Father by seeing me.

At the heart of this discourse Jesus makes one of the most profound statements of His entire 3 years of earthly ministry. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This is not exactly an ecumenical/inter-faith statement, nor did Jesus intend it to be. On the surface it sounds like Jesus is being completely exclusive. This is a powerful statement, even for us in our time. But to a Jew, living in the fist century, living in the Jewish homeland it held a life altering revelation. Jesus took 3 of the great foundational conceptions of Judaism and made the tremendous claim that in Him all 3 found their full realization.

The Way

Jesus says “I am the way.” Following the way as a path to God goes all the way back to Moses. In fact we could probably trace it all the way back to Abraham. God said to Moses “...you shall not turn to the right or to the left. You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you.” Moses told the Israelites not to turn aside from the way that God had commanded them to follow. Much later in Jewish history Isaiah says “This is the way; walk in it”. The Psalmist writes: “Teach me your way O Lord”. And what is most telling is the name by which the very first Christians became known by in the Book of Acts: they were followers of The Way. So for Jesus to make the claim to His disciples of being the way was telling them that He was the embodiment of all that they sought. Even more literally He was saying I am the embodiment of life with God. He wasn’t giving them a set of directions on how to find God. He wasn’t handing them a road map or a set of formulas. He told them I AM God. And I assure you it wasn’t lost on Peter, Thomas and Philip that Jesus used the very name of God that God spoke to Moses...I AM. And it shouldn’t be lost on us.

The Truth

Jesus said “I am the way and the truth” and in doing so identifies Himself with the Psalmist who wrote: “Teach me your way O Lord, that I may walk in your truth”. Just as in our day, first century Palestine had its cache of prophecy pundits and those claiming to know the truth. What made Jesus different? He embodied truth. Jesus wasn’t the next empty johnny-come-lately truth claimer or moralist. There is an unlimited number of names that I could pull from recent headlines of would be moralist and truth-claimers who fell from their pedestals. And the common thread in all of their downfalls was greed and lust. But lets be honest. We don’t need the sensational stories from headline news. Most of us need look no further than our own circle of friends, or our own families, and yes, even our own lives to recognize the failings of truth. An adulterer who claims purity, a greedy person who claims generosity, a domineering person who claims humility, an irascible person who claims serenity, an embittered person who claims love--it all makes one completely skeptical of truth. Yet Jesus claims with unequivocal authority I am truth. And His disciples recognized that Jesus really lived the truth he taught. They saw in Him the reality of truth. Only Jesus could make such a statement. There has never been anyone before or since who could say I am truth.

The Life

Jesus said “I am life”. A first century Jew would know that in Proverbs, holding the wisdom of Solomon, such verses as: “whoever heeds instruction is on the path of life” or “You show me the path of life”. What Solomon discovered that made him so wise is that the end game in the Jewish faith of following the way and seeking truth was to find life. And what makes Solomon’s words so wise to us today is that in the final analyses what we are always seeking more than anything else is life.

Was Jesus discounting the great faiths of the world, some of them older than Christianity? Was He making an exclusive statement telling his disciples they had made it into the ultimate “in-group” and all others were left behind in the out group? NO! He simply met his questioners, Peter, Thomas and Philip, right where they were and spoke to them in a language they would understand. He told them I AM the embodiment of Torah. I AM the way to follow, I AM the truth you seek, I AM the life you desire.

Now I would like to set a date. It is the only date we need ever set. It is the date we proclaim each and every day with the Psalmist saying: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” It is today that Jesus tells us He is the way because He is our access point to God’s promise of life. It is today that Jesus tells us that He is life because he has brought His gift of life to the world. Let us this day choose Jesus as our way, let us choose Jesus as our truth, let us choose Jesus as our life.

Amen