Gospel Text for Sunday 2 June 2019

John 17:20-26        Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then he said. "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

"Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Reflection        Given the bitterly divided state of our current social, political and religious worlds how can we possibly aspire to becoming ‘completely one’ as Jesus prays? Jesus is not praying for uniformity of custom, singularity of theology, nor homogeneity of political perspectives. Jesus prays for unity, not uniformity. Jesus prays that we experience that which draws us together and is greater than anything can divide. 

When we claim our place in the intimate relationship of humanity with divinity we are participating in something deeper than any possible divisions, we are affirming something wider than the myriad ways we disagree. You see, when we claim our place in the intimate relationship of humanity with divinity we are raised up  with Jesus and experience the glorious unity that is evinced in the love of Jesus with the Father. 

This interpenetrating love, this oneness in relationship with God, is the heart of unity. It is this love, this oneness,  that enables us to bury our hatchets and listen to those with whom we disagree. It is this love, this oneness, that gives us the courage to tare down walls that separate us from those whom we call other. Don’t you see, Jesus is not praying for uniformity of social, political or religious opinion. Jesus is inviting us to claim our place in the life of the Trinity.

What does that mean, life in the Trinity? For help explaining I turn to one of my favorite German theologians, who if still living is nearing one hundred years old. Jürgen Moltmann understands the Trinity as fundamentally social. The three persons of the the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are defined by their relationships. Although there are three distinctive individual expressions of being they are understood by their relationships with one another. Relationship is the defining quality.  Trinity is the unparalleled model for our human relationships.

As humans created in the image and likeness of God, we are distinctive individual expressions of being and we are defined by our relationships. We live and breath and find our meaning in our interconnected, interpenetrating relationships. Because the Spirt of God lives and breathes and moves within us, all of us, we participate in what Moltmann calls, the Social Trinity. 

How does that translate to life among us humans? I believe it looks like each one of us and all of us together bringing our core values to bear on the institutions and culture around us. It means questioning our purity codes (who is in and who is out) and stretching the borders of our hearts and minds to make room for everyone. Where ever hatred, hostility or sorrow thrive we are meant to deliver kindness, good will and joyfulness. Where bitterness and resentment abound we are meant to tender friendship and affection.

Through our selfless expressions of love people will be drawn to the source of our love, the love that we experience in the love of God and Jesus the Christ, the love that we share with confidence because we know we are loved and we desire nothing less than to draw all people into the intimate relationship we share with God, into the life of the Social Trinity. 

Listen to Fr. Thomas Keating speak on "Living Ordinary Life with Extraordinary Love," by clicking on top right image.

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Gospel text for Sunday 19 August 2018

John 6:51-58        Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

Reflection      Jesus is adding a dimension of nourishment, spiritual nourishment, to our diets. He never says, “Don’t eat bread made with yeast or meat or vegetables.” In fact, his messages is quite the opposite. When your body is hungry, feed it even if it means picking grain on the Sabbath or eating food that is reserved for the priests. Take care of your physical body AND take care of your Spiritual body. 

Everything about the revelation of Jesus is both - and or non-dualistic. First and last, new and old, one and many, body and spirit, mortal and immortal, human and divine. Much as we need to supply nourishment to our bodies so too must we provide nutrition to our Spirits.  

Bread is not a symbol that signifies or represents something else; a cross, star of David, red circle with a diagonal line across it. Bread is a sacrament. Its life sustaining property renders it naturally sacred. When Jesus aligns himself with “living bread” from heaven he is saying, “The message I bring is of a Spiritual nature intended to nourish your Spiritual life.”  

During his final meal with his friends Jesus speaks words that we hear during our celebration of Holy Eucharist. “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this wine, remember me.”  Let us not forget that Jesus blesses, breaks and shares bread in the context of a meal with his friends. Meals are occasions in which we all participate, meals that consist of both the bread of earth and the bread of heaven. Meals are everyday life, the context in which the realization of our Spiritual lives occurs. **

Jesus reveals a way of life that transcends separation of the secular and the sacred. He shows us The Way to live that is essential to our flourishing. Jesus does not instruct us to “Think about this bread and what it means.” He invites us to “eat this bread” because it is not about understanding all of this, it is about doing it. Jesus is inviting us to incorporate the fullness of our divine humanity, our human divinity.

Like Jesus, we are bread made of two ingredients, the physical and the Spiritual. Inevitably our physical beings are challenged, diminish and die. If the only way we find meaning and value is through our effectual actions and avoiding the annihilation of our small selves, well, all that remains for us is to become stale, moldy and disintegrate. Only when we receive, consume and embody the bread as revealed in Jesus are the physical and Spiritual possibilities of life unleashed in us.

If we do not eat, we do not live. That statement is as true with regard to our physical lives as it is for our Spiritual lives.  When we hear John’s Jesus say, “I am the living bread that comes down from heaven…” he is telling us that he brings to us that which we require to nourish our spiritual lives. If we do not eat of this Spiritual bread our Spirits will not flourish. 

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** For more on this nondual perspective listen to Fr. Thomas Keating speaking about “The Little Way of St. Teresa of Liseaux”  at https://youtu.be/7wBBOAORoSY

Gospel text for Sunday 21 August 2016

Luke 13:10-17        Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Reflection    Twenty five years ago I swung my bruised body on my all too familiar crutches into my acupuncturist’s office. Being a whole person healer Dr. D began by listening attentively to my tale of woe; my head dive over a patch of ice, my frozen ski binding that provided the opportunity for my femur to release out the side of my leg, the head first toboggan ride down the ski mountain, the sea of faces in the chair lift line all silently praying, “Thank God that’s not me,” the medic gone rogue yanking my leg across the equator, the single minded orthopedic surgeon whose only answer was the knife, my stubborn refusal to submit to his plan, now, 10 days later, my crippled leg lay motionless on Dr. D’ acupuncture table.” Throughout my monologue Dr. D drivers spiked points of pain into my ankles, wrists, top of my head. When finally my words run dry Dr. D pauses, needle in midair and avers, “One day you will be grateful for all of the traumas and pain you have experienced,” which stung more grievously than the needle she promptly planted into my swollen knee. 

Suffering happens. The weight of suffering is integral to the constitution of life. In the words of the old Rolling Stones song, “No, you can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime you find. You get what you need.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh refers to this attitude of consenting and welcoming the present moment as mindfulness. In an interview with Krista Tippett the Vietnamese monk explains. “Mindfulness is assent to life as it is. Look at a flower and see that it is on its way to be garbage. Look at garbage and see it is on its way to be a flower.”+ In the same way we may experience suffering as being on the way to compassion. And of course, when we experience compassion we are on the way to experience suffering with others.

What does all of this have to do with the woman who was “bent over and quiet unable to stand up straight?” Everything. We have no idea what ails her but we do know this. Two thousand years ago if she had scoliosis, not only would she suffer the physical pain associated with the condition, but her neighbors would see her as a sinner who must have done something wrong to bring this grievous state upon herself, the religious leaders would consider her doubly unclean (woman and diseased) which  would foster oppressive feelings of guilt and unworthiness and eject this woman into exile.

Then Jesus arrives and turns the proverbial temple tables upside down. In direct violation of social norms and temple law, Jesus looks at the woman and calls her to him, he calls her to return from exile. Then he speaks directly to her, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment." and lays his hands on her. Jesus sees the woman exactly as she is. He not only acknowledges her existence he affirms her dignity and worth by touching her. And the healing is this. The woman is set free from the social, emotional and religious conditions that have oppressed her for eighteen years and her relationship with God is restored. “Immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.”

We are all bent beneath the weight of something. And, if we are not now, just wait a minute. Jesus shows us the way of living freely; refusing to be oppressed by physical, social, emotional or religious conditions; look into the face of suffering, consent to the present moment and discover God with you, no matter what.

+To hear Thich Nhat Hanh’s entire interview, click on this link       http://www.onbeing.org/program/thich-nhat-hanh-cheri-maples-and-larry-ward-being-peace-in-a-world-of-trauma/74 accessed August 20, 2016.
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