January 18, 2009, 2nd Sunday in OT. B.

Have you heard the joke, "When a person talks to God, it's prayer; when he hears the Voice of God telling him to do things, it's schizophrenia!" I remember our psychology professor telling us that joke, eons ago. But, it brings up interesting religious questions. On the one hand, we all know how goofy people who hear God telling them things can be. They wander our city streets, apparently harmless enough, but deeply disturbed as they rant their messages to those with no time to listen. We had one in New Orleans, who would walk around the French Quarter with a tin foil bishops mitre on her head, telling anyone in her path that they were damned. No one really wanted her locked up; she was sort of an institution. But, I don't know that we could have taken too many of her. Luckily, she was the only regular.
 
But the religious question remains:  How do we know when God is "speaking to us?" For one of the points of prayer is to make contact with the Living God. We offer God our worship; we seek God's gracious healing and forgiveness; we seek the strength to live lives of goodness and sacrifice. AND, we seek to open our ears to listen for the Inner Voice to guide us toward those paths of goodness and sacrifice....to nudge us in a direction that will lead us to greater wholeness, and to finer living. Tammy Faye Baker used to ask God to lead her to good sales on everything from washing machines to automobiles. And, before we laugh, is there anyone here who hasn't at some time or other, been tooling along at 60 miles per hour, sun on your face and wind in your hair, radio playing your favorite songs, ONLY to look down and see that your below E on the gas gage, and a toll bridge is coming up, with no where to get off or turn around....WHO HASN'T PRAYED, "GOD, GET ME ACROSS THIS BRIDGE AND TO A FILLING STATION?"
 
We so hope to sense a response of SOME sort to our prayer. Sometimes, it's enough to get to the other side of the bridge and get gas, other times, though, we truly seek answers to something that is troubling us, and we want to "hear" something....oh, not necessarily a "Voice," but we want to somehow have that "answer" come to us...
 
So, back to the question of the First Reading: "How do we know it's God talking?" Samuel got up three times that night. That sounds like my life at 62! But, I don't interpret my awakening as God. Neither did Samuel. Nor Eli....at first. There was a "holy insistence" that finally got through to both of them. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, he said: "Be persistent! Think of your friend...he may not get up and feed you and your guests a midnight out of friendship, but he will if you get a rock and bang long enough....and if that doesn't work...something stronger!" He asks us to keep a "holy insistence" before God...the same "holy insistence" God will place in our lives to let us know that this is, indeed, HE who speaks!
 
Now, that doesn't get us off the hook. For, there is always the obsessive personality–the one who gets an idea, and can't let it go...who obsesses on it, and worries it to death. For this situation, the first reading is no real help. For them, or for US when we get like that...perhaps the words of the Gospel will be helpful. Simply, "Come, and see." I remember I was chaplain of a hospice for pilgrims in Jerusalem one summer, and a woman whose husband had recently died, who was from Atlanta, Georgia, showed up at the hospice, and spent some time there. She seemed OK, and I didn't pay too much attention to her, thinking she was a typical pilgrim/tourist getting to see the city. One morning I came down to breakfast, and she was in tears...sobbing away not far, fortunately, from the coffee pot. So, I went up and asked if I could help.
 
She told me her story–a story of deep personal loss–and how bereft she had felt. And, then, one day, she felt she just "had to come to Jerusalem," so she sold up and bought a ticket, and here she was, but the grief remained. Now, she felt silly. I remembered the verse from today's Gospel. The nameless disciple and Andrew, Peter's brother, too, are in some sort of need or pain. And they are searching. And they want healing or peace, or wisdom or SOMETHING! And Jesus says to them, "Come and see." They simply had to go, to experience whatever was to be had! I told the Atlanta lady, "You were seeking direction in your suffering, you thought of the place of Christ's suffering, and you felt you needed to be near it...like Andrew. So learn what this place has to teach you...go to the hill of Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher, sit with His Suffering and place in it your own. When you're ready, when you've absorbed what you need to absorb, then you can go home...like Andrew and the other disciple did...they went home and told Peter. Remember?" "So," she asked, "do you think I should go home?" I said, "Do you believe God can ever speak through priests?" She kindly replied, "I suppose..." I smiled and said, "Go home. But, before you go, learn from this place. OK?" I heard from her for years...back in Atlanta. She must be dead, herself, now, for the cards have stopped. But, I think of her frequently.
 
So, the long and the short: there is NO sure fire way to be sure it's God speaking, and not a self-induced idea, wish or longing. All we are offered are the two general guides:
1) Is the thought persistent?
2) If you decide to "go and see," experience it, then evaluate.
 
Now, if you came here today with no burning issue of wondering if God was, indeed, speaking to you, what do YOU take away from the readings? There is another hint, lurking in the background. Did you catch the words: "They stayed with Him..."? The question put to all who would know the Christ of God is, "Can you wait with me an hour?" (Do you remember the words from Gethsemane?) 
 
Everyone of you in this Church, today, wants to "know" God. Otherwise, you wouldn't have come. You would have found something else to do. But, you came. You came here to experience something of God...to know something of His Love, His forgiveness, His power, His wisdom. You want to "know" the Lord. The words echo forth: "They stayed with Him that day."...They STAYED with Him.
 
If we would know our God, we have to stay for a while. What does it mean? It means, among other things, to DO WHAT HE TAUGHT...we just "stay at it," even if it doesn't quite make sense. We keep at it. We turn the other cheek. We find ways to make peace, and to foster peace without condemning either side of a situation. We find ways to help each side see the good in themselves and the good in the other. They need to see the deep goodness in themselves...a goodness that will enable them to rise above their anger and violence and be bigger, AND they need to see the inherent goodness in those they are so dissatisfied with...who, too, have hopes and dreams, and need a space of understanding. And when it isn't working...we don't stop. We simply keep at it. We do the work of peacemaking, the work of building justice in an unjust world. We break the bread, and pray that it give us the courage to be, ourselves, "broken" for others. We read the ancient texts, and draw strength for the gentle life we are called to live, as we learn to walk gently on the earth in the footsteps of the Prince of Peace. It's in simply STAYING, just DOING it, that we come to know the God of our stillness.
 
The readings are about discipleship, aren't they? How to listen to the Master's Voice, and how to come to know the Master. It's my prayer for each of us–disciples in our own way–that we will be touched with Divine Power in the Breaking of the Bread, today–a Power that will enable us to STAY with Him, and Listen for His Voice, and ultimately make of our lives benedictions of goodness and peace in our world. And may God bless you all. +

January 11, 2009: Baptism of the Lord

The mikveh, a collection of waters, is a pool for restoring the soul. It is used when significant moments are upon us–a bridegroom before his wedding, a father before the circumcision of his son, a mother after giving birth or after her menses when she is ready to reunite with her husband.  It's all about bringing healing so that we are ready for union with another, with the community, with God. Sometimes, none of these conditions is there, but the soul seems askew, wandering, or troubled, and the healing waters of the mikvah help the worshiper to re-find a center, and to recover a state of "shalom," of inner peace,wholeness and health. The mikvah is the bath of conversion to Judaism, as the confusion of polytheism's din of gods is put behind one, and one places himself or herself into the Hands of the One. Still waters for most restorations, flowing waters for leprous things. Different waters for different pain.
 
John the Baptist turned the entire Jordan River into a giant Mikvah and asked people to put behind them the taint, the leprosy of greed, violence, and dishonesty, as they recommitted themselves to the holy path, the way to the One.
 
It is into this bath, these healing waters that Jesus stepped. The Great Physician, Himself, entering the pool of peacefulness. John senses that the One before him has a deeper Calm than he, himself, but re-assured, the rites continued. And Christ, waist deep in the ancient waters filled with symbolism of Israel's past, submerged Himself, only to rise to Hear the Voice.
 
This is what today's Mass celebrates and recalls. So, let's examine it for a minute, then go to brunch. The symbolism of the Jordan is poignant. It marked the very boundary of the nation. Beyond the Jordan was paganism, confusion, doubt, and distress. Enemies came from beyond the Jordan–those who wish to kill us. Yet, it is here, that Christ must come. John, too, senses that all peacefulness must begin here...at the line between "us and them." That "line," today, has shifted to the other side of the nation, and is represented by the "Wall" being built by Israel to protect itself from terrorist bombs. Walls, it is true, can wall out some kinds of trouble, but they also wall out all sorts of kinds of goodness. I'm not going to comment on what Israel and Palestinians should do to achieve peace. Only they can work that out for themselves.
 
I want to suggest to you that the wisdom of the reading is that for "peace" to come, it has to start there, at the boundary. That's why Christ is waist-deep in the Jordan as we open the reading, today. He is entering the ancient pool of restoration and peace. He does so at the boundary, in the no-man's land–the wilderness–far from the capitals of either side–far from the market places and news centers of either side. He moves to the place of anonymity, unnoticed, and unannounced, and there, in the rites of restoration and healing, he hears the Voice of the One who once Voiced "let there be light," in all creation.  BOTH Israel and Palestine will have to EACH find that same place of anonymity, of smallness, and each will have to enter its rites of restoration and healing so that they will be ready to unite with each other in peace...........but, let's not talk of Israel and Palestine.
 
Let's talk of us. We, too, know boundaries.....we've all been excluded by someone or something. We've felt the pain of "walls" and "fences" and doors closed to us. We carry that pain and it's memory burns deep, like a fire. And the waters of Our Lord's Baptismal Day are here to cool that burn, and put out that flame before it ignites the world in anger. Peace begins inside us. It begins here. It's geography is not in Israel at the dividing wall that creates Israel/Palestine. The geography of war and peace is in our hearts. When we are peaceful, we empower peacefulness everywhere. This is what Christ meant when He asked us not to be bothered about the speck in our brother's eye, but to worry about the board that is blinding our own eyesight!
 
Who do you need to forgive, today? Where is your anger? Your hatred? Your fear? Your disappointment?  THIS is what you are asked to heal on the Feast of the Entrance of Jesus into the Pools of Peace, the Waters of Restoration. Does that mean we shouldn't sign petitions for a cease fire in the Middle East? Oh, for Heaven's sake, no! Of course we can, and SHOULD promote peace EVERYWHERE....but, we have such little influence there, and so MUCH here where the divisions are personal and up close and ever so healable, if we will only work at them!
 
Christ came out of the waters of restoration–what we call His "baptism" committed to working for the dignity and the healing of all people. He connected healing with forgiveness, and taught us that if we would be healed, we should be a forgiving people. He taught peace, and praised peaceful people wherever He found them–whether they were Roman centurions, lepers or Samaritans. He led by example, and said, "Greater things than these, you will do!"
 
So, on this feast of Baptisms....thinking of our own...the day we were held up and bathed in the Waters of Grace, and our souls restored........let us pray that as we receive the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, that we will receive His Divine Wisdom, Courage and Strength to lead, too, by example, and to make of our lives benedictions of goodness, profound kindness and peace in a world that needs those gifts so desperately. And may God bless you all.+

January 4, 2008, Feast of the Epiphany

As we worship this morning, the Epiphany is 2000 years in the past, as are all the feasts of Our Lord that we celebrate. In celebrating them, we are remembering. And from a 2000 year perspective, since none of us experienced them when they took place, we not only remember what we've been told by the Tradition, we also imagine and create these experiences anew in our minds, placing ourselves as silent witnesses watching the drama unfold.

 

We envision three Magi (none of us sure exactly what a Magus was) heading toward Bethlehem. We imagine them walking or riding camels, we imagine them traveling at night (how else to follow a star?), we imagine them bearing coffers, rich with ornamentation. They whisper to us of a romantic dimension to life's meaning. They peer into the darkness and see a guiding, ever-moving light where others see only eternal, unchanging constellations. They are from the mysterious East, moving Westward, representing for us the union of "deeper hidden meaing," (what we deem to be the gift of the "East") with our (what we deem to be prosaic and menial) daily routines, which characterizes life in the West. We imagine them crossing desert sands in the moonlight–sands, forever changing shape, shifting with the breezes and winds of time, where nothing is ever as it seems to be. We imagine them, largely, as silent, making a silent journey, a journey as silent as the footfall of a camel on the Arabian desert. We imagine the foresight that went into selecting the prescient gifts of gold (for a king,) frankincense (for a priest,) and myrrh (for a sacrificial death and burial)–the entire life of the One they were visiting summed up in the gifts they brought Him.

 

And as we create our "memories" in our mind's eye, we can almost see ourselves, too, walking with them. We sense the deep darkness of our own time and place; we long for a light of hope, and we pray with all that is within us that the Light that they saw will be really be there for us, too. We are grateful for the silence, not having to engage in any sort of exchange, for after all, what would one say to a "Magus?" And, we wonder what, if anything, of importance we have to say to anyone. And, thus, we are led, silently, deep within, in search of a Truth that surely we possess–something to say, something to express ourselves as perfectly as the gifts they gave expressed them. At which point we realize, that their gifts did not express "them," they expressed the One to Whom they were making the offering. And this reminds us that the Gift we give to God need not express us, at all. The True Gift will be the one we give that fully expresses Him.

 

And where does that leave us? It leaves us exactly where we need to be: at the altar of the Mass of the Epiphany! For it is there, at the altar that we give the Gift that fully expresses Him. We take the bread made Him, and the wine made Him, and we offer Him to the Father. We do what He eternally does. Eternally Christ offers Himself to the Father. The Mass is a partaking in that eternal sacrifice. That is our Gift, and the only gift we have that's fit to give! And as we unite ourselves to that Gift, offering our hearts and our lives along with His, we become more wholly and more deeply a part of the Church–the Body of Christ, that He, our Head, offers to the Father as His Sacrifice. And we, too, are taken up, and made a holy oblation with Him, for we are part of Him. The Eastern liturgy has the priest say, as he lifts the Host at Holy Communion: "Holy Things for Holy People." St. Augustine (I think) admonished his congregation to "receive what you are; become what you receive."

 

 

So, the Epiphany–the word means "Revelation," "Divine Apparition"–has brought us from ancient Bethlehem to Los Angeles, California. Here on the front pew, the back pew, the choir loft, and all sites in-between, we are all being caught up into The Gift of Christ to the Father. We are the gold, the frankincense and the myrrh–the royal family, the priestly people, the ones called to deeper sacrifice for others. We are the Christ, made into Him as we offer Him to the Father and receive Him into ourselves in Holy Communion, and are transformed, ever more closely, into the Body of the Christ.

 

I remember one of my dogma teachers explaining to us why no "graven image" can ever be called God and worshiped–which is not to say we can't have religious art–don't forget that the One who made the commandment about "graven images," also legislated that "cherubim" adorn the ark of the covenant! If God can distinguish between idolatry and religious art, so can we. But no "image" can ever be considered to be God, or worshiped. Why? Our professor said, "Gentlemen, read Genesis 1: 26! There already is an "image of God," and the only valid one in existence–and that is US–Humanity, created "in the image and likeness of God." So, when we trash each other–for whatever motive, even motives we consider "holy"–we trash Him. And when we honor each other, we honor Him. Epiphany reminds us that we are each God's Gift to the earth for our time and place, and the finest Gift we can offer in return is to live our lives as members of His Body, offering ourselves with Christ in the Eucharist, so that our lives can become benedictions of light in the world's darkness, and our presence a guiding voice in the silence of humanity's deserts.

 

This coming year is an open book. Economists (modern soothsayers who try to peer into the future) predict dire circumstances. Politicians warn us of rising tensions, national and international. Moralists tell us that we are selling our souls to profit, and profiting on hate. But none of them knows YOU, or ME. And we have the opportunity to change–not all the world–but OURSELVES. And if we truly change ourselves, then others will change, too. For goodness is just as "catching" as shallowness, maybe more so. When people see other people living with depth and courage and character, they want to be like them.

 

So, let's set our sights long, and aim high, shall we? Let us resolve to treasure each other, even in dire disagreement, and let us resolve to bring "positive conversation" to our political world and our Church community. Let's resolve to be kind. Let's resolve to be profoundly charitable in times when many of us may be stretched, and find ourselves tempted to be stricter, if not stingy. Let us try to lift ourselves and others a little higher with our thoughts, our words and our actions. And let us always strive to be conduits of the Light of that Ancient Star which still guides the wise through life's night time, on a sure course over the ever-shifting sands of time. And may God bless you all.

 

-Father Bill Axe, O.SS.T.