 By Rev. Heather Blais
As I wrote in my letter to you on Friday, we knew going into this week that our national election would be one of great consequence. No matter who we elected, we would ultimately remain a nation divided. Some of us would be left feeling relieved and grateful. Others of us would be left feeling angered, grieved, and scared about the future of our democracy. Many of our neighbors have been feeling left unseen, unheard, and undervalued; carrying a deep worry about the economy and the direction our country is headed. Other neighbors have shared similar concerns, but as a result of the policies promised by our President-elect, are now deeply worried about international relations; the future of gender equality and reproductive rights; climate change; the safety and rights of the LGBTQI+ community; and of course, the deportation and separation of immigrant, migrant, and refugee families. Let me just say: No matter who each of us voted for this week, no matter how we have been feeling these past few days - I am so glad to see you here today. As the Church, our values are defined by the holy scriptures, particularly the Gospel. These values are often at odds with the values of the world. So we know something about living in the tension of division; the tension that comes from advocating for God’s dream. We know what it means to stand up to earthly rulers - of every political party and persuasion - and do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Which is why it matters so much that we gather today and every Sunday. Here we give all the joys and sorrows, all the anger and angst of our lives to God. We lay it all on God’s Table, knowing God can handle anything we send their way. In turn we need to receive the strength and courage that the Holy One offers us in the nourishment of worship, scripture, prayer, community, and sacrament. Because as the Church, we have important work to do - and the mission remains the same yesterday, today, and always. Irrelevant of any and all political candidates or parties, the Church’s work is clear. God demands that we stand with those on the margins. We see this most clearly in today’s scripture when we look to the widows. Widows were one of the most vulnerable populations in the ancient world. God’s law required that society ensure their care, yet so often they were neglected. More troubling still, unjust rulers and corrupt leaders maintained public policy and practices that made conditions exponentially worse for the poor. Widows were what we might think of as the poorest of the poor. In our reading from 1 Kings, we enter the story mid-stream. Israel had recently acquired a new leader - King Ahab. Right from the start, Ahab sets about misusing his power and authority. Worst of all, he abandoned his sacred duty to the God of Israel by worshiping and serving the Canaanite God Baal. The scripture says, “Ahab did more to vex the Lord, the God of Israel, than all the kings of Israel who preceded him”(1 Kings 16:33). God sent the prophet Elijah to inform Ahab, that due to his actions, God would bring about a drought that only Elijah’s word could end. Then God sent Elijah into hiding, providing him with food and water, until the water source ran dry. We pick up the story in our reading. God instructs Elijah to go to a foreign land, where a widow and orphan would provide for him. Elijah goes and discovers this widow and orphan have almost nothing. In fact, she was preparing to make a final meal, before what she could only assume would be their death from starvation. Society had all but forgotten this woman. Elijah tells her not to be afraid. He asks her to make a small meal for him, and then for herself and son. If she does so, the God of Israel will ensure her jar of flour and jug of oil should not run out, until God sends rain again. When the widow hears God’s promise of sustenance, she responds faithfully, doing as she has been asked, and God does indeed provide for them. The widow we encounter in Mark’s gospel is living many years later, but is also struggling to survive, and has been impacted by corrupt religious leadership. The text tells us that when the widow entered the temple to make her offering, she put in two lepta.**A lepta is the smallest Greek copper coin and is worth 1/128th of a single day’s pay.** An impossibly small amount. The scene comes moments after Jesus had told his followers to beware of the scribes - religious leaders in the temple - who ‘devour widows houses’. These scribes were financially exploiting vulnerable women, for their own glory. In reality, their role was to help ensure these widows were provided for, according to God’s law. Jesus was not lifting the widow up as a model of sacrificial giving, so that we might ask the poorest of the poor amongst us to give the very last of their resources. Instead Jesus is pointing out a corruption of God’s law, and in a way that would vex our Liberating God. Jesus is asking his disciples, and us, to see how easily it is to misuse power and authority, and the horrific impact it has on those already living on the margins. Those on the margins always are asked to pay the highest price, and that goes against everything the God of Love stands for. These two widows trust in God as their Liberator. In both instances, we see how the actions of Elijah and Jesus are meant to help us grasp the true impact of unjust leaders, rulers, politicians, and systems. These two know intimately that it is the work of God to liberate those being stomped on by the system. Womanist theologian Wil Gafney reflected on the role of the widow and wrote: “...God reveals her presence, power, and providence to whom she will. Often she chooses the most vulnerable, the outcast, and the overlooked to bear witness to her mercy and majesty. In these lessons, widows and their children are the primary concern of God in each lesson…God communicates through Elijah and Jesus that neither nationality nor ethnicity disqualify anyone from concern and caretaking. God’s love is for all peoples of earth and Jesus is the embodiment of that love; the scriptures have borne witness to that love across time.”*** Our psalm continues to tell us about the nature of our Liberating God, and because it is written without context, it can be heard clearly in our own time and place. The psalm tells us not to put all our trust in earthly rulers: “...for there is no help in them. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and in that day their thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:2-3). The psalmist reminds us that it is the Holy One alone who is our hope. It is God: “...who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; whose promise abides for ever” (Psalm 146:4-5). The psalmist proclaims that it is our Liberating God who: gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who are hungry; sets the prisoners free, and lifts up those who are bowed down; cares for the stranger, and sustains the orphan and widow. The psalmist also warns anyone listening: God will frustrate the hell out of the wicked. More importantly, the Holy One is not only offering liberation to the people of Israel, but rather is talking about everyone: people of every gender, every orientation, every age, every race, every nation. God stands with those on the margins, and so must we. It is the work of the Church to put our trust in our Liberating God, and be agents of change and love as the body of Christ. One of my favorite theologians, Walter Brueggemann wrote this week: “So it is with us! Like the ancient prophets, we are dispatched back to the good work entrusted to us. It is the work of peace-making. It is the work of truth-telling. It is the work of justice-doing. It is good work, but it requires our resolve to stay [at] it, even in the face of the forces to the contrary that are sure to prevail for a season. We are in it for the long run, even as the Holy One is in it for the very long haul, from everlasting to everlasting. We do not ease off because it is hard. We are back at it after the election.”**** In the week ahead, I invite you to double down in your prayer life. Pray for the nation, pray for the Church, and most of all, pray for God’s world. And to help prepare us for the work that lay ahead, I invite you to join me in renewing the promises of our baptism. These promises embody the values of the Church, the values that we live our life by. Let us reaffirm our faith, and promise once again to live faithfully. Amen. Lessons 1 Kings 17:8-16 Psalm 146 Hebrews 9:24-28 Mark 12:38-44 * 1 Kings 16:29-17:16 ** Gafney, Wilda C. A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year B, p. 236. *** Gafney, Wilda C. A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year W, p. 60. **** Walter Brueggemann, https://churchanew.org/brueggemann/beyond-a-fetal-position
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 Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints.
On this day we remember the communion of saints. In the prayerbook, it is described as, “...the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.” Sometimes we call this communion, ‘a great cloud of witnesses.’ We remember all of the faithful Christians who have gone before us; the holy people we have known during our life of faith. Including members of our faith community who died this past year: Carol Johnson, John Bednarski, Jane Gardner, Ced Bannister, Felicia Finck, and Rick Gwosch - just to name a few. We remember all of the great saints canonized and/or commemorated by the Church, like Mary, James, and Andrew. People who lived exemplary lives of faith, and who will continue to inspire the faithful for generations. We also remember all souls, faithful Christians or not. From the very beginning, God made it clear that each and every person is made in their image and likeness (Gen 1:26 NRSV). In that same spirit, God has a place for everyone at their eternal table, where the great cloud of witnesses feasts on God’s abundant love, mercy, and grace. No matter how long or short our lives may be, how well or poorly we have lived, God has been with us, and does not abandon us, even at the grave. So today we remember. We remember our loved ones and the many ways they inspired, challenged, and changed us. We give thanks for them and honor them. In those relationships that were trying, we continue to seek to forgive them; to learn, be changed, and somehow use those experiences for good. On this day we are asked to remember with our whole bodies. We recollect these saints in our minds and in our hearts through stories. They come alive again in our eyes through photographs, momentos, and icons. When we let ourselves slow down enough to be in touch with the space around us, we can physically feel the thin veil that separates us from those in eternity. This visceral experience connects us to our ancestors in faith, as well as, our familial ancestors. We recognize they are here with us, helping us to live out our life of faith as best we are able. This connection provides sustenance and courage, and helps us to lean more deeply on our Creator, on Christ, and on the Holy Spirit. We need the sustenance and courage of our ancestors now more than ever. As we head into this week’s general election, there is a palpable anxiety that crosses every socioeconomic and political line in our nation, and that ripples out beyond our borders into the rest of the world. Neighbors may not agree on politicians or policies, but we share a sense of uncertainty, angst, and at times, despair. When we look back on our ancestors we see people who lived through incredibly challenging times and demonstrated resilience and perseverance. They embodied a devout and robust faith that continues to inspire long after. No matter what they faced, these faithful continued to see each and every person as a beloved child of God, when it would have been far easier not to. Their faith deepened at times when others would have abandoned faith altogether. In the spirit of drawing on the strength of these courageous saints, I’d like to reflect on two saints that I am particularly thankful for on this All Saints Day. I give thanks for Saint Benedict of Nursia, a devout man of faith who introduced monasticism to the Western Church. Monastics are people who devote their lives to God by committing to a religious order and life in community, typically holding their possessions in common or in trust, and living by certain vows. These vows often include poverty, chastity, and obedience. Saint Benedict lived in Nursia, Italy during the early sixth century. Benedict was deeply troubled by the political instability and the injustices playing out within the remains of the fallen Roman Empire. He withdrew to the hillside where at least one other monk was already living. A community of monastics grew up around him, and eventually he and some of his disciples moved further south and formed a second community of what we would now call Benedictine monks. Near the mid-sixth century Benedict published his Rule of Life. Benedict’s Rule instructed those in the order to break their day into a routine structure which led to roughly four hours of liturgical prayer, five hours of spiritual reading, six hours of work, one hour of eating, and about eight hours of sleep. This text would go on to form the basic guidelines of monastic life, of which many other orders would eventually base their own Rules. More recently, the idea that any of us might live by a personal Rule of Life has taken root, and many find this to be a meaningful spiritual practice. I first encountered the teachings of Saint Benedict when I traveled with a high school boyfriend to visit his uncle, who was a monk at Saint Anselm Abbey and College in Goffstown, New Hampshire. When we arrived on the campus, I felt like I had come home. The air of the grounds felt as sacred as walking into a magnificent cathedral. The brothers' devotion to that physical place, daily prayer, and community life had hallowed the grounds over the previous hundred and twenty years. I would eventually learn that the Benedictine brothers at Saint Anselm took a vow of stability, committing themselves to that place and community for the rest of their lives. They felt called to invite others into their sacred space - their home, and provide higher education to those with the least access to it, the children of millworkers in nearby Manchester. I went home from that visit determined to spend my college years living amidst that community, and a couple of years later I began my time as a student there. The teachings of Saint Benedict infused community life for the brothers, and in turn they infused the teachings and values of Saint Benedict into the wider community. Their values of daily prayer, study, and work shaped us as students, and provided us with the opportunity to approach our own lives in the same way. When I eventually left the safety and comfort of that communal life, I became curious if the Episcopal Church had monastic orders and discovered our own Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge. These brothers are in our backyard, and similarly, invite us into their space for prayer and retreat. Whether I am with them on retreat or here living out my life reading one of their reflections, I experience their devotion to daily prayer, worship, and community life inspiring and healing. Benedict and the faithful brothers and sisters of many religious orders continue to shape and guide, and their devotion models what it looks like to be people of prayer. They give us courage and help to dig into our prayer life, and they prove again and again that prayer shapes and changes us for the better. Their modeling shows us how to keep going, to keep walking in faith, no matter how much uncertainty may lie ahead. The second saint is the one that most influenced my understanding of the Gospel: Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, a Peruvian Catholic priest and philosopher who died last week. Gutiérrez is considered the grandfather of Liberation Theology, a movement that took root with the publication of his 1971 book, A Theology of Liberation. This theology proclaims that our first responsibility as Christians is to care for those enduring poverty, injustice, and marginalization. God stands with the poor first and foremost, and so should we. Gutiérrez wrote alongside other similar thinkers, and together they shaped the local Roman Catholic response to injustice across Latin America in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. One of the most well known early practitioners of liberation theology was Saint Oscar Romero, Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador. Romero protested the El Salvadoran government’s unjust treatment of the poor and their policies of torture. He used his leadership position to inform the Pope of the government’s acts of terror and assassinations, and pleaded with the American government to stop military aid to his country. While his request was ignored, Romero stood beside the poor, and it ultimately cost him his life when he was murdered while celebrating the eucharist in March 1980. Romero was one of many martyrs who died while standing beside the poor, and he has inspired generations of faithful since to embrace the teachings of liberation theology. Since then liberation theology has evolved and spread across Christian denominations. There are now many different branches, including: Black; Feminist; Womanist; Native American; Queer; Eco Justice; and Disability liberation theology. These theologians demand that we never stop exploring what it means to walk in love, to examine the injustices of our world, and prayerfully reflect on how God calls us to respond to those injustices. They show us what it means to dig in when times are tough, and that the Good News of God’s Love will always persevere, no matter how hard things get. They remind us that our calling as the Church is to join God, literally and metaphorically, in standing beside those enduring poverty, injustice, and marginalization. Because together, anything is possible. When we look back and see all the progress that has been made through Gutierrez and other liberation theologians and practitioners, it brings to mind what Saint Martin Luther King, Jr. knew and preached, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” In preparing to write this sermon, I made a mental list of the saints that touched my life. It was startlingly long, but it also left me with a heart full of gratitude. The exercise reconnected me to the depth and strength of their faith, giving a much needed boost of courage to keep walking in love, no matter how difficult things may be. Today, I invite each of us to go home and make a list of the saints that have most influenced our lives. As we navigate through the week ahead, I would invite each of us to draw strength on those saints by spending a few minutes each day reflecting on one of them. To ask ourselves:
* A Great Cloud of Witnesses, 2016.  We are the Church. There is really nothing else quite like it. We are a living, breathing body that transcends time and space. We bring our individual gifts to bear for the good of the Church, and somehow, the Holy Spirit weaves us together in ways that bring goodness and more goodness into God’s world. It’s not something we could orchestrate even if we tried. Being a part of the Church means we regularly and intentionally choose Christ’s Way of Love as our path, and it requires that we set down the baggage we are often inclined to carry with us.
In particular, we must leave behind our own sense of self-importance. And by self importance, I mean anything under the umbrella of: feeling superior to others; a sense that we are in the know when others clearly are not; when we believe we understand how things need to be done, and refuse to genuinely consider there might be other valuable points of view. When we’re caught up in our own sense of self importance, we often forget to be more curious than certain, and we lose track of the bigger picture -- God’s view. We could pretend getting caught up in our own sense of self importance is not something we have to concern ourselves with, but in an election year, nearly all of us fall prey, at least a little bit. We stop seeing our neighbors through the eyes of Christ, we forget that each person, whatever their political views, is made in the image and likeness of God. Getting caught up in our own sense of self importance is a concern that Jesus repeatedly addresses with his disciples in Mark’s gospel. Jesus is constantly holding up the bigger picture; deeply in tune with God’s vision. Meanwhile, for many of us, it is hard to sit with the ambiguity of that vision. We want a sense of order, and to know the rules of how things work. We want to be able to count on those rules, and proceed onward. We want a concrete plan of how we will get from the messy world of today, to God’s beautiful dream tomorrow. While we might see this as a shortcoming in our character, I actually think it has more to do with how we navigate living. When a little one begins to crawl and then walk, we babyproof our homes. We put up gates and soft materials over hard edges. We want to help our little one be successful as they learn to move their body independently through the world. Yet as we grow up, those physical boundaries become invisible, and we find other ways to frame and guide our lives. When we look at this week’s Gospel, we see the disciple John expressing concern about someone functioning in Jesus’ name without his permission. John and some other disciples came across an individual casting out demons, or what we might think of as offering prayers of healing. What floored them was this individual was offering these prayers in the name of Jesus - their Jesus! This was out of order, and so, they tried to stop the person. It’s curious that they actually acted. They confronted this person, presumably in public, and asked them to stop offering healing in Jesus’ name. There is a hint later in the text that those being healed were folks living on the margins, the folks so often overlooked. Which means here you have a handful of Jesus disciples, confronting someone offering healing prayers in Jesus name, because they don’t think Jesus would be okay with it. They literally tried to bring an end to healing being offered to those most in need of healing and those with the least access to healing. Such a course of action may on the surface appear to be about following the rules. In actuality, I think it was about the disciples' own false sense of self importance. After all, if anyone was going to be offering healing in Jesus' name - it should have been them! That unspoken pecking order that is so often present. Can you imagine for a moment what Jesus must have been thinking when they raised this concern? If God’s vision were a 1,000 piece puzzle, these disciples might have 10-12 pieces. Enough to get a glimpse of the bigger picture, and to give them the confidence to believe they know where it will go. Except, they are only aware of a very small piece of the whole. Which is why Jesus needed to remind his followers, one more time, that there is more at play than they realize. Jesus tells them - Don't stop him! No one who works miracles in my name will soon turn and say something bad about me. Anyone who isn't against us is for us. And anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name, just because you belong to me, will surely be rewarded (Mark 9:39-41 CEV) The person offering healing may not have been a follower of Jesus, or been given permission to offer healing in Jesus’ name. That said, the person was ministering to the people Jesus knew were the most in need of such love and care, and the individual was actively seeking to bring about good in God’s world. Jesus asks the disciples, and us, to try and appreciate the bigger picture: Whoever is not against us is for us. Jesus then makes this curious shift where he is offering a warning. The warning has often been read as Jesus warning against the perils of sexual immorality. But I’m not so sure that’s what Jesus is getting at. He is warning against the temptation to sin. But I don’t think he’s talking about the individual who John and his fellow disciples tried to stop. Rather, it would seem Jesus is warning those very disciples to not let their own sense of self importance disrupt the Way of Love at work in the world. Jesus tells the disciples: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42 NRSV). It can be helpful to remember ‘little ones’ is a phrase that references children, as well as those most often living on the margins of society. Which is one reason why this statement seems directed at the disciples. While it may not have been their intention - the act of stopping the individual healing those living on the margins, could have caused any of those folks to lose hope, to lose faith in God. Their actions could have had devastating consequences for those living on the margins, and instead of helping God’s vision they may have caused harm. Better for them to be at the bottom of the sea than to cause such harm. Maybe this seems a bit harsh. And it certainly feels harsh when Jesus starts talking about cutting out body parts. Yet at the same time, we know that Jesus is trying, and not for the first, second, or third time, to help his disciples truly see and understand what is required of us if we are going to walk the Way of Love. We must continually set aside our sense of self importance, and stop imposing our desire for rules and order on God’s vision. This requires modifying our beliefs and cutting out harmful behaviors that interfere with bringing about God’s dream for this world. The good news is - the more frequently we recognize our self importance, when it arrives and starts to inflate, the easier it becomes to shift our beliefs and cut that behavior out, as we continue to grow and change. Most of us have had the blessing of knowing at least one person who really seems to get this. They are imperfect like the rest of us, but they navigate this life with a quiet confidence and humility. They seem to be routinely grounded in a divine peace. They know they are beloved by God, and that they have intrinsic worth and goodness to offer this world, while at the same time they are humble. While their ego might show up from time to time, it rarely seems to be driving them. These people are treasures on our journey. Not because they get it right all the time, but because they show us walking the Way of Love, however imperfectly, is possible. We’re going to make mistakes, and we are going to veer off course, but the more frequently we shift our focus back to God, the easier it gets to continually shift back to God. Our passage today ends with Jesus asking his followers to: “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” We are the Church. At times our desire for rules and order will bubble up; we will get caught up in pecking orders and status symbols; and our self importance will drive our actions. And at our best, we are salty and peaceful; we move with a quiet confidence and humility; and we accept we will never fully grasp God’s dream. We are merely part of a much bigger story and we trust that the Holy Spirit is continuing to weave in ways we can scarcely imagine. As we prepare to head back out into the world today, I invite us to do some reflecting:
Amen. Lectionary Readings Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 Psalm 124 James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50  By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector
This month we have been weaving our way through The Letter of James.* While this text is often attributed to James, the brother of Jesus and the head of the church in Jerusalem, scholars believe this is unlikely. It’s helpful to remember that this letter is not written to a specific community within the early Church, but rather is a general missive directed to Jewish followers of Jesus. Scholars believe this letter may have been written in response to Paul’s statements that Gentile converts need not be required to follow Jewish law. At the time, Paul was preaching radical hospitality. He was trying to help Jewish and Gentile Christians understand that in order to become a follower of Jesus, one was not expected to follow Jewish rituals of conversion - such as circumcision - or be required to follow a special diet. While these topics may seem a bit odd to us today, they were incredibly important questions for those grappling with Jewish Christian identity. Paul emphasized that we are saved by God’s grace alone, and there was no amount of ‘works’ that we could ever do to earn such a gift. Rather it was a gift given out of God’s abundance and love. While it was perfectly fine for Jewish followers of Jesus to continue observing Jewish law, Gentile followers of Jesus were not expected to become Jewish in order to be accepted into the early Church. To do so, in Paul’s perspective, was to become unnecessarily bogged down by our human need to follow rules for rules sake. Paul thought it was much more important to remain faithful to the spirit of the law, as preached by Jesus. That said, some Gentile Christian converts took Paul’s interpretation too far. There were some who received Paul’s teachings of grace as permission to engage in lawlessness. After all, if grace saved them, there was no need to live by any set of moral beliefs. It’s the kind of thing that sounds so incredibly foolish that it’s a little hard to believe anyone could actually interpret it that way. But as humans, we are frequently looking for quick answers and shortcuts. Even though, as Pippin rightfully argues in The Fellowship of the Ring, “‘Short cuts make long delays…’” Some scholars believe James is responding to this very troubling dynamic. He doesn’t bother picking up the debate about diet or circumcision. Instead, he argues that faith inherently relates to a set of beliefs, and that ‘works’, or actions, are the natural outgrowth of faith.* Commentator Herbert Basser observes: “‘Works’ for James means obedience to God’s word, and so behaving in a way marked by love.” The entire letter is about the morality that shapes our life of faith. Today’s excerpt from James’ letter is focused on wisdom. As human beings, we have so many countless, unanswered questions. Some questions arise when we come face to face with hardship, pain, uncertainty, and suffering, while others burst into life out of experiences that leave us full of joy and wonder. It’s possible that some of the most important questions we will ever grapple with relate to our pursuit of wisdom. Questions such as:
In his eloquent letter, James points out there are different kinds of wisdom. There is an earthly, wicked wisdom that we might call ‘unspiritual wisdom’.* It’s worth noting that ‘earthly’ wisdom is not referencing the created world or the nonhuman creation that God brought into being. Rather, the author refers to human society, which so often loses track of the common good or God’s vision for creation. There are typically some unsavory things that lay beneath the surface of unspiritual wisdom, such as ‘bitter envy’, ‘selfish ambition’, and living in a continual state of denial. When our self preservation is our dominant motivator, we will likely find ourselves following a baseless, selfish form of faux wisdom. James astutely describes the ‘cravings that are at war within us’ that lead us to do things we know intellectually are not healthy or in keeping with God’s vision for creation. Yet, often enough, our impulses, or our greed, or our trauma, or our fears can take us down dicey paths that it can become increasingly difficult to navigate our way out of. James also describes a divine, gentle wisdom that we might call ‘spiritual wisdom’. This form of wisdom has an entirely different set of characteristics, such as a sense of peace, a willingness to yield, an abundance of mercy and generosity focused on the greater good and love of neighbor. This kind of wisdom shows no partiality or hypocrisy. While spiritual wisdom does not promise an easier life, there is abundant evidence that when we walk with God, seeking to listen for the divine, we will be more equipped to navigate challenging paths and not feel quite so alone. While spiritual wisdom may sound like the clear cut winner, we often find ourselves seeking out the unspiritual wisdom offered by our society. The faux wisdom offered typically looks like quick answers, entertaining distractions, and the opportunity to numb our questions into silent submission, at least until tomorrow. Faux wisdom so often wins out because spiritual wisdom, and its accompanying life of faith, is hard work. Saying ‘yes’ to Jesus and this radically wild Way of Love, is to say ‘yes’ to a life of ongoing self-examination and reflection, humility, change, and growth. A life of faith requires us to ground our beliefs in God’s love, and to be willing to regularly examine our thoughts, words, and deeds; to pay attention to our motivations and acknowledge when our own selfishness gets in the way. To ask ourselves and explore:
While I may not have always recognized it this way, my childhood was formed as much by the Church, as it was by the alcoholism within the heart of my family. Looking back, I can see how one parent found faux wisdom, while another found spiritual wisdom. My father attempted to reckon with his own trauma by buying into the faux wisdom of alcohol. Unfortunately, what surely started out as a form of self medicating led him to become another alcoholic in our family tree, and only brought him further down a path of despair. A path that led to the end of just about every meaningful relationship, that led to subsequent addictions, and what must at times feel like an inescapable pit. There came a point in my early childhood, when my mother knew it was time for us to leave. She recognized that her spouse’s decline into alcoholism was making things rapidly worse and unsafe for the two of us. I watched her choose a different path, a life spent in pursuit of spiritual wisdom. As she reckoned with his addiction and her role in their marriage, she found Al-anon, which is a mutual support group for people who have been affected by a loved one's drinking. Through regular participation in this support group, she acknowledged her own powerlessness over alcohol, and began leaning on her faith more deeply. She worked through the 12 steps. An important part of taking those steps is making “a searching and fearless moral inventory”, and then committing to be faithful to “continuing to take personal inventory and when we’re wrong promptly admit it.”** I share this, with my mother’s permission, because I had the benefit of growing up watching these two approaches to navigating the pain and challenges of this life. My father kept looking for answers in all of the places society told him to look, places that involved selfishness and abandoning responsibilities and relationships. At the same time, I watched my mom take the work of her moral inventory seriously. This rigorous work of self examination and reflection in the context of a life of faith has led her to grow and be changed in ways that she never would have imagined. Here we are, many years later, and she takes the work just as seriously as she did in the early days of taking a personal inventory. And it’s not to say that she, or anyone who seeks out spiritual wisdom, is going to get it right all the time. That’s impossible, and is more about our desire than what God wants from us. The difference is the daily choice to recalibrate our attentions in such a way that we remember God alone is the source of true wisdom. Watching her over the years taught me from an early age that a life of faith is not passive but rather is incredibly active. A life of faith means we are committing to keep growing, to keep doing our work, to keep seeking out God in all things, and that God’s love is the guide to living a good and meaningful life. In this busy and fast paced life, it is tempting to see our faith and the rituals of the church as mere comfort food. A bit of honey as we race towards the finish line. Yet our Creator longs for such a richer and more meaningful life of faith for us than mere comfort food. Our Creator longs to see us flourish and grow, to be challenged and changed. To see that we are part of an interconnected web of relationships that will be healthier when we function out of love and a commitment to ongoing self examination and reflection. As we prepare to head back out into the world today, I would invite each of us to do some reflecting. To ask ourselves:
Amen. Lectionary Readings: Proverbs 31:10-31 Psalm 1 James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37 * Commentary in this paragraph is drawn from The Jewish Annotated New Testament, p. 489, 496. ** Al-anon https://al-anon.org/ |