Maranatha - O Lord, Come Advent 1A

 Maranatha – O Lord, Come

The final word of The Revelation of Saint John is, “Maranatha!” O Lord, come! It is a prayer. Perhaps the oldest prayer in the New Testament as it is rendered in its original Aramaic, the language of Jesus and the earliest followers of the Christ. A reminder that Jewish and Christian hope is not about the end of the world, but rather a return, a beginning or rebirth of the world as envisioned by prophets like Isaiah: a world in which all persons are together “walking in the light of the Lord.” [i]

 

With all its language of arriving, taking, coming and preparing, alongside the pernicious and very modern sorts of “left-behind” theologies, it is easy to assume that what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 24:36-44 is some kind of exit strategy – as if Jesus it is time to escape from God’s creation. The very same creation God describes as “very good”! And it is true that an entire segment of Christianity is looking and praying for just that – an exit from God’s ongoing creation toward some kind of Armageddon or Rapture. The Franciscan Richard Rohr writes in The Universal Christ, “Talk about missing the point The most effective lies are often the really big ones.” [ii] Indeed, why would the early Christian community pray “Maranatha”- O Lord, come – if they believed in such doomsday scenarios?

 

They knew that their Jesus set out to repair the world that had been damaged by so much tribalism, greed, idolatry and sin. He was dedicated to healing such a world – inaugurating what he often called “the kingdom of God.” He most definitely shared Isaiah’s vision that Jerusalem, the Temple, and most of all God’s People, would one day unite all persons, that “they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” [iii]

 

Where are we now? A long way off from such a shared vision. Not just rumors of war, but wars prevail. Nations rise up against nations. Armed struggles and mass shootings. Famines, hurricanes, family struggles. Nations divided against themselves. Families divided against themselves. Messiah’s of all types come claiming to bring the Word of Christ and the solution to all of our problems. Do not listen to them, says Jesus. They are all false prophets, says Jesus. Is it any wonder that there is renewed interest in settlements on the Moon or on Mars? Is it any wonder that many dream of an escape from it all?

 

Advent has always been characterized by the Biblical virtue of waiting – those who wait upon the Lord will rise up as on eagle’s wings and run without being weary! [iv] Is it possible for us to imagine that in a story which begins with Jesus, the man who embodies what it means to be “made in God’s image,” is threatened with death from the Empire as a toddler, suffers all kinds of conflict and violence, and yet ends with the Christ rising from the dead, that perhaps it is Christ who is waiting? Waiting to return? Who is waiting for us to get on with the work he gives us to teach, heal and unite a broken world? Who waits for us to strive for justice and peace for all people, respecting the dignity of every human being? Who waits for us to teach war no more? Who waits for us to preach the faith, hope, mercy and love of God? Waiting to see a world “redeemed by Christ-like love; all life in Christ made new”?  [v] And that those being “taken” are not those who are saved, but those who continue to believe the big lies and fight for them?  That those who are left are those who walk in the Lord’s light? Who practice faith, hope, love, mercy and healing among all people? Loving their neighbor – all neighbors – as they love God and love themselves?

 

There is, as he says, no timetable for all of this. No one knows when he will return. But time is an ever-flowing stream, and the Universal Christ is well practiced in waiting - waiting to return to the world Jesus and Isaiah imagine is possible. Waiting for the kingdom of his Father to become a reality. To return too soon would be to risk repeating the entire cycle of conflict and violence that resulted in his hanging on a Roman cross all over again.

 

Advent is a gift of time given to us to reflect on these things. That the Christ came not to institute yet another religious elite, a people set apart from all others, but rather to bring all people together under a unified vision of faith, hope and love. Because faith, hope and love are the very nature of God, and thus the nature of all Being. This is Good News! And what we mean by words like “heaven” or “kingdom of God” is that such goodness of a world of faith, hope and love cannot die.

 

Again, Richard Rohr observes, “Each of these three virtues must always include the other two in order to be authentic: love is always hopeful and faithful, hope is always loving and faithful, and faith is always loving and hopeful. They are the very nature of God and thus of all Being. Such wholeness is personified in the cosmos as Christ, and in human history as Jesus. So, God is not just love (1 John 4:16), but also absolute faithfulness and hope itself. And the energy of this faithfulness and hope flows out of the Creator toward all created beings producing all growth, healing, and every springtime. No one religion will ever encompass the depth of such faith. No ethnicity has a monopoly on such hope No nationality can control or limit this flow of such universal love.” [vi]

 

It turns out the end of time, of which no one knows when that will be, is not to be a time of disruption and destruction of the world, but rather it is the repair and restoration of the world; its healing, its perfection! Some biblical writers suggest in that day the light of the sun and moon will be as nothing compared to the light of those of us walking in the Light of the Lord radiating the Light of Christ himself! Christ! That morning star that knows no setting! When he returns, may Christ find His light ever burning in our hearts and in all that we say and all that we do in His Name. May we stop to take time every day to pray that most ancient prayer, Maranatha – O Lord, come! Thy kingdom come! On Earth as it is in heaven! Amen.

 

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[i] Isaiah 2:5

[ii] Rohr, Richard, The Universal Christ, (Convergent, NY: 2019) p.20.

[iii] Isaiah 2:1-5

[iv] Isaiah 40:31

[v] Hymn 705, As those of old, Hymnal 1982, (Church Hymnal Corporation, NY:1985)

[vi] Ibid, Rohr, p.22

Christ the King: Christ the King: From Bethlehem to Bath Abbey and Beyond 2002C

 Christ the King: Christ the King: From Bethlehem to Bath Abbey and Beyond 

Today, as we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, we witness strong-man authoritarians who aspire to be kings espousing nationalist, white-supremacist, anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-democratic policies rise up across the world and right here in the United States. In 1925, as the world was being gripped by similar nationalist, secularist, anti-Semitic and authoritarian-fascist dictators, Pope Pius XI instituted Christ the King Sunday to refocus us on why we are here – to be icons of God’s love in this world. Originally set as the last Sunday of October, in 1969, Pope Paul VI moved it to the Last Sunday before Advent and called it, “The Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.”  

 

Christ the King is a title that strikes a peculiar tension since any and all descriptions of Jesus, whom many of his followers called the Christ, thankfully bear little or no resemblance to the kinds of earthly leaders and kings Jeremiah condemns in no uncertain terms: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So, I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord”[i] Jesus has none of the trappings of these wicked shepherds: Christ does not destroy, scatter and divide. Rather, our Jesus heals, repairs, gathers, and unites everyone and everything. 

 

We look at him today, as he hangs on a Roman cross, condemned by the authoritarian regime of Caesar, still offering God’s love and compassion to another so condemned. Mocked by the Empire as a so-called king, Jesus exhibits the characteristics of a true king anointed by God. When asked by another so condemned, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." [ii]

 

Writing in the aftermath of World War I, Pius noted that while there had been a cessation of hostilities, there was no true peace. He deplored the rise of class divisions and unbridled nationalism, and held that true peace can only be found under the Kingship of Christ as "Prince of Peace". "For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by his teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by living according to His law and the imitating His example." Pius wanted this feast to inspire the laity: “The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal ... He must reign in our minds…in our wills…in our hearts…in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.” [iii]

 

Given the state of the world today, it still seems like a justifiable feast to observe and to ponder just what sort of king Jesus is – “is” being the operant word as the Christ was, is and ever shall be. When one enters the Bath Abbey in Bath, England, one can find a simple brochure that offers this answer to this central question of faith – what kind of king is Jesus?

 

“Jesus was born in an obscure Middle Eastern town called Bethlehem, over 2000 years ago. During his first 30 years he shared the daily life and work of an ordinary home. For the next three years he went about teaching people about God and healing sick people by the shores of Lake Galilee. He called 12 ordinary men to be his helpers.  

 

“He had no money. He wrote no books. He commanded no army. He wielded no political power. During his life he never travelled more than 200 miles in any direction. He was executed by being nailed to a cross at the age of 33. 

 

“Today, nearly 2 billion people throughout the world worship Jesus as divine - the Son of God. Their experience has convinced them that in the wonders of nature we see God as our loving Father; in the person of Jesus, we discover God as Son; and in our daily lives we encounter this same God as Spirit. Jesus is our way to finding God: we learn about Jesus by reading the Bible, particularly the New Testament and we meet him directly in our spiritual experience. 

 

“Jesus taught us to trust in a loving and merciful Father and to pray to him in faith for all our needs. He taught that we are all infinitely precious, children of one heavenly Father, and that we should therefore treat one another with love, respect and forgiveness. He lived out what he taught by caring for those he met; by healing the sick - a sign of God's love at work; and by forgiving those who put him to death. 

 

“Jesus' actions alone would not have led him to a criminal's death on the cross: but his teaching challenged the religious and moral beliefs of his day. People believed, and do to this day, that he can lead us to a full experience of God’s love and compassion. Above all, he pointed to his death as God's appointed means of bringing self-centered people back to God. Jesus also foretold that he would be raised to life again three days after his death. When, three days after he had died on the cross, his followers did indeed meet him alive again; frightened and defeated women and men became fearless and joyful messengers. 

 

“Their message of the Good News about Jesus is the reason Bath Abbey exists. More importantly, it is the reason why all over the world there are Christians who know what it means to meet the living Jesus, and believe that He can lead us all to heal and repair a broken world. May your time in Bath Abbey be a blessing to you, and also to us in the church.” [iv]

 

This is why the Church is here at all: to follow Jesus; to heal, gather, repair, restore, and unite everyone and everything. To be a blessing to all the earth, and everything therein.

 

May God for us, whom we call Father, God alongside us, whom we call Son, and God within us, whom we call Spirit, hold and enliven us to a full experience of God’s love and compassion; that in all that is, seen and unseen, we may testify to Your Truth as a community of Love, Justice and Freedom for all peoples, all creatures, and all the Earth, which You have given us to tend and preserve as Your Creation. Amen. 

 

 

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[i] Jeremiah 23:1-6

[ii] Luke 23:33-43

[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Christ_the_King

[iv] Used by permission with thanks.

Apocalypse Now! Proper 28C

Apocalypse Now!  Proper 28C

People around the world watched the Blood Red Beaver Frost Moon go into total eclipse. It was mysterious and powerful. Try to imagine ancient people seeing such a phenomenon for the first time. How easy it would be seeing such a drastic transformation of the moon as a kind of “dreadful portent and great sign from heaven,” as Luke’s Jesus says will be signs of the coming Day of the Lord. He says there will be insurrections, earthquakes, famine, plagues, nation fighting against nation. Many will come claiming to be messiahs, sent by God to save you – do not listen to them. They are false prophets and false saviors proclaiming false messages. [i]

 

Luke’s account of what many call “The Mini Apocalypse” concludes, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.”[ii] That is, real hope, reliable hope, will come!

 

We tend to hear these texts as bizarre. Unsettling. We ask ourselves, what does it all mean? And yet, when we look around, it’s all there. All around us, these “signs and portents” seem to be coming faster, bigger and more dangerous, day after day, year after year. Just ask Floridians who are emerging from the second hurricane in as many months. Ask the people of Ukraine fighting for their lives and their country. Just ask the Polar Bears, wasting away as their ice and snow hunting grounds disappear; simply vanish with temperatures rising. While California and Colorado suffer draught and fires. While rising sea levels threaten all civilizations built along ocean waterfronts. Apocalyptic signs and portents.  

 

We may find these texts odd, inscrutable, difficult to understand - but that's the point, isn’t it? Luke, and Isaiah 500 years before him, try to understand what with Babylon and now Rome had reduced, not just the Temple, not just the city of Jerusalem, but the entire state of Israel had been reduced to rubble; scorched earth. What had been was no longer. YHWH had been replaced by a Caesar, considered to be the deity of the Empire! Of the world! Holiness had been replaced once again with idolatry, the one sin that is the constant and eternal focus of nearly the entire Bible!

 

And right now, how many self-proclaimed messiahs are clamoring for our attention, our consideration, our devotion to their cause? We should not be surprised at all. Jesus says it is always so. Only I can save our nation, they say. This will be the war to end all wars they say! Look in the sky and see the portents - a blood red moon in the sky! Look, they say, the Bible tells us “Now is the time!”

 

It's times like these when we need to heed this caution of Biblical Scholar John Dominic Crossan when he reminds us, “My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.” [iii]

 

Apocalyptic texts in the Bible are meant to point those who fear the current events toward hope – real hope, as in Faith, Hope and Charity, abide these three. It is when we question, “Where is our God?” that we need to reclaim our faith, our hope, and to practice acts of charity toward one another – especially those others we fear the most. So-called Third Isaiah, writing around 500 BCE writes of the centrality of claiming our hope while announcing a New Jerusalem:

“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.” [iv]

 

We tend to think of a literal rebuilding of Jerusalem and its Temple is what YHWH and the prophet have in mind. But God’s eye was on another kind of Jerusalem and Temple — a Jerusalem not of bricks and mortar, but of the human heart. The prophet Jeremiah envisioned a new covenant, written within the hearts of God’s people: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” [v]

 

A New Jerusalem, a new Temple, a new covenant inscribed in our hearts, not a city of stone, and walls, and gates. But open hearts, opened by God’s forgiveness of all those times we, as a people, as a nation, have gone astray from “the Way of the Lord.” The real question in all of these apocalyptic visions is: will we open our hearts to let God in; to allow God to write of his love for us in our hearts so that we may once again love one another. All others.

 

This is where Clare of Assisi may come to our aid. First, she calls us “Not to let the empty spectres of a deceitful world torment you.”[vi] Once one turns away from the vanities of this world, one is to “…drink at this banquet in order to cleave with all [your] heart to Him, at whose beauty all the blessed hosts of heaven unceasingly wonder, whose love stirs love, whose contemplation remakes, whose kindliness floods, whose sweetness fills, whose memory glows gently, whose fragrance brings the dead to life again, the glorious vision  of whom will make all the citizens of the new Jerusalem above most blessed, He is the splendour of eternal glory, the brightness of everlasting light, and an unspotted mirror. Gaze into this mirror every day…and constantly see your own face in it” [vii]

 

Turn away from a world that seems to be falling apart, and turn toward the One who can make all the difference; who makes all the citizens of the New Jerusalem most blessed. No more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress. Gaze into the mirror of Christ every day to see your true self. Cleave to Jesus and His name, the name of Love, will be written in our hearts. Faith, Hope and Charity will be who we are, and we shall know Him. And he shall know us. And all shall be well. Forever and ever. Amen.

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[i] Luke 21:5-19

[ii] Luke 21:25-27

[iii] Crossan, John Dominic Who Is Jesus? Answers to Your Questions About the Historical Jesus (Westminster John Knox Press, Nashville: 1996) p.79

[iv] Isaiah 65:17-25

[v] Jeremiah 31:33b-34

[vi] Downing, Sr Francis Teresa Downing, OSC, Letter to Ermentrude of Bruges (Tau Publishing, Phoenix, AZ:2012) p.101

[vii] Ibid, Downing, Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague, p. 85 

For All The Saints: The Poor Clares 2022 C

 For All The Saints: The Poor Clares 

I was once asked, “Why do we pray for the dead – especially on All Saints Day (Nov 1) and All Souls (Nov 2)?” I’m not sure just what I said that day, but the real answer is, “We don’t!” In the service for the Burial of the Dead we say, “For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended…” BCP 392 And as if we may forget, each Sunday after our Confession we are reminded in the absolution, “…and keep you in eternal life.” (BCP 360) We don’t “pass into eternal life” when we die. For we are those people who believe we are already in eternal life – and that we are already called to live in the kingdom of God, here and now. This kingdom, this eternal life,  is a present reality and the promise of a future.

 

On All Hallows Eve, or Halloween, we mock and make fun of death! And on All Saints and All Souls we remember all those whose lives have been changed, not ended, in the eternal life that is the kingdom of God. All Saints in particular remembers those who, each in their own way, walked among us in The Way of Christ. We remember them, literally re-embody them, through the miracle of memory because something about their lives reminds us of how we might learn to  live in the eternal life of the kingdom of God – a very present kingdom that is saturated with the primacy of love.[i]

 

Among those Christians who best embody the love of Christ as outlined in the blessings in Luke 6:20-31 are the Franciscans – those Thirteenth Century followers of Francis of Assisi.

“Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now,

for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh.”

 

Francis, the son of a prosperous silk merchant, early in life turned his attention to serving the poor. He had a vision in the chapel of San Damiano when an icon of Christ on the cross spoke to him, “Francis, Francis, repair my church…” Soon after he gathered eleven followers and began a life of poverty, serving the poor, and itinerant preaching. Perhaps one of the most devoted early followers of Francis was a young woman, also from Assisi: Clare, the daughter of a prosperous family. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies in the Franciscan tradition under Francis’s guidance, and wrote the first Rule of Life, monastic guidelines, written by a woman for women. When she died, her community was renamed The Order of Saint Clare, and today is commonly known as the Poor Clares.

 

We should remember that women had little agency in those days, and similar communities of women were being founded all throughout Europe. Clare was an inspiration and support for many of them. Between doing handwork, creating altar linens for churches throughout Italy, providing shelter for the poor, and health care for those in need, Clare also corresponded with these other women living in community, imparting Franciscan practices and guidelines, but most of all, providing pastoral support as all these women faced opposition throughout their lives of living in the Way of Christ.

 

Clare was known as “the mirror saint” because she would draw deep insights from her contemplation and reflection on the cross of Christ. Clare would write to Agnes of Prague, herself the daughter of the king of Bohemia who had turned away from the life of a princess to serve the poor. “Gaze into this mirror [of the cross] every day, and constantly see your own face reflected in it, so that you might be adorned with virtues within and without…for in that mirror shine blessed poverty, holy humility, and love beyond words.”  [ii]

 

To another woman, Ermentrude, who lived in in a Belgian community of women, she wrote, “Be faithful, dearest, to the one to whom you are promised until death. By Him you will be crowned with the laurels of life. For our labor is short, but the reward is eternal; do not be confounded by the clamour of a world as fleeting shadows. Let not the empty spectres of a deceitful world torment you.” [iii] All three of these women lived in a world of warfare, chaos, turmoil, and where women were largely treated as property. Their courage to live a life with Christ, in poverty, was driven by the primacy of God’s love as central in all that they did. And most importantly, Clare, after the death of Francis, provided steady guidance not only for her community, but also for those communities of men Francis had founded, preserving the Franciscan life in Christ as Francis had taught her. It is no exaggeration to say that Franciscan communities of men and women thrive around the world to this day!

 

Because Clare, Agnes of Prague, Ermentrude and so many other women of the Poor Clares chose love in all aspects of their lives, we have examples to inspire us to seek love in all aspects of our own lives. “If love really is the truth of our existence,” writes Ilia Delio, “and the truth of God, then may we not aim to meet the minimum requirements of love; rather, let us love to the point of tears. Let us breathe in the pain of the world and breathe out the goodness of love, letting go in love, from the simplest act of gratitude, to caring for another, or perhaps risking our lives for a stranger – or better yet – loving our enemy. For every act of love is a personalization of God, and when God is born through our lives, heaven unfolds on earth. All that we long for and anticipate becomes a reality in this moment, in the here and now, in every particular act of love.” [iv]

 

May we embrace and embody the kingdom of God, eternal life, here and now, as the Poor Clares did 800 years ago. Eternal life, as a present reality and promise of a future, is love – the love reflected in the mirror in which we see ourselves, our true self, as we contemplate and gaze upon the cross of Christ, “…for in that mirror shine blessed poverty, holy humility, love beyond words – by the Grace of God – you can contemplate in the whole mirror.”[v] This is why we pray for the dead, the community of Saints – they remind us of who we are, and whose we are, and in their lives of eternal faith, hope and love, they pray for us to gaze into that mirror and choose love in all aspects of our lives, now and forever. Amen.

 

 [i] Delio, Ilia, The Primacy of Love (Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2022)

[ii] Downing, Sr. Frances Teresa, OSC, (Tau Publishing, Phoenix, AZ; 2012) pp. 85-86.

[iii] Ibid Downing, p. 101.

[iv] Ibid, Delio, p. 82.

[v] Ibid, Downing.