Monday, May 10, 2010

Expansion of Prison Ministry and Need for Volunteer Instructors

The opportunity has been extended to the Community of the Lamb to expand the meditation instruction being offered at the Monroe Correctional Complex beyond the Twin Rivers Unit to two other units in the prison. I have been in conversation with the Catholic chaplain about what it would take to do this, and she has done some research on grant possibilities for funding meditation instruction in prisons. This is an exciting development that needs to be shared with others, because it is not something I can continue to do by myself.

At this stage I am asking those of you who have an established practice with the Prayer of the Lamb to consider a process of discernment about whether you might be called to this form of outreach ministry. Are you being called by the Resurrection Spirit of Yeshua to assist in leading meditation sessions with convicted men incarcerated in the state prison in Monroe?

This is not a casual ministry. Those drawn by our Lord to this work must be committed to taking part in a very specific training process, be willing to work in partnership with others, and commit to offering service for a two year time commitment.

You will receive clear and exact instruction on how to present the Prayer of the Lamb and how to conduct a meditation session with a partner, as well as taking part in the prison’s volunteer orientation program. Once screened and authorized by the state prison system to enter the Monroe Correctional Complex as a volunteer, you will come with me and act as an assistant during a state required probationary period.

While the setting and the commitment needed may seem daunting, the joy and excitement of this kind of ministry is extraordinary. I always find it fascinating, engaging, humbling and encouraging working with men from very different life experiences and brokenness who are making attempts at bettering their personal condition or seeking God or peace or who simple know that something has to change for them. To be with them in this work has provided me with some very rewarding moments, and I am always thankful that I have been given the privilege of ministry in the prison.

The offenders who take part in the meditation program report that this is the one time during the week when they can get away from the noise that is constantly around them, when they can finally sit down and not have to be on guard, and when they can find some inner peace. Some are overtly Christian, and others have no church background, but all are willing, as far as they are able, to offer the Prayer of the Lamb for themselves and even for others.

As I have always said, I never would have chosen to be engaged in this kind ministry myself, if it had not been for circumstances and the Holy Spirit pushing me into it. But now that I am there, I am so glad I didn’t say no. Would you pray about this for yourself?

For engaging into discernment about a call to this prison outreach ministry, talk directly with Beverly at 206-713-5321.

Walking the Prayer of the Lamb

For the last ten years besides sitting in meditation with the Prayer of the Lamb, I have also prayed the Prayer while walking. Living where I do in a pedestrian-intensive neighborhood I walk to the post office, bank, grocery store, restaurants, etc. on a regular basis. So I get many opportunities for doing my practice interspersed throughout the week in the midst of routine activity. Not only am I getting in extra time beyond my commitment for daily sittings, but I know that I am also contributing to other beings around me as I walk along asking for that abundant and free-flowing mercy of the Lamb of God for all of us.

The labyrinth has been a spiritual practice that many people have tried out or engaged. It is a way to “go on pilgrimage” without traveling great distances. There are specific ways by which people can undertake walking a labyrinth, but here I would like to offer another option using the Prayer of the Lamb, although note that this should not replace the basic practice of sitting in silence.

Consider the following: As I embark on a personal pilgrimage of walking the labyrinth to its center and back, I begin from where I am. That means I am taking along with me all the current thoughts running through my head, all the to-do list, relationships currently being engaged, concerns, anxieties, desires, and an ever fluctuating self-identification. As I walk slowly, mindfully and deliberately with the words, Yeshua, Lamb of God, have mercy on us, gently marking each step, all that I have brought with me is offered into that mercy. As may often be the case in silent meditation, this stage may take awhile. By the time I reach the center all has been offered (purgation) and now comes a time to sit and simply be in that mercy offering the innocent devotion of the Prayer with an openness of heart to God (illumination). After a luxuriously long amount of time at the center, I begin the journey of returning, and out of the realization of baptismal identity in the Lamb of God (union) I am offering the Prayer as a universal intercession for all beings that I will encounter as I emerge from this walking meditation. This last stage is an act of outreach ministry, a contribution pouring out of abundance. As with all my meditation this is not a private spiritual practice; it is ecologically and sacramentally integrated. …another way to walk the labyrinth.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Sermon 5th Sunday Easter, Emmanuel, Mercer Island

Last week we had a lovely time relishing in the past, among other things looking at photos that reminded us of the way things used to be. But our memories, we know, are selective. We reminisce about what fits with our current agenda, either positively or negatively. All the past memories have a bittersweet quality to them because we know that what we are remembering is in the past not to be repeated. It can never be that way again.

That can fill us with sadness, or on the other hand we may say, thank God! We don’t have to go through that again!

A lot of you liked last Sunday’s liturgy, but come on, admit it, you don’t really want to have it that way every Sunday.

Let’s not dwell in the past. Isn’t that usually good advice? Instead one might look at the passage from the Revelation for today in this Easter season series of readings. The book of the Revelation is a really scary book and incredibly misunderstood as though it were possible to “decode” the book and thereby discover the exact time and set of circumstances for the coming again of the Lord for vengeance and judgment.

Ah, but we Episcopalians have figured out how to have readings from this disturbing book of the Bible and not cause ourselves nightmares. We simply pick out the lovely parts. We even read them at funerals as a way to comfort the bereaved.

And we make huge leaps with these passages into ideas about what heaven is, and what it is like, how if we have been decent folks, led good lives, been reasonably nice we can look forward to being reunited with loved ones and enjoy a happy, pleasant eternity. It isn’t usually in our thoughts that we might just as well be reunited with ones we don’t love.

Yes, if our heads aren’t in the past, they’re in the future.

Well, I have some cold water to throw on all that this morning. You’re probably not going to like this if you really pay attention and think this through.

There is no past nor future. They’re all in your head. There is only now, and most of us don’t like being in the now.

And yet the now is where salvation is, liberation, where truth is, where life is. Be here now and you can discover how much illusion and denial is going on but you can also discover that there is a huge abundance of life right now untapped, un-tasted, unlived. You may also discover that the present moment is incredibly full, overflowing with mercy, freedom, love, peace and joy.

You may have noticed that the Bible doesn’t really say a whole lot about an afterlife. All the stuff about St. Peter at the pearly gates checking names in a book with a plumed pen, or people with wings sitting on clouds and holding harps is made up, right?

Instead eternal life is referred to over and over again as the quality of life, the recognition of life in its fullest form present here and now for the eyes of faith.

This passage from the book of the Revelation says, “See, the home of God is among mortals…” See, and the word in Greek means realize this, with insight, perceive, really get it. The home of God is among mortals, not off somewhere in a heaven far across the universe but here in our midst God is at home. When we see that, then every tear, every sigh, every downcast spirit will realize profound and healing comfort. All the lost dreams, all the wounds of the past, all the griefs we have known are eclipsed by the Light that shines forth from the One who is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the source point and the completion/fulfillment, the One who holds within him the whole scope of life and existence and creation, the One who makes all things new,

who transforms our seeing so that we can actually perceive how creation is new every moment so that we can get it that resurrection is the way new creation comes into being now and now and now.

It’s not “Jerusalem, my happy home, when shall I come to thee?” but God himself is with us - Emmanuel.

The first way of seeing things and giving it meaning and thereby struggling with it and living in frustration, fear, anxiety and anger has passed away, and now the limits of vision are blown and we do not know what we see.

So we retreat to the past and the future, those places in our mind that we can have some control over, and we miss the abundance of life in its eternal quality right now all its potential and potency and threat and promise.

Jesus saw the truth of now and lived it fully. That is why he could say in that moment at the last supper right when Judas had gotten up from the table and had gone out into the night to betray him, “NOW the Son of Man has been glorified.”

Jesus goes on about this glory: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.”

Glory, glory, glory. In light of what is about to happen in the Garden of Gethsemane and at Golgotha, what in the world is this glory?

In the biblical sense of the word, both from Hebrew and Greek,

to glorify is to give honor to, to attribute value and worth to, to give weight to. Glory is more than just having splendor, flashiness, pizzazz.

Glory is the weight of all worth.

And truly that describes the Cross. And its outcome – Resurrection.

And so Jesus at that moment of glory begins his long discourse with his disciples, the last words of his earthly ministry begun here in the 13th chapter of John and continuing on through the 17th chapter.

And right out of the chute he gives his disciples the means by which they will be able to see the glory and live in the now and have that abundant, eternal quality life now and now and now. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

Yes, that’s the ticket – love one another.

Love one another and it will all come clear, and, glory be, we will see that the home of God is among mortals.

Well, of course, this isn’t ordinary love.

Our English language is poverty stricken when it comes to the word love. In Greek there are several words for love, each with rich nuances of meaning: the intimate love between two people, and the love that keeps the bonds of fidelity, and then the God-quality kind of love which is unitive love, the love that exists within the Trinity, so full that no distinction can be made between lover and beloved, there is only Love. And we are pulled into that love, drawn up into that by the action of the Cross so that we might know that love now, and be transformed by it.

As we find in the first epistle of John, “God is love.”

Jesus, the Son of God, the Eternal Word present from the beginning with God, the One through whom all things came into being and have creation, Jesus tells his disciples, “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, - with that unitive love of God – you also should love one another - with that unitive love of God. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Well, obviously this unitive love of God that Jesus has for us and which he also wants us to express and live and give to others is not foremost in our thoughts and actions all the time. It’s not at the top of the priority list, it isn’t the motivating factor for everything we say or do or think. If it were, then truly everyone would know that we are disciples of Jesus witnessing to the resurrection. Even in this secular Pacific Northwest none-zone if we had this God-love for others, it would stand out and be noticeable.

This Love requires being in the now, not some memory of the past, not some hope for the future, but being in relationship right here and now, otherwise it’s not the kind of love that Jesus is talking about and commanding of us.

Until we love one another as Jesus commanded us to do we will continue to place our ideas, opinions, goals, personal self-interest, desires and discriminations, likes and dislikes, and personal preferences above our relatedness one with another.

Until we love one another as Jesus commanded us to do, we will have tears and death and mourning and pain and not see that the home of God is among mortals here and now.

Until we love one another as Jesus commanded us to do the world will not know our witness to the Resurrection.

Beloved, let us love one another.