Sunday, October 23, 2011

Waking Up to Living in Baptism



          This last Sunday I was with my grandsons at their church, and later in the afternoon the seven year old said to me that in the sermon when the priest said that God wanted our minds and our hearts, he tried to picture what that would be to take his heart out of himself to give to God.  After I got over my surprise (and delight) that he had listened to the sermon, we had a talk about what that meant.  In our conversation we talked about how God wants us to be aware of God’s presence in the center of our lives, that is, in our thoughts and desires and values and attitudes and intentions and feelings, all the stuff “inside” us that can’t be seen, but is a very real part of ourselves.

          All this is a reminder to us preachers to be aware of how a familiar phrase might be taken, and how our religious terminology may actually obscure the meaning we want to convey.  An example of this is how we use the term “People of God.”  What makes us “People of God”?  We then need to unpack more religious terminology: faith, grace, salvation, baptism.  I myself am as guilty as the rest, for I often talk about baptismal identity in regards to meditation with the Prayer of the Lamb.

          What is our personal identity, the sense of self that we configure out of our experiences, relationships and meaning framework?  We see ourselves, as St. Paul would put it, “through a glass darkly,” meaning that our self-understanding is not yet mature.  We read these powerful words from Romans 6 –
3   Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4   Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5   For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6   We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
7   For whoever has died is freed from sin.
8   But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
But these words are so much theoretical theology, unless their truth is revealed to me and I come to realize that what I had previously held as my self identity turns out actually to be a dynamic process of moving attention and self imagination rather than a solid ego, and who I am from God’s perspective is far more foundational and far more profound than can be imagined. 

          Our spiritual identity and status is complete salvation, liberation and freedom in Christ.  This may not be obvious to us as we view our life in the world.  What we see there in our human condition is that it is not yet the fullness of Christ.  God sees us in Christ.  We see ourselves in the world.  God knows us perfectly in and through love.  We know ourselves “through a glass darkly,” a mirror of the complex process of the ego through memory, judgment and aspiration:
  • memory that is filtered through overlays of meanings attributed to events,
  • judgment, evaluation, self-critique, the adjustments we make to our self image in response to judgments we receive from others, etc.,
  • aspiration, what we want to become, and so we take steps to make ourselves that way – how we “compose” ourselves before the mirror in the morning before going out to meet the world.

          The Prayer of the Lamb is one way, one spiritual discipline, one spirituality that leads from knowing ourselves in the world to knowing ourselves in Christ, that we may know ourselves as we are known.  This is the realization of baptismal identity.  The Prayer of the Lamb repeated in the heart brings awareness that the mercy of God is not something transferred from Jesus to us, so as to become our possession, but is ON us, as we are in Christ.  Awareness grows that we are in Christ.  Baptism then is understood as an ongoing state of being.

          Meditate as a way to realize self-identification not with the ego process of the mind-body, but as one with Yeshua.  This may seem like a small matter, but for me it shifts from what could be seen as something I work at as my own effort, and instead becomes a realization of what already is.  Meditation is a way to dissolve the ego process, but I am not the one doing the dissolving.  And when something is dissolved or melts away, what is revealed is not something new coming into being, but what has always been the truth.

          While we do want to further the spiritual process at work in us of becoming instruments of God's love or peace or life, there is the possibility that we will cause ourselves frustration in that we are working at building a stronger ego that can boast of its spiritual accomplishments.  In truth all our efforts are vain, empty, filthy rags (as Paul puts it).  The more we pray the Prayer of the Lamb the more we come to see this, and the more we cry out for mercy, and the more open we are then to the real work of meditation (which is the Spirit's work, not ours).  When we sit in silence with the Prayer, we are opening to our own demise.  We are open to the risk of the dissolution of the illusion of our own egos, as there is awakening to just what this new identity in Christ is.  Thus we can see how everything is flowing from the Father and returning to the Father.

                  Keep meditating!

Friday, October 7, 2011

Sermon for October 2 on St. Francis of Assisi


Both here and in all your churches throughout the world
we adore you, O Christ, and we bless you
because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.  Amen.

Listen again to the words from today’s epistle reading: Philippians chapter 3
7   … whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss
because of Christ.
8   More than that, I regard everything as loss
because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things,
and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

This is a description, not only of the Apostle Paul, who wrote these words,
            but also St. Francis of Assisi.
He too had been overwhelmed by the Love of God,
            and so for him anything else looked like rubbish in comparison.

Tuesday is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi,
and as usual we hear
            about a lot of different churches celebrating this saint,
                        mostly with blessing animals.
            like what we did yesterday afternoon.

            As a member of the Third Order, Society of  St. Francis,
I and my 3,000 other sisters and brothers in this worldwide Anglican order
            tend to get tired with this being the only thing some people thing of
                        regarding St. Francis.           

Now there is nothing trivial about blessing animal companions, or pets,
            but I am quick to say that there is much more to St. Francis of Assisi
                        than a natural affinity with birds and wolves and animals.

Francis is the ecological saint par excellence,
            the one who saw the intrinsic connection between us humans
                        and all the other creatures, indeed the whole planet,
                                                                                    the entire ecosystem,
                        the interrelatedness of all life forms,
                        the interconnection that binds up all our destinies together,
            so that with our four legged and winged brothers and sisters,
                                    and our sister Mother Earth,
            we must both honor them and serve them for the sake of us all.

But that’s not all.
Francis is a complex saint;
            who, although he lived 800 years ago,
                        is still immensely relevant for today
                        and especially in light of today’s economic issues.

Francis was known as the Poverello, the little poor man,
            because of his practice of radical Gospel poverty.
He took the Gospel literally when he read the words of Jesus saying,
            “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor,
                        and come follow me.”

Here’s the context.
Europe at that time was experiencing something new,
            the emergence of the merchant class,
            people rising to a new economic status of wealth through commerce.
It wasn’t quite the free enterprise, capitalistic system as we know it today,
            but the beginnings of that,
the start of a system of economics that would spread and become global
            and radically effect all other cultures and ethnic groups,
and in many cases changing cultural traditions and altering cultural identity.

Francis was the son of Pietro Bernardone, a cloth merchant,
            who had built up a fortune
                        buying fabric in France and selling it in Italy.

Pietro was grooming his son to follow in his footsteps in the family business,
            naming him Francesco, or Francis,
                                    after the source of his wealth in France.
In that naming alone
            we can see what was becoming most valued and a priority in society.

The young Francis was probably the best dressed young man in Assisi,
            and with the wealth the business brought
                        he put on many good parties for his friends.

Not only was Francis rich he also aspired to a higher social claim;
            he wanted to be a knight and win glory and become nobility.
His military career, however, was short lived and disastrous
            ending as a prisoner of war in a dungeon
                                                where he became desperately ill.

This illness, encounters with lepers, and an acute inner spiritual struggle
            were elements feeding a process of conversion in Francis.
He began to give alms, in fact so generously that this alarmed his father,
            especially since much of this giving to the poor
            and rebuilding of derelict churches
                        was from Pietro’s own business gains.

So I’ve told you this story before, but it bears repeating.
            Having stood in the town square of Assisi,
            I can see it all in the mind’s eye.

On April 10, in the year of our Lord 1206,
in a dramatic showdown in the town square of Assisi
            Pietro Bernardone dragged his son before the bishop
                        complaining about his son’s profligate behavior
                        hoping to get something back that had ended up
                                                                                                in the church’s hands.
The bishop turned to Francis and said,
            “You have scandalized your father. 
            If you wish to serve God, return to him the money that you posses.”

For Francesco this was the decisive moment.
He immediately gave back the purse of coins he had in his pocket
            and then gave back the clothes he was wearing also,
                        products of his father’s business,
            stripping right down to the skin.
And he said, “ Listen, everyone. 
            From now on Pietro Bernardone is no longer my father.
            From now on I can say with complete freedom, ‘Our Father in heaven,’”

And indeed from then on
            Francis lived like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.
He begged for his basic needs and gladly did without
            counting it all joy, living in radical trust that God would provide.

For him this renunciation of all earthly wealth
            was like being betrothed to a beautiful woman
                                    whom he called Lady Poverty.
His whole life style and that of his many, many followers
            made a huge statement about the economic values
                                                                        of his culture and period of history.

So captivating was Francis’s life and example,
            speaking so clearly to the heart in addressing the issues of the time
that his order of Friars Minor, the “little brothers,” grew tremendously,
            although they struggled in how they too could keep holy poverty
                                    to the extent that Francis did.

What Francis discovered in following the example of Jesus
            was that in possessing nothing, he had the whole world.
                                    in possessing nothing, the whole world was open to him.

Well, how does that address the situation that we are in the midst of today? –             recession, unemployment, government paralysis,
            and now banks having been bailed out charging extra fees
                        for services we all need to use,
            provoking demonstrations on Wall Street and many major cities,                                                                                                                                                 including Seattle.
This is a time of intense anxiety and precariousness for many.

Sometimes we get stripped clean of our possessions
            such as when a hurricane blows it all away
            or thieves break in and steal
            or when investments drop down in value to nothing
            or when the dreams you once had are no longer possible to be realized.

Francis chose to strip himself of possessions
            as a voluntary act
            in response to that great spiritual discovery:
                        owning nothing the whole world was his.

Well, all this is not to say that we should try to literally be like Francis
            in his example of radical poverty
but it is important to know that following Jesus
                        is a path of spiritual renunciation
            that leads to realizing union with God.
People like Francis provoke us to reexamine
            our relationship with money and material possessions.

This path of spiritual renunciation lead Paul to write these words
                                                                                                                        in Philippians 3:
10   I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,
11   if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

And Francis’ own prayer to share in the sufferings of Christ
            ended in the stigmata, the wounds of the crucifixion in Francis,
                                                            the marks of the nail prints in his flesh.

Continuing with verse 12  
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal;
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

So where can we apply this today
            in our current societal situation and our individual lives?
Can we with even a small measure
                        of Francis’ great trust in the Providence of God
            step back from our possessions enough
                                                to examine our own faith and trust?

Where are we in terms of our trust in God?
Do we discern how subtle idolatry can be?           
            how our possessions, or whatever promises us security
                                    can displace God in our lives?
Can we admit to our idolatry?

Francis is an example to show us a way.
He takes it to the extreme,
            but if we catch the vision of what is of ultimate worth,
                        everything else appears like so much rubbish in comparison.
The great truth: possessing nothing, attaching to no things,
            you then are free to enjoy all things.

This is a way in which we can have our awareness transformed
            so that we break out of a fear based “scarcity” orientation
                        to the generous abundance of the Kingdom of God.

This is a way in which we can have our awareness transformed
            so that when we know that all living beings are our brothers and sisters,
                        when we truly know that we are all related
                        and interdependent with one another,
then without possessing it, the whole world is ours,
            and we are freed to be of real service to one another in love.