The Society of Saint John the Evangelist: The Daily Office
Finding God: Choosing the Better Part
Timothy Solverson, SSJE
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Galatians 1:13-24
Psalm 139:1-14
Luke 10:38-42
What do you desire? What is your deepest place of need? I was asked these questions by my spiritual director when I began discerning a move in my heart toward God about ten years ago. I had recently come back to the church after a long angry hiatus. I had grown weary by life and nothing made much sense to me. Friendships I had cherished had dissolved. All that made me feel secure and safe proved to be dangerous and many of the stories I told myself to make sense of my life seemed hollow and did not reflect what I was actually living. In short I was at a crossroad and could not find my way. Yet in my heart I felt something move me toward God. It was in the form of a memory of a feeling that had long become a stranger to me. I can’t really explain to you what the feeling was but the experience was like being held. And I remembered being about nine years old and sitting with my mother on our sofa early in the morning her, arm around me as she slowly, silently stroked my hair. No words were spoken; she just stroked my hair and sipped her coffee while the sun rose silently over the mountains on the horizon. This memory left me with a nascent and veiled understanding that I was loved and my yearning would be found in God. I made my way back to God through the Episcopal Church. It was in these early days relearning the language of God’s love that I began to meditate on Psalm139 which we sang as our gradual this evening.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
It is familiar to many of us yet I was astounded because I never heard its deep message. There is no place where we can go that God is not. There is no experience of ours where God is truly absent. God is present to us even in our darkness and despair. Perhaps you can remember a time when you felt utter hopelessness or isolation. Perhaps your well controlled life and best laid plans failed and you were presented with deep disappointment. One day you might notice a spectacular play of light on the water, or happen to witness a pile of leaves playing with the wind, or you may be walking along the street and catch a scent of flowers and you begin to remember. You are taken back to a moment when you knew you were loved. These kinds of experiences are one way we can discern God’s presence. It may not have anything to do with religion, per se; even so, God is there in our lives and watching out for us, as it were, on our journey. When God get’s our attention in this way and we reach out of ourselves and toward another then we begin to understand religion. Because this reaching out is the essence of God’s love.
In our Gospel reading this evening we have another familiar story: harried Martha and devout Mary. Those of us who come to church with any regularity will know this story. Martha and Mary have invited Jesus to dinner and while Martha is busy with the preparations Mary sits with Jesus soaking up his teaching like a sponge. Martha is upset and Jesus doesn’t help but perhaps adds to her frustration by telling her she is distracted by many things, but as for Mary, well, she has chosen the better part. If we interpret this passage, as it is often done, as the busy Martha vs. the devout Mary, I think we miss the point. This section is placed after the summation of the Law:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.
Then follows the story of the Good Samaritan, illustrating the how to love our neighbor, and then this piece about Martha and Mary, illuminating how we might love God. Notice two things: first Mary is not sitting in the presence of God as she might have understood God but with her friend, Jesus the teacher from Nazareth. Second, tasks are not as important but relationship. Our relationship to God vis-a-vie our neighbor takes precedence over our religious activity. When God gets our attention and we move out of ourselves and toward another we begin to understand the meaning of religion.
I used to believe that religion was about behaving well and doing good things. But the longer I seek God through the experience of the church I am finding that religion is not even remotely about “doing” but resolutely about “being.” Being present to God by being present to my neighbor, my bothers in this religious order, the suffering in our streets the pain and poverty of our world—seeking to love in spite of hate—this is “the better part” Mary has chosen, which will never be taken away. We come to God through each other. We love God by loving each other. We do the work of God when we hold up each other, binding one another’s wounds, sharing each other’s grief; rejoicing in each other’s joy.
Many of you may know that we brothers of the society of St. John the Evangelist hold the beloved disciple as our patron saint. You will notice the reproduction of the icon of the beloved disciple here in the church. I asked that we use this to focus our prayer this evening because in this pictorial representation is the essence of who we are as people seeking God by following Jesus Christ. Here we have before us the beloved disciple being held by Jesus. Here the beloved disciple is held close to Jesus’ heart. The beloved disciple could feel Jesus’ body, the beloved disciple could hear his breath, and feel Jesus’ heartbeat. This is an image of deep intimacy of two well loved friends. The beauty for us is that each of us, at least at one time in our lives, has known this kind of love and this is precisely the relationship we too have with God. Friends, companions even, held close to God’s heart. Remember this image when you are feeling lost or God seems to be distant from you. Remember this when you look in the face of those you greet in the Lord’s name speaking words of peace. Remember this image when we come together to share the Eucharist.
God may be trying to get your attention at this time in your life—everything around you my be falling apart—you might have had a memory of something or someone you thought you had forgotten, you might be heading into what seems to be darkness and despair. God may be trying to get your attention so lift up your head—try to pay attention and remember there is no place we can go; there is nothing we can experience where God is not present. Sometimes the only glimpse of God we will ever get is in the face of the person on our right or our left. If you desire to know God, if your deepest need is to feel the presence of God turn around and look about you God may be closer than you think.
© 2008
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