And We Are Glad Indeed – Br. James Koester

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Initial Profession of Lain Wilson SSJE

Ruth 1: 16 – 18
Psalm 126
1 Peter 1: 3 – 9
John 20: 11- 18

I think it’s safe to say Lain, you are the only person I have ever heard describe themselves as a palimpsest. Now I must confess I have only ever used this word two or three times in my entire life, and the first time I did, was while reading aloud in the refectory. After the meal someone very kindly, but definitively, corrected my pronunciation. It’s not a word used very often in casual conversation. I’ve never heard it spoken at the dinner table, so when you spoke of yourself as a palimpsest at the end of our community retreat, my ears perked up, and I took note of what you were saying.

Now lest any of you are getting yourself into a flutter, worried that Lain has a bad case of pimples, or that he has an unspeakable medical condition, I’ll enlighten you. A palimpsest is a technical, scholarly term describing a piece of parchment or tablet that has been used on more than one occasion, the surface having been scraped bare between each use, in the same way we would use an eraser. The thing is, just as we can sometimes see what has been erased from a page, scholars are often able to determine what lies under the surface writing, and discover a whole new document, hidden in plain sight below the surface text.

From the academic and scholarly, we can shift to the human. What I heard Lain, was the expression of your own awareness of the multiplicity and diversity of the various layers and aspects of your person which makes you, you. You are Lain, because of all the different layers and aspects that make up your personality. Many of those aspects are complimentary. Some no doubt are contradictory. Several are obvious to the observer. Some only you will know. Others will be hidden, hidden to you, but observable to us; some hidden to us, but known by you, and some hidden to you, and to us alike.

Whether hidden or known, from you or to you, from us or to us, all these layers are part of the wonderful mix that makes you the person who stands before us today, offering your life to God through the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience as a professed member of this community. As the psalmist says, I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.[1] While this is true for all of us, it has particular relevance today for you Lain, because in making your profession of vows, you are acknowledging the wonderful gift that God has given you in your life, that is full of a multiplicity of layers and a diversity of aspects like, well, like a palimpsest.

I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise to you, it certainly won’t to those who love and know you what some of those layers are. For those who don’t know, before Lain came to the community he was a Byzantinist, whose specialty was lead seals of Byzantine military officials from the Seventh through the Twelfth Centuries. There is one layer: scholar. Some will know that Lain was an avid rower, relaxes by running marathons, cycling long distances, and is in the process of walking the Appalachian Trail. There is another layer: athlete. Those who have listened to Lain over the last few years, will know that he is a gifted preacher, so we add another layer to our palimpsest: communicator. To these I can add loyal friend, devoted son, brother and caring companion.

Now Lain’s head is going to be swollen enough by the end of the day, after all this attention, so I’ll stop here. But you get the point. Lain, in fact all of us, are wonderfully and marvelously made mysteries of which we only know a part, until the day we fully know ourselves as we are fully known.[2] All of us are made up of a diversity of layers and aspects. All of us are parchments, which over time new texts are added, as old ones scraped away.

This scraping, those sometimes painful, is necessary, making space, making room, making the possibility of something new to be written on the parchment of our lives. We see that today as the One who says ‘See, I am making all things new,’ [3] is at work adding new layers to the already rich variety of layers and diversity of aspects that make up Lain.

So, what is the text that God is writing on your life today?

You have already told us.

The story of God being written on your life with this profession is a story of joy. It is a story of hope. It is a story of trust. It is a story of abiding. With fresh ink, overlaying what is already there, God is writing something new.

The parchment of your life Lain is a text filled with joy. Yes, it is a joy for us as a community who rejoice when a new brother is ready to make the vows of poverty celibacy and obedience.[4] More importantly, it is a story of joy for God who has shouldered like a sheaf of grain and carried home into God’s Sacred heart, to abide there in thankfulness and joy. There in God’s holy heart, your mouth is filled with laughter and … tongue with shouts of joy.[5] Psalm 126 is bursting with joy and gladness as God’s people are restored, not simply to their homes, but to their land of promise, fulfillment, and hope. You have found in this community Lain, your land of promise in the heart of God and you are glad indeed.[6] So Lain on the parchment of your life, allow God with new and fresh ink to write joy over all that has been before.

As the parchment of your life Lain is a story of joy, it is also a story of hope. The word hope has become much debased in our culture of wishful thinking. We hope for all manner of things: a sunny day; to win the lottery; to recover from an illness. Hope has become kind thoughts and wishful thinking, much like the thoughts and prayers of so many politicians. But there is nothing kind or wishful about Christian hope. For the followers of Jesus, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.[7] By your profession of the vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience Lain, you are staking your life on things that you cannot see but know with certainty to be true. With Peter, by this act of self-offering, you are boldly proclaiming, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given [me] a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for [me], who [is] being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.[8] What you are doing today Lain is not wishful thinking for a happy future, but a bold proclamation about something you cannot see, or perhaps even express in words, but know to be true. Today you are staking your life in the hope that through your faith in Jesus, you are even now receiving the salvation of your soul.[9] For some Lain, that is wishful thinking. For you, it is the gift of hope being written upon the parchment of your life.

As you make these vows today, and allow God to write a new story upon the parchment of your life, you do so for only three years in order to give time for the community and [you] to make certain that God is calling [you] to the life of our Society. You do so with the aim towards a life commitment.[10] This aim towards a life commitment is a sign of your desire to abide, not simply in this place, among these men, but in the place God has called, and we believe, is calling you to abide.

By abiding, and not simply living in this place, and among these men, you follow the example of Ruth, who, not simply out of devotion and loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi, declared these famous words: ‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!’[11] Like Ruth, Lain, in your promise to abide you are declaring you hope and trust, not in this community, but in God who has called you here. Ruth’s declaration of hope and trust resounds through the ages, and echoes off these walls as you say, before the whole company of heaven…I…give myself to Almighty God. What a declaration of trust, what a sign of hope, what a conviction in things unseen. On the parchment of your life, God is adding a new text, full not only of joy and hope, but of confident trust that in this place of abiding you will hear the Risen Lord speaking your name. And that of course is what this all points toward.

To abide in a life where God is adding new layers of joy and hope and trust, to the multiplicity and diversity of layers that already exist on the parchment of your life, is a thing full of wonder and awe. It is in that place Lain, the place of wonder and awe, that you will see the Lord Jesus in all his risen glory. That is what God is promising you today, a vision of Christ’s risen glory so that as you abide in this place, filled with the gifts of joy, hope and trust, you will be able to say, I have seen the Lord![12]

Making a commitment, any commitment, but especially this commitment, is a thing full of wonder, especially now. That you are doing so, fills us with awe. That you are desiring to abide here, in the heart of God, brimming with joy, filled with hope, and trusting in the goodness and mercy of the Risen Lord, is truly a sign that God is doing great things for us, and we are glad indeed.[13]

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1] Psalm 139: 13

[2] See 1 Corinthians 13: 12

[3] Revelation 21: 4

[4] Op cit., Initial Profession, chapter 38, page 76

[5] Psalm 126: 2

[6] Ibid., v4b

[7] Hebrews 11:1

[8] 1 Peter 1: 3 – 5

[9] I Peter 1: 9

[10] SSJE, Rule, Initial Profession, page 76

[11] Ruth 1: 16 – 17

[12] John 20: 18

[13] Psalm 126: 4b