Faith
Tending Our Gardens – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Our Gospel passage this evening is a rare instance of Jesus explaining a parable. This is the parable of the wheat and weeds, which we heard two Sundays ago. As wheat and weeds grow together in a field, the householder orders that they be left until the harvest, when the weeds will be separated and burned, and the wheat brought into the barn. It’s a parable about patience in the face of the persistence of evil and suffering, and faith in God’s future judgment (Matthew 13:36–43).
Jesus clarifies the meaning of the parable to his disciples, and to us. But that clarity doesn’t mean it’s simple, and the urging of patience for the future doesn’t mean that we don’t have work to do in our present. If we can look toward the distant future of this world’s field, we are also directed to tend our own gardens.
We are called to survey our garden’s health, and we are called to be clear-eyed in that assessment. Where do we see weeds taking over? How have we neglected to attend to our garden? Read More
Flesh-and-Blood Faith – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
When I lived in DC for a decade before moving to the monastery, I had three bad cycling accidents. Not “broken-bones-and-hospital-visit” bad, but “ice-and-painkillers” bad.
The last and worst one took place about twelve miles from home. I was cycling down a path at a reasonable clip when I hit a root and went flying over the handlebars. I came down hard, cleaned myself up, and spent the next several minutes somewhat comically trying to fix a flat tire with one hand. Then I got back onto the bike and slowly cycled home.
The only reason it wasn’t a hospital-visit accident was because I was wearing my helmet. And the only reason I felt assured that I could get back home was because I was still wearing my helmet. It was a risky situation, but I trusted my equipment. Read More
Wearing the Boat – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30; Romans 7:15-25a
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend time on Lake Hosmer in northern Vermont learning to scull, that is, rowing a single boat with two oars. If you’ve spent time in the morning looking onto the Charles River, you’ll see any number of scullers peacefully and effortlessly navigating the river.
(Peaceful and effortless did not characterize my experience.)
One of the most helpful things brought up by the coaches was the concept of “wearing the boat.” That is, treating the boat as something you put on, an extension of your body, rather than as a tool you use. Rather than gripping the oars and sitting ramrod straight on the seat, “wearing the boat” is about being light and loose, relaxed and responsive. Read More
The Ministry of Art in Ascensiontide – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
The Seventh Sunday of Easter
In the calendar of the church’s cycle of worship, we find ourselves this morning in Ascensiontide – the ten-day period at the end of the Easter season, after Jesus’ ascension into heaven on the fortieth day and before the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the fiftieth day, next Sunday.
Just now we heard a reading from Acts that we also heard on Ascension Day – the lectionary’s version of recapping a previous episode. And in 1 Peter we heard a preview of coming attractions: The Holy Spirit is coming soon … to a monastery chapel near you!
For now, we are gathered in a strange in-between time: it is awesome, glorious, mysterious, and a bit challenging to preach about. A vocational hazard in the preaching life and in the monastic life can be overfamiliarity with things awesome, glorious, and mysterious. When that happens to me, I tend to return to my prayer journal to see what I can glean from a slightly younger, fresh-eyed version of myself. Read More
Encountering Love – Br. Lain Wilson
Br. Lain Wilson
Preached at The Church of the Redeemer, Lexington, MA
The Sixth Sunday of Easter
On behalf of my Brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Cambridge, I’m delighted to be with you all this morning. And happy Mother’s Day to everyone here, and to those watching online (including my mom!).
I’m especially delighted to be with you all on this Music Appreciation Sunday. I grew up surrounded by music. My earliest memories are filled with it. As a teenager, I sang in the cathedral choir. There, I learned what it was to be an Episcopalian. I learned the treasures of the Anglican musical tradition. Hymns and anthems continue to be one of my primary encounters with scripture and theology – including today’s gospel, which I still can’t help but hear in Thomas Tallis’s lush setting, “If ye love me.”
Music has also, in an important way, saved my life. Read More
The Living Presence of the Past – Br. Keith Nelson
Br. Keith Nelson
Preached at the annual memorial mass for Isabella Stewart Gardner.
While I have loved drawing ever since I could hold a pencil, it was not until age eleven that I really discovered art history. One sweltering July in the air-conditioned calm of the public library in Hoover, Alabama, I stumbled upon a reading room with a brass plaque and crossed the threshold . . . like entering the wardrobe into Narnia. As I opened one enormous book after another, what I saw astonished me: whole sermons preached in images rather than words. I was listening to the Bible with my eyes. I had been baptized at the age of ten in a local Southern Baptist church, a tradition with little visual art. Art history introduced me to church history. People that had been dead for centuries past pointed me toward eternity – because of course, they were not dead, but alive and waiting for me to join the conversation.
And the one I came to love most of all was a Dominican friar known to posterity as Fra Angelico, who invited me to see not only the world through his eyes, but heaven; not some ethereal cloud remote from us creatures, but a lush garden full of dancing angels and saints engrossed in interpersonal communion.
Could I take drawing lessons from Fra Angelico in heaven? I wasn’t sure, but here was definitely a heaven worth dying and living for. Read More
Resurrection Words – Br. James Koester
Br. James Koester
Preached at the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, Boston.
The Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31
Something strange is happening.
Something strange is happening. A band of terrified, grieving women and men who spend most of their time behind locked doors in fear, are changing. Their fear is changing into faith. Their terror is changing into courage. Their grief is changing into joy. And soon, no door could keep them in, and no door would be able to keep them, or their message out.
Something strange is happening, and it begins with the resurrection greeting: Peace be with you! Read More
River Vision – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12
Psalm 46:1-8
John 5:1-18
What’s the vision? How does it help living now?
After Jerusalem was conquered, the temple destroyed, and people taken far away in exile, amid much loss and grief, God sent prophets to renew and prompt the people. God gave Ezekiel a five-chapter detailed vision of the Temple restored, where God dwells. The vision prompts looking with faith to what cannot be seen, God restoring all.
As we heard tonight, it’s not just a restored building or dwelling but water flowing from it, water that expands and deepens into a large river ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep and beyond. Water, the source of life, in the desert where it is most valuable. A living river that brings the dead to life. It flows into the Dead Sea where most fish and plants can’t live and changes it into fresh water “where every living creature that swarms will live . . . and everything will live where the river goes.” Not only live but thrive and far more than usual. Healthy trees along the river bear fruit and not only in harvest season but every month. Fruit for food and leaves for healing. Read More
Inevitable Little Sins – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Today’s Gospel lesson at first glance seems straightforward: you get what you give, Scripture’s guidance is clear, therefore you should change your ways. What more do you need? I for sure don’t feel myself to be living a life like the rich man, so I guess I’m doing okay?
But when I look at the shape of my life, when I examine my own actions and inactions, my thoughts and feelings and attitudes and prejudices, I find myself, inevitably and endlessly, falling short of the mark. I may not be the rich man lording my wealth and status over poor Lazarus, but I’m not innocent. Read More
Doubting into Faith with Saint Thomas – Br. Jonathan Maury
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Br. Jonathan Maury
Saint Thomas the Apostle
As this year’s Advent season draws to a close, we may well find ourselves questioning where God is present or even if God is present in the frightening chaos of our time. Yes, the Word’s coming among us in human flesh at Christmas still promises the restoration of wholeness, abundant new life and the future of divine glory for all creation. But in the midst of a fearful, world apocalypse of injustice, violence, cruelty, oppression, untruth, and greed – we may have our doubts.
It seems apt then, fortuitous even, that we should celebrate the image of Christ in Saint Thomas, the so-called “doubting” apostle. For just when the eternal Light seemed to have been extinguished, Thomas found faith and hope to be rekindled in the midst of his doubts.
If we are honest, the path to faith of “doubting” Thomas is in some measure shared by us all. Read More