Sermon
Reactivity or Relationship – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Reactivity or Relationship
I’ve recently cut down on my news consumption. Part of this has been a very intentional management of my devices – disabling notifications and removing the temptation to refresh the news app. A consequence of this has been a more careful noticing of how what I consume affects me, physically and emotionally: how a headline or image spikes my pulse and makes me seethe inwardly, or how I find myself desiring or actively seeking out the safe, the cozy, the feel-good as a way of reasserting calm. I’ve been able to notice much more clearly how deforming this mode of engagement can be.
I mention this because I feel myself convicted by our psalm today, Psalm 37. Do not fret yourself. Put your trust in the Lord. Take delight in the Lord. Commit your way to the Lord. Be still before the Lord. Refrain from anger. I’m convicted because I can recognize how often I’ve found myself doing exactly the opposite – and often at the prompting of what I habitually consume. Read More
Jesus & the Story of Everything – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
Feast of Creation in Christ
In the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Italy, completed in 1140, a series of mosaics grace the clerestory walls. The mosaics depict the seven days of Creation. A figure is visible in each scene who bears all the conventional attributes of Jesus Christ: with his arms spread over the face of the deep, sending forth a dove; placing the sun and moon in the heavens; extending his hand in blessing over a grove of trees, a stream teeming with fish, a sky alive with birds; bearing gentle witness as Adam names the other creatures; and with a beam of light (or is it sound?) extending from his mouth to Adam’s side, where Eve springs into being.
This Christ is interested in, involved in, and related to the newborn world flourishing all around him in its first moments of existence. The one who would become the New Adam is there as the first Adam is formed from clay and breathes the breath of life. Not only there, but a divine agent of creation. Read More
Great Lengths – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
The Beheading of John the Baptist
2 Chronicles 24:17-21
2 Corinthians 4:5-11
Mark 6: 17-29
What gruesome stories of prophets stoned in the temple and beheaded for a banquet. I long assumed this was by accident and terrible coincidence: the king’s huge offer, the daughter running to her mother, the request, and the display.
The TV series The Chosen tells it differently, perhaps more realistically. Herodias, knowing Herod’s ways, schemed this opportunity, prompted her daughter to learn an amazing dance guided by a teacher, arranged for her dance at this banquet, and instructed her to make the request. A perfect plot. As in so many popular thriller stories, one goes to great lengths for revenge. Read More
A Man Without Guile – Br. James Koester
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Br. James Koester
I know it’s confusing. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all mention an apostle named Bartholomew (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). Each time he appears in the list of apostles, it’s often right after Philip. However, Bartholomew doesn’t appear in John’s Gospel. Instead, someone named Nathanael appears, tellingly, as a friend of Philip’s. Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see” (John 1:44-46). It is this Nathanael whom Jesus saw sitting under a fig tree and described as an Israelite without guile (John 1:47-48). This proclamation by Jesus prompts an immediate confession of faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49). Read More
Falling Asleep Into Life – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
The Dormition of Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Today we celebrate the feast of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Specifically, we celebrate her “dormition,” that is, her “falling asleep” in death. “Dormition” isn’t just a pious euphemism, but speaks to the peaceful quality of Mary’s death that tradition records, unlike the martyrdoms of so many other followers of Jesus.
The phrase, though, captures something more. The eighth-century patriarch of Constantinople Germanos writes that Mary “had to undergo [her] passage from this world as an awakening to [her] own reality as Mother of Life.”1 Mary’s death wasn’t just a passing away, but a falling asleep into life and a waking up into joy. Read More
The End of Mourning, Crying, and Pain – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
Today we remember the Brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist who have died in the month of August, back to when our brotherhood was founded in 1866. This is our monthly Requiem. The word “Requiem” comes from the Latin, “to rest” or “to sleep.”1 At the time of someone’s death we pray over their body: “Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world … May your rest be this day in peace.”2
This practice of celebrating a Requiem is important to us Brothers. It may also be a meaningful practice for you, personally, to intentionally remember people who have figured importantly into your own life and who have died. Read More
Empty the Tank – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
The disciples must have been absolutely exhausted.
Our Gospel reading today omits a word at the beginning that connects it to what has come before: “immediately.” Matthew is precise in his time markers: this episode immediately follows Jesus and the disciples feeding the five thousand. Even if it was just carrying baskets around throughout the meal, five thousand is a lot of people to serve. And immediately after, they are put in a boat and sent out onto the sea, where they are soon battered by waves and facing an adverse wind. We don’t hear that they sleep at all, and they are certainly awake “early in the morning,” that is, roughly between 3 and 6 a.m., when they see Jesus walking toward them on the waves.
I don’t know how the disciples felt, but I know that if I were there, I would’ve been absolutely exhausted. Read More
Conceived for Glory – Br. James Koester
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Br. James Koester
You may be familiar with Michelangelo’s statue of Moses. Michelangelo regarded it as his most lifelike creation. Once finished, he is reputed to have struck it with his hammer and exclaimed, “Now, speak!” To this day you can see a chip where Michelangelo’s hammer hit.
The story is fun, but when I first saw the statue, that’s not what drew my attention. What drew my attention, and what I found curious, is that Moses had grown horns. Yes, there are two stubby horns emerging from Moses’ head, like horns emerging from the head of a goat. Moses has horns. What on earth is that about? Read More
To be Seen, Known, and Loved – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Commemoration of Saint John Vianney
This evening we celebrate one of my favorite saints of all time, Saint John Vianney. We have a window of John in the back corner of the chapel, so if you get bored during my sermon you can always look at that.
The main reason I love John Vianney so much is he had the gift of reading souls. He was famous for being able to understand people very quickly and guiding them to God. John spent upwards of twelve hours a day in the confessional. People flocked from all over France in the early 1800s to see him.
The stories of people who saw John Vianney follow a similar pattern. They came to John, they confessed all of what they thought they had to confess, and then they stopped. Then the magic happened. John had the ability to lovingly look into the hearts of all who came to him and help them draw out the things they were hiding from God. Read More
Something Is More Than Nothing – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
Followers of Jesus are called to do as Jesus does.
There are two prominent ways of interpreting this expectation.
As we learn more and more about how Jesus behaved – the words he said and things he did in the Gospels – we strive to conform our behavior to his. This is the ethical dimension of doing as Jesus does.
But we also learn to open ourselves and allow the life of Jesus to act through us, as members of his Body in the world. We become the eyes, the mouth, the hands, the feet of Jesus. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul in Philippians (Philippians 2:5), and in Galatians we hear him say, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We might call this the metaphysical or the mystical dimension of doing as Jesus does. Read More