Virtues
Genuine Humility – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Many years ago, my confessor gave me a tough homework assignment. My assignment was to get over myself. To get over myself and pray with the last line from our Gospel passage tonight, where Jesus tells us, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
My homework assignment came after I had spent a long time waxing poetically with my confessor about my sins, my shortcomings, all the mistakes I had made in the past, and so on. My confessor looked me in the eye and asked if I thought that God wanted me to think about myself as much as I did, especially my past. I must admit I was tongue tied in my response.
I’ve always been grateful for that homework assignment because it led to years of me praying about humility. What I’ve come to learn in my time as a monk and in especially with getting to meet so many people here, is that genuine humility is not what I thought it was. Read More
Money and the Freedom of Jesus – Br. Keith Nelson
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This lectionary excerpt begins with the tail-end of a parable unique to Luke that is fairly universally acknowledged to be one of his most baffling parables, called the parable of the dishonest manager. It’s one of those passages that makes a preacher pray: “Oh, Jesus…what do you mean here?” What follows is a series of short teachings strung together that further elucidate Jesus’ teachings on our relationship with money – already, of course, an intrinsically challenging subject for many.
The point seems to be that money – of all the things human culture deems necessary – most easily becomes dishonest or unrighteous if its use is not channeled and directed by our ultimate allegiance to God, to whom all things belong. This spiritual allegiance relativizes the value of money, knocking it from its pedestal as a would-be master over us.
Jesus calls us into a perspective which offers freedom. When we have access to plenty, this is the freedom to be generous for the sake of good. When we have access to less, this is freedom from incapacitating worry. Read More
Where do they get their strength from – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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Br. Geoffrey Tristram
I was talking with a friend recently about the situation in the Middle East, and he said he felt so much darkness right now that he found it hard to know how to deal with it. I knew exactly what he meant. You may feel it too, overwhelmed by the images of violence, death and destruction. How do you pray, what words of prayer do you use, how do you focus your love amidst such images? How do you remain faithful and hopeful? For me, I have tried to focus on individual families who I have read about, and prayed for them by name. I have read about individuals who have shown extraordinary bravery, resilience and self-sacrificial love; mothers with their children who have lost everything but hope. Where do they get this hope, this strength? God bless them.
Munther Isaac is a Palestinian theologian and he’s the pastor of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. He gave an interview last week which greatly moved me. He said, ‘When I talk to my friends in Gaza I have no idea how they are surviving. It is really hell on earth there. What kind of strength do these people have, and where do they get it?’ The same question may be asked of those Israelis, whose loved ones are still being held as hostages. What an excruciating time of waiting and hoping. Where do they get their strength? Or of those Lebanese whose homes have been destroyed, and loved ones bombed. ‘What kind of strength do these people have and where do they get it?’
Munther Isaac goes on to say, ‘I am convinced that people undergoing harsh realities experience God in a more real way than we can imagine. We hear it from those pulled from the rubble, who still say, “We thank you God. We rest our case before God”. The faith they exhibit in God is so strong’, he says. ‘We pray for deliverance, but the Bible doesn’t promise deliverance. It promises that God will be with us.’ Read More
Vulnerable Courage – Br. Lain Wilson
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Judith 9:1, 11-14
John 20:11-18
Psalm 42:1-7
We encounter tonight two very different women.
The first prays to God for the success of her plan of deception to save her besieged city.
The other, a young woman, stands weeping by an empty tomb.
What connects these two women—the one, daring all to save her people; the other, alone and bereft, met in the garden by her savior?
Faith, for sure. But something else—courage.
This is of course obvious with Judith. During the siege of her city, she goes out alone, seduces the Assyrian general Holophernes, and while he sleeps uses his sword to strike off his head. Hers is a story of plotting and brutal action.
Courage is less obvious with Mary Magdalene, whom we remember today. But if we let ourselves encounter this familiar passage anew, we will find it there, too. On that first Sunday, Mary has come to the tomb and found the stone removed. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him,” she cries to the other disciples (Jn 20:2). We can imagine Mary following behind Peter and John as they race to the tomb, confused and grief-stricken. The other disciples leave, “but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb” (Jn 20:11). Read More
Captives to Truth – Br. Lain Wilson
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Feast of Irenaeus of Lyons
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness” (2 Tim 2:24-25).
I’m not sure “gentle” is how I’d first characterize Irenaeus, the second-century theologian and bishop whom we remember today. In his great work Against Heresies, he sought to combat the heterodox versions of Christianity that surrounded him in a point-by-point refutation of their beliefs. At the same time, he laid out a Christian vision that affirmed the authority of the apostolic tradition and succession, the goodness of creation, and the relevance of the Hebrew Scriptures, a vision that would largely carry forward into the era of councils and creeds and orthodoxy of subsequent centuries.
The heresies Irenaeus faced are different than those that face us, but I think he speaks to us today in two important ways.
First, the truth matters, and it is worth arguing for and defending. We, like Irenaeus, live in an age of contested truth. Irenaeus makes clear his intent to address this head-on in the opening sentence of Against Heresies: “Inasmuch as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain genealogies . . . and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and taken them captive, [I have felt constrained, my dear friend, to compose the following treatise in order to expose and counteract their machinations].” Read More
Remain – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
St. Matthias
Today is the feast of St. Matthias who replaced Judas among the twelve apostles. Matthias had been with them since John baptized Jesus in the Jordan. He witnessed Jesus’ ministry with the crowds, heard the teaching, witnessed healings, had his own personal and communal experience of Jesus. Probably he was one of the 70 whom Jesus sent out and later was at the crucifixion. Hardly anything is written about him. The apostles selected two candidates. They drew lots thereby choosing Matthias.
The group probably wasn’t seeking a big personality. They already had that in Peter, James, and John. Now they were amid grief and change as Jesus had ascended back to heaven. Instead, they likely sought stability, one who had stuck it out with them and whom they trusted would remain. Remaining with through grief and loss is hard.
In language from the gospel, Matthias chose “to abide in Christ” and this company of friends. Abide can mean to live in, to make yourself at home. Abide also means to remain or to stick with through challenge. Jesus says the Father stuck with me. I’ll stick with you no matter what. Abide in my love, Jesus says. Remain with me. Read More
The Two Ways: Psalm 1 Revisited – Br. David Vryhof
Br. David Vryhof
I suspect that few of us have given much thought to the order of the psalms, but it seems obvious that Psalm 1 is placed at the beginning for a reason. It sets the tone for the psalter and introduces a worldview that will be repeated again and again in the psalms that follow: namely, that the righteous prosper and the wicked do not. The distinction is made with very little nuance in Psalm 1: The righteous are depicted as strong and stable, like trees whose roots go deep into the soil. “Everything they do shall prosper,” claims the psalmist. On the other hand, the wicked are ungrounded and are tossed about like chaff before the wind.
Several of the psalms that follow in the psalter will object to this claim. They will wonder openly why the wicked often prosper and why the righteous sometimes fail, when this psalm seems to promise otherwise. More than one psalmist voices the lament, “Why? Why do the wicked prosper?”
It’s a fair question and a reasonable objection. But modern-day readers may also object to this psalm because we dislike sorting people into such polarized categories. Many of us know people who, though they may not be ‘religious,’ are nevertheless very fine people. Many of us also know people who, though they identify as religious, are not as righteous as they pretend to be. Someone once said, “I would rather make a business deal with a good unbeliever than with a bad Christian.” Read More
Shout for Joy – Br. Lain Wilson
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John 12:24-26
Daniel 3:19-27
Psalm 126
“Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy” (Ps 126:2).
“Joy.” The psalmist repeats this word three times in this great poem of restoration. God’s people shout for joy, sing songs of joy, return from the fields in joy. God restores the fortunes of Zion—and their sadness is transformed into joy. Joy is their response, their witness to God’s working in the world.
In the calendar of the Church we remember today the third-century martyr Laurence of Rome. As archdeacon, he was given care of the church’s treasury for distribution to the needy. The story goes that after he was arrested during a periodic persecution of Christians, Laurence negotiated for a few days’ respite to gather the church’s wealth. During that time, though, he instead rapidly distributed it to the poor. When asked to hand over the church’s treasure, Laurence pointed not to gold or gems but to the poor. Read More
Choices – Br. David Vryhof
Br. David Vryhof
There was once a man whose younger son wanted to make his own choices in life. Now it pained the father to let him make these choices because he suspected that his son was not really mature enough to make wise choices – but still he gave him the freedom he wanted. (There are times when this is a good thing for love to do.)
At any rate, his son was pleased, and he began to make his choices.
He chose, first of all, to have his share of his father’s inheritance turned into spending money. Then he chose to leave his father’s home, taking all his money with him. Next, he began to choose some new friends, and together with them he chose some ways to spend his money. And with each choice that he made, that deep inner part of him, the part of him that made choices, was becoming something a little different than it was before.
Until at last he found that his choices had ruined him.
That was the turning point. Read More
Our Moral Finitude – Br. Keith Nelson
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Br. Keith Nelson
I want to crack these scripture passages open by sharing some things I’ve gleaned lately about ethics from a rather unlikely pair: a wildly popular content creator on TikTok and an early eighteenth century Quaker. Bear with me!
Alexis Nicole Nelson is a foraging expert and an advocate for growing and eating local food based in Columbus, Ohio. She creates irresistibly funny videos, and her sense of wonder for the earth is contagious. But Nelson, who is a Black woman and a vegan, also offers powerful insights about the complex relationship between our food choices, our privilege or lack of privilege, and the ethical conundrums we all face as consumers in an industrial society. As she points out, the adoption of moral self-righteousness around what we choose to eat or not eat is woefully misguided because when it comes to balancing harm of other humans, harm to animals, and harm to the environment, no food choice is ethically perfect. And yet, Nelson continues to passionately educate others about harm reduction in relation to food-ways, because while perfection is impossible, doing better is attainable. We can continue to improve our own choices and build a lower-impact food culture while remaining humble and empathetic. Read More