Posts Tagged ‘Difference’
Varied Paths for Varied Hearts – Br. Sean Glenn
Br. Sean Glenn
St. Margaret of Scotland
From time to time I make the mistake of comparing my journey to the journeys of others. The stories of those I meet for whom Jesus has been a life-long companion or for whom God has been the object of many, many years of devoted searching, these are the stories that arrest me and leave me tempted to see myself in an unworthy light.
For I did not grow up in the conscious company of Jesus, and my path into the faith was something I unexpectedly tripped over one day in some field of my heart. No years of devotion or study prepared me to meet him there, but I quickly sold all that I had to buy that field of heart.
I can see now what a mistake it has been of me to entertain those episodes of self-pitying comparison, however, because we see them both affirmed in this morning’s gospel. Jesus begins, “The kingdom of heaven is like…” and then spells out two different ways one might approach the life of faith—two paths to the same kingdom.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,
which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”[1] Read More
Finding Holiness in the Sanctuary of Difference
“A great deal of our politics, our ecclesiastical life, often our personal life as well, is dominated by the assumption that everything would be all right, if only some people would go away.” – Rowan Williams, The Way of Benedict
Of course, other people are not going to “go away”! But there has been, throughout history, this continual assumption, at least in politics, that if you gain enough power, you can effectively make these other people whom you dislike or fear, disappear, through systematically disempowering them, disenfranchising them, or at the most extreme, ethnically cleansing them. For the Christian, all such attempts to make other people “go away,” are essentially sinful and a gross abuse of power. For the Christian, every single person is a beloved child of God “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). For the Christian, power and authority are given to us by God in trust, for the building of God’s Kingdom on earth. In God’s Kingdom everyone is important, because our faith teaches us to see the face of Jesus in the face of every person, however unlike me they are. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Read More
Humble Recognition – Br. Jim Woodrum
Matthew 8:5-17
In our lection from Matthew this morning we observe something in Jesus that is rarely expressed in the gospels: we see a display of emotion. Other instances include Jesus feeling compassion: as in the hungry crowds who endlessly follow or seek an audience with him. Or in the case of the rich young ruler who when asking what he must do to inherit eternal life, the gospel of Mark says that Jesus loved him before telling him to go and sell all his goods then follow him. With all the dinner invitations Jesus received, I am sure there had to be some merriment and laughter during his ministry and I wish we had a confirmation that Jesus did in fact share a good chuckle with his friends. We know that in John’s gospel, Jesus wept in grief over the sadness surrounding the death of his friend, Lazarus. Today, we hear that Jesus was amazed. What is it exactly that could amaze the incarnation of God?
In this story we observe two men, from two cultures, sharing the same geography. Both men are powerful; both men have authority; both men have a following. From the outset, it may look as if the only thing different about them are how they look. One man is a Roman centurion, an enforcer of the Roman occupation of Palestine, a Gentile dressed in the finest uniform of the Roman army which displays his elite social status. The other man is an itinerant rabbi, a teacher and reformer, a Jew dressed in the clothes of nomad. The one thing they have in common is humility.
Jesus has displayed his humility in the willingness to reach the most disenfranchised of his people. In the reading just prior to our gospel this morning, we observe Jesus grant the request of a leper who asks to be made clean. Lepers were outcasts of society due to the vileness of their disease which was highly contagious and for which there was no cure. Jesus not only confronts the man who requests to be healed, but actually touches him in the process. This alone would have made Jesus ‘unclean’ in the eyes of the temple leaders and unfit to enter the temple. Yet Jesus heals him and tells him to go show himself to the temple leaders and to give his gift in thanksgiving Read More