Posts Tagged ‘Life’
In the Midst of Death
click to play. scroll down when ready
say your birthday aloud
Breath
say Jesus aloud
In the Midst of Death
Br. James Koester
It’s not unusual for me to get something in my head, convinced that I have it correct, only to discover that I have it wrong. Recently I have found myself repeating in my mind a phrase, which I was positive I had right: In the midst of death, we are in life. The phrase comes to us from the Prayer Book burial rite, and we Brothers sing it at the midday service on Holy Saturday.
The problem is, I have it backwards. What the text actually says is, “in the midst of life we are in death.”[1]
Yet I think that the trick my mind has played on me has some merit. These past years seem to have been one long, long season of death. While the pandemic might seem to some a distant memory at this point, it surely remains achingly present to the minds of those who have loved and lost one of the 1,151,435 people who have died in the United States from this disease.[2] In the midst of death.
Nor may it surprise you to hear that since the beginning of the year, there have been 565 cases of mass shootings.[3] In America, we lose 121 people every day to gun-related violence, which has taken the lives of 35,000 people so far this year, and is the leading cause of death for American children.[4] In the midst of death.
We see unfolding in the news every day reports of violent death: police brutality and racial violence; wars in Ukraine and the Holy Land; and hate crimes on the rise in the United States. In the midst of death.
With so much practice, you might say we are good at dying. We know what to do in the face of death. We know what’s expected, even when gripped by shock and grief. In the midst of death.
In this way, we are no different from the three women who made their way to the tomb, that first Easter morning. They, too, knew what to do when confronted with death, even a death as horrific as the one Jesus had suffered. “When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.”[5] They had the supplies, they knew how to perform the rituals, and carry out the customs that went with a death. They came prepared, with the necessary spices. They knew what to anticipate, and at least one of them was practically inclined in her expectations, for we read that “they had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’”[6]
Like us, these women had seen death. They had lived with death, and they knew what to do, what was expected of them, how to behave. Death, it seems, is simply part of living. In the midst of death.
You might imagine that these three women, even when numb with grief, were beyond shocking. Death, even a horrific death, could not shock them. Yet Mark is quite clear that when they reached Jesus’ tomb, these women were so alarmed, terrified, amazed, afraid, and speechless that they fled, probably dropping the spices, “and they said nothing to anyone.”[7]
It was life that terrified them;
it was life that made them speechless.
What is significant here is that it wasn’t death that frightened them. No, what shocked them was life, and the possibility of life. It was life that terrified them; it was life that made them speechless.
Whether it comes quietly, after a long life, well-lived; suddenly, in a blaze of bullets; shockingly, dragged from your home and killed by terrorists; tragically as bombs rain down from above; agonizingly, with a knee at the neck; or slowly, gasping for breath, alone in a hospital room, death no longer shocks us. Yes, we may grieve, but no, it does not shock.
What shocks, alarms, terrifies, amazes, and makes us afraid and speechless is life, and especially the kind of life Jesus offers us in the resurrection.
A life given away is a life given back.
SSJE’s founder, Richard Meux Benson, reminds us that “our coming to Christ changes everything.”[9] If, as Father Benson encourages us, “we live in the world as [people] who have been with Jesus,”[10] then the risen life of Jesus is no mere abstract idea, but a concrete reality. Such a life is shocking, terrifying, and alarming, because it manifests itself not in some conjuror’s trick with a bag of missing bones, but in Spirit-filled lives which are unpredictable, risky, and reverse the ways of the world. A Spirit-filled life reminds us that life does emerge from death, joy can be found in sorrow, and a life given away is a life given back.
No wonder the women fled in terror: something told them that following the Risen Jesus to Galilee, even in the hope of seeing him again, would cost them their lives. And it did. And it still does.
Life is so much easier when we know what to do, what is expected of us, how to behave. But a life empowered and emboldened by the Spirit of the Risen Jesus is unpredictable and risky, for that life is no longer ours, but Christ’s, who lives in us.[12]
That life, that Spirit-filled life – Christ’s risen life lived in us – should alarm, terrify, and amaze us; it should grip us with fear and render us speechless. This is the life which will shock us back to our senses and rouse us from death.
In the midst of death, we are in life, because we are willing to take the risk that Jesus did, and give our life away, only to have God give it back in unexpected and unpredictable ways.
To Consider:
Does death still have the power to shock you? How so?
Where in your life are you in the midst of death? Where are you in the midst of life?
What steps can you take to embrace the Spirit-filled, unpredictable life that the Risen Jesus offers, even if it means taking the risk of stepping into the unknown?
To Try:
If you have never done this before, spend some time praying the Burial Office.
Where the Prayer Book provides space to add a name, add your own name. Reflect on the reality of your own death and what a life risen with Christ might look like for you.
[1] In Media Vita, Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 484
[2] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker; downloaded 3 November 2023
[3] A mass shooting is generally defined as an occasion when 3 or more people have been injured. (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/u-s-hurtles-toward-new-record-for-mass-shootings-says-atf-director/)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2023; downloaded 3 November 2023; https://abcnews.go.com/US/116-people-died-gun-violence-day-us-year/story?id=97382759; downloaded on 3 November 2023
[5] Mark 16: 1 -2
[6] Mark 16: 3
[7] Mark 16: 8b
[8] Mark 16: 6,7
[9] Spiritual Readings: Christmas, page 260
[10] Ibid, page 260
[11] SSJE, Rule of Life, Engaging with Poverty, chapter 8, page 16.
[12] Galatians 2: 20
[13] In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succor, but of you O Lord,…
[14] For a slightly different take on this text, see The Unsettling Power of Easter by Esau McCaulley at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opinion/easter-celebration.htmldownloaded 4 April 2021.
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
Life and the Living God – Br. Lucas Hall
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Br. Lucas Hall
Isaiah 55:10-13
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
As many of you know, when a man comes to join the monastery, he passes through a number of stages before finally taking vows for life. Before each of these transitions, he’s given some time of retreat, alone in prayer, to really listen for the call of God, to discern, to confirm his response the question and the choice he has before him.
It was a little more than a year ago when I was on one of these retreats, looking ahead to taking my life vows. I was up at Emery House, our farmhouse and woodlands up in northern Massachusetts. There were a number of things I did up there to facilitate my prayer. I prayed the daily office. I journaled. I met regularly with another brother. But what I didn’t plan to do, or expect to do, was what I still remember most about that time.
In the Midst of Death, We Are in Life – Br. James Koester
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
It’s not unusual for me to get something in my head, and be convinced that I have it correct, only to discover that I have it backwards. For the last few weeks, I have been repeating to myself a phrase, which I was positive I had right, but was actually wrong.
In the midst of death, I’ve been telling myself, we are in life. The phrase comes to us from the Prayer Book burial rite, and we Brothers sing it at the midday service on Holy Saturday. The problem is, I have it backwards. What the text actually says is, in the midst of life we are in death.[1]
It seems however, that the trick my mind has played on me, has some merit. This past year, has been one long, long season of death. It will not surprise you to hear that the number of cases of Covid-19 in this country alone, will soon reach 31 million, with over 555,000 deaths.[2] In the midst of death.
Nor may it surprise you to hear, that since the beginning of the year, there have been 125 cases of mass shootings[3], with a total of 481 people wounded, and 148 others killed.[4] In the midst of death.
We see unfolding in the news, reports of anti-Asian hate crimes rising. The other day the George Floyd murder trial began. In the midst of death.
We are good at dying. This past year alone, we’ve had lots of practice. We know what to do in the face of death. We know what’s expected, even when gripped by shock and grief. In the midst of death. Read More
Bestowing Life – Br. James Koester
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Romans 6: 3 – 11
Psalm 114
Matthew 28: 1 – 10
I’m sure that we all know someone like this. Maybe it’s even yourself. We all know someone who isn’t very good at telling jokes. Sometimes that’s about timing. Maybe their timing is off. Perhaps they don’t have a sense of irony, and take everything too literally. Then again their humour might be too clever, or too dark, or too dry, for you to find funny. Sometimes if the punch line is too obscure, and the joker has to explain things, the joke falls flat, and no one finds it funny, except perhaps the teller. And some jokes, are just really terrible, or even cruel. There is a lot to making a good joke funny, especially if it is one that is retold over and over again. While some jokes never seem to be funny, other are funny no matter how many times they are told.
These last few weeks, I have the feeling that I have been trapped in the middle of a really terrible and cruel joke. This physical distancing, quarantine, self-isolation is wearing really thin. I am so done with it all. I want it to be over. If this pandemic is someone’s idea of a joke, it’s not a very funny one. If COVID-19 is someone’s idea of a joke, it’s a pretty cruel one. Things aren’t funny anymore. They aren’t even fun, and the novelty, or entertainment factor, lost its charm a long time ago. Read More
Dying to Live – Br. Curtis Almquist
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Mark 6:14-29
The scholarly journal, the “International Bulletin of Mission Research,” has for more than thirty years compiled an annual table of Christian martyrs. The journal defines martyrs as “believers in Christ who have lost their lives prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility.”
Martyr. The journal’s estimate: in the last 10 years, 900,000 Christians have been killed worldwide for their witness to Christ. That’s, on average, 90,000 Christians martyred each year during this past decade.[i]
The English word “martyr” comes from both Latin and Greek, the word “martyr” translated as “witness.” May we be spared shedding our blood as a martyr; nonetheless, there will be countless occasions to give “witness” to Christ. There will be more than a few opportunities for us to “lay down our life” for someone, another child of God, probably even today. The invitation may not be in an act of heroism – no shedding of blood – but more likely in a very mundane and rather hidden way.
Certain people who – as we say – absolutely “kill us,” we will have the occasion to show kindness or to forgive. We will be invited, undoubtedly, to offer the generosity of our tried patience; the withholding of our judgment; the readiness to be helpful and not hurtful, or retiring or rebuffing; the opportunity to bless and not to curse. Not everyone, we pray, will face John the Baptist’s fate; but all of us who profess Jesus as our Lord and Savior will be invited to die more than once, maybe more than once even today. To die. Jesus said, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will not bear fruit.”[ii] We’re to be fruitful. Something will need to die for us to be fruitful. Whether it be something great or something puny that we are sorely tempted to clutch at and save at all costs may need to die. It may be some image of ourselves, some impression, or decision, or resolution, or privilege, or fear, or time that we feel is our rightful possession. It’s going to get in the way of life, what Jesus calls “abundant life,” if we don’t let it go, don’t surrender it, don’t let it die.[iii] Today will probably be a “killer” in the working out of our salvation and in our claiming the “abundant life” promised by Jesus.
In the SSJE Brothers’ Rule of Life, we speak of our identification with martyrdom, not because we are monks, but because we are baptized. In our baptismal vows, we profess that we “have died with Christ and are raised with him.” Jesus promises us resurrection power. We have to die before we rise, before we can claim his resurrection power. Die, again, and again, and again, we must die.
[i] See the International Bulletin of Mission Research, 2018 study: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2396939317739833
[ii] John 12:24.
[iii] Jesus speaks of “abundant life” in John 10:10.