Posts Tagged ‘loss’
Save Us – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
Today is our monthly requiem in which we remember the dead, dying, and loss, and our mortality. Sick, dying, and told he would die, Hezekiah prayed asking God to remember how he had followed, and he wept bitterly. Tears express beyond words: fright, distress, sadness, anger, confusion, and distress. God replied: “I hear you and see your tears. I will save you.” Hezekiah recovers and then writes a lament (Isaiah 38:10–20).[1] He pointedly describes hurt and suffering: “My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom …” (Isaiah 38:12). Read More
Good News Amidst Bad News – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
Our reading from the Prophecy of Isaiah is an 8th century BC version of what we are seeing every day in our own newspapers and online: a world, including our own homeland, teeming with conflict. For Isaiah, the players were King Pekah and King Remaliah of Israel; King Rezim of Aram-Syria; and Kings Tabeel, then Uziah, then Ahaz, and then Jotham the successive Kings of Judah.[i] For the life of me, I cannot keep it all straight – neither the political players whom we are reading about from the 8th century BC, nor our own present-day news stream: the historic territorial disputes, the ever-changing political alignments, often created by common enemies; the fracturing of treaties and goodwill; the political threats and promises; and the suffering of the innocent. Whether in the 8th century BC or in the 21stcentury of the Common Era, there are so many parallels in strife that span across time.
There is a word of hope buried in this Prophecy of Isaiah, hope for the 8th century BC which also pertains to us in our own day. Isaiah speaks an assurance in the voice of God: “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…” “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint…” Read More
Life in the Midst of Death – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
We begin the first of five Tuesday evening sermons in Lent focused on “finding God amid all that troubles us in our lives and in the world.” This evening we explore the ultimate terms of life: “Life in the Midst of Death.”[i] I’m going to start with eternity and then move back-from-the-future into the present. First, a disclaimer. My own experience of life after death is limited. I’ll come back to that.
After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus said he was going away to prepare a place for us, where he invites us to follow. [ii] This place in heaven is a “mansion” according to the King James Version of the Bible, which is what I learned from as a child. Maybe also you? However the Greek word that was translated into English in the 1500s as “mansion” does not mean what the word “mansion” connotates for us today. For us today, a mansion is like a small palace, like the oceanfront mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. But the Greek word used here is actually much more modest and far more intriguing. The Greek word is simply a temporary dwelling place: an inn for overnight lodging.[iii]Along the ancient Roman roads, travelers’ inns were placed about a day’s journey one from another where travelers would spend the night.
The Greek word for this inn that Jesus prepares for us implies a journey, an ongoing development. Rather than imagining eternity as something static – where we are installed in a private palace – imagine eternity as an adventure in the company of heaven, with travelers’ inns being prepared for us, both for our heavenly rest and for our heavenly adventure, as we move from light to light, from one inn to the next. Read More
Road Food – Br. Luke Ditewig
Br. Luke Ditewig
One of my favorite places is a camp on Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles.[i] After seminary, I was on staff for over a year. During that time there was a major wildfire on Catalina. We quickly evacuated our guests and ourselves by boat to Catalina’s town. We left the island with the eerie sight of flames in the night near our home.
To our great relief camp was saved, only singed around the edges. We returned to power and telephone down, plastic water lines melted, and ashes everywhere. Portable generators gave limited power for essentials for a few weeks. With no cell reception in camp, leaders occasionally drove a boat out to make calls.
Soon stress rose and tempers quickened. We complained about what we lost. We complained about what we had, especially what we had to eat. Days had passed before we got the generators. Lots of meat from the walk-in freezer was fine to eat if it was cooked soon. So as some staff cleaned off ashes and others laid plastic water pipe over the hill, our cook barbequed. We ate BBQ chicken and more BBQ chicken and yet more BBQ chicken. Most of us got very tired of BBQ chicken, but we kept eating it. Read More
God’s Grandeur – Br. James Koester
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It is easy to get lost these days, and in many ways all of us are lost. We are lost in fear, worry, concern, and anxiety. We are lost in sorry, sadness, and anger. We are afraid of the future and worried about the present. We are concerned about those we love, and anxious about ourselves.
All of these are normal and natural feelings, and I do not for a minute want to suggest that there is something wrong with you because you feel one or other, or all, or more of these things. Finding ourselves still in the midst of a pandemic after more than two years, watching the news from Buffalo, and Uvalde, and seeing our leaders incapable of doing anything that looks remotely like gun reform legislation is enough to make anyone’s stomach clench in knots in grief, pain, anger, and sadness. Seeing the images from Ukraine or the effects of the climate emergency overwhelm us with feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
All of us no doubt, are actually sadder, angrier, and feel more helpless than we often care to admit. I know I do. That is the reality of life at the moment and the disorientation of this season is profound. Read More
Behold, I tell you a mystery! – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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Today we celebrate All Souls Day. We ‘celebrate’? How can we celebrate when shortly we shall be remembering by name before God our loved ones who have died, and whom we so miss?
‘Behold, I tell you a mystery! We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible.’ Those amazing, thrilling words from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. I can never read them without hearing Handel’s Messiah ringing in my ears! And they are words which tell us just what it is that we are celebrating today. We are celebrating what lies at the very heart of our faith as Christians. Jesus truly died, and yet was raised to life by God. And all who have faith in Jesus, although we too will die, will also be raised to life by God. Paul goes on to proclaim in ringing terms, ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The promise and hope of resurrection, of new life, IS our gospel as Christians. It seems to me that so much in life points to this. Just as winter leads to spring, so death and resurrection, loss and hope, seem to penetrate the very fabric of life itself. Read More
Lose your life to find it – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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The story of the Raising of Lazarus is one of the great miracles, the signs in the Gospel of John. It is a wonderful story, but unlike the other signs, it seems to have a shadow cast over it. For, in full tragic irony, Jesus giving life to Lazarus results directly in the decision to put Jesus to death. The shadow cast over the story is the shadow of the Cross.
For immediately after Jesus has raised Lazarus, we read: ‘Some of those who had come with Mary went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done.’ And the Pharisees were filled with fear. At once, they and the chief priests called a meeting of the council and said, ‘What are we going to do?’ the council was no less than the Sanhedrin – the highest Jewish court and governing body. That’s how serious the threat of this man Jesus was to them. The meeting was highly charged, and the most powerful emotion was fear. ‘What are we going to do?’, said one. ‘We can’t let him carry on like this’, said another. ‘Everyone will believe in him, and then what? The Romans will come and destroy our Temple and our whole nation.’ Next, Caiaphas the high priest joined in: ‘You know nothing at all.’ In Greek it is stronger, rather like, ‘You are talking rubbish!’ The tension was rising. Fear was everywhere. They all felt it. And what they feared most from Jesus is what they thought they would lose. If this man was allowed to carry on they would lose everything; their status, their position in society, their power – everything. They risked losing their very selves. Read More
Facing Suffering – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Job 19:23-27
For several years prior to my coming to the Monastery I was a parish priest. A number of us pastors in the area took a monthly rotation as a night chaplain in the local community hospital. During these night shifts, we chaplains would spend most of our time on-call in the intensive care unit and in the emergency room, helping care for very sick, sometimes traumatized patients, family members, and the medical staff. On more than a few occasions I recall standing beside a hospital gurney that was weighted down by a tragedy-in-the-making, and my having little or nothing to say to the patient or loved ones or to the staff. What we often shared in those moments were tears, but I had few, if any, words. What’s to be said? Less rather than more, and for several reasons. Read More