Posts Tagged ‘Surrender’
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
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
Live-Wire Love – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35
I’ve attended a lot of Maundy Thursday services in my life, and for me there’s a clear dividing line, a clear before and after: the year 2022, when I entered the Society as a postulant. It’s a dividing line not because of that, though. It’s a dividing line because, for the first time in my life, I participated in the footwashing.
I’m not sure what had held me back before. I suspect it was many things – a sense of restraint, keeping something of myself firmly under wraps (or under socks); a belief that I didn’t need to go forward, that I couldn’t gain something from it that I didn’t already have; and, perhaps, a bit of embarrassment, that my feet were sweaty in my socks and what if they smelled and what will people think . . .
What I experienced in that dividing-line liturgy – when I untied my shoes and took off my socks and sat shoulder to shoulder with these men – well, I can only call it surrender, the surrender of all that had held me back for so many years. Read More
Inevitable Little Sins – Br. Lain Wilson
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Br. Lain Wilson
Today’s Gospel lesson at first glance seems straightforward: you get what you give, Scripture’s guidance is clear, therefore you should change your ways. What more do you need? I for sure don’t feel myself to be living a life like the rich man, so I guess I’m doing okay?
But when I look at the shape of my life, when I examine my own actions and inactions, my thoughts and feelings and attitudes and prejudices, I find myself, inevitably and endlessly, falling short of the mark. I may not be the rich man lording my wealth and status over poor Lazarus, but I’m not innocent. Read More
Negotiations with Myself and with God – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Commemorating Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)
Br. Curtis Almquist
“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? … He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
We commemorate today Dag Hammarskjöld, the much beloved Swedish diplomat and Secretary General of the United Nations. In the church calendar he is called “Servant of Peace,” having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. Hammarskjöld led the United Nations in negotiating the release of U.S. soldiers captured by the Chinese in the Korean War; in addressing tensions in the Middle East, particularly on behalf of Palestinians; in disarming the conflict around the custody of the Suez Canal; in establishing the first U.N. Observation Group in Lebanon; and in negotiating the horrific wars in Southeast Asia which began looming large in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Much of his work he called “preventive diplomacy.” He died in September1961 in a plane crash in central Africa while negotiating a peace accord in the warring Congo. Read More
Stars and Rock – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
When will it happen? How much longer? What’s coming? Part of our trouble is waiting, not seeing answers or provisions as we expect.
God promised Abram a son. Years had passed. Still nothing. God comes again in a vision and says: “Don’t be afraid.” Abram says: “What? You haven’t given me a son! I’m still childless. So my heir will have to be Eliezer, a slave born in my house.” How do you hear and see the tone? Perhaps angry, blowing up and shaking his fist. Perhaps dejected and slumping with head down.
God’s response is accepting and gracious: No. My promise is true. It’s ok you’re upset. Look up and count the stars. You will receive that much. Every day, look up and remember I am with you. I will provide.
Abram believed God. Here “believed” has the connotation of ongoing, not a one-time thing.[i] Abram continued to believe. While angry or dejected, while questioning with shaking fist or slumping head, Abram believed. While waiting for years, Abram believed. Belief and trust include doubt and struggle. They are not blindly ignoring the hard. Like Abram, believing and trusting God is an ongoing reliance and assured confidence in the midst of struggle. Trust does not deny struggle but indeed names the pain with continued expectation. Read More
Humility, Allowing Our Hearts to Soar – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
A little more than twenty years ago Philip Simmons died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: ALS – or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was a young professor of English at a Chicago college, married, the father of two children. At the same time Philip Simmons was dying from the cruel ravages of ALS, he was more alive than he had ever been. [i]
He writes about learning to fall. He speaks of falling, quite literally, because of the ALS; he also writes about falling as a figure of speech. We fall on our faces, we fall for a joke, we fall for someone, we fall in love. He asks, in each of these falls, what do we fall away from? We fall from ego, we fall from our carefully-constructed identities, we fall from our reputations, from our precious selves. We fall from ambition, we fall from grasping to control… And what do we fall into? We fall into passion and compassion, into terror, into unreasoning joy. We fall into emptiness; we fall into oneness with others whom we realize are likewise falling. Ultimately it’s a falling into grace, falling into the real presence of God.[ii] The name for this falling, the gateway into this mysterious presence of God, is humility.
In our Gospel lesson appointed for today, we hear Jesus speak of humility: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” The English word “humility” comes from the Latin humilis: “lowly,” or “near the ground.” Humility is the opposite of feeling oneself to be high and lofty, above and beyond all the people whom we find inadequate. The English words “humility” and “humus” are cousins, “humus” being the organic component of soil. Humus is what makes soil rich. The autumnal leaves falling from the trees compost into humus, which is essential to life. Read More
Welcome Fall – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig
Ember Day
Exodus 19:3-8
Matthew 16:24-27
Welcome to Fall! Last night was the Autumn Equinox when day and night were almost the same amount of time. The earth’s axis and the sun’s orbit lined up given both hemispheres an equal about of light. The weather here has cooled, and the humidity dropped. Leaves are just beginning to turn color. Soon the brilliance will unfurl as leaves prepare to let go.
Today we pray for all Christians in our common vocation of following Jesus. “Deny yourself and take up your cross,” Jesus says. Surrender. Let go of pride, ambition, faults, fears and seeking self-sufficiency. “Follow me; trust me,” Jesus says. “I am your Savior.” We often fear, flee, or fight, but what if we fall into following? That may sound impossible especially when life and grief overwhelm. Jesus crucified, risen, and ascended bears all our weight, indeed all of creation. Surrender is trusting Jesus with everything. Read More
Choosing and Being Chosen – Br. Curtis Almquist
Br. Curtis Almquist
This was not Mary’s first choice. I mean that in two ways. Firstly, Mary is old enough to have made many choices before this. She has obviously committed to the love of her life, Joseph. And she is old enough to have made endless smaller, daily choices like we all make as we navigate our way through the day: decisions about where we go and what we do, the people with whom we communicate, and how; decisions about the work of our hands, our rest, our diet, our dress; our thoughts, our prayer. Lots of choosing this or choosing that, each and every day. When the angel Gabriel calls on Mary with an invitation, this is not her first choice, not her first time of choosing something for her life. She has plenty of experience.
And secondly, this also is not Mary’s first choice, given the impossible plan the angel Gabriel is proposing: that Mary become pregnant in an unimaginable and culturally inadmissible way, prior to being married to Joseph. That is not Mary’s first choice. I infer this because her immediate reaction is fear, and her second reaction is incredulity: “How can this be?” Then, for reasons we are not explicitly told, she ultimately says “yes” to Gabriel’s announcement.[i] Read More
Ascension Day – God’s Waiting On Us – Br. Curtis Almquist
Br. Curtis Almquist
Ascension Day follows the high drama of Holy Week and Easter, days that are full of interpretation and significance. But Ascension Day is rather vacuous in meaning. Jesus says to his followers: Stay here. Wait. Wait until you have been clothed with power. Why the wait? Because of fear. They were still afraid.
Sixty years ago the great Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, wrote in his diary in Ascensiontide 1961: “…at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”1 As for Jesus’ disciples, just as for us: God is waiting for us to say Yes, to keep saying Yes to our own lives, which will open up this channel for God’s work within us and through us. Read More