SSJE Sermons

Br. Curtis Almquist Palm Sunday Philippians 2:5-11 John 12:20-33 When I was a young boy, I hated lima beans. Now I love lima beans. But I have always loved my mother more than I love lima beans. Strong words – hate, love – used hyperbolically to catch our attention and to make a point. We do this a lot with English. And it also happens in the Greek of the New Testament. So we need to interpret here Jesus’ words about hate truthfully but not literally. He says, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus is not a hater. Here in the Gospel according to John, Jesus has only just said, “For God so loves the world . . .” And that includes you, and me, and everyone-everything else to which God has given life, God loves.[1] Eternally. God is love.[2] But Jesus gets our attention and his contemporaries’ attention saying, “those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” This Greek verb translated “hate” is not as bad as it sounds. This Greek word “hate” can also be translated comparatively, meaning to strongly value something that is more rather than something that is less.[3] In the strongest possible language, Jesus is affirming love for the full expanse of life; however, he is setting his gaze beyond just this life to include the life-to-come. That is the ultimate goal, what Saint Paul calls “the prize.”[4] Don’t live your life only clutching at what is at hand; live your life open-handed, as a generous offering of love for all that God loves, now and forever.[5] Jesus is demonstrating this on his ride into Jerusalem. In the Near East and Mediterranean world of antiquity, palms were used to symbolize victory, triumph, peace, and eternal life. In ancient Greece, then subsequently in Rome, coinage and medals were engraved with palms. Also, winners of great events would be holding a palm “trophy” as they were publicly presented to the crowds. Whether it was Pharaoh or Caesar being heralded after a military conquest, or whether it was an athlete who was the winner of a great contest – like the Olympics – the winners would be appointed with palms and the victor’s parade carpeted with palms. Which is what we see with Jesus on Palm Sunday.[6] Sort of. Jesus enters Jerusalem on a roadway covered with palms and riding on a donkey, which is no Roman chariot, and Jesus is no Caesar. His perceived flirtations with being divine were blasphemous to the Jews and seditious to the Romans. In the first century, Caesar Augustus had already claimed the titles “Divine,” “Son of God,” “Lord,” “Redeemer,” and “Savior of the World.” Those titles already belonged to the Roman Emperor, not to this itinerant and poor rabbi on a donkey, this Jesus.[7] Jesus here is making a very symbolic identification with the poor and powerless. He is messing with the symbols of conquest and victory, and a lot of people are watching. So here it’s as if Jesus is teasing the principalities and powers. He knows what he is doing.[8] There are curious bystanders including some of Jesus’ faithful followers, and there are his twelve apostles. His apostles had already begged him not to do this. They had predicted if he entered Jerusalem he would be killed by the authorities. Of the twelve, it had only been the apostle Thomas who had said, “Let us go that we may die with him.”[9] Death was in the air. His apostles mostly desert him. In the end, it is only the Beloved Disciple and the holy women who would stand with Jesus at his crucifixion.[10] We remember Jesus’ Palm Sunday provocation not as an historic reenactment. The point of Palm Sunday is a clarion call for us who are followers of Jesus, what Saint Paul calls “counting the cost.”[11] What actually are we to follow in Jesus’ example? Two things that are apparent, and one thing that is disguised. What is apparent is that those whom Jesus lived for, he dies for. What he and society identified as “the least” in society most captured his attention. The poor are not a problem; they are a primacy. How we think, pray, and act has to include those who are among the least, and last, and lost.[12] All of us have some reach to bring God’s blessing to some person, or to some people whom Jesus called “poor in spirit,” or “those who mourn,” or “those who are persecuted” or “reviled”[13] for whom Jesus gave his life and we, by extension, ours. Identifying with the troubled, those who are victims of oppression, injustice, and tyranny is what got Jesus in such trouble, and that, too, is our call. To be troubled by the troubled. To taunt insidious power. Secondly, Palm Sunday reminds us is how we must be on good speaking terms with life in this world and the life to come. We rehearse this in the prayer Jesus taught us – what we call the Lord’s Prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it shall be in heaven.” Jesus is serious about this, using “love” and “hate” language for us to galvanize our priorities on earth as a trajectory into God’s future, what we call “eternal life.” It’s either give or take. We either live our life giving our life, which is eternal, or we live taking our life, hoarding, clutching, which is infernal. A third reminder on Palm Sunday is about people being scared to death: first and foremostly his own apostles from before Palm Sunday until after Good Friday. Something dramatic changes in them. They became able to hear Jesus’ words, which he spoke endlessly, about not being afraid, not being anxious. Jesus did not say these words in a scolding way; he said these words in a reassuring way. Not to be afraid. Why? Because Jesus is with us always, to the very end. We are not abandoned. Ever. If you are afraid of life, or are afraid of death, that is your prayer. Jesus will meet you, understand you, love you, carry you. On Palm Sunday, there is one word we repeat again and again: the Aramaic word “Hosanna.” “Hosanna” is a prayerful plea. “Hosanna” means to “save us” and to “help us”: the very thing that Jesus promises us, and which we most need: to be saved and helped. We, at our lowest, can cry out, “Hosanna, in the highest.”[14] And Jesus hears us.   [1] John 3:16. [2] 1 John 4:8, 16; Romans 5:8. [3] The Greek verb μισέω, miséō, appears 41 times in the New Testament: to hate, to detest, or (by extension) to love less. [4] “I [Paul] press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14) [5] Saint Paul also writes: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1-2) [6] John 12:12-16. [7] J. D. Crossan, God and Empire (San Francisco, 2008), 28. [8] Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is remembered in all four Gospels: Matthew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; John 12:12-19. [9] John 11:7-16. [10] At the crucifixion are Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, Salome, and the Beloved Disciple. [11] Philippians 3:7-11. [12] Matthew 25:40-45. [13] Jesus’ Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12. [14] Matthew 21: 9, 15; Mark 11:9-10; John 12:13.

Br. David Vryhof Ezekiel 37:21-28 Psalm 85 During the time I served the community as its Novice Guardian, I often encouraged the newer brothers to articulate their vision of monastic life. I asked them to reflect on why they had come to the monastery, what it was they hoped to become here, what principles and values they treasured in their hearts that life in this community might help them realize. It was that vision, I believed, that would keep them going when times were tough. It’s important to have a vision that sets out for us a clear direction and focus for our lives. “Where there is no vision,” the author of the book of Proverbs reminds us, “the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV) The prophet Ezekiel lays out such a vision in the passage we heard read today. It is a vision of a restored Israel, in which a divided people are brought together by God as one nation and people. God cleanses them from their sin and removes idols from among them so that they can become a consecrated people under one Shepherd, God’s servant David. In this vision, they live in the land forever, in a covenant of peace with God. “I will be their God,” God promises, “and they shall be my people.” And there are times when the vision becomes reality, when Israel lives in union with God and in restored fellowship one with another; but there are also times when this vision unravels, when they prove unfaithful towards God, when God withdraws the blessings they have been promised. Then, like the psalmist in Psalm 85, they need to ask God to restore them again: “Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. . . . Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us. . . . Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.” (vv. 1-2, 4, 6-7, NRSV) It is important for us to have a vision, but it’s also important that that vision be renewed and restored from time to time, especially when the vision seems to be unraveling before our eyes and we find ourselves calling out to God for help and for hope. What is the vision that inspires you and gives you hope? What is the vision that propels you forward with confidence into the future? Perhaps it is the vision of a God who loves you unconditionally and who has promised never to leave you. Perhaps it is the vision of life eternal, the new life that is promised to us in this world and that continues forever. Perhaps it is the vision of a Savior who knows our human weakness and our struggles and who offers to save us, not only from our sins, but from our blindness and our foolishness and our self-centeredness. Whatever our vision is – of God, of the human communities of which we are a part, of ourselves – we will from time to time need this vision to be restored, through prayer, through the support and encouragement of others, through the grace of God that permeates this world and the next. Our vision may need not only to be restored, but also to be extended. Is our God too small? Is it difficult to imagine a God who is greater than the problems we face in this world? If we have lost sight of the God who can unite divided peoples, who can gather us under the protection of peace, who can be our God in every trouble or difficulty . . . If we have lost sight of this God, we need to lift up our hearts once more and ask God to restore our vision and renew our hope. Cling to the vision. Keep it always before you. Renew and strengthen it whenever it falters or fails. And remember always that “where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Br. James Koester The Fifth Sunday in Lent John 11:1-45 You can’t walk there anymore. One morning, on my first visit to Jerusalem, nearly 30 years ago, I walked from East Jerusalem, where I was staying, over the Mount of Olives and on into Bethany. I was going to visit the tomb of Lazarus and the home of Mary and Martha. A few years later that walk was impossible. The security wall had been constructed, separating Bethany from Jerusalem. Now, the only way between the two communities is to drive several miles out of your way, through various checkpoints, and then loop back on the other side of the Mount. What took a couple of hours to walk, now takes a couple of hours to drive. What had been a pleasant walk there and back, has become a frustrating all-day drive. It is that walk I remember. Once I got off the main road, I mostly had the way to myself. When I arrived at the tomb of Lazarus, I had it all to myself. I could sit there quietly and feel the emotion that was so evident in the place, as I heard in my heart the weeping of those gathered there that day long ago. It was just 6 months after my father had died, and my own grief was still fresh. As I sat there with my grief, I remembered Jesus’ grief for his beloved friend. John (11:35) tells us that “Jesus wept.”[1] I did not, that day, find his tears hard to imagine, as my own were just below the surface. Clearly the crowds noticed. See how he loved him! the crowds whispered among themselves. See how I loved him, as I thought of my own father. Tears can be signs of many things: love, loss, disappointment, frustration, even anger and rage. We have all shed tears for many reasons. I certainly have. Jesus’ tears on this day were a manifestation of his very real love, and we are told that, in the gospel: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5), so his tears should not surprise us. These three were clearly precious to Jesus, and it showed, and he wept. He wept, not simply because someone had died. He wept because someone precious to him had died. Imagine that! Imagine God weeping when someone precious to the heart of God dies. Yet weep God does, because as Isaiah (43:4) reminds us, “[we] are precious in [God’s] sight” . . . and God loves us. This is the good news of the gospel, that we are all precious in the sight of God who loves us, not in a general way, but in a particular way; in the way that Jesus loved Lazarus. Imagine that! Jesus loves you in the same way he loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus. And if that is true for you, it is true for every single person alive today, for every single person who has ever lived, and for every single person who will live in the future. Every single person is precious and loved by God, no matter what. You are precious in my sight . . . and I love you. That being the case, I find it impossible to reconcile some of the things we have heard recently, with what Scripture tells us. Last September at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, Donald Trump stated, “I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.” Yesterday he said, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” in a social media post about Robert Mueller’s death. Two weeks ago, Pete Hegseth promised to “rain death and destruction from the sky” on the people of Iran. Two days ago, he asked that we all pray “every day on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ” for members of the armed forces, whose task it has become to rain destruction on Iran from the sky. To date between 3,000 and 4,000 people, mostly civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed in Iran, Lebanon, and Israel as the promised destruction has rained down upon them. How any of this reflects the Christian values this administration purports to uphold, is beyond me. How we as faithful Christians, in whose name this evil is being said and done, can respond, is however something entirely different. That is not beyond me. So, what can our response be to this culture of hate and death in which we are entombed? First, we can weep. Jesus was not ashamed of his tears, and nor should we be of ours. We need to give ourselves permission to shed tears of frustration, grief, repentance, and even rage. But mostly, we need to shed tears of love for the world which God loves, for “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). Our tears can be our prayer. Second, we can love. Jesus did not stop loving because Lazarus had died. Indeed, it seems he loved him more, so much so that the crowds noticed. See how he loved him, they said. Our love should not be limited to what we can control, and God knows there seems to be no control today, when a war can be begun simply because someone had a gut feeling. As Christians we are called to love until our hands are bleeding, and our knees aching, even when we have been betrayed. Our love, even in the face of evil and betrayal, can be our prayer. Finally, we can act. “Unbind him, and let him go” (John 11:44). The world is in the grip of death and hate. The burial shroud immobilizes us. The stench of decay lingers in our nostrils. Yet all is not lost. Into this Jesus cries out, unbind them, and let them go. So it is with us. Just as Lazarus needed to be unbound by others from the trappings of death, so too does our world. Any action, great or small, that loosens death’s grip on the world, can be our prayer, and allow us to emerge once again unrestrained and free, from the tomb. Our action to unbind can be our prayer. And it all begins with the simple recognition that you are precious in God’s sight, and that God loves you, just as Jesus still loves Lazarus. If we know this, death and hate will loosen its grip on your heart, your life, and the world. And that friends is good news, and will one day, lead us out of the tomb in which we find ourselves today.   [1] AV/KJV; “Jesus began to weep” (NRSV).

Br. Lain Wilson Jeremiah 11:18-20 Here in the Chapel, you will never hear chanted portions of several psalms, or even the entirety of two. Our Society’s practice follows other monastic communities in “mak[ing] provision for optional omissions of imprecatory verses” as an expression of hospitality.[1] Imprecatory, meaning “to invoke evil upon” or “to curse,” certainly captures the thrust of much of my prayer as I look out on our troubled world. I see evil and suffering, and find myself wanting those perpetrating it to suffer in return. I’d like to say that I’m above that, but I’m not. It has been shockingly easy for me to get there in my prayer. I’ve found a real invitation in praying imprecatory verses – not to discover new horrible things to wish on others, but to discover that what I feel is distinctly human. Jeremiah, in today’s short passage, echoes the language of our psalm (7) in calling on God as righteous judge to exact retribution on those who have planned evil against the prophet. The word translated “retribution” is often also translated as “vengeance”; it’s the same word that appears in the stunning opening verse of psalm 94: “O Lord God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, show yourself. Rise up, O Judge of the world; give the arrogant their just deserts” (vv. 1-2). This word appears in Jeremiah more often than in any other book of scripture and there signals punishment for an action that is incompatible with, or transgresses, God’s sovereignty, rather than personal revenge.[2] We might think of this as God’s messenger asking God to punish these men for ignoring diplomatic immunity. The important thing here is that Jeremiah knows; God has revealed the situation to him.[3] By contrast, most of us, maybe all of us, will lack this firm assurance of what the sides truly are. We may be reassured by imprecatory verses that we aren’t alone in feeling these very human feelings in our prayer, but we are equally convicted by the inadequacy of our own knowledge and understanding, and the shackles that inadequacy place on us. Nicodemus recognizes this when he replies to the Pharisees’ fierce questioning of the temple police and denunciation of the crowd: “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” (John 7:51). We don’t have all the facts, and therefore we can’t exercise judgment. This is the crux of the matter. What we can know for sure is so limited in this life – our understanding of God and God’s plan for us; our perception of the “mystery present in the hearts of our brothers and sisters, strangers and enemies,” as we say in our Rule; indeed, our awareness of the movements of our own hearts. Only God can know, and when we rush to judgment, when we find ourselves desiring a sentence to be imposed, we are putting ourselves into the place of God. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves,” Saint Paul writes to the Romans. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:19, 21). Jesus surely models Paul’s exhortation. “When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgiven them; for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23:33-34). God is the righteous judge . . . and Jesus, who of anyone who has ever lived had the right to demand retribution from that judge, instead asks his Father to forgive. Jesus sees the shackles of their own ignorance and urges compassion. This may be beyond our own power. We do not know or understand, and we will still be limited humans and desire and pray for vengeance and violence and suffering. . . and Jesus, who suffered from that very same human impulse, and who redeems all human experience, redeems even that. Jesus, the Savior of the world, saves us, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, from the shackles of our own short-sighted ignorance, offering us freedom in the example of his own life and death. Amen.   [1] “About the Daily Office Psalter,” in SSJE, The Ordo for the Daily Office and Holy Eucharist. [2] The Hebrew word neqamah appears in the book of Jeremiah 11 times, out of a total of 27 occurrences in the Hebrew Scriptures. On its meaning in Jeremiah: W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Philadelphia, 1986), 374, citing an article by Mendenhall: “‘It is a command that the sovereign authority of Yahweh should be placed in action in order to punish/redress an action that is incompatible with the sovereignty of that same ultimate authority.’” [3] Jeremiah 11:18: “It was the Lord who made it known to me . . . [who] showed me their evil deeds.” Holladay (ibid., 363) underscores Jeremiah’s God-given knowledge in his rendering of the conclusion to verse 20: “for to me you have revealed my adversaries” (commentary at 374).

Br. Luke Ditewig Ezekiel 47:1-9, 12 Psalm 46:1-8 John 5:1-18 What’s the vision? How does it help living now? After Jerusalem was conquered, the temple destroyed, and people taken far away in exile, amid much loss and grief, God sent prophets to renew and prompt the people. God gave Ezekiel a five-chapter detailed vision of the Temple restored, where God dwells. The vision prompts looking with faith to what cannot be seen, God restoring all. As we heard tonight, it’s not just a restored building or dwelling but water flowing from it, water that expands and deepens into a large river ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep and beyond. Water, the source of life, in the desert where it is most valuable. A living river that brings the dead to life. It flows into the Dead Sea where most fish and plants can’t live and changes it into fresh water “where every living creature that swarms will live . . . and everything will live where the river goes.” Not only live but thrive and far more than usual. Healthy trees along the river bear fruit and not only in harvest season but every month. Fruit for food and leaves for healing. It’s a bountiful, glorious vision. God will dwell in a restored temple from which living waters flow bringing new and abundant life. What image comes to your mind for such bountiful vibrancy where everything will live where the river goes? Ezekiel pulls from imagery like the Garden of Eden and like Psalm 46: “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.” Jesus goes to a man who had been ill 38 years near a pool of water known for healing. “Do you want to be made well?” He replies: I have no one to take me to the water. Long-suffering. Resignation. Trapped. Despair. How have you experienced this? Jesus goes to people personally and directly with mercy and compassion asking, listening, and freely giving. “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” How have you experienced such mercy and compassion? Like water soaking into parched ground. Like fresh water entering stagnant water and restoring it fresh. “Everything will live where the river goes.” Psalm 46 says: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Jesus comes personally with mercy. Asking, listening, and freely giving. God comes amid our loss and grief, ravaged in exile. What’s the vision? God will heal and restore all. Cling to the vision as one way of experiencing refuge and help. We believe in the restoration! God will heal and restore all. Like water soaking into parched ground. Like fresh water entering stagnant water and restoring it fresh. “Everything will live where the river goes.”