Sermon for Monday, May 31

The Feast of the Visitation

“Love one another with mutual affection.” – Romans 12:10 

Great silence precedes today’s gospel reading from the book of Luke.  Before today’s gospel reading – before Mary comes to Elizabeth and greets her and the babe leaps in Elizabeth’s womb – Elizabeth has been in her house in silence for 5 months.  Recall the story in Luke 1 of Zechariah serving in the temple, of the angel’s appearance and promise of a son (John the Baptist), and because Zechariah did not believe the angel, he was struck dumb until the child is born and named.  And then, “After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden.”  Elizabeth was hidden away and in silence for five months! 

It is in silence that Aelred of Rievaulx’s wonderful book, Spiritual Friendship begins. (Aelred of Rievaulx was a 12th century Cistercian monk, abbot of an important abbey in the north of England.  He is known among other things for his encouraging of friendships among his monks, believing one of the ways in which God is experienced is through friendship.)  Consider the opening paragraph of Aelred’s Spiritual Friendship: 

You and I are here, and I hope that Christ is between us as a third.  Now no one else is present to disturb the peace or interrupt our friendly conversation.  No voice, no noise, invades our pleasant retreat.  Yes, most beloved, open your heart now and pour whatever you please into the ears of a friend.  Gratefully let us welcome the place, the time, the leisure. 

Today’s feast, the Feast of the Visitation, is about – among other things -- friendship.  On the icon on the banner hanging outside, we see Mary and Elizabeth embracing each other. Elizabeth and Mary exemplify the particular kind of friendship known as “spiritual friendship.”  A spiritual friendship is a relationship between at least two people, where the focus is on the nurture of each other’s spiritual life.  Or, as Aelred puts it:  “You and I are here, and I hope that Christ is between us as a third.” 

Spiritual friendships – though they may not always be called that – are common throughout the Christian tradition.  The most famous example is the “anam chara,” or “soul friend,” of the Celtic Christian tradition.  Anam Chara would commit to meeting regularly for “holy conversation,” including such things as discussing scripture, talking about how God has been active in each other’s lives, confessing sins, times of silence, and prayer for each other. 

I wonder what the spiritual friendship between Mary and Elizabeth was like?  Given that she sang the Magnificat in Elizabeth’s presence, we know that she did indeed “open her heart poured whatever she pleased into the ears of her friend”.  – she exclaimed the Magnificat in Elizabeth’s presence.  Christ was surely present between them as a third. Here is where I’d like to draw our attention:  I like that both Mary and Elizabeth were pregnant.  Here is how spiritual friendship works!  Each friend is at once the bearer of Christ – Christ is within us, perhaps latent, but within us, growing, gestating, waiting to be born into the world – and each friend is at the same time Elizabeth, who likewise has an inner life, which is activated and “leaps for joy” by hearing the greeting of our friend who bears Christ to us.  Spiritual friends are rather like midwives to each other, responding to, and helping each other bring forth, the Christ within. 

We may have friends that we work with, friends that we enjoy being around, friends with whom we “hang out.”   But how many of us have a spiritual friend whom we can “love with mutual affection,” as Paul puts it in Romans? 

Here are some steps we can take, if we would have this kind of friendship:

1.  Seek it out.  Mary made the visit.  Actively look for, not merely friends, but an intentional relationship between at least two people, where the focus is on the nurture of each other’s spiritual life.  The Church community is not the only place, but it is a great place, in which we can find these kind of friendships.  We at Trinity already have model:  covenant groups of a few years ago, met for scripture reflection, check in on a spiritual discipline of our choosing, and then prayed for each other.  The catechist – catechumen relationships of the catechumenate are similar to spiritual friendships.  Are you interested in seeking out a spiritual friend?  Pray about it.  Then I invite you to speak to me or one of the clergy.    (Aelred has some good advice on whom to seek out.) 

2.  Acknowledge the third between us.  Within other.  Perhaps more difficult, to acknowledge the Christ within myself.  Jesus is present; we but need uncover him. “I am the bearer of Christ?!?”  A daunting thought.  If you find it daunting to acknowledge the Christ within, I encourage you to tell Jesus that you find it so, and to ask him, “Why do I find it so daunting, to imagine that I could bear you to another?”   Also, we may have a tendency to want to let relationships remain on a “hang out” or “sharing pleasantries” level  (“coffee hour relationships”), or even to subconsciously keep relationships on this level.  We do this because we are afraid… But fear is not of God.  Ask Jesus to shed some light on this fear.  

3.  Space for the relationship to gestate.  Note how Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months.  Spiritural friends must put in the time needed for spiritual friendships to develop and bear fruit.  Spiritual friendships will not happen accidentally – need to structure and intention – and even when they do happen, they tend to “go to seed” unless we remain vigilant.  And I have a hunch that silence will help this relationship gestate.  Whatever structure the relationship takes, spiritual friendships will usually benefit from a good deal of shared silence.  .  

I will leave you with a description of spiritual friendship from a woman named Dorothy Devers.  In her book Faithful Friendship, Dorothy Devers writes:

“In our day and age we tend to dilute our definition of significant friendship by making it hinge upon companionship and the simple holding of certain interests in common.. Too often this is as far as two or more “friends” might ever choose to go together. So much is lost when we settle for the safety of “hang-out buddies” who never enter our souls, who never challenge us to grow, who never allow God’s glory to be reflected through genuine humility, sacrificial love and an enduring commitment to our well-being and growth.”

Of her spiritual friendship, Devers says, “We exchange autobiographies. We keep journals. We learn to listen - to listen in prayer, to listen to one another, practicing being truly ‘present’. We learn to grow through communicating with another. We are enabled to develop certain attributes - humility, trusting attitude, capacity to love. Our daily life is the laboratory where we test and practice what we have studied and pondered in our daily quiet time and in our times with our faithful friend.”  

Sermon for Sunday, May 30, 2010

Trinity Sunday 

Today, sermon is primarily about conflict.  I’m going to tell us that conflict – unpleasant though it may be for many of us –  is necessary for healthy relationships and healthy communities.  And to a lesser extent today’s sermon is also about loneliness. 

But we’re not going to start there.  “Nice.”  Southern Belle Primer.

Window into the foreign land of the American South.  Cotillions, sorority rush, trousseau teas, Junior League socials and the arcane Southern Zodiac of Silverware.  (Chantilly girls must never marry a man from a family with Grand Baroque.  Girls with Acorn inevitably end up at one of those Ivy League Yankee schools and drink beer straight out of the bottle.)    The belle's spectrum of praise: Highest flattery (darlin’, precious), mild approval (cute), strong condemnation (sweet), bitter contempt (nice – the “kiss of death.”)

God as nice.

Want to start with “nice” because we Christians – especially Episcopalians – often think of God as “nice.”  Therefore we are nice.  But as the Southern Belle Primer shows us, “nice” has limitations.  First of which is that God is not nice.  Yes, I know such a statement goes against what was taught many of us in our Sunday Schools, but talk to anybody who has done the Whole Bible Experience.  God is compassionate, merciful, filled with “loving-kindness,” slow to anger, faithful, just – but God is not nice.  And this is not only the Old Testament God – God in the New Testament sent his only son to die for us.   

Parishes as “nice.”

Nice parishes are dangerous places.  In a “nice” parish, a parish in which we pretend that there is no conflict, conflict – which is inevitable and a part of every relationship or community – goes underground. And instead of being a place where the Gospel is preached, where souls are renewed and there is power to set free from sin, with conflict gone underground the endeavor we call “church” becomes a calculated form of passive aggression.  The only way to move forward or to get anything done is through manipulation.   

Antidote to nice is conviction.

Antidote to “nice” is not going out of our way to be mean; the antidote to nice is conviction.  “What is lost in being nice?”  Conviction.  At the heart of our liturgy every Sunday, we express our Christian conviction.  “We believe in one God, the Father, the almighty, maker of heaven and earth…  We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God…We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.”  As a community that weekly recites the Creed, we have the possibility of being a healthy community, of being a community of conviction.  (Do we have to believe the Creed?  The Creed is unbelievable, and all of us are works in progress as we try to comprehend its mysteries.  What is important is that we recite it and are wrestling with its meanings.) 

Right belief à Right Living.

Conviction in something so esoteric as the Trinity seems rather quaint.  And hasn’t conviction in the Trinity gotten people killed in the past?  Why would we want to bother asserting conviction in the Trinity?   à “Right belief leads to right living.”    

How can right belief in the Trinity lead to right living?

To be in a parish that is perpetually “nice” is to be in a parish that possesses an inadequate understanding of the Trinity. Remember that in the Trinity, there is a distinction of persons in a unity of being:  “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.”   In a parish bound by “nice” and afraid of conflict, the distinction of persons is minimized. In such a “nice” parish afraid of difference, the “Persons are confounded,” to use Trinitarian language. Not only does a nice parish confound the persons, but it also does not trust the unity:  if there is truly a unity, how then could it be broken by distinctions?  (And what sort of unity would it be if there were no distinctions?  (A boring one unbefitting the Trinity.)) 

Loneliness.

“Nice” and conviction are connected to loneliness.  Though on the surface “Nice” might be a better way to counter loneliness – being “nice” supposedly helps us engage with a wide variety of people – nice is actually a lonely place because it limits the depth our connection.  Conviction, though more difficult and more costly, has the potential to develop substantial, satisfying relationships.  (Stories of senators who are bitterly opposed in the senate, but fast friends outside the senate.)  The Trinity can be our model here:  they are distinct persons, to be sure, but connected in unity, they cannot be said to be lonely.

What does this all mean for us at Trinity Parish?

Story of Bp Bud’s visit several years ago.

“What was your impression of Trinity?”

1. “They were all really nice.  Just really nice.”
2. “What is the most pressing issue facing Trinity Parish right now?”  Trying to get the city not to put “No Parking” signs on Homer St.

We have come a long way since then.  Beginning to see signs of conviction:  1)  Have people making reaffirmation of their baptismal vows, who are saying that this is important.  2)  We no longer have unanimous votes at vestry meetings.  The great challenge facing Trinity Parish is how to dedicate 10% of our operating expenses to outreach and mission in 2011. 

Two things we can do / develop if we wish to continue to move past “nice:”

1. Keep developing conviction!  Great place to start is the Creed, the expression of conviction that is part of our baptismal liturgy, and that we were baptized into.  We will recite the Nicene Creed momentarily.  Keep reciting it!  Keep wrestling with it!  Also, consider joining the catechumenate, in which you have the opportunity to ask questions about and discuss the Creed as often as you like.
2. Pair conviction with humility.  Following the Creed is our remembrance of the supreme act of humility.  In the Eucharist, we remember and celebrate Jesus’ humbling himself, even to death on the cross.  Humility is necessary with conviction, lest we become unpleasant to be around. 
    
   

 

Our weekly expression of conviction paired with our weekly celebration of Christ’s humility, if we can take these into our lives and live them out in our lives, can be a powerful combination!  Can you imagine what Trinity Parish would be, if we were a parish of conviction combined with humility?  Yes, it might be challenging, because conviction often leads to conflict.  But it would likewise be deeply rewarding. 

Continue being people who recite the Creed.  Continue being people who receive the Eucharist.  Becoming people of both conviction and humility, we will move past the limitations of “nice,” and we will become a people who are at once lovers of God, and capable of making a difference in our world.