Sermon for: Easter VII B_RCL _ May 24, 2009_Ascension Sunday

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos (The Rev) Brian McHugh +

Totally unbeknownst to her – at least I think it was; one never knows! – my maternal grandmother Margaret Harker Angell made it possible for me to receive one of the most important gifts of my childhood. Her husband, my grandfather Joe, died in 1939 at age forty-five of heart failure apparently brought on by the effects of being gassed in WWI. My grandmother was an unusual woman. She did two things with some insurance money. She bought a big black Packard – though she did not ever drive. And she bought a little tiny cottage on a beautiful lake in the Laurentian Mountains about 80 miles north of Montreal in a village called Montfort – then a very long way on often torturous roads. There, for the next almost thirty years, she had herself taken in the Spring of every year, and brought back to her flat in Verdun before the snow flew or her wood and coal stove couldn’t keep out the cold. At four weeks old, in 1946, I was taken to Montfort. I spent every summer there until I was sixteen. It is the only physical place I have missed or longed for.

The gift? Well, since I was not a “jock” and temperamentally “out of synch” with most of the other boys, I spent a lot of time alone, quite happily. I wandered the forests for endless hours, and swam or boated on several little lakes, most often with no sounds other than Nature. Lying naked on large rocks heated by the sun, I came to know intuitively that I was integrally woven into the World around me; that It and I were One. And if there was an Energy behind it all, that I was One with It. Later, I would come to know the word “God” to name this Energy – though from that time until now I have waged a long struggle to know the true nature of “God”, and I am not finished yet. But never since those childhood says have I doubted my experience of Oneness with all Being, and with It’s Source, whatever that may be.

The Christian Story can be seen, in one sense, as my story writ large, or my story as the Christian Story writ small . And I think that, either positively or negatively, it is probably true of us all. I liked the portrayal of God the Father as a Black woman in the book “The Shack”; it reminded me of my grandmother and the part she played for me in the search for who I am. In some way, consciously or unconsciously, all human beings are seeking to experience Unity or Oneness with Creation and with the creative Mystery at It’s heart. The Biblical story can be seen as the tragedy of the breaking of that Oneness, and of the estrangement, struggle and suffering that plagues that brokenness. The Gospel Story of Jesus can be seen as a story of the journey towards the healing of the Brokenness. In great simplicity, telling of the birth of God in human form, of His rekindling in His followers their sense of the divine at their very core, of the “Man/God” whose power triumphs over death, it reweaves the shredded threads of human existence back into the great tapestry of Being so that we can see the whole and true picture. The message is clear: in union with “God”, Life is eternal and we are forever woven into that Eternity. By the end of the Story, we are all metaphorically lying on the sun-warmed rocks, conscious of our Unity with all Life and with “God”.

The Church celebrated the next to last step in the basic Story last Thursday: Jesus’ ascension into Heaven. A tough moment for His followers. Having “lost” Jesus to the Cross, and having regained Him and experienced His Life and Love with them again, He tells them He must leave. Why? Because the Unity for which He so earnestly prays in John’s Gospel can only be accomplished in one way: “God” must be woven into and live in each human heart and spirit, for this is the true place where the Divine Spirit and humans are One.

Suzanne Guthrie says, in writing of Ascensiontide, “The Church gives us ten days to practice dwelling in the ambiguous time of the Resurrected Christ vanished, and the Holy Spirit not yet come. In the mystical life, Ascensiontide is the Dark Night of the Soul, the anguished sense of abandonment after a solid period of union. The soul can not cling even to this union. The last threads of attachment must be broken in the darkness of unknowing before the completion of the Christian transformation – being “sent” into the world as bearers of Love. But the mystics testify to a stunning paradox. The abandonment IS the union. It is in the Dark Night of the Soul that Lover meets Beloved and transforming union takes place”. (1)   We remember the words of the Psalmist: “Darkness is not dark to You; the Night is as bright as the Day”.

The sixteenth century mystic John of the Cross, in his poem “The Dark Night” beautifully describes the journey that we metaphorically must take in this Ascensiontide:


On that glad night,
In secret, for no one saw me,
Nor did I look at anything,
With no other light or guide
Than the one that burned in my heart;

This guided me
More surely than the light of noon
To where He waited for me
-Him I knew so well-
In a place where no one else appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
The Lover with His beloved,
……
Upon my flowering breast
Which I kept wholly for Him alone,
There He lay sleeping,
And I caressing Him
There in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
………
I abandoned and forgot myself,
Laying my face on my Beloved;
All things ceased; I went out from myself,
Leaving my cares
Forgotten among the lilies. (2)


In the liturgical ten days between Ascension and Pentecost, we follow the seemingly dark path that leads from the sense of being “abandoned” by God to the awareness of our unity with the Divine which cannot be broken - only forgotten. Having been cast out of Eden and an intimate relationship with God, we discover that the place where we walk with God in the cool of the evening is as near to us as our breath. The prayer of the Christ has been affirmed: we are one with God as He is with the Father. And this must translate into the profound sense of our unity with each other. Next Sunday, on the Feast of Pentecost, we will be breathed upon by the wind of the Holy Spirit, in confirmation of the common Life we share with people of every language and nation. Then, sustained by Word and Sacrament and holy Fellowship, so that we might not forget who we are, and leaving our “cares / Forgotten among the lilies”, we take up the mission the Christ gives us – to be bearers of Divine Compassion to each other and to the World.

Alleluia! Not as orphans are we left in sorrow now / Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how: / though the cloud from sight received him, when the forty days were o’er / shall our hearts forget his promise, “I am with you evermore”.  (3)

1. Suzanne Guthrie, on her website “At the Edge of the Enclosure”, for Easter VII
2. John of the Cross, The Dark Night, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD & Otilio Rodriguez OCD
3. William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898) Second verse of Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (#460-461, 1982 Hymnal)

Sermon for: Easter IV B_RCL _ May 3, 2009_”Good Shepherd”
St. Benedict’s, Los Osos (The Rev) Brian McHugh +


Recently, we here at St. Benedict’s have had the fun opportunity to hobnob with a flock of goats. That’s probably the closest most of us get to sheep. But in general, we don’t have much if any experience of the culture of shepherds. “Good Shepherd Sunday” usually produces a lot of reflection about sheep. I would like us to focus on the shepherd today. Here is one reflection on the shepherd role:

The symbolism of the shepherd … contains the sense of a wisdom which is both intuitive and the fruit of experience. The shepherd symbolizes watchfulness. His duties entail the constant exercise of vigilance. He is awake and watching. Hence he is compared with the Sun, which sees all things, and with the king. Furthermore, since … the shepherd symbolizes the nomad, he is rootless and stands for the soul which is not a native of this Earth but always a stranger and pilgrim. In so far as his flock is concerned, the shepherd acts as a guardian and to this is linked knowledge, since he knows what pasture suits the animals in his charge. He observes the Heavens, the Sun, the Moon and the stars and can predict the weather. He distinguishes sounds and hears the noise of approaching wolves, as well as the bleating of lost sheep. Through the different duties which he performs, he is regarded as a wise man whose activities are the result of contemplation and inner vision. In other words, the Shepherd is a guide to be trusted.

Why essentially do we gather as “church”? Why are we striving to follow Jesus and His Gospel? I’m a life-long seeker after knowledge, and so I’m always asking and re-asking these questions, and will continue I’m sure until the day I die to this Life. I’m well aware that there are no simplistic answers to these questions. Today, the question is, Who is this “Good Shepherd”, and to what sheepfold are we being shepherded? What Voice are we being asked to hear and trust?

Bruno Barnhart, in his book “The Good Wine: Reading John from the Centre”, writes these words:

Jesus, the new Adam, is at once shepherd and Word, “Name” of God, who is sent to men and women, to call them by name – by their true names in the creative Word, which are godly names, generative of divine being. Those who hear the Word of God are gathered into it and become “gods.” Those who receive the Son of God are gathered in to him and become children of God (John 1:12).

Did you hear those words? “Generative of divine beings”. Now that is a startling phrase! The Shepherd is the Divine Word that has been sent to us. The Divine Shepherd dwells within every person. The Divine Shepherd is the One Who knows who we really are, are meant to be. The sheepfold we are being led to is God, where we become “gods”, or “children of God”. Or, as Barnhart puts it: “The Father and I are one” (10:30). The sheepfold into which Jesus leads those who hear his voice, who hear him speak their new names – whether they have been Jews or Gentiles – is ultimately this One, this I Am, which is his own being. The ultimate goal of the Christian - and as a symbol, of all persons - is, by following what is called in mystical theology the “Unitive Way”, to become One with the Divine. To become not “God” as in taking God’s place, but of God in our humanity. We Christians hold a very high doctrine of human nature - and it is Scripturally based!

Christianity is of course not the only religion or path that seeks unity with God. Most do. It has been said that the primary concern of most religions is Incarnation - the recognition of the divine in Creation. I recently finished a book called “Hidden Journey”, by Andrew Harvey, who was the youngest man, at age 25, to be elected a Fellow of an Oxford college. His description of the search for union with God by fully offering himself as a disciple to a Hindu woman who was recognized as an avatar of the goddess known as the Great Mother, was intriguing. While the Eastern context is “strange” to Westerners, I recognized in it many principles of the mystical life that are taught in Christian and Jewish mysticism. Primary is the recognition that we are of the Divine; that we are not, as our Ego tells us, separate from God, or each other. In reflecting on Jesus’ hearers rushing forward to stone Jesus to death, Barnhart comments that “what they rush forward to destroy is the divine-human life which is their own destiny”. Yes, we are often our own worst enemies when it comes to fulfilling our destiny as human-divine beings – and this is why finding and following a Good Shepherd whose “voice” we can trust is critical.

What does that Voice sound like, and what makes Jesus an authentic “Good” Shepherd? A former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, once translated the meaning of “Good” as “The Beautiful One”. He had this to say about the word “Good”, as applied to Jesus and, by association, with us:

….. the word for “good” here is one that represents, not the moral rectitude of goodness, nor its austerity, but its attractiveness. We must not forget that our vocation is so to practice virtue that [people] are won to it; it is possible to be morally upright repulsively! [What a superb phrase – and true!] In the Lord Jesus we see “the beauty of holiness” (Psalm xcvi,9). He was “good” in such manner as to draw all men to Himself (xii,32). And this beauty of goodness is supremely seen in the act by which He would so draw them, wherein He lays down his life for the sheep.

Yes: the words and deeds of unconditional Compassion and Love - these are the “voice” that will or should resonate with the divine nature that is at our core as human beings, and with the urgency of our Journey through this Earthly Life.

We have a tendency to make the picture of Jesus carrying the little lamb all cute and cuddly and benign. Perhaps we should rethink our iconography about this. “Wandering sheep” – that is, we - are often at great danger, and the shepherd has to be tough, wise, experienced, vigilant, sensitive to the waywardness of our “soul”. In other words, if we really want to achieve Oneness with God, really want to become fully human and fully our Selves, we must not listen to the voice of false shepherds about whom the prophet Ezekial warned the people of Israel - and there are plenty around with seductive voices willing to take on the job!

One of the primary reasons we gather as “church” is to learn the character and nature of a true Good Shepherd. And, as well, to learn how to be a Good Sheep. Ultimately, the Sheep and the Shepherd are One – that is the Mystery we are seeking to inhabit. It is our destiny to become, by our union with God, “attractive”, living our moral virtue so that others are drawn by our acts of kindness and justice, not repulsed by moral aloofness or arrogance. We see a lot of the latter these days. I am heartened by the result of recent polls which show that Americans in greater numbers are rejecting the voices of false shepherds.

Every human person is born with the Good Shepherd indwelling in us. The Christ we know as Christians is trustworthy. Our work is to distill out the authentic Shepherd from the false shepherds that others have insinuated into what we now call the Scriptures.

One hymn that will be sung at my funeral (#645, Hymnal 1980 – The King of Love my Shepherd Is) - in hopes that I have been faithful - makes clear what the central character of the faithful Good Shepherd is; it is a paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm appointed for today’s Liturgy. Listen to the Psalm again, in The Message version:

God, my shepherd! I don't need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I'm back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life.

You and I have been “attracted” by the true Goodness of the Christ in us. May our Life Together at St. Benedict’s deepen that Divine Presence in us. May our own lives, reflecting Jesus’ giving up His life in love for the sheep, “attract” others to authentic humanity, and to Oneness with the God of Love.