Advent IV B_RCL Dec 18, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

2 Sam 11: 1-11,16 Canticle 15 Rom 16: 25-27 Luke 1: 26-38

"A Mansion Prepared for Himself "

“Who am I?”
“Who do I wish to be?”
And the third Question must follow as Day follows Night: “What is my heart like?”
I think that these are the questions that all human beings, and certainly all Christians, would do well to meditate on at the beginning of every day. They are the questions that lie at the core of all seeking, all religion, all art.

I have come – that is, I have chosen - to believe that at the heart of the Mystery of Being Human there is a common Story, a Great Myth - by which of course I mean a Story that speaks the deepest Truth about Life. This common Story has taken different forms throughout history. The Great Myth is often held in one simple, all-encompassing, holy Word: “God”. In order to become a complete and whole living being, one must become One with God, with the very essence of Life. This is the core teaching, the core wisdom, of all religious thought. And at the core of all religious practice is the desire to enter into this unity with God.

We disciples of Jesus have our version of the Great Myth. It is a beautiful, charming, powerful ….. and sometimes inevitably a disturbing Story, because it deals with living and dying, hate and love, suffering and joy, enslavement and freedom. Every year, it unfolds as we do our primary spiritual work, our leitourgia, liturgy – “the work of the people”. Every Advent the call goes out: Come to the banks of the Jordan, confront your separation from God, begin to “make straight in the desert a highway for our God”. And the work begins. It is a yearly cycle ….. but it also a daily cycle. Every day is a journey through Advent to Resurrection to new life in the Spirit.

Advent Sunday brought us face to face with the questions, Who am I?” “Who do I wish to be?” On this third Sunday of Advent, here we are, each and all of us, in the figure of Mary. And the answer comes: “You are the Theotokas, the God-bearer. Will you say Yes to God’s request to come and dwell in your heart?” As the Collect for today asks, will the One Who Comes find a “mansion prepared for Himself”?

The 11th C mystic Bernard of Clairvaux captures the urgency of our answering, not only for ourselves but for the whole human community, in words addressed to Mary:

“This is what the whole earth waits for, prostrate at your feet. It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed salvation for all the children of Adam, the whole of your race. Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal word.”


In Mary, each of us is charmingly seen in our youth, in our freshness, in the openness of youth to a new adventure despite the challenges hinted at in the fact that she will be stepping outside the accepted ethics of her community as a pregnant unmarried woman. On this journey to union with God, we are all likely to have to face into cultural demands that run counter to our longing for union with the God of Unconditional Love, Justice, Compassion, and Kindness. Bernard recognizes the power of the World, and therefore the urgency to say with Mary, “Let it be to me according to your Will” ….. for in some way, on our Yes depends “salvation for all the children of Adam”.

The importance of living out our Great Myth is spoken to by Rob McCall, the editor of the Awanadjo Almanac ; he says:

“Ancient myths and legends so surround the Christmas season that it is hard to know what’s true and what isn’t. The oldest biblical accounts include no nativity tales, no angels, no wise men, no stable and no date of Jesus’s birth. December 25th was likely borrowed from the pagan Saturnalia and solstice celebrations. Our roly-poly Santa Claus is a 19th century make-over of the 4th century St. Nicholas who brought gifts to poor children. Flying reindeer didn’t pull Santa’s sleigh until Clement Moore’s famous poem “’The Night Before Christmas,” first published in 1823. Christmas was a regular business and school day in Boston until about 1860. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer didn’t show up until the 1930s. Myths can be bad when they over-ride common sense and when we worship the myths themselves rather than the truth behind them. But myths can be exceedingly good when they awaken our hearts to joy, wonder, reverence and compassion for Creation, as all good myths will do. Children need good myths for their hearts and souls to flourish. And so do adults. We need to believe, not in myths of endless war and terror, but in myths of peace on earth. As we believe, so we do.”

With Mary, we say a daily “Yes” and enter into the journey towards union with the Mystery of God, into the journey to human wholeness, and into the creating on Peace on Earth.

I hope that in the future Dennis and I will have opportunity to worship again with you. Happily, Dennis has gotten a good job as General Manager of Food and Dining Services at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico, 14 miles from our property! What a blessing! This is his last Sunday. I leave after the Christmas Liturgy. I certainly have had a lot of frustration with “church” over the decades. But “church” is vitally important when it is centered in being a community in which we all together work to “prepare a mansion fit for” God to dwell. Dennis and I have found St. Benedict’s a nurturing place for this ongoing journey and it has been our pleasure to share it with you and to have found so many new friends.

As we approach the celebration of the Incarnation, in which through the beautiful, so-human Story of the manifestation of God in human form in the child Jesus we are reminded that the womb of Mary and the inn and the manger are our own hearts, may we delight in the assuring words of another mystic, Juan de la Cruz, in the 16th C:

Oh, then, soul, most beautiful among all creatures, so anxious to know the dwelling place of your Beloved so you may go in search of him and be united with him: now we are telling you that you yourself are his dwelling and his secret inner room and hiding place. There is reason for you to be elated and joyful in seeing that all your good and hope is so close as to be within you, or better, that you cannot be without him.

Proper of All Saints_RCL Nov 6, 2011 St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA

The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Rev 7: 9-17 Ps 34 1 John 3: 1-3 Matthew 5: 5-12 (Beatitudes)

Getting Your Mind and Heart Put Right

It’s All Saints Day! This is the day that we disgustingly uninhibited, somewhat boundary-less Episcopalians remember everyone who has gone before, because, to quote the fabulous Louis Crew, Founder of Integrity, “God loves absolutely everyone!”.

Let’s take a minute or two to remember our favourite “saints”. I’ll start with a couple. First, my Nana, Margaret Harker Angell. I went to visit her every Saturday when I was a boy. She lived in the then wilds of Montreal East, and it was an adventure, taking 1.5 hours on three buses, all by myself from age 9 till 15. The visit started with her putting five dollars in my hand and sending me to the store at the top of the street to buy five pounds of chocolates. I got to eat a few, and she would consume the rest during the week - “to soothe her throat” she said. Then we would play cards ….. for money! She staked me five dollars. She always let me win, and I would go home with ten or twenty dollars – an enormous sum in those days for a kid. (I never told my parents.) She’d cook me lunch; whatever else we had, it always included home-made chips (known in this country as French Fries) with vinegar. And we would laugh a lot, and look forward to the summer, when I would go to her cottage in the mountains to spend an idyllic three months. She died at age 82 in 1968, when I was 21 and a postulant in the Order of the Holy Cross ….. alas from smoke inhalation in a fire, caused – you guessed it – from cooking chips. I was on our postulant retreat at the time. My novice master came to tell me the news, and asked if I wanted to go to Montreal for her funeral. I knew it would be at some horrible funeral home, with who knows who leading the service. “No”, I said, “I want to remember her as she was”. Nana was full of life; always generous, not just to me; never went to church; loved being with her friends, at card parties and lunches at the cottage, to which I was always invited. Oh yes, she could be demanding! But to me she was primarily a kind, loving, fun-loving, failable human being ….. qualities I look for in a saint.

Three others, among many: Pope John XXIII, a simple man, and a true reflection of Jesus. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Anglican bishop of Shanghai, who, after a stroke, with the use only of one finger, typed out a Mandarin translation of the Gospels – a work of love and faithfulness. And my friend Bishop Ann Tottenham, retired Suffragan bishop of Toronto, one of the funniest people I know, and devoted to nurturing the young as a school headmistress, and her clergy as a bishop. She could bring healing humour to any trouble, and a fine humility about herself.

What about you? Go: you have 2 minutes. [ Give 2-3 minutes ]

On this All Saints Day, I want to lead us in a meditation about the nurturing of the soul in the image of God. That, I think, is what the feast of All Saints is essentially about. It is about our fellowship with those who have sought, many with great struggle and all with varying levels of success, to be filled with the wondrous mystery of God. Which includes all of us, in this eccentric and so very human community of Christians at St. Benedict’s. And which brings me to another “saint” of mine: Dr. Eugene Peterson, the creator of the version of Scripture known as The Message. For many generations, the Gospel reading for the Feast of All Saints has been The Sermon on the Mount (or as Luke has it, The Sermon on the Plain), called The Beatitudes. Being good Episcopalians, we have left off the following Curses, in the theologically astute knowledge that Jesus could not possibly have uttered them! [ I thank Caro for having that optional Gospel today instead of the one appointed.]

We are all familiar with The Beatitudes we just heard in the “traditional” translations. Libraries have been written about them. But Dr. Peterson, who is a Biblical scholar and an expert in ancient Biblical languages, sees through to the essence of living the Way of the Beatitudes, the Way of the Saints. You can hear it; listen:

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule. “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you. “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

Becoming homoousios – “of one being with the [Holy One]”; that is the path of sainthood. Desire “More of God”. Hunger for God’s embrace. Understand the essential giftedness of Life. Sustain yourself with Holy Food. Sainthood has little to do with dumbed-down morality and with “following the rules”. Have you ever wondered why such a big deal is made of ordaining priests in our church? Sure, priests are being given a ministry to do; but essentially we reflect the baptismal promise to every one of us: we are being made – ontologically changed - by the Holy Spirit into a saint, a member of the Priesthood of All Believers.

This has nothing whatever to do with denying our humanity and our mortality. It is simply our own attempt to manifest what our mind, heart and spirit has revealed to us, deep within our being, of Who We Are. We are each a Christ, a part of God.

Am I trying to make you “feel good” about yourself. You bet I am! We are all “saints of God”, all on the path to whatever beauty we can manage in this earthly life. And so, I believe, is every human being - and that is why we decline to dishonour or denigrate any person, why we welcome every person here whatever their stage of “The Journey”. We are neither perfect or imperfect: we are, as Dr. Peterson says, “content with just who we are”, inching, with each others’ help, to Wholeness.

We are here today, as every Sunday, for the best and most deeply satisfying meal that we will ever eat: God! Partaking of the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ is the Sacred Longing at the heart of our lives – the longing to be One with God.

Eat this bread, drink this cup / come to me and never be hungry. / trust in me and you will not thirst.

O blessed Communion, fellowship divine! / We feebly struggle, they in glory shine / Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine / Alleluia! Our participation in the community of the saints is a daily walk. And, less we feel overwhelmed by the path we must walk, The Talmud shows us the simple, faithful way:

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

Proper 21A_RCL

September 25, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Ex 17: 1-7; Ps 78: 1-4,12-16; Phil 2: 1-13; Matthew 21: 23-32


In 1972, my mother came to my Life Profession in the Order of the Holy Cross. She was going through “the Change”, cried a lot, and carried the Eucharistic elements down the aisle wearing very dark glasses. In 1973, she came to my ordination to the priesthood, and again carried down the Eucharistic elements, no sunglasses, smiling, cool as a cucumber. At the reception afterwards, I recalled the first event, and complimented her on how well she had done. “Well”, she said, “I should have ….. after two Valium!”

I’ve had a hell of a month since my surgery. The worst has been the lingering shock to my system - like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My whole system wound tighter than a clock spring. My body was saying loud and clear - this being the 4th time my gut has been ripped open - “Enough is enough, OK?!” I am grateful for your love and prayers – and for the Ativan that is unwinding me a bit! I’m still a little shaky ….. but I’m here.

Many clergy often tell jokes in their sermons. I’ve always thought it generally a very bad idea. The joke is often all anyone remembers. But, I’m going to begin with a funny and – at least to me - relevant story, in the sure and certain hope that you St. Benedictites will rise above the temptation.

A drunk man who smelled like beer sat down on a subway next to a priest. The man's tie was stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick, and a half-empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began reading. After a few minutes the man turned to the priest and asked, 'Say Father, what causes arthritis?' The priest replied, 'My Son, it's caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol, contempt for your fellow man, sleeping around with prostitutes, and lack of a bath.'
The drunk muttered in response, 'Well, I'll be damned,' then returned to his paper. The priest, thinking about what he had said, nudged the man and apologized. 'I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to come on so strong. How long have you had arthritis? 'The drunk answered, 'I don't have it, Father. I was just reading here that the Pope does.'

And there we have it: a modern day version of the “chief priests and the elders, tax collectors and prostitutes” in the Gospel reading today. Except that the priest in the joke exhibits something that the “chief priests and elders” don’t have, but which the tax collectors and the prostitutes do: they are dying to the old life and rising to the new. Almost everything in the Gospel of Jesus has to do with entering the Kingdom of God: "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you." And of course, in you and in me at various times is found them all: the power and status-clinging chief priest or elder, the greedy tax collector or the self-demeaning prostitute, the judgmental priest and the addicted drunken man. They each dwell in some dimension in our inner psyche.

After nearly forty years in the priesthood, it’s pretty clear to me what lies at the heart of entering Kingdom Life - that Kingdom which Jesus tells us has come near to us now in Him. It shines forth from the cross, far outshining the horror and the suffering. It is the outpouring of Love - Life pouring Itself out to give Life to the World, so powerfully voiced in the great hymn from Philippians. Love flowing down from the person of Jesus to engulf us all. We can only be filled with awe and perhaps holy fear when we hear Him calling us to take up His cross - to give ourselves as completely to Love as Jesus did so that the Kingdom of God may manifest itself in the Earth.

The Kingdom of God and the Way of the Cross and the Way of Discipleship and the Way of Baptism are the same thing: a life in which we accept and welcome death to everything that is not Love (or, as Paul puts it, we are buried with Christ) and become a new person in the risen Christ. To put it even more simply: what is not of Love is death, and what is of Love is resurrection. Right here, right now.

I came to two moments of deep knowing while meditating on this Gospel this week. The first was about the nature of one of Christianity’s core symbols: Jesus dying on the cross. What I saw Him doing, through the pain, was marshalling Love in the midst of the suffering. Bonding his mother Mary and John to each other. Freeing the repentant thief. Struggling through a sense of abandonment to a renewed trust in His loving Heavenly Father. As I pictured this scene, I became aware that Jesus’ deepest pain came from His acute awareness of the failure of Love. I felt the fear and hate of the rich and powerful. I was grateful for Joseph of Arimathea’s loving care, adding a touch of love at the end, and Mary of Magdala and the women. I literally felt overshadowed by the deep sorrow and disappointment that Life/God must feel when we reject It’s gift and choose Death.

My second moment was a dream I had after a restless night of not being able to turn over or sleep comfortably. Sometime after 3am, I fell asleep. I dreamt that I was tied to a cross in the middle of the United Nations Plaza. In front of me was a semicircle of huge TV screens, which kept changing. Right in front of me was one that didn’t change. It was a picture of the Republican candidate debate, where all the people were clapping in support that a person without health insurance should be left to die. On others I saw governments mowing down their citizens - Libya, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Somalia, Yemen, Jews on the borders of Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Burma - behind many of whom loomed American soldiers. I saw people dying everywhere of hunger and neglect, Darfur, Pakistan, Sudan, Kenya, China, 46 million American children holding up begging bowls. Then a voice came from my right. I turned. Jesus was on a cross beside me. He said, “Follow me, and you will live”.

No one can enter the Kingdom of God except through death. . … Our false self must die, so that we can find our true self, the self which God meant us to be and which he created in his image and likeness.

Our government, like many others, seems to have lost its moral compass. This week, a possibly innocent Troy Davis died as if before a modern Pontius Pilate concerned only with securing revenge for 150 years of humiliation. In my dream, the faces of human leaders melted into mindless metal, devoid of compassion, pity, brotherhood, injecting needles replacing arms and hands.

What a time to live! The World, the whole human community, is dying for lack of Love. The signs tell me that it will get a lot worse before it gets better. We Americans are more vulnerable than ever before, as structures we thought firm are collapsing around us. But the plan has not changed for those of us gathered here to share in the Body and Blood of Christ: “Love one another.” Shine from the hill that others may find Life. We will be there waiting with Love when we pass through the next great transition.

Proper 16A_RCL

August 21, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Isaiah 51: 1-6 Ps 124 Romans 12: 1-8 Matthew 16: 13-20


The 19th C Russian Orthodox bishop and saint Theophan the Recluse once wrote this when asked about prayer:

You must descend from
 your head into your heart.
 At present your thoughts of God
 are in your head. And God Himself is,
 as it were, outside you, and
 so your prayer and other spiritual 
exercises 
remain exterior. Whilst you are still 
in your head,
 thoughts will not easily be subdued but 
will always be whirling about … like clouds of mosquitoes in summer.

Now, to my ever-quirky mind, Theophan’s words relate directly to the Gospel passage this morning. Jesus is having a discussion with His disciples - and it is a “head” discussion, the wandering rabbi engaging and challenging His pupils on the meaning of Scripture. The phrase “Son of Man” is a semitic idiom originating in Mesopotamia, used in Hebrew, denoting “humanity” or “self”. Used in Greek, it can mean “offspring of Man”. The phrase was presumably evolving by Jesus’ time, and the disciples offer both traditional [some say Elijah or Jermiah] and “modern” interpretations [some say John the Baptist]. Jesus then changes the drift by asking, “Who do you say that I am?”, and Peter – in one of those sudden shifts of consciousness that all therapists and clergy love - blurts out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”. It is a seemingly wacko, disconnected response ….. but one that Jesus was, I think, hoping for and obviously, by His response, delighted in.

The whole thing has suddenly shifted from the head to the heart. The cloud of mosquitos has dispersed. Peter, speaking for us all, voices what we have come to call the “a-ha!” moment – which always surprises us, and which we usually can’t explain. They are what people online call OMG moments – Oh My God! Abraham had one with the Three Strangers; Jacob one at Bethel when he awoke from his dream and exclaimed “God is in this place and I did not know it!”; and Peter, when he said, “Now I know that God shows no partiality!”

Jesus’ response to Peter was: "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Many Christians, especially the Roman Catholic Church, have taken this literally and interpreted Jesus’ words to their ends. I leave you to decide the legitimacy of that. What I am engaged by is the inner and mystical meaning. This is how I see it: Peter’s “heart” has caught a vivid blinding glimpse of the vast and infinite Love that is God in the person and action and words of Jesus. I choose to believe that this awareness lies hidden in every human heart, waiting to be touched and ignited by the fire of the Holy Spirit. The awareness of the vast and infinite Love that is God is the rock on which the community of God, of Love – the “church” – is built. And, as the parable of the house built on sand or rock reminds us, it is the only base on which the Church – and by extension, the human community – can be sustained in any authenticity as a manifestation of what God desires of us.

It is not possible fully to enter the Kingdom, to receive the keys to the Kingdom, unless we are blinded, struck dumb, by the light of the Divine Love. Jesus told us that His Kingdom was “not of this World”. He told us that the Kingdom was “within us” - among us, so very near and yet often so very far from our consciousness. The Kingdom does not manifest Itself with any clarity in the World unless it lives in our hearts. In Heaven, all is in accord with God’s Love. To the extent that the overwhelming wonder of Divine Love lives in us depends what is bound or loosed in the World: fear or freedom, hate or enfolding, division or unity, despair or joy, war or peace.

At the end of the passage today, Jesus tells His disciples not to tell anyone that He is the Messiah. Why? My interpretation is because He does not want anyone to settle for the superficial easy solution of how we are “saved” – a military or political or economic one. Jesus is the transformer of the soul - and that is the path to which He calls all humanity.

Every now and then, I’ve had to revise a sermon. One Christmas Eve, I was all prepared and ready ….. until that morning I read the cartoon “Hagar the Horrible”, and had to revise the whole thing. This week, it is the fault of my esteemed colleague Amma Donna. We were having an online discussion about my Reflection on St. Theophan’s words, and about “spiritual practice”. She emailed: “by "practice" I didn't mean the habitual things we do to try to stay in the same ballpark as God, whether liturgy or reading or meditation, etc. I meant, what do I have to do to move out of my bumbling, self-protective "head" into my more generous "heart"? And what do I do to train my heart towards more generosity? If I'm Peter and I momentarily "get it" (and I think he did), how do I get back there the next time I'm functioning as plain old Peter again?

Lucky for me, she just asked what we need to do, not how to do it! So I offer only one, and you all can think about your own answers this week: We need to enlarge our Love. We need to enlarge our consciousness of the vastness and infiniteness of the Divine Love. I can be pretty circumscribed in my love! I have a whole long list of people I don’t want to love or whom I think don’t deserve my love. But something has been happening in me, especially since I retired from parish ministry (whatever that might mean!). My sense of God has been expanding. I’ve been getting out of my head and “descending into the heart” – and there God is beyond all the stuff that human heads put on God. Beyond institutional church and beyond theologies and creeds. I wake up in the morning these days and I’m aware that I’m awash in a great cosmic, all-embracing sea of Divine Love. All the other stuff of Life pales in comparison.

I can suggest one place we can start in descending from the head into the heart. We have each other. This is in part what the church, and our own St. Benedict’s community, is about. We are all different, and we have different ideas; we agree or disagree, sometimes quite strongly. But we can practice interacting with each other as fellow fishes in the Sea of Divine Love.

I do not denigrate or undervalue the work of the intellect or philosophy or science; in fact I deeply value them. But may we remember the 17th C words of Brother Lawrence:

[God] alone can make Himself known as he really is. But we go on
searching in philosophy and science, preferring, it seems, a poor copy
to the original that God himself paints in the depths of our souls.

The deepest love I have for my Dennis, or for you, or for myself, is not for anything external. It is not for any “poor copy", but for the Original in the depth of the soul. It is the same with God. In the heart – which in ancient thought is the place of deepest Knowing – is the vastness and infiniteness of the Love which is God and you and me.

To seek and live this Love is our Life in Jesus the “Messiah, son of the Living God”.

Proper 14A_RCL

August 7, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

1 Kings 19:9-18 Ps 85 Rom 10: 5-15 Matthew 14: 22-33


water - a poem of the water-walker in us all

water
water is life, yes
we float in the watery womb
we emerge a water-creature given shape in a shell of leaky tissue
dehydration is an enemy to be constantly watched
improperly drained, we bloat with edema that can kill us
yes, water is life and death both
we walk a fine line between them
too little is bad, too much is bad
like peter we must walk a fine line upon the water
it’s swim or sink, this living business
maybe sink and swim
when we drown here, only a bloated corpse rises
but not so when we live in the spirit

a boat helps
a vision, a path, experience, wisdom, strategies, insight,
help, o god yes, help
a vessel with sail or oars or engine
because to live we cannot just float
but travel across the great seas of being
the sea of mind, the sea of intellect
the sea of feelings, the sea of love
the sea of wounds, the sea of healing
the sea of struggle and the sea of peace
there are always waves and winds that batter
we can be blown helter-skelter …
or we can install some radar

“jesus came walking toward them on the sea”
who is this jesus?
he is the master of fear
“do not be afraid; it is I”
he clangs like an unseen buoy
sharp and clear in the dense fog
when we are far from land and the winds are against us
“follow me follow me
love one another
seek first the kingdom
do not be anxious
leave the dead to bury the dead
sell all you have and give to the poor
have compassion like the good samaritan
eat my flesh, drink my blood
do my words
have faith, come, walk on the water”

faith is not magic
faith is trust in what our heart speaks to us of life
that we can have what life offers us
faith is courage to step boldly into the wind and tempest
faith is knowing
[sing] we have an anchor that keeps the soul
steadfast and sure while the billows roll
fastened to the rock which cannot move
grounded firm and deep in the saviour’s love

as light must shine and fire must burn
so love must act
so we must step out
life can be dormant or vibrant
we can live in the paleness beneath the waves
or in the sun above
this is the call and promise of baptism
dying to a pale life, rising to a bright life
it is only love that catches us by the hand
only love that lifts us into life
this jesus who walks in the light
who commands us to come and walk with him on the water
for there is no other way to find life
even herod wanted to meet such a man

do we doubt love?
do we cry in fear “it is a ghost”
when love comes striding through the gale
offering its strong hand?

faith trusts love
and seeks to walk love’s way
love is stronger than death
it lasts
of the three is the greatest

life is full of storm and tempest
let us choose love
the winds will cease

let us live love
it shall be said of us
“how beautiful are the feet of those
who bring good news”

bhoam+
080711

Proper 11A_RCL - July 17, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Genesis 28: 10-19a Ps 139: 1-11,22-23 Rom 8: 12-25 Matthew 13:24-30,36-43


I don’t know about you. But what I require from the Scripture we hear week by week is a window into Reality. I see Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom as just such windows. They express what He believed to be Reality, and He invites us to engage with them and use them to clarify our vision about the essence of Life in general and our own Life in particular. Human beings always have agendas of course, open or hidden! We see it in the Gospel today. I agree with many scholars who believe that the “interpretation” of the parable is an add-on by an apocalyptic faction within the community that produced the Gospel we call “Matthew”. I’m sure they sincerely believed that they were interpreting Jesus “correctly”. I’m equally sure they had their own hidden local agenda. It’s up to you and me to discern if there is anything helpful in their interpretation for us today. (Not for me!) Seeing the Scriptures for what they are and how they were formed is in itself a challenge to see Reality!

The writer and retreat leader Judy Cannato, in her very engaging book “Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Black Holes, Supernovas, and Other Wonders of the Universe”, says, “Contemplation is a long loving look at what is real”. Personally, I don’t generally believe in Absolutes, including Reality. My intention this morning is to invite you to join me in contemplating the Reality Jesus offers in this kingdom parable, and to consider what Realities we chose to live by.

Here’s what I think the parable says about the nature of Life, about Reality: Human Beings are capable of Good and Evil – Love and Un-love. It distorts Reality if we deny both those characteristics - if we delude ourselves that we were created “Good” and some outside force makes us “do bad”. The wheat and the tares grow together. The enemy is within - and must be recognized and faced. The God of Love and the Prince of Lies are the two faces of the coin of Life. What is critical is, if we deny this Reality, we diminish the ability to manage our lives; we live in a fantasy which robs us of the power to see clearly and accurately and make appropriate choices. We shift the blame, as Adam and Eve did, and when we do that, we lose Eden. Remember that in contemplating parables, the details of the story are not the point; the point is found in contemplating the dynamics the story raises and in grasping the implications. There is always a snake in the Garden; the issue is, do we listen to the snake.

We have to manage Life. That’s the implication of the Householder telling the slaves not to gather the weeds, but to let them grow together “until the harvest”. We can’t eliminate weeds entirely; they are always intertwined with the grain. I have learned to my chagrin that dousing a plot with Round-Up ruins the ground for any flowers! And I have learned, as did the Buddha, that trying to eliminate tendencies to un-Love doesn’t work. Millenia of self-flaggelating monks prove this. But we can manage them, as any gardener knows, so they don’t overwhelm. In Life, we have to manage our tendencies towards what is unlovely, unkind, ungenerous, and nurture what enhances our own humanity and our fellow human beings. “Cutting back weeds” is what we constitutes our spiritual path. We are responsible for deciding the principles by which we will strive to live, and how to nurture what encourages and strengthens us for the Journey. Trust in a God of Compassion; recognition of our intrinsic value; Confession, Repentance, and Absolution; and acknowledgment of our unity with all our fellow human beings come to mind. Life has many times of harvest; if we manage our plot well, the ripe grain, i.e., the fruits of Love, can be harvested and the tares burnt, or robbed of their destructive power. But the Reality is: we shall always live with Good and Evil as part of who we are. And no outside factor can be blamed.

In the parable, the tares were sewn “when everyone was asleep”. This brings to mind that little injunction in the Office of Compline: “Be sober, be watchful; your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour”; “resist him, firm in your faith”. I have come to see that spiritual life is mostly about “being awake”. It is so easy to lose awareness of the Realities of our lives. Staying awake to the Truth about ourselves – both the positive and the negative - is both a challenge - and very freeing.

I understand the Good Seed as the potentiality we all have, in the inner field that is our lives, for Love, and for all that Love implies about the high character of being Human, of being “made in the image” of the God we Christians worship, and which we see manifested in Jesus. Grasping the character of that Love, and acting it out, is the essence of our Life’s Work.

Judy Cannato continues: “How often we are fooled by what mimics the real. Indeed, we live in a culture that flaunts the phony and thrives on glittering fabrication. We are so bombarded by the superficial and the trivial that we can lose our bearings and give ourselves over to a way of living that drains us of our humanity. Seduced by the superficial, we lose the very freedom we think all our acquisitions will provide. When we are engaged in the experience and practice of radical amazement, we begin to distinguish between the genuine and the junk.”

Here at St. Benedict’s, let us help each other, anchored in the Holy Eucharist, in the Christ, in the heart of the Gospel Message, and in the character of Christian community, to embrace Reality. As Dr. King said, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.”

Homily for the Gay Pride Liturgy
SLO Mission Square
July 10, 2011
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

“Taking Back the Good News”
[ Theme for the Liturgy ]


“God” is an awesome concept. Some very early religionists insisted on calling God “Nothing”, to make the point that once you’ve said everything there was to say about God, you’ve said Nothing.

I have come to think that there are basically two types of religious folk: one for whom the idea of God grows more and more vast as they journey into the Great Mystery, and the other whose idea of God diminishes and narrows. In my experience, the former become embracing, welcoming, compassionate, and inclusive; they recognize that they are one with God and with every other person. The latter become more and more pinched, judging, and exclusive; their “God” more and more tribal, and more and more small.

Religiously, I started as a Scottish Presbyterian in Canada, age five. By age 8, I knew I was whatever the word for Gay was then - sissy, I think; this complicated things. I became an Anglican at age 19. At age 21, I became a monk in the Episcopal Church. If I ever wondered if God existed, the fact that I ended up in a deeply rich and open religious setting of mostly Gay men convinced me that, in whatever mysterious manner, She did! It saved me from a lot of pain and grief. At 27, I was ordained a priest, and, even though it was still Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the Episcopal Church, it was definitely affirming to hear the Bishop ask, “Is it your will that Brian be ordained a priest” and hear 250 people shout loudly, “It is!” I retired in 2008 after 40 years in ministry at age 62, and 4 days ago I turned 65. And relentlessly, throughout my Life, God has gotten vaster, more Mysterious, more inclusive, more loving, more compassionate, more glorious.

What’s been at the heart of this Journey? Being Queer! And I will tell you why. “Being Queer” is a metaphor to the larger Truth that the idea of “God” is formed by the struggle of human beings for identity and affirmation, particularly in the face of oppression and discrimination. There is not one of us here this afternoon who has not experienced these things in some way. You can see this in the Scriptures of every religion. Every culture develops deities who affirm, strengthen, encourage and empower its people. The Jewish people come to mind, as do the African-American people in our country. The great 16th C Mogul Emperor of India, Akbar, in his wisdom understood that “all religions are “historically developed” and “products of their time and the land of their origin”. Where we often go awry is when tribal gods remain tribal gods; when we fail to recognize Akbar’s insight that “all the nobler religions ….. radiate from the one eternal truth”.

The great Nothing, the great Mystery of God, does indeed work in mysterious ways to become Known. She has “spoken” through the oppression and struggle of many many peoples and individuals. Now it is the time for Queerfolk confidently to take our place in this divine revelation. But for a few exceptions, Queerfolk who do manage to escape the oppression of tribal religions with their narrow views of God and the diversity of the human creation know that God is Goodness, Compassion, Justice, Kindness, Inclusion - and that all human beings who strive for the deepest authentic humanity strive to image and to be One with these things. And: we know that we Queerfolk are radically, intrinsically OK!

I have a few words for those in America and in our World, of the likes of Michelle Bachman and her ilk, who seek to impose their tribal gods and their fear and exclusion on Queerfolk or any others. The first is from the Christian monk Thomas Merton; he said, “A faith that supports itself by condemning others is itself condemned by the Gospel." The second is a word of caution from that great wise crone philosopher many of us know and love, known as Maxine; she said, “Life is like a jar of jalapeno peppers ..... what you "eat" today might burn your ass tomorrow”.

Those of us who follow a religious path know and value the Wisdom of our traditions. I would also offer a bit of spiritual and practical advice for all of us, Queer and not, as we seek to live out our radical OKness, from the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius: he wrote, “"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." Jesus’ version was, “Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves”.

The God Who is Love and Truth has spoken throughout human history through those who have been oppressed. Now is the time for Queerfolk and all who are one with us to take back the Good News from those who have stolen and perverted it in the name of their petty tribal gods. We are all One, and we are all beloved, the more so that we strive to act in Compassion, do not fear those different from us, seek to honour and respect the dignity of every human being, and seek to serve others in kindness and generosity and justice.

Today we take back the Good News. Let us live it well ….. and with our usual Gay Abandon!

Sermon for Easter II A_RCL

May 1, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Acts 2: 14a, 22-32; Ps 16; I Peter 1: 3-9; John 20: 19-31


The French theologian, scholastic philosopher, and logician Peter Abelard (1079-1142) is quoted to have said: “By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth”. His words are, I think, important to consider on what has come to be “Doubting Thomas” Sunday. Those who designed our present three year Lectionary seem to think that the story is important for our spiritual understanding and maturity; it is the Gospel for all three years!

Abelard’s words from a thousand years ago can, I think, assure us that Doubt is part and parcel of the Journey of Faith. Perhaps we need to be assured of this now and then ~ but I think not every year! I think that Jesus was saying to Thomas, “Thomas, you have been with me, and you have experienced the life of God in me; trust in your experience, and in my promise that God is always with you.”

I would say this: focusing on Doubt in this story is a red herring. When Jesus taught in parables, He included a lot of red herrings ….. things that could distract people from the essence of His teaching. Why? I think of His words, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Matt 7: 6, NIV). Now, some of you may go away and say that Brian said that Jesus thought we human beings were dogs and pigs, beneath His attention. No, Brian didn’t say that. Jesus was saying that we must learn not to be distracted by red herrings, but to have “ears that can hear” and to listen for the inner truth. This is what I think is the import of the Gospel today: Jesus is saying to all of us, through Thomas, “You have seen in me that God’s Unconditional Love is real and at the heart of Life. Trust that. Do not be distracted by squabbling over irrelevant “side” issues” ~ if you will pardon the pun. This is the same message of the story of Martha and Mary: “Live Life from the heart of Love; don’t be distracted by unimportant issues; Choose the better part”.

So: what is “the better part” in this story of Thomas? What is the “sacred”, the “pearl”? It has to do with the Beloved Community, with the Community that gathers around the Mystery of God’s extravagant Love, and around us as those who are committed through our baptism to live out Jesus’ plea, which we heard at the Maundy Thursday Liturgy, to “love one another as I have loved you”.

I think it is important that Thomas was not with the community of the disciples when Jesus came to them in the Upper Room. It points to the critical importance of being a functioning part of the Beloved Community and, by extension, of the Human Race, namely of God’s People. It IS all about Love, and we can’t love in the abstract. We have to love someone: God, self, neighbour, enemy, stranger, mother, father, brother, sister, terrorist, friend.

I believe that “church” is, above all things, meant to be a place where we practice becoming loving members of the Beloved Community. Becoming a member of a congregation may begin in the search for simple companionship, but I think it must soon appear to be a place in which we can trust people to love us, and in which we are all learning day by day to live out of trust in God’s unconditional love, learning the character and nature of Love, and learning how to make that real for each other. And I think we need to be intentional about it to the fullest of our ability. It is not enough to be nice, pleasant, or friendly ….. though that’s a good place to start. But as Jesus once said, “even the tax-collectors do that!”. Every Episcopal church profile that I have ever looked at said some version of “We are a nice, pleasant, and friendly church”. But that is only the beginning of “being church”.

Which brings me to my final point. Today’s Collect goes to the heart of the Thomas story: “Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith”. God has proclaimed a covenant of faithful love to Her people from time immemorial. This Covenant in Jesus reminds us that covenant life is not magical. God does not wave a magic wand and – poof – we are all radically loving people. God offers, and we must then say Yes. Jesus has told us that all brokenness can be healed, if we are honest about our sin against Love, desire to change, and look to the Living Spirit as Guide.

I think that we who are members of the Beloved Community here at St. Benedict’s are, to be modest and humble, on a scale of 1 to 10, about 6. And that’s pretty good! I know personally how hard it is to be the Beloved Community of Reconciliation; I have some pretty strong political and theological views and a prickly personality to boot! But trusting in Jesus and the Gospel, I say let’s shoot for a 7.

I need you to help me “increase in love” ….. and I can be a good subject on which to practice!

One should always end on a positive note; so I end with two things:

Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe”, says in his latest book “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, “The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be." The message: Let’s expand our perspective.

And, an act of praise and Thanksgiving, from the Spanish Jew Solomon Ibn Gabirol (c.1021-c.1058) , which I have translated into modern English:

Who can know the secret of Your accomplishments,
when You made for the body the means for Your work?
You gave us eyes to see Your signs,
Ears, to hear Your wonders,
Mind, to grasp some part of Your mystery,
Mouth, to tell Your praise,
Tongue, to relate Your mighty deeds to every comer,
As I do today, I Your servant, the son of Your handmaid;
I tell, according to the shortness of my tongue,
one tiny part of Your greatness.

Lent 4 A_RCL

April 3, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

1 Samuel 16: 1-13; Ps 23; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9: 1-41

[Sing} Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me;
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
I was blind, but now I see!
[We were blind, but now we see.]


These days for me are an exciting time of rethinking and clarifying many things. This hymn verse is troublesome, and always has been for me, despite the powerful emotional appeal. I’m OK with “Grace”; I know that Life is intrinsically full of astonishing Gifts. I’m not OK with “wretch”; I don’t accept as Biblical the doctrine of Original Sin; that doctrine erupted out of Augustine’s troubled mind. A church that claimed to be the only way to “salvation” knew a good thing when they saw it! I acknowledge and live by the doctrine of Original Blessing ~ that we are created Good in the Image of God. The implications of living by one and the other are profound. As to so-called “miraculous healings”, I accept what the 3rd C Christian writer Pachomius has to say:

After the manifest healings of the body, there are also spiritual healings. For if a man intellectually blind, in that he does not see the light of God because of idolatry, afterwards is guided by faith in the Lord and gains his sight, in coming to know the only true god, is not this a great healing …? One of the brethren asked me, "Tell us one of the visions you see.". And I said to him, "A sinner like me does not ask God that he may see visions: for that is against His will, and is error....Hear all the same about a great vision: If you see a man pure and humble, it is a great vision. For what is greater than such a vision, to see the Invisible God in a visible man, His temple?" I don’t accept as literal so-called healings which reverse natural law; but I certainly have experienced in myself and others the intellectual and emotional restoration to wholeness that can be effected by the light of Jesus’ Wisdom, by trust in God, and by practicing Jesus’ Wisdom.

The business of Original Sin vs Original Blessing is relevant to the Lectionary for today. We come here Sunday by Sunday for many reasons. But one of the principal reasons is to be reminded Who We Are. What is our essential Identity, as individuals and as a community – and not just any community, but as God’s Beloved Community? This issue of Identity is raised in the story we have from the Gospel called John this morning, of the man born blind who is given sight by Jesus. “The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." But it is established firmly that this guy is the same one who was in darkness and then brought into the light of a new understanding of Life and Divine Compassion. The “man born blind” is you and me. Our “eyes” require opening. We each need the healing salve of the Word of God’s Love applied to our often-wounded Life. In our Life within the Beloved Community, we are, like the Blind Man, washed with God’s Love in Word and Sacrament and Community, washed in baptismal water to which the Spirit is “sent” – our own Siloam - and then we are sent to live the Life of the Beloved Community.

The most chilling, even evil, phrase in the whole convoluted reading is, to me, this: "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." It is of course likely that much of the Gospel texts which vilify the Pharisees was inserted into the text by early Christians. Be that as it may, the behaviour of the Pharisees implies that the keeping of religious rules is more important that practicing the Compassion of God, and that one is “saved” by what one believes rather than by showing Compassion. Or, as Robin Meyer puts it, in his book Saving Jesus from the Church, by believing in Jesus rather than by following Jesus. Since the time of Nicea in the early 4th C., this “blindness” has inflicted much of the Christian Church. Countless people have been killed or ostracized or shunned because they did not believe in the Trinity, or in Biblical or Papal infallibility, or in countless other rules of so-called “orthodoxy” set up by the Church to control its membership and protect its power. The same is true of other religions as well; we are awash in ‘salvation by belief’ in the World today, requiring people to accept often complete absurdities, or the rule of moral tyrants, or otherwise suffer often horrific consequences. In America, not believing in the Virgin Birth can bring down a presidential candidate! And shamefully, in the Episcopal Church, espousing Buddhist prayer practices and acknowledging the Wisdom of the Buddhist path kept one man who was elected by his diocese to be their bishop from being ordained.

Apparently people choose to forget the wider implications of Jesus saying, “Man was not made for the Sabbath; the Sabbath was made for man.” In other words, Nothing must get in the way of radical Compassion ….. especially “church”. Yet Jesus was murdered, in part, for challenging the power of the religious elites ("church") of His time.

I am not saying that the Church shouldn’t have doctrines and guidelines. I am saying that those doctrines and guidelines must not prevent us from being Followers, disciples of Jesus and His Gospel. I became and remain an Episcopalian for many reasons. One of them is that, however messily, the Episcopal Church strives to “walk the walk” of following Jesus over believing in Jesus as defined by church doctrine. Knowledge is not redemptive. We are not “saved” by believing the “right thing”; we are confirmed as an Heir of the God of Love by imitating Jesus’ radical inclusiveness and compassion for all persons. Dennis and I worship here at St. Benedict’s because it strives to Follow – a symbol of which is our welcoming of all to full sharing at God’s table ..... our little rebellion against “church regulations” for the sake of living God’s policy of No Outcasts.

Robin Meyers says, “..one of the great divides in the church could be healed if we got one thing straight: the truth of which Jesus speaks is wisdom incarnate, not intellectual assent to cogent arguments made on behalf of God. Indeed, a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don’t need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of God.”

The holy bread and wine we share, for which we pray in the Collect today, is a sign of that Covenant of Trust and Love we have made with God and with each other. The Eucharist is the food of Followers like us; and “following”, as Meyers says better than I can, is “not about knowing new things or subscribing to certain theological statements or positions, but about the never-ending process of dying to an old self and being reborn into a new one. The evidence for this rebirth was not a clever argument or allegiance to a certain rabbinical school. It was made obvious by a new way of being in the world. Good Friday and Easter are therefore not isolated events. They are the twin polarities of wisdom – as we constantly die to the bondage of blindness and are reborn to the light.”

Like the man blind from birth, we have been flooded with light by God’s love incarnate in us. Now we “see”. The Invitation is to live our Truth confidently and without Fear.

Epiphany VIII A_RCL

Feb 27, 2010

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA
The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

[ Isaiah 49: 8-16A; Ps 131; 1 Corinthians 4: 1-5; Matthew 6: 24-34 ]


Here is an excerpt from a poem entitled “The Summer Day” by the American poet Mary Oliver:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
……….
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?


Don’t those six words just ring with poetic strength! “What is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” That is exactly the question that Jesus is addressing in the passage from Matthew this morning. I would guess, from now having known most of you for 3 years or so, that we all confront this question. I’ve heard many of you voice it in different ways, regardless of age or experience, and I do so myself quite often. Have I found out what Life is essentially about? And if I’ve gotten an inkling, then how am I living it or how do I plan to live it in all it’s potential fullness?

Jesus puts the choice(s) involved fairly starkly: “You cannot serve God and Wealth.” Jesus is not saying that we can’t make money, wear nice clothes, drink good wine, eat good food. He is asking what the foundation of our Life is, and will it support us in a Life that radiates with the joy and peace and aliveness of the radical Love that is God and, by inheritance, us. As we yet again pull the Divine Life-force into our beings in Word and Body and Blood, He is quietly asking, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life?”

“God” and “Wealth” are both rich symbols. It’s a challenge to live the human life in our “dust of the earth” bodies which have been somehow magically animated by what the Bible calls the Breath of God. The Genesis Creation Myth addresses the challenge, in the story of the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It proposes that once the Human Race had it all, but we made God angry, and now we have to work hard by the sweat of our brow to eke out a living. Steinbeck powerfully portrayed it in the story of the 1930’s Dustbowl, set appropriately in a land East of Eden. It’s just as hard for most people here in the wealthiest nation on Earth, given the idea of the “American Dream”, to make ends meet ….. and it’s gotten a lot harder in the last fifty years.

By the way, I don’t buy the part about once having had it all. The storytellers knew that we have always had to work hard to keep body and soul together. They were looking to answer the question “Why”? The image of an Eden of plenty, with no suffering or pain, just highlights the reality most of us live with. At least they had the grace to put the responsibility where it belongs: on ourselves - which is at least a step forward from Adam and Eve blaming each other or the serpent.

“Where are you focused? Where are you anchored? Where do your energies go? How do you answer the question Who Am I? What defines you? - these are the questions that Jesus is always gently but firmly asking. Because they are critical to our peace and freedom and happiness. Early Christian and other Gnostics had some strange advice around these questions. “The Gnostic secret of being able to face death is simple. Don’t wait; die now! Plato describes the ‘true philosopher’ as someone who ‘makes dying his way of life’. Paul writes, ‘I die daily’. Valentinus teaches, ‘We choose to die so that we can annihilate death completely’. The Islamic Gnostic Abd al-Kader explains: ‘There are two types of death. One which is inevitable and common to all, and one which is voluntary and experienced by the few. It is the second death which Muhammad prescribed saying ‘Die before you die’. Those who die this voluntary death are resurrected.”

In his book “The Laughing Jesus”. Peter Gandy goes on to reflect, “When we identify exclusively with our physical body, we are consciously or unconsciously in a constant state of anxiety, because decay and death is what inevitably lies ahead for this walking-talking skin-bag. But when we wake up we realize we need not fear the death of the body any more than we need fear dying in a dream. The more lucid we become the less we fear death, which makes living a lot more enjoyable!”

And this is what Jesus confronts us with in the Gospel this morning, with His questions about worry over food, drink, clothes and a myriad other things He might have mentioned: power, prestige, ignorance, self-delusion, etc. None of these things guarantee Life. The only thing that guarantees Life and Immortality is, to use a specifically theological image, Surrender to the God of radical Love, and Self-giving. Jesus role-plays it for us, constantly surrendering His life to God and, when it became clear that physical death was inevitable, unconditionally accepting it. And, as Muhammad said, “Those who die this voluntary death are resurrected”. We see it in the Christ ….. and we are asked to imagine it for ourselves.

This is why Jesus says, “Do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles [meaning those not awake to a destiny for their humanity] who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” And they are! But we may have to adjust our expectations! Expensive Edna Valley wines, designer clothes, and Filet Mignon may have to give way to Kohls and to farmers’ market fresh veggies and to Two Buck Chuck, or the more fancy stuff just now and then. But it won’t matter by then! We will have left our lonely isolation and become part of a human community of radical Love which rejoices our heart.

The Psalm for today says: “I still my soul and make it quiet, like a child upon its mother's breast; my soul is quieted within me.”

Take heart my fellow travelers! Let us quiet our souls. We are walking a holy path, and it has the power to make us new beings. Let us not be afraid to abandon ourselves with faith and trust. We shall be clothed like the lilies of the field in array more splendid than Solomon in all his glory: the shining raiment of a person raised from Death to Life. As Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Most loving Father, whose will it is for us to give thanks for all things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

[1] Peter Gandy, “The Laughing Jesus”, location 2641 in the Kindle edition

[1] ibid

[3] Matthew 6: 33

Sermon for Epiphany VII A_RCL

February 20, 2010

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA

The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Leviticus 19: 1-2,9-18; Ps 119: 33-40; 1 Corinthians 3: 10-11,16-23; Matthew 5: 38-48


At the risk of sounding defensive: as with all of my sermons, I am not telling anyone what to do or think or believe. My intent is to encourage thinking and discussion and meditation on the important issues of our Path in Life. That said …..

Jesus was not a Literalist. There was almost nothing that he said or taught that He expected anyone to take literally. He taught principally by way of Parables ….. and Parables are not rulebooks. They are carefully crafted stories which, if we are open to be taught, push us over mental or emotional or rational cliffs, to a place where we are forced beyond established patterns of thought or perception, with the hope that we will break into new dimensions of understanding, in head, heart, and “spirit”. Jesus never explained any of His parables; that’s the work of later editors.

So, let me begin by proposing this about the Gospel reading for today: Jesus is not telling us to do what He says literally. He is not telling us to allow ourselves to be abused; to get smacked on the cheek and invite another; to get sued and give the one suing you twice what is required; to do twice the work you’re paid for; to give to the beggar or lend while your family starves; to permit enemies to hurt or destroy you. To do this, to behave this way, would be to reject the ways of Justice and Love which undergird both the ethical path we hear this morning in Leviticus, and the full understanding of Jesus’ commandment to love profoundly as He loved.

Now, lest you think that I am watering down the Gospel Path in what many consider to be a typical Episcopalian way, let me assure you that I am not. Because here is the reality: Jesus is asking us to do far more than meet the literalist responses! Far more. He is asking us to open up our lives to a radical way of living, of understanding Life, ourselves, others, and the Mystery we call God. He is asking us to be transfigured, as He was in the mountaintop vision, into a New Being.

Now: a little caveat here. There have always been special people who did try to reach this level of transformation by following the literalist path. It can be said that Jesus was one of them, when He did things like refuse to allow His disciples to fight for Him, or to justify Himself to Pontius Pilate. After Him, most were monks or nuns or specially guided people. We all know about St. Francis stripping himself naked and living in poverty. And the Buddha leaving his royal palace and his riches (and even his wife and child – not something that in general would be applauded) for the life of a wandering sadhu. But I think these are special witnesses; and it is not their specific renunciations we are called to imitate, but the seeking of the inner light which motivated their Path.

Here’s a little story about the Buddha, to heighten the sense of how the Great Teachers lead us:

If a villainous bandit were to carve you limb from limb with a two-handled saw, even then the man that should give way to anger would not be obeying my teaching. Even then, be it your task to preserve your hearts unmoved, never to allow an ill word to pass your lips, but always to abide in compassion and good-will, with no hate in your hearts, enfolding in radiant thoughts of love the bandit (who tortures you), and proceeding thence to enfold the whole world in your radiant thoughts of love, - thoughts great and beyond measure, in which there is no hatred or trace of harm. Whew!

Jesus tends to be a little more stark. Yet Jesus does not expect us, when He urges us to “take up our cross”, to get literally crucified. He expects us to see how Life is embraced in it’s fullness by relinquishing one life to find a greater. It is in this context, by the way, that we are to understand the story of Abraham and the near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. No God of Love would ask us literally to kill a child – or for that matter pluck out an eye or cut off a foot. This is a story pointing us towards “extravagant” self-giving. Abraham is offering his whole being to God through his blood-son Isaac, who is a representation of himself. We are asked to do the same.

SO: what IS Jesus leading us? To radical Compassion; to a tender understanding of human nature; to a maturity of Being; to a move beyond our isolated Self to a Unity with God and Creation and each other, enemy or friend; this is where Jesus is leading us. (Joseph Campbell said that to love our enemy was the hardest saying in the Bible.) Jesus offers powerful words that push us beyond the walls we have erected – walls which lock us in diminished, dry, shriveled modes of Being Human. If once we should be infused by an inner experience of our Oneness with The Christ, with Divinity, with All Being, our minds would, to use a 60’s phrase, be “blown away”! We would be overwhelmed by such a sense of Liberation that we might think we have been “made a new person”. And indeed we would have.

Who would worry about “length of days” anymore? We would know only calm, intense daily living. Who would be afraid? We would never fear to do what is just and compassionate and loving simply because we preferred to live a long Life rather than a powerful Life. Who would not be generous in all ways, knowing that Life is enriched for us all by making sure that all are sustained by material and spiritual giving? Who would hold back with Love, when Love heals all suffering, for both Giver and Receiver? Is this not the great Teaching of the Resurrection? It has little to do with physical resurrection; it has to do with “dying” to the “little Self” and “rising” to the “Larger Self”. This is the meaning of Baptism. Every time we relinquish our separate Ego, we “die; and every time we awaken to our Unity with all things, we “rise to Life again”.

Lets not lose a grip on Reality and think that we shall suddenly “become as Christ”, become God. We are not meant to be “God”. But we are meant to be god-like in our Humanity, shaped and defined by Love and Compassion, Justice and Forgiveness, by Affection and utter Heart-ache with all our fellow human beings. Never are we meant to despise ourselves for our inability to live up to the call to Perfection. We are not meant to be Perfect in this Life; only Faithful. And there is always a path to renewal: self-knowledge and surrender.

“Do not resist the evildoer, says Jesus. Turn the other cheek, give your cloak, go the extra mile, give. Love your enemies and pray for them. Why? [because] All these instances of abuse provide occasions of awakening, perhaps - for the evildoer as well as the victim.” (1)

In other words: Every day the Path to Full Humanity, the experience of our Oneness with All Existence (or, to put it in Jungian terms, our participation in the Universal Unconscious; or in Christian terms, of loving each other as God loves us) will be offered to us. There are lots of ways we are “struck on the cheek” in Life. To “offer the other cheek” literally would be easy! The harder “offering the other cheek” is to ponder how we will respond in a way that will deepen and enrich our humanity. The same is true with “giving your cloak”, or “going the extra mile”, or “loving your enemies”. If we live in boxes built of our own fear or infantile natures, we will live limited lives. If, however, we risk to “take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea”, God meets us there and offers us a Life we couldn’t have imagined.

Here is a wonderful relevant passage from the Buddhist Evening Gatha:

Let me respectfully remind you:
Life and Death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by, Opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to
Awaken, Awaken, Awaken.
Take heed.
Do not squander your Life.

We remember Jesus’ words: “Those who would win their Life must lose it.” This is the Mystery Jesus calls us to “know” and live. To Awaken, to be transformed, even a little, is much harder than enduring insult or unfairness.

Duccio c. 1308 – The Calling of Peter & Andrew

Epiphany III A_RCL

Jan 23, 2011

St. Benedict’s, Los Osos CA

The Rev. Brian H. O. A. McHugh

Isaiah 9: 1-4

Ps 27: 1,5-13

1 Corinthians 1: 10-18

Matthew 4: 12-23


“Called” ….. yes. All persons are called to Wholeness and to Fullness of Humanity. I believe that this Call is intrinsic to our very nature, and that all the great spiritual paths of the World give voice to this Call. The Episcopal Church made its thinking clear on a poster during the time when Ed Browning was our Presiding Bishop; it said “The glory of God is a human being fully alive”. It derives from the teachings of Irenaeus of Lyons in the late 2nd century. [ link: http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/149/Man_Fully_Alive_is_the_Glory_of_God___St._Irenaeus.html ]

There is, of course, the other side of the coin. Yes, the Call is voiced, out of the very depth of the Mystery of Being ….. but who hears, how do they hear, and who answers? There seems to be a general consensus that “few” answer. Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal priest and author of “The Wisdom Jesus”, using a computer software image, reflects that every human being is born with a “hard-wired operating system” which allows us to establish a distinct identity, but that we are all called to chose a “system upgrade”, which essentially moves us from isolation and separateness to a sense of Oneness with God and each other and the World. Jesus prays intensely for this in the version of the Gospel called John – Father, may they be One as You and I are One.

One of the mysteries is that few seem to choose this “upgrade”, this Path, and it is important to ask, “Why?”. We all know the phrase, Many are called, but few are chosen. In the context of that statement, I think the phrase means, All are called, but many reject it. Is it because, in part, we don’t have many good teachers or exemplars? And that by nature we human beings are lazy about doing the work that keeps on the Path to Wholeness and Fullness of Humanity? I’ve just finished reading a book called "The Value of Nothing”, by an economist named Raj Patel. He says basically that we have allowed an extreme view of unregulated free market profit economics to define what is of value, including ourselves, and that we must change this if the human race is not to descend into both physical and spiritual poverty.

So yes: we Christians are Called by the Gospel….. but essentially to what? Here is a painting from the 14th century Renaissance painter Duccio, depicting the Calling of Peter and Andrew to be apostles and disciples of Jesus. [ I will leave this here on the lectern if you would like to see it more closely, and I will include it with the sermon when it is posted to my sermon blog.] Duccio was greatly influenced by the Byzantine icon style, and that style is strong in this painting. Peter and Andrew are in their boat fishing; this is some time after both had met Jesus. Andrew is waving, and Peter looks stern and skeptical. The sky is golden behind them, indicating that this is a moment set in Eternity. Their net is full of fish ….. live food to feed the biological body. Jesus is standing on the rocky shore, reminding us of the parable of the man who built his house on the solid rock. He is holding out his hand to Peter and Andrew. The Gospel reading tells us that he is saying, “Come, follow Me, and I will make you fish for people.” It is the same invitation He will offer to them at the Last Supper: “This bread is my Body broken for you; this cup is my blood of the New Covenant; anyone who eats this bread and drinks this cup will live forever”. It is the same invitation He offers to the Syrophoenecian woman: Anyone who drinks this living water will never be thirsty. What Jesus is saying to Peter and Andrew is that if they accept His call to transformation, accept His invitation to renounce their “little self” and become their “larger self”, One with God and with all fellow human beings, they will become a Fellowship of Life in which wholeness and fullness will be found.

This of course is the Call of the Church, the Call to us here at St. Benedict’s: to be that Mystical Body of the Christ, where separation and exclusivity and isolation are renounced. As Fishers of People, we cast out the net of Compassion and Unity and draw men and women into the Kingdom. The Church is not a place where we “admire Jesus, but acquire His consciousness”. The Church is called to be a place which lives by the Heart – through harmony, where “separation as a category disappears”, and we are free to live in “fearlessness, coherence and compassion, in other words, as true human beings”

Here also is found the meaning of the Cross. The Way of the Cross is our journey – where the “horizontal axis of our life in time” meets with “the vertical access of timeless reality: the realm of meaning, value, and conscience” . Where they cross is the Heart of Jesus.

The Call is an invitation with far more consequences that “doing good”, far harder than “dying for the Faith”. It is about coming alive and living for the Faith, about being transformed into a “new person in Christ”. C.S. Lewis depicts it beautifully in "The Chronicles of Narnia” when Eustace, by his greed and lack of caring for his cousins becomes a dragon; being transformed back into a true human being by Aslan is painful, but worth it; Eustace is clothed in the personhood of the Christ, clothed in his divine Humanity.

Every day that you and I live, we are sitting in front of the Laptop of Life. And every now and then, the Message appears on the screen: “An upgrade to this software is available.” There are usually three choices: Yes; Remind me Later; No”. Any one of the three choices comes with a cost and, counterintuitively, in terms of our health and growth as a person, “Yes” is the least costly choice in the long run that is Life. “Remind me Later” or “No” only infantilize us and the cost is heavy.

Every time we come to this altar, hear the Word spoken and interpreted, and hear the invitation to feed on the Body and Blood of the Christ, we are like Peter and Andrew being Called to be transformed, to become an instrument of transformation, a place where the old, out of date software is upgraded for the Journey towards Wholeness.

Each time an “upgrade” is offered, as it is today here at St. Benedict’s – in the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and in the Prayers, those vows of our Baptism – the invitation is yet again offered to leave the “small Self” and enter into the “larger Self” ….. to “put on the mind of Christ”.

Christ holds out His hand to us. Like Peter, let’s be lifted onto a new plane of Being. Let us be Fishers of Women and Men.