Reflections on the Advent Season

Since the beginning this holy season of Advent, I have reflected on a word supplied each day by Virginia Theological Seminary, a seminary of the Episcopal Church. (Mine is The General Theological Seminary, New York City.) I have written short essays based on these words, which, in the words of writing teachers, are "prompts." Below is today's word and my reflection on the same. You can find my other reflections on the Facebook page of Episcopal Church, Springfield, Mo., or on my Facebook page at Kenneth L. Chumbley. May your Advent be filled with the holy God. Ken


GREETING

22 December 2017 – As part of the Holy Baptism celebration, the community enthusiastically greets the newest member of Christ’s family. Have a spiritual practice of GREETING a new person for your always increasing family every day.

–  Virginia Theological Seminary

In St. Luke's Gospel, the angel Gabriel greets Mary in the name of the Most High God and announces the Good News: Dear Mary will give birth to Emmanuel, God with us to save us from our Spiritual Enemy, from our sins, from eternal death. In Jesus, the Most High God stoops low and is born to a human mother. In Jesus God shares our humanity in every way, except for our sin. He suffers in his passion, dies on the cross and rises to life eternal, destroying death forever, even our own death. These saving events begin with blessed Mary, God's highly favored lady. She welcomes Gabriel, accepts God's will for her life and gives birth to Jesus, whose name means Yahweh or God saves. Angels are among us, greeting us. Let us welcome them and their message, saying with Mother Mary, "Let it be to me according to your word." You can listen to the sounds of angels, in this case, the Choir of Kings College, Cambridge, sing "The Angel Gabriel from heaven came," on YouTube. Just google it. God bless you. Ken

Living God's love amid domestic terrorism

In the Baptismal Covenant of The Book of Common Prayer, we make promises to God based on our faith in him and in his incarnate love, Jesus Christ.

As the followers of Christ, we pledge to resist evil; to to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves; and to strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.

To each promise, we say, "We will, with God's help."

On Sunday, August 13, church members and I gathered for worship at Christ Episcopal Church, Springfield, Mo.

Together, we reviewed and remembered our Baptismal Covenant.

And then I spoke about the violence that had occurred the day before in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists, armed and eager to incite violence, rallied for hatred.

Counter-demonstrator Heather Heyer was killed, and dozens of people were seriously injured, when a vehicle was driven into the crowd by a white supremacist.  U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions later said the attack was an act of "domestic terrorism."

(Two police officers, deployed as part of the law-enforcement operation, also died when their helicopter crashed.)

Here is what I said to my congregation:

"I am part of a clergy group planing a response by the faith community to the hate and violence and the death and destruction that occurred yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia, where KKK, neo-Nazis and others marched for white supremacy.

"I grieve for the loss of life in Charlottesville yesterday and pray for those who died and for comfort for their families.

"I support the constitutional right to peaceful assembly and free speech, however vile that speech is.

"I deplore the evil of hate and violence and the odious ideology of white supremacy, which are hostile to Christ and to the gospel of God's love for all humankind.

"I urge us all to pray for healing in Charlottesville and throughout America, where hatred is resurgent and to work of a country where the rule of law is respected, hatred condemned, violence defeated, and all people live in love, justice and peace."

Five ways to deeper life in Christ

Five ways to deeper life in Christ

by the Rev. Kenneth L. Chumbley but mostly by the monks Conception Abbey

I might have been a monk. 

During my last year of university, I was searching for God. God sent me a monk. 

I met the Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton in his autobiographical Seven Storey Mountain, a spiritual classic. 

Merton and the medieval monastic tradition, summed up in the Rule of St. Benedict, led me back to faith in Christ and to fellowship with his Church. 

God became real to me as never before.

For a time I thought of becoming a monk, because I hungered and thirsted for God. 

But prayer and discernment led me to marriage and later to priesthood. 

I still hunger and thirst for God. And I remain a student of monasticism, especially Benedictine, which forms my spiritual life, with its emphasis on prayer and worship, scripture, silence and work offered to God. 

I am grateful to the monks of Conception Abbey who share some of the basic of Benedictine monasticism. You don't have to be a monk to know the living God Jesus Christ like a monk.

If you want to know more about Benedict and his way with and to God, you might consider reading his short Rule, or talk with me.

Many you grow in Christ and Christ in you.

5 Ways to Live Like A Monk in the World

Here are five tenets of Benedictine monasticism that you can cultivate in your life

by Fr. Paul Sheller, OSB, Vocation Director, Conception Abbey

1. Cultivate Silence
St. Benedict wrote, “Speaking and teaching are the master’s task; the disciple is to be silent and listen” (RB 6:8). Silence is the environment that allows you to listen to God’s voice and the voices of those around you properly. Many people are uncomfortable with silence or they find it awkward, so they fill their days with needless noise and distractions. Turning off the music and radio, especially when you are in the car, moderating television or Internet use will challenge you to listen to the God who dwells within you and speaks in the depth of your heart. Additionally, being silent helps us to avoid the sins of gossip or detraction. St. Benedict echoed the wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs which says, “In a flood of words you will not avoid sin,” (RB 6:11). By avoiding unnecessary noise in your life, you learn to cultivate inner silence, which is the ideal setting for prayer.

2. Be Faithful to Daily Prayer
St. Benedict said, “Prayer should, therefore, be short and pure, unless perhaps it is prolonged under the inspiration of divine grace” (RB 20:4). This instruction is comforting for those who have a demanding workweek, hectic schedule, and are burdened with numerous responsibilities at home to the extent that they may not be able to dedicate large periods of time to prayer. Nevertheless, you should find time in the morning to praise God before your day begins, and pray in thanksgiving during the evening before going to bed. You can pray the Liturgy of the Hours to sanctify the day, specifically being faithful to Morning and Evening Prayer. Whatever your practice, you want to be concerned with developing a heartfelt attitude to God while you are praying, offering yourself and your loved ones into God’s care. Many opportunities will arise throughout the day to offer brief prayers of trust in God. The aim of monks (and all Christians) is to pray without ceasing, and you can do this by keeping the memory of God alive in your heart and mind at every moment.

3. Form Authentic Community
Monks support and encourage the brother encountering difficulties, and they celebrate with one another during joyful times. St. Benedict instructed, “No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else. To their fellow monks, they show the pure love of brothers” (RB 72:7-8). In a world of individualism, social media and superficial relationships, all people long for a deep sense of belonging and communion with one another. The spiritual life is always a journey that we undertake with others. You have to be willing to invest the time and energy to engage personally with other people and show interest in their lives, allowing your conversations to pass from surface level topics to the more meaningful areas of life. You may wish to gather with others who share your faith, values, and desire for God. Praying together, reading and discussing a spiritual book and Bible studies are all ways of coming together to grow in faith.

4. Make time for Lectio Divina
The ancient monastic practice of Lectio Divina or “sacred reading” emphasizes a slow, prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture that is intended to allow you to listen to the Word and seek peace in God’s presence. St. Benedict warned his monks, “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading” (RB 48:1). Reflection on the Word of God, if done intensely and prayerfully, has the power of calling you to a continual conversion of life. Familiarize yourself with the method and take between 15-30 minutes a day in a quiet environment to practice lectio divina with Scripture or prayerfully read from the writings of the saints or other great spiritual works. Spiritual reading nourishes your mind and soul and often provides those inspired words that you needed to hear. Encountering the Word of God each day in a prayerful manner draws us into deeper communion with the One who speaks the word to us.

5. Practice Humility
Numerous parts of the Rule of St. Benedict highlight the importance of humility, most notably in Chapter 7 where St. Benedict depicts humility as a ladder with twelve rungs which the monk is to ascend. The first step is that a monk keeps the “fear of God” always before his eyes (RB 7:10). When you fear God or are in “awe” of God, you maintain a right relationship, realizing that you are a creature and not God. Humility is a virtue that needs to be developed, and it entails being down to earth, honest, and truthful, both in prayer, at work, and in everyday matters. St. Benedict wrote, “Place your hope in God alone. If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge” (RB 4:41-43). Being a humble person means being grateful for the blessings and opportunities that God gives you and recognizing that your gifts and talents have God as their source. Allow daily struggles, and even falling into sin, to be an invitation to humility, where you admit without hesitation that you must depend entirely on God’s grace, and not on your strength.

With God in prayer

One of my earliest memories of my late mother is of the two of us sitting in a rocking chair in my room just before bedtime. 

I was about three or four years of age. She held me in her lap, and we prayed: the Our Father and the Hail Mary. We prayed for family and people dear to us. We prayed nightly that God would give me a sister, and he did. 

My mother and I prayed every night at bedtime, at meals, at Sunday Mass. She gave me the gift of prayer. 

Since I was a child I have prayed. Always. Even in times of doubt and disappointment and anger with God, I have prayed. I persevere in prayer. 

Jesus, a person of prayer, teaches his followers to pray always. In Luke 18. 1-18, for instance, he tells his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart and give up. 

He tells a story about a widow and an unjust judge from whom she seeks justice. As the widow who pleads with the judge without ceasing, so the followers of Jesus are to pray. The unjust judge gives the widow justice. If this is how the unjust judge acts, then will not God do even better for us?

We are to pray always, or to persevere in our prayer. We are never to give up, for to give up is to give up on God.

The widow’s pleading in the parable is analogous to intercessory prayer.  As the Prayer Book Catechism notes, intercession is one of several forms of prayer. It might be the one that followers of Jesus today pray most often. At least I do. 

God, I believe, hears all prayers and answers them in the way that is best. As I look back on my life, especially at those times when I prayed for one thing but God gave me something else, I realize now how relieved I am that God did what was best for me, not what I thought best for me at the moment of my prayer.

I know now that the greatest prayer is that of surrender to God, Thy will be done. God will always grant me justice, that which is right.

In his spiritual classic, “To Believe is to Pray,” Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey writes that prayer is “essentially our being with God, putting ourselves in his presence, being hungry and thirsty for him, wanting him, letting heart and mind and will move towards him… (p. 9).”

All prayer is essentially our being in relationship with God. 

I pray always—always,  in the sense that I persevere. I pray when I am in my car and waiting at a stop light. I pray before I enter a hospital room to pray for a patient. I pray before meetings. I pray with people who are seeking guidance. I pray before I read the Bible.  I pray at mealtimes. I pray when I swim, when I walk or cycle early in the morning, before I go to bed, when I awaken in the night, worried about something.

I pray as I sit in a comfortable chair in the bedroom and read Morning Prayer daily. And as pray there, surrounded by books, including my mother's prayer books, I drape over my shoulders a red scarf that belonged to her. Wearing it, I am close to her, just as praying, I am close to God.

In giving me the gift of prayer, my mother gave be God. 

What we worship and does it matter?

What do we worship?

Early this morning, I met with Christ Church's Men's Group for breakfast, a short scripture reading and prayer.

The gospel lesson came from today's Daily Office reading, Luke 4.1-13, Jesus' temptation in the wilderness just after his baptism.

With each temptation, the Devil, in effect, asks Jesus, "Whom do you worship?"

The word translated here as worship comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon word, "woerth-ship." And the meaning of the word is that to which human beings ascribe ultimate worth. That object is that to which we devote our attention, our energy, our time, our money––every human or material thing of value.

What do we worship?

For the answer, we might go online and examine our bank and credit card statements. They will tell us where we spend our money and, thus, what we value materially.

We might look at our calendars, which tell us how we spend our time.

And, as I suggested to the men this morning, we might examine our online search histories and the ads that pop up on Facebook and on other social media, when we log in. These messages do not randomly appear but do so for a calculated reason: because Facebook and Google and other sites have profiled us and communicated our clicks and visits to advertisers. (I used to be in the PR, ad and marketing business and know something about how these businesses operate.)

Where does our cyber trail lead? What does our overall profile––gathered from social media, calendars and financial statements––tell us about who we are, whose we are and what we worship?

And will the object of our worship save us now and save us eternally?

Remembering a giant

When Elie Wiesel died recently at age 87, humankind lost a moral giant. Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor, liberated from Buchenwald death camp by American soldiers in April 1945. After studying literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris, he became a journalist. He wrote dozens of books, including his first novel, Night, which came out of his death camp experiences. It was translated into 30 languages. He helped establish the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. A scholar and gifted teacher, he taught at Boston University, among other institutions.

Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Nobel Commission describing him as “one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, repression and racism continue to characterize the world.”

Many years ago, I met Elie Wiesel, which is one of the blessings of my life. Night and his other work had moved me. I dreamed of meeting the author. After his speech at Southwest Missouri State University, we met at a reception and talked. For ten minutes or more, I monopolized him. We discussed the nature of good and evil.

As a teenager, he had experienced the monstrous evil of Auschwitz and then Buchenwald, his parents and a younger sister dying in the camps. He had known colossal evil, but it had not overcome him. He had overcome it. And he was overcoming it with good through his writing and political activism. He championed human rights. He condemned apartheid in South Africa and genocide in the former Yugoslavia.

Talking with him, I knew that I was in the presence of a gentle, humble and even holy man. God was in him.

Reared in Judaism, Wiesel struggled to reconcile the God of love with the existence of evil. He abandoned his faith in God in the camps, feeling abandoned by God there, only later in life to make peace with God. He and God must be having some deep conversations now. Surely, Eli Wiesel sees all existence, including history’s catalogue of atrocities, with clarity.

Today, evil is ascendant. ISIS and its sympathizers commit mass murders here and abroad.  Politicians rouse and rally their followers with hateful rhetoric. Neo-Nazi parties are gaining power in France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. A sniper kills five police officers in Dallas. Gun violence threatens us all, and there is no political will to stop it. Killing continues.

Humankind has lost a moral giant in Elie Wiesel. Inspired by him, and in keeping my baptismal vow to “resist evil,” I hope I will have the courage to confront evil and do all in my power to overcome it. I also hope that multitudes of others will do the same. To do nothing about evil or to be indifferent to it, is, according to Wiesel, “the epitome of evil.”

Preaching from the heart

Before I preach, I pray that God's Word will spring from my heart. I hope that my God-filled heart will speak to other hearts.

But before I talk about the heart, I must talk about the stomach. My stomach. The subject might be an indelicate one, perhaps too personal to discuss here. But I will, nevertheless.

This weekend, I suffered from stomach flu. 

By Sunday morning, I thought I was well enough to go to church for worship. I need weekly worship. And yesterday I was eager to preach a sermon that I felt strongly about, a message that I thought the Holy Spirit wanted me to deliver.

Early yesterday, I was preparing a simple outline. Outlining is one way I further internalize my research, study, prayer and reflection on the Scripture readings for Sunday. I need 12 to 15 hours a week to prepare, or over prepare, for preaching a Sunday sermon.

About seven, my wife Penny returned home from a walk and came into the bedroom, where I was working on my lap desk. How was I feeling? she wondered. So, so, I responded.

She urged me to stay home from church and not expose people to the virus. And I should rest and drink plenty of fluids. She spoke to me in love.

What shall I do about the sermon? I asked myself.

I did not want to ask my assistant, Father Jonathan, to deliver an impromptu sermon, although he would have done so and done so ably.

So, I decided to send him something to read to the congregation. 

I scrambled, with only a short time left before the first service. I gathered my notes, called up from my head and heart thoughts and feelings related to the texts and typed up the sermon.

The result was less a sermon, more a bare outline.

(Before I preach on Sundays, I get up at 4.50am and pray; think; sometimes, fret; and then write a short outline on a card. Later, I place the card in the breast pocket of my clerical shirt. I never take the card out and read from it. The card simply reminds me that I am to speak for God from my heart, that deepest part of my being.)

I titled yesterday's outline, or sermon sketch, “God makes a way out of no way.”

The words of that title are not original to me but come from a preacher who always spoke from his heart, a man who was and still is my homiletical exemplar and inspiration, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The words are from his sermon, “God is able.” 

This sermon is worth reading, as are all of Dr. King's sermons, although I believe sermons are far more compelling when they are heard. The difference between reading a sermon and listening to one is the the difference between reading Shakespeare's Hamlet and hearing and seeing it come to life on stage.

I have attached my sermon sketch below. You can also listen to Father Jonathan delivering it, and beautifully, at: www.christepiscopalchurch.com.

As I looked over the sketch, I realize once more that words on paper are not sermons. God makes the sermon, the Word, out of the words on the page, which are spoken by the preacher. The real preacher in not the man or woman in the pulpit or on the stage or standing amid the people. The real preacher is the Holy Spirit, who turns our human words into the lively Word of God.

In the sermon, God is speaking to his beloved people not just through the head (or mouth) of the preacher but also, and most important of all, through the heart of the preacher.

Yesterday, in introducing it, Father Jonathan said that my sermon was brief. It is. It is only a skeleton. Little more than that. A skeleton of human words awaiting God’s flesh, muscle and breath of life.

God makes a way out of now way

Texts:
Isaiah 43.16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3.4b-14
John 12.1-8

There is no way. There are times when we say, “No way.” No way will I overcome this illness. No way will my spouse stop drinking. No way can I go on living after the death of my loved one.

The people of Israel thought there was no way out of slavery in Egypt; but God called Moses who led Israel out.

And then, with Pharaoh's armies chasing them and the people of God standing at the edge of the Red Sea, there was no way that they would be able to cross the sea on foot and then travel through the wilderness to the promised land. But they did.

And now, generations after the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, the prophet Isaiah reminds God's people of God’s mighty acts of salvation, and Israel is  once again is saying, “No way.”

Isaiah speaks for the Lord. “Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters…I am about to do a new thing.”

Israel is in bondage again, this time in Babylon. Earlier, the Babylonians had defeated the Israelites. They had devastated Jerusalem, and then led the defeated Israelites into exile and captivity in Babylon. Surely, they must have said, “No way will we go home again.”

But, in Babylon, the prophet speaks for God to his fellow captives.

God says, “I will do a new thing…I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert….I will give drink to my chosen people, the people I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.”

And God fulfills his promise to his people. He does that “new thing.” He acts through King Cyrus of Assyria and defeats the Babylonians. God frees Israel, and God’s people return home to Jerusalem.

As God did for our forebears, Israel, so God does for us. He does that “new thing.” He sends Jesus, his own son, to save us from our Egypt and our slavery to evil, sin, and death and to lead us out of exile home to him.

Jesus, who is anointed for his death today in the gospel, confronts sin, evil, death. In this way, God shows his love for us. And Jesus overcomes our enemies, and he sets us free that we might declare God’s praise.

Dr. Martin Luther King tells the story of how one night, in the midst of his leadership of the Civil Rights movement, he received a phone call. It was yet another threat. The caller said that he would shoot and kill Dr. King and would blow up his house with his wife and children inside.

Dr. King tells how he sat in his kitchen late that night and trembled. He prayed to God. He told God he was terrified. That he was weak. That he wanted to quit the struggle for securing the constitutional rights of black people in America. And God answered his prayer.

God reminded him that “…there is a benign Power in the universe that makes a way where there is no way and transforms our dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.”

Friends, God loves us.

And when you are tempted to say, No way, remember the Good News: God will make a way out of your no way.

Thanks be to God.