Friday, October 24, 2014

United Nations Day, 24 October 2014

HOMILY, UNITED NATIONS DAY
 St. John’s Convent, October 24, 2014


My heart was heavy when I read the passage from Micah in preparation for this homily. I wait – we all wait – with poignant longing for the peace of God that has been promised for so long. The end of the reading especially struck me this time: “they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.”

We are sitting here under the equivalent of our vines and fig trees – with the stunning beauty of autumn reflected in our trees and gardens – and yet I feel afraid – afraid for the world we live in, and guilty that we live in a place of relative peace. Both my fear and my guilt are heightened by the events of this past week, with the killing of Warrant Office Patrice Vincent in Quebec, and Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial in Ottawa yesterday – bringing the terrors of our world much closer to home.

But the readings today speak of neither fear nor guilt – both of these emotions are really useless, and the fear-mongering of some of the media just renders us more helpless. Fear and guilt make us blind to the purposes of God. They make it difficult to hear what God is really saying to us, as individuals and as a nation. And they play into the hands of terrorists whose strongest weapon is fear.

The readings today speak of very different feelings – feelings of hope, of obedience to the Word of God, and of trust in the purposes of God. They speak of good news, not bad news.

The last words of the reading from Micah remind us that the prophet is not just mouthing his own wishful thinking – he speaks the Word of God: “they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” The mouth of the Lord – the Word of the Lord – instructs and teaches, judges and arbitrates. The prophet himself is speaking the Word. And the people are asked to do two things:

First, we are asked to “go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” We may not be able to change the thinking of those who believe that violence is the way of God. And we may have ineffective weapons against the insidious pull on young people through the internet and social media to a life of violence. We know that terrorism in the modern world is harder to confront than traditional war because it knows no national boundaries and can spread its darkness through the ether. But we have been promised that the light of Christ will never be overcome by the darkness. And we can allow our prayer to reach out to the darkest corners of the world with the love of God. People may not be streaming into the Lord’s house in our time in our society. But we are called to go anyway, to be faithful and obedient to the call of prayer.

And second, we are asked to listen to the Word, to allow ourselves to be instructed by God – “for out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” What is it that each of us is called to do in order to spread peace on the earth and to cooperate with the purposes of God? God’s word may speak to each of us in the privacy of our hearts, calling us to reconciliation with those closest to us with whom we may be in conflict. And God’s word may speak to us as communities of Christians as well, to hear what we may do to promote healing and reconciliation around us locally. If we listen, we shall surely hear, and we shall be instructed.

And then the gospel reading today gives us our third mandate: After we have prayed and been instructed, we are to say the words that are left out of the appointed reading: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it me with me according to your Word.”

The angel promises the same thing that the prophet Micah promises – both of them are prophets who speak the Word of God, and the words spoken to Mary are similar in many ways to those from Micah: “Do not be afraid”; “you will conceive and bear a son . . . God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David . . . and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary would have had no clue what this might mean in concrete terms. She could not have imagined the suffering that would precede the resurrection. But she said “Yes” to the instruction of God.

May God give us the grace to go up to the House of God, to pray for the United Nations and all organizations and efforts that make for peace, to release our fear and guilt, and to live instead in hope and with obedience to the instruction of God.

- Sr. Constance Joanna SSJD

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Homily preached by the Rev. Lucy Reid - October 19, 2014 on the ACPO weekend

Readings: Isaiah 45:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

Discernment. Are you tired of that word yet?  I don’t know how many times we’ve used it this weekend, and here it is again in the gospel: the imperative of being able to discern wisely between one thing and another.

Discernment isn’t necessary if something can be decided by a simple choice — whether to have toast or oatmeal or both; to put on this shirt or that.  But where the choice is not obvious and the outcome is significant, discernment is essential.

In the gospel, Jesus is saying that discernment is necessary between the claims of the emperor and the secular world and the claims of God and God’s kingdom. Where does our allegiance lie? Christian discipleship is incomplete without discernment.

This weekend we’ve been seeking to discern the leading of the Spirit, the call of God, in our lives. Assessors and candidates, Sisters and guests, we’re all in this discernment process one way or another. It’s an on-going part of the Christian life. One part of the discernment, in this particular ACPO context, is to identify a call to priestly ministry rather than to other forms of ministry — just as each of the sisters had to discern and test a call to the religious life, from among the many other Christian paths.

Discernment is about seeing clearly , and it demands openness, honesty, courage and vulnerability — the willingness to see through the clearest lens possible, and sometimes that lens is held up for us be someone else. Robbie Burns saw the precious value of that when he wrote in his poem, “To a Louse”:

O Wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae many a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion. . .”  (1786)

Or as translated into standard English:

And would some Power the small gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:

You candidates have allowed yourselves to be seen by others and soon you’ll see what that looked like. I can understand your anxiety! I say again, the clear sightedness of discernment demands openness, honesty, courage and vulnerability. But it can free us from many a blunder and foolish notion.

There’s one more piece of good news, and it’s expressed in the epistle: “God has chosen you.”  Paul, Silvanus and Timothy are greeting the Christians in Thessalonika, but listen to these words as though they’re being spoken directly to you, because they are!

We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you. . .  (1 Thess. 1:2-4)

You are here today because of “your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” You are beloved and chosen — whether you are called to priestly ministry or to another ministry. Do you believe that?  Can you trust it?  All of us, ordained or lay or religious; retired or just beginning; burning with faith or getting a little rusty; successful stars or hopeless failures — all of us are brothers and sisters beloved by God, and chosen by God. There’s nothing you can do to make that cease to be true. That’s how low grace sets the bar. You are eternally beloved and chosen, whether you recognize it and live into it or not.

Even Cyrus, the king of Persia, unbeknownst to himself, was chosen by God as the means by which the Jewish captivity under the Babylonians would end.

Listen again to what Isaiah writes:

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
   whose right hand I have grasped. . .

I will go before you. . . .
I call you by your name,
  I surname you . . . .
I arm you, though you do not know me. . . .”

Imagine that! — being grasped by the hand and called by name to do something for God — even if you don’t know it. And what’s more God gives you a surname; God “surnamed” you. It’s a verb I hadn’t noticed before. And what is that surname? Beloved. Chosen. Precious. Mine.

The path of discerning God’s grace and call, active in the world and in you, is a constantly unfolding one. This ACPO weekend is part of a much larger process, a much longer journey.  There will be times of clarity and times when you have no idea what God is up to. Times when you feel you’re being wonderfully used by God and times when you feel utterly useless.  Take it from me; it’s true.

But the bottom line is this — God calls you by name, chooses you and loves you and God has work for you to do in this beautiful, broken world, through the grace and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May you discern, first and last, the truth of that.