Good Friday 2007: Isa 52.13-52.12; Heb 4.14-16, 5.7-9; John 18.1-19.42
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation,
"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI
06 April 2007
Today Death dies...
04 April 2007
The temptation to skip Good Friday
Wednesday of Holy Week: Isa 50.4-9 and Matthew 26.14-25
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Though we generally look at the forty days in the desert as the test of Jesus’ resolve to die on the cross, we can also understand his odd friendship with Judas as a source of on-going temptation for him as well. Judas is the face of those to whom the Father has sent the Son. Sinners. The weak, the wild and weary, those who would kill, cheat, betray, rob; anyone who stands in habitual disobedience to the Word: the prostitutes, the hoarding rich, the greedy tax collectors. Judas, a real person, of course, is also a temptation for Jesus to let the cup pass, to stall and find another way to get the job of universal salvation accomplished. Though Jesus came to save sinners, must he die for the likes of Judas—for those who stink of the idolatry of self worship and vicious backstabbing? Why not just die for the smaller sinners? The ones who don’t really mean it? The ones who slip up occasionally? But really now, why would anyone need to die for them? Such meager sins need no sacrifice. Do you see the temptation?
Jesus exposes his betrayal at the Passover meal. Why? Consider: what hasn’t gone right for him up ‘til now? He rides into
And then there is Judas. Greedy, obstinate, fawning, self-righteous, falsely pious, and two-faced: “Surely it is not I who will betray you, Rabbi?” Jesus answers Judas in exactly the same way he will answer Pilate later this week: “You have said so.” This must have hit Judas in the stomach like a fist! He knows! He knows I will give him over to his enemies. Of course, he knows. And he has known along, hasn’t he? Judas is a temptation, a vile little reminder to Jesus that his death will offer the vilest of the vile a chance at eternal life. A reminder that he dies on the cross for every greedy, obstinate, fawning, self-righteous, falsely pious, and two-faced friend out there; any and everyone who would stab a friend in the back and collect a fee for the deed. These people are the ones the Son of God must suffer for?! The reigning champ of Father-sent prophets must die so that useless scum might live? Do you see the temptation?
Indeed Judas is the devil as our tradition says. He tempted Jesus in the desert but failed to move him to sin. So he returns with Judas’ face to try again. Perhaps unwittingly, he shows Christ the truth of his sacrifice on the cross. He will die for Judas and those like Judas who suffer from all the maladies of rebellion against the Word. He will die to free the liar, the caged, the fanatical, the obsessive, the narcissist, the melancholic, and the manic. And he will free them into a divine passion, a Fatherly love that burns away every speck of dark longing the iron bite of sin’s chains and for the cool flow of oblivion. He will love us all into a spectacular judgment, a weighing of joy and hope against despair and with Christ we will tip the scale into White Hot Beauty.
But not yet. Not yet. Do you see the temptation? Will you, like Judas, betray Christ? Of course you will. And you will do so happily. Or else.
02 April 2007
No Shame! Proclaim the Death of Jesus!
Monday of Holy Week: Isaiah 42.1-7 and John 12.1-11
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Look again at who’s gathered in the house with Jesus: Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Judas. Jesus has with him the man whom he raised from the dead. A woman who serves him with her working hands. A woman who serves him extravagantly with her adoration and care. And a disciple who despises Jesus’ excess and hides his contempt for him with pious platitudes about the poor. Here Jesus has with him a living miracle, a selfless good work, an indulgent act of devotion, and a heart hardened by avarice and scorn. A week or so before his death he has with him the Church—the Church in all her supernatural life after death; her hard labor at love in service; her genuine, though sometimes wildly generous, piety; and all her dark practicality, worldly worry, and survivalist self-preservation. Jesus says to this Body assembled for dinner: my death is coming; I die for you. Nothing, then, is to be counted excessive or wasteful when held up against the Cross!
This is a difficult time of year for thinking Christians. What do we make of this gruesome exchange of one life for the lives of us all? An Anglican bishop in the
One last question from Augustine: “Why does our human frailty hesitate to believe that mankind will one day live with God?” And I would add: why do we hesitate to believe that we will live with God b/c of the death of His Son on the cross? An answer in a question: what is more excessive, more extravagant than the death of the Son of God in exchange for our lives? The price is scandalous, the cost beyond counting. This is why the Cross must be greatest hope and our greatest glory!
Without fear, without hesitation or shame: confess that Christ died for us so that we might live!
31 March 2007
Will you follow Christ to the Cross?
The Procession
Palm Sunday 2007: Luke 19.28-40
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Luke Church, St Paul Hospital, and Church of the Incarnation
He is the one given to Mary the Virgin by the Spirit of God. He is the one proclaimed by Simeon in the temple. He was baptized by the prophet John and was often found in the company of whores, lepers, tax collectors, and Gentiles. He healed a few, fed a few, and taught a few more the meaning of the Law. He confounded the Pharisees and scribes. He blasphemed by calling himself “Son of God.” His feet were perfumed by the woman in
Who is this? We know now what the Roman soldier shouted aloud then: “Truly, this is the Son of God!”
Palm Sunday: Phil 2.6-11 and Luke 22.14-23.56
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St Luke Church, St Paul Hospital and Church of the Incarnation
Paul says that Jesus, emptying himself, took on the form of a slave and became one of us to die as one of us for all of us. We can cheer all we want. Wave palms all we want. No one here will ask Jesus to let his cup pass. No one here will volunteer to hang on that cross and let Jesus go free. Are we cowards? No. We know that Jesus must die so that we might live. The certainty of his death is the only possibility of our eternal life. Only he is Son of God, Son of Man; fully human, fully divine. His death pulls us down into the grave and his rising again draws us up with him. Everything that needs to be healed will be healed. All repairs will be made. Nothing will be left broken or hurt.
But today, just today, knowing what we know about his journey from here to the tomb, even still we must cheer and whistle. And wave palms. And shout “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” And we want so much to grab the tail end of his departing scene and pull it back, just yank it back to the garden or the roaring sea or the mountaintop or the desert or to any of the dozens of place where we sat with him to listen to God’s wisdom, to see the radiant glory of his love for us.
We want him anywhere but here in
We’ve come too far for that now, brothers and sisters! That desert was forty days long. Along the way we dropped coffee and tea, booze and cigarettes, TV and shopping, email and chocolate. We dropped gossiping, nagging, sex, meat, cussing. We picked up extra hours of prayer, daily Mass, weekly confession, spiritual reading, volunteer hours, being nice to little brother and sister, obeying mom and dad, obeying husband or wife, extra money in the plate on Sunday. The devil bought out his best temptations to show us our weaknesses and sometimes he won and sometimes we won. But he knows and you need to know if you don’t already: God wins all the time, every time, for all time! And He has given us Easter to prove it. But now…if you will be Christ you must follow Christ. Walk right behind him. Feel the stones. Wipe the spit. Hear the curses and jeers. Taste the salty iron of blood. See the cross on his shoulder. And know that he carries for you the only means of your salvation. The sacrificial victim carries his own altar to the church of the skulls.
How far will you follow?
28 March 2007
Eaten Alive or Freed in Truth?
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St.
The drug and alcohol rehab vets I worked with years ago used to confront the dissembling obstinance of new members to the group with this pithy saying: “The truth will set you free…and sometimes really tick you off!” They knew first hand the empty promises, the false joys of slavery to sin. Not that their addictions per se were sinful, of course, but the lives they were required to construct around their dependencies were often ramshackled shanties shot full of holes, rotted and crumbling foundations, painted over obscenities, and there was always the lurking threat of collapse, the desperate gamble against discovery and disaster. More than anything their substance-slavery shackled them to lying, to illusion, and dumped them all alone in a world of recycling hopelessness and despair. When they would tell the newbie in the group that the truth would set him free, they meant that his life had to change radically. When they told him that the truth would tick him off, they meant that it would REALLY tick him off. Our chosen illusions comfort us even as they eat us alive. How often do we prefer to be eaten alive than awakened from fantasy?
Notice carefully who Jesus is teaching. Not the crowds. Not the scribes and Pharisees. But “those Jews who believed in him.” He’s teaching those who already confess his lordship, those who already know who he is and bow to his word. Beyond this initial profession of faith, Jesus is telling them that there is a state of true discipleship, an enduring friendship of obedience and love that rests on a simple progression of knowledge: remain in my word—know the truth—the truth will set you free. He says, “Everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin.” Each act of disobedience then, each willful failure to hear and heed the Word is a link in a chain around your neck. This is not a punishment for a crime so much as it is a consequence of pride. We choose to depend on our own will rather than the will of the Father for us. Sin is surrender: to our passions, our logic, our prejudices and preferences; giving in to our delusions of perfection and the need for control.
You do not own your life. You are a slave to Christ!
So, when Jesus tells the believing Jews to remain in his word, to know the truth, and that the truth will set them free, what exactly is he teaching them? Our Holy Father answers in Sacramentum caritatis: “In the sacrament of the altar[…]the Lord truly becomes food for us, to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. Since only the truth can make us free, Christ becomes for us the food of truth[…]Jesus Christ is the Truth in person, drawing the world to himself” (SC 2). To remain in Christ’s word then is to meet him daily. To know his truth is to know him intimately as Lord. To be set free by truth is to be enslaved to Christ…daily. Our Holy Father goes on to teach: “Jesus is the lodestar of human freedom: without him, freedom loses its focus, for without the knowledge of truth, freedom becomes debased, alienated and reduced to empty caprice. With him, freedom finds itself” (SC 2). There is no freedom without truth. We cannot act freely as creatures without the frame and goal of truth. Without truth we merely act, creating illusion, building a powerful resistance to obedience, and preparing ourselves for the final scene of a terrible drama: slavery to our finite whims, our fixed choices. And hell.
Would you prefer being eaten alive by sin to being awakened from the fantasy that you can act freely without acting truthfully? Christ is our freedom. He is our truth. Remain in him and come with us to die with him in
26 March 2007
Loved beyond death
Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Isa 7.10-14, 8-10; Heb 10.4-10; Luke 1.26-38
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX
A sign for us as deep as the nether world and as high as the sky! A sign as bright as the collective angelic glory and as generous as the bounds of the cosmos! Isaiah tells King Ahaz that the Lord’s sign of His favor, the seal of His loving covenant is this: He will come to us with meat and skin and bones by the womb of a virgin and she and her husband will name him Emmanuel, “God With Us!” And why do we need this sign? Isaiah reports that “[King Ahaz’s heart] and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” when they heard that their powerful neighbors were coming to wage war against them. Our God, wearied by their anxiety, showed Isaiah this sign of His enduring presence. Our God is always with us! And so we celebrate today the angelic announcement to Mary the Virgin that our Lord has fulfilled His promise and is here with us now. Christ has come into the world, and he has come to do the Father’s will.
John Paul II wrote in his letter to women, Mulieris dignitatem (1988), “Do we not find in the Annunciation at Nazareth the beginning of that definitive answer by which God himself ‘attempts to calm people's hearts’?” No one here will be surprised when I say that ours is an age of anxiety, an era of raw psychic upheaval and potentially deadly spiritual negligence. The truths of the faith that set us firmly on the Way often find us disbelieving, mistrusting, uncaring, and wearied by constant assault. The news that our neighbors might be arrayed against us, ready for ideological warfare, seems almost predictable and expected. Isn’t the culture circling us, moving in, coming closer and closer, strangling us, pushing us to the edge of irrelevance? Aren’t we seeing the end of the Christian West, the coming reign of Baal in America? And Mohamed in Europe? Surely, if we are not winning, we must be losing!
Truly, our hearts are anxious and wearied. But what we are anxious about? What wearies us? Maybe you are worried about the decline of the Christian West. This is U.D. after all! But if I had to bet my stipend I would say that most of us are wearied by trails slightly less dramatic than the collapse of the Enlightenment Project into postmodernity. Say, small things like money, relationships, children, family, work, health, spiritual well-being, academic success. These things will gnaw at our trust, nibble ever so gently at our peace, until we are weary and it looks as though our enemies are arrayed against us and God Himself is paying no attention.
The Annunciation of our Lord’s conception to Mary at Nazareth is God’s announcement to us that He is with us. Always with us. Always has been. Always will be. Our Lord did not write new laws for us to assure us of His presence. He did not send yet another prophet to preach His love, to proclaim His fidelity to His covenant. He came Himself. He came Himself to tell us that He loves us and to seal the deal of our salvation with His own body and blood. His wrecked body on the cross is our one sacrifice for all of us, for all of our sins. And his resurrection from the dead is our assurance that we will never be alone. He was born of a virgin and named Emmanuel, “God With Us.”
We can hear in the angelic annunciation to Mary the beginning of God’s definitive answer to our unsettled hearts. Where’s the rest of His answer? The Paschal Mystery! The rest of Emmanuel’s life as a preacher and healer; his teaching the truth of the Father’s mercy; his life with his mother and father and friends; his betrayal by those same friends; his trial before the priests and Pilate; the beatings, the ridicule, the pain and blood. Of course, the Cross. And the Empty Tomb. Here’s our answer: we are loved beyond joy, beyond truth, beyond family and friends; we are loved beyond Law, beyond pain and death; we are loved by Love Himself.
Gabriel said to Mary, “The Lord is with you!...Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God.”
25 March 2007
The Art and Grace of Forgetting
5th Sunday of Lent: Isa 43.16-21; Phil 3.8-14; John 8.1-11
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Everything: picking beans in our Mississippi garden; learning to drive at 12 and denting the Pontiac fender on a tree; my Boy Scout awards and their red velvet matte and frame on my dad’s office wall; the grocery store encyclopedias my mom bought one at a time week by week; that time in Mexico when fireworks woke us for prayer and we went instead to buy silver; climbing the Great Wall of China in August and making bead necklaces for Peruvian orphans in March; all those childish fits of impatience and anger b/c I would not see or listen; my hard head and the seventeen years I ran from God…I have accepted the loss of all things in Christ, but I can’t yet call them all rubbish. Like Paul, I have not yet attained perfect maturity, but b/c Christ has taken possession of me, I run after the hope that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and that once dead myself, I may rise with Christ! But for now, I strain forward and fail.
Paul teaches us to be conformed to Jesus’ death and to share his sufferings and count everything a loss b/c we have found righteousness in him. What do you count as loss? What have you lost in finding Christ? In Christ, in his righteousness, we see the impermanence of things, the instability of creation at its root and its inability to satisfy our greatest longing; in Christ we see and hear his Word seducing us with hope, rejuvenating us with faith, and giving us a final purpose, a reason to live, in love. What can’t we count as loss when held up next to “the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus”? What will you count as more important, grander, of greater value than the friendship, the love of Him Who made you? The Lord said to Isaiah, “I am doing something new!...In the desert I make a way…” And that way for us in this Lenten desert is the way of forgiveness and forgetfulness, the way of the Cross with the Cross as our goal. We must practice the art and grace of counting everything as loss so that we “may gain Christ and be found in him.”
Perhaps you have not yet taken hold of the hope of the resurrection? Perhaps you have not yet attained perfect maturity in living day to day our Father’s Easter promise? If not, why not? There have to be as many reasons out there as there are people to sin! But I wonder what light Paul and our gospel narrative can shine on this question? Notice that Paul admits his spiritual immaturity but suggests that the cure for his ailment is “forgetting what lies behind…straining forward to what lies ahead…” In other words, if he must count as loss everything he has b/c of Christ, then he must also forget everything he has lost and pursue, in righteousness, Christ Jesus. What is this “forgetting”? To forget is to fail to remember; to cease to ponder on or think about; to leave behind and to cease recalling mind. To forget someone is to remove them from your life as an influence, as a subject of thought; to forget them is to stop remembering them intentionally. They are history out of mind.
Do we see this forgetting in the gospel? Yes. But first we see what happens when we remember. The woman accused of adultery stands before the crowd. Once Jesus has heard the charges against her, he says, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” You can see the men in the crowd stop and think. What were they thinking about? They were remembering their sins! They had not taken possession of the Word, the promises of the Father, b/c they were looking behind to their transgressions. Though the scribes and Pharisees came to test Jesus on a point of Law, they themselves were tested on a point of Love. They could remember their sins b/c they had not received God’s forgiveness; literally, they had not obeyed the Lord’s greatest command: love God, self, and others with all your being, everything you have and are. Jesus then teaches the woman (and us) what it means to forgive and forget: “I do not condemn you. Go, from now on do not sin any more.” Mercy and an admonition to be holy.
Earlier I asked you if you had taken hold of the Father’s promise of the resurrection? Do you believe His Word? If not, why not? Look at the scribes and Pharisees. They didn’t bring that woman to Jesus b/c they wanted her executed or b/c they abhor adultery and needed Jesus’ consent. They brought that woman to Jesus to test him. They wanted a word from him that would allow them to charge him with breaking the Law. And why did they think that the case of this woman’s alleged adultery would give them what they wanted? Simply put: they had heard that Jesus was forgiving notorious sinners their sins and they misunderstood his reasons for doing so. They suspected him of laxity, of being too wet and squeamish when it came to judging sinners. How wrong they were! They slinked away thoroughly judged and condemned by their own memories! They tested Jesus b/c they failed to hear his Word and to see him as the Christ. Their desire to test him—to exam him and put him on trial—that desire is both the dark that blinds them and the reason for the darkness. All they have is their loss and so they clamor after defeat as if it were a prize.
Is this why you are having difficulty taking hold of the Father’s Easter promises? Is this why you struggle and strain in despair and anxiety this Lenten season? Are you testing Christ? Are you holding up the sins of others for public scrutiny and all the while remembering your own? Will you forgive and forget? With stone in hand, how would you answer Jesus’ challenge? To throw the stone is a lie. To drop it is the truth. But to drop the stone while remembering your sin is a defeat. Drop the stone and embrace your loss in Christ.
There is an art and grace to accepting everything as loss in Christ. That long shadow you see on the desert sand is the Cross cast darkly against your sin. You’ve been here for a month now and all those Lenten temptations have set your weaknesses to ringing aloud like bells. What does the desert know about you that you don’t? What have you learned about your immaturity in Christ? About your growth in righteousness? What stones do you need to drop? What tests for Christ do you need to cancel? What have you lost in finding Christ?
If we will be conformed to his death and his resurrection, we must share in his sufferings and count all things as loss. The shadow of the Cross just touches our feet now. The prize is on the other side.
23 March 2007
Killing Christ
4th Week of Lent (F): Wisdom 2.1, 12-22 and John 7.1-2, 10, 25-30
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation
What are you looking for? What are you running after? Maybe the better questions are: Who are you looking for? Who are you running after? John tells us that “the Jews” were looking for Jesus in order to kill him. Rightly so. Jesus was a dissident, a heretic, a blasphemer. He claimed to be God, broke the Law, roused the rabble. He claimed to bring a sword that would destroy families, end friendships, turn husband and wife against one another. He threatened eternal condemnation for those who refused to believe his word and follow him. He failed to affirm the value of religious diversity and uphold the universal validity of all spiritual paths. Truly, he deserved to die. And so, they looked for Jesus to kill him. But they were blinded by their wickedness; the wisdom of God was hidden from them and they couldn’t see his innocence. How odd.
Who are you looking for? Who are you running after? And why? Are you trying to kill Christ? Think hard before you answer! Those chasing after Jesus in
There is no empty tomb of Easter without the cross of Good Friday. And there is no Cross without the desert. Turn your face to
19 March 2007
Who's ya daddy?
Solemnity of
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
PODCAST!
Anywhere one Mississippian meets another there is a ritual exchange that establishes a familial bond to rival actual blood relations. First, we have to find out exactly where in
We want to know where we came from. Not just the raw biological facts of our conception and birth, but the longer story of how All This came about. Grand narratives like the Creation Story of Genesis serve to place us squarely in the longest possible telling of history. That we can pick our way back through the paragraphs and pages of what went on before gives us the power to plow on confident that we are plowing ahead with a purpose at our backs and a goal before us. We need to know where we came from in order to know who we are. This bit of knowledge doesn’t mean we have no choices in defining our paths or personalities. We do. It does mean, however, that we are brought into the world with Givens. We are given life itself, reasonably predictable genetic coding, a socio-economic status, etc. We are also given a legacy, an inheritance, some wealth that needs our protection, our fruitful use. We need to know who we are in the greatest story ever told b/c that story ends with our immortal souls and resurrected bodies forever giving praise and thanksgiving around the throne of the Most High.
We are the sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph. Mary, the virgin, and Joseph, her righteous husband, gave us Christ, our Savior, and made us not only children of a covenant authenticated by and unbroken genealogy, but also heirs in Christ to the jewels of our Father’s bottomless treasury. Joseph, our adopted father, stands for us as the man of men who think and act in and out of a holiness that can only be a gift of the Father Himself. Like Abraham he acted out of a raw trust in God’s promises and established a nation, a holy people, and tribe made worthy by his faith. Joseph, encouraged by the angel, is unafraid and obedient. He drops his perfectly just objections to Mary’s pregnancy. He drops his anxiety and fear. He listened to the Lord and gave Mary and her child a home. He made his own fiat. His own Yes to God.
Knowing Joseph and Mary’s familial line gives us a sense of stability, a sense of being well-grounded, well-connected. Of course, the purpose of the genealogy is to authenticate Jesus’ claim to David’s throne, but it does more than that. For us, in this era of decentered narratives and ideologies of violent power, knowing who Joseph was places him firmly within the apostolic faith and binds us ever more tightly to God’s promises of eternal life for those live in the righteousness of Christ.
Unlike Abraham, we do not have to hope against hope that our Father’s promises will be made good. We know they have been made good. Joseph and Mary made them good. We have a Savior and his name is Christ Jesus. So when we meet a fellow Christian along the way and we ask, “Who’s your mama and daddy?” we can say, “Joseph and Mary, cousin.” And all is right with the world b/c we are not orphans nor are we neglected. We are His children, His heirs and He has taken us into His home to live forever.
18 March 2007
You will betray Christ...
4th Sunday of Lent: Joshua 5.9, 10-12; 2 Cor 5.17-21; Luke 15.1-3, 11-32
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
PODCAST!
Paul teaches the contentious Corinthians that “…God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to them the message of reconciliation.” So, we are forgiven and then given the ministry of forgiveness to spread in the world, the work of bringing together those split apart, broken under, distant and made alien. The first reconciliation is with God. No other bond of friendship or love makes the least bit of sense outside the bond of love that our Father has for us. That we love is His doing. We cannot love without Him. And without love we can know nothing of Him or His creation—nothing about ourselves, others, or the things of this world. Just beyond the moment of creation itself, to be reconciled to God through Christ Jesus is the primitive move of love. Nothing stands before His love and remains broken, sick, injured, lonely, or distant…nothing, that is, but the stubborn refusal to be loved.
And why would anyone refuse to be loved by Love Himself? To be loved by God is to be changed forever. Clenched fists, an obstinately set jaw, a cold-heart do not easily release control to airy promises of safety and bliss. Even divine promises of safety and bliss. This an anxiety so profound that the Legions of Hell are frightened for us—even they believe! But we are capable of choosing still whether or not we will be changed forever by our desire for God or left squalling helplessly in our mulish refusal at the door to eternal darkness. There are worse choices than betrayal. There is the decision against love. And then crippling despair.
Though reconciliation with God is first, it is not the only reconciliation required of us. To love God is something too easily left in the world of forms, the merely abstract gesture of good will toward divine being. Something more concrete, more worldly is required of our love. We must be reconciled to one another in Christ. The Prodigal Son returns to a party thrown in this name. His father welcomes him home without reservation because he is the father’s son. Despite the son’s gross irresponsibility and near criminal immorality, the father opens his arms to receive the wretch, drapes him in his finest robes, slaughters a fat calf, and celebrates the feckless life of this reprobate. Sorry. I’m with the obedient brother on this one. Why the celebration? The natural consequences of the son’s irresponsibility are absolutely just. He wasted his inheritance, scattering it like seed on sand, and reaped the bitter harvest. He deserves his fate. Yes, exactly, he deserves his fate and his father’s harsh judgment! But he receives mercy, forgiveness, and a welcome home party. He is reconciled in love b/c he was dead and now lives. B/c he was lost and now he is found. Our faith is about excess and waste, overflowing love and beautifully squandered gifts. There is nothing pretty or genteel about the cross. Nothing efficient about the empty tomb. Love reconciles like a thunderstorm soaks dry earth.
We will betray Christ before he reaches the cross. Despite our fervent fasting and pristine prayers, despite our honest intent and good will, despite everything we did, do, and will do during Lent, we will come to the decision that it is best to live for the cause than to die for our friend. And we will go on…to be reconciled to God, to one another, and to become the ambassadors for Christ that Paul urges us to be. We will remember our betrayal as a sign of weakness, anxiety, sin. We will recall again and again the exact moment we did not speak up for Christ, the exact moment we let some insult to his faith slide by, the exact moment we chose to be his enemy dressed as his friend. We will remember when we choose to blend in with the crowd, to throw a stone or two on the sorrowful way, to shout a curse at his stripped and bleeding back. We will remember our betrayal. But he won’t.
Can you smell the wood of the cross? There are many more steps between here and now and the foot of the tree. The hot sand blows stinging hard and everything and everyone you’ve left behind calls to you out of friendship to come back. What’s ahead after all? Blood, bits of flesh, spit, gall, deception, cruelty, violence…your betrayal of a friend. You can turn back now. Do it. Just for a second. Look back to Ash Wednesday. What do you see? Hot promises? Eager intentions? A hunger for holiness? I’m going to do it this time!? Sure. And will you? Not likely. You’ll make it to the cross alright. But you won’t make it there any holier than when you left on Ash Wednesday. Do you think the purpose of Lent is to make you holy? Holier? The purpose of Lent is to show you your need for God. You will make it to the cross b/c God wants you at the cross. Holy or not. Your dieting and fasting and fussing about prayer and alms are at best distractions if they don’t serve to clear up God’s will for you: smell the wood, then see the wood, then taste it. Then feel it against your skin, your hands, your back and feet, feel it—burning, wet, raw, sharp. You are Christ. Lent is not your time to flee from weakness and temptation. Run to them! Lent is your time to pray like the Prodigal Son, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, I no longer deserve to be called your son…” And then wait for God the Father to forget your sins and drape you in His finest robes and slaughter the fattest calf to welcome you home again.
Sniff the air. The cross is coming closer. The cup is full. Will you drink from it? Or will you pour it into the desert sand?
08 March 2007
No strength in flesh, no hope in anxiety
2nd Week of Lent (R): Jer 17.5-10 and Luke 16.19-31
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Church of the Incarnation (Alternative Spring Break Pilgrims’ Blessing)
What’s wrong with seeking and finding our strength in flesh? What could be more real, more immediate, more readily available than the helping hand or the generous heart? Seeking and finding our strength in the flesh—in our own hearts and minds and bodies, in our own humanity and communities—this seems more than just the obvious answer; it seems like the only answer to our weaknesses! We turn to one another in service, in generosity, trusting in compassion and endurance. And we often find in our most desperate moment of need, at that instant of near panic in the face of overwhelming hardship—what? Neglect, abuse, cruelty, cold criminal hearts, disdain for others’ needs, blaming those in need, a rationalization for inaction, and weak, weak flesh. Of course, we also find heroic generosity, self-sacrifice, zealous service, and compassion. And here we find the Lord and His hope.
Jeremiah says that comfortable flesh—the cold, stingy heart wallowing in abundance—is cursed. Why? Well, where is the hope of one who finds his strength in passing flesh? Where is his trust? What more can he hope for, long for, than more comfortable flesh and a smaller heart grown colder in meanness? Let me give you a simple analogy: you fall off the deck of a cruise ship. One sailor throws you a standard life jacket connected to a long nylon rope. Another sailor throws you a life jacket made of cardboard and connected to a long string of paper clips. Now. It is entirely possible that both could save you under near perfect conditions, but knowing the composition of both jackets, the effects of water on paper, the strength of paper clips hauling your wet weight, which jacket do you choose to save your life? The standard one, of course! But spiritually speaking, how many of us consistently choose the cardboard jacket b/c it’s more fashionable or the person tossing it to us is better looking or b/c we do not trust the one throwing the life jacket that will save us?
Do I really need to tell you that placing your trust in the flesh and your hope in the world is both foolish and vain? Look at the Rich Man in hell. Where is his hope? Easy answer: where was his treasure? Look at Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. Where is his hope? Easy, again: he had no treasure in the flesh but dies covered in lesions. Where does he die? And this is probably the most poignant moment in the gospel today…he dies lying at the rich man’s door! At the entrance to fleshy abundance, a door to comfortable safety, Lazarus dies wanting nothing more than table scraps. Having everything, the rich man dies wanting everything and now he pleads for a drop of water. From Lazarus. Who died at his door hungry.
Here’s a question for the ASB Pilgrims: where is your hope? Where is your trust? What is it that you think you’re taking to Peru? Shoes? Baseball caps? School supplies? Building skills? Do you think you’re taking Jesus to Peru? He’s there already! What are you taking? What will you leave? What will you bring back? Are you ready to see Christ revealed to you in a three year old orphan? A gangly teenaged boy? A middle-class Sunday school teacher? A grouchy airport clerk with a distaste for Americans? In one another?
We’re not going to Peru to save the Peruvians. We going to Peru to meet Christ. Our gift to the Peruvians is our love, our attention, our fellowship in Christ, our willingness to work side by side. They are letting us serve them. And that’s their gift to us.
05 March 2007
PLAYBILL: "O, Wounded Me!"
2nd Week of Lent (M): Daniel 9.4-10 and Luke 6.36-38
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Somehow it feels good to pick at our scabs, to stroke our wounds and feel them hurt us all over again. My salt seems to burn a little sweeter. And how wonderful it is to discover that having been offended we now have power over our offender; we hold him or her dangling by the toes! There’s that tasty threat of vengeance or exposure. Not to mention the perverse delight of replaying the wounding over and over again for full effect. A sort of feedback loop where each rehearsal of the injury gets more and more vivid, brighter and louder; the details take on an epic cast, a Broadway drama starring Me as the victim. With top billing and my own dressing room, why would I choose to end this production of “O Wounded Me!”?
Besides the obvious advantages of being the victim, aren’t we just a little afraid of forgiveness? Just a little anxious about giving or receiving forgiveness? What does it mean to forgive someone who’s hurt me? Am I saying that he or she didn’t hurt me? That it was OK? Is forgiveness an implied permission to do it again? Am I telling my offender that I am weak? Does forgiving mean forgetting? Who do I become if I forgive? The hero? The saint? Jesus teaches his disciples that “…the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” So, the question is: what do you want forgiveness to be? Wiping the slate clean? A small start toward reconciliation? A grudging gesture just to keep the peace? A pro forma ritual to save face? The measure will be what you want it to be. And it will be exactly that for you when it comes time for you to be measured.
So, “give and gifts will be given to you.” This isn’t about a quid pro quo gift exchange; it’s about learning how to receive a gift as a gift. Gracefully. Full of grace. It helps to know who you are as the receiver of the gift! Look again at the sinners from the reading in Daniel. Who are they? They are wicked, evil rebels; disobedient servants, shamefaced traitors to God; they are base criminals. And despite all of this…their own description of themselves, by the way!...despite their wretched state, they can call on God’s compassion and forgiveness. Knowing yourself to be a sinner and calling on God’s mercy anyway is exactly how you learn to receive the forgiveness of others. And to give it. To be asked to forgive is a humbling moment. To forgive is even more humbling. To forgive as I would be forgiven is an act of total dependence on God. It is all about looking over the questions, through the objections, around the hurt and fear, and staring straight into the face of Christ on the cross and knowing that I cannot waste one lash, one nail, one thorn on another second of self-indulgent drama. Pampered wounds never heal.
Those egg laying creatures from the Alien movies eventually die, releasing their choke hold and falling from your face. But before they do, they plant a monster in your gut. In time, the monster explodes from your chest in a spray of blood and bone. And it runs off to create more monsters…
Forgive and be forgiven before your monster finds its way out.
04 March 2007
On a mountain closer to Jerusalem
2nd Sunday of Lent: Gen 15.5-12, 17-18; Phil 3.17-4.1; Luke 9.28-36
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Lord, it is good that we are here. Here in your desert. With you and your disciples. All your students and friends. We are fully awake and ready to hear, fully awake and ready to listen—a bit nervous, a little frightened maybe, but we’re here. We see Moses and Elijah and Jesus in their glory and we hear them talking with Jesus about his exodus to
What does it mean to be “fully awake” and to be “silent”? Notice that Peter, John, and James see the glory of the three men before them once they become “fully awake.” Having fallen asleep while Jesus prayed, they awake to this glory and say, “Master, it is good that we are here…” Being fully awake in Christ then is not simply a matter of not being asleep. Being fully awake is a matter of attentiveness to Christ’s presence, a focused effort toward seeing and hearing and listening to Christ every minute, every second of your day. Being fully awake is being alive with the Spirit, electric white and dazzling! Can you confess that it is good that you are here? Here in this house? Here in this desert? Here with us?
Being fully awake is also about being completely aware of what would make us into fools, that which pulls us away from Christ and pushes us toward a truly empty desert. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, warns against the “enemies of the cross of Christ.” These enemies run to their own destruction, worship their appetites, and revel in what brings them shame. They minds are possessed by “earthly things.” You’ve heard me call out these “earthly things” before, all those “ism’s.” It’s become a litany for me. In fact, I’ve made it into a real litany.
A Litany Against the Enemies of the Cross of Christ
(Please stand)
Let us pray: “Lord, your servant Paul warns us against scratching our itchy ears with alien philosophies and foreign religions; he also warns us not to conduct ourselves like those who are enemies of the Cross of Christ. Clear our hearts and minds and keep us fully awake so that we may hear your Word as we pray: Save us, O Lord!
From…
…the pride of materialist science and all its future Frankensteins… Save us, O Lord!
…the gluttony of petite bourgeois consumerism and fashion and war…
…the greed of corporate and governmental irresponsibility and the nanny State…
…the lusts of
…the sloth of self-help psychobabble, New Age junk, and religious syncretism…
…the envy of Enlightenment “freedom” and the prison of reason without God…
…the wrath of secular diversity, tolerance, and moral anarchy…
Save us, O Lord from these enemies and keep us fully awake. In Jesus name. Amen.
OK. A bit a fun. But I hope my point is clear: to be fully awake is in large part to be fully aware of what the faith is and isn’t, what defines us and what pretends to define us in order to destroy us. Our citizenship is in heaven, true, but right now, we live down here, and in the meantime, we have to be awake to our personal enemies, our daily temptations, and the enemies that work on a much larger scale. Lent, the desert, is where we go to confront these enemies head on! And there we will find the Lord already victorious.
We’re fully awake. Now, what does it mean to be quiet? Being quiet is not just about being noiseless. There’s silence, of course; but there’s stillness as well. Waiting. Not being tensed to spring into action. Not being ready to race or hurry. In fact, being quiet means being fully awake and completely empty, empty of an all-consuming Self, empty of disobedience and capital dissent; empty of inordinate desires for prestige, power, and advantage over others; empty of despairing, self-loathing, and resentment. Being quiet in the desert is about slowly shuffling your feet in the walk to
The Devil is here too, of course. He left for a time. He’s back. And that’s why we’re here in the desert: to meet the Devil so that we can be tempted; and we’re here to see Christ in his glory and to listen. So, let me ask you: do you run from temptation? Why? Are you afraid of sinning? Or are you afraid of what might tempt you? I mean, do you fear what you desire? Do you think fear is enough to drive away something as powerful as desire? Or does fear sweeten desire, pushing it into the forbidden and the inscrutable, thus turning a mere temptation into an obsession? Fighting temptation is pointless. That battle is won already. You are free; you do not have to sin. So, don’t. Look carefully at what the Devil is tempting you with. He will always tempt you with an apparent good. Look at the temptation. What’s good there? What has the Liar twisted? Untwist it. Find the Good and give God thanks for that Good. Turn an occasion of sin into a grateful event!
Master, it is good that we are here…with you, with each other. On the mountain, he showed us his heavenly glory and pointed us to
The cross pulls us to
03 March 2007
WAKE UP! and Be Quiet
2nd Sunday of Lent: Gen 15.5-12, 17-18; Phil 3.17-4.1; Luke 9.28-36
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
Women’s Retreat for U.D. Seniors (Vigil Mass)
If you are to be transfigured by your time in the desert, you must be fully awake and quiet. And not just “without noise” but also without hurrying, without pressured racing and competition, without distracted calculation and cautious deliberation. You must be Without. Entirely empty of envy, pride, desire for applause, desire for honors, desire for power; entirely emptied of self-pity, self-hatred, self-congratulation; emptied of self-righteous assurance, contagious despairing, and you must be emptied of our culture’s soul crippling scripts for women, those vacuous dramas of prince charmings, princess brides, the abused but dutiful wife, the mother eaten alive by maternal myths of all-consuming sacrifice. If you are to be transfigured by your time in the desert, you must be fully awake and quiet.
Full awake and quiet. Ssssshhhhhhh! The cloud speaks: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” Jesus was then alone and the disciples fell silent and did not tell anyone about what they had seen. And their silence about this miracle doomed the church. Their selfish silence thwarted the spread of the gospel; it destroyed any chance the apostles would have of casting the seeds of the Good News onto fertile, Gentile soil. Right? The Way died when Peter, John, and James sealed their lips in conspiracy and refused to talk about the Christ in his dazzling whites. NO! They were silent in the face of being told directly by the Father Himself that Jesus is His Son. Somehow, silence seems like the appropriate response to that revelation! They talked later. And often. And all over the Gentile world. And until they died as martyrs they spoke of the Chosen Son and the power of his fiery Spirit and the necessity of turning from rebellion and disobedience and turning to love and mercy. And because of their awed silence and then their obedient preaching, we can say with them: “Master! It is good that we are here!”
If you are to be transfigured by your time in the desert, you must be fully awake and quiet. Thomas Merton writes, “The desert was created simply to be itself, not to be transformed by men into something else […] The desert therefore is the logical dwelling place for the man who seeks to be nothing but himself—that is to say, a creature solitary and poor and dependent upon no one but God, with no great project standing between himself and his Creator”(TS, 5). To be asleep, spiritually, is live in a dreamland where you are liberated from all social constraints, all social commitments, all familial ties; to live in a dreamland where you are in control, where you define your truth and your limits, and where you pick and choose how you will moved by those around you. To be asleep spiritually to be foolish about speaking to God as an equal, treating Him like Santa Claus, trying to capture Him with small things like words or pictures or music or science. You are sleeping if you dream that God loves the Good Girl more. That He races to the rescue of the most pious first. That He treasures as indicators of your humility and obedience your obsessiveness, your self-doubt, your dark self-image. What project stands between you and God? What layers of sticky illusion cling to your waking and keep you stupored?
WAKE UP! Sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Listen: stand firm in the Lord. He will bring all things into subjection under him, including you and me. We will all be transfigured. Even now: we are changing. One step in front of the other. Over the sand. Over the dunes. Into the
‘Til then, imitate the stars: shine, wait, and be as still as light.