Sermon for Trinity 20 by Abbot Stuart

‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’ ~ but faith in what?

Last week we pondered the nature of God who could create the furthest star – and all those between – and yet be closer to us than the air we breathe ~ closer to us than our own heart.

This God we will never be able to define because the human mind simply isn’t able to cope with such a concept, and nothing we say about God can ever be adequate.

So how are we to think about this God? – how do we engage through out mental and emotional faculties with this God who is and must remain essentially Mystery?

As Christians, we believe that God gives us Christ, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, as the key to our engagement with the Divine Mystery in which we are inextricable caught up…and Jesus points us to our neighbour.

“Whatever you do to the least…you do to me”

~ and he asks, uncomfortably, “How can you say you love God whom you have not seen if you do not love your neighbour whom you have seen?”

Benedict presses this further as he tries to school his monks to be aware of and open to the Divine Presence in every moment and every aspect of their lives. This is the ideal, and we spend most of our time failing and beginning again ~ like the old monk who was asked what he did all day: “I fall down and I get up. I fall down and I get up. I fall down and I get up.”

The aim is to lead us into a deeper and deeper appreciation of the sacredness of all life ~ the sacredness of each person, of all creation, of all time.

We are using a kind of short-hand as we say that Christ comes to us in the person of the guest, in whoever knocks at the door, and especially the poor and pilgrims; that Christ comes to us in the person of the abbot, the sick, the other members of the Community. Benedict is alerting us to the fact that every encounter can be a kind of ‘wake up call’ to the Divine Presence so that we are readier to be open to it in the silence, the Oratory, the Chapter Room, in the field or the kitchen ~ wherever we are, whatever we are doing.

As Joan Chittister says, ‘Christ comes to disturb us in our complacency’. Christ comes to push back our horizons and stretch our imaginings of God.

The common life of the monastery and its ministry of hospitality, the recitation of the Office and the celebration of the Eucharist are all tools to help us grow into the awareness of and engagement with our part in the Mystery we call God. Our vocation is to grow in union with God ~ hence Jesus’ encouragement ‘to pray at all times’ ~ to pray - to be in communion with God – at all times ~ to be a continuing incarnation of the Spirit of the Risen Christ. This is the Christian vocation!!!

It’s an amazing vocation!!!

Perhaps it is because it is so mind-blowing that most of the time we trundle along oblivious to it. It’s so easy to relax into automatic pilot.

‘We are the body of Christ’ says the president at the Eucharist. Perhaps familiarity has dulled the response ~ when Series II first came out in the 1960s folk noticed – some even objected saying it was disrespectful. Now it tends to be more like water off a duck’s back.

‘The Lord is here!’ says the president at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer. ‘His Spirit is with us’ comes back a gloomy response as folk stare at their feet and shuffle.

‘The Lord be with you.’ It’s a wake-up call. ‘Remember ~ allow the Lord to be with you, assent to his presence ~ the one who created the furthest star, the one who is nearer to you than the air you breathe.

‘And also with you!!!’ ~ not infrequently the president needs to be reminded – alerted - to what she or he is about! Will the president into the Mystery.

We need all the grace we can get to engage in what we are about. That’s why we begin the Office with a cry for help: ‘O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.’

The Office is there as the monastic’s principal work ~ it is there to help us grow in love, to grow in God. When we take it seriously, we are entering a battle ground. What Old Nick most fears is that we will grow in love, in God, and so his whole armoury is brought to bear on us: most common is the temptation simply to slip into automatic pilot and go through the Office – or the Eucharist – without bringing our minds and hearts to engage in what we are doing.

How many times does our mind wander to preparing next week’s menu, what to pack next, what to say to someone who snubbed me a couple of hours ago? We get irritated and distracted by the mannerisms of others in choir, the way they sing or breathe or move, the way they cough, blow their nose, sneeze, clear their throat; the spider that is crossing the floor, the wasp at the window, the noise of the chain-saw outside, the dish-washer inside: the list is endless …

How to die to self so that Christ may live in us? How to ‘die’ to make ourselves one as we try to recite the Office in unity rather than ‘in the way I think it should be’?

The more aware we are of the fragility of our concentration, of the poverty of our genuine humility, and the more we long to engage with God, the more we will invest in praying the all-too familiar words of the liturgy.

‘O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.’

‘The Lord be with you. And also with you.’

‘The Lord is here. His Spirit is with us.’

‘Pray always,’ advises Jesus in today’s Gospel reading ~ he invites us to share his vocation to BE Christ in the world today.

Lord, we do have faith ~ strengthen what little faith we have.