Fifth Sunday in Lent, 2019

Today's Gospel reading is of special importance for us, the people of St. Martha's. John
takes us into the house of Mary, Lazarus, and Martha herself. In today's reading, however, we
don't get to hear the story of the two sisters, of "active Martha and contemplative Mary", as
many interpreters of the Gospels have framed that episode, for better or for worse. Instead,
we hear of a highly dramatic, almost theatrical act of extravagant love: Mary takes a whole
pound of expensive perfume, anoints Jesus' feet with it, and wipes them dry with her hair.
We immediately hear of Judas complaining that all that money (three hundred denarii, to
be precise, which amounted to a full year of salary for a laborer) could have been given to
the poor.

Now, if there is one thing that is consistent throughout the four Gospels, is Jesus' concern
for the poor. Here, however, he fully supports Mary's act and commands Judas to "leave
her alone." He then goes on to explain that her act foreshadows what will happen at his
imminent burial. Jesus simply accepts and celebrates Mary's very physical act of pure love
towards him, and at the same time he shocks the audience with an eerie premonition of his
imminent death. So, what are we to make of this episode, especially in this season of Lent?

I find this story incredibly rich, for two main reasons: first of all, I see this episode in the
life of Jesus as a powerful affirmation of a woman disciple who is surrounded by male disciples that don’t always "get it". Second, it seems to me that Jesus is teaching us very clearly that to
love often entails getting our hearts broken. Allow me to unpack both points a bit more.

Our church and our society have made progress in allowing the voices of women to finally
be heard, and we are beginning to let go of the patriarchal mindset that has been the standard
for so long. However, a lot more work is needed. Here at St. Martha's we have pioneered (at
least with respect to our Diocese) the use of inclusive and expansive language in our liturgy.
I was thrilled to see how many times the use of inclusive and expansive language showed up
in the Holy Conversations and in the electronic feedback we collected. We aspire to be, after
all, the church where all are truly welcome and where all have a voice.

Perhaps, in this season of Lent, a season that calls for renewal and transformation, we can
ask ourselves what more work needs to be done before we can finally say that ALL voices
are given a chance to speak and to be heard. In the episode we just read Mary of Bethany is
silent. However, her action speaks a thousand words. She is anointing Jesus, an act that was
reserved to prophets in a position of authority. She is anointing a King. Let us notice the boundaries that limit the spread of the Good News, and let us notice what we are missing when voices are silenced.
If we think that things are being pushed too far, we only need to look at the example set by
Jesus time and again.

Second, what strikes a personal chord in today's reading are the words that Jesus uses to
refer to his imminent death. Whether he had supernatural knowledge of the future or not is
immaterial: any smart person proclaiming unconditional inclusion of oppressed minorities,
speaking truth to power would have known that this was not going to go down well with the
Romans. Jesus sensed that his end was near and reminded the disciples about it.

Being told by a person we love that they are not going to be around much longer is an
incredibly painful thing to hear. Over twenty years ago my girlfriend's dad took me aside
and told me he had terminal cancer and had less than a year to live. It's hard to describe
what one experiences in such circumstances: denial, fear, anger, and more. My girlfriend's
dad was a much loved physician who loved his family, his work, and his patients, who used
to make house calls well into the night, not worrying about compensation. "How could such a
person have less than a year to live?", I asked myself.  I can only imagine that what Jesus said to the disciples and to Mary regarding his burial must have been just as painful to hear, if not more.

The day before my 20th birthday, twenty years ago, my girlfriend's dad passed away, and
my heart broke. I wish I could say it was the first and only time it did. I am quite sure that
many here have had their heart broken many times over. We have – at least theoretically –
the option not to love and not to have our hearts broken. But do we really want that? A
few weeks ago I visited St. Peter's Lutheran Church in the heart of Manhattan, a parish I
used to be part of when I was living in New York City. I would like to offer a poem by C.S.
Lewis that was used there for Vespers. I believe it fits well what I am trying to say.

"To love at all
is to be vulnerable.
Love anything,
and your heart will certainly be wrung
and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact,
you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal.

Wrap it carefully round
with hobbies and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements;
lock it up safe
in the casket of your selfishness.

But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless –
it will change.
It will not be broken;
it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. "

In the end, Mary of Bethany did not lock her heart away, and neither do we. But why the
heartbreak? Why the pain? I wish I could give you a theologically elegant explanation for the mystery of suffering in this world. Many of us have been told that God only gives what we can handle.
Even though the people saying such things mean well, I personally don’t find it very helpful.
I have seen people that were given a whole lot more that they could handle, and who broke.
I don’t believe for moment in a God who doles out suffering in just the right amount. I have
no problem in accepting such belief in others if it helps, it’s just not for me. What I believe
in is a God who knows our suffering intimately, who has suffered and suffers with us.

Most of you are aware that I cherish and respect many traditions and different religious
paths, and I learned a great deal from other religions. Ultimately, I always come back to
Christianity as my home primarily because of the whole concept of God as co-suffering love. And it even goes beyond that. We will soon hear the words of Psalm 22 uttered by Jesus at the time of
his death on the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". Interestingly, Jesus
does not say this in the Gospel of John, where he is always in full control of the situation,
but he does in Mark, where the human nature of Jesus shines through very clearly. Part
of the pain that suffering causes in us is not understanding the reason for it. To me, in
the apparently hopeless cry of Psalm 22 there is great hope. Hope in that very psalm, if
you read further than that famous verse. Of course, hope in the resurrection. But more
importantly, hope and strength in knowing that Jesus himself was asking that very same
question: "Why?", "Why?"
If life looks at time like a long Good Friday, and if Easter Sunday seems so far away, and
if the only words that come out of mouths are "Why", we know that we are not alone. And
there is great hope in that knowledge. Good news indeed. Amen.

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent, 2018

We have heard the words "keep watch", "stay awake", "be ready" often these last few
weeks. We have been lighting one candle at a time. Mary and Joseph are still making their way
to the creche, and the Wise Men have a long way to go. We’ve been told (wisely!) to savor
the Advent season, not to rush straight to Christmas. But what exactly are we waiting to
celebrate? The "birth of Jesus" is certainly a reasonable answer. God incarnate is another
answer that those more theologically inclined among us would probably give. The question,
however, still remains: what are we waiting to celebrate, and more importantly, what does
it mean for us?

I have decided not to make a fool of myself and pretend I have some insights to offer
into the theological mystery of the Incarnation. After all, it's called a mystery for a reason!
What I would like to do instead is to share with you some reflections on the implications
of the Incarnation, and perhaps on the misconceptions about the Incarnation, and what it
all means for us. This, as we will see, truly is Good News, and at the same time it is pretty
scary stuff.

First of all, there is the issue around the event itself. Was the Incarnation a once and for
all deal that had never happened before, and was never to happen again? I have to confess
that I don't quite believe that is was. Of course I'm not denying that the birth and life of
Jesus were exceptional. Quite the contrary: after all, history was profoundly changed as a
result, and we are still feeling the aftershock of those events after more than 2,000 years. I
do believe that Jesus' birth and life were an exceptionally clear example of what being truly
human and truly divine looks like.

However, by emphasizing how inconceivable, utterly other Jesus' life was, we kind of
bailed from what I believe was God’s plan all along: to allow us to grow into our own
divinity. The funny thing is that this idea may sound radical and perhaps even heretical
today, but it is firmly embedded in the writings of the early Church fathers, who I think
would have agreed with me. But don't take my words for it. See, for example, what St.
Cyril of Jerusalem (who lived in the fourth century) has to say about this:

"Now that you have been baptized and have put on Christ, you have become conformed
to the Son of God. Hence, since you share in Christ it is right to call you Christs." Or look
at the first page of the Bible, that tells us the story of how the first human was created in
the image of God. But wait, there is more! The Eastern Orthodox Church has a lot to say
about the process of theosis, which is "the transformative process whose aim is likeness to
God", quoting Wikipedia. In other words, this is exactly what I was referring to when I said
that God’s plan, all along, was to allow us to grow into our divinity. To be clear, growing into and realizing our divinity does not translate into becoming God. I don't believe that you
or I can speak a word and create a parallel universe just like that, pronto. However, the
whole idea of being able to transform ourselves and realize our divine potential is simply
mind blowing. To me this is Good News, or even Great News. That's one of the things
Jesus came to teach us about, and more importantly, to fully live into as a perfect example
of what realizing one's divinity while retaining one's humanity looks like.

But, there is a catch. As I said at the beginning, this leads to some scary stuff. For
example, we have been outsourcing being "God-like" to Jesus for a very long time. But,
outsourcing being "God-like" is not going to cut it anymore if we realize we are called to be
divine. It becomes our responsibility. Sure, there are cases where we are utterly powerless
and can only put things into God's hands, so to speak. I have been through some of those
moments, and I am sure many here can relate. Sometimes even simply realizing that can be
a great relief. Often, this is the beginning of a powerful healing process. However, in many
other cases we are invited to play the role of active co-creators with God, and as I said
outsourcing "being God-like" to Jesus is not going to cut it anymore.

I have what I believe is a perfect example of that: building the "Kingdom of God" or
"Reign of God". If you read the Gospels, you quickly realize that this was truly Jesus'
obsession. Scholars of the Bible disagree on almost everything, but they are all in agreement
that the Reign of God was a primary concern for Jesus. Time and again Jesus reminded us
of our role of active co-creators in bringing about this incredible reality, which is not up in
the sky, available to us only when we die, but within us and among us, as Jesus time and
again taught us.

What is this Reign that we are invited to co-create with God? I believe that it is
something that runs deep in our DNA here at St. Martha's. It is about utter inclusion, with
no preconditions. It is taking care of the poor, the immigrants, the oppressed minorities, the
disenfranchised. It is about welcoming everyone, no strings attached. It is, in other words,
summed up by one of the most abused and misunderstood words in our culture: it is about
Love.

Now, I have to confess that at some point in my life I started feeling that the word "love"
was used way too often and almost started to feel like a cliché. I almost got tired of hearing
it. The problem, it turned out, was with my limited understanding of this word rather than
its use in church. In my mind the word love was still mostly about warm and fuzzy feelings.
While it can certainly mean that, there is way more than that to this word. A tricky word
indeed. For example, the option to love is what John the Baptist (whom we hear about a
lot during Advent) chose when he firmly denounced the powers of injustice of his time. By
doing so, he acted as co-creator in bringing about God's Reign. I believe we are called to do
the same in our own times.

So let us wait for the birth of Christ in this season of Advent. And when Christmas
comes, let us celebrate with great joy the mystery of the Incarnation. But let us not lose
sight of the fact that, perhaps on a smaller scale, we were also born in a manger (or cave, pick
your birth place!) in Bethlehem; a star announced our birth also; wise men did come to visit
us too. You get the point. Let us all reclaim our divine image and accept God’s invitation
to become active co-creators of God’s Reign here on Earth. It’s a huge responsibility (hence
the scary part I was talking about at the beginning!) but we are never, ever alone in this.
I wish you all a blessed Advent.

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 12 2018

The Gospel of John we just finished hearing has Jesus saying something that must have sounded very bizarre to those he was talking to: "I am the bread of life." For a moment, let's put aside all that we know about the Eucharist, which might be the first thing that comes to mind when we hear this passage, and think about this strange proclamation. What can this possibly mean? The beauty of Scripture is that there is almost always more than one layer of meaning, and often times the meaning that turns out to be the most meaningful for our lives is the one we get at once we "unlearn" all that we know about that passage, once we approach the text without any preconceived notion of what it's supposed to mean. At least that is my experience. "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." What can this possibly mean?
In addition to trying to "unlearn" all that I know about a passage of Scripture, another thing that helps me make sense of difficult passages is to look at their context, at the story they are part of, and if necessary at the whole of Scripture. In this case we don't need to look very far: Chapter 6 (the chapter these verses are found in) begins with the incredibly famous feeding of the five thousand. We all remember from Sunday school or from paintings, or songs, that Jesus multiplied two small fish and five loaves of bread and fed with those over five thousand people. Interestingly, the word "bread" shows up 75 times in the New Testament, and of course it is part of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, the "Our Father." If we add to these 75 occurrences all the episodes where Jesus is reported to have sat down to eat, we immediately realize that the actual nourishment of the body is a pretty significant issue in the New Testament, and is often the door to spiritual insights and revelations.

One could argue that in the passage we read this morning Jesus must have talked of a purely spiritual kind of nourishment. However, that is not how early Christians interpreted it. In first Corinthians, Paul describes in some details what scholars call "agape meals", or "Lovefeasts", which was the way in which the Lord's Supper was celebrated by the early Church. In addition to being celebrations of the Christian mystery, those meals were actual meals that nourished people. In fact, one of the main concerns that Paul expresses in that letter is that people of means could afford to come early to those meals, and ended up eating almost everything, leaving little to nothing for the poor who could only show up later because they were working. Paul admonishes his church by saying, referring to the Lord's Supper: "So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together."

The point I'm getting at, is that the early Church didn't have a rigid separation between the spiritual nourishment of the Eucharist and the physical act of eating. Moreover, the Eucharist was a communal event that was supposed to bring together rich and poor, and enabled the latter to get something to eat, probably for the first time that day. If we fast forward to the very end of the Gospel of John, we see Jesus reminding Peter three times to "feed my sheep". Again, I suspect that the feeding he was talking about was as much spiritual as it was physical. I'm very grateful that here at St. Martha's we use real bread to celebrate the Eucharist, and not paper-thin hosts. Not to sound irreverent, but I once heard from someone that it takes more faith to believe that the paper-thin host is actual bread than it takes to believe it's the body of Christ! Jokes aside, sharing a meal is one of the most fundamental, time-honored ways that every culture I know of uses to bring people together. In our Christian language, we could say that whenever we celebrate the Lord's Supper we are kneaded into the body of Christ as one.

Now, if we only had the words of today's Gospel, "I am the bread of life", we might be content to just celebrate the Eucharist. However, these words are sandwiched (pun intended!) between the feeding of the multitudes and the injunction (repeated three times) to "feed my sheep" at the end of the Gospel. And so, as a community we must do that.

I'm sure you all know about the feeding program at the Cathedral. Deacon Nancy plays a key role in it and is there almost every week, and several of our parishioners help with cooking, cleaning up, etc. I asked my spiritual director, Br. James Dowd, whom some of you have met and who is also involved in the program, what I could do. In spite of my Italian heritage, I am not a spectacular cook, and we all know about the "too many cooks in the kitchen". He told me that he grabs something to eat and sits down with the guests to eat and talk with (not to) them, if they feel like it. He emphasized how essential it is that he eats with them, as opposed to simply sitting down and talking with them. I was struck by this, and it made a lot of sense. By not sharing what the others are eating we immediately set ourselves apart as "others". So I went and tried that. I grabbed something to eat and sat down with other people at a table. While eating, we struck up simple conversations. Interestingly, nobody asked me the question I am usually asked, on account of the way I speak: "Where are you from?, often followed by a "No, but where are you really from?" if I don't give a reason for my non-American accent right away. An innocent question. A question, however, that has the ability to other the people that are asked. Interestingly, no one asked that question down at the Cathedral the times I have been there.

I believe that one of the most important things Jesus came to do was (and is!) to bring down walls, barriers that we humans build to separate body from spirit and soul, us from them, poor from rich, and the list goes on. If we want to use fancy theological language, Jesus came to preach a non-dual way of thinking. The divine spark that shines in all of us makes us one with God and one with one another. "Love your neighbor as yourself" does not simply mean as much as yourself, but as if that person were yourself, because in a way she is.

The message I would like to get across today is quite simple. The Eucharist, eating that bread of life that we heard of in today's reading, is a wonderful opportunity that God uses to knead us into one body, Christ's own body. And it does not end on Sunday. As the body of Christ, we respond to God's love by going forth and taking care of the body of Christ, which is everyone. One way of doing that is by providing nourishment, spiritual as well as physical nourishment. These need not be artificially separated. Again, the non-dual thinking mode that Jesus hints at several times.

Making sure our fellow humans are taken care of is one of the ways we respond to the love that flows from God and passes through us on its way back to God. If we open ourselves to truly receive that love, we almost have no choice but to release that love back to the body of Christ and back to God. I am grateful for the example provided by the feeding program at the Cathedral, and I look forward to seeing what shape our response to God's love manifested in the Eucharist that we are about to receive will take as we go forth into the world. Amen.