SERMON, February 24, 2008

Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42 “Is the Lord among us, or not?”

I once visited Egypt with some friends. The highlight of the trip for me was when we went to the Sinai and spent some time on the desert. A friend and I rode camels across the desert in the middle of the day, and we hiked with a guide through an incredibly beautiful white canyon. It was stark, very stark—almost no vegetation as far as we could see. When we came out of the canyon suddenly there before us was the lush green of an oasis. Now, all my life I’ve seen pictures of oases in deserts: green palm trees in the midst of barrenness. But this was far more than I had imagined. This I could see with my own eyes, and feel in my own body. The shock of the lushness of the area around the pool of water-the well- is hard to describe. Of course, it would not be something you would notice here in the middle of the rainy season when our hills are green. But in that place filled with dark bare mountains, sand beneath our feet for miles and miles, and no vegetation—the palm trees and other greenery were incredibly beautiful. And, a sign of hope: because the green meant one thing for sure: water.

Moses’ people cry out for water as they stagger across the desert. They feel like they can’t go on. They remember with bitterness the relative comfort of their years of slavery in Egypt. Looking back they wonder why on earth they ever thought it was a good idea to leave. They quarrel and complain.

From our perspective with the rains still falling, it’s easy perhaps to distance ourselves from these people with their complaints. But if you have ever been hungry, or really thirsty—or maybe you’ve been sick—not yourself—you know how easy it is to complain, and to quarrel, and to find fault, and to begin to blame. . . It’s hard to be your best self when you are in need of the basics. The people cry out, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”

One of my commentaries translates this as, “Is the Eternal One among us or not?”(1) “Is the Eternal One among us or not?” and I suppose this is, really, a cry that echoes deeply within each of us. We, like the Israelites, are a people of faith, and yet when the going gets hard—when the losses we suffer seem unbearable, when we cannot find rhyme or reason for what befalls us, when the pain is great and our own resources seem inadequate, we, too, cry out, “Is the Eternal One among us or not?” Even in times of my own comfort I ask this question. I pick up the paper, or listen to the news on the radio, or hear stories of violence and desperation in my own community. I wonder, “Is the Eternal One among us or not?”

And, these stories make me think about water today. About the places where it’s flooding, and the places where there isn’t enough water; places where wars are being fought over water. I think of the polluted waters—creeks, rivers, oceans. The single greatest determiner of health in the world—is not medical science, not hospitals, not immunizations, none of those things: it is clean drinking water. Clean water to drink is something we all need. We are one in that need.

“Is the Eternal One among us or not?” Jesus comes to Jacob’s well in need of clean water to drink. Jesus in need. That is where this wonderful story begins. His need takes him to the well at mid-day where he asks a Samaritan woman for a drink. What follows is the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone in the gospels: longer by far than any conversation with his family, with his followers, or with those who challenge him and test him. It gives you pause to think about Jesus in need—that Jesus might come to us in need. But that’s where it begins. “I thirst,” he says, as he will say again later.

She is shocked by his request because she knows enough to know that he is Jewish and that he will break the law if he even sips from her bucket. Their conversation goes on though—and moves from his need to her need. “Sir, give me this water.” They are there at the well united in their common need.

And, then he asks her to bring her husband, and surprisingly I think, she blurts out her truth: she has no husband. He does not judge. He does not withdraw. In fact, he seems to draw closer as he reveals that he knows that, and a lot more. She has no husband, and has had a whole line of husbands, and is now living with someone who is not her husband. Perhaps this is why she is even at the well at mid-day—a time when no other women would be there to draw water—it being too hot and too late for that. Perhaps her story, known by all in her village causes her to come when she would not encounter others at the well. We don’t know.

But her truth—her willingness to share her truth—his acceptance of her in the truth of who she is—leads to his own sharing of his truth. For this is the first time in John’s gospel that Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah. He tells his own truth to a woman, a foreigner, one with a checkered past and present. His need and her need, her truth and his truth. In the broad daylight they stand revealed for who they are: it is a holy moment. Whoever the Messiah is, he is one before whom she knows the truth of herself and the truth that she is respected, and dare I say, loved.

The truth shall set you free—and indeed it does. The woman is really the first evangelist. For she leaves her jug and runs back into town proclaiming that she has met someone who knows everything about her. Can he really be the Messiah? she wonders to them. They, perhaps knowing much of her truth themselves, come charging out to see this phenomenon! In the end they recognize Jesus as Savior, not for what she has said, but because of what they have seen and heard from themselves. Jesus stays with them then for several days.

Such a story this one. About the boundaryless love of God. About the radical inclusivity of the good news—that asserts God’s presence with us—no matter what. No longer contained on one mountain or another, in one building or another, God is among us to be worshiped in Spirit and in truth. Spirit: the breath of God, the wind of God, the very breath we take in and out that inspirits our bodies. The word once meant “hope” as well—to despair is to have lost spirit. Wherever there is spirit wherever there is truth we know that the Eternal One is among us.

You and I know how this works—this kind of encounter. We have known how when we dare to risk telling of our need we can meet one another in mutuality. When we dare to speak our truth, we know our common humanity. We are brought together by spirit and truth. The Eternal One is present in the meeting.

I have experienced this time and again in my own life—and seen it in the lives of others. Particularly when they are on the edges of life—like the poor thirsty Israelites—when people know their fragility they can sometimes be freed from their pretenses of ordinary living to speak their need and their truth and to know God’s presence.

Once when riding a bus in Wales I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between two matrons (folks who look a good deal like me) who sat right behind me. They’d been shopping and chatted for a while about shopping—it’s pleasures and burdens. Very light conversation it was. But, then we passed a mortuary, and after a pause, one of the women began to talk about how her niece, a beautiful young woman in her thirties, had recently died of cancer. She talked just a bit about how awful that was. The other woman confessed to her friend that her own son had died suddenly several years back. He was 37 and had an aneurism. They’d given his organs to unknown others, which was something of a comfort. But, nothing really assuaged her grief. He’d been so healthy one day and dead the next. There was a silence. There was breath—spirit—there was truth—where there had been distance, there was relationship. The Eternal One was in our midst right there on that little bus.

Our thirst is deep: we long to be fully known and fully loved. “Is the Eternal One among us or not?” Oh, yes. In spirit and in truth. The encounter can begin in need --when we dare to speak with one another—of our need and of our truth. When we risk listening deeply to one another—no matter our differences. When we dare to breathe in and out the precious breath of God and let the spirit take us where it will: the boundaryless love of God will set us free and make us new. Always. (1) The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition, W. Gunther Plaut & David E. S. Stein, editors, Union for Reform Judaism, New York:2005.

SERMON, February 3, 2008

The Transfiguration

Matthew 17:1-9

Some years ago a woman came into my office and in the course of our conversation——she told me in a hushed voice about a mystical experience she had had sometime past. It had happened in the ordinary course of a day—and had caught her by surprise. She had been bathed in the shattering light of Christ, and knew in her body that she was deeply loved. In a way that she had never known before. She had not spoken of this to anyone for several years, but had pondered it. The experience had worked on her though; it had changed her, she lived more and more deeply into its truth. It set her free. As a priest I have been privileged to hear more of these stories than you might think. Our culture does not support the sharing of these kinds of experiences ones not easily explained by science, technology, psychology. We are raised to analyze and dissect, to doubt. Sometimes a person analyzes their own experience to death. Sometimes they dismiss their experience and try to live their lives as though they never had it. They turn their backs on mystical encounter.On the other hand, perhaps you’ve heard people running on and on about unusual spiritual experiences they’ve had. They have a dream, or a vision and they rush right out to tell the world. They testify to whomever they encounter. They talk and talk and talk about it. And perhaps they squelch the power of the experience by blathering about it before they’ve had a chance to ponder—to let it work its way in their lives. They have a good story to tell, but their lives go on unchanged by their experience.

There are choices to be made in the face of mystery. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells this friends to be quiet about their vision of his transfiguration. They are not to speak of the vision. . . until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Hush. Do not speak. This is too much to be described in words—or preserved in dwellings—there is no container for this—and you won’t begin to live into it until later—after the death and resurrection. Hush.

Even today I hesitate to speak about this. Over two thousand years later, after the crucifixion, and after the Son of Man was raised, it is a mystery. This glimpse of the great truth of God in Christ that came to these men cannot really be contained by any words—certainly not words of mine. The word overshadowed—“the cloud overshadowed them” is only used one other time in Scripture: when the angel Gabriel tells Mary that the power of the Most High will overshadow her and she will conceive the child, Jesus. In our post-modern world, it’s hard not to dismiss these stories as mere tales—so foreign are they to our ears. And yet there they are: challenging us to enter and let ourselves imagine what they might have to say to us about God and God’s ways, about us and our lives.

What comes next in both stories are the words, “Be not afraid.” Perhaps we need to hear them as well. For both stories invite us to open our own selves, our own lives, as hosts to the holy one— they dare us to let ourselves be transformed—to become part of God’s work of transformation in the world.

If the Transfiguration on the mountaintop is a glimpse of the radical love of God—the truth of who Jesus is and in some sense who we are meant to become. If it is about the glory of God, which in the Hebrew understanding is not just some Hollywoodish bright light startling us in the darkened theater, but is the weight, the enormity, the massiveness of God—then Jesus’ friends are in the right position when they fall to the ground. This IS too much. But then Jesus touches his friends lying on the ground in their fear. God-with-us reaches out and touches them and tells them to get up. “Get up and do not be afraid.” This experience is not an end in itself. The love you have known here is a love that must go down the mountain. It is a downward spiraling love, a suffering love. “Listen to him.” Listen to him when he says he will suffer and die and be raised from the dead. “Listen to him.” when he says to hold your tongue and let the truth work in you transforming you—making you new. “Listen to him.” when he tells you to get up and take who you are now and journey with him down the mountain. “Listen to him.” when he takes love to the people who haven’t known love, to the places where love hasn’t been. Listen to his words. Listen to his life. Listening is at the heart of love. Isn’t it? Jesus lived a listening life. Asking people what they wanted, what they needed. Listening to the words and lives of those around him. The voice from the cloud reminds us of our calling to listen. Be present to. Open to. To God and to each other. I read a little story(1) about a young man who had a mountaintop experience and then went down the mountain and learned to listen. He’d had a conversion experience—had fallen in love with Jesus you might say. In his early 20’s a white college student. He went to a big gathering of students to hear the evangelist Tony Campolo speak. After an hour or so of singing gospel songs, Tony preached the good news for nearly an hour. The crowd was on fire—and on fire to share the gospel. Tony invited them all to ride in buses to the central city where they could share their faith, “Tell about Jesus.” They piled into the buses filled with love and enthusiasm. But, as the bus came into the central city and its darkness, the poverty, the bleakness of the place touched them, a quiet came over the group. When the buses stopped and the young people were let off to tell the world about Jesus, this young man despaired. He was scared and he didn’t know what to do. Finally he timidly went into a building, up the dank hall and knocked on a door. “Who’s there, and what do you want?” “I’m here to tell you about Jesus.” The door opened and an enraged woman, cigarette hanging on her lips, stood there, a naked baby in her arms, and she cursed him and told him to get out and never come back. He ran down the hallway and out the door—shattered. After awhile he noticed a little corner store with shuttered windows. He went in and thought to himself about what he had seen. He bought a box of diapers and a pack of cigarettes. He crewed up his courage and went back into the tenement. Knocked on the door. When the voice demanded to know what he wanted, he said nothing. The door opened, and he handed his gifts to the woman. In surprise, she stood aside and told him to come in. He sat on a chair. He diapered the baby. He listened. And, finally when she asked him why he’d come, he told her about Jesus. She asked him to pray for her and her child. He did. “Get up and do not be afraid.” There is so much to fear in life these days—we are barraged by messages of fear. Told we must live in fear. Whatever the Transfiguration is about—it is about the glimpse of God’s unbearable love and grace come among us. It is about Jesus, God-with-us, beside us reaching out to touch us. It’s about love that seeks to go where love is a stranger—seeks to stand with those who are hurting—is present when the unspeakable happens. Years ago I knew a mother whose son in his early 30s was dying an excruciating death from AIDS. His doctor had refused him morphine, saying that he might become addicted. So every night as he cried out in pain from his bed, she would go into his room, climb into his bed and cradle him through the night. She did that until he died—holding him as she had when he was a baby. You and I may not have seen the transfiguration of Christ, but each of us has caught a glimpse of God’s persevering love. It is more than a good story to tell. Sometimes there is really nothing that can be said about it, but the truth is that we have been touched by it. We are called to let the truth of God’s unbearable grace work in us transforming us so that we too, participate in this redeeming work of love. “Get up and do not be afraid.” (1) William Willimon, The Intrusive Word, 1994: Eerdmans, pps 74-77.

SERMON, January 13, 2008

The Epiphany Matthew 2:1-12 Perhaps you have learned in your own life how dislocation can lead to revelation. The disrupting of your ordinary patterns, routines, even your ordinary ways of thinking can be a good thing. That turning inside-out of what has always seemed to be “the way things are” can be a moment of great insight and learning. When things are unsettled, when we’ve become what my grandmother used to call discombobulated—then is when we suddenly have eyes to see. This is why you may hear people who have had cancer say that in some ways they are thankful for their cancer. This is why when I recently met with some homeless women they told me that they had learned so much from being homeless. They were thankful for what had been revealed to them by their homelessness.

The Bible is full of stories of how God is revealed when ordinary patterns are disrupted. I think of the great stories like the one where David—the least and last of the sons is the chosen one—only this kind of story can assure us that in God’s eyes people aren’t valued as they are in human eyes; Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son and his prodigal father—only when our expectations are overthrown can we begin to grasp the incomprehensible enormity of God’s forgiveness and love; Jacob, the liar and cheat becoming Israel after wrestling with the angel—how else could we begin to comprehend that none of us, no matter how imperfect, is exempt from God’s call.

This little story in Matthew’s gospel—greatly embellished with its missing details filled out in church tradition and hymnody—is one of the great stories illustrating how disruption can lead to life-changing revelation. Wise men (Matthew doesn’t say how many) come from the East, having seen a star—the star of the child born King of the Jews. Foreigners—that’s for sure. Men who paid attention to the stars, and followed one seeking a child-King. Their journey took them way out of their ordinary routines. Whatever those were. These folks let their eyes lead them into newness. Let their eyes take them to the Other.

The word Epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning manifestation, appearing, showing. It is used in the Bible to refer to the manifestation of God’s face—in the story of the wise men it is used to describe the appearing of the star—and we understand it to be also and maybe most importantly about the manifestation of God in Jesus. This is a story about looking—about seeing. About seeing the star, and about seeing Jesus—and recognizing each for what they were. I love the fact that the wise men paid attention to the stars—they noticed the star. They somehow had their eyes fixed on the heavens—and on the stars. Every Epiphany we get this reminder of God as creator of heaven and earth—and of the oneness of creation. The discoveries and theories of cosmologists of our day play so beautifully with this story. For this story in which men from another place—strangers—come to the child King following a star is certainly a story that reminds us of the boundarylessness of God and it is a story of our oneness with each other.

The universe as we know it today is “one” in ways we’d never imagined before. You and I are made of the same stuff as the stars—we have cells in our bodies that are like living fossils of the quantum dust from which the stars arose.

And, this universe does not operate as Newton thought it did (and as I was schooled to believe)—it is not made up of discrete parts—but instead scientists have learned that the universe is more like what Barbara Brown Taylor calls a luminous web—there are no individual parts apart from their relationship.(1) Every interaction brings changes to the whole. There is nothing so small that it doesn’t matter! And, in the subatomic world of particles: once two particles have interacted with each other they remain related regardless of how far they may roam from one another. Think of that.

Why bring science into this discussion at all? We live in an exciting time for the sciences of the universe. I love a little dialogue between the Biblical story and contemporary science. Many scientists would not approve—nor, I guess, would some faith leaders—viewing science and religion as two separate universes. But, cosmology studies the origins of the universe and attempts to explain how we came into being. The stories of the Bible are told and re-told to remind us who we are and where we’ve come from. You and I know who we are because of stories like this one about the wise men. The stories point to truth that we can’t really find the words to describe. Words can’t really hold the realities of new science either. This story is about how some men looked. They looked and allowed their lives to be disrupted so that they might learn something new—might find revelation. They weren’t like me in that they didn’t wait for their lives to be ripped apart by illness or loss or catastrophe—they chose disruption—as a spiritual path. They journeyed out to find the Other—the One unknown to them. They crossed boundaries and distances to get there. They were vulnerable. You don’t journey into the unknown without being vulnerable. Being vulnerable is one way that we open ourselves to revelation.

They looked up and saw a star and to their eyes it was the star of the child-King. They left home and followed it. When it came to rest over the place where the child was, they were overwhelmed with joy! Just think of it! Joy. What can we say about joy? How fragile and wonderful it is? How it may come after some accomplishment on our part, but when it does we know that what has been accomplished is not solely our own doing? How it leaves us humble—aware you might say--of our creatureliness? How it cracks us wide-open and leaves us vulnerable like children? How it makes us one with others and with God? Think of joy in your own life. Consider joy …..

If the wise men were like us at all perhaps their joy was like ours. Their joy overflowed into the giving of gifts. They looked upon him and saw a child-King. Their very looking gave him the gift of the news of who he was. Their gaze perhaps told Mary something she was still wondering about. Perhaps as the baby struggled to focus his eyes, his gaze told them the good news of who they were. . . . Their journey into the Other-- into disruption gave them eyes to see something they’d perhaps never imagined. They were humbled. They paid homage—they showed great respect for this infant—and there was joy.

The text tells us that they left for their own country by another road. The wise men realized the fragility of the child—and the true intent of Herod, who was threatened by any hint of rivals to his power. [Herod is a man who killed his own sons when he considered them a threat.] So the story is not only about Jesus manifested to all—even to foreigners—but it is about the threat that he presents to the powers that be—who are far more interested in keeping control over their borders and their people—no matter the cost than in opening their eyes to the revelation of the boundarylessness of God.

It is no surprise really that the wise men took a new route home. They were not the same men—they had encountered the One whom they sought, and they would never be the same again. They went home all right. But they were not the same. What they had seen—who they had seen—gave them a different perspective—different lenses through which to see the world. Like particles—they would never dance alone again. No matter how far the distance they were in a relationship now that would keep on transforming them.

Such a story. About journeying, yes, but more perhaps about what I would call the dance of life. About relationship and how it changes us and binds us and makes us new. About willingness to risk and be vulnerable—about choosing to cross boundaries in expectation of finding. About daring to encounter the One deemed other.

One example of how the spirit of this story is echoing in our own day is that of the 138 Muslim Imams from all over the world who last Fall sent a letter to the Pope and other Christian leaders, “A Common Word between Us and You.” It recalled the foundational principles of both religions: Love of One God and love of neighbor and called for followers of both faiths to find common ground and not just polite ecumenical dialogue between certain religious leaders. Over 300 Christian leaders in this country including our own bishop, took out a full page ad in the NYT responding and pledging to work for relations that will reshape the 2 communities to genuinely reflect our common love for God and for one another. Such transformation will require openness, risk-taking and a willingness to look on one another as God looks on us. The wise men are about looking—not just to the heavens that remind us of our oneness with each other and the cosmos itself—but also about looking at one another—seeking the One who comes in our daily lives. Gazing at one another in ways that affirm how precious each one is. About opening our eyes to see the world in a different way—not as separated, different and frightening—but as caught in a luminous web—as one. You and I are not much different chemically from a star, a rock, or a lizard. We were created out of the same dust to be in relationship with one another and with God—made to celebrate our oneness—to look on one another with love and humility—and to know the joy of revelation.

(1) Taylor, Barbara Brown, The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion, Cowley:2000.

SERMON, January 6, 2008

Jesus' Baptism Matthew 3:13-17 I spent some time this week looking at the way artists have depicted the Jesus’ baptism. There are many artistic renderings of that event. Many of them seem to put me as the viewer off at some distance from the scene—removed—and often there is a little herd of angels fluttering about. But one image I saw on the web really struck home. It from the baptismal tapestry that hangs in the Cathedral of All Angels in Los Angeles. By John Nava, the tapestry hangs by the baptismal font which is large and through which water is always flowing. It’s the kind of font that allows for “big deal” baptisms by immersion. The tapestry is over 47 feet high and 7 feet wide. The central images are just Jesus and John in the water. As you look at them, your perspective is of a person standing there with them. No angels in sight. No halos. John standing in the water, pouring water over Jesus’ head. Jesus with his back to us, with just a cloth around his mid-drift, mostly naked and exposed, kneeling—on his haunches really bowed over in submission to John. The water pouring down. A mystery, really, of grace. Jesus the beloved child of God bent in submission before John.

Apparently in the early church people had a hard time understanding why Jesus was baptized. Jesus, the man without sin, had gone to John who preached and offered a baptism of repentance from sin. A “cleansing—start-over” baptism. Why would Jesus need such a baptism? Matthew tells us that John knew he was unworthy to baptize Jesus—it should have been the other way around. He protests. But, Jesus says, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” God’s work is going to be done in this.

Righteouesness, baptism, and submission . . . In Jesus’ day and in the Hebrew Scriptures a righteous person was one who lived and worked to upbuild the community—to care for the poor and needy. One who contributed to the health of the community. One who lived in relationship with God and with others. Ps 112 says of the righteous that “Their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord.” That security is what impels them to righteous living—to generosity in serving the least and the lost. It is important to know who you are.

You can’t help noticing in this story of submission—the mostly naked Jesus bowing low before John to receive the waters of baptism—you can’t help thinking a bit about the infant Jesus in the manger. Fragile and vulnerable. The paradox of the presence of the divine in the small and humble—the unnoticed. Nava’s figure of Jesus whose face we cannot see is a reminder perhaps of the unnoticed presence of God in life—in our lives. And, surely there is a hint of other submissions yet to come. I think of Jesus kneeling to wash his friends’ feet. That time he served them on his knees—this time he is being served. And, the final submission when he gives himself over to the powers that be who will choose to baptize him with death. These early stories of birth, epiphany, and baptism do more than hint at the cost—the threat—to the vulnerable One among us.

In a way, Jesus’ baptism—and ours—are like any person who looks love in the eyes and gives him or herself over to it. You may have experienced this in your own life. It can come in a glance, a moment of shared silence, the touch of a hand. It can be the love of a partner, a spouse, a child, a parent—it can catch you off guard--suddenly you know you are loved. And, you give yourself over to that love.

God is the initiator—God the first actor—God loves first—and we submit to that love. There is something very special about an adult baptism—when a mature person comes to be baptized—making their own choice to believe—to join the community of faith. An infant has no choice in the matter. But there is an important truth in infant baptism: God loves us even before we choose to give ourselves over to that love.

Jesus comes up out of the water and sees the Spirit and hears the voice of God, “This is my Son, my child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” He knows who he is—“his heart is firm, secure in the Lord.” We echo this moment in our own baptismal services when we anoint the newly baptized and proclaim them as “marked a Christ’s own forever.” In a sense, we brand them on the forehead with their true identity. The beloved of God—no matter what.

This is powerful stuff. And it has to be really, because if fulfilling righteousness is achieved through submission—we need to be infused with God’s spirit and love to be able to do that. The implications of the simple birth in the manger and the baptism as an adult seem to be more than we can bear really. That God is among us in the vulnerable, the unseen, the unnoticed, and the undefended. That God in Jesus gave himself over to us—gave himself over to the waters of baptism and plunged himself into the depths of what it is to be human. That is so hard to fathom. Harder yet is the call you and I have to follow him on that path. The path of righteousness. The path NOT of earning but of giving way—giving ourselves over to.

How do we live into our baptisms? How do we open ourselves to transformation through submission? There could be nothing further from the American Way than submission. Well, I guess if you come from certain evangelical traditions and are a wife or a child you would be admonished to submit—but by and large we are a proud people who rarely see any benefit at all in submission. To submit is to admit that you are not in control—not in charge. There is someone or something larger than you at work. There is something more important than my wishes and desires. This is the anti-thesis of our culture’s way of living, where we are raised to control our own destinies—to do our own thing.

But of course anyone who has ever loved or been loved knows that receiving and giving love require opening and giving way. This is risky business. To love another is to put yourself at great risk—for love can be rejected. Jesus filled with God’s love came among us to love us. He did so by giving himself over to us. There is no other way.

Baptism affirms that we are God’s --precious in God’s sight. Letting our hearts be firm and secure in the Lord is how we dare to live into the new life we were made for. In my own life I find I cannot give way to another—cannot even really listen to another—be present to another—when I have lost touch with who I am. And, of course, knowing who I am helps me to know who the other person is too. A beloved child of God. No matter what. Then and only then am I able to submit to another—to find what new life may come from that encounter.

It’s a mystery how this works out, isn’t it? I think of all the Eucharistic visitors and friendly visitors I’ve worked with who give up their personal agendas for a bit to submit themselves to the realities of another person—a person in a hospital, alone at home, or in a nursing home. Time and time again, they return from their visits to say, “I always receive far more than I give.” That’s how it is when we submit—when we present ourselves to the other to receive. It is always a risk—but it is the way of love—it is the way to transformation. There is dying and there is resurrection. “See, new things I now declare before they spring forth,” says the Lord. Amen. Amen.