where there are individuals capable of waiting and hoping instead of hurrying and worrying.
— Alessandro Pronzato
Psalm 46 • Luke 10:38–42
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The Sermon
Come, Holy Spirit, and kindle the fire that is in us.
Take our lips and speak through them.
Take our lips and speak through them.
Take our hearts and see through them.
Take our souls and set them on fire. Amen.
By Way of the
Desert
Good afternoon. It’s good to see you all, and it’s good to
be here today, on loan, as I am, from Pleasant Valley Middle School. I must say
that it is quite a treat to be speaking to a group of adults, most of whom want
to hear what you have to say, which I must say, is rather different from my daily
experience as a middle school teacher.
Well, today is the last of our Lenten Luncheons,
and the question we have been asking these past several Wednesdays is, “How do
we engage people in God’s mission of reconciling the world?” Each of the speakers
have answered this question in their own way, and today, I want to focus on the
how of that question. In this sense.
I don’t want to focus on what we do,
but on how we do, that is, on the manner with which we go about participating in God’s mission of reconciling
all people to himself and to one another. I want to reflect on this by taking
you on a brief trip to the Egyptian desert.
In the late 1990s, after my wife Rebekah graduated
from Friends, we moved to Pasadena, California so that I could pursue my
Masters at Fuller Theological Seminary. In my second year, I took a class
called, Desert Spirituality for City
Dwellers. Isn’t that a great title? [1]
This class offered an introduction to the desert fathers and mothers. If you
are not familiar with the desert fathers and mothers, they were Christian monastics
who lived out in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. I
became intrigued by these desert abbas and ammas, these men and women who were
drawn to silence and solitude, because they found these practices to be
essential for the life of faith, to a life of obedience and reliance upon God. And
yet, they found the cities increasingly filled with noise and distractions and
people! So they traded in the city for the Egyptian desert. Some lived in small
communities, while others lived as hermits, far away from people and society.
Some might say that they buried themselves in the sands.
They don’t sound very missional, do they? But here
is the odd thing. Here is the inexplicable thing. They were unable to remain
hidden. Somehow, people found about them. Somehow, the civilized city folk
heard about these crazy sand people, and they scoured the Egyptian deserts for
them, much like archeologists scour the desert sands for the lost tombs of the
pharaohs. But those who sought the desert fathers and mothers weren’t searching
for treasures of gold, they were searching for words of wisdom, words of life.
In the desert literature, there is story after story of people making
pilgrimage to see the fathers, and the constant refrain was, “Give us a word,
Abba. Give us a word.”
How ironic. People seeking a word from those who
practiced silence. Those living in society seeking the advice of those living
in solitude. It’s ironic, and yet it makes perfect sense. It’s just another
example of the law of supply and demand at work. In the city, words were
plentiful, and therefore cheap. But in the desert, where words were as scarce
as water, they possessed immense value. And we have some great stories that
illustrate just how much value was placed on the words of the desert. One of my
favorites stories goes like this.
A young man makes his way into the desert and finds a hermit. “Give me a word, Father,” he says. The old man looks at this very sincere, young man, and says “Love God.” Immediately, the young man turns around and walks away.
Twenty years pass. Then, one day the old man looks up to see this same young man coming toward him in the distance. When he arrives, the old man says, “and love your neighbor as yourself.” At which point, the man turns around and walks away.
Here we see how the words of the desert were treasured.
Their words weren’t imprinted on necklaces and plaques to be used as
decorations or jewelry. Rather, they were put into practice.[2]
Of course, as the years passed, things changed as
these desert monastics became more and more “popular.” It became something of a
fad to go out and get a word from a desert father, to collect their words like
little souvenirs or trinkets. And so, we have this story about Abba Felix.
Some brothers . . . went to see Abba Felix and they begged him to say a word to them. But the old man kept silence. After they had asked for a long time he said to them, “You wish to hear a word?” They said, “Yes, Abba.” Then the old man said to them, “There are no more words nowadays. When the brothers used to consult the old men and when they did what was said to them, God showed them how to speak. But now, since they ask without doing that which they hear, God has withdrawn the grace of the word from the old men and they do not find anything to say, since there are no longer any who carry their words out.” Hearing this, the brothers groaned, saying, “Pray for us, Abba.”
Abba Felix is a bit of a character. This very devout man
is totally annoyed because God doesn’t talk to him anymore. The words he once
dispensed were not put into practice, and so the well of God’s gracious word
has run dry. There is something here to be learned about the lack of wisdom in
our own age, but I want to return to a point that I made earlier.
The desert fathers and mothers were not what we
would typically describe as missional. Instead of going into the world, they
withdrew from the world, and yet they still participated in God’s mission of
reconciling the world. They spent much time in silence and solitude in order to
draw close to God, and in turn God used them to draw all manner of people close
to Him.
Cultivating a
Desert in the City
So what does this mean for all of us? I think it must
mean: “Get thee to a desert, quick! If you want to be missional, withdrawal
from society so that God can use you.” Well, that doesn’t sound particularly
practical does it? Of course, there are those who are called to a life of
silence and solitude, a life of retreat from the world in order that God might
use them to serve the world. We generally associate those so called with
monastic communities, but there are some in our own time who have actually gone
out into the desert to follow in the footsteps of the desert fathers and
mothers.
In particular, I am thinking of a man by the name
of Alessandro Pronzato, who appears to have spent some years in the desert and
then later returned to live in society. When Alessandro returned to the city,
he tried to bring a bit of the desert with him; he tried to make a desert in
the city. He offers his reflections in a book, Meditations on the Sand. Listen to what he writes.
Have I succeeded in making my desert in the city? I do not know. But now I do not think of the desert in geographical terms. The desert is all around me and within me. I think of it now as an essential dimension of life, the natural habitat for Christians.
Perhaps God is not partial to the city or the desert. What might interest Him on His strolls in our cities could be to find oases of spirituality where there are individuals capable of waiting and hoping instead of hurrying and worrying.[3]
I love that last part. “Perhaps God is not partial
to the city or the desert. What might interest Him on His strolls in our cities
could be to find oases of spirituality
where there are individuals capable of waiting and hoping instead of hurrying
and worrying.” I find this absolutely inspiring. What could we become, what
would our lives be like, what impact could we Christians have on our broken world
if we were to develop the capacity “of waiting and hoping instead of hurrying
and worrying.”
Our world is in desperate need of oases of
spirituality, places of spiritual restoration, refreshment, and rest, places
where people can encounter the God who loves them, the God who has reconciled
himself to them through Jesus Christ, the God whom they are totally unaware of,
either because they are too busy and distracted to notice him or because they
live in a world that neither recognizes or acknowledges this God, a world that
has forgotten its Creator.
And when I say places
of spiritual restoration, I don’t actually mean places, I mean people. I
mean individuals and communities that are sprinkled throughout society,
sprinkled throughout daily life and work. I mean people who can listen, people
who can be present to a busy, broken, and hurting world, because they
themselves have been shaped by desert practices—like silence, solitude, prayer—practices
that foster a simple, yet profound trust in God’s grace, love, and mercy, a
trust that attracts others.
Mary and Martha
In other words, when we talk about being missional, we are
not just talking about what we do in
the world, but about how we do in the
world. It’s about how we are in daily
life.[4]
And I think that today’s gospel reading has a lot to say about how we do what
we do in the world.
Now, for the sake of time, I do not intend to go into
much detail about this story, perhaps we can talk more about it at lunch.
Suffice it to say, the story of Mary and Martha is a study in contrasts.
Martha’s busyness and distractedness is set alongside Mary’s calm, focused
attention on Jesus. The question for us is, what do we do with these contrasts?
How are we to understand Jesus’ response to Martha?
As David Frenette
writes, this story has often been used
to contrast the active life symbolized by Martha with the contemplative life represented by Mary. Jesus not only values and safeguards Mary’s contemplative stance; he says it is ‘the better part,’ better than active service by itself.
[Yet] we all have receptive and active parts. At times we can identify with the prayerful attentiveness of Mary, and at times we can identify with the busyness, distractedness, anxiety, and worry of Martha…. The greater message of the story is about integration and skillful practice. We are invited to integrate or practice Mary’s prayerful, listening attentiveness during Martha’s activity and service.[5]
In other words, the goal is not to become Mary
instead of Martha. After all, we have responsibilities. We have people that
depend upon us, and we cannot simply abandon those commitments. Nor do I think
Jesus is calling us to. Martha’s problem isn’t so much what she is doing as it is how
she is doing it. She is trying to offer hospitality, but she is doing it in a
manner that undercuts her intentions. She is worried and distracted by many
things, which subverts her desire to welcome Jesus into her home. Jesus honors
her intentions, but questions her approach. So again, the goal is not to become
Mary instead of Martha. Rather, the goal is to adopt and maintain Mary’s
disposition and posture as we go about our daily Martha tasks.
But how do we do that? After all, we live in a
world that values busyness in the name of productivity, and progress. We live
in a world that has bought into the myth of multitasking, but you know what
multitasking really is don’t you? “Multitasking is the ability to be inattentive to more than one thing at a
time.”[6]
But our world is not served well by such inattentiveness and distractedness.
Likewise, God’s mission of reconciling the world is not served by
Christians—clergy and lay alike—who practice these vices of inattention and
distraction.
If we are going to participate in God’s mission of
reconciliation, if we are going to become oases of spirituality so that our
world might come to know and experience God, then we must develop the capacity
to maintain Mary’s prayerful attentiveness as we go about our daily Martha
work. But again, how do we do this?
We can begin by cultivating a bit of the desert
where we are, by building brief periods of silence and solitude into our daily
lives. And there are lots and lots of ways to do this, but let me offer just a
few initial suggestions. We can cultivate silence by fasting from those things
that interrupt us or create background noise. We can turn off the radio in our
cars. We can spend a week without watching the morning or evening news. We can
turn off our cell phones for five-minute intervals throughout the day. We can
sit in silence for five or ten minutes, or even for just two or three minutes,
to just reconnect with God throughout the day. The possibilities are endless.
But let me offer a final word of caution.
Initially, we may find these practices to be more of a distraction, because in
the silence and solitude, we will suddenly become aware of all of the noise
that is inside of us, all of the noise that we tend to distract ourselves from.
But as we exercise our intention to be with Jesus in silence and solitude, over
time we will begin to see the fruit of these practices emerge. We will begin to
see our impulse toward hurrying and worrying being replaced by patience and
hope. We will find that we are increasingly able to be present with people, to
listen to them, to be attentive to them. We will increasingly become oases of
spirituality that God will use to draw the people around us into a relationship
with himself.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Speaking of great titles, I was in
Eighth Day Books a couple of days ago, and I happened upon a book entitled, The Eqyptian Desert in the Irish Bogs.
In this volume, an orthodox priest, Father Gregory Telepneff, makes an argument
for the Byzantine character of early Celtic Monasticism.
[2] Here, one is reminded of Jesus’
statement following the Sermon on the Mount. “Everyone then who hears these
words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on
rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that
house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock” (Matthew 7:24–25).
[3] Alessandro Pronzato, Meditations on the Sand. Consider also
this quote from Pronzato about the need to hurry up and wait. “In the desert
the most urgent thing is—to wait. The desert does not take kindly to those who
tackle it at breakneck speed, subjecting it to their plans and deadlines.
Instead, the desert welcomes those who shed their sandals of speed and walk
slowly in their bare feet, letting them be caressed and burnt by the sand. If
you have no ambition to conquer the desert, if you do not think you are in
charge, if you can calmly wait for things to be done, then the desert will not
consider you an intruder and will reveal its secrets to you.”
[4] It is about how we are in the world. It’s
about how we do what we do in daily life.
[5] The quote continues. “The ‘better part,’
the ‘one thing necessary’ that cannot be taken from us, really depends upon
bringing prayer and activity together, having a way, a ‘practice’ that deals
with our inner turmoil and sense of distraction during activity.”
[6] Fr. Ron Rolheiser
Delivered on Wednesday, April 9th, a.d. 2014
at St. John's Episcopal Church (Wichita, Kansas)
The Scriptures
Psalm 46
Luke 10:38–42
Psalm 46 • Deus noster refugium • BCP 649
1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very
present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the
earth be moved,
and
though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea;
3 Though its waters rage and foam,
and
though the mountains tremble at its tumult.
4 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God
of Jacob is our stronghold.
5 There is a river whose streams make glad
the city of God,
the holy
habitation of the Most High.
6 God is in the midst of her; she shall not
be overthrown;
God
shall help her at the break of day.
7 The nations make much ado, and the kingdoms
are shaken;
God has
spoken, and the earth shall melt away.
8 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God
of Jacob is our stronghold.
9 Come now and look upon the works of the
Lord,
what
awesome things he has done on earth.
10 It is he who makes war to cease in all the world;
he
breaks the bow, and shatters the spear,
and
burns the shields with fire.
11 “Be still, then, and know that I am God;
I will
be exalted among the nations;
I will
be exalted in the earth.”
12 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God
of Jacob is our stronghold.
Luke 10:38–42
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain
village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a
sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was
saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and
asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by
myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha,
you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
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