On God's Weakness: Christmas letter to the Order of Jesus Christ Reconciler

 

Feast of the Holy Innocents

Greetings in the name of God Emmanuel, incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ,

As we celebrate the season of Christmas this year, we are in still in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic.  Though the vaccines brought about some form of a return to normalcy, for a variety of reasons the virus has continued to spread and mutate: wealth and poverty differentials between nation states, vaccine hesitancy among poor and marginalized groups, the refusal to get vaccinated by anti-vaxers, and the nature of viruses to rapidly mutate. The latest major mutation of the virus leads to a more virulent strain of COVID-19, though the rate of hospitalization and rate of mortality is still unclear compared to other strains. This isn’t all we are dealing with as we celebrate Christmas.  There is the political turmoil in the U.S. and many nations. The world order of the Pax-Americana is strained if not waning. Then there are, most likely, things in our personal lives, which may leave us feeling less than celebratory.

I, Abba of the Order of Jesus Christ, Reconciler, feel quite overwhelmed. As I write this I don’t know what wisdom or insight I might have to share with us this Christmastide.  As I continue to recover from my fall off a ladder over a year ago now, and grieving the death of my mother, and dealing with all the logistics and economy of a person’s passing, I don’t feel up to being Abba of an order. I’m stumbling along without any great sight into what is to come, or where we might be going as an order.

Even so, as we remember that in the person Jesus of Nazareth, God comes to us as Emmanuel, God with us, isn’t this what we celebrate, God meeting us in our weakness? Christmas isn’t about human achievement, or human celebration, or human insight. Rather, God comes as one of us inn our very weakness and vulnerability, as a fetus and then an infant! The deliverance that Mary proclaims in her Magnificat, comes not from God coming with force like God did when delivering Israel from bondage in Egypt, but God becomes human flesh, starting out in the deep vulnerable dependence at the beginning of a human life.

This work of God is known to women, the poor, shepherds, and foreign astrologers from outside of the Roman Empire.  God doesn’t become human by being born to an imperial, royal, or patrician family.  The incarnation is largely unnoticed, insignificant in the realm of empires, rulers, and the wealthy.  Thus, God’s deliverance and liberation aren’t readily noticed, nor easily recognized.  It is hidden in God being with us in our most human vulnerable spaces.  God comes among those who have the least reason to celebrate.

The season of Christmas begins with three feasts following up on Christmas day. These feasts invite us into the messy and mystical dimensions of this season.  On the 26^th the second day of Christmas we remember the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, Deacon and First Martyr. On the Third day of Christmas we celebrate the Feast of Saint John Apostle and Theologian, who points us toward the loving dance of the Holy Trinity. On the 4^th day of Christmas we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, remembering those infants slaughtered by King Herod. These three feasts invite us to see Christmas as something other than a “happy” celebration. God come in human flesh stirs up a reaction: those who seek to control the world are confronted with something beyond them, and death and oppression are used in an attempt to regain control. This reality is reflected in today’s feast as well as our current headlines. The celebration of Christmas embraces a great deal.

To the mind overtaken by thoughts and impulses of control and power over others and the cosmos the incarnation is hidden from view.  Even those who suffer at the hands of the wealthy and powerful, God’s coming in human flesh being joined to creation can be hard to see its relevance or how it can free from oppression (This is especially so when the oppressor claims the name of Christ and Christian).

This is not to say that there is no way to see and find the work of God in Jesus Christ in our world and circumstances. But it can be very difficult. Following after that work of God in Jesus Christ, while it liberates, also often leads us into difficult situations in which we are facing death.

In the first four days of Christmas we are confronted with human responses to the mystery of God with us. God comes to us in God’s Glory, which isn’t the glory of human power and wealth. These responses are often violent and following Christ doesn’t necessarily preserve us from suffering under that violence.

In the mystery proclaimed by St John the apostle, we need to confront our own violent and sinful reactions to God come to us in this way, where God gives up control and power over others and circumstances. There is something liberating in letting go of the idea that we can control anything. But it also, leaves things feeling unstable and uncertain. I know that in myself there’s something that rebels against that instability. There is something dissatisfying in the focus on what today will bring, rather than some grand scheme that I can live into and execute. Yet, rarely does a long range plan become fully implemented. While we want to believe that we or some human we admire or elect might have such ability to see all possibilities and plan accordingly and keep things stable, history tells a different tale of human ability. Even when we believe ourselves to have the knowledge to plan and implement security, things soon fall apart.

In the midst of suffering and oppression and genocidal violence, the question of where is God arises. In moments like that of the slaughter of the infants and toddlers in Bethlehem, God with us feels like abandonment. God with us flees as a refuge dependent on human parents to keep them safe.

So then where is the hope, If God is with us and for us, but in being so has also relinquished a type of control and power over the world? Are we left to the power of death and desire to have power over others? The answer to this question isn’t found in the coming of God to us as the infant Jesus of Nazareth.  The answer comes in whom Jesus is, Jesus’ whole life and his death, resurrection and ascension.

But God’s ultimate answer to death and violence begins here.   And so with the shepherds, the magi, and Mary we can contemplate and celebrate even as things aren’t yet fully unveiled. At Christmas we are contemplating a portion of the mystery of our faith and God’s revelation to us in Jesus of Nazareth. God with us comes to us vulnerable and relinquishing control and power over others. In this we learn something of God’s love, power, and glory. The longer we  live with this revelation the more unsettling and disconcerting it becomes.

In the love an grace of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel,

Basil Irenaeus

Abba

Order of Jesus Christ, Reconciler

Monasticism, Community and the Island

Recently saw the Russian film, the Island. (not to be confused with the 2005 sci-fi action movie of the same English title.) It is about a monk and an Orthodox monastery on an Island off the coast of the North sea. It is a beautiful depiction of monasticism, community and the struggle of the spiritual life. The story revolves around hte character of Father Anatoly, and the abbot Father Filaret and Father Job, a younger monk who is also in charge of much of the daily functioning of the monastery. Father Anatoly is troubled by a grave sin he committed before he found himself in the monastery, but people come to the monastery in search of him, believing he is a holy man and attribute miracles to him, and one whose prayers are especially efficacious. But Father Anatoly is not an easy man, and usually pretends that he is the aid of Father anatoly. Father Anatoly also plays pranks on his fellow monks and doesn't always pray in the church with the monks but prays the set prayers and psalms either in his cell or out in the steppes away from the monastery. He is also the monk who tends the boiler of the monastery and lives in the boiler room. Overtime we do come to see through the harsh treatment of those who come to him, the pranks, and isolation that he is a holy man, a holy fool, and probably a Saint. In a sense through being a fictionalized account we have a story of a holy fool that is not a hagiography, and can experience the challenge of Christian holiness without the aura of knowing for sure who Father Anatoly is.

I think there are many lessons people who live or seek to live in intentional community can gain insight about the nature of intensive communal living, even if not strictly speaking monastic. The Island shows that monasticism isn't retreat from struggle but is retreat to struggle. Even that monasteries aren't the place of the perfect but of sinners, who struggle with deep rooted and often hidden sins. It also beautifully portrays the frustrations and the beauty of being tied to those who are truly other in manasticism and intentional Christian community. Living in this way with others whose quirks, sins and bodily presence, the whole person, can simply rub against ones own person in ways that can make one acutely aware of both the others failings and ones own. The temptation then is to focus on the others sins and failings ignoring ones own. or as in the case of Father Anatoly to be so convinced of ones own failure that one cannot see how God is at work in your presence in the community.

I appreciate that the film in its short vignettes of monastic life and in the depiction of the relationship between the three main characters, shows the reality and the holiness of this form of life: a holiness that does not come from the perfection of the monks but the ongoing struggle over each monks own sins and failings and of accepting God at work in each person for the good of all both those inside and outside the monastery. Things we who look to monasticism and seek to live out the Gospel in this intensive and communal way need to keep in mind in our attempts to serve God and the church in living in intentional Christian community.

From Self-centeredness to Christ Centeredness.

This is a stab at articulating some things in my self and being part of the community that are on the edge of full articulation. This is sort of a sketch of thoughts on what living for and in Christ as member and prior of an intentional Christian Community.

Several things are on the horizon for the community, yet what they mean for the community is currently very vague and the time table for them happening is also uncertain and depends on things which are not entirely in our or my control. This is a difficult place to be one that requires detachment and a keen sense of call and the reason for having made and continuing to make certain sacrifices. Our Rule speaks of growing in awareness of things held in common, of hospitality and of being for the other. All of this, if followed, calls for moving beyond a self-centerdness into dieing to one-self for the sake of Christ. Here is the rub: at times it is not clear to me how what we do, what I do is for Christ, nor is it clear to me what exactly that means. I am not always sure how to evaluate these things.

The lack of clarity in part comes from the the moralistic interpretations of being Christ centered or the narrow cultural interpretations that would view my identification as Goth as a form of self-centeredness. Yet, I have for sometime felt that my identification as goth Christian and pastor was a coincidence of things That are expressions of myself and of being for Christ.

What I feel being called to now is that to entirely give over this identity to Christ and all that i do: for instance working with Kilter Magazine. What is odd is that this sense of call changes nothing of the externals, rather it is a disposition towards these things. A releasing of a preoccupation with identity and its preservation.

What has lead me to this I am finding that my various involvements are exhausting me, because I am attempting to do them because I am interested in them and for myself. Yet I have also been lead to do them for the sake of Christ and others. attempting to keep a division of what I do for myself and what I do for "ministry", creates at times an exhausting burden, because most of what I do currently is due to my interests and identity and yet I am also doing them as "ministry"

What I think is happening is that who I am is being taken up into Christ, I will take part in the editorial work of Kilter, I will write for Catapult, pastor Reconciler be Prior of the Community of Holy Trinity as its founder,

This all should not be surprising when Kate and I began down this path it was not for us but for others. Before our friends approached us and asked to start a community with them, we did not feel called to community. the very act of founding the Community of the Holy Trinity was an act of leaving aside a certain path in which we would have still served Christ but would have pursued our interests and certainly would have served Christ but in away that the service of Christ would have been through the preservation of an identity in the service of Christ, there would have been "ministry" we would have done and the things we did in our own pursuits separate from "ministry" I don't have a ministry, I don't have that which is for myself. This goes against much current conversation of self-care.