Too much
is happening, too much is falling apart everywhere. And it’s not the time for us to
hide from one another or from Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a time to be
vigilant and come together, for Jesus our Lord beckons us and leads us forth into
battle. On one side are those forces within us and without that sow
division, discord and isolation. On the other side there are all those forces
that nurture attachment, connection and solidarity. And that’s where he wants
us to be, that’s where his kingdom is going to happen. It’s a showdown between
cynics and optimists, a war between “rippers and weavers,” that runs down the
middle of every heart.* With Jesus we need to be weavers, creating a tapestry of
loving relatedness and bonds of trust. This is why we’re here in the monastery,
this school of the Lord’s service, this school of love - to practice connecting
and reconnecting, obeying and deferring to one another out of love.
The Lord of gentleness and
compassion is leading us forward in hope; someone who leads by falling
down, being spat upon, shoved and tortured. Not to teach us how to be doormats;
that’s not what his kingdom is about. It is about refusing to live by fear
and rivalry, in an us vs. them kind of world, where there always must be
winners and losers. It’s about absorbing hurt because of hope and trust in
One who is at our side, Christ Jesus our Master.
God is with us, God among us; God like us in everything but our
sinning. We may call him a king if we remember that his sovereignty is
realized in his littleness, his nothingness, his emptying out, his
self-forgetful love, his sin-bearing. He only wants to be loved; our promise to
compassion and mercy one another is our pledge of devotion to him. Life in the
kingdom doesn’t tolerate individuals, anybody on the fringes. His mercy always
gathers, binds up, heals and connects; it never excludes. That is his truth.
God always wants to wash our feet and entice us to go and do likewise. And so,
we live and rejoice in the “hard truth and ridiculous grace”(Tauren Wells) that abusers and abused,
demagogues and peacemakers, well-heeled, solid citizens and weary refugees and
migrants, bigots and oppressors and terrorists along with their victims, are
all being invited with us to have a change of heart and come together to the
feast in the kingdom.
Photograph of Abbey glass by Brother Daniel. * Insights from an editorial column by David Brooks in The New York Times, October 30, 2018.
