Sermon for The Order of the Daughters
of the King
Southern Area “Quiet Day,” All
Saints Propers
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish,
Tucson, AZ
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse, November
2, 2013
Lectionary readings for the day,
click here.
Sermon based on Luke 6:20-31
May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength
and our sustainer. AMEN
Good
morning! What a joy it is to be here
this “quiet day”
and to
get to know more deeply
the
faithful Daughters of the King from Southern Arizona.
Thank
you, Jean, for a meaningful reflection and meditation.
When I
first arrived at St. Philip’s only a year ago,
Liz
Weber invited me during my first week,
to
participate in a DOK meeting.
I joined
that day’s meeting and found it to be
deeply
relational and prayerful.
In the
weeks and months that followed,
I gained
a profound sense of how the DOK
live
into the rule of life – of prayer, and of service.
Every week, I receive, from parishioners or
guests
these
blue cards requesting prayer from DOK.
Every week, at our mid-week services,
we, as a
gathered community,
read the
entire list of prayer seekers, maintained by our DOK.
Every week, faithfully, the DOK serves our
community by praying, by serving and by leading others nearer to Christ.
The
readings for All Saints, today,
uphold
the sentiment of being a DOK.
These
readings reflect what it means to be a disciple
and
about which the concrete realities of prayer
and need
for blessings are named.
In
Luke’s Gospel, we hear Jesus speak of concrete realities
to his
disciples.
“Jesus
looked up at his disciples and said,
Blessed
are you who are poor…
Blessed
are you who are hungry …
Blessed
are you who weep …
Blessed
are you when people hate you…”
Jesus speaks
of concrete realities and human needs
–
individual and communal.
Jesus
models, of course,
a
standard for which every disciple should strive –
beginning
with pronouncing God’s blessings.
In
pronouncing God’s blessings, the “beatitudes”
are active
statements that declare God’s favor.
Jesus
declares God’s favor on people
who have
concrete needs –
they are
poor, hungry, weeping or are hated.
How
fortunate are these people, utterly dependent on God.
Their
livelihood, food, comfort and love is sourced
in the kingdom
of heaven.
And, in
pronouncing God’s lamentations, the woes –
or
‘woe-itudes’ – are statements that declare
a
forthcoming calamity on those who prosper now
through
their own power.
Alas,
how terrible it will be for them, Luke emphasizes.
The four
woe-itudes correspond to
the four
beatitudes in the same sequence.
Together,
these eight lines emphasize
Jesus’
scandalous overturning
of every
conventional expectation.
And we
follow this teacher into these scandalous overturnings!
Importantly,
note that Luke’s beatitudes
differ
from Matthew’s.
Luke’s
speak in the second person –
“you” rather
than the third person “they.”
Luke’s speak
about concrete socio-economic conditions
rather
than spiritual conditions, of specific people.
As Daughter,
you know first hand
from the
prayers that you offer each day
about
the concrete conditions of which specific people
have
need – illness, loss, brokenness, despair.
*pause*
From
Jesus’ teachings,
the
disciples gained insight to the kingdom of heaven.
The
disciples learned to take a Divine perspective into prayer,
and in
obedience to God’s will,
the
disciples sought out opportunities
to offer
blessings and to heal others.
In this same
way,
the Daughters
gain insight to a Divine perspective
and follow
Jesus, as disciples.
By
living into your rule of life,
you are
in the thick of opportunities to offer blessings
and
prayers for healing and reconciliation.
Long
ago, the election of Israel
began with God’s promise
to bless
Abraham and his descendants and make them
a
blessing to all the peoples of the earth (Gen 12:1-3).
No
wonder, then, that we resonate so deeply
with the
Aaronic blessing from Numbers,
“The
Lord bless you and keep you.”
This prayer
tells the good news that
God not
only redeems us but that God blesses us as well.
So what has happened to the art
of blessing?
The beatitudes we hear today call
us back
to the power of blessing and of being
blessed.
In blessing, Daughters are in the
unique position
to lead others nearer to Christ
through this specific and mutual
form of prayer.
In mutual blessing, a prayer need
is set apart
for divine purpose:
In mutual blessing, Daughters
bear witness to the creating,
redeeming, and sanctifying
love of God
As the Spirit empowers the pray-er,
the pray-ee and The Church
(capital C)
are blessed and strengthened.
Celtic philosopher and poet, John
O’Donohue,
offers guidance on the art of
blessing.
He cries that “the commercial
edge of our culture
[cuts] away at [the] human tissue
and webbing
that held us in communion with
each other…
we have fallen out of belonging.”[1]
And I would add, we fall out of community
because of those concrete life
challenges.
Yet, it is in those life
challenges
that we find the crucial
thresholds crying out
for prayer and divine assistance:
of illness, job loss,
relationship challenges, death, addictions.
There, at the edge of our
culture,
these crossings demand the
use of new words.
Yet what is nearest to the heart
at these times
is often farthest from any
word.
Your blessing, your prayer, is to
offer,
“…[words and images] which
present
a psychic portrait of the
geography of change.”
A blessing, a prayer, describes that
new Divine geography
and a new pathway for God’s
presence.
A blessing, a prayer, that
daughters offer, can touch
what O’Donohue calls,
“…tender membrane
where the human heart cries out
to the divine ground.”[2]
Through your touch, your prayer, your
blessing,
you join the quiet eternal that
dwells in all souls –
the eternal that is silent and
subtle.
You invoke the Spirit to emerge
and embrace
those concrete needs of specific
people.
In your blessings and prayers, Daughters,
remember that when the word “God” is too huge,
your role in prayer is to name
that
“…life itself as the
primal sacrament –
the visible sign of invisible
grace.”[3]
*pause*
Your blessings, then,
are windows into the divine for
those with whom
and for whom we pray.
Your blessings, then, name God’s
presence
and grace that is already there.
That
is the spread of Christ’s kingdom.
The language of blessing is
invocation – a calling forth.
When you invoke a blessing,
the Holy Spirit springs forth and
surges into presence.
As a Daughter, you are called
to give and to receive
blessings upon blessings,
prayers upon prayers,
grace upon grace.
That is your gift to The Church.
Scripture reminds us that
“we see through a glass darkly.”
That is the place on which the Daughters’
rule of life depends –
that threshold between the
visible and the invisible.[4]
In that “thin place,” in that
place of concrete needs,
God calls the Daughters to invoke
the invisible structure of
kindness and prayer
for divine assistance in ours and
others’ lives.
O’Donohue reminds us today, as we
celebrate All Saints,
“…that one of the great
storehouses of blessing
is the invisible neighborhood
where the dead dwell.”
He continues…
“Our friends among the dead
now live where time and space are
transfigured.
They behold us in ways they never
could have
when they lived here on
earth.
Because they live near the source
of destiny,
their blessings for us are accurate
and penetrating,
offering a divine illumination
not available
according to the calculations of
the visible world.”[5]
All the Saints remind us that
time behaves differently when
blessings are invoked.
Daughters,
may you realize your power to
bless, to heal
and to renew one another through
God’s steadfast love.
And
may we all be given the grace to
trust
that the gifts God gives
will be sufficient to accomplish the
work God calls us to do.
May we joyfully participate with
God
in making the world the place of
blessing
it was created to be.
AMEN.
