Chaos, Calm and Compassion

 

A sermon preached at Holy Evangelists Goolwa 

and St Jude’s Port Elliot 13 August 2023

 

Chaos, Calm Compassion

When safely on shore it can be energising to experience the storms and squalls of the ocean. Our Horseshoe Bay reminds us of ships sunk and lives lost in storms. In our Gospel experienced fishers and boat handlers are caught in a life- threatening storm. Elijah faces fire and earthquake. This rings true for us as Australians. We may also face the storms of illness, family breakdown or bereavement.

Amid chaos when our lives seem precarious, we may become fearful, swamped by emotions, reactive not responsive. Peter is impulsive, impatient, easily influenced, driven often by fear or misplaced love. Elijah is fleeing in fear.

In the Gospel Jesus remains at prayer. John Macquarie, who was on of the great Anglican theologians of the 20^th century defined prayer as ‘slow thinking’. I imagine Jesus practicing a form of mindfulness, practicing calm as well as using reason and reflection to think and plan for the next step of his ministry. In prayer our feelings dialogue often with our thinking, sometimes moving into contemplation. Jesus considers and chooses with the view from above.  Problems often require we step up a logical level to see the wider view before we respond. Jesus in the Gospel is pictured as always able to find what is significant in every situation.

We too require calm and the practice of prayer as ‘slow thinking’ with others and alone can open the imagination and our creative reasoning to respond with compassion.

Compassion is beyond empathy. Empathy is natural for us and indeed often we are told to be more empathetic. Paul Bloom in his book ‘Against Empathy’ says that we often define empathy as imagining we feel what is it is like to be the other person. This he says has some use but often leads to poor choices with unforeseen consequences. Another way of defining empathy is as social cognition, understanding another person and what makes them tick. However, if you have ever been bullied you will known that in toxic workplaces or relationships power arises from finely tuned social cognition.

Jesus is often portrayed as compassionate and the Holy One is often described in the Hebrew Scriptures as being full of compassion. We notice that in this story Jesus seems to act rationally, calming both the fears of those in peril and then bringing calm to the chaos. In the cave Elijah hears the Word in the still small voice of silence causing him to take another path. Compassion is a reason-based response that considers the consequences.

Life can bring chaos but by practicing ways to be calm and making decisions that bring the best consequences may leads us to live with compassion and care. Reason is God’s gift to humanity and we can learn alone and with others to reason well and make choices with the consequences in mind.

Bishop Kallistos on silence

'Reaching out towards the eternal truth that lies beyond all human words and thoughts the seeker begins to wait on God in quietness and in silence, no longer talking about or to God but simply listening'

The Orthodox Way p 121

I like it slow, a Transfiguration sermon

 

Transfiguration - A sermon preached at St Augustine’s

Victor Harbor 6 August 2023

 

Leonard Cohen sang, ‘I’m slowing down the tune’ adding ‘I want to get there last’ (Album: Popular Problems)

The singer songwriter who died in 2016 was an observant Jew all his life, yet stepped away from the fast lane living a Zen monastery on a mountain in California before returning to tour the world. His songs are threaded with Biblical imagery including references to Jesus and the Gospels.

Today our Gospel takes us into a Biblical landscape and into the heart of an experience of the presence of God in the Transfiguration Gospel.

When I prepare sermons, I practice ‘lectio’ an ancient way of ‘slowing down the tune.’  This is a slow and meditative reading of the text including reading it aloud as Scripture is written to be listened to and prayed through.

The image that came to me was of the three professional fishers climbing the mountain. I imagined their slow climb and saw them in my mind, looking back regretfully at the glittering lake in the distance. From the rocking planks of a fishing boat to sharp stones of the goat track, the arid windswept mountain their muscles aching, sweat dripping into their eyes. This I imagined. was a slow climb and it was made by James and John, known for their anger as the ‘sons of thunder’ and the impulsive Peter who six says earlier had recognised Jesus as the Messiah.

This small ‘church’ is being taken from the familiar to the unfamiliar and what they experience there on the mountain will only begin to add up after the shattering events of Pentecost, the resurrection, and the death of Jesus on the cross. Here there are three figures like the three crosses, the disciples watch and pray as they would do later in the garden of Gethsemane. Yet here there is no sense of the absence of God. At the cross some though Jesus was calling on Elijah, and Jesus himself felt his alienation and estrangement from his Father. Here the silence of absence is replaced by the voice. Peter on that exposed rocky mountain offers to make three shelters. I see this as an invitation to take this experience within the shelter of one’s life.

Later after a dialogue they will return to a scene of chaos and loss which Jesus brings healing and peace. This may only be cast out by fasting and prayer, forms of slowing, listening, the practice of attentiveness and seeking guidance.

In our prayer we are taken from the world of the familiar to the strange and that holds true if we pray alone or with others, we are never spiritually alone.  In worship we slow down to walk with Jesus. We are called to ‘be’ not to ‘do.’ When we slow down, we notice signs of grace and invitations to where we are called in faith to be.

In the letter of James, the brother of Jesus, we are instructed to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger (1:19) The Old Testament makes many references to a God who is slow to anger, compassionate, forgiving abounding in love (Numbers 14:18). Those who are people of the way respond and not react.  Disciples listen quickly and are not seized by a hurried emotional response.

James, John, and Peter were like many of us impatient, impulsive people in a hurry. I see myself in them being busy and always knowing the answer. Jesus in slowing down the tune made it possible for them to learn the rhythms of his Kingdom. I can learn this to in my own life by slowing down the tune. Like Peter, James and John I am called to serve a God slow to anger, full of compassion, forgiveness, love, and mercy, called into the grace of Beatitude not of battle.

Jesus’ commitment to contemplation, the slow unhurried practice of being in the Presence meant that he was able to respond quickly and appropriately when the need arose. Jesus saw deeply into the root of the problem bringing a healing word or action.

‘I’m slowing down the tune, I never liked it fast, you want to get there soon, I want to get there last’ wrote Leonard Cohen.

Let us slow the tune in our life with God, quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to react ready to respond as servants. Let us slowly climb trusting he is close by in the unfamiliar where we must trust and be led by the Holy Spirit.

After all we too want to get there last for, after all, Jesus promised, ‘the first will be last and the last will be first’ (Matthew 20:16)