SERMON When Hope Despairs When Despair Hopes July 2, 2017 Rev. George Anastos
SERMON PART I When Hope Despairs The Reverend George Anastos Here is a prayer: Where is my faith? even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. My God how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be God, - please forgive me. These words, this prayer, was written by Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. Of Indian and Albanian heritage Gonxha was born and raised in Macedonia. She was 18-years-old when she became a nun and began teaching. A nun s life is not always the easiest, but she was being who she was called to be a nun, doing what she knew she was supposed to do teach. This was the life she lived for nearly 20 years, and then..... Gonxha experienced what she understood as a call within a call a call to a new ministry within the already existing call of being a nun. This call within a call was a series of mystical experiences in which she heard Jesus ask her to found a new order that would serve the poorest of the poor. In the startling freedom that only obedience to God can give, she obeyed. This Bride of Christ, full of his, and her own love, left for Calcutta and began caring for the poorest of the poor, for those left dying in gutters on the side of the road, for those whom humanity deemed worthless. Mother Teresa, because that is who we are talking about, became world famous for her work, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When we watched her on TV she seemed so determined, so tireless. We might have wondered about compassion fatigue but she appeared to be above that, above what the rest of us mortals experience. Shortly after she died, however, in an act of remarkable faith and honesty, the Catholic Church allowed the publication of some of the letters she wrote to her spiritual director, and they told a different story. Almost from the moment that she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she ceased hearing Jesus' voice, ceased experiencing his presence and being nourished in his love. What she felt was abandonment, neglect. She wrote: Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Gonxha even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of God. Speaking of the persona she presented to the world she wrote, "The smile is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love. If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'." Page 1 of 3
SCRIPTURE READING Psalm 13 A Prayer for Deliverance How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have prevailed ; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with me. SERMON PART II When Despair Hopes The Reverend George Anastos It is Anne Lamott who penned, The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. At the end of Part I of this sermon I noted that the publication of Mother Teresa s letters was a remarkable act of faith and honesty. It showed a spiritual maturity that most people have not come to expect from organized religion. Yet the Catholic Church published this to give hope to give hope to the millions upon millions of people, of every religion or no religion, who struggle with internal pain and doubt. Yes, I understand that this makes no sense, at least at first blush. How can someone s spiritual agony give hope to someone else going through hell? If someone like Mother Teresa can t rest in God s love, what hope do the rest of us mortals have? Enter Psalm 13. Say what you will about the bible but it does not hide from the true realities of the spiritual life, does not hide from the journey that must be undertaken by any person of deep faith. It does not hide from the dark night of the soul. Faith is not about believing the right creed or belonging to the right church. Faith is about responding to the movement and invitation of the Holy Spirit, and to follow her in the ways of justice and peace. Faith is therefore about determination and guts and stick-toitiveness. Faith is about holding on to the highest humanity can attain even when experiencing the lowest humanity can inflict. Mother Teresa saw the low indignity that humanity can inflict through its indifferent neglect of the poor, the dying, and the outcast. Day after day she drew from a spiritual reservoir to give even a drop of love to the unloved left in a gutter to die alone. But even full reservoirs can go dry drop by drop. In the resultant spiritual desert there is no hiding from reality s glaring sun. Psalm 13 teaches us about prayer as it speaks to this spiritual reality. When we are young in prayer we sometimes think it is supposed to be all about praise and thanksgiving, much like the last two verse of today s psalm, verses that seem bizarrely out of place with the first few verses. As we mature in prayer, however, we come to understand that the fullness of our human experience even the abandonment and Page 2 of 3
anger and neglect must also be owned and held before God. It is precisely the person of deep and mature faith who admits to feeling these things, screams them to God and continues to pray a hope that despairs and a despair that hopes. Psalm 13 is such a prayer. Like just about every psalm it goes back and forth between expressing a petition of urgency and then expressing a paean of trust, between raging at the world s injustice and trusting in God s inevitable love... because the rage and the trust are two sides of the same coin: the psalmist knows that we would not care about humanity s callous injustice if we did not recognize God s compassionate love. This is why the Church will present a psalm like this for our consideration and thought on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer: not because every one of us needs it this day, but because every one of us will need it someday, a day when our hope will despair and our despair will hope. At the beginning of this section of the sermon I quoted Anne Lamott. Here is a fuller version of what she wrote: I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 1 Until that time when the light returns, part of the mission of the Christian Church is to hold the promise of that light. Here at First Plymouth, at this individual church, we hold the light. When we receive word of the death or illness or other distress of one of our members, the Pastoral Care staff offers prayer shawls to these people, shawls that are knit by fellow members, saying prayers as they stitch. Then they gather these knitted-in-love-and-prayer shawls and have a consecration service that those who receive them might be wrapped in God s love, and in the love and care of this community. We give these to those we know about. But we can t give them to those struggling that we don t know about. So as you leave the sanctuary today shawls will available by the doors for those who need them this day. They are there for you. Take one if you need. And if we run out, we will have more soon. And if you don t want to take one in front of others, see me, or Lois, or Terry, or Nanette. We keep confidences and hold you in our love. Psalm 13 is for all of us someday. And the church, resting in and founded on God, will be here for you everyday. Amen. 1 Lamott, Anne; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith Page 3 of 3
SERMON When Hope Despairs When Despair Hopes July 2, 2017 Rev. George Anastos
SERMON PART I When Hope Despairs The Reverend George Anastos Here is a prayer: Where is my faith? even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. My God how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be God, - please forgive me. These words, this prayer, was written by Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. Of Indian and Albanian heritage Gonxha was born and raised in Macedonia. She was 18-years-old when she became a nun and began teaching. A nun s life is not always the easiest, but she was being who she was called to be a nun, doing what she knew she was supposed to do teach. This was the life she lived for nearly 20 years, and then..... Gonxha experienced what she understood as a call within a call a call to a new ministry within the already existing call of being a nun. This call within a call was a series of mystical experiences in which she heard Jesus ask her to found a new order that would serve the poorest of the poor. In the startling freedom that only obedience to God can give, she obeyed. This Bride of Christ, full of his, and her own love, left for Calcutta and began caring for the poorest of the poor, for those left dying in gutters on the side of the road, for those whom humanity deemed worthless. Mother Teresa, because that is who we are talking about, became world famous for her work, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When we watched her on TV she seemed so determined, so tireless. We might have wondered about compassion fatigue but she appeared to be above that, above what the rest of us mortals experience. Shortly after she died, however, in an act of remarkable faith and honesty, the Catholic Church allowed the publication of some of the letters she wrote to her spiritual director, and they told a different story. Almost from the moment that she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she ceased hearing Jesus' voice, ceased experiencing his presence and being nourished in his love. What she felt was abandonment, neglect. She wrote: Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Gonxha even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of God. Speaking of the persona she presented to the world she wrote, "The smile is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love. If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'." Page 1 of 3
SCRIPTURE READING Psalm 13 A Prayer for Deliverance How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have prevailed ; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with me. SERMON PART II When Despair Hopes The Reverend George Anastos It is Anne Lamott who penned, The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. At the end of Part I of this sermon I noted that the publication of Mother Teresa s letters was a remarkable act of faith and honesty. It showed a spiritual maturity that most people have not come to expect from organized religion. Yet the Catholic Church published this to give hope to give hope to the millions upon millions of people, of every religion or no religion, who struggle with internal pain and doubt. Yes, I understand that this makes no sense, at least at first blush. How can someone s spiritual agony give hope to someone else going through hell? If someone like Mother Teresa can t rest in God s love, what hope do the rest of us mortals have? Enter Psalm 13. Say what you will about the bible but it does not hide from the true realities of the spiritual life, does not hide from the journey that must be undertaken by any person of deep faith. It does not hide from the dark night of the soul. Faith is not about believing the right creed or belonging to the right church. Faith is about responding to the movement and invitation of the Holy Spirit, and to follow her in the ways of justice and peace. Faith is therefore about determination and guts and stick-toitiveness. Faith is about holding on to the highest humanity can attain even when experiencing the lowest humanity can inflict. Mother Teresa saw the low indignity that humanity can inflict through its indifferent neglect of the poor, the dying, and the outcast. Day after day she drew from a spiritual reservoir to give even a drop of love to the unloved left in a gutter to die alone. But even full reservoirs can go dry drop by drop. In the resultant spiritual desert there is no hiding from reality s glaring sun. Psalm 13 teaches us about prayer as it speaks to this spiritual reality. When we are young in prayer we sometimes think it is supposed to be all about praise and thanksgiving, much like the last two verse of today s psalm, verses that seem bizarrely out of place with the first few verses. As we mature in prayer, however, we come to understand that the fullness of our human experience even the abandonment and Page 2 of 3
anger and neglect must also be owned and held before God. It is precisely the person of deep and mature faith who admits to feeling these things, screams them to God and continues to pray a hope that despairs and a despair that hopes. Psalm 13 is such a prayer. Like just about every psalm it goes back and forth between expressing a petition of urgency and then expressing a paean of trust, between raging at the world s injustice and trusting in God s inevitable love... because the rage and the trust are two sides of the same coin: the psalmist knows that we would not care about humanity s callous injustice if we did not recognize God s compassionate love. This is why the Church will present a psalm like this for our consideration and thought on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer: not because every one of us needs it this day, but because every one of us will need it someday, a day when our hope will despair and our despair will hope. At the beginning of this section of the sermon I quoted Anne Lamott. Here is a fuller version of what she wrote: I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 1 Until that time when the light returns, part of the mission of the Christian Church is to hold the promise of that light. Here at First Plymouth, at this individual church, we hold the light. When we receive word of the death or illness or other distress of one of our members, the Pastoral Care staff offers prayer shawls to these people, shawls that are knit by fellow members, saying prayers as they stitch. Then they gather these knitted-in-love-and-prayer shawls and have a consecration service that those who receive them might be wrapped in God s love, and in the love and care of this community. We give these to those we know about. But we can t give them to those struggling that we don t know about. So as you leave the sanctuary today shawls will available by the doors for those who need them this day. They are there for you. Take one if you need. And if we run out, we will have more soon. And if you don t want to take one in front of others, see me, or Lois, or Terry, or Nanette. We keep confidences and hold you in our love. Psalm 13 is for all of us someday. And the church, resting in and founded on God, will be here for you everyday. Amen. 1 Lamott, Anne; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith Page 3 of 3
SERMON When Hope Despairs When Despair Hopes July 2, 2017 Rev. George Anastos
SERMON PART I When Hope Despairs The Reverend George Anastos Here is a prayer: Where is my faith? even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. My God how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be God, - please forgive me. These words, this prayer, was written by Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. Of Indian and Albanian heritage Gonxha was born and raised in Macedonia. She was 18-years-old when she became a nun and began teaching. A nun s life is not always the easiest, but she was being who she was called to be a nun, doing what she knew she was supposed to do teach. This was the life she lived for nearly 20 years, and then..... Gonxha experienced what she understood as a call within a call a call to a new ministry within the already existing call of being a nun. This call within a call was a series of mystical experiences in which she heard Jesus ask her to found a new order that would serve the poorest of the poor. In the startling freedom that only obedience to God can give, she obeyed. This Bride of Christ, full of his, and her own love, left for Calcutta and began caring for the poorest of the poor, for those left dying in gutters on the side of the road, for those whom humanity deemed worthless. Mother Teresa, because that is who we are talking about, became world famous for her work, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When we watched her on TV she seemed so determined, so tireless. We might have wondered about compassion fatigue but she appeared to be above that, above what the rest of us mortals experience. Shortly after she died, however, in an act of remarkable faith and honesty, the Catholic Church allowed the publication of some of the letters she wrote to her spiritual director, and they told a different story. Almost from the moment that she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she ceased hearing Jesus' voice, ceased experiencing his presence and being nourished in his love. What she felt was abandonment, neglect. She wrote: Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Gonxha even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of God. Speaking of the persona she presented to the world she wrote, "The smile is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love. If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'." Page 1 of 3
SCRIPTURE READING Psalm 13 A Prayer for Deliverance How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have prevailed ; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with me. SERMON PART II When Despair Hopes The Reverend George Anastos It is Anne Lamott who penned, The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. At the end of Part I of this sermon I noted that the publication of Mother Teresa s letters was a remarkable act of faith and honesty. It showed a spiritual maturity that most people have not come to expect from organized religion. Yet the Catholic Church published this to give hope to give hope to the millions upon millions of people, of every religion or no religion, who struggle with internal pain and doubt. Yes, I understand that this makes no sense, at least at first blush. How can someone s spiritual agony give hope to someone else going through hell? If someone like Mother Teresa can t rest in God s love, what hope do the rest of us mortals have? Enter Psalm 13. Say what you will about the bible but it does not hide from the true realities of the spiritual life, does not hide from the journey that must be undertaken by any person of deep faith. It does not hide from the dark night of the soul. Faith is not about believing the right creed or belonging to the right church. Faith is about responding to the movement and invitation of the Holy Spirit, and to follow her in the ways of justice and peace. Faith is therefore about determination and guts and stick-toitiveness. Faith is about holding on to the highest humanity can attain even when experiencing the lowest humanity can inflict. Mother Teresa saw the low indignity that humanity can inflict through its indifferent neglect of the poor, the dying, and the outcast. Day after day she drew from a spiritual reservoir to give even a drop of love to the unloved left in a gutter to die alone. But even full reservoirs can go dry drop by drop. In the resultant spiritual desert there is no hiding from reality s glaring sun. Psalm 13 teaches us about prayer as it speaks to this spiritual reality. When we are young in prayer we sometimes think it is supposed to be all about praise and thanksgiving, much like the last two verse of today s psalm, verses that seem bizarrely out of place with the first few verses. As we mature in prayer, however, we come to understand that the fullness of our human experience even the abandonment and Page 2 of 3
anger and neglect must also be owned and held before God. It is precisely the person of deep and mature faith who admits to feeling these things, screams them to God and continues to pray a hope that despairs and a despair that hopes. Psalm 13 is such a prayer. Like just about every psalm it goes back and forth between expressing a petition of urgency and then expressing a paean of trust, between raging at the world s injustice and trusting in God s inevitable love... because the rage and the trust are two sides of the same coin: the psalmist knows that we would not care about humanity s callous injustice if we did not recognize God s compassionate love. This is why the Church will present a psalm like this for our consideration and thought on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer: not because every one of us needs it this day, but because every one of us will need it someday, a day when our hope will despair and our despair will hope. At the beginning of this section of the sermon I quoted Anne Lamott. Here is a fuller version of what she wrote: I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 1 Until that time when the light returns, part of the mission of the Christian Church is to hold the promise of that light. Here at First Plymouth, at this individual church, we hold the light. When we receive word of the death or illness or other distress of one of our members, the Pastoral Care staff offers prayer shawls to these people, shawls that are knit by fellow members, saying prayers as they stitch. Then they gather these knitted-in-love-and-prayer shawls and have a consecration service that those who receive them might be wrapped in God s love, and in the love and care of this community. We give these to those we know about. But we can t give them to those struggling that we don t know about. So as you leave the sanctuary today shawls will available by the doors for those who need them this day. They are there for you. Take one if you need. And if we run out, we will have more soon. And if you don t want to take one in front of others, see me, or Lois, or Terry, or Nanette. We keep confidences and hold you in our love. Psalm 13 is for all of us someday. And the church, resting in and founded on God, will be here for you everyday. Amen. 1 Lamott, Anne; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith Page 3 of 3
SERMON When Hope Despairs When Despair Hopes July 2, 2017 Rev. George Anastos
SERMON PART I When Hope Despairs The Reverend George Anastos Here is a prayer: Where is my faith? even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. My God how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be God, - please forgive me. These words, this prayer, was written by Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. Of Indian and Albanian heritage Gonxha was born and raised in Macedonia. She was 18-years-old when she became a nun and began teaching. A nun s life is not always the easiest, but she was being who she was called to be a nun, doing what she knew she was supposed to do teach. This was the life she lived for nearly 20 years, and then..... Gonxha experienced what she understood as a call within a call a call to a new ministry within the already existing call of being a nun. This call within a call was a series of mystical experiences in which she heard Jesus ask her to found a new order that would serve the poorest of the poor. In the startling freedom that only obedience to God can give, she obeyed. This Bride of Christ, full of his, and her own love, left for Calcutta and began caring for the poorest of the poor, for those left dying in gutters on the side of the road, for those whom humanity deemed worthless. Mother Teresa, because that is who we are talking about, became world famous for her work, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When we watched her on TV she seemed so determined, so tireless. We might have wondered about compassion fatigue but she appeared to be above that, above what the rest of us mortals experience. Shortly after she died, however, in an act of remarkable faith and honesty, the Catholic Church allowed the publication of some of the letters she wrote to her spiritual director, and they told a different story. Almost from the moment that she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she ceased hearing Jesus' voice, ceased experiencing his presence and being nourished in his love. What she felt was abandonment, neglect. She wrote: Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Gonxha even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of God. Speaking of the persona she presented to the world she wrote, "The smile is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love. If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'." Page 1 of 3
SCRIPTURE READING Psalm 13 A Prayer for Deliverance How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have prevailed ; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with me. SERMON PART II When Despair Hopes The Reverend George Anastos It is Anne Lamott who penned, The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. At the end of Part I of this sermon I noted that the publication of Mother Teresa s letters was a remarkable act of faith and honesty. It showed a spiritual maturity that most people have not come to expect from organized religion. Yet the Catholic Church published this to give hope to give hope to the millions upon millions of people, of every religion or no religion, who struggle with internal pain and doubt. Yes, I understand that this makes no sense, at least at first blush. How can someone s spiritual agony give hope to someone else going through hell? If someone like Mother Teresa can t rest in God s love, what hope do the rest of us mortals have? Enter Psalm 13. Say what you will about the bible but it does not hide from the true realities of the spiritual life, does not hide from the journey that must be undertaken by any person of deep faith. It does not hide from the dark night of the soul. Faith is not about believing the right creed or belonging to the right church. Faith is about responding to the movement and invitation of the Holy Spirit, and to follow her in the ways of justice and peace. Faith is therefore about determination and guts and stick-toitiveness. Faith is about holding on to the highest humanity can attain even when experiencing the lowest humanity can inflict. Mother Teresa saw the low indignity that humanity can inflict through its indifferent neglect of the poor, the dying, and the outcast. Day after day she drew from a spiritual reservoir to give even a drop of love to the unloved left in a gutter to die alone. But even full reservoirs can go dry drop by drop. In the resultant spiritual desert there is no hiding from reality s glaring sun. Psalm 13 teaches us about prayer as it speaks to this spiritual reality. When we are young in prayer we sometimes think it is supposed to be all about praise and thanksgiving, much like the last two verse of today s psalm, verses that seem bizarrely out of place with the first few verses. As we mature in prayer, however, we come to understand that the fullness of our human experience even the abandonment and Page 2 of 3
anger and neglect must also be owned and held before God. It is precisely the person of deep and mature faith who admits to feeling these things, screams them to God and continues to pray a hope that despairs and a despair that hopes. Psalm 13 is such a prayer. Like just about every psalm it goes back and forth between expressing a petition of urgency and then expressing a paean of trust, between raging at the world s injustice and trusting in God s inevitable love... because the rage and the trust are two sides of the same coin: the psalmist knows that we would not care about humanity s callous injustice if we did not recognize God s compassionate love. This is why the Church will present a psalm like this for our consideration and thought on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer: not because every one of us needs it this day, but because every one of us will need it someday, a day when our hope will despair and our despair will hope. At the beginning of this section of the sermon I quoted Anne Lamott. Here is a fuller version of what she wrote: I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 1 Until that time when the light returns, part of the mission of the Christian Church is to hold the promise of that light. Here at First Plymouth, at this individual church, we hold the light. When we receive word of the death or illness or other distress of one of our members, the Pastoral Care staff offers prayer shawls to these people, shawls that are knit by fellow members, saying prayers as they stitch. Then they gather these knitted-in-love-and-prayer shawls and have a consecration service that those who receive them might be wrapped in God s love, and in the love and care of this community. We give these to those we know about. But we can t give them to those struggling that we don t know about. So as you leave the sanctuary today shawls will available by the doors for those who need them this day. They are there for you. Take one if you need. And if we run out, we will have more soon. And if you don t want to take one in front of others, see me, or Lois, or Terry, or Nanette. We keep confidences and hold you in our love. Psalm 13 is for all of us someday. And the church, resting in and founded on God, will be here for you everyday. Amen. 1 Lamott, Anne; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith Page 3 of 3
SERMON When Hope Despairs When Despair Hopes July 2, 2017 Rev. George Anastos
SERMON PART I When Hope Despairs The Reverend George Anastos Here is a prayer: Where is my faith? even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. My God how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be God, - please forgive me. These words, this prayer, was written by Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. Of Indian and Albanian heritage Gonxha was born and raised in Macedonia. She was 18-years-old when she became a nun and began teaching. A nun s life is not always the easiest, but she was being who she was called to be a nun, doing what she knew she was supposed to do teach. This was the life she lived for nearly 20 years, and then..... Gonxha experienced what she understood as a call within a call a call to a new ministry within the already existing call of being a nun. This call within a call was a series of mystical experiences in which she heard Jesus ask her to found a new order that would serve the poorest of the poor. In the startling freedom that only obedience to God can give, she obeyed. This Bride of Christ, full of his, and her own love, left for Calcutta and began caring for the poorest of the poor, for those left dying in gutters on the side of the road, for those whom humanity deemed worthless. Mother Teresa, because that is who we are talking about, became world famous for her work, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When we watched her on TV she seemed so determined, so tireless. We might have wondered about compassion fatigue but she appeared to be above that, above what the rest of us mortals experience. Shortly after she died, however, in an act of remarkable faith and honesty, the Catholic Church allowed the publication of some of the letters she wrote to her spiritual director, and they told a different story. Almost from the moment that she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she ceased hearing Jesus' voice, ceased experiencing his presence and being nourished in his love. What she felt was abandonment, neglect. She wrote: Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Gonxha even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of God. Speaking of the persona she presented to the world she wrote, "The smile is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love. If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'." Page 1 of 3
SCRIPTURE READING Psalm 13 A Prayer for Deliverance How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have prevailed ; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with me. SERMON PART II When Despair Hopes The Reverend George Anastos It is Anne Lamott who penned, The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. At the end of Part I of this sermon I noted that the publication of Mother Teresa s letters was a remarkable act of faith and honesty. It showed a spiritual maturity that most people have not come to expect from organized religion. Yet the Catholic Church published this to give hope to give hope to the millions upon millions of people, of every religion or no religion, who struggle with internal pain and doubt. Yes, I understand that this makes no sense, at least at first blush. How can someone s spiritual agony give hope to someone else going through hell? If someone like Mother Teresa can t rest in God s love, what hope do the rest of us mortals have? Enter Psalm 13. Say what you will about the bible but it does not hide from the true realities of the spiritual life, does not hide from the journey that must be undertaken by any person of deep faith. It does not hide from the dark night of the soul. Faith is not about believing the right creed or belonging to the right church. Faith is about responding to the movement and invitation of the Holy Spirit, and to follow her in the ways of justice and peace. Faith is therefore about determination and guts and stick-toitiveness. Faith is about holding on to the highest humanity can attain even when experiencing the lowest humanity can inflict. Mother Teresa saw the low indignity that humanity can inflict through its indifferent neglect of the poor, the dying, and the outcast. Day after day she drew from a spiritual reservoir to give even a drop of love to the unloved left in a gutter to die alone. But even full reservoirs can go dry drop by drop. In the resultant spiritual desert there is no hiding from reality s glaring sun. Psalm 13 teaches us about prayer as it speaks to this spiritual reality. When we are young in prayer we sometimes think it is supposed to be all about praise and thanksgiving, much like the last two verse of today s psalm, verses that seem bizarrely out of place with the first few verses. As we mature in prayer, however, we come to understand that the fullness of our human experience even the abandonment and Page 2 of 3
anger and neglect must also be owned and held before God. It is precisely the person of deep and mature faith who admits to feeling these things, screams them to God and continues to pray a hope that despairs and a despair that hopes. Psalm 13 is such a prayer. Like just about every psalm it goes back and forth between expressing a petition of urgency and then expressing a paean of trust, between raging at the world s injustice and trusting in God s inevitable love... because the rage and the trust are two sides of the same coin: the psalmist knows that we would not care about humanity s callous injustice if we did not recognize God s compassionate love. This is why the Church will present a psalm like this for our consideration and thought on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer: not because every one of us needs it this day, but because every one of us will need it someday, a day when our hope will despair and our despair will hope. At the beginning of this section of the sermon I quoted Anne Lamott. Here is a fuller version of what she wrote: I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 1 Until that time when the light returns, part of the mission of the Christian Church is to hold the promise of that light. Here at First Plymouth, at this individual church, we hold the light. When we receive word of the death or illness or other distress of one of our members, the Pastoral Care staff offers prayer shawls to these people, shawls that are knit by fellow members, saying prayers as they stitch. Then they gather these knitted-in-love-and-prayer shawls and have a consecration service that those who receive them might be wrapped in God s love, and in the love and care of this community. We give these to those we know about. But we can t give them to those struggling that we don t know about. So as you leave the sanctuary today shawls will available by the doors for those who need them this day. They are there for you. Take one if you need. And if we run out, we will have more soon. And if you don t want to take one in front of others, see me, or Lois, or Terry, or Nanette. We keep confidences and hold you in our love. Psalm 13 is for all of us someday. And the church, resting in and founded on God, will be here for you everyday. Amen. 1 Lamott, Anne; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith Page 3 of 3
SERMON When Hope Despairs When Despair Hopes July 2, 2017 Rev. George Anastos
SERMON PART I When Hope Despairs The Reverend George Anastos Here is a prayer: Where is my faith? even deep down, right in, there is nothing but emptiness & darkness. My God how painful is this unknown pain. It pains without ceasing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy If there be God, - please forgive me. These words, this prayer, was written by Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. Of Indian and Albanian heritage Gonxha was born and raised in Macedonia. She was 18-years-old when she became a nun and began teaching. A nun s life is not always the easiest, but she was being who she was called to be a nun, doing what she knew she was supposed to do teach. This was the life she lived for nearly 20 years, and then..... Gonxha experienced what she understood as a call within a call a call to a new ministry within the already existing call of being a nun. This call within a call was a series of mystical experiences in which she heard Jesus ask her to found a new order that would serve the poorest of the poor. In the startling freedom that only obedience to God can give, she obeyed. This Bride of Christ, full of his, and her own love, left for Calcutta and began caring for the poorest of the poor, for those left dying in gutters on the side of the road, for those whom humanity deemed worthless. Mother Teresa, because that is who we are talking about, became world famous for her work, earning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When we watched her on TV she seemed so determined, so tireless. We might have wondered about compassion fatigue but she appeared to be above that, above what the rest of us mortals experience. Shortly after she died, however, in an act of remarkable faith and honesty, the Catholic Church allowed the publication of some of the letters she wrote to her spiritual director, and they told a different story. Almost from the moment that she founded the Missionaries of Charity, she ceased hearing Jesus' voice, ceased experiencing his presence and being nourished in his love. What she felt was abandonment, neglect. She wrote: Lord, my God, you have thrown [me] away as unwanted unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer, no, no one. Alone. Where is my faith? even deep down right in there is nothing. I have no faith. I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart. I am told God loves me, and yet the reality of the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? Gonxha even compared her problems to hell and admitted that she had begun to doubt the existence of God. Speaking of the persona she presented to the world she wrote, "The smile is a mask or a cloak that covers everything. I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God, a tender personal love. If you were there you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'." Page 1 of 3
SCRIPTURE READING Psalm 13 A Prayer for Deliverance How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have prevailed ; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, who has dealt bountifully with me. SERMON PART II When Despair Hopes The Reverend George Anastos It is Anne Lamott who penned, The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. At the end of Part I of this sermon I noted that the publication of Mother Teresa s letters was a remarkable act of faith and honesty. It showed a spiritual maturity that most people have not come to expect from organized religion. Yet the Catholic Church published this to give hope to give hope to the millions upon millions of people, of every religion or no religion, who struggle with internal pain and doubt. Yes, I understand that this makes no sense, at least at first blush. How can someone s spiritual agony give hope to someone else going through hell? If someone like Mother Teresa can t rest in God s love, what hope do the rest of us mortals have? Enter Psalm 13. Say what you will about the bible but it does not hide from the true realities of the spiritual life, does not hide from the journey that must be undertaken by any person of deep faith. It does not hide from the dark night of the soul. Faith is not about believing the right creed or belonging to the right church. Faith is about responding to the movement and invitation of the Holy Spirit, and to follow her in the ways of justice and peace. Faith is therefore about determination and guts and stick-toitiveness. Faith is about holding on to the highest humanity can attain even when experiencing the lowest humanity can inflict. Mother Teresa saw the low indignity that humanity can inflict through its indifferent neglect of the poor, the dying, and the outcast. Day after day she drew from a spiritual reservoir to give even a drop of love to the unloved left in a gutter to die alone. But even full reservoirs can go dry drop by drop. In the resultant spiritual desert there is no hiding from reality s glaring sun. Psalm 13 teaches us about prayer as it speaks to this spiritual reality. When we are young in prayer we sometimes think it is supposed to be all about praise and thanksgiving, much like the last two verse of today s psalm, verses that seem bizarrely out of place with the first few verses. As we mature in prayer, however, we come to understand that the fullness of our human experience even the abandonment and Page 2 of 3
anger and neglect must also be owned and held before God. It is precisely the person of deep and mature faith who admits to feeling these things, screams them to God and continues to pray a hope that despairs and a despair that hopes. Psalm 13 is such a prayer. Like just about every psalm it goes back and forth between expressing a petition of urgency and then expressing a paean of trust, between raging at the world s injustice and trusting in God s inevitable love... because the rage and the trust are two sides of the same coin: the psalmist knows that we would not care about humanity s callous injustice if we did not recognize God s compassionate love. This is why the Church will present a psalm like this for our consideration and thought on a sunny Sunday morning in the middle of the summer: not because every one of us needs it this day, but because every one of us will need it someday, a day when our hope will despair and our despair will hope. At the beginning of this section of the sermon I quoted Anne Lamott. Here is a fuller version of what she wrote: I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. 1 Until that time when the light returns, part of the mission of the Christian Church is to hold the promise of that light. Here at First Plymouth, at this individual church, we hold the light. When we receive word of the death or illness or other distress of one of our members, the Pastoral Care staff offers prayer shawls to these people, shawls that are knit by fellow members, saying prayers as they stitch. Then they gather these knitted-in-love-and-prayer shawls and have a consecration service that those who receive them might be wrapped in God s love, and in the love and care of this community. We give these to those we know about. But we can t give them to those struggling that we don t know about. So as you leave the sanctuary today shawls will available by the doors for those who need them this day. They are there for you. Take one if you need. And if we run out, we will have more soon. And if you don t want to take one in front of others, see me, or Lois, or Terry, or Nanette. We keep confidences and hold you in our love. Psalm 13 is for all of us someday. And the church, resting in and founded on God, will be here for you everyday. Amen. 1 Lamott, Anne; Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith Page 3 of 3