Saturday in the Third Week of Easter at Mississippi Abbey

Scripture Readings: Acts 9:31-42, Jn 6:60-69

“This saying is hard; Who can accept it? …and many…no longer walked with Him.”

The ordering of the heart has come to a time of decision. Earlier, Jesus has told His followers that they must decide between the broad way that leads to perdition or the narrow way, the way with boundaries that leads to eternal life. The difference is not in the width of the road. The difference is in the end, the destination. With the broad way our lives are lived like a TV series: one episode after another with no common thread and moving toward no known end. We live as wanderers.

And the difference is that the narrow way has boundaries that keep us oriented to the end: union with God. We live as wayfarers. God has set boundaries between heaven and earth, between Himself and humanity, from the very beginning. The kind of tree that Adam and Eve ate from is less important than their violation of a boundary. This is because a boundary is between the outside—the tree—and the inside—our hearts. The outside covers something whose essential significance is interior, namely, its value. Decay in a boundary is a sign of disorder within.

Jesus is a Jew Who is mindful of the history of His people’s relationship with the Father. That history is rooted in the Exodus experience as He shows when he reminds the listeners that “your ancestors ate manna in the desert and died.” As the new Moses He is making a distinction here and reminding them that from that time in the desert there have always been boundaries set for them.

A boundary implies a destination and the destination we must be clear about is FAITH in Jesus Christ. SIN is putting our faith is something else, like multiplying pleasures or climbing the social ladder. What we put our faith in determines our character. It is in what we devote ourselves to for its own sake that will determine our character and today Jesus point to Himself

 

Saturday in the Third Week of Easter at Mississippi Abbey

Scripture Readings: Acts 9:31-42; Jn 6:60-69

“This saying is hard; who can accept it? …and many…no longer walked with Him.”

The ordering of the heart has come to a time of decision. Earlier, Jesus has told His followers that they must decide between the broad way that leads to perdition or the narrow way, the way with boundaries that leads to eternal life. The difference is not in the width of the road. The difference is in the end, the destination. With the broad way our lives are lived like a TV series: one episode after another with no common thread and moving toward no known end. We live as wanderers.

And the difference is that the narrow way has boundaries that keep us oriented to the end: union with God. We live as wayfarers. God has set boundaries between heaven and earth, between Himself and humanity, from the very beginning. The kind of tree that Adam and Eve ate from is less important than their violation of a boundary. This is because a boundary is between the outside—the tree—and the inside—our hearts. The outside covers something whose essential significance is interior, namely, its value. Decay in a boundary is a sign of disorder within.

Jesus is a Jew Who is mindful of the history of His people’s relationship with the Father. That history is rooted in the Exodus experience as He shows when he reminds the listeners that “your ancestors ate manna in the desert and died.” As the new Moses He is making a distinction here and reminding them that from that time in the desert there have always been boundaries set for them.

So Jesus tells us the bounds set for coming to Him: they are listening to and learning from the Father. It is faith. They will be able to do this if they have become accustomed to living within bounds, i.e., if their inner identity has been ordered to the God Who brought them out of bondage and entered into covenant with them.

Holiness consists in respecting boundaries and honoring the natural order of things. And so we live by the scriptures, tradition, & our Holy Rule. These keep us in bounds. They show us how to live with nature (the world we find) and culture (the world we make). Our monastic life—indeed the Christian life generally—is one of carefully set boundaries. The word “enclosure” captures it well. The wearing of a habit, the horarium with its balance of prayer and manual labor, and the ordering of relationships in community are boundaries designed not to distinguish between good monastic’s and bad, not between monastic and laity, but designed to guard the heart (nepsis) so that God can be loved with all of it…or very darn near!

Most of all, they help us join Jesus in a life of unselfish loving. “The Spirit gives life while the flesh is of no avail.” “The flesh” is a code word for selfishness; “the Spirit” stands for unselfishness. This call to set ones whole life to seeking the good of the other arouses the fearful response of “this is a hard saying; who can accept it?” The answer is “No one,” …unless…”we have come to believe”, that is, to love and to trust that the words of Jesus Christ are Spirit and life.