The
Rev. Lucy Reid, Incumbant of St. Aidan in the Beach, Toronto
Readings:
Sirach
15:1-6; Psalm 93; 1 John 1:1-9 John 21:19-24
It’s
such a privilege and a pleasure for me to be here with you on your
patronal festival. Thank you. And may I wish you all a merry
Christmas and a hopeful new year.
I
want to share some reflections that come from the writings of John
Philip Newell on John the Evangelist, or John the Beloved as he is
sometimes called. Newell writes that in the Celtic tradition when
John leans into Jesus at the last supper he is listening to the
heartbeat of God. And, seen that way, Newell writes:
He
became a symbol of the practice of listening—listening deep within
ourselves, within one another, and within the body of the earth for
the beat of the Sacred Presence.
And
he continues:
Do
we know that within each one of us is the unspeakably beautiful beat
of the Sacred? Do we know that we can honor that Sacredness in one
another and in everything that has being? And do we know that this
combination—growing in awareness that we are bearers of Presence,
along with a faithful commitment to honor that Presence in one
another and in the earth—holds the key to transformation in our
world?
-Newell,
The
Rebirthing of God, 2014
(Skylight: New York) xvii.
In the
passage from Sirach that we heard before the gospel today, describing
the one who seeks and finds Wisdom, it says that such a one “will
lean on her.” This echoes the image of John leaning into Jesus, who
embodied Holy Wisdom.
When we
encounter true wisdom, we discover or remember who we are, and who
God is.
As
Newell writes, The
gospel is given to tell us what we do not know or what we have
forgotten, and that is who we are, sons and daughters of the One from
whom all things come. It is when we begin to remember who we are, and
who all people truly are, that we will begin to remember also what we
should be doing and how we should be relating to one another as
individuals and as nations and as an entire earth community.
John
Philip Newell, Christ
of the Celts,
2008 (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco) p7-8.
The
contemplative life, as you know better than I, enables us to listen
to the heartbeat of God, to hear our true name, to see as God sees
with compassion and hope. Sometimes the contemplative life simply
enables us to keep calm and carry on in the midst of the messy
brokenness and pain of the world around.
The
contemplative way helps us all to see the treasure hidden in the
field, the Christ child in the most ordinary of places, the
handprints of God in all of creation.
Newell
shares another image to convey this hidden truth:
A
nineteenth-century teacher in the Celtic world, Alexander Scott, used
the analogy of royal garments. Apparently in his day, royal garments
were woven through with a costly thread, a thread of gold. And if
somehow the golden thread were taken out of the garment, the whole
garment would unravel. So it is, he said, with the image of God woven
into the fabric of our being. If it were taken out of us, we would
unravel. We would cease to be. So the image of God is not simply a
characteristic of who we are, which may or may not be there,
depending on whether or not we have been baptized. The image of God
is the essence of our being. It is the core of the human soul. We are
sacred not because we have been baptized or because we belong to one
faith tradition over another. We are sacred because we have been
born.
-
Newell, Christ
of the Celts,
2008 (Jossey-Bass: San Francisco) 2-4.
John
the Beloved shows us this golden thread.
May
we, like him, lean into the loving heart of Jesus, lean into Wisdom,
and listen to the heartbeat of God. Amen.
Read about Lucy Reid's spiritual journey HERE
