Contemplative Activism for the Life of the World

Sermon for The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17

Saint Peter's | Arlington, VA

James 1: 17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I’ll never forget a few powerful words shared with me in a drug rehab center. I was in North Philadelphia, at an urban monastery, seated across a kitchen table from a nun.

This was several years ago, and I was conducting a series of  interviews exploring the relationship between civic engagement and spiritual practice. So, who better to talk with than a woman who had devoted her life to serving those entangled by poverty and addiction? I asked what she’d learned over her 80-some years about maintaining a rich spiritual life amid the countless and unrelenting demands that filled her days. Sr. Margaret McKenna said: “I don’t believe in disembodied holiness. [Holiness] comes from something you’ve lived.”

I admire the monastic life and have for some time. There’s something to its devotion and humility I find inspiring—though truthfully it is far more easy to romanticize than to actually live. A mentor once told me: “David, you have a monastic soul: but you are no monk.” Whether or not there was a subtle insult intended, I’m not entirely sure, but nevertheless it’s true.

James gets at much the same sentiment when he writes: “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

“True religion,” the kind both James and Sr. Margaret have in mind, is one that cares for the most vulnerable. What they describe is a practice motivated by the knowledge that God has first loved us, and our works of love in service to others are merely a returning of what we’ve received—an offering of “first fruits,” if you will.

There’s much wisdom here, I think. As one writer puts it, “We don’t think our way into a new kind of living; we live our way into a new kind of thinking.” The lesson is quite simple: any change we want to see around or within us comes through action.

As James assesses the early Christian church living under the shadow of empire, what really troubles him is this: there are just too many preachers! Evidently, too many people were claiming to follow Jesus but were really only interested in chattering about the social ails around them—and in doing so were all all-too-excited to make empty moral proclamations to one another. Things didn’t really go much further than getting the community riled up. I’m reminded of a plaque hanging on the kitchen wall of more than one intentional community I’ve visited, which reads: “Everyone wants a revolution but no wants to do the dishes.”

What’s stressed for us here is that love is a verb—which, if we’re honest, can be rather inconvenient at times. It’s a practice though, and with time we integrate more and more of it into our lives. But to those more concerned with one-upping one another, James’s letter is a foreboding one-word warning: hypocrites. “Don’t confuse righteous anger with the Law of Love; your empty chatter merely serves to sow division rather than build unity. Do not be deceived.” So, to any preachers in the room: take heed.

That action is critical to a life of faith is without a doubt...but James would also add: to what end?

While this morning’s lesson is well-established as a rally cry for ethical behavior, its other side is mostly brushed aside. “Before diving into a cause promising some immediate, feel-good self-gratification, slow down…and be quick to listen.” Because if we’re really concerned with respecting the dignity of every human being—as we vow to do so in our baptismal covenant—it’s important we slow down long enough to actually see the person in front of us. The reminder sounds a bit like a common saying that goes, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”

So, “pure and undefiled religion” is evidently fueled by something more than good vibes and intentions. This other thing James gets at is something equally worthy of our attention: of critical importance to a life of faith, alongside action, is contemplation.

Because faith really isn’t a thing earned through merit but rather a grace we receive. We live into faith in those moments when we allow ourselves to simply be still and know that we in fact are not God. Otherwise, what are we placing faith in other than ourselves?

And here’s where Jesus shows up and flips the script in Mark’s Gospel. Rather than entering into some debate about the value of moral piety versus ethical living, a spiritual life versus an embodied one, or contemplation versus action, his words go beyond this false binary altogether...

It’s right in the middle of a meal that a group approaches Jesus with their critiques and demands. Their certainty is unwavering and probably more than a little smug. No matter the topic, we can imagine they’d probably be happy to share an opinion—and then hold everyone else accountable to it. There’s something quite fitting about this culture clash taking place around a dinner table... Because the table is the place around which we inevitably gather, both with those we agreed and disagree: because in the end—no matter their stances or affiliations—everyone needs to be fed.

So, Jesus hears out the morality police and then responds, in essence: “Yes, you’re absolutely right: morality is important. How we live matters greatly—but you’ve lost the forest for the trees.” And for as direct as his response is (he does call them hypocrites after all): it really isn’t dismissive. He concludes by saying, “Listen, I hear your concern and I see you: now let me show you a better way to what your heart desires.”

His redirect gets to the heart of the matter... Because this is the place from which real transformation comes. It depends on all that is rumbling around in the heart though, and what we choose to do with it. A heart hung up on shortsighted human traditions—things that are mostly about building ego, grasping onto control, or protecting insecurities—is the source of evil intentions. But a heart resting in its belovedness creates a whole different outcome.

The mystic theologian, Howard Thurman, considered by many as the mentor of the civil rights movement, knew much about this place from which real change flows. He writes, “In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.” For Thurman, a fully alive faith looks like an interdependent relationship between contemplation and action. It’s a both/and, not an either/or.

And here’s where things get interesting... When the two are integrated together something creative and life-giving happens.

The indigenous botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer, captures this well in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass. She writes, “Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”

In describing this relationship of reciprocity essential to caring for all creation, Kimmerer describes the same kind of reciprocity between contemplation and action.

As we nourish the belovedness placed within ourselves through contemplative practices, the more it slowly saturates the whole of ourselves. With time—returning again and again—our hearts will be so filled that they cannot help but spill out in blessing to others. And in just the same manner: the more we share works of love through our actions, the greater Love’s presence in the world—creating even more first fruits that will be returned to us and to all of creation.

Now, in closing, as we enter this Season of Creation, what might this look like? It will look differently for each of us. What practices might we be invited into?

Let me suggest just a few. A faith fully alive with both action and contemplation might look like:

...committing to composting all food scraps for the next six weeks;

...a daily walk through a place of nature that moves your spirit;

...setting aside every plastic product used for a full six-weeks to become more mindful of our consumption;

...get involved with Episcopal Relief & Development or the Episcopal Public Policy Network to learn more about urgent climate care and how to support better legislation

...breathing fresh air and knowing that God’s presence is as near to us as our very breath.

Friends, the God Who is Love has created all things and called them good: including both our hearts and this earth, our fragile island home. Even as we give thanks for the goodness and healing nourishment that abounds in all created things, may our actions return this same care to all of Creation.

Amen