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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
14 March 2004“Assaults and Adversities”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
Last year, as a Lenten vow, I gave up watching the cable television news. Although I love to follow politics and current events on these channels, I didn't think this vow would be hard to keep. I could still watch regular Network TV to get the news or I could read the paper or listen to the radio.
Yet I found that cable news was surprisingly difficult to avoid. For example, I discovered that, as I walked along the street, my eyes would wander into bank windows. And before I knew it, I would catch a television displaying the latest figures from Wall Street!
Like the whispering Devil in Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, the media are always there.
The media aren't of course necessarily demonic! Media affect people in very different ways. Some people have nightmares after they watch a horror movie; others are as little affected as if they had read a comic strip.
While The Passion of the Christ is extremely violent and definitely not for children or for many adults, still it's a rare example of a film that many people have found spiritually helpful; I would include myself in that category. It's an example of how the film "medium," and other media can be either blessings or curses.
So the real question is how we process all the printed and electronic messages that approach our eyes and our ears. One way to process the media is to restrict input-like limiting the amount of time we spend watching TV.
Last year, I read about a pastor who only reads a certain number of emails each day, and only answers a certain number of phone calls. (I must say that while I understand her need to keep some space in her head for spiritual matters, I myself would stay awake nights wondering what emergency news I has missed in the messages I didn't get.)
Another strategy for avoiding media damage is to consider alternatives to secular "input." Good media counteract the other stuff.
So religious music is good for the soul, not only the classical music we hear in church but also Christian popular music for some people and even music by secular composers can comfort and soothe us.
A few of us in this parish enjoy the novels that Susan Howatch writes about the Church of England. These rather racy stories of clergy and lay people and skeptics illustrate the many ways our inner selves can be distorted when we try to conform to our culture.
Then, too, those of us at Incarnation are nourished every time we enter this building by the late-Victorian artworks that have made our church a national landmark. Our windows are a healthy distraction. Just to sit in this place is to receive spiritual gifts.
But there are deeper issues here beyond how er use the media. The prayer assigned to this Sunday's worship asks that "we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul."
How we handle the "assaults" of media, what we allow into our heads and hearts-these practices are models for how we handle more painful intrusions into our lives.
As today's Second Lesson notes, "adversities" can happen to anyone. Jesus reminds his listeners of an accident that occurred in the town of Siloam, when a tower fell down and 18 innocent people were killed.
Buildings collapsed in the days of Jesus, and, of course, buildings fall down today. Anyone can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thus even the most cautious person, even the best disciplined person may be unable to prevent evil from happening to body or soul.
Mel Gibson's film is concerned almost entirely with the evil suffered by Jesus in his last hours. And the movie stresses that in the circumstances, Jesus could do nothing to prevent these assaults.
He knew that if he escaped the Cross by giving his allegiance to Satan, he would avoid temporary suffering only to end up in eternal bondage to evil.
He knew his disciples couldn't win a fight against the Romans. And while Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, was warned by his wife not to harm Jesus, Pilate was intimidated by the mobs. In the end, only a few bystanders could soothe Christ's final walk by wiping his face and carrying his cross.
Christ did pray to God for help: "if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me." But that prayer wasn't granted for reasons that would only be apparent on Easter Day.
And, as the Collect for this Sunday suggests, at the same time that adversities happen to our bodies, evil thoughts may assault and hurt our souls.
We human beings are creatures of body and soul. While Mel Gibson's movie dwells on the physical suffering of Jesus, it doesn't leave out Christ's interior "passion."
Jesus sees Peter betray him. He sees other disciples abandon him. He bears the inner pain of having to watch his mother, Mary, and his disciples, John and Mary Magdalene, as they grieve for him.
And, in Mel Gibson's film, a phantasm of Satan repeatedly moves through Christ's field of vision. These fleeting scenes form a powerful reminder that Satan too is always present. Evil is always around -- there, ready to assault our bodies and hurt our souls.
Now of course Christ's suffering in his last hours is extreme. For most of us, most of the time, the "assaults and adversities" are vastly more modest.
But, as the Collect for today suggests, we still need to be ready when, due to circumstances beyond our control, evil enters our lives.
So we also need to pray, as in the ancient Collect for Grace in the Morning Prayer liturgy: "Defend us ... with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that we, being ordered by thy governance, may do always what is righteous in thy sight."
The only reason we can bear to contemplate the Passion of Christ, the only reason we can continue to have the Cross of Christ at the center of our faith is that we know God was behind the terrible suffering. God was able to bring divine good out of the human horrors of Golgotha: God made the way of the Cross into the way of life.
It might even be said that the whole point of spiritual life is to bring us under God's "governance." All the small acts of religion-daily prayer, weekly worship, Lenten vows, frequent acts of penitence, attention to what is going on in our souls: all these spiritual practices serve to bring us under the influence of a Higher Power.
With God watching over us: when evil strikes, we're ready.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.