Mother Teresa's Darkness

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 9, 2007; 15th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 14:25-33) -- Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; and he turned and said to them, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."
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Life is much richer and deeper than your experience and mine on a bad day; and it is much darker and more menacing than happiness. I imagine that the people who are most alive are the ones who can bring these two together and live in the complex truth, in an honesty that allows both the bad day and the good one to speak and be heard. (J. Neville Ward, Enquiring Within, p. 58)

Maybe you've seen some of the reports about this week's publication of the letters that the late Mother Teresa wrote to her confessors. Her writings show that for nearly fifty years she felt no presence of God whatsoever. Except for a brief, five-week period of spiritual refreshment in 1959, she lived in an enduring state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. Listen to her words:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love – and now become as the most hated one... unloved. I call, I cling, I want – and there is no One to answer – no One on Whom I can cling – no, No One. – Alone... Where is my Faith – even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness – My God – how painful is this unknown pain – I have no Faith – I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd my heart – & make me suffer untold agony.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them – because of the blasphemy – If there be God – please forgive me – When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven – there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. – I am told God loves me – and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? (Time, 9/3/07, Her Agony, quoting from Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. Much of this sermon is drawn from this Time's report.)

Hold those words in your mind as you recall her infectious smile, the boundless energy, the ageless compassion that was the light of her being; a light so compelling that it was arresting even through a television screen. Hold those words in mind as you hear these other words of hers:

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world... Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier... Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing... Good works are links that form a chain of love... Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand... Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

In 1947 Teresa had an ecstatic experience of communion and vocation. Jesus spoke to her, calling her to leave her teaching and to live with and serve "the poorest of the poor." The editor of the new book describes her mission "to help them live their lives with dignity [and so] encounter God's infinite love, and having come to know [God], to love and serve [God] in return." Of her vision, Teresa later wrote simply, "Jesus gave Himself to me."

Soon after she entered this work on the streets of Calcutta, Jesus took himself away from her. Her only spiritual respite happened in 1958 when Pope Pius XII died. Teresa prayed to the late Pope for a "proof that God is pleased with the Society [of the Missionaries of Charity]." For five weeks the darkness lifted, then she entered "in the tunnel" once again, and the absence never abated.

Early in her life, Agnes Bojaxhiu chose to give herself completely to Christ, entering a religious vocation and taking the name Teresa. She was drawn most particularly to Christ's Passion. "I want to... drink ONLY from His chalice of pain," she said. So she embraced the pain of the poorest of the poor as Christ's own, and served them as though each person were Christ himself. We knew all about that during her life.

What we didn't know is that she also embraced Jesus' experience of abandonment on the cross, when he cried out in agony, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Teresa abandoned not only family and possessions, but even spiritual refreshment in her commitment to give herself entirely to God. She lived her public life loving, smiling and healing, bringing light to others' darkness. She lived her interior life abandoned, loving, seeking, doubting in the darkness.

I remember years ago I was struggling, trying to commit to the discipline of daily prayer. Too often I could find something else to do, something to distract me, and the time of prayer would pass. "I'll do it tomorrow." Jimmy Carter was then the President of the United States. I read in a news story about his work and his faith that he made time each day for his prayer and Bible study. With the responsibilities that he shouldered, sometimes that opportunity didn't come until the wee hours of the morning. But he prayed and read scripture every day, even if it was after midnight before he had the opportunity. Something in me broke. If Jimmy Carter could find time in his day, certainly I could do so as well.

Now as I learn of the spiritual struggle of Mother Teresa, I can put some of my own doubts and dryness in a new perspective. If Mother Teresa could live in profound spiritual darkness yet minister with inspiring grace and love, certainly I can live with my own modest spiritual dryness and doubts, and be willing to do what needs to be done for the sake of Christ.

We all experience the storms of our emotions – feeling frustrated or lost or tired or abandoned. Yet we are more than our feelings, and we can live beyond emotion's tyranny. Teresa once wrote, "I accept not in my feelings – but with my will, the Will of God – I accept His will."

And we all experience doubts and intellectual uncertainties. Is there really a God? Does any of this matter anyway? When the outspoken agnostic Malcolm Muggeridge visited Teresa she addressed his doubts straight on, writing, "Your longing for God is so deep and yet He keeps Himself away from you. He must be forcing Himself to do so – because he loves you so much – the personal love Christ has for you is infinite – The Small difficulty you have re His Church is finite – Overcome the finite with the infinite." Muggeridge became an outspoken Christian apologist.

All but a few of us have felt abandoned by God. All but a few of us have had doubts about God's existence. It is not unlikely that most of the people worshiping here today may be experiencing themselves, to some degree or another, emotionally abandoned and intellectually doubtful.

Mother Teresa is our patron saint – for all of us who experience the darkness of mind or emotion. True love requires commitment, fidelity and vulnerability. Though she did not feel Christ's love and did not know the existence of God, Teresa rose every morning at 4:30 to say, "Your happiness is all I want." If she could do so much with so little spiritual consolation, what might we do with just a little more willingness and humility.
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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

This sermon and others are on our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Please visit our partner web ministry also at www.ExploreFaith.org

Table Hospitality

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 2, 2007; 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 14:1, 7-14) -- On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
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It was 1993, or thereabouts. Probably our most unforgettable family Thanksgiving dinner. We were living in Fort Smith and stayed in town rather than going back to visit family in Memphis and Oxford. And the day sneaked up on us without our making plans to invite or join others for dinner. So it was just the four of us -- Gray and Allison were 12 and 15 as I recall. I did the Thanksgiving service at St. John's and saw Phillip there. I asked him if he had any plans; he didn't; so I invited him to join us later that afternoon. He seemed delighted.

I think I've mentioned Phillip in sermons before. He became one of my best friends in Fort Smith. Phillip was chronically homeless and addicted. Between binges he sometimes went months, and once two years sober. On this Thanksgiving Day he had been sober a long time, maybe over a year. He had a comfortable apartment, TV, VCR and boom box. And he worked at our church as our sexton and greeter. He opened the door from the parking lot, offering a huge infectious smile and welcomed people to St. John's. Everybody loved Phillip.

He dressed in his nicest Salvation Army coat and tie when he came over for Thanksgiving dinner. He was fond of our kids and they were fond of him. He had been in our home often, but usually helping me with yard work and things. He was remarkably strong, and a very hard worker. He had been around us a good bit, but he had not been our dinner guest before.

We started talking and invited Phillip to tell us more about himself. As his story unfolded, I could see our kids learning about human life in a new way. Phillip said he started getting high when he was five or six, sniffing glue. Later he got on some hard stuff, and it made him crazy. He said he was ashamed, but he had done some burglary to support his habit. The worst time was, he said, when he and a friend held up a drive-in theater booth. "I know I shouldn't have had a gun. I wasn't going to use it. It was just to scare him so he would give us the money. But when I reached over to pull out the telephone line, my hand bumped the counter and the gun went off. I think it was God," he said. "I thank God; that bullet just went through the window. I think God protected me and that man. I could have shot him. I don't know how I could have lived with that. God's been with me, you know." By now the kids' eyes were getting pretty big. "That was armed robbery though. I got sixteen years for that."

Phillip had spent more than half of his life in jail. I think he was about my age, in his mid-40's. He told how he could build and hide a still in the penitentiary to make booze. "You can make booze out of nearly anything," he taught us. "Potato peels are real good. I could usually get those from the prison kitchen."

It was an unforgettable Thanksgiving table conversation. It opened my children's eyes to a way of life that was unfamiliar to them. Kathy said she was a bit nervous at times, but trusted the kids could process all of this new information. And we all loved Phillip.

Phillip said it was the best Thanksgiving for him in many years. There was so much food. It reminded him of some meals his mother used to fix. Sadly, the rekindled memory of his mother, who had died several years ago, made Phillip depressed. He started drinking that night and continued for the next eight months, losing his apartment and most of his stuff. Back on the streets, getting by.

Recently I've learned some things about poverty that I didn't know. I've been glancing through a book that we will be using as the primary text for an upcoming poverty workshop we're offering in October. Dr. Ruby Payne has done breakthrough research about the mindsets of poverty, middle class and wealth. She helps us understand some of the hidden rules among the classes and the very different set of skills and presumptions that characterize the different worlds of the poor, the middle class and the wealthy.

I've done something unusual today. I've tucked a sermon handout in your bulletin. It outlines some of the hidden rules that are underneath the worlds of the poor, the middle class and the wealthy. In many ways, Phillip was a remarkably gifted and skilled person within his world of poverty. He knew how to survive. He was the most generous person I've ever known. I've seen him give $100 to a homeless family with a little child when that was all Phillip had to live on for the rest of the month. When I scolded him for his recklessness, he explained, "They need it more than I do, Father. I can get by just fine on nothing. I could go out right now and ask people for money and bring in twenty dollars, maybe more, in an hour." He flashed that infectious smile. "There was one lady who gave me fifty-dollars one time. Can you imagine that? Fifty-dollars!" He paused. "Father, do you think God sent that lady to give me fifty-dollars? God takes care of me. So far at least. And I'm thankful."

Learning from Dr. Payne's study, I've recognized that Phillip's conversation at that Thanksgiving table was completely normal. He spoke about survival and about people. He spoke casually, not like the formal talk we're used to at our table. He talked about things most middle-class mothers would have thought inappropriate conversation for the dinner table. But I tell you, it was very entertaining. He grew up in poverty and learned lessons that I have no context for.

Dr. Payne had three page-long check-lists, each titled: "Could You Survive in Poverty?" "Could You Survive in Middle Class?" "Could You Survive in Wealth?" Some questions I couldn't check in the first list. "I know which rummage sales have 'bag sales' and when." "I know which grocery stores' garbage bins can be accessed for thrown-away food." "I know how to physically fight and defend myself physically." "I know how to get a gun, even if I have a police record." "I know how to live without a checking account, electricity and a phone." "I know how to move in half a day." "I can get by without a car." Those were easy skills for Phillip.

Last week I was at a family wedding, hosted by people whose background is very different from mine and from my family's. During the reception dinner-toasts, their family patriarch noted how he had never met anyone from Mississippi before, and what a delightful discovery it had been. Left unspoken was the common knowledge that Mississippi is 50th in everything. A Mississippi matriarch in her gracious dialect countered that they were all so nice they could be honorary Southerners.

Today we see Jesus at a sabbath meal at the home of some of the more privileged class. The seating was traditionally formal, following the hidden rules of an honor based society. The guests were arranged by status. It was carefully orchestrated. To sit above your station and to be displaced by one who was more honorable would mean you would have to move all the way to the end of the table to find a vacant place at the bottom -- a social tragedy of losing face.

One of the things that most characterized Jesus was the radical hospitality of his table. So many of the stories center around the scandal of his table fellowship. "This man eats with sinners and prostitutes," they exclaimed. He visited with Pharisees and with tax collectors. He welcomed women like Mary into the men's conversations. He fed the hungry multitudes. And on Easter, his disciples knew him resurrected in the breaking of the bread. His table made such an impression on his friends, that they knew him to be present at table with them even after he had died. The Holy Communion of the Eucharistic Feast became the characteristic form of gathering and prayer for his followers.

We try to imitate that radical hospitality at this table. In a few minutes I will offer the open invitation, "No matter who you are, or wherever you are in your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome in this place; you are welcome at God's table." As I told our Worship & the Eucharist Sunday School class the other day, we have special permission to use that open invitation to communion. The canons of the Episcopal Church limit communion to baptized Christians. Our Bishops, Larry Maze and Larry Benfield, have given St. Paul's permission to extend that boundary, partially because we live in a university community where searchers tend to experience and then reflect upon experience, and partially because they would like us to be among the congregations and dioceses that are asking the church to reconsider its canons, and to live with an alternative eucharistic hospitality to see if it is effective at creating faithful disciples. I'm glad to be part of that movement, and I know several of you who have joined this community because of its willing openness.

But we are awfully middle class, aren't we? And pretty pasty in complexion. So I invite you to help this church reach out more universally in our hospitality and fellowship. Help us follow Jesus' teaching -- "when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind" -- and not just to Community Meals, but to this meal. We've got a lot to learn from those whose experience is different from ours. I know among the many things I learned from Phillip, was the example of faith and generosity. If people like me were as generous as Phillip, there would be no poverty in this nation.

I would like to conclude with a passage you heard earlier from Hebrews. "Through Christ, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."
___________________________________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at
P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

This sermon and others are on our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org
Please visit our partner web ministry also at www.ExploreFaith.org