The Little Way

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, O.A., Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

May 1, 2016;  6 Easter, Year C

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Revelation 21:10,22-22:5)  In the spirit the angel carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day-- and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

(John 14:23-29)  Jesus said to Judas (not Iscariot), "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, `I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe."

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Imagine you are an artist sewing a beautiful tapestry. The cloth you are sewing represents the themes in today's Epistle and Gospel. You meditate on these themes as an interior landscape; you are sewing an image of the human heart and soul resting in God.

You start with John's vision of the holy city. You first pick up gray thread as you listen to his words, "I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God… and the Lamb." Then you take up gold thread. "And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb." Now take up thread of sky blue. "Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it." Now the silver thread. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the city." You take the spool of multi-colored thread. "On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month." The green thread. "The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Now the white. "Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night, …for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."

You pick up the red spool of thread and weave in the heart of the fabric as you move into the Gospel. "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them… [T]he Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you." And now the royal blue thread. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. …Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

Now look in your imagination at the piece of tapestry you have sewn. It represents what our life is like when we allow the interior light of God to shine in us, opening us in willingness to be present to everything before us, refreshed by the confident waters of life flowing through the center of our being. In each moment, each season, we are given the fruit we need to respond creatively, and healing is as present as the leaves in summer. We see Christ's face and God's name is upon our foreheads. It is simple love. We rest in God's accepting love and that love moves us into action. The Holy Spirit guiding and teaching us intuitively in each moment. Peace. An untroubled heart resting in God's peace. No fear. Just deep, courageous peace.

Now let me weave a similar tapestry through the story of a little girl and the moment of what she later called her "complete conversion." She was born in France in 1873, the youngest child of five surviving daughters. When little Thérèse was 4½ years old, she watched her mother die of breast cancer. Her gentle father had a deep paternal and maternal love for her; "My little Queen," he called her.

Thérèse was a sensitive child, bullied at school, and doted upon at home as the baby in the house. Traumatized by her early separations, she had a deep need to feel secure and connected. She tried hard to be good, to gain acceptance by pleasing others. The turning point in her life was a simple moment on Christmas morning when she was nearly 14.

The Christmas custom was to put the children's empty shoes by the fireplace where Father Christmas would come and fill them with goodies. Early that Christmas morning the family returned from midnight mass. As they arrived, Thérèse ran upstairs to put up her coat and hat. Her father was uncharacteristically tired and cranky. As she ran past his view, he looked at her shoes by the fireplace and said to older sister Céline, "Well fortunately this will be the last year," spoken as a father wearied by his daughter's childish ways. He didn't know, but Thérèse heard his words. The next moment, as she took the next step, was her transfiguring moment.

First she was shattered with intense pain; tears welled in her eyes. She had displeased her father. It was her internal belief that if she displeased her father, she would be a complete failure. Her identity was wrapped up with being a good girl, and thus acceptable. His displeasure would mean she was not a good girl, unacceptable, and she felt like she would dissolve. But in that moment, she did not dissolve. Instead, she let herself experience her intense feeling of hurt.

Suddenly she experienced complete acceptance, infinitely loved by Jesus in her weakness. As she took the next step on the stairs, she completely surrendered herself into the acceptance of who she really is with all of her weakness and inadequacy, and then let herself be carried in the arms of God. It happened in an instant. She experienced God loving her as she simultaneously endured the pain that she had failed her father; God embraced her even as she knew the grief of feeling that everything about her life was false.

She recognized she had done violence to herself by all of her self-judgment. And she chose not to blame her father for hurting her. She wasn't going to build her self-righteousness on the unfairness or weakness of her father. That's just more violence. Willing self-surrender left her with nothing necessary to defend. She just took the next step. Later she wrote, "The work was done by Jesus in one instant."

"I descended the stairs rapidly; controlling the poundings of my heart, I took my slippers and placed them in front of Papa, and withdrew all the objects joyfully. I had the happy appearance of a Queen. Having regained his own cheerfulness, Papa was laughing."[i]

It looked like the same old pattern—the little baby playing the role to please others. But with her new interior freedom, she was pleasing him out of strength, a compassionate, loving choice, not a compulsive act from weakness and neediness. She had moved from childhood to adulthood.

For the rest of her life, those conflictive feelings remained—needing to please, needing to be bonded—but she knew how to accept her own weakness and to be secure, carried in God's arms. In her autobiography, St. Thérèse of Lisieux said that Christmas was "the day of graces among all days."

Named a Doctor of the Church by the Roman Catholic Church for her teaching, her spirituality can be summed up this way:  "Self acceptance, self-appreciation, and self-surrender in a spirit of gratitude into God's will, into God's arms, into God's love." That is "the little way" of St. Thérèse.

What our life is like when we allow the interior light of God to shine in us, opening us in willingness to be present to everything before us, refreshed by the confident waters of life flowing through the center of our being. In each moment we are given the fruit we need to respond creatively, and healing is present. We see Christ's face and God's name is upon our foreheads. It is simple love. We rest in God's accepting love and that love moves us into action. The Holy Spirit guiding and teaching us intuitively in each moment. Peace. An untroubled heart resting in God's peace. No fear. Just deep, courageous peace. It can all happen in the next step. This little way.

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[i] From Story of a Soul, translated by John Clarke, OCD. My material about St. Thérèse is compiled from the Joseph F. Schmidt, FSC, Walking the Little Way of Thérèse of Lisieux, Kindle edition that I am reading, and from the Wikipedia article on her and the blog entry Word on Fire, http://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/the-second-conversion-of-st-therese/1444/

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