Give Me A Tranquil Heart Oh Lord

There is a lot of picking and choosing going on in our texts today.

In the opening collect we prayed for an increase of “true religion”. Many a blog fight has been had in recent years over what is true religion. Since the Reformation the Christian churches have argued over who is the true church. Even the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church are divided over divergent arguments and opinions over the true church. There is picking and choosing going on in the Gospel to as to who should be invited and who should not and where they should sit at the table.

All of you are in the process of picking and choosing another church where you will worship after St. Stephen’s Church closes. You will be picking and choosing your next church. It is a stressful time for you to make these decisions as you are also in the middle of grief over the loss of your first choice, St. Stephen’s Church. It will not be an easy time for you.

No doubt your picking and choosing will even be further complicated by some important things you may not yet be aware of or have been unable to express about the close of this church and what that might mean for you. Before you get through all the stages of dying and grief you may feel compelled to think about what will come next as to the church you will attend.

You will continue to have organized opportunities to visit the other churches with a visit scheduled to St. Catherine’s in September, another visit to St. Paul’s in October and even a visit to Faith Lutheran during convention weekend. You will also have time to meet together as a parish on Sunday, October 3 as you share your reflections with each other on your church visits.

There is no doubt that there is a lot on your individual plates as a congregation. It might be helpful for you to know that Ignatius of Loyola always counseled his companions never to make decisions in times when you are spiritually uncertain or unstable by extreme doubt or even joy. The time to make the best decisions that is the ones you will live by for a long period of time is during periods of sustained tranquility.

How will you find that space of tranquility for yourself as you prepare to pick and choose another church?

First you have to look inside of yourself and judge for yourself if your heart is tranquil before the Lord. You are only ready to make decisions if your heart is tranquil. The collect mentioned the “fruit of good works” that echoes the gifts of the spirit that Paul often writes about in the New Testament. Remember the Pauline reading about the gifts of the Spirit? The gifts are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

You might make it a spiritual practice over the next few months to occasionally ask yourself as you are driving in the car, for example, do I feel love, joy, peace? Am I growing in patience? Do I have a gentle tone? Is your heart and spirit calm? These are very generic questions and they may need more specifics to be more meaningful to you.

As you speak about other parishes you visit do you speak with a tone of the Spirit inspired gentleness or rather one of aged suspicion? These will be important questions for you to ask yourself. People with tranquil hearts live in the present with the gifts that God gives them today. By asking yourself these questions you will know if you are tranquil of heart and ready to pick and choose your next church. Again these are hard choices that you face. You will likely even with your best efforts get your grief mixed up with premature picking and choosing.

We all have experienced other losses in our life apart from the loss of a beloved congregation. I have been present with people who have suffered terrible losses in their life. I have been an ER Chaplain with parents who lost a toddler to a sudden case of incurable meningitis. I have been a first cousin to parents who lost their youngest daughter in a sudden car crash. I have been friend to a family who lost their young mother to cancer leaving behind five kids behind.

I share these few examples with you because behind them are people of great faith. You don’t have to look far even in this congregation to find families who have suffered great and untimely losses of a son and or a husband. I found that often those who suffered the greatest losses in their life, these people’s lives were changed by their losses. The grief of the sudden loss of a child never goes away.

My first cousin never recovered from the loss of her youngest daughter. Some in our family have wondered if the cancer she developed only a few years after her daughter’s death had something to do with the terrible assault on her mind, heart and soul due to the loss she suffered. Yet other people who have suffered major losses often have a different perspective on life. Those who suffer great losses are often more free, as they have lost what meant the most to them and thus don’t cling to anything ever again in the same way.

This reflection brings me to today’s Gospel. “The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can anybody do to me?” I read that last bit “do to me” as take away from me. For the one who has lost everything, their most cherished love in a spouse or in a child have only their relationship with God in tact and thus risk losing nothing anymore. Losses are never the same after that terrible loss. No other loss can match that one loss and so people are free of ever having to suffer other losses in the same way. These people learn to hold on to most other things very lightly.

These people place their hope in God for it is God and their faith that got them through their loss. The most senior members of this congregation personally know and have lived this story of loss and of hope. These members may bring wisdom to the people of this parish at this time of its loss of a church that they and you have loved. There is wisdom and a tranquility that comes through loss. This kind of wisdom is a grace of the Spirit.

The person of faith’s heart is brought to a place of complete indifference. Early in the time of loss this indifference is a feeling of emptiness, but as time passes and the heart sustains the loss, the indifference becomes an undefeatable love. The undefeatable love is that the one who has lost everything is faced with the one possession that cannot be taken away. That possession is their faith in God, their hope in God alone. It is a stunning cost for this kind of faith to be attained. Ask somebody who has suffered an untimely loss of a spouse or child, how they have since dealt with other losses in their life after that first major loss. You may be surprised by their answers. Their answers may help you process the loss of this church.

When I was a Jesuit thinking about leaving the Society of Jesus and the Roman Catholic Church looking for a spiritual director, I asked a wise Jesuit how I should decide who should be my spiritual director. I will never forget what the Jesuit said to me, “Joe find a Jesuit who has suffered much, lost deeply, fully grieved through that grief and deepened his faith through that loss”. Well I looked hard for that person but never found that spiritual companion until I came to Reno twenty years later. The people who have this kind of wisdom are often the most humble and it is like looking for a needle in a haystack to find that person.

You are much more fortunate than I was as you need not search far as these wise and tranquil people are in this congregation. Follow the example of those who have suffered great losses and come to a place of hard earned tranquility where you like they can say that nothing can be taken away from me for my hope is in God alone.

When you find this tranquil space within you then you will be able to pick and choose your next church wisely and your choice will be sustainable and continue to nurture your baptismal faith. You will also be able to live peacefully and joyfully with the people who have found what they need in other churches. You will be able to recognize your worship preferences, name your desires but see God in and through all people. The tranquil heart is the joyful person that clings only to their love of God and is free of all else.

Those who live with this kind of wisdom often do not speak authoritatively, but they are present. These wise forefathers and foremothers are in this congregation. I pray that as you grieve the loss of your church that you will be nurtured by the strength, fortitude and gentleness of heart of this congregation’s forefathers and foremothers.