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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
With his encouragement to act, Lawrence reaches out to gather all of the strands of our human experience into a holistic imagination of spiritual practice. An imagination that includes our work. Today, we are in week two of our first summer series. We've called this one reads a classic. Last week, Bobbi walked us through a reading of Saint Hildegard of Bingen's book called Skivius.
Speaker 1:Trust me, she gave you very little of that book and we probably needed to take it in small chunks. Right? If you were away last week or if you haven't caught up on your podcast feed, are you gonna wanna revisit last week's message. Also, encouragement goes for anyone who might have been here last week and you're still wondering what's going on with Hildegard because such an amazing start to this series but it was a ride. Right?
Speaker 1:In part because Hildegard was a dedicated mystic. She was also a brilliant polymath and most certainly she was also a product of her twelfth century world. And this just means that her language and her imagery, they're layered in a way and they are also striking. And of course for many of us, I don't know how many polymaths there are in the room, but for many of us her language might be unfamiliar. This is why Bobby's dedicated, deliberate, incisive reading is worth your consideration.
Speaker 1:As Bobby admitted, Hildegard is someone that you should know existed. And maybe even a week later, you're like, why? Why again? Well, here's one of the chief reasons for me. I think sometimes, it can feel like the history of our tradition is just a collection of mishaps, dumpster fires, and skeletons that were tragically and harmfully hidden in a closet somewhere.
Speaker 1:The passage of time has a way of magnifying the mistakes and the errors of Christian institutions and individuals so much so that I think for lots of us, we lose sight of the classics and the inspirations that we have also inherited. Is it vital that we be critical of Christian empires past or present? Or Christian exceptionalism? Or Christian colonialism? Or Christian patriarchy?
Speaker 1:Yes. Unequivocally. But criticism and self examination are not our only that's not our only work. To attend to our history is also to remember and to learn from those who have innovated and served and experimented and advocated and spoken out and lived exemplary lives. And why why why should you do that?
Speaker 1:Well, because this is, in my experience, one of the surest ways to find and form and pursue a genuine faith. And to that end, today I want to introduce you to another classic. But before we jump into that, why don't you just still yourself for a second? Why don't we pray together? Jesus, you are God of rainy summer skies and of simple ordinary pleasures.
Speaker 1:You're God of this moment that we hold and share. And it's your spirit that guides and keeps each of us today. And this is why we pause and perhaps we choose to take an intentional breath even as we recall the ways that you have been with us. And we don't want to rush from that awareness. And then this is why we ask simply that you would open our hearts and our minds to new ways forward, that you would steady us perhaps in those places where we feel our lack and our limits this morning.
Speaker 1:We pray too that you'd be with us as we draw again on the great well of our tradition from the example of those who reflect your character and example. It's in your name that we pray today. Amen. Alright. Well, today I wanna shift your attention to a small classic entitled The Practice of the Presence of God.
Speaker 1:And along the way, we're gonna talk about the musings of a guy named Brother Lawrence, we're gonna talk about divine connection, we're gonna talk about holy freedom, and we're gonna talk about all things work. And I'm gonna say a little bit more about the format of this little book in a second, but let's begin by putting Lawrence's cards on the table, shall we? Lawrence lived in the seventeenth century and was a lay member of a religious order in France. This just means that he was never trained or appointed as a priest. Over time, he was recognized by his peers and his superiors as having undergone a profound spiritual transformation.
Speaker 1:This was a transformation that he claimed derived from a shift that he had made in his spiritual practice. See Lawrence described how during his early life, he'd been encouraged to embrace a faith that was based on quote, servile fear, that sounds great, increased by the hope of eternal life, he said, and consummated by quote, pure love. And he actually found that these ideas and the methods that went along with trying to realize them, they had the opposite effect for him. He actually claimed that these ideas and these methods discouraged him. So as an alternative to these common practices, he claimed that he continued some years applying his mind or applying my mind carefully even in the midst of my business to the presence of God whom I considered as always with me, often as in me.
Speaker 1:And a little later, he clarified his method a little bit further saying, I have quit all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me. And I make it my business only to persevere in God's holy presence. Wherein I keep myself by a simple attention. And I love this phrase, a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God. Now, truth is, lots of ways I feel like I could stop right there and you would have just caught a glimpse of what makes this a classic Christian text.
Speaker 1:There's the way that he gives permission to take up only the spiritual practices that serve us well. We're gonna talk about that in a second. There's also the way that he incorporates Jesus' famous words from Luke 17 where Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within you. Lawrence sort of incorporated that into his mystical practice of Christian faith. But then there's also his idea that we might think of the divine with a general fondness.
Speaker 1:This is an idea that if you really think about it, it only makes sense if we allow that God might think of us with fondness. And that's an idea, Lawrence suggested, that if we allow it and we focus on it, it might be the presence of God itself. Now, you should know that Lawrence was the kind of person that we might overlook in our pursuit of spiritual wisdom. It's one of the reasons there's almost no images or representations of him that have been passed to us Because he was after all a peasant born into war riddled and socially divided seventeenth century France. He actually served as a soldier during the thirty years war.
Speaker 1:He carried the wounds, the trauma of that experience for the rest of his life. Along the way then he served as a servant for a government official for many years perhaps because then later he had a physical disability he entered a monastery as a lay member. And we know that he was responsible for just completing basic tasks. He did not lead the prayers, he did not lead the liturgy, he was in the kitchen most of the time. Which is just to say that Lawrence offers something to anyone living in a polarized culture, to anyone who's ever faced their physical limitations, to anyone for instance who might have navigated a career change, to anyone whose life includes more than a touch of the ordinary, the monotonous or the mundane.
Speaker 1:Is there anyone like that here today? And in a way, we're quite fortunate to have this source. Brother Lawrence was the equivalent of a line cook in his monastery and he would have been otherwise lost to history had he not had what might have been a chance encounter with an abbot who took an interest in him. And the two men are believed to have met four times, to have had meetings that the abbot took notes in, and we also know that they exchanged a correspondence which included 15 letters from Lawrence. The first of these letters includes an interesting opening phrase.
Speaker 1:Lawrence wrote to the abbot saying, since you so earnestly or since you desire so earnestly that I should communicate to you the method by which I arrived at that habitual sense of God's presence, I must tell you that it is with great difficulty that I am prevailed on by your importunities. We should write emails like this. And and now, I do it only upon the terms that you show my letter to no one. If I knew that you were gonna let it be seen, all the desire I have for your advancement would not be able to determine me to it. Well, that's an interesting plot development, isn't it?
Speaker 1:What we know is that Lawrence's friend made notes of their conversations, that he collected the letters he received, and that these became the book we now have. All of it was published after Lawrence's death and seemingly it was published against his expressed wishes. And that's your dose of seventeenth century scandal for the day. The thing is that it's obvious that the abbot felt differently about the conversations than Lawrence did. It's obvious that the conversations meant a lot to him.
Speaker 1:Maybe that he perceived their deeper potential to shape other people. And I'm so glad he did because I see something of the nature of divine presence in the relationship and exchanges that inform the method and the structure of this book. Because surely you've been in a conversation in which someone offered you a kind of holy attention that meant the world to you. Maybe there's someone in your life and as they've shared their experience with you or they've charted the patterns of their wisdom, you have found yourself healthier because they did. Or perhaps you've had the privilege of watching someone become a truer, bolder, deeper version of themselves and you wish you could post about that on social media.
Speaker 1:To me, it seems fitting that we would come to know about practicing the presence of God simply because two friends carried on a meaningful conversation over a number of years. And this is part of why I think this little book falls into the classic category. Because there's this underlying fact to its existence. Simply, that the mystery of how any of us comes to know God, how we learn to trust our holiest instincts, how we develop the skill to trust God's goodness, that these things happen and are transmuted in our practice of connection to other people. We practice divine presence when we listen well.
Speaker 1:When we take in the wide expanse of another person and we make some space in our heart for all that they are. When we soften each other's sharp edges with compassion and curiosity. Meaning, that while the practice of friendship is literally the means by which this spiritual classic exists, so too are your sincere connections a sure way to meet and discover God's truest nature. Now, their friendship became an outlet for Lawrence's insights into patterns of Christian spirituality. As a devout Catholic, Lawrence lived and worked and prayed within a rich tradition of devotional fervor.
Speaker 1:This means that he was part of communities that attended to the saints and had set times of prayer, had these practices of regular confession and absolution of sin. Lawrence's insight is that he saw in others and in himself a propensity to engage these kinds of spiritual practice in a way that the means became the ends. What I just mean by that is that it would mean that someone would pray simply as a way to feel accomplished. Or that you might be generous simply as a way of receiving affirmation. Or where you might read scripture as a way to not feel guilty.
Speaker 1:And over and against such proclivities in Christian spirituality, proclivities that I would say still exist today, Lawrence suggested that the end of all spiritual practice is God's self. It's an awareness of God. That's the only reason to practice Christian spirituality. And his innovation was simply to use all practice and in time, all the rhythms and the activities of his life as an expression of love for God and God's world. Such that, he suggested the simple expressions of our love would become more than a means of spiritual practice but that they would lead us into an awareness of the divine love that unfurls and indwells all things.
Speaker 1:And this is why, as I read to you a moment ago, he told his friend, he said, you know what, I've stopped forms of devotion and prayer that are unnecessarily restrictive. And he didn't do that to just say, you know what, I'm done with spiritual practice. No, he did that so that he could give himself to simply directing his attention into the world, looking fondly for where the divine might appear. In his sixth letter, Lawrence argues that we must serve God in a holy freedom. We must do our business faithfully without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to God mildly and with tranquility as often as we find it wandering.
Speaker 1:And just to be clear, the trouble and disquiet that he's referring to, he's just referring to a common practice among many spiritual practitioners. Maybe some of us here in the room or online today, those of us who have the experience of practicing spiritual discipline and then feeling frustrated. That the this feeling that our our efforts are futile. This feeling that our prayers elicit more of a sense of God's absence than God's nearness. And to this, Lawrence might say, we imagine it's okay.
Speaker 1:Simply recall, he might suggest, how the ancient Hebrew poets and prophets wrote things like, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Or how they wrote, the whole earth is full of divine glory. Lawrence might say to us, don't stress when you feel like you lose track of divine presence. Remind yourself with tranquility that the world is saturated with God's presence and that there is no prescriptive way by which you apprehend it. This kind of holy freedom, it seems to have really mattered to Lawrence.
Speaker 1:And a little later, he framed it this way. He said, we may continue with God our commerce of love. Persevering in God's holy presence, one while by an act of praise or of adoration or of desire. Could your desire be an expression of your perseverance in your love for God? One, while by an act of resignation or thanksgiving and in all the ways which our spirit can invent.
Speaker 1:I love that turn of phrase because personally, just for a moment here, I read this book a little more than twenty years ago and when I did, Brother Lawrence set me free from the limiting patterns and confining imagination that I had for spiritual life. Lots of ways this language he uses has set me free from the fear of somehow doing faith wrong. From the frustration of trying to pray and wondering if maybe I was cut out from something different. And in many ways he came to me like like a friend and he offered me one of the tools that I would need to navigate my biggest questions and my most sincere doubts because as I found, as pulled apart some of what I'd known, as I've moved from some ideas and practices of faith, I've left them behind, as I've tried to form new patterns, as I've tried to resurrect old patterns in my life, with Lawrence's encouragement in hand I have found that there is a holy freedom by which we encounter the presence of God and it's freedom that I I want to encourage you to sort of take it and use it playfully this summer Where divine presence might appear in a myriad of ways.
Speaker 1:In regular walks or in raucous laughter or maybe in the work of attending to your sadness. It might be in mindfulness or in sacred reading. It might be in quiet moments, it might be in repeated prayers, it might be in preparing salads or in folk fest fun. Perhaps for some of you it's gonna come with the smell of sunscreen or with the zest of lemons or the dance of shadow and light on Kananaskis Peaks. In all of the practices your spirit invents to wake up to God's great goodness.
Speaker 1:I really I really do hope that you'll take Lawrence's words with you especially when he says, don't always scrupulously confine yourself to certain rules or particular forms of devotion but act with a general confidence in God, with love and humility. Because with his encouragement to act, Lawrence reaches out to gather all of the strands of our human experience into a holistic imagination of spiritual practice. An imagination that includes our work. Remember, brother Lawrence wasn't a priest, was never seen as a theologian, he was never appointed as a saint of the church. Which means I don't recommend this book to you as a classic because he was the equivalent of a great follow where you might see him making conference appearances and putting up the videos or putting up quippy TikTok shorts to fill your feed.
Speaker 1:Right? Hashtag practice the presence everyone. That's not what brother Lawrence would have done. No. Remember, his first career was as an attending servant in a nobleman's house.
Speaker 1:Then, once he re entered monastic life, he did so as a servant to the community. He prepped the meals. He cleaned the dishes. Some sources say that maybe after his mobility was even lessened further, he became the cobbler. He would fix the monk's shoes and sandals.
Speaker 1:And that matters because when Lawrence wrote things like, think often of God by day, by night, in your business, even in your diversions, God is always near you and with you. When he wrote stuff like that, he wrote from the perspective of a life deeply rooted in the practical. His life was rooted in the labor of life, in the effort and the sore muscles and the fatigue. His life was rooted in the repeated rhythms that survival requires of us all. And I think that lends a kind of weighty credence to his suggested, albeit maybe a little bit vague methodology for living a life of faith.
Speaker 1:Because it's not divorced from the kind of life that you and I live in our business and our vocations and our diversions. And one of my favorite instances of this underlying integrity in the book is when the abbot is recalling one of the conversations they had. See, he relates that Lawrence had described on one occasion how he felt quote, more united to God in his outward employments than when he left his outward employments to go be devoted or to retire and rest. The implication being that Lawrence seems to have often felt alive in God when completing his professional and practical tasks. He felt God when his hands were busy or when he was solving a problem or when he was cleaning up a mess or when he was helping someone.
Speaker 1:Now it's it's entirely possible that he was actually describing what brain scientists and psychologists today refer to as the breakthrough that can come when we switch tasks or we take a break from something only to find that the mental block or the frustration that we've experienced, it suddenly opens up into new perspective or insight. I actually, I have this experience a lot. I think some of you might as well. It's not it's not uncommon for me to have key insights or relief psychologically or new thoughts emerge when I close my laptop and I start chopping shallots or I start pulling weeds in my garden. So so maybe Lawrence had simply uncovered the brain science of divine presence in simple tasks, in using our hands as a means of prayer.
Speaker 1:That could be true. But I also wonder if he wasn't also discovering the embodied evidence of something the gospels imply about how Jesus lived. See, if you look at the gospels, all of them, they include so many descriptions of how Jesus moved through the world. How he fished with his buddies, how he debated big ideas, how he told great stories, how he built relationships with a wide range of people, how he was maybe trained as a carpenter. And on one occasion, when trying to explain why he did what he did, Jesus said, listen, my father is always at work to this very day and I too am working.
Speaker 1:And when the religious leaders sort of questioned him a bit further, he gave them this answer. He said, very truly I say to you, the Son, me, I can do nothing by myself. I can only do what I see the Father doing because whatever the Father is doing, the Son also does. Now, there is one way that we could interpret this. We could see the author as implying that Jesus' life and ministry, the things that he did, that these were an appearance, these were an expression of the creative force behind all things.
Speaker 1:But I think more than that, there's this In this brief interaction, there's something of how Jesus chose to live. Something of what I think Lawrence discovered in the seventeenth century. See, there's a way to read this brief interaction in John in which Jesus is describing how he went through every day simply getting up and looking for where divine presence might appear. He didn't know ahead of time. He didn't know everything that was going to happen.
Speaker 1:Having set aside the fullness of his union with God, he'd become like a servant as Paul describes in Philippians. And this is why Jesus needed to pray. It's why he fasted. It's why he needed the comfort of his friends. It's why sometimes he just got up and he worked hard for the whole day because he was simply waking up and embodying the presence of God.
Speaker 1:Like brother Lawrence, like you and me. Where every mundane task done in love renews the world, even if it only results in a cleaned out sink or a greening garden plot or a balanced spreadsheet. Where every attempt we make to assist and support others restores creation even if all we feel we ever do is make relationships and communities and organizations just a little bit healthier. Where every moment that you spend lending your skill and your wisdom and your excellence reveals, every time you do that, it reveals the truest form of faith in rooms and homes and spaces made sacred not by prayer but by work. Which just means that you should never ever underestimate again the ways your effort mirrors Christ's daily attempts to simply join God in what God is already doing.
Speaker 1:And that starting today, this afternoon perhaps or tomorrow, you can take Lawrence's advice and practice the presence of God. Let's pray. Jesus, you you came and in your humble way, you changed the way that we are meant to think about God. And in your coming, you also came and you tried to change the way we think about being human. Wherein simple acts and in daily awareness, in our friendship and in our effort, in our carefully attending to the rhythms of our lives.
Speaker 1:Yes, we do grow in faith and we do become ourselves but also we mystically become more like you. So we pray, would you let our hands be strong? Would you let our hearts be resilient? Would you let our imaginations be awake and alive today for all the work that we do? And would you give us grace to persevere in Lawrence's example as we pursue light and we pursue love in holy freedom and abandon that is so contagious.
Speaker 1:This we ask in your name for you are ever and always our hope. Amen.
Speaker 2:Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. You're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server.
Speaker 2:Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you
Speaker 1:soon.