Passion and Confidence

Wednesday, October 15, 2008 -- Week of Proper 23
Teresa of Avila, Nun, 1582

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 989)
Psalms 119:1-24 (morning) 12, 13, 14 (evening)
Jonah 1:17 - 2:10
Acts 27:9-26
Luke 9:1-17

Ours is a tepid age. You especially feel our lukewarmness when you look at the life of someone like Teresa of Avila. Her passion seems strange to us. She is so extreme. She throws herself into God and into life with utter abandon, begging God to send her suffering so that she may share Christ's burden of the cross. She wants to feel. Deeply. Pain and suffering are deep feeling. So is sexual passion. Teresa combines a raw, passionate love for God along with her desire to share Christ's suffering. She produces something that can seem to us an almost bizarre, audacious, masochistic form of devotion. Oh, she is passionate. She makes us seem so measured and lukewarm.

Sam Portaro says that "we lack that genuine love of our work, that abiding love for the other person, that insatiable love for learning, that ineffable love that gives rise to worship, that passionate love that animates and humanizes politics. This is the characteristic that we see at work in Teresa. It is not the hallucinatory nature or sexual dimensions of her visions, nor the rigorism of her monastic discipline that is off-putting. It is her passion that causes us to raise one eyebrow just slightly. ...This is what we find so amazing in this nonchalant society of ours -- we are thrown off guard by those who find it within themselves to care, passionately." (Brightest and Best, p. 186)
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We have some stormy readings today. Jonah 2 is a wonderful psalm that the author has put into Jonah's mouth as his prayer from the belly of the fish. "The waters closed in over me; weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains... As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you..." From that desperate place of dark depths, the one who has been fleeing from God calls out for deliverance.

We also read about a stormy sea passage as Paul is being escorted under guard to have his case appealed to Caesar. There is a note of humor here as Paul offers advice to the commanding officer, "but the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said." Instead of wintering in an exposed harbor, the ship tried to go a little further west to a safer place in Crete. A violent wind attacked their vessel, and soon they were throwing cargo overboard to lighten the load. After three days they threw the ship's tackle overboard -- they are completely out of control. "All hope of our being saved was at last abandoned." They ended up getting blown for fourteen nights and eventually shipwrecked.

These are desperate images, aren't they? Alone in the belly of the fish at the bottom of the ocean. Blown uncontrollably by sickening storms until you wreck.

How do we cope with such times? How do we react? Certainly there is desperate prayer. We see in Paul a knowing confidence. At the unprotected harbor he told the officers, "Sirs, I can see that the voyage will be with danger and much heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives." Two weeks later when they had been blown violently and had not eaten for a long time, Paul says, "I told you so..." "Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and thereby avoided this damage and loss." That always helps. I can imagine how they appreciated his reminder. But Paul adds that he has seen a vision of an angel telling him that they will wreck, but "God has granted safety to all who are sailing with (Paul)."

Such confidence in the storm. We see similar signs of confidence in the gospel. Jesus sends the twelve out with "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases," and they go, with nothing extra -- "no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money -- not even an extra tunic." They bring good news and cure diseases everywhere. Later we read while Jesus and his disciples are in a deserted place, they take their meager provisions, five loaves and two fish, and feed five thousand.

Confidence and passion in the midst of storm and impossible challenge. Passion for God, regardless. Genuine love of my work, abiding love for others, insatiable love for learning, ineffable love that gives rise to worship, passionate love that animates and humanizes politics and deep confidence to face lostness and storms. This is the energy I want to live my life with. That's the heritage we are invited to embrace.

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


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

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas