Have you ever walked through a door like that?Maybe it was the church door you walked through the afternoon you were married.Before you entered it, you lived your life as one.When you walked back out, there were two of you, arm-in-arm, ready to start a whole new life together.
Or maybe it was another church door, on another afternoon, that changed your life.It was a funeral you were attending.A death had happened, and part of you died too, that day.Your life has never been the same since you passed through the door of grief.
Other doors change our lives, too.You go through the door to the schoolhouse as a child, you emerge 13 or 17 or 21 (or more!) years later a new person, ready for a new life.
The door to the hospital.The door to your first job.The door to the retirement home.A door is an opening from one world into another, and it represents the potential of a whole new life.
I have a door that’s been changing my life.It’s the door to a monastery, and it’s about time I told you a little about it.
For the last year-and-a-half, I’ve been participating in a program called Women Touched by Grace, hosted at a Benedictine monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, outside of Indianapolis.Every spring and every fall, four times now in all, I drive down there to meet with 29 other women pastors for intensive study, reflection, prayer, and renewal, specifically focusing on the themes of spirituality, community, and congregational leadership.The program is funded by the Lilly Foundation grant for Sustaining Pastoral Excellence, with the idea behind the program being that the spiritual health and vitality of congregations is linked to the spiritual health and vitality of the pastors who lead and serve them.The goal of the project is “to
provide a strong, cohesive body of women pastors, strengthened in the spiritual disciplines,” with an eye towards helping sustain pastors as spiritual leaders of their congregations rather than merely administrators or managers.
The program (which culminates in a trip to Italy, to walk in the footsteps of St. Benedict), has so far been amazing.We have these wonderful speakers and conference leaders, and these really in-depth small group gatherings, and we meet individually with a mentor who invites and challenges us to grow both as Christians and as leaders.
And three times a day we gather for prayer with the Benedictine sisters.It is these 84 nuns who really make this program different from any other clergy conference I’ve attended.These women, so rooted in prayer and a longing to seek and serve God, give very visible witness to the life of Christian faith and love.You can see it in their eyes, you can hear it in their voices as they sing their prayers and read their Scriptures and speak to each other.When you walk through the door to the monastery, what greets you is incredible kindness and gentleness and goodness.
I don’t mean to romanticize or idolize or idealize the sisters.They, like all humans, are not perfect, of course.But somehow, living in Christian community as they do encourages and calls forth their very best. They are constantly being challenged and reshaped into the image of Christ because of their commitment to prayer and to service and to intentional Christian community.It is a grace to be invited into their fold twice a year.
Sharing in the life of their community makes me want to be a better Christian.That’s what being around people who live faithful lives can do to a person.
Have you had that kind of experience before?Someone you know shows extravagant kindness to someone not in a position to repay him the favor.And, having witnessed such kindness, you resolve to be more kind.Or you overhear someone speak in the gentlest tones with someone for whom you yourself have no patience.And you resolve to be more gentle, more patient.Or someone you admire responds to an anxiety-producing situation with great peace and integrity.And you resolve that you, too, will trust God more.The people around us can become doors to a new way of living, if we are willing to learn from their example.
One of the things that strikes me most about the sisters at Our Lady of Grace Monastery is their openness to encountering God everywhere.When you enter the monastery, the words “Seek God” are emblazoned over the doorway, and you can see how seriously they take this in everything they do.Every moment presents an opportunity to seek God and to see Jesus.
As some of you know, due to circumstances in our family, I took Rob with me on this retreat.I was somewhat anxious about taking a baby to a monastery – a place where silence and a sense of order are valued.I took him to the sessions with me, which were entitled “Conversations with Jesus.”Much of the time, he was quiet and content.But sometimes he decided it was time to talk.“Ba ba ba,” he would call out.“Ma ma ma,” he would announce.Louder and louder he would get, as I sat there getting more and more self-conscious, trying to get him to hush.But the presenter was not only unfazed, she was moved.“Every time Rob starts his talking, tears come to my eyes,” she said.“It’s as if he is singing his own little Magnificat (his praises to God).”
Later, I thanked her for her kindness and graciousness towards having a baby interrupt her presentations.“Oh, I wasn’t just being nice,” she told me.“Babies are holy.”
Certainly, I think my baby is holy.But every squirming, squalling infant a manifestation of the Divine?I’ve certainly not always seen it that way.
One night, at evening prayers, I sat in the balcony with Rob and the sisters who are in wheelchairs and walkers.I sat next to Sister Eugenia, who held her prayerbook where I could see, while I held Rob to try to keep him quiet.Still he would do all his baby things – in the silence between the sung psalms, he would just start laughing or while a sister read Scripture he would put his fingers to his lips and loudly go “b-b-b.”Sister Eugenia just lit up at every little noisy thing he did.When evening prayer ended, she leaned over and put her face very close to his.I heard her whisper to him, “You’re just like baby Jesus to us.”
That to me, summed up how the sisters see not just babies, but all people.Everyone they meet is another opportunity to encounter Jesus.Every person is a door, an opening through which they see an extraordinary gift from God.
For some of us, babies are pretty easy.It’s not too hard to believe in God when you’re looking into the fresh soft face and bright eyes of a little child.They can bring out the best things in us – joy, hope, love.It’s grown people who make our faith more difficult.
Patti, a Methodist minister from Texas, told us her story.When Patti was 22, she served a two-year stint as a missionary.During her work, she encountered a difficult and demanding woman named Dora Jean.Dora Jean was mentally handicapped.She lived in a halfway house around the corner from Patti’s apartment, and she frequented the clothing closet Patti coordinated.Dora Jean was everything that Patti didn’t want to be and nothing that she wanted to be.She was a large woman who dressed in loud, mismatched clothing, including majorette boots with one tassel missing.She had dyed black hair, drawn-on black eyebrows, bright red lipstick that went outside the lines of her lips, and no teeth.She came to the clothing closet every day.Patti did not like Dora Jean.
In her frustration, Patti began treating Dora Jean very badly.She would arbitrarily change the hours of the clothing closet to avoid seeing Dora Jean.She was evasive on the phone with Dora Jean, saying she didn’t know when the clothing closet would be open again.She did everything she could to get Dora Jean out of her hair.Finally, one winter day, Dora Jean got Patti on the phone and arranged to meet her at the clothing closet that afternoon.Patti decided to be 15 minutes late, thinking that if Dora Jean had to wait on her, maybe she would give up and go away.
From her apartment, Patti had a view of the clothing closet, and she saw when Dora Jean arrived.Patti sat there in her apartment for the full 15 minutes, and it started snowing.“Great!” Patti though, “the universe is cooperating with my plan.”But Dora Jean was undeterred.After 15 minutes, Patti went out to let Dora Jean in.She braced herself for dealing with the woman.
When Patti approached, Dora Jean thrust a paper sack into her hands.“Here,” she said.“I baked some brownies for you, because you are always so nice to me.”
30 years later, Patti still tears up when she tells this story.She had treated this woman so badly, had resented her so fiercely, and here this woman stood in the snow, waiting for her with a bagful of homemade brownies because she, Dora Jean, had seen only the goodness in Patti.A door opened for Patti that afternoon, and through it she saw Christ in Dora Jean.She says that in that experience she heard God say, “Sure, Patti, you love me when I am God of the universe.But what about when I look like Dora Jean?What about when I represent everything you don’t want to be?Can you still love me then?”
We see just the surface, and we call it reality.But Christ the Door has opened up a whole other reality, if we have the eyes to see.God’s glory shimmers below the surface, sometimes far below the surface.Sometimes it is so hard to see.When someone annoys us, or angers us, or just tests our patience, it is so difficult to keep looking for Christ.But that is our invitation.
Whenever you encounter another person – a baby, a child, a friend, a foe, the girl at the checkout counter, the man on the corner asking for change – it is as if a question is being put to you.“Can you love me like this?” Christ is asking.“Can you participate in the grace that has saved you by extending grace to this person too?”*Every encounter is a door to the divine, a chance to walk through and walk towards more grace, towards more Christlikeness.What would your life look like if you were to accept the invitation to walk through the Christ-doors all around?
Maybe you need more grace, the grace to see beyond the plain reality and to glimpse the glory of God in others.Maybe you need the grace to respond with more kindness, more gentleness, more goodness, more faithfulness, more joy.Maybe you need the courage to love people who are so hard to like.
I know I need all of those things and more.That’s why there’s another door I keep choosing to walk through, and that’s the door to the church.We can certainly receive God’s grace in private ways apart from the church, but one thing I keep learning from my Benedictine sisters is the absolute gift of being in community with other believers.We help each other be better Christians.
Christ the Door stands open now.He opens the door to us through littlest babies and through the aged and infirm.He opens the door through the weak and the sick and the sad and the sorry.He opens the door through this church.Anytime we have a choice in how we treat others, about whether or not we respond with goodness and kindness and patience and love, anytime we encounter another person, it is a chance to walk through a door towards more faithfulness.Look!Christ-doors are standing open all around.Open your eyes, and walk through.
