Texts: Matthew 5: 13-16; Romans 13: 11-14
The Ears of the Heart: Benedictine Wisdom for a World in Flux
Here’s a short passage from a book entitled After Virtue, by Alisdair MacIntyre, a study of philosophical ethics that has had an outsized influence on certain portions of the church, as well as seminaries and divinity schools over the past several decades. It concludes with these words:
What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages which are already upon us…We are waiting not for Godot, but for another—doubtless very different—St. Benedict.[1]
MacIntyre has a narrative of cultural decline that I don’t necessarily share, a pessimism about the present coupled with a nostalgia for previous eras, notably the ancient Greeks, that deserves careful critique. You’ll know by now that I’m skeptical of the way narratives such as that are used. Even so, there’s something about MacIntyre’s vision that I appreciate, and wish to commend on this day of our annual meeting. An annual meeting affords us the opportunity to take stock of where we have been and who we are becoming as a community. And I happen to like MacIntyre’s counsel, that we are to construct local forms of community within which civility, as well as an intellectual and moral life can be sustained through dark moments. That’s the meaning of Jesus’s famous words about being salt and light, a city set upon a hill. That’s something of the meaning of Paul’s words in his letter to Rome: the time for sleeping is over – get up and get busy!
And that’s something of what we have attempted to be, when, borrowing from Clarence Jordan’s Koinonia Community, we have called ourselves a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God. That’s what we have attempted to be when we have borrowed MLK’s language of building a world house, or a beloved community. It’s what we have done recently in our sanctuary work, which I likened to the Mizpah Café during the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, a tent set up for the relief of those who had been displaced after the quake. Mizpah is a prayer, found in the book of Genesis, asking God to watch over those who are absent from one another, but throughout the Bible, it also designates a gathering place, a sanctuary, a refuge during a time of emergency. In the words of Alisdair MacIntyre, mizpah might also be a community in which civility, as well as an intellectual and moral life, can be discovered, and sustained.
But there’s another feature of MacIntyre’s quotation that is powerfully important, and that is his citation of St. Benedict. The Benedictines have been on my mind quite a bit lately. When a small number of us traveled to Mexico back in September, crossing the artificial line that prevents us from knowing our Southern neighbors better, it was a group of Benedictine nuns that received us. All of them were wonderfully welcoming to our group, and we learned that hospitality is one of the hallmarks of the Benedictine tradition. Most of them were older, though not all, and to a person, they were each of them gentle, thoughtful, and kind. They were especially doting toward Elsa and Leland, our youngest travelers. There was a simplicity about them that I admired – they dressed in white blouses and blue skirts every day, and lived in modest but very comfortable quarters. The guest houses where we stayed were lovely, but without frills – two beds, a nightstand, a desk, and a bathroom, no more, no less. The meals too were relatively simple, but also delicious. When the meals were over, we all took turns doing the dishes, and cleaning the dining area. Hospitality was a hallmark of their tradition, but so too was work, and we were invited to participate in it.
And then there were the spiritual and intellectual pursuits that they maintained. The Sisters begin and end each day with a short prayer service, as a way of grounding their identity. A couple passages of Scripture were read, a few songs were sung at each of them, and prayers of petition would be offered. But that daily practice of prayer wasn’t there for piety alone. It seemed to be the foundation that led the Sisters to engage the world around them. They have powerful ministries throughout Cuernavaca that care for the needs of the most vulnerable around them. That includes people in some of the more impoverished parts of the city. But it also includes the growing number of migrants that are flowing through Mexico, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. The Sisters wish to understand the world around them, and to respond from a place of compassion and mercy. These were not, in other words, isolated or otherworldly sectarians. The Sisters were possessed of a wise and engaged way of being in the world, and I think most of us were deeply taken by what we witnessed. There was a quality about their lives that spoke to a depth of spiritual formation.
What is it that formed and informed the way of being that the Sisters demonstrate in Mexico? What is it that led MacIntyre to hearken toward St. Benedict (not to be confused with the previous pope) as a model when articulating a vision of communities within which civility, as well as an intellectual and moral life can be sustained through troubling moments?
Those are questions that led me to reread The Rule of St. Benedict, wondering if it contained a spirituality that was applicable to our own non-monastic and crowded 21st century lives. I had read it once before, taught it even, but I recalled little of its wisdom. And while it is clearly of a very different era, and while most of us wouldn’t identify with some of its preoccupations, it possesses a gentle wisdom that we might all benefit from. I’d like to share just a few of its insights with you this morning.
The text was written by a man named Benedict of Nursia. He was born in the year 480, and had been living in Rome, when he grew tired of the culture of decadence around him. And so he fled into the wilderness, where he lived as a hermit, until inquirers began to seek him out for his wisdom or counsel. From them, he realized that there were people all around him seeking a more meaningful way of life, and so he began to form small communities. And he constructed his “Rule” as a way of organizing those communities, giving them a handbook for living that continues to resonate to this day. Benedictine monasteries are credited with saving the best of European culture through some turbulent times, and today some fourteen hundred Benedictine communities all around the world.
Benedict’s Rule opens with the following words: “Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you.”[2] It’s a significant line, for it contains what is probably the most important theme of the entire Rule: to listen. That may conjure images of hierarchy and control, and it’s true, the Rule is often very much the product of its time. It’s worth observing, however, that it’s a very particular kind of listening that Benedict recommends. Listen with the ear of the heart, he says. That line suggests that much of what follows in the Rule, and in the spiritual life in general, has to do with being attuned to the realm of feeling – the heart, rather than a list of do’s and don’ts. What does it mean to listen with the ears of the heart? To start, it has to do with an attentiveness that allows us to hear what’s going on in our cultural surround. And there is a discernment and stillness about that listening, seeking to trace the hidden questions or yearnings within any moment of history. That’s a trait that the Benedictines have nurtured for hundreds of years now – they have a robust theology of culture. They are powerfully attuned to the places and times within which they dwell, and they seek an appropriate response to the questions and needs of those around them, rather than insisting that others conform to a predetermined pattern that they alone can supply.
But if they’re open to the environment around them, they’re also listening to what God might be saying in the midst of it all. And that too requires the ear of the heart, as well as an abundance of care and discernment. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard a voice speaking directly or clearly in my life. That’s not what it means to hear God speaking, and that’s not what the Rule conveys. It has more to do with the stirring of something deep down within you, when tears find their way into your eyes, when a form of powerful contentment or satisfaction emerges within you, when you find yourself captivated by an idea or a direction. It has to do with those moments when we’re in touch with the core of our being, when our strongest feelings and abilities are called into play. It has to do with discovering our own flourishing, but also the flourishing of others around us. To listen for God is to listen for moments like that, even as we’re listening to what is happening all around us. And that takes a kind of discipline as well, which is why there are regular times of prayer and silence, Scripture and song, built into the course of a day. It’s hard to listen well. It requires practice. To be a community of those who listen with the ears of the heart – that’s the first piece of wisdom I would have us appropriate from the Rule.
Here’s another. The Rule begins with the ears of the heart, but it’s just as concerned with the work of the hands, as well as the life of the mind. It is, above all, a holistic life of balance that Benedict commends to his readers. On one hand, he does indeed say that “idleness is the enemy of the soul,” one of the most famous quotes of the entire Rule. But on the other, immediately after that, he specifies that each member should also devote a portion of each day to reading and study. And then, after that, he gives recommendations on the hours of rest.[3] It’s that equilibrium, in large part, that has made Benedict’s Rule a source of wisdom for so many, for we do crave life activities that are useful, that are worthy of our time, and that exercise our creativity. But we’re also beings with a mind, with an intellect, and there is that within the world that requires our careful study. The portion of the Rule devoted to manual labor is a reminder of the fullness of human life, prompting us to ask what meaningful work actually looks like, and what it is that might be worthy of our careful study. It’s that latter portion that allowed Benedictine communities to act as a preservative of learning and culture in dark moments. And it might prompt us to inquire what it would mean in our own lives to devote a portion of our days to study. Not TV watching. Not phone swiping. Not reading this or that news story. But careful study, of a skill, or an issue, of a discipline, or a field. For Benedict, study wasn’t given to scholars alone, but to everyone, and manual work wasn’t given to laborers alone, but to everyone. Surely that multidimensional reading of the human soul is one of the Rule’s greatest insights. It’s one that we strive to emulate around here as well.
But the third feature of the Rule that I’d like to bring to your attention has to do with the reception of guests. If listening constitutes the beginning of the Rule, if the balance of labor and prayer, work and reflection, form its middle, then it is hospitality that forms its end, or climax. There is a chapter dedicated to receiving visitors, where it is clear that every guest is to be treated as Christ himself. Joan Chittister, a commentator of the Rule, puts it this way: “The message is, ‘Come on in, and disturb out perfect lives. You are the Christ for us today.’”[4] But it’s in one of the very final chapters that we receive a greater clue about hospitality. It has to do with the doorkeeper of the monastery. Benedict writes: “At the door…place a sensible person…whose wisdom keeps them from roaming about…As soon as anyone knocks, the porter will reply, “Thanks be to God,” then provide a prompt answer with the warmth of love.” Chittister notes that answering the door is one of the archactivities of Benedictine life. She further suggests that attention to the doorkeeper is so very important because the way we answer doors is the way we deal with the world. For Benedict and his rule, how we answer the door indicates just how we receive the Christ in the other.[5]
There’s so much more to the Rule, so much more that we might glean for our lives, but those three features, the formation of communities which listen, which account for the multidimensional wholeness of human beings, and which attentively answer knocks on the door account for much of what makes the Rule work as it does. Those are features that I hope we continue to incorporate into our existence here in Old Lyme, even as we learn more from our friends in Mexico.
A final word about that. When we committed to helping the Torres family be reunited after Miguel’s wife, and Nathaly and Keneth’s mother, Glenda, was deported to Honduras, we began to wonder if the Sisters might help. Would they consider giving Glenda a safe place to stay while we pursued her case, we wondered? Would they provide a sanctuary or her, a Mizpah tower, where she could be watched over while she was absent from those who loved her? I put the call in.
True to their communal nature, they took several days to consider the question well. And then on a recent evening, I received a call. The Sisters had agreed. I felt an immense gratitude, for our Benedictine friends, schooled in the art of listening with the ears of their hearts, schooled in the art of caring for human beings in their fullness, in their entirety, skilled most of all in the art of hospitality. I blinked back tears in the midst of the phone call. It was dinner time in our house, and I had stepped away from the table. When I returned, there was some sort of argument happening about something or other, but it seemed insignificant. I interrupted. “You guys, the Sisters said yes!” Rachael and the kids looked at me in confusion. “Elsa, you know, the Sisters, who were always hugging on you, they said they’d protect Nathaly and Keneth’s mom while we work to get her back.” A smile worked its way across Elsa’s cheeks. She claimed not to like their hugs, and she was always baffled that they wore the same thing every day, but she loved the Sisters, and secretly, deep down, I think she actually really liked their hugs. “Really, they said yes?” she asked, and everyone else was interested now too. I nodded.
Of course they did. Their spiritual formation runs deep. They know what it means to act as preservatives in perilous times. Benedict taught them how. May we be so instructed as well.
[1] MacIntyre, Alisdair, After Virtue, (South Bend: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pg. 263.
[2] Chittester, Joan, The Rule of St. Benedict: Insights for the Ages (New York: Crossroads Press, 1992), pg. 19.
[3] Ibid, pg. 132.
[4] Ibid, pg. 141.
[5] Ibid, pgs. 169-170.
