Stars of the Faith: Benedict of Nursia
Matthew 7:24-27
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!"
It’s too bad that most of us aren’t more into history. I used to find history to be a very boring subject, but in my adulthood I’ve found that history is incredibly helpful not only in terms of understanding the people of long ago, but also in understanding ourselves today. Much like a counselor looks into our past to understand our present, understanding history helps us to look into the past to both understand why we are the way we are. At the same time, it helps us to see what we may have lost in the process of becoming who we are.
During Lent, we will be doing a sermon series that digs into our Christian past to look at the history of Christian faith through the eyes of some of the greatest Christians of history. We are calling this series, Stars of the Faith. We want to really emphasize what great Christians of our past have to teach us about living lives of faith in the present.
The first star I want to focus on today is one whom I’m sure most of us have forgotten: Benedict of Nursia. We come by our memory lapse about Benedict honestly. As Protestants, I’m not sure that most people recognize Benedict’s greatness because his greatness lies in the fact that he started a movement that most of us see as either outmoded or irrelevant to modern Protestant faith. You see, Benedict is seen as the father of the monastic movement, and we Protestants don’t have much use for monastic life. We mostly see monks, nuns, and friars in one of two ways. Either we see them as being incredibly special, able to reach spiritual heights we can’t because we are too normal, or as being incredibly misguided, following a path that’s disconnected from real life. I think that if we take either view, we miss what Benedict has to teach us about faith and life.
To begin to understand Benedict, we have to start with Benedict’s times. Benedict was born in the small town of Nursia, which is about 100 miles east of Rome. He was born in 480, A.D., four years after the date that many people consider to be the “fall” of the Roman Empire, although to say that the Roman Empire ever “fell” is not quite true. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476, but the Eastern Roman Empire never really “fell.” It sort of merged in the 15th century into the Ottoman Empire when the whole region became Muslim and the last Roman Emperor, Constantine XI, gave up the city of Constantinople. In 476, though, the last western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, gave up Rome to the Ostragoths, who were a Germanic tribe that attacked from the north. The whole period of the 4th and 5th centuries pretty much were a history of one Germanic tribe after another attacking the Italian peninsula and Rome. Many of the names we give to bad people today come from the names of those tribes, such as the Bar Bars (Barbarians), Huns, Vandals, Goths, and others.
During these times, the economy of the western Roman Empire plunged into disarray. Some people became incredibly rich, but many slipped into constant and abject poverty. In fact, the continual attacking of Rome and the Italian peninsula by the Franks and Gauls, into the 6th and 7th centuries, led Europe into the Dark Ages. Poverty gripped the region, and life expectancies plummeted. Benedict was born into the midst of that.
His father was wealthy, and being wealthy he sent Benedict to a school in Rome to be educated. What Benedict learned did not lead him to live a life of wealth. While in Rome he saw the ravages of a declining land. He saw moral standards fall apart as greed, lust, gambling, and selfishness took over. Having had enough of it, he renounced his own wealth and decided to become a Christian hermit, which was a growing movement at the time. He moved to the region of Subiaco, 60 miles to the east of Rome, and there moved into a cave, where he lived for three years as a hermit. He spent his time disciplining his life and devoting his days to prayer and the search for wisdom. He was actually following an old Christian tradition that started several centuries earlier in the deserts of Egypt, as hermits went into the desert, imitating Christ’s 40 days in the desert, to wrestle with their demons and to learn wisdom. Benedict wanted to be purged of his demons.
Over time, people discovered Benedict and began to seek him out for his wisdom. Eventually several of them approached him and asked him if he would start a monastery for them. Benedict reluctantly did so, but after a year the monks hated it and him. After years of living an austere life, he was too harsh on them. They had sought a life of prayer and wisdom. He gave them a life of austerity much like his own. The legend, which probably isn’t true, is that they tried to poison his wine in order to get rid of him, but when he said a prayer of blessing over it, the jug shattered, exposing their plan. At any rate, Benedict was happy to be free of the monastic life to return to life as a hermit. It didn’t last long.
Eventually others asked him to start another monastery, and having learned from his past experiences, he did so in a new way. The first monastery he built was at Monte Cassino, which still exists today, despite having been partly demolished during World War II at the Battle of Monte Cassino. From there he started eleven other monasteries. After his death, the movement he spawned continued, and several centuries later the Roman Catholic Church created the Benedictine Order.
So why should we care about all this? The history is mildly interesting, but how does this impact modern Christian life? Benedict matters because of what he can teach us. What made Benedict unique is that he did something for his monasteries that no abbot or leader did before him. He created a detailed rule that guided the details of the monastic life. Before him, monasteries took on the personalities of their leaders. They could be austere or opulent. They could be places of purity or corruption. Benedict wrote down 73 rules to guide monastic life. Looking at them, they are very detailed in some ways. But their impact is that they gave structure to monastic living, a structure that has helped monks and Christians for centuries to grow closer to God.
The Rule revolved around four basic issues: worship, prayer, commitment, and community. Benedict wanted the monks to have regular times of worship, and he wanted worship to have an order that opened them to God’s word and life. He wanted them to bring prayer into everything. He wanted them to become committed to a life for God in everything. He wanted them to have a stable communal life. Another aspect of “the Rule,” although not stated in it, is the motto of the Benedictine movement: ora et labora, or “prayer and work.” They believe that prayer and work should go side-by-side. Here is a list of all 73 rules for you to look at:
1. Different kinds of monks and their customs
2. The qualities of the abbot
3. The counsel of the brothers
4. The instruments of good works
5. Obedience
6. Silence
7. Humility
8. The Divine Office at night (Matins)
9. How many psalms are to be said in the Night Offices
10. How the Night Office is to be said in the summer
11. How Matins is to be celebrated on Sundays
12. Lauds--celebration
13. Lauds--ordinary days
14. Night Office on Saints’ Days
15. The seasons during which Alleluia is chanted
16. The Day Office
17. The number of psalms said in the Day Office
18. Psalms--order to be chanted
19. How the Office should be performed
20. Reverence at prayer
21. The deans of the monastery
22. How the monks are to sleep
23. Excommunication for faults
24. The measure of excommunication
25. Grave faults
26. Those who meet with the excommunicated without leave of the abbot
27. The abbot’s care of the excommunicated
28. Those who do not change their ways despite much correction
29. Readmittance of departed brothers
30. Correction of youths
31. The cellarer
32. Property and utensils
33. Private ownership by monks
34. The appointment of necessities
35. Weekly kitchen service
36. Sick brothers
37. Old men and children
38. The weekly reader
39. Food apportionment
40. Drink apportionment
41. Dining hours
42. No talk after Compline
43. Late-comers to the Divine Office and meals
44. How the excommunicated are to make satisfaction
45. Mistakes in the Oratory
46. Offenses in other matters
47. Sounding the Hours of the Divine Office
48. Daily manual labor
49. Observance of Lent
50. Brothers who work at a distance from the oratory or are traveling
51. Brothers who do not go far
52. The oratory of the monastery
53. The reception of guests
54. The receipt of letters and presents
55. Clothing and shoes
56. The abbot’s table
57. Artisans and craftsmen
58. The admission of new brothers
59. Sons of noblemen or of poor men offered to God’s service
60. Priest who would live in the monastery
61. Reception of pilgrim monks
62. Priests of the monastery
63. Rank in the monastery
64. Election of the abbot
65. Provost of the monastery
66. The Porter of the monastery
67. Brothers sent on a journey
68. When a brother is asked to do the impossible
69. No one shall presume to defend another in the monastery
70. No one is to presume to strike another
71. The brothers ought to obey one another
72. The good zeal monks should possess
73. All perfection is not herein attained
Looking at the list, you may not see all its significance, but you can see much of it. For instance, look at how much time is spent focusing on worship. Benedict thought that worship should be at the center of life. Is it for you? Also, look at how much attention he spends on food, drink, and living arrangements. He believed that monks should have a healthy diet, that they should have comfortable beds, and that there should be a connection between their spiritual and physical lives. Centuries later the movement became overly focused on austerity and suffering, but not under Benedict. He emphasized hospitality, sharing, compassion, forgiveness, zeal, and much more. His rule was focused on monastic living, but in a way that emphasized balance between work, prayer, learning, eating, rest, and service. What does it have to teach us who are not monks?
I believe that it teaches us how to live in difficult times. We are living in a time of absolute uncertainty with a brittle and shaky economy, two wars, the threat of terrorism, and fear of the future spreading all over the place. What are our foundations? Benedict’s rule brought stability in a time of crisis. What keeps us stable?
What are the rules of your life? How seriously do you take worshipping God? How important is prayer for you? How deep is your commitment to a life of faith—a life lived for God? To what extent do you live in community with others who also seek God? What’s the Rule for your life? Do you have one?
I want you to do something as you finish this sermon. Normally I get to do the thinking for you, but as we finish this sermon I want you to do the thinking for yourself. Take time to use the last page here to create your own rule. I’ve put down three questions for you to start the process. Is God calling you to create a rule for your life to counter our age of confusion?
Amen.
Setting a Rule for Life
List the areas of your life that seem chaotic or out of balance.
List what you can do to bring these areas more into balance.
On another sheet, write down a rule for your life.
