Lent is for Turning: Whose Turn is It?

It was a busy morning at the Tasty World Restaurant on I-26 across from the Asheville Airport.  My fellow cook was at the grill while I hustled a new batch of biscuits into and out of the oven.  Our saltiest waitress was at the window anxious to get her order completed.  It included eggs "over easy."

She said with some pepper on her salt, "Come on Raymond!  They won't turn themselves."

In Lent with all that we do:

• Adding penitential rites to the beginning of our Eucharistic worship
• Adding solemn prayers to the end
• Reading Stations of the cross
• Adding an SSJE book study
• Learning about the saints through Lent Madness
• Reading Luke-Acts thanks to Bishop Wimberly
• etc, etc.

 . . . you'd think we were trying to turn ourselves.

Let's not stop these efforts but let's not forget that some of the turning of Lent is God's turning of us.  That's not easy to remember.  We are the first to measure our own efforts toward a deeper prayer life or less consumption or just being intentional about gratitude; all of which are worthy Lenten disciplines.

And we forget that the reason for a deeper prayer life is so that God can be in on it with us and our deeper prayer life becomes pressured by a late meeting or a broken heat pump and we suddenly find ourselves surprised by how late it is and how tired we are.  

Or we forget that less consumption has a close correlation with being present to others, especially those we love and our new practice has us refusing invitations from our friends because the menu isn't going to work.

Or we forget that gratitude helps us to anticipate and more readily recognize more than just the benefits of our privilege or status.  

Yes our hopes to be joined fully to God compel these efforts, within the parish or from within our individual disciplines.  TBTG! the outcome is being provided to us before we even wake up in the morning, before we've said our first prayer, before we stepped on the scale, before we heard the good news, before the eggs are flipped.

Like Paul told the Philippians, "I am confident that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.  Philippians 1:6 NRSV

Lent is for Turning: Straightaway

I've always wondered about the effect or amount of time that passed during Jesus' ministry.  There is no definitive statement in the gospels.  Biblical scholars have to "read between the lines" to estimate.  The synoptic gospels mention only one Passover observance. 

Still, it's safe to say that what we have recorded would have needed more than a year to occur.  With a nod toward John's symbolism many believe that three years or so of activity and travel -- mostly on foot -- filled the time between his baptism and the cross. 

The effect is what matters to me more than any precise chronology.  It comes to bear in the way that Mark writes his gospel.  You can see it in his use of the term, euyuv/euthys, a word the NRSV translates most often as "immediately." Older translations use "straightaway."

The first time it shows up is at the end of chapter 1, verse 3:  "the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.“

In most cases I have understood that use, "making a path straight" to mean being efficient or easy to use.  To make it so people can move without impediment or strain.  Like an interstate highway instead of a winding mountain trail. 

But we are not the ones for whom the way is meant.  It's the "way of the Lord."  The paths are his. 

No wonder Mark makes it feel like Jesus is in an urgent, almost rush from moment to moment.  He is.  He is because we need him to be.  His focus is not frantic but more like a laser.  Deliberate, intentional, committed.

The effect of Jesus' ministry doesn't need John's symbolic three years to make its point.  From his baptism to the cross Mark shows Jesus' focus to be relentless and consistent, that is . . . straightaway. 

We say "Lent is for turning," because we keep straying off the path, leaning away from his gaze, and hiding from the light. 

TBTG! His way is towards us.  His focus is towards us.

And so on the Second Sunday in Lent we could pray, "O Lord, be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them straight back. Amen." (BCP, p. 218)

Lent is for Turning

The Hebrew word we translate to “repent” comes from the root word bwv/shuv which means to turn. To repent is change direction back toward God.  We are going to use this season of Lent to redirect our efforts back toward God, to focus on his presence and not our prominence, to trust his power and less so our privilege, to respect each person instead of a position.

So we have chosen a name for our practice during these 40 days: Lent is for Turning. With packets and brackets and pamphlets and booklets and lots of prayers we will do some of that turning by reading about who has walked the path before us and how that path can turn us into witnesses to the whole world and especially how our Savior walks along with us.     

You should consider joining our Wednesday night study: Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of John.  You can register and purchase your workbook online at http://meetingjesusinjohn.org/.  The season will be enriched again by our sharing in reading Stations of the Cross on Fridays at noon. 

            Another part of our turning will be right here on Sunday morning.  Both 8 and 10:30 services will include our praying mostly penitential prayers before we do anything else.  We'll use a different entrance rite each week.

Lent 1 -- The Great Litany (chanted)

Lent 2 -- The Supplications, Exhortation with confession

Lent 3 -- Penitential Order with Decalogue

Lent 4 -- Suffrages B, Exhortation with confession

Lent 5 -- The Great Litany from Enriching Our Worship.

Perhaps the most noticeable “turn” will be our changing to a smaller simpler bulletin. It can be used for both 8:00 and 10:30 service and will require all those leading worship beginning with the celebrant, to offer more verbal directions, to help especially those who are less familiar than others with the Book of Common Prayer.  Your own turning will include doing so to help those who are learning to which page to turn for themselves.

Let’s give each other the love and support to do this hard work of turning around toward God, maybe in a new way, maybe in a way long forgotten.  We have much to do that can’t be just more of what we’ve done.  We need to turn, return to God.  Lent is for Turning

Global Manifestation #5: Savior of the World

I'm remembering the citation from John's gospel in last week's installment.  The one where Jesus claims those sheep that are not in the fold of his audience.  The audience looks to be the Pharisees who are pushing back against the authority he exhibits mostly through healing some whom they wouldn't deem worthy for such.  In this case it is the man born blind.

I'm thinking the disciples were likely within earshot if not also part of the group to whom he is speaking.  so much of the context indicates the difference between physical blindness and spiritual blindness.  I can't help but imagine their looking at each other when he pronounces, "I'll bring them in also" and wondering in the own way about whom he is talking.

It's safe to say there was some confusion but being "a good Jew" was still important for some of the twelve.  Some more than others.  More than one of them believed Jesus to be the one promised to come and save Israel from its latest accumulative crisis of colonialism and unrighteousness.  It's not until Jesus is raised that some of the twelve finally start to understand the teachings about the Messiah as having been misinterpreted.

So for at least two sets of listeners the questions persist, who are these other sheep and how is he going to do this claiming.

The question persists today, still.

At least the questions about who is right and who is wrong; who is in and who is out.  Some have asked the question this way: Is there salvation outside the Church?  Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is the historic teaching first articulated by Cyprian of Carthage late in the 3rd century.  His phrasing was a little different: "Salus extra ecclesiam non est."  

TBTG there has long been a recognition that what matters more is who is doing the saving.  In other words, those of us who count ourselves "in" or "saved" had better be careful not to think we have accomplished that reality/status without Jesus first having a claim over us.

No coercion here just Jesus' claim resulting in our submitting in humility and gratitude.  

So let's not be blinded by our fear or our pride and instead like the man born that way, accept the gift of sight, which is the gift of really understanding whose we are.

The Transfiguration of this Sunday's lesson is full of things to see.  But more than anything we are being invited to see Jesus as God's beloved Son, as the Good Shepherd, the Way, the Truth and the Life, Our Savior, and because of who he is we get to be his sheep.