The Work of Lent: Part 5

One of the regular resources I use in sermon preparation is the Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary. Paul Nuechterlein, recently retired ELCA Lutheran pastor manages this site to provide weekly commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary readings for each Sunday's worship.

Directly or indirectly, contributors to the site honor the work of Rene Girard, d. Nov. 4, 2015.  Girard was first an anthropologist then a commentator on ancient literature in the Bible.

His fundamental teaching was that humans learn first and foremost by imitation.  Think "monkey see, monkey do."  What humans in particular desire and therefore choose to imitate and join are more often than not the actions of those in power over them.

Aptly, though with a cynical edge this theory describes the environs of first century Jerusalem and the days leading to the crucifixion.  Jesus is the scapegoat presented and sacrificed by the powers that be, both Roman and Jewish to maintain the status quo.

The ultimate use of power is to preserve power.  So when Judas forces Jesus' hand by his betrayal in the garden he is acting on his mistaken belief that the Messiah will exercise power just like but against Rome.

Instead, Jesus lays down his life and refuses by his silence to be the scapegoat that the powers need him to be.  In his resurrection he redirects the mimetic desire of those expecting a messiah to "win" and then the good news is born in the hearts and minds of his followers.

Several contributors to "Reflections" focus on the role that those under power play to prop up the status quo and imitate power.  When the Pharisees challenge Jesus' dining with "tax collectors and sinners"(Luke 15) or when Judas in Bethany criticizes Mary for wasting pure nard to perfume Jesus's feet in last Sunday's reading (John 12) they are imitating those in power and propping up a Jewish caste system that imitates the Roman one subjecting them.

The Pharisees challenges and Judas' questions are pretenses.  Neither have absolute power but whatever power they can pretend to exercise they will.  We know this in our day and time when we see those who have been bullied become the bully or dads who were spanked spanking or others decrying the ways in which they are deprived of their own pretensions.  Monkey see, monkey do.

This week in Growing a Rule of Life has been a lesson for me that my life in prayer and devotion needn't imitate or attempt a kind of "power over."  My old Lenten practice was to do exactly that.  To take control or attain mastery over some action or behavior. I would start on Ash Wednesday and chip away for 40 days until I was expert in doing or not doing .

As if power over anything was His goal.  As if mastery was what God asks even of me.  As if heaven were more available because we've made fewer mistakes or have become habituated to doing some good thing.

We should all be letting go of our privileges and titles.  We should all be reexamining our presumptions to favored status or to being offended.  Last Sunday, St. Paul counted all his honors as rubbish for becoming like Christ in his death. (Philippians 3)

This Palm Sunday we will instead try to imitate one whom we say triumphs as he entered Jerusalem already in obedience to his own dying.  Some irony here, no? Jesus intentionally offended the powerful by mounting that donkey and drawing a crowd who must have known who they were mocking in their hosannas.

We shouldn't be so quick to impose an understanding informed by a moment yet to be narrated for us.  That he was raised was not known by anyone along that parade route.  God meant something very different for the messiah than "Jewish champion" or "bully to end all bullies."

But right now the lesson is to suffer one last time in a system that uses even us to prop itself up.  "Power over" is being called out and it still will try to have the last say.

Next week we can think about how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus expose the pretense, our pretense.  No more scapegoats to prop up power.  No more caste systems.  No more being offended or avoiding offense.

Until then we should check our own assumptions and name the collusion our mimetic desire finds us practicing.

The Work of Lent: Part 4

Over a year ago I wrote a series of these "blurbs" about the intersection between sabbaths and Sundays.

One of the properties of sabbath that is often lost on Sundays -- especially as Christians observe them -- is silence.  Few worship workshops, church growth seminars, church convention vendor booths or diocesan guidelines regard silence as something on which to build or grow.

A quick review of the church supply catalogues and other resources that arrive and beckon incessantly will demonstrate the point just as well.  They offer us the latest in microphones and speakers but NO sound proofing materials.  We are encouraged to upgrade to the newest in multilevel membership tracking software but nothing to promote meditation or mindfulness. We are bedazzled with elegant and ornate vestments, sterling vessels and gilded fixtures with hardly a wooden candle stick or processional cross to consider.  We vote on purpose statements and slogans galore but say nothing about "communicants in good standing" being determined by how well they maintain silence.

I get it that this silence thing is not an easy way to build a church.  You need all those other elements and practices just as much.  Unfortunately other than the mandates on Ash Wednesday just before the imposition of ashes, during the entrance and prayers of Good Friday or when the BCP says "A period of silence is kept" following the breaking of the bread in holy communion most of what we establish is a permissive or suggestive practice of silence.  Indeed, no word accompanies the word "silence" in the BCP more than the word "may."

So how do we build with silence?

One answer is implied at least and mentioned often in the Growing a Rule of Life curriculum.

When we are led to work through the delayed gratification of not yet fashioning a rule of life more than four weeks into our study but instead have shared our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, our relationships with others and our relationship with God we are implying a silence.

It is a way to say to those of us who would prefer a beginner's kit to hit the ground running, that we must first survey as much of the world in which our rule will be practiced and take the time to create a space, one as clear as can be of obstruction and distraction.

The gardening metaphor is ideal for this task.  It recalls our actions on the Tuesday before we begin our Lenten journey.  Then we "shrived" to rid our spiritual pantries of those wasteful and spoiled things we have accreted and stored in darkness.

Shrove Tuesday may be busy but by being a first round of weeding it sets the stage for silence.  Gone in a rush of intentional over-exposure are the fats and sugars, the toys and glitter that would litter or distract us.

I love how we have been led by our Cowley brothers in this study.  As much by what they have not said as what they have said.  As much by what we have not yet done as we have done.  They have given us so much but they have not given it all or promised too much.  We still have more to do, to name, to imagine, to practice.

But under all of this is a silence.

The Work of Lent: Part 3

I’ve learned a bunch in the last week about this thing called Lent and especially how what I’ve called work is only part of Growing a Rule of Life.

Our group conversations have deeply considered what we are calling the “physicality of prayer.”  Our bodies are not simply containers for a spirit to abide temporarily but are just as much actors in the drama of spiritual growth.  Our bodies kneel, our bodies breathe, our bodies rest, our bodies move in prayer, in pain, in bliss, in worry, in love.

Now I’m realizing that the way in which we construct our rule must be more than a set of directions.  More than just foot prints on the floor implying a dance to be learned.  St. Paul said, “without love I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.”  Without love my rule sinks into self interest and social climbing.

One of the ways love is expressed is in how we aspire through our lives toward meaning, toward mercy, toward others. 

I’ve been listening to this song and have heard in it a rule of life that is not simply a set of directions but a pronouncement of where I believe love can take me. 

This is not exactly what our Cowley brothers are guiding us to construct but there is plenty in this song for us to include or name in our own ways in our rules. There is whimsy, there is truth, there is aspiration.  There is love.

Gospel 

I want to make it out alive never think about looking back.
I want to drive like hell when I steal the Devil's Cadillac.
I want to take that old El Dorado down a dirt road.
with How I Made It Over playing on the radio. 

I want to be solid as the earth and cool like the night air.
I want to believe even though I know life don't play fair.
I want to wear my heart on my sleeve but be tough when I have to.
I want to dust off the stars and hang them on the wall for you. 

I want to ask all the questions with answers we'll never know.
I want to find my faith in records from long ago.
I want to set fear on fire and give dreaming a fair shot.
and never give up whether anybody cares or not. 

 John Moreland

PS  Thanks Brian Easton

The Work of Lent: Part 2

After last week's writing and conversations many of you were encouraged to work "harder" at your Lenten disciplines with a new focus on improving how we live in the world God is already loving, already raising, already saving.

My favorite was hearing this from one of the Growing a Rule of Life participants: "As the garden grows, so grows the gardener."

Two things jumped into my thinking upon hearing this gem.  First is how consistent with what we have already begun to consider about how we are compelled to focus and "shrive" and pray and make ourselves ready for hearing again that our messiah has died . . . and has been raised.

I remember my first Lent with Advent. On Ash Wednesday we were already surrounded by blossom after blossom of God's springing our world out of the darkness and the cold of winter.

It made no sense to beat up on ourselves so as to earn a place at the foot of the cross or even better at the entrance to the empty tomb or in the upper room.  God was already redeeming us and our world and the tender shoots and hopeful sprouts and unfolding leaves were all the evidence we needed to understand God as already ahead of us.

Lent became a hustle to catch up, a renewed effort to align our lives, an admission that we were saved by a gracious love and not in reward for good behavior or right thinking.

As the garden grows by God's hand, so grows the gardener.

The other thought was a story I tell often, at least annually and so here I go again:

The vicar of the church would walk each day through his village, mostly for his health but often to pause and pray or to be caught in conversation with parishioners.  One property always impressed him with the richness, beauty and order of its gardens.

Finally one day he saw the gardener.  He sprang at the chance to meet him and called him over.  Immediately he began praising him and thanking him for the loveliness of the gardens and how they always uplifted his spirits when he would pause and view them. Even the vegetables growing off to one side were lush and healthy, it was all a joy to behold. 

He went on to say to the gardener, "How fortunate you are and blessed by God to be surrounded by such life and vibrancy with this beautiful garden!!"

The gardener politely thanked the vicar, "You are very kind to recognize the beauty of this garden and I agree that God has blessed me with its care but vicar I have to say you should have seen this garden when God had it all to himself."

I'm still laughing but I am just as impressed with how this story makes a claim about our gardening as co-creative in partnership.

The work of Lent is ours to do because we are made in the image of God, meant to share a garden with God.  And as the garden grows . . .

The Work of Lent

For most of my life in the Episcopal Church I have used Lent.  There was always one thing prevented or avoided -- food, candy, entertainment, etc -- so that I would not be so distracted by it for at least a while and perhaps gain some mastery over its temptations.  Or a thing added to my broken routine of prayer, business, laziness, anxiety, procrastination, excitement, wonder and regret. Yes, I just described what was my typical day.

But what I did extra or new during Lent was always for me.  Always to improve me.  Yes to improve my prayer life but to improve it for me.  Always to help me. Yes to work more efficiently or effectively but to help me.  Always for me.

After I came to ordination and was called to the responsibilities of leadership in a chapel or parish I let my Lenten disciplines develop for the sake of the congregation.  Don't be fooled by this potential humility.  In many cases I was just trying to get others to join in my doing things more in line with my expertise.  More prayer services in particular.

I'll admit that I used Lent to shape my role.  I didn't want a bunch of meetings that required preparation or classes that needed study I just wanted to do what parishes needed a priest to do.  I guess I was being selfish by also using Lent to guarantee that I was needed.

Seldom did I use Lent to become a better pastor or to improve my management skills, or to work more efficiently.  I just wanted to simplify my life and avoid failure and disappointment.

This Growing a Rule of Life curriculum is not letting me do Lent like I've ever done it before.  These Cowley Brothers are pushing me everyday to dig deeper into my own heart and farther into the world of God's love and more broadly into the ramifications of those considerations to do way more than trim a bad habit, conquer temptation or add more to my meager patterns of prayer.

Everyday there is another question to dwell within, another metaphor to wonder/wander through, another challenge to receive, another structure to imagine and practice in growing a rule of life.

Up to now in my life of Lenten disciplines both personal and parochial I have done just a minimum of questioning, wondering, challenging or structuring.  I have done just enough for me.  For me to say I "did Lent." For me not to question my alleluias come Easter.  For me to lose a little weight, save a little money, work a little easier.  For me.

Now I see that I was just cheating, at least short cutting, "filing by title" something that cried for more engagement, more enrichment, more content, more work.

But like a gardener's, the work of Lent, a la SSJE, is never ending and not rewarded in a moment.  It isn't just planting, or just trellising, or just watering, or just harvesting.

The work of Lent for me this year is growing into the gardener my hopes deserve, into the daily care-taker that has several duties to be learned, appreciated, habituated and finally oblated.  Rewarded more in the doing than in the being done.

This "growing a rule of life" is the work of Lent and I'm pretty sure it is for me but like ever before.

Lent according to Mitch

His name is Mitch.  He is married and working on a dairy farm near Indianapolis.   We were introduced by another student.  They knew each other from their summers as leaders at Boy Scout Camp.  I baptized him at the Episcopal Center @ UGA early in his time as a student.

Each year after Mitch's baptism he became more and more important to the student community as a leader and in a more meaningful way, as a prophet.

He always asked really good questions.  He always wanted things not to just make sense but for the end result of any decision to be just and fair.

Mitch taught me how to "do Lent."

You may already know that I'm not inclined to work too hard on giving things up for Lent.  I've so seldom found "a thing" that once given up didn't return into my life and in a few cases trivialize all that my Lenten discipline had intended.  Every time I've given up a food or confection -- coffee and chocolate come to mind -- I've binged on those same items as soon as the egg hunts are started.

For me Lent is better used to grow into more prayer, more study, more of those things that help me in my life of faith.  So I take on things for Lent that are most often churchy and that require a continued commitment once the forty days are over.

What I learned from Mitch was that my Lenten disciplines could -- perhaps should -- help make the world a better place.  At the very least I should learn something from them.

The lessons I learned from Mitch started the Lent he decided to go bare-footed.  Yes in the dead of a fairly intense and lingering winter Mitch took his shoes off.

He made some reasonable adjustments, one was to leave a pair of shoes at his work place so that he could continue his employment.  They would have fired him otherwise.

He made a concession to the group on those few occasions when we decided to meet together at a restaurant or bar.  That is from where the name Theolatte´ came.  We would meet at an Athens coffeeshop and discuss our spiritual lives and the issues of the days.

I gave him a pair of flip flops that he could carry in his book bag so he could enter when the sign said, "No shirt? No shoes? No service."

We learned so much as a community from Mitch's bare feet.  Especially when we saw one of Athens' homeless in the same state, not by choice.

The next year Mitch kept all his garbage to himself.

If a food item came in a bag or a disposable container he carried that refuse with him for the rest of the forty days.  Thank goodness he learned how to minimize his exposure especially to the waste generated by fast food restaurants and super markets.

Think of how many ketchup packets are thrown away unopened!

By the end of the season he had learned to avoid many places and customs we as quintessential consumers never second guessed.

Mitch's Lent was for Mitch AND because he did not hide his efforts was for us as well.  We learned so much from his bare feet and stuffed sack.

Can our Lenten disciplines teach us as much?

Rehearsing Ash Wednesday

The dynamic of our lives as a people baptized into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is a remarkable thing to be done as well as to be said.  It is not just a thing we assert.  Yes, we do recite the Nicene Creed's version of that claim and all that goes with it in that embellished trinitarian hedge.

But more importantly we DO the things that our mouths profess.  Or more correctly, when we do those things in worship that our mouths profess in creeds and hymns -- in particular those things in worship like baptizing, breaking bread, sharing a cup, confessing, anointing, confirming, marrying, or ordaining -- we are rehearsing. We are doing within the confines of a community of faith those symbolic actions that we hope will take shape in our lives outside the walls on 338 Academy St.

About the rehearsing: Sunday worship is so much of what we do together, it has almost become an idol.  Too many of us, myself included, will let Monday be free from those concerns and claims we have just asserted and heard and those actions we have just practiced less than 24 hours prior as if NOT doing them is our reward for having done them symbolically on Sunday.

So the best we can claim about our Sunday gathering is that it is a rehearsal for the rest of our lives. In worship we are acting out in a hopeful pattern of entrance, offertory, silence, consecration, and dismissal our desire to join in brokenness and death the one who was raised and gloriously holds the promise of our resurrection to life, eternally.

The Ash Wednesday service is also a rehearsal.  We are doing something symbolic in kneeling to confess and while in that descent marking our bodies with a reminder of who we really are.

"Remember that you are dust," we say and the words perform through us.  And so you will hear it said, we "do" ashes.  Of all the symbolic actions done in our liturgies nothing challenges us like the imposition of ashes.

The challenge really comes later when we go out of the church's doors with a cross smudged on our foreheads and we no longer have the comfort of what we are doing being only a rehearsal.  I remember how awkward it felt to watch Stephen Colbert on TV, his forehead well marked.

It is not enough to dismiss the gospel for the day as ironic when it includes Jesus' command to us to wash our disfigured faces so as not to make a show of our piety.  We must admit that in order for what we say to be substantiated by what we do shows of piety or telling people we went to church or even telling them that we will pray for them are not enough.

We all know this already.  How many times in your own life have you heard someone you love say, "'I'm sorry' is not enough"?

By extension Lent is also a rehearsal.  40 days of practice.  40 days of holding together our words and our actions.  40 days of holding together what we do in church and what we do in the world.   40 days of rehearsing for a life of confession and humility and hope.  40 days of remembering that we are the dust for whom He became all dust.