Habemus Papam, Holy Thursday Edition

I had no idea.  Since Pope Francis was named I have been reveling in the daily news about him.  He takes the bus!  He cooks his own meals!  Not an article has been published, it seems, that does not identify humility as Pope Francis' chief attribute.  

So I was caught off-guard when I stumbled upon this blog, which I imagine to be only one portal into a conversation that has been going on out of my earshot among "traditionalist" Catholics.  

This particular post concerns the Pope's celebration of Holy Thursday mass at a youth prison and washing the feet of two women and two Muslims among the symbolic twelve.  The comments are stunning to me in their panicked judgments that all hell is breaking loose at the Vatican.  This incident seems to be insult to injury for a community of Catholics who have felt that the previous two Popes were on their team, supporting their point of view and finally rectifying the trouble called by the "Hippie council" (which is the way in which at least one comment referred to Vatican II).

So let me get this straight:  When the Pope is doing what the traditionalists want, he is the spiritual leader of the church, the seat of moral authority.  When he's not, well, he's not.  Pope John XXIII presided over a the Second Vatican Council, but we disagree with its findings so we can disparage it and him.  Pope Francis doesn't want to live in the fancy papal apartments, so he's denigrating the authority of his office.

Jesus, help us.

Remember Jesus?  The Son of Man, who had "no place to lay his head" (Luke 9:58)?  Remember Peter, the ostensible prototype for the papacy, who was a "sinful" fisherman when Jesus called him (Luke 5:1-11)?  Neither of them ever lived in a palace.  Jesus was more often seen hanging around with the likes of youths in prison and women than with the religious elite, who, when they were around, were usually complaining about how Jesus was breaking with tradition in dangerous ways.  Sound familiar?

As Christians, we do not worship a tradition.  We worship the God who is revealed in the man Jesus of Nazareth.  This is a God who identified with the poor and the sinner (2 Corinthians 5:21).  This is the God who preferred a servant's towel and a brutal death to being separated from the men and women he created and loved (cf. John 13 and Philippians 2).  This is the God who died for sinners, not the righteous (Roman 5:8).

He keeps showing up in his distressing disguise, and when we recognize him -- in the feet of a girl who has committed a crime or the hands of the priest who washes them -- he might cause us upset or alarm.  He was a thorn in the sides of the religious authorities of his day and the religious authorities of ours as well.  

In the coming days we will remember him not only thus, on his knees with a towel wrapped around his waist, but stripped and bleeding in the public square, dragging a log through the streets of Jerusalem, and suffocating, a crown of thorns pressed to his head, hanging by nails on a Roman cross.  Nothing was too shameful for him.  He was willing to take the full brunt of the consequences of law and tradition, bearing the curse for us  (Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13).

Let us not paint a different picture, one that is cleaner, more palatable for us, one wrapped in clean white linen and the trappings of worldly authority.  That's not what he has given us.  Instead, tonight, we will have to come to terms with dirty feet, a body, as bread, broken, blood poured out.  It might make us uneasy.  I think he wants it to.

Lenten Journey: Dying Before We Die

Brothers and sisters:  I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  

Philippians 3:8-11

For Reflection...

She was as good as dead.  She stood before the mercy seat awaiting the just judgment, which she knew was death by stoning.  But then she didn't die.  Or did she?

In a powerful talk entitled The Authority of Those Who Have Suffered (as well as in many other places in his body of work) Richard Rohr reflects a central message of the New Testament:  The journey into Christ passes through death.  Jesus himself talks about the grain of wheat (John 12:24) and the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-40).  Paul says it in Philippians 3:10-11.  Until we descend into the earth, unless we are swallowed whole and end up in the belly of the whale, we cannot become the bearers of life and God's word of mercy.

Isn't this the case for the woman caught in adultery?  From her ordinary, admittedly sinful, life she is dragged forth into the harsh light of judgment.  From her complacency, she finds herself suddenly in the throes of suffering.  She is in the belly of the whale.

It is a baptism by fire this suffering of hers, of ours.  While she escapes physical death, her suffering is a death nonetheless.  When Jesus tells her to go and sin no more (John 8:11), he is acknowledging that her life cannot be, is not, what it was.  Something has changed.  Some part of her has died.  He is inviting her to recognize it.  She has lost something that was once of value to her -- her lover or her sense of safety, perhaps -- but what she has gained, Christ, is so much more.

For Entering In...

- Enter into the presence of God as the woman caught in adultery.  Can you use your imagination to see the face of Jesus, the face of Mercy, before you?

- Reflect on these questions:

• Have you experienced a crisis after which your life could not be the same?  Maybe it was something big -- a death of a loved one or some other significant loss.  Maybe it was more subtle.  Maybe it was a series of experiences over time.  Remember your life before.  Remember the dawning awareness that nothing could be the same after.

• The Christian view of the spiritual life has the death and resurrection of Jesus at its center.  It is the model for all of reality.  (If you doubt the truth of this pattern, look at the cycles of the natural world.)  Take that in:  Death and resurrection is the pattern of our lives.  What does that mean to you?

• While God does not ordain that bad things happen -- that is a by-product of good creation broken by sin -- God wastes nothing, but uses suffering as the fodder for redemption.  Consider an experience of suffering with which you are familiar, yours or someone else's.  Can you see a way in which God used that experience for good (cf. Romans 8:28)?

• Using your imagination, consider the woman caught in adultery.  How might her life be different going forward?  Put yourself in her place.  Take your time.  Imagine having been on the brink of just condemnation and death and having come through alive.  How might your life be different?

• Every new day is a day we don't deserve; it is always a gift of life from God.  How can you live today in awareness of that fact?  Where can you experience gratitude?  How would you live today if it was the only day you will ever have?  

- Spend several minutes allowing your body and mind to be at rest.  If thoughts come, let them go by.  What if the only thing that mattered was your being, not your thinking or feeling or doing?

Lenten Journey: A Future and a Hope

John 8:1-11

For Reflection...

Now they stand face to face, the Woman and the Judge.  He has established the terms:  "'Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her'" (v. 7).  What will he do now?

We've heard the story before.  Even if we haven't, we don't expect the Jesus we've come to know to pick up a stone.  But he could.

He is in a position to condemn.  He is right with God himself, without sin.  The law provides for this particular circumstance.  He has said that he has come not to abolish but to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17).

Here's the fulfillment:  "'Neither do I condemn you.  Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more'" (v. 11).  Not a stoning but instead a release and an invitation.

What can it mean?  Adulterers merit stoning.  But Jesus does not see an adulterer; he sees a woman with a face and a name, a history -- and a future.  He knows that she can be more, is already more, than her sin.  His hope for her transcends the limits of the law.

In Romans 7, Paul explains,

...if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin....I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.  For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. (vv 7b, 9-11)

In Jesus, we do not bypass the good law (Romans 7:7), but, rather, we move through the death that comes to us in the law into new life (cf. Isaiah 43:19ff).  In spite of our guilt, we are given a future and a new hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

For Entering In...

- As you become aware of being in the presence of God, notice -- does God feel close or far?  Do you feel connected or disconnected to God?  To your own heart?  Don't judge, just allow yourself to be wherever you are today.

- Reflect on these questions:

• What laws do you feel bound to live under?  Secular laws?  Religious laws?  Which of those laws to you feel you have upheld?  Which have you violated?

• When have you expected -- or felt you deserved -- condemnation for some wrong you have done?  What happened?  Did you receive what you expected?  Or did you receive unexpected mercy?  Either way, how did that feel?

• Have you been in a position to judge someone else?  What would it mean for your hope to transcend the limits of the just law?  Do you feel that would be fair or unfair?  Why?

• How has the law been death to you?  Where have you experienced some form of spiritual death in relation to the dictates of law and your success or failure in meeting them?

• What is it that you want Jesus to hope for in you?  What is the future that he sees for you?  Can you imagine a future more filled with abundance and life than you've dared to dream of?

- Spend several minutes allowing your body and mind to be at rest.  If thoughts come, let them go by.  What if the only thing that mattered was your being, not your thinking or feeling or doing?

Lenten Journey: The Father

"He said to him, 'My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.  But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.'"

- Luke 15:31-32 

For Reflection...

Here is the father's last word, his bottom line:  I love you, and I love you.  That is all there is.  No rebuke to the younger.  No rebuff to the elder.  Both are given everything.  Both are called to celebrate and rejoice.  Both, both, are called to life, to be found.

This, finally, is what God is doing in me.  God rejects nothing.  God redeems and reconciles all.  There is nothing in me that is so dead that God cannot resurrect it, nothing so lost that God cannot restore it.

I am the elder brother, and God will take my resentment and turn it to acceptance, my self-righteousness and make of it humility, and my stubbornness God will soften into receptivity.

I am the younger brother, and God will take my thoughtlessness and turn it to compassion, my selfishness and make of it a willingness to serve, and my self-will God will soften into trust.

The father holds out faith that the younger son will return, hope that the elder will come to the feast, and love  for them both, not after they fulfill his will for them, but before and ever and always (Romans 5:8).

It is not a story of a prodigal son, but of a prodigal father.  He is a father whose generosity, whose gift of freedom, whose love is prodigal, "a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, ...poured into your lap" (Luke 6:38).

For Entering In...

- If you are reading this, our prodigal Father has called you and desires for you to know he has given you everything.  Become aware that you stand now and always in the presence of that God.

- Reflect on these questions:

• Take three minutes to watch this video, then answer this question:  Do you believe that God loves you?

• What in you have you despaired of ever seeing transformed?  Give it to God, today.  This isn't about trying to fix yourself or even having any idea of how your life could be different.  Simply open your heart to the possibility that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). 

• What would it look like for you to come in to the celebration today?  What do you need to step through or around in order to feast on the fatted calf?  The door is open.  The Father is waiting.  The party is for you.  What is one thing you can do to say, yes, to your invitation to the feast?

• List all of the things that you feel have been poured into your life from the fount of love.  Write a prayer of thanksgiving and rejoicing.

• If you haven't already, watch this video.  Really.  If you watched it once, watch it again.  God loves you.

- Carry with you into the rest of your day the sure knowledge that a celebration more wonderful than the most resplendent feast you can imagine is being prepared for you.  That is how much you are loved.  Bask in the glow of your belovedness.

Lenten Journey: The Fig Tree

And he told them this parable:  "There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none.  So cut it down.  Why should it exhaust the soil?'  He said to him in reply, 'Sir, leave it for this year also, ans I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.  If not you can cut it down.'" 

- Luke 13:6-9 

For Reflection...

It's just a simple fact.  Fig trees are meant to bear fruit.  That is God's will.  If I plant one in my orchard, that's what I'm going to expect of it.  Other trees can get by with just providing shade or looking attractive.  Fig trees can do those things too, but they are also supposed to produce a harvest of figs.

Producing fruit is the nature of the fig tree.  It doesn't have to do anything in particular.  It can't, after all.  It can draw water and nutrients from the soil.  Its leaves can capture sunlight and by photosynthesis turn it into life energy.  Beyond that, it just sits there, rooted in the ground, waiting for summer.

What does it mean if the tree isn't bearing fruit?  Maybe, as the landowner in the parable might suspect, this tree is a dud.  Or maybe, as the gardener suggests, the tree hasn't been cultivated sufficiently.  More water?  More fertilizer?  A fresh tilling of the soil?  More loving care and nurture?  Maybe that's what's needed.

God's will for the fig tree is that it grow to maturity and bear fruit.  God's will for me is that I grow to maturity (Ephesians 4:14-15) and bear fruit too (Galatians 5:22-23).  I'm made for it, and so are you.  It is our nature.  We don't have to make it happen.

What we are called to do, like the fig tree, is to be receptive to the ministrations of the gardener.  We can reach our roots deeply into the ground and draw from the living waters (Jeremiah 17:8).   And we can endure the work of our cultivation.

The fig tree stands steady through the digging and the spreading of manure and the pruning.  It's messy and it smells.  It's painful to lose branches, even as the branches that remain hold the promise of bearing more fruit (see John 15:2).

And bearing fruit is what we're made for.

For Entering In...

- Spend a few moments in silence becoming present to yourself and to God.

- Reflect on these questions:

• God has made a world filled with variety.  As there are many kinds of fruit-bearing trees, so there are many gifts among us.  What do you see as your particular gifts?  What sort of fruit are you made to bear?

• The fig tree can't make itself bear fruit.  Have you had an experience of trying to demand of yourself that you accomplish something?  How was that for you?  Was it difficult or easy?  Do you feel you were successful or unsuccessful?

• How are you at waiting?  If the gardener has to do the work, we have to trust the gardener's timing.  What is it like for you when your timing and the gardener's aren't the same?

• How do you see yourself being cultivated?  What is God doing?  Digging?  Spreading manure?  Pruning?  How receptive are you?  Have you ever experienced your own suffering as a source of the gardener's care?

- Today or tomorrow or this weekend -- or all three, as your time allows -- spend some time in silence with the word you have fastened to your heart.  Just gently hold your word, allowing all other thoughts or feelings that come up to float by.  Know that God is with you.

Lenten Journey: God's Judgment

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.  Jesus said tho them in reply, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?  By no means!  But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!  Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them -- do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?  By no means!  But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will perish as they did!"

- Luke 13:1-5 

God our Savior...desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

- 1 Timothy 2:3-4 

For Reflection...

We hear it in fiery evangelical messages, the warning of God's imminent judgment.  It is Biblical, from the Old Testament prophets through John the Baptist.  Repent! they say.  Follow God's law.  Turn away from idols.  Or, as I heard on Ash Wednesday, Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.

Or else.

God has established his will, so the argument goes; humans have disobeyed.  God has established his law; humans have gone our own way.  There must be consequences.

Isn't that how it works?  I am not a god, but I am a parent, and there are similarities, if this argument holds.  I bring these children into the world and expect them to adhere to my will and follow the laws I set down or face the consequences.  It's true, and it works -- up to a point.

One of my challenges as a parent has always been that, when my children haven't followed my rules, set down in black and white, I see all the grey.  Is it that they won't, or is it that they can't?  As a friend recently said to me, "It sounds like you're more mercy than judgment."  Exactly.

If that is true of me in any sense, it must be more true of the God whose character is kind and merciful.  If I know of my children, of myself, that sometimes we cannot do the good we might will to do (cf. Romans 7), than God knows that all the more.

So what does Jesus -- Jesus! -- mean when he says that if we don't repent, we will perish in bloody conflict, buried under the rubble of fallen towers?  Is he saying that God will smite us into hell?  I don't think so.

In 1 Timothy, we're told that God "desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth."  Everyone.  That is God's will -- that we be saved and not come to destruction.  It is not God's will that threatens my salvation; it is my will.  What I know as a parent is that the rules I make for my children are for their good.  I am trying to keep them safe physically, emotionally, spiritually.  Don't run in the street.  Don't hold a grudge.  Don't forget to say your prayers.  I'm trying to guide them in building lives that will lead them to the knowledge of truth.

Jesus knows the same thing about the God's will for us.  Following the will of God is the way for us to be safe.  It doesn't guarantee a carefree life.  This we know.  Tyrants will still attack.  Towers will still fall.  But our real life, the life that matters, the life that carries on into eternity, will endure.

For Entering In...

- Spend a few moments in silence becoming present to yourself and to God. What does it feel like to be alert and aware in God's present?

- Reflect on these questions:

• What have you believed about God's judgment?  What were you taught as a child, if anything?  What have you heard or thought about it as an adult?

• Have you been in a position to set limits and enforce consequences on someone you love?  As a parent?  Teacher?  Pet owner?  What has your experience been?  How have you held the space between judgment and mercy?

• Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom."  Spend a few minutes silently reflecting on this verse.  What do you understand it to mean?  What does God have to say to you in prayer about "the fear of God"?

• Have you had a specific experience where you had a strong sense of God's will for you?  How did you know?  What did you do?  Did you say yes or no?  What were the consequences?

- Again today, remember the word that you have fastened to your heart.  Continue to use your word, day and night, to recall you to the truth that God is with you always. 

Lenten Journey: Original Sin

Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! 

- Romans 7:24-25

For Reflection...

Once upon a time God created human beings.  I don't know how God did it.  Evolution seems indisputable, but God can create however God wants.  In any event, self-consciousness arose in the fullness of time according to a plan in the eternal mind of God, and there was adam, which in Hebrew is human.  

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

- Genesis 1:27

Created in the very image of God.  It is no wonder that God declares them not just good but "very good" (Genesis 1:31).

What does it mean that we are created in God's good image?  Here's what I think:  The Son of God always was, and we are made like him.  He becomes "like us" (cf. Hebrews 4:15) only in that we were made in his image.  What separates us from him is what we call sin.

How have we fallen so far?  Yesterday we took up our courage and began to look at our own sin, but the Christian story teaches us that my personal sin is only a latter chapter in the story of humanity's collective sin.   Even if we move past the idea of self-help to a recognition of our dependence upon God, we often understand God's plan for our salvation to be about God and me alone, my personal relationship, as we say. While it is true that my relationship with God matters -- and we'll get there -- if we're to understand what any of this has to do with Jesus, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

If we're to see the creation stories in Genesis as in any sense True, we must give credence to humankind's place at the pinnacle of the created order.  We humans, out of all creation, are God's elect.  That doesn't mean we're better than rocks or trees or cows or stars or angels.  It means we were given a particular role to play.  We were given the task to be the stewards of the rest of creation (Genesis 1:26).  We humans are the intermediaries between God and everything God has created.  We humans are meant to bridge the gap.

But something went wrong on our end.  There are many, many interpretations of Genesis 3, where the first man and first woman, enticed by the serpent, succumb to temptation and eat the forbidden fruit.  What does this allegory signify?  In earlier times, it was seen as some sort of sexual sin.  Looking at the text, we might wonder if their original sin is disobedience? Or is it ingratitude, as suggested in something I recently read?  Or, as I am inclined to believe, is it the most basic form of idolatry, wherein I eschew the idea of any god other than my own self will and confuse my true dependence for a false freedom?

What is certain is that there is a rupture in the relationship between humans and our Creator God.  We, who were supposed to hold the space between the Creator and creation walked away to do our own thing.  Faced with temptation, we acquiesced, leaving creation to be overrun by the "powers and principalities" (Ephesians 6:12).

We know it's true.  All we have to do is read the morning news.  It is not just our own souls that are broken; it is the whole world, from the most intimate human relationships to nature itself.  Things are not as they should be.  But God never intended to leave it that way.

For Entering In...

- Spend a few moments in the quiet becoming present to yourself.  Notice how it feels to be in your body to be here, now.

- Invite God to be present with you.  Notice what it feels like to be in God's presence.

- Reflect on these questions:

• What does it mean to you that humans are created "in the image of God"?

• How do you understand human beings in relationship to the rest of creation?  What do you think it means that God made humans to be the stewards of creation?

• What have you learned or thought about "original sin"?  What, if anything, do you believe it has to do with you and your personal relationship to God?

• What do you think is meant by "powers and principalities"?  What powers do you see acting for ill in the world today?

• If it is true that all of creation is broken by sin, what do you see as the most egregious manifestations of that brokenness?  In what circumstances does your heart most cry out for God to act in healing and saving ways?  Write these down.  They will be important later, when we reflect more on how each of us is called into mission in God's kingdom.

- As you complete today's reflection, take a moment to consider your own personal failings.  Can you confess them to God and receive the forgiveness that God is holding out to you even now?

Lenten Journey: Sin

For Reflection...

Having reflected that which tempts us, we have no choice but to consider a concept at which our modern world tends to turn up its nose -- that is, sin.  We live in an era, in our western world, that has little use for the idea of sin.  We are told that I'm okay and you're okay and that, if we feel we might not be, a diet of self-help is all we need to improve.

Any suggestion that there is a right and a wrong, is seen as moralizing -- which is seen as unhealthy and exclusive.  We don't want to judge, many of us.  And those who are quite comfortable judging, declaring who is "in" and who is "out" of God's good graces, nearly always judge themselves to be in and someone with whom they disagree or who they don't understand to be out.

It is tempting to abandon the whole conversation.  The problem is, we know that there is something in us that is not right.  As we embark on a journey of prayer and self-reflection, that knowledge begins to loom larger. When I am living unconsciously, perhaps I can ignore what I know.  I can watch another episode of something, have another drink, send another text -- whatever it takes to distract me.  But as soon as I start to tune in to my own soul and to God's presence there, it becomes impossible to ignore the sense of my own unworthiness.

God is good.  We can get lost in the weeds of the world, looking at cancer and war and abuse and question God's goodness, but when we become present to God in our own souls, we know in a deeper place than our rational thoughts that God is good -- and that we are not.  Now, I am no Calvinist, nor even a good Lutheran; I believe that there is good in us -- because God has made it so.  Still, it is clear that we are not as good as we might be, as we long to be, and not good as God is good.  As we draw near to God, we become painfully aware of our own failings, our sin.

I have sat through many a sermon, particularly Lenten sermons, where I have been instructed in how to be better.  Call it pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps theology.  It is not, however Christian theology.  Self-help, doing better, is not the answer.  That is the culture talking.  Is it so very difficult to see that if we could be better on our own, we would be better already?  Paul says it famously in Romans 7:15ff:  

I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law [what God wills] is good.  But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh [as opposed to my spirit].  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.

Paul continues, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?"  Because I cannot rescue myself.

For Entering In...

- Spend a few moments in the quiet becoming present to yourself.  Notice how it feels to be in your body to be here, now.

- Invite God to be present with you.  Notice what it feels like to be in God's presence.

- Reflect on these questions:

• How do you understand the idea of sin?  Have you learned something about sin from your childhood?  Your church?  What are the associations that the word sin conjures up for you?

• What is your personal moral code?  What actions or behaviors do you think of as "good" or "bad"?  How does your personal sense of morality compare with that of your family of origin?  Your church?  Your social circle?  Society at large?

• How does it feel when you are out of step with the professed or implied moral code of someone else or the culture?  How does it feel when you judge you have violated your own moral standards?

• Have you tried to reform something you don't like about yourself?  How did you go about it?  What happened?

• Notice as you enter into prayer this week whether you are becoming more aware of your own failings.  What does that feel like?  Can you sit with that feeling, without judging it, just noticing it, in the presence of God?  

Lenten Journey: First Sunday - The Desert

Scripture Readings for the Day

Deuteronomy 26:4-10

Psalm 91

Romans 10:8-13

Luke 4:1-13

For Reflection...

They should have warned us.  We should have known.  The first lesson of the spiritual life is a hard lesson:   The road to salvation -- to peace and gratitude and joy -- passes straight through the desert.  If you have begun more intentionally to pray, perhaps you know what I mean.

For the new convert or the committed person of faith the words of Romans 10:10-11 may seem to proffer the guarantee of an easy road:

...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For one believes with the heart and so is justified and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.  For the Scripture says, No one who believes in him will be put to shame.

Paul makes it sound so easy.  I want his words to mean that the road to on-going conversion and sanctification is a carefree one.  Once I put my faith in God through Christ, I think I ought to be home free.  I am justified, saved, free.  I confess, I believe --  yet I struggle.

Sometimes I find that the more I turn to God, the more I pray, the harder the journey becomes for a time.  Just in the moment when I begin to think that my confession is rooted more deeply in my heart and my belief is grounded in works of faith (James 2:14), I discover new temptations at every turn -- temptations, moreover, that I do not feel equipped to face in faith.  In just the moment when I expect to feel strong and consoled, I instead feel weak and alone.

What is God doing in me, in us?  Is this the abundant life of which Jesus assures us (John 10:10)?  This is the promise?  How will we endure it?

For Entering In...

- Are you feeling at home in your quiet spot?  Have you begun to look forward to this time?  Spend a few moments becoming present to yourself.  Notice how it feels to be in your body, here, now.

- Invite God to be present with you.

- Reflect on these questions:

• Have you spent more time in prayer since last Wednesday?  What has that been like for you?  If not, are you willing to set aside any judgments and jump in where you are?

• What have you expected from a life of faith?  Are there things you learned as a child or as an adult convert?  What have your parents or church or the media or culture taught you about what a believer's life is "supposed to" be like?

• Have you ever experienced a time of renewed faith, only then to be beset by more difficult spiritual challenges?  How did that feel?  What did you do?

• What are the most difficult temptations you struggle with in your life today?

• As we enter this first full week of Lent, are you willing to consider persevering despite challenges that may arise?  Is there someone in your life who can help you stay accountable?  A friend?  A pastor?  A spiritual director?  

- When you have answered these questions in your thoughts or in writing, pause and again become present to yourself and to God.  What do you notice?

When All Hell Breaks Loose

In the tradition in which I grew up, we did not talk about spiritual warfare.  I never even heard the concept until well into adulthood.  I had never given so much as a thought to "powers and principalities."  (It must be said that the tradition in which I grew up did not encourage private Bible reading in those days either, so I was completely unacquainted with, say, Romans 8.)

To be honest, when I began to hear friends from other traditions talk about spiritual warfare, I was more than a little skeptical.  It sounded a little hysterical to me.  Then, as I started to pay more attention, I wasn't so sure.

At the very least, I have always believed that there are true things beyond what I experience with my senses -- otherwise, I would not believe in God, would I?  Then I had to ask myself, "Do you believe that things aren't all as they should be in this life?"  Um, yeah.  That's obvious.

As I became more familiar with the Bible, I could see the contours of the great cosmic struggle -- not a pitched battle between forces of good and evil, like many world mythologies would have it, but a one-off intervention by God in a creation which had submitted itself to idols.

Here's how the logic works:  Humans are creatures, made to submit to our Creator.  In some fundamental way, we have collectively balked at the idea, preferring not to submit to the Creator in the expectation that we won't have to submit at all, but be our own masters.  It's what traditional orthodoxy calls "Original Sin."  Problem is, it doesn't work that way.  We creatures are contingent; we can't be our own boss.  So if we say to God, "Sorry, we're not going to follow you," we're stuck with following something else.  We can't declare our independence.  We're not made that way.

So now we're stuck with a new boss, the "ruler of this world" (see John 12:31 and John 14:30).  You can call it the devil or Satan, if you want, or you can just think of it as not God.  It might help to add that Satan means "the accuser," which I have come to see as a direct contrast to the Holy Spirit, who is called "the Advocate" (see John 14:26).  The Advocate is working on our behalf; the accuser is working against us.  We get to choose where to pledge our allegiance.

When I look at my teenagers, its easier for me to see how and why I might choose the accuser.  I find myself almost daily saying to one or another minor in my home, "I am not your enemy.  I am on your side."  Those moments invariably occur when I'm setting a limit or encouraging some sacrifice that somebody doesn't like.  So it must be with God and me.  I see my Advocate as my enemy, because I'm being asked to do a hard thing.  I rebel, thinking I'll just be my own boss, decide for myself, but I end up instead hitching my wagon to the accuser's horse.  The very thing I think is going to make things easier for me, works against me and against the good.

When, instead, I have my eyes and my heart fixed on the good, when I am willing to serve and to sacrifice, I notice something else -- sometimes, all hell starts breaking loose.  We're gearing up for a weekend of healing ministry, and people are falling ill, bad weather is brewing, complications of all sorts keep popping up.  You can say it's coincidence -- I certainly have -- but I have to wonder if it's something more.

What I know is that any power that is Not God has already been defeated by the cross.  Done.  Deal.  The Powers-That-Be can bring on their worst, all the way up to death and destruction, and it's nothing but a smoke-screen.  Where I'm still a skeptic -- no, more like a scoffer -- is when I come up against any suggestion that there's any real risk of God's will being thwarted.  Ain't gonna happen.

In these moments, we need to dig in.  It's where faith comes to full bloom.  Nothing but nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:38).

A A A

Yesterday we talked about change, about its coming, bidden or unbidden, from the inside or the outside, and about how we are left to respond with resistance or welcome.

The sort of change that arises from within might better be called transformation -- that is, a crossing (trans-) from one way of being to something new.  It's a truism in the world of personal growth that whatever pain within us is not transformed, we are bound to transmit.  We'll leave it behind in the world when we die, in our children or our other loved ones.  In God-language, it is the wood and the straw that eventually will be burned away, rather than becoming the fine and refined precious metal God uses to build his kingdom (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

It's one thing to say that I am willing to be transformed, but what do I do?  Here's what I know from experience:  I can't wish it so.  I can do all the wanting and hoping -- and praying -- in the world, and I often keep on being the same old me, living in and transmitting the same old pain.  I might wish away the judgments that rattle on in my head or the behaviors that keep me stuck, but I find myself still listening, still doing what I say I don't want to do (see Romans 7:15).

What's more, my first reaction, I just need to try harder, is another way of keeping me stuck.  Here's how I think it works, by way of a metaphor:  At our science museum, there is a spot where you can pretend to cross a raging river on a little bridge.  The trick is in not looking down.  My temptation is to look at the bridge and watch where my feet are treading, but then I see the water below -- and I fall.

You probably know another version of this story.  It's about a Jewish fisherman on a wild sea at night, trying to follow his rabbi by walking on the water.  You know when Peter falters?  When he notices the wind (Matthew 14:28ff).

Here's what it means:   My eyes lead my whole body.  It's a scientific truth, like the experiment at the museum, and it's a spiritual truth too.  Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6, vv 22-23:

The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.  If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

I've got to look to the light to be filled with the light.

When I'm trying harder, I'm looking at the darkness, so I can fix it.  But I can't see.  It's dark.

So the first thing is to let the light in, but how?  A wise friend of mine recently reminded me of the three A's, which are, in my experience, the singular path to allowing my own transformation.  They are:

1. Awareness - Now that the light has come in, what do I see?  I don't have to do anything about it, just see if for what it is -- see me, you, my situation, the world, as it is, not as I wish it were.
2. Acceptance - I may not like what I see, but can I acknowledge that it is what it is?  I can ask myself, what if this were as good as it's ever going to get?  Then what?
3. Action - Only now, that the light is shining and my eyes are seeing, am I equipped to do anything at all.    And there's still a question:  Not only, what action might I take, but should I take any action at all?

The rest is up to God.  

I Can No Longer Afford My Ego

For the past several years I have increasingly become an Environmentally Conscious Consumer.  I joined a CSA.  I looked for the "Certified Organic" label at the supermarket.  I bought eggs from happy chickens and beef from cows who ate nothing but grass.

As you know if you are following the continuing saga of how my budget stubbornly refuses to balance and my various rich girl problems, our new financial planner is demanding we adopt an austerity program -- by which I mean he has invited us to add up our income and our expenses and has suggested that we might want the former to exceed the latter.  The nerve.

We've always aspired to live by our values.  We've always fallen short.  But in this small way, I felt like we were making progress.  My husband has always had strong feelings about protecting the environment.  I worry about the human costs of industrialized food production.  So together we could say, "Damn the pesticides!  Protect the farm worker!  Support the small family farm and the local economy!  Eat closer to the earth!"

Problem is, it's expensive.  Organic milk costs twice as much as the cheap stuff, eggs from pastured chickens three times as much.  CSA (community supported agriculture) shares come with more kale and kohlrabi than my family is willing to eat, so there's waste.  We eat a lot of vegetarian meals, but I'm not willing to endure the domestic revolt I'd face if I cut out meat altogether.

I believe there's a lot of good to buying local and organic, and I will continue to do so as much as I possibly can, but, to be honest there's more that's bothering me than loading up my shopping cart with hormone-laden dairy.  I was starting to see myself as the Organic Shopper.

It's remarkable how many ways my ego can find to inflate itself with an Identity.  Organic Shopper.  Home Schooler.  Mother of Three.  Wife of Almost Twenty Years.  Good Citizen.  Anything that allows me to feel Important or, let's be honest, Better Than Somebody Else.

That's not who I want to be.  In my more grounded and grace-filled moments I can notice that the identity that matters is my identity in Christ:  I'm a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), a child of the light and the day (1 Thessalonians 5:5), a branch of the vine (John 15:5), and an heir of God (Romans 8:17).

When I get attached my image, whether I maintain it by what I can buy or what I wear or do or my relationships, I am building on sand (Matthew 7:26ff).  All of that is going to pass away.

And what will be left of me?  Not my money, that's for sure.  It's good to want to protect farm workers or care for the environment.  We may need to find some new ways to do that, to put our time or talent where our treasure may not reach in this season.  Money's been able to buy me a sense of self-satisfaction, but the cost is too high.