The Odd Season

Lent is an odd season. It goes very much against the grain of our lives. It’s a disruption of our routines, an invitation to try on a different kind of life in order to rediscover what matters most. Our culture can handle Mardi Gras and Easter really well, the parties and the bunnies, but during the weeks of Lent, you and I, we’re on our own. For Ash Wednesday, I bought a small bag of ashes, more than enough for all of us, for $3.82. There’s just not a big market for Lenten products, and so the world of commerce, entertainment, work, and consumption doesn’t know what to make of this odd season. I like that.

Lent begins with ashes smudged on our foreheads and somber words urging us to remember our mortality, “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Remember and return are just two of the many words of this odd season that begin with the syllable “re.” Remember. Return. Repent. The ashes are all that’s left of the palm branches we waived when Jesus came riding into town and we were so excited about God’s reign on earth. The branches went up in flames much like the exuberance of our joy and our commitment to living as God’s people. Ashes is all that’s left, and we use them to trace the symbol of our hope on our foreheads. It’s Lent, time to repent, to rethink our priorities, reconsider our choices, remember our calling, renew our commitments, refocus our attention, reenter the place of truth, refuse the whispers of Satan, return to a baptized life, reclaim our identity as God’s own – in one word, repent.

Lent is an odd season. It goes very much against the grain of our lives. It’s a disruption of our routines, an invitation to slow down and step back and take a closer look and try on something different in order to rediscover what matters most and learn to remain faithful to that vision of life.

My friend Rob told his friends on Wednesday that he wouldn’t be on Twitter and Facebook for forty days. “Call me,” he said, “or better yet, come by and see me.”

My friend Melissa is doing a gasoline fast. “If I can’t get there on foot or on my bicycle, I’m not going,” she told me.

And Amy who talks more and faster than anyone else I know, Amy will sit in silence for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes at night every day for forty days – twenty minutes without talking, without her phone, without tv or radio or her computer, twenty minutes of just Amy and silence. Why? Like you and me, they already have a nagging suspicion that some of their habits and routines are getting in the way of the life God intends for us, and now they embrace the opportunity to try on something different and develop new habits, habits fit for the reign of God on earth.

Do you know the difference between a flute and a stick? Of course, you do, it’s quite obvious. A stick is full of itself, and a flute is a stick that has been emptied of itself for the sake of music. We have a tendency to clutter our lives with junk, drown out the voice of God with noise, block the flow of the Spirit with our oversized egos or our undersized courage. We have a tendency to live like sticks when we’re meant to be flutes. The habits of Lent, disciplines like fasting, praying, and alms giving, create openings for the divine music maker to transform us. Lent is all about getting rid of the stuff that keeps us from being a symphony of praise.

Mark is a great companion for this season. The author of this gospel is a master of brevity and focus. The gospel was written to be read aloud in the assembly, and it takes about 80 quick minutes to do that; don’t try that with John. John invites us to linger, ruminate, and circle, but Mark rushes through the scenes with such speed that the only way to keep up is to keep our eyes on Jesus. Just a quick word statistic to illustrate this: the word ‘immediately’ pops up 41 times in Mark, and only 10 times in all the other New Testament writings combined. If you want to keep up, keep your eyes on Jesus, says the master of focus.

He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Jesus had just come from Nazareth of Galilee and had been baptized by John in the Jordan. He didn’t choose to go away for a while, on some kind of wilderness retreat to consider his mission. No, the Spirit immediately drove him out, no time for leisurely narrative. One moment there’s a heavenly voice calling Jesus Son and Beloved, and before he can draw another breath, the Spirit drives him out, still wet, into the desert.

Wilderness. Forty days. Tempted by Satan. Wild beasts. Angels. Forty days in five quick strokes. It’s like Mark is flashing an image, and an entire movie starts playing in our minds. He plays just two or three chords, and song after song plays in our minds.

I hear wilderness – I see Hebrew slaves on the way to the promised land, Elijah fleeing from the wrath of Jezebel, I hear Isaiah singing of the end of exile. One word, and the scenes start rolling, and songs of redemption and hope are playing.

I hear forty days – and Moses on Mount Sinai comes to mind, Elijah on the way to Mount Horeb; it is as though all Mark has to do is call out a number and the sacred memory of God’s people begins to unfold.

I hear wild beasts – oh they are dangerous and threatening, and Mark’s first audience certainly thought of the wild animals to whom their brothers and sisters were thrown in Rome’s circus during Nero’s persecution; but there’s also the picture of the garden where Adam and Eve simply are with the wild beasts, and there’s Isaiah’s song of peace for all creation where the wolf lives with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the kid. Mark mentions beasts, and memories of peace, a deep longing for peace, and the hope for one to be with us in danger are awakened.

I want to slow down the pace for just a moment. I want to linger a little at the flash of a scene where the angels wait on Jesus. I want to tell you about Elijah, the man of God. He hadn’t been driven into the wilderness by the Spirit of God, but by the fury of Queen Jezebel who wanted him dead. He had fled into the wilderness for his life, but he was also exhausted. He was so exhausted, he wanted to die. He was tired of fighting. He was tired of being the lone voice of resistance in a culture that worshiped idols rather than the living God. “It is enough,” he said, exhausted in body and soul, before he fell asleep under a broom tree.

He woke up when an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” There was a bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water. Elijah ate and drank and went back to sleep, and the angel of the Lord came a second time and waited on him, saying, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”

All Mark has to say is, “And the angels waited on him,” and the story of Elijah comes to life in my mind, reminding me that in the wilderness, Jesus is being nourished for a difficult, demanding journey.

In the middle of it all sit the words, tempted by Satan. In scripture, Satan is the name given to a voice that whispers and argues, makes promises and raises questions with the sole purpose of making us doubt or forget that we are God’s own, created for glory, and beloved. But Satan doesn’t get any airtime here. Jesus emerges from the wilderness with the good news that God’s reign has come near, and he calls us to repent and believe the good news. He calls us to follow him on the way.

On Tuesday, Eboo Patel told us a story about Jesus that isn’t in any of the gospels. It is a story attributed to a muslim, the great Sufi teacher Attar of Nishapur.

As Jesus and his disciples entered a village, some of the villagers began to harass Jesus, shouting unkind words and harsh accusations. But Jesus answered them by bowing down and offering words of blessing. A disciple said to him, “Aren’t you angry with them? How can you bless them?” Jesus answered, “I can only give what I have in my purse.”

Jesus emerged from the wilderness and he lived the compassionate life of one who trusted fully that he was God’s beloved and who recognized even in those who abused him, God’s own beloved children. All he carried in his purse was the currency of God’s reign.

We collect today a special offering for Week of Compassion, our church’s ministry of disaster relief, economic development, and refugee resettlement. We are grateful for the opportunity to give and to give generously to the proclamation of God’s reign in acts of mercy and justice. But the call to live the compassionate life Jesus embodied is about more than money for mission. Jesus frees us to take a good, honest look at ourselves, because we too can only give what we have in our purse. He calls us to make this Lent the spring time of our salvation by rethinking our priorities, reconsidering our choices, remembering our calling, renewing our commitments, refocusing our attention, reentering the place of truth, refusing the whispers of Satan, returning to a baptized life, and reclaiming our identity as God’s own – holy and beloved.

Glory in the Gray

Friday night, I watched the opening ceremony for the Olympic winter games in Vancouver. I was mesmerized by the play of light and sound, celebrating Canada’s cultures and regions.

I watched with awe as ice turned into water, and I saw whales gliding across the bottom of the stadium – as if we all sat in a giant glass bottom space ship hovering above the sea.

I saw a boy flying like Peter Pan, carried by the wind, across the undulating prairie. I saw mountains rising from the plains, giant trees dwarfing the men and women dancing around their trunks. I saw towers of glass, athletes on snow and ice, I saw thousands of flickering lights and faces reflecting the wonder.

I heard drums and fiddles, poetry and chant, songs and hymns – it was amazing, beautiful, deeply moving, and I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to call it a spiritual experience.

NBC, however, made sure I didn’t get too carried away. Whenever I got close to jumping up from the couch and joining the dance or whenever I was being pulled in so completely that I started to forget where I was—they cut to commercials.

In the blink of an eye, I found myself transported from the heights of imagination and creativity back to the van with the two guys at Sonic discussing the benefits of the value menu.

Friday night was the first time I remember that I got angry at actors in a commercial for completely ruining the moment. It was just like you and your sweetheart enjoying a romantic dinner at home; across the flames of the candles you are looking into each other’s eyes, and the moment is filled with all your happiest memories and your sweetest dreams. And then the phone rings, and you do let the machine get it, but you can still hear the voice of some stranger eager to talk with you about something that’s missing in your life – when the only thing missing is the beauty of the moment that abruptly ended just seconds ago, the moment you wanted to last, the moment you hoped would take you away like a ride on a magic carpet.

Two obvious lessons:

One – turn off all phones and stick a sock in the door bell before you light the candles tonight.

Two – don’t count on tv to take you anywhere without trying to convince you that fulfillment awaits those who purchase more stuff.

We are near the beginning of Lent, only three days away from Ash Wednesday, and during Lent we practice and proclaim the Christian counter argument to our culture of consumption: Fulfillment awaits those who know God, and that knowledge is acquired in an entirely different way.

In the middle of Luke’s narrative of the gospel there is this mountain; it simply appears, without name or introduction:

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

Not a mountain, but the mountain. What mountain was that? I don’t believe it’s a matter of geography. Just like the river in the song, As I went down in the river to pray, any river can be the river – and ultimately, prayer itself is the river. Any mountain can be the mountain, because ultimately prayer itself is the mountain.

Jesus went up and the three went with him, with sore feet and weary legs. They had been working long hours bringing the good news to villages in Galilee and curing diseases everywhere, setting food before thousands and gathering the left over pieces into baskets. They were tired. When Jesus went up on the mountain, they stumbled along behind him.

And while Jesus was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes were shining like the sun was rising inside of them. Everything the three looked at was bathed in that dazzling light; they were weighed down with sleep, but they saw Jesus, talking with Moses and Elijah. They saw their master and friend in glory, talking with the lawgiver and the prophet.

What were they talking about? Moses, Elijah and Jesus were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. They were in fact talking about his death on that hill outside of Jerusalem, at the end of the way he was on, but they did not use the word death. And they did not speak of it as something that would happen to him, but something he would accomplish. The word translated as departure is the Greek exodos, and with Moses right there, no other hint was needed.

Jesus would go to Jerusalem to set God’s people free, leading them from bondage to freedom. This time the great opponent wasn’t pharaoh, it wasn’t even caesar; the struggle was against sin and death and all the powers that cut off God’s creatures from abundant life, that keep God’s people from entering the joy of the kingdom and from knowing fulfillment in the presence of God. It would be another exodus, with Jesus laying down his own body to part the waters and the Risen One being the first on the other side.

Elijah was the ancient prophet whose reappearance meant that redemption was near, that the Messiah was due, and there was Elijah talking to Jesus; everything was coming together perfectly.

The light they saw was the glory of God illuminating the way of Christ and confirming it to be the way of God. They were only watching, but it was awesome and holy, and they wanted it to last; everything was beautiful and clear, bathed in heavenly light. They knew God like they hadn’t known God before, and all they could think of was, abide.

“Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Master, don’t let this end; abide, and let us behold this beauty for good.

Prayer has the power to mediate divine presence; the mountain can be any mountain, the river can be any river. God’s glory can erupt anytime and anywhere, and when it does we can mark the spot with a rock like Jacob who saw a stairway set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending on it. “How awesome is this place!” he said. “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it,” and he called it Beth-El, house of God.

We can mark the spot with a cairn or a rock or a temple or three dwellings or a sanctuary, but God’s glory will not abide in our dwellings, God’s glory will not stay on our map.

On the mountain, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified. In that darkness nothing dazzled, nothing shone, all they could see was the absence of all things visible. Whereas before everything had been exceedingly clear and orderly, now they were completely in the dark without any sense of place or direction. It was as if they had fallen from the heights of holy awe to the depths of trembling fear. And that’s when they heard the voice.

"This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him."

Just one commandment for the road ahead. Just one commandment for the search for the glory of God in the lowlands of life.

They didn’t say a word about what they had seen. They followed Jesus down from the mountain, down to where the needy crowd was waiting, down to the lowlands of life. And there, at the foot of the mountain, the silence was broken by a father who cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.”

His cry was like the echo of the voice they had heard on the top of the mountain, only here it was filled with pain and helplessness in the face of shrieking, unrelenting demons that maul and abuse us.

This is where we long to see transfiguration, down here in the valleys and plains where demons need to be cast out and children wait for healing. This is where we work and watch and pray for the transfiguration that illumines all the earth with the light of heaven. Down here is where we encounter God’s Chosen One, who teaches us to pray and watch and work, always trusting in God’s presence and promise. Down here is where we listen to the One who embodies God’s boundless grace and unceasing compassion. This is where we hear him, calling us to repentance and challenging us to follow him all the way to the cross and to Easter in our search for the glory of God.

The mountain is there so we can climb to the summit and catch a more complete vision of the valleys and plains below and the land beyond. The mountain is there for us not to settle down on it but to come down from it.

In her novel, Gilead Marilynne Robinson tells the story of John Ames, a minister in a little town called Gilead in Iowa. The novel takes the form of a letter that this old man begins to write in 1956 to his young son, and just before the letter ends and the novel closes, the author has John Ames write,

It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of creation and it turns to radiance for a moment or a year or the span of a life and then it sinks back into itself again and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire or light. (…) But the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see [Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), p. 245]

That little willingness to see is what we nurture during Lent with simple disciplines like turning off the phone for thirty minutes of prayer every day; or leaving work early twice a week for a walk through the neighborhood; or trading tv time for reading time; or preparing food for strangers.

And we nurture more than just a little willingness to see.

We nurture our courage to trust that the Lord never ceases to breathe on this poor gray ember of creation.

We nurture our desire to be present when the Spirit blows away the ashes to show us the glory in the gray. [ With thanks to George MacLeod for the beautiful expression, “Show us the glory in the grey.”]

Take This Bread

One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans — except that up until that moment I'd led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This was my first communion. It changed everything.

Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I'd scorned and work I'd never imagined. The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer at all, but actual food — indeed, the bread of life. In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to reach for and become part of a body, I realized what I'd been doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed people.

And so I did. I took communion, I passed the bread to others, and then I kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what I'd experienced. I started a food pantry and gave away literally tons of fruit and vegetables and cereal around the same altar where I'd first received the body of Christ.

from the Prologue, Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

What do you do for Lent? Same as always? Or skip dessert? Decline chocolate? Non-fat lattes only?

I like going back to the ancient suggestion that I take time to reflect on my need to repent. That I open myself to the possibility of conversion.

I love marking this season that leads up to Easter with a journey through a book, the turning of pages taking the place of steps taken on a pilgrim's path. This year, it's going to be Take This Bread, and I invite you to join me. We read through the book together, and once a week we meet to talk about favorite passages, about questions and discoveries, and to take the bread of life, give thanks for it, break it, and eat it.

Does this sound like something you'd like to do? Get a copy of the book, and meet me on Wednesdays at 7pm, starting on February 17 (with smudges on our foreheads), in my study at the church.

It's no coincidence that this also fits in beautifully with our hunger:360 project.