Sunday in the Third Week of Lent

Jesus said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” (Mark 5:19)


Almost every story of miraculous healing in Mark's gospel ends with Jesus sternly warning the healed person not to tell anyone what has happened. When the healing involves an exorcism, Jesus commands the unclean spirits not to say anything about him, because they recognize who he is on the spiritual plane. But not this story. This story of the healing of the Gerasene demoniac in the fifth chapter of Mark ends with this unusual note of Jesus telling the healed man to go home, to go to his friends, and to tell them all about how much the Lord has done for him, and the mercy he has received. 


Many commentators on Mark say that this feature of Jesus telling people and spirits not to talk about him -- formally called "the Messianic secret" -- has to do with Mark the evangelist trying to tell his own community something important about their faith. Commentators theorize that Mark's community looked to Jesus as a wonderworker, a figure of power who could in turn save them by granting them power. Mark, however, understood Jesus' obedience to God's will, even to the point of crucifixion, as being the center of his saving work; and he wanted to turn his community's attention less toward deeds of power and more toward the work of obedience in their own lives. So he wrote his story of Jesus in such a way as to show Jesus caring less about power than about discipleship, so that his congregation, too, would care about their discipleship. That's why Mark's Jesus doesn't want people who've experienced his power to talk about his power.


Except for the Gerasene man who had been possessed by a "Legion" of demons. He is directed to go tell all his friends. Why?


Perhaps it is because this miracle of Jesus is less about power than it is about gentleness. Mark goes out of his way to say how strong the man with the legion is: the demons give him supernatural strength, so that no one can subdue him; his neighbors try to restrain him but he gets away; they try to chain him but he bursts the chains; the demons give him so much power that it has no place to go, but the man sits in the tombs and howls and bruises himself with stones. But when Jesus meets him, he doesn't try to overpower him or subdue him or restrain him. Jesus meets him with mercy, with assurance, with gentleness. When the neighbors come running up, they find the man sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, calm, gentle, intent, aware. (Jesus even shows gentleness and mercy with the legion of demons: when they state their fear that Jesus will torment them, he gives them permission to leave the man of their own accord, not to be driven out, and to go instead into a herd of pigs; unfortunately for the demons (and for the pigs) their addiction to abusive strength overpowers the pigs and turns them self-destructive, too; they rush down the steep bank in a frenzy and drown themselves in the lake.) Jesus meets power with gentleness, and his mercy draws forth an answering mercy, and the man is healed.


How often do we attempt to meet strength with strength? How often are we tempted to oppose power with power of our own? Could we instead learn from Jesus that strength will spend itself, and that we can respond with the gentleness that endures? That is a lesson that Mark could endorse for his congregation, and that needed no secret to redirect it. That is an invitation to us all to know -- and to tell -- the mercy God has shown us.

Friday in the Second Week of Lent

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 5:1)


The prophet Jeremiah hears God calling him, begging him, to run through the streets of the city looking for one person, just one person, who is just and truthful, so that God can pardon the entire city and save it from the destruction that is to come. It is a picture of a God who wants desperately to save the people, who seeks in the people even the smallest opening of justice and truth through which to enter their hearts and their actions and transform them.


So often we picture God as strict and vengeful -- sometimes downright mean! -- sitting up in heaven and watching our every action, waiting to see if we infringe the commandments, implacably punishing for the merest of sins. So often opponents of Christianity picture Christians as joyless, fun-hating control freaks who use the threat of divine punishment to enforce rules and regulations that stifle freedom and creativity. Somehow we get in our minds the picture of God as eager to punish, and ourselves as fearful of that punishment.


But how different is Jeremiah's picture here! It's as if this God is looking for the barest excuse to avert punishment, the merest pretext for pardon. One just and truthful person could rescue the entire population! Even more importantly, the thing that deserves punishment here is not just "breaking the rules," not just an infringement of a juridical code. It is lack of justice, lack of right relationships, failure to be truthful, dishonesty, illusion, hypocrisy. God doesn't look for obedience to rules so much as integrity of heart. And the destruction that lurks is not so much punishment for infraction as it is self-destruction, disintegration from within of the person and the people who will not seek right relationship and who refuse to acknowledge reality. God sends Jeremiah to look for one instance of right relationship and true compassion, so that through that opening God can enter to inspire and transform the entire people. That is how eager God is to save.


What openings of justice and truth can we give God to enter our lives and transform us this day?

Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:5-6)

On the face of it, this seems like an absurd question from Jesus -- "Do you want to be made well?" Of course he does! He's been ill for 38 years, and he is sitting at the edge of a pool in the streets of Jerusalem that has a reputation for curative powers in its water. Why else would he be there, than wanting to be made well? Why would Jesus even ask the question?

Because what we think we want what we say we want and what we really want aren't always the same thing. There is a silly scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian which, for all its silliness, makes a point: a man who has been ill and has been a beggar for years is healed; but once he's not ill anymore, neither can he beg anymore; and in the aftermath he resents his healing because now he's going to have to work. Somewhat more seriously, there is that famous (or infamous) prayer of St Augustine in his youth: "Lord, make me chaste -- but not yet." Both reveal a gap between the wellness and healing and integrity they say they want, and the less healthful, less salutory and salvific, aspects of what they really want.

Do we want to be made well? Wholeness and integrity and commitment to mutual well-being don't just happen. Inspired by God, assisted by God's grace, these are things we must yet work out in our own selves -- and the work can get hard. It can be so easy to let our weaknesses, our failures, our shortcomings become excuses for not working for wholeness and integrity and unity of intention and action in our lives, so that we find it more attractive to stay ill than to be made well. But Jesus continues to ask "Do you want to be made well?", and he continues to offer the healing grace that opens us up to a process of growing more whole, more actualized, more loving.

Lent is a good time to ask yourself "Do I want to be made well?", and to be honest about the answer.

Tuesday in the Second Week of Lent

"Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?" (Jeremiah 2:5)

"... they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." (Romans 1:25)

These lines from Jeremiah and from Romans come from very different historical periods, speak of very different social situations, and address themselves to very different audiences. But they both point to one psychospiritual truth: We become like what we worship. Our English word "worship" is actually a contraction of the older word "worth-ship"; it points to what we experience as valuable, what is truly important to us, that toward which we would orient our actions and our emotions. The act of worship is an expression of what we value, and at the same time is a dynamic experience of that value. The act of worship takes what we value and raises it up to a level where we can be conscious and intentional about it, so that we can in turn replicate its core value in our own acts and works and lives. In that way we become like what we worship.

What Jeremiah and Paul warn about is what happens when we worship that which is not worthy of worship. When we "go after worthless things," when we "exchange truth for a lie," then we become like those things. We spend our time and energy chasing after possessions or power or prestige that, in the end, cannot satisfy our real longings. We build personas and social masks that dissemble our true selves, and end up living a lie. We lose touch with the core of creativity which our Creator shares with us, and become something less than the full selves our Lover wants us to be.

The Lenten discipline of repentance is about turning away from worthless things and lies, recognizing how our going after them diminishes us, and turning again to the true worship that helps us become like the One who creates us. Prayer expresses the core value of Love -- God's love for us, our love for God, our godly love for each other -- and in expressing it gives us also a living experience of Love. As we worship Love, we grow more loving ourselves. We become like what we worship.

How have you turned from what is worthless and worshiped Love today?

Monday in the Second Week of Lent

Meanwhile the disciples were urging Jesus, "Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work." (John 4:31-34)


The Gospel of John is full of little invitations (and many big invitations, too) to see things with "binocular vision" -- that is, to perceive very ordinary, everyday things in their material presence and also simultaneously in their spiritual relationships. In these verses -- almost a throwaway exchange between Jesus and his disciples in the middle of the extended story of the Samaritan woman at the well -- the material/spiritual nexus is around the offer of food. Jesus has been traveling; he hasn't eaten for some time; he is tired from his journey; and while Jesus rests by the well the disciples go into town to buy food. That's all established in the narrative at the beginning of the chapter. But when the disciples return in verse 27, after Jesus has been talking with the woman about well water and running water and water of life -- another "binocular" conversation -- Jesus, instead of taking the food right away, speaks to them of the nourishment that comes from doing the work God has sent him to do. Jesus is here inviting the disciples to see their food with binocular vision: to see it not only as body-fuel, but also as an access of energy to do God's creative work in their material environment; to perceive the flavor not only as an aesthetic experience of taste, but also as an occasion for gratitude; to enjoy the companionship (literally, "bread-togetherness") of the meal not only as a social exchange, but also as a moment of communion in right relationship with each other and with God. Jesus encourages the disciples to perceive their material food as embedded in a whole web of relationships that carries deep spiritual meaning, and so to be nourished in both body and spirit.


One of the purposes of the Lenten discipline of fasting and abstaining from certain foods is to help us be more mindful of what and how we do eat. Perhaps that discipline can also help us see our food with binocular vision, and be nourished in doing God's work in our lives.

Friday in the First Week of Lent

Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)


When I think of someone approaching to ask for mercy, what I usually picture is that person bent down, with head bowed, approaching tentatively, in a classic "humble suppliant" posture. Asking for mercy, for compassion, for forgiveness, is hard, it requires of us that we admit that we're wrong -- something a lot of us don't like to do -- and it requires of us that we admit we have no control over whether the other will forgive or not -- something a lot of us like even less. Admitting our own weakness and the other's strength is a dicey thing for a lot of us; and it's something we feel, perhaps, we can best accomplish if we pose the part, adopting a humble tentativeness. And the pose is all the more genuine when we feel an actual fear that the other may not forgive, may not answer our approach with mercy -- and there's nothing we can do about that.


But the Letter to the Hebrews says we should approach God's throne of grace with boldness. Not with heads bowed and backs bent, not like abject suppliants, but with boldness. In the verses preceding, the author has pointed out that Jesus, our high priest in the rite of forgiveness, has been tempted in every way as we are, so he knows how hard it is to be human, and he therefore feels with us as we feel the need for mercy and grace. We do not need to beg from Christ something Christ is unwilling to give; therefore, when we approach his throne of grace, we do not need to come as fearful, tentative suppliants; we come as sisters and brothers. We can be unafraid to approach, because the mercy we seek is already evident in the invitation to come. We can approach with boldness.


Self-examination and repentance -- really looking at our own weaknesses and failures -- is one of the traditional spiritual disciplines of Lent. Psychologically, it's easy to expect that such an uncompromising look at our darker sides could make us cringe a little, bow our heads, draw into ourselves to make sure no one else sees that weakness. But the counsel of Hebrews is to stand up straight, to admit the truth without fear, to be bold in accepting who and what we really are, good and bad -- because in that acceptance is also revealed the acceptance of the one who has gone through what we go through, and who offers grace to help in time of need. The grace to transcend our failures and take them up into new possibilities for greater good can only come to those who are bold enough to ask with confidence.


This Lent, be bold.

Thursday in the First Week of Lent

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

This is it: the Gospel in one sentence, the Summary Statement, the one that people quote via chapter and verse reference on license plates and tee shirts and signs held up on camera at football games. Everything you need to know about the Christian message is here.

Which of course means that there is far more going on here than first meets the eye. The sentence seems direct and self-evident enough. But there are words here that have depths and nuances and extended clouds of meanings that defy too-easy definition: love, gave, believe, perish, eternal, life.  Or, for that matter, God and Son. Each of these words points to relationships and relationships of relationships that can link up in different ways.

For instance, many people interpret this verse to mean that God "gave" his Son Jesus to die for us, to be the substitutionary atonement for our sins, to pay the price that we ourselves are too weak or too sinful to pay, so that God's wrath could be appeased; and that by "believing" that this substitution has been made, Christians are now freed from the death-sentence of sin so that we will not "perish" but have "eternal life" in heaven.

Others interpret this verse to mean that God "gave" his Son to live for us, to be the incarnation of the divine Wisdom and Word, to demonstrate in his own body and activity what a human life lived with divine love looks like. We in our turn "believe" in that divinely lived human life, not simply by accepting assertions about it as true even if we can't prove them, which is what we often mean by the word "believe," but by doing our best to live that way ourselves, by "believing in" the example of Jesus' life to the degree that we let its core values become our core values too. Living our lives with Christly core values puts us in touch with "eternal" realities in the heart of God, God's own love and generosity and creativity that are always and everywhere at work, through all the changes of time and space and temporal process, always expressed in ways appropriate to just that moment and just that experience. To live in touch with eternal divine activity means that we become self-transcending: in each and every moment of our experience there is something that transcends the moment, something not simply limited to the moment, something that enters into the world around us and God around everything and carries on the divinely inspired love and creativity of the moment. That self-transcendence saves us from "perishing," as the moments of our lives enter more and more into God. "Eternal life" in this sense is not just something for heaven after we die, but a quality of God-presence we enjoy and share in thick of this life.

And the root of it all is love: "God so loved the world that he gave his Son." Love is that which transcends the perishing of the moment and opens the way to living in eternal divine reality. The Gospel in one sentence comes down, I think, even to one word, noun, verb, and imperative all at once: Love.

Wednesday in the First Week of Lent

"For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. As it is said, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.'" (Hebrews 3:14-15)

I'm struck by the phrase "partners of Christ." I think sometimes Christians regard Jesus as being superhuman, as having powers and abilities far beyond our own, as perfect before God in a way we could never be. Jesus plays a unique role in God's work of salvation, to be sure. But I think that regarding Jesus as superhuman in the long run does a disservice to the Good News. It puts Christ on a pedestal, as it were, so that our notion of him becomes so high and mighty that we can see no real connection between him and us. At the same time, it encourages us to regard ourselves as completely passive, as sinful and unable to do any good, as mere recipients of the good that Jesus does on our behalf before God -- and again we can see no real connection between him and us. But creating a living connection between him and us is the reason Christ became incarnate: bridging the gap between human and divine is the reason Jesus lives. So thinking of Jesus as exclusive Savior and ourselves as passive recipients of salvation ends up actually undercutting the purpose of Jesus' life and ministry and death and resurrection.

But the picture is very different if we think of ourselves as "partners of Christ." By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we actually and actively take part in the work of Christ, we are empowered and enabled to do as Jesus does and love as Jesus loves and live as Jesus lives. Provided that we do not harden our hearts, provided that we open ourselves to the deep and uncompromising love Jesus reveals, then by participating in that love we also become workers of divine works.

How will you be a partner of Christ in what you do today?

Monday in the First Week of Lent

"Do not say to yourself, 'My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.' But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth." (Deuteronomy 8:17-18)

This passage for today intrigues me because it doesn't speak just about wealth, stuff, money, possessions -- but it speaks of the power to get wealth. It is not just about the material objects, but about the activity that produces the material objects. The things we count as valuable don't just have their value in a vacuum: they have value because we assign meaning to them, or we put effort into them, or we recognize that they are useful for meeting needs and sustaining life. A dollar bill is just a slip of paper; but it is invested with a powerful instrumental symbolism for conducting transactions in our economic system, so we count it as wealth -- or a little bit of wealth, at least. We can get so caught up in the attaining, trading, keeping, and increasing of our objects of wealth that we forget these objects have value in the first place because of a psychosociospiritual act that creates their value. And that spiritual act is rooted in God: it is God the Creator who creates us as creative beings, who in our turn can create meaning and value in the things of our material culture. Creating value is something God does first, and then God does in us, so that we can do it with things. Deuteronomy warns us that we forget that at our peril.  A Lenten discipline of simplicity and self-denial can help us refocus our attention less on the things themselves and more on the spiritual act of creativity, grounded in God, that is the source of value.

First Saturday in Lent

"Philip found Nathanael and said to him, 'We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.' Nathanael said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' Philip said to him, 'Come and see.'" (John 1:45-46)


When Nathanael questioned Philip's religious belief and commitment, Philip did not argue or explain or attempt to persuade him. He just invited him to come and try for himself the experience that meant something to Philip. Too much time and energy is spent these days, I think, arguing and explaining and persuading about Christianity, when what matters is the quality of the experience. Churches and creeds and ceremonies are intended to help us to love God and to love our neighbors -- that's it. Because our notion of "love" is often superficial, and because we are often overly selective about who we will consider a "neighbor," and because we can adopt some very silly notions about God, it is often the role of churches and creeds and ceremonies to call us out of ourselves, to set goals before us that are greater than those we'd choose for ourselves -- and that can often be less than comfortable. So the Christian experience can be demanding, and sometimes that comes off to people as being authoritarian or guilt-inducing or controlling, especially to people who do not "come and see," who do not enter into the experience but only observe it from the outside. And sometimes churches and creeds and ceremonies forget their own central purpose of love, and become actually controlling and repressive, and then they need to be reformed. But things like the fasting and self-denial and discipline of Lent, which can look so negative from the outside, are at root only about learning to love, clearing away the distractions so that we can love God and love our neighbors more genuinely. And that is something best understood by experience, not by arguing or explaining or persuading. That's why the great invitation of Lent is to "come and see."

First Friday in Lent

Andrew son of John was a disciple of John the Baptist. One day Andrew was standing near John when Jesus walked by, and John said "There is the Lamb of God." Andrew and another disciple went after Jesus; and when Jesus saw them he turned and said "What are you looking for?" (John 1:35-38). That is the question, isn't it? What are we looking for? What do we want? What ambitions drive us, what fears do we want to avoid, what imaginations shape us, what aspirations lift us higher than we thought we were capable of? What are we looking for? The purpose of fasting and self-denial in Lent is to set aside some of the things with which we habitually satisfy our desires, so that the desires themselves can come more clearly into view, so that we know more consciously what it is that we want. Fasting and self-denial is a way to hear Jesus ask us "What are you looking for?" If we take that question seriously, we may be better able to tell if what we are looking for in life is also what God is looking for in us.

First Thursday of Lent

Titus 1:15, "To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure." Through Lenten discipline we work to purify our own hearts, to let go of addictions and illusions and compulsions, to see ourselves as we are and as we are in God. The more we can see ourselves in truth, the more we can see the things around us in truth, the more we see things as they are and not just as our desires color them. Then we see all things as pure -- neither temptations nor threats nor fears -- but facts to be engaged as we do the work God gives us to do.

Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 57:16, "I will not continually accuse, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have made." Remember that the purpose of Lent is not to feel bad about ourselves or our sins, but to come closer to the God who does not want our spirits to grow faint.