Many years ago, when my knees were younger, I participated in a number of marathon, half-marathon, and ten-mile races. In every race, I achieved my personal goal: to cross the finish line with my body in a vertical posture. Although I never set any records (except, perhaps, at the low end), I valued these experiences and enjoyed introducing others to the joys and sorrows of long-distance running.
One of my friends, seduced by my example, embarked on a rigorous marathon training program. When I ran into him a few months later, he said "Hey, I did my marathon!" I congratulated him and asked which one he had run. Detroit? Chicago? Honolulu? The Marine Corps Marathon in Washington? "Oh, I just woke up one weekend and felt great and so went out and ran 26.2 miles!" He deserved a pat on the back, and I gave him one.
I'll confess, however, to having some reservations about whether he'd actually "run" a "marathon" in the sense in which we normally use those words. After all, part of the challenge in running a long-distance race is having to do it on the day on which it is scheduled. That particular day might be less than ideal for any number of reasons: bad weather; a newly arrived ache in a joint; an onset of the flu; distractions from other parts of life; perhaps even an understandable but unanticipated collapse of enthusiasm.
Part of the challenge of Lent is that we don't get to choose when to honor it. It arrives at the scheduled hour and we are called to get at it immediately. The Lenten summons to deepen our relationship with God is no respecter of our then-existing state of mind. Lent does not care if it finds us in one of our less-than-fully-spiritual phases, an existential funk, or a state of acute religious indifference.
Of course, the same might be said of other events on the Christian calendar, like Christmas and Easter. But Lent is different. Lent does not carry with it any of the natural buoyancy that accompanies those days. They are celebrations. Lent is hard work. Or, at least, it is hard work if you do it right.
The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that we must run with perseverence the race that is set before us. But it offers no false assurances that we will get to pick the starting time or the conditions. Life will force us to run unexpectedly, to run when we're injured, and to run in the rain. It will require us to run on empty.
The discipline of Lent helps teach us that, even under these circumstances, we will be able to find the strength to run. And we will be given wisdom enough to stay pointed toward the finish line.
Amen.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wilderness Experience
Most of us probably experience the wilderness as an amiable place. When we were children,it was the far corner of our backyard, the vacant lot where we built a fort, or the clearing in the neighborhood woods where we set up a tent on a muggy summer night. As we grew older, wilderness became the Michigan forest with the icy trout stream, the national park with the souvenir stand at the trailhead, or the Adirondack mountain with the well-worn path beside the blueberry patch.
Some of us wander into trickier and less accomodating terrain. But, for most American denizens of the twenty-first century, the idea of being in the wilderness has lost some of its edge. I recall hearing a fellow traveler into the African bush puzzle aloud over the fact that her cell phone seemed to have stopped working.
In many respects, life in biblical times was a scarier place than it is now--and so was the wilderness. When Moses led the Israelites into the wilderness they left behind the yoke of the Egyptians. But they also left behind reliable sources of food, shelter, and water. Surely, the Israelites would not have complained so much if they knew that a good meal, a bottle of wine, and a soft bed were fairly close at hand, as we often do today when we venture into the wild.
This matters because when we read that Jesus went into the wilderness we may conjure up notions of a genial retreat to commune with Nature. We might think of Jesus as being like Thoreau, who went to the woods to "live deliberately," or Yeats, who fantasized poetically about living alone in the "bee-loud glade." Sometimes, when I hear people rhapsodize about Jesus heading off into the wilderness to engage in an act of self discovery, I feel like all that is missing is the hammock, the sport-utility vehicle, and the L.L. Bean catalog.
In my view, we miss something important about the significance of Jesus's journey into the wilderness if we lose track of what true wilderness means. Sure, wilderness can be beautiful and inspiring. But it can also be hard; unforgiving; disorienting; frightening. In this sense, a journey into the wilderness is not a retreat from human existence. It is a voyage into the essence of human existence at its most challenging.
Indeed, we all have our wilderness experiences--even if we never leave town. We get sick. We lose a job. We make a change in life that we deeply regret. We age. Someone stops loving us. We struggle with loss and depression. We feel judged and unappreciated. We sense our own mortality heavy upon our shoulders. At one time or another, every human heart will find itself deep in the wilderness. And that is precisely why Jesus went there.
In the course of his forty days, Jesus revealed and embodied all of the other things that we might discover in the wilderness spaces of life: focus; strength; resolve; peace; even praise. Yes, even praise.
We can find these things when we go into the wilderness.
We can find them when the wilderness comes into us.
Amen.
Some of us wander into trickier and less accomodating terrain. But, for most American denizens of the twenty-first century, the idea of being in the wilderness has lost some of its edge. I recall hearing a fellow traveler into the African bush puzzle aloud over the fact that her cell phone seemed to have stopped working.
In many respects, life in biblical times was a scarier place than it is now--and so was the wilderness. When Moses led the Israelites into the wilderness they left behind the yoke of the Egyptians. But they also left behind reliable sources of food, shelter, and water. Surely, the Israelites would not have complained so much if they knew that a good meal, a bottle of wine, and a soft bed were fairly close at hand, as we often do today when we venture into the wild.
This matters because when we read that Jesus went into the wilderness we may conjure up notions of a genial retreat to commune with Nature. We might think of Jesus as being like Thoreau, who went to the woods to "live deliberately," or Yeats, who fantasized poetically about living alone in the "bee-loud glade." Sometimes, when I hear people rhapsodize about Jesus heading off into the wilderness to engage in an act of self discovery, I feel like all that is missing is the hammock, the sport-utility vehicle, and the L.L. Bean catalog.
In my view, we miss something important about the significance of Jesus's journey into the wilderness if we lose track of what true wilderness means. Sure, wilderness can be beautiful and inspiring. But it can also be hard; unforgiving; disorienting; frightening. In this sense, a journey into the wilderness is not a retreat from human existence. It is a voyage into the essence of human existence at its most challenging.
Indeed, we all have our wilderness experiences--even if we never leave town. We get sick. We lose a job. We make a change in life that we deeply regret. We age. Someone stops loving us. We struggle with loss and depression. We feel judged and unappreciated. We sense our own mortality heavy upon our shoulders. At one time or another, every human heart will find itself deep in the wilderness. And that is precisely why Jesus went there.
In the course of his forty days, Jesus revealed and embodied all of the other things that we might discover in the wilderness spaces of life: focus; strength; resolve; peace; even praise. Yes, even praise.
We can find these things when we go into the wilderness.
We can find them when the wilderness comes into us.
Amen.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Coming Home
We all know the story. A man had two sons. The younger one asked for his interitance early, took off for sexier places than his father's farm, and wasted all his money in "dissolute living." The older one stayed home, worked for his father, and did everything he was asked. When the younger son--the Prodigal Son--finally came home, his father ran to greet him, embraced him, and threw him a big party.
This simple text (which appears only in the gospel of Luke) yields countless lessons about humility, love, forgiveness, redemption, and grace. The older brother's reaction to all of this, which is less than charitable, offers some additional instruction as well. I doubt that all of human storytelling offers a richer, more complex collection of messages in as few lines. Perhaps this explains the parable's profound influence on figures as diverse as Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rudyard Kipling, Henri Nouwen, and Andre Gide.
One intriguing dimension of the story concerns the Prodigal Son's decision to abandon his self-destructive ways. In many translations, the text says that this happened "when he came to himself." I am personally fond of the Latinate poetry of St. Jerome: "in se autem reversus"--roughly, "but he turned around, and came back into himself."
This season of Lent calls us to change, to become new, to work toward the rebirth in which we will share on Easter. For some of us, that is a summons to a radically different conception of who we are and how we need to live. But, for many of us, that is an invitation to remember who we are, to turn around and return to what we already know, and to celebrate the homecoming.
Amen.
This simple text (which appears only in the gospel of Luke) yields countless lessons about humility, love, forgiveness, redemption, and grace. The older brother's reaction to all of this, which is less than charitable, offers some additional instruction as well. I doubt that all of human storytelling offers a richer, more complex collection of messages in as few lines. Perhaps this explains the parable's profound influence on figures as diverse as Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rudyard Kipling, Henri Nouwen, and Andre Gide.
One intriguing dimension of the story concerns the Prodigal Son's decision to abandon his self-destructive ways. In many translations, the text says that this happened "when he came to himself." I am personally fond of the Latinate poetry of St. Jerome: "in se autem reversus"--roughly, "but he turned around, and came back into himself."
This season of Lent calls us to change, to become new, to work toward the rebirth in which we will share on Easter. For some of us, that is a summons to a radically different conception of who we are and how we need to live. But, for many of us, that is an invitation to remember who we are, to turn around and return to what we already know, and to celebrate the homecoming.
Amen.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Where the Work Gets Done
The gospels recount a number of occasions where Jesus withdrew from his disciples and from the crowds so He could have some time alone with his thoughts and could pray to his Father in heaven. We tend to think of these passages as breaks in the action, as interruptions in the primary narrative, as detours that describe how Jesus prepared for the next important stage in his ministry--how he prepared even for death itself. Many of us would count Jesus's forty days in the wilderness, which we remember during the season of Lent, as being one of those times.
Over the years, I've heard countless sermons take from these passages the lesson that all of us need to withdraw periodically from the hustle and bustle of life so we can rest, refresh, and recover. Sometimes the message pokes fun at our pride: You think you don't need time off and can't afford to take it?! You think you're stronger and more indispensible than Jesus?! Oh, and by the way, you think you wouldn't have rested on the seventh day of creation?! Perhaps you imagine yourself in the middle of Eden, diligently installing a patio and a barbeque pit?!
I will happily confess that I've delivered this message to our congregation in sermons of my own. And I will grudgingly acknowledge that, even more frequently, I've had to press this point upon one of God's more intransigent disciples. It is a directive I find much easier to convey than to obey.
So I take it as an article of faith--and a principle of mental health--that time off matters. A lot. But I also think it is important not to indulge in what I like to call the "vacationization" of these biblical passages. It is a good thing--I would even argue a holy thing--to take a break from the pressure of our daily obligations, to get away, to sleep in the sun and listen to the water on the shore. At the same time, however, I do not think that this is what is going on in most of the biblical passages about Jesus.
Take the story of Jesus's withdrawal into the wilderness. This was no "time out"; this was "game on." We are told that Jesus was led there in order to be tempted; in order to be tested; in order to be challenged; in order to have a chance to exhibit the unyielding firmness of his faith and love for God. True, he was not surrounded by crowds pleading for his healing or disciples jockeying for his attention or opponents screaming for his crucifixion. He had to confront something much more daunting. He had to rebuff the temptations that insinuated themselves into his own thoughts.
We try to be good followers. We send money to Haiti. We serve food at homeless shelters. We visit the sick. We listen to the suffering.
But Lent is an appropriate time to remember the importance of what happens within our own mind, our own soul, our own conscience.
That, too, is where the work gets done.
Amen.
Over the years, I've heard countless sermons take from these passages the lesson that all of us need to withdraw periodically from the hustle and bustle of life so we can rest, refresh, and recover. Sometimes the message pokes fun at our pride: You think you don't need time off and can't afford to take it?! You think you're stronger and more indispensible than Jesus?! Oh, and by the way, you think you wouldn't have rested on the seventh day of creation?! Perhaps you imagine yourself in the middle of Eden, diligently installing a patio and a barbeque pit?!
I will happily confess that I've delivered this message to our congregation in sermons of my own. And I will grudgingly acknowledge that, even more frequently, I've had to press this point upon one of God's more intransigent disciples. It is a directive I find much easier to convey than to obey.
So I take it as an article of faith--and a principle of mental health--that time off matters. A lot. But I also think it is important not to indulge in what I like to call the "vacationization" of these biblical passages. It is a good thing--I would even argue a holy thing--to take a break from the pressure of our daily obligations, to get away, to sleep in the sun and listen to the water on the shore. At the same time, however, I do not think that this is what is going on in most of the biblical passages about Jesus.
Take the story of Jesus's withdrawal into the wilderness. This was no "time out"; this was "game on." We are told that Jesus was led there in order to be tempted; in order to be tested; in order to be challenged; in order to have a chance to exhibit the unyielding firmness of his faith and love for God. True, he was not surrounded by crowds pleading for his healing or disciples jockeying for his attention or opponents screaming for his crucifixion. He had to confront something much more daunting. He had to rebuff the temptations that insinuated themselves into his own thoughts.
We try to be good followers. We send money to Haiti. We serve food at homeless shelters. We visit the sick. We listen to the suffering.
But Lent is an appropriate time to remember the importance of what happens within our own mind, our own soul, our own conscience.
That, too, is where the work gets done.
Amen.
Friday, February 24, 2012
A God Who Weeps
T.S. Eliot wrote "I do know much about gods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god." Like Eliot, I don't presume to know much about God. I don't even claim to know much about rivers. But I do believe this: if, as the Lenten season demands, we should seek after a deeper relationship with God, then God must be the sort of being with whom such a relationship is possible.
A genuine relationship--at least by my reckoning--cannot exist with a big bang or a cloud of electrons or an abstract Something Greater Than Me. I am not suggesting that those ideas are wrong. I just think they are inadequate if we're seeking after a greater (if still necessarily imperfect) understanding of what God must be like.
Of course, a number of problems attend such a project. For example, we may discover that we have flipped the biblical formulation and made God to look suspiciously like ourselves. This reminds me of Anne Lamott's observation that "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
So I'll proceed cautiously and offer this modest suggestion. I think it is impossible to have a relationship with someone who cannot experience sorrow and suffering. So I'm compelled to conclude that God must have this capacity--and of a magnitude that lies beyond our wildest imaginings.
Lent, which leads us through the greatest story of sorrow and suffering ever told, is a good time to ponder this idea. And it is an opportune occasion to meditate about a Bible verse that never ceases to capture my imagination. It is at once the shortest and--in my view--the most powerful statement you'll find anywhere in the entire text:
"Jesus wept."
A genuine relationship--at least by my reckoning--cannot exist with a big bang or a cloud of electrons or an abstract Something Greater Than Me. I am not suggesting that those ideas are wrong. I just think they are inadequate if we're seeking after a greater (if still necessarily imperfect) understanding of what God must be like.
Of course, a number of problems attend such a project. For example, we may discover that we have flipped the biblical formulation and made God to look suspiciously like ourselves. This reminds me of Anne Lamott's observation that "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
So I'll proceed cautiously and offer this modest suggestion. I think it is impossible to have a relationship with someone who cannot experience sorrow and suffering. So I'm compelled to conclude that God must have this capacity--and of a magnitude that lies beyond our wildest imaginings.
Lent, which leads us through the greatest story of sorrow and suffering ever told, is a good time to ponder this idea. And it is an opportune occasion to meditate about a Bible verse that never ceases to capture my imagination. It is at once the shortest and--in my view--the most powerful statement you'll find anywhere in the entire text:
"Jesus wept."
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Soli Deo Gloria
To borrow a phrase from a popular musical, during the Lenten season we seek after ways to see God more clearly, love God more dearly, and follow God more nearly. For many of us, this results in a kind of "discipleship by novelty." We try to deepen our faith experience by doing something different--at least until we safely arrive at the expiration date we call Easter.
Some of us give things up. Some of us take things on. Some of us pray every morning. Some of us read the Bible every evening. Some of us seize upon this time as an opportunity to eat or drink less, as if Lent existed to offer a second chance to fulfill our New Year's resolutions.
All joking aside, I appreciate that these sorts of practices are spiritually meaningful for many people. Indeed, for as long as I can remember I have adopted them myself during Lent. They have their place in our life of faith--even a potentially important place.
But I was reminded of something the other day that prompted me to wonder whether Lent might be an appropriate occasion for another, different kind of project as well.
I was listening to a collection of wonderful, recorded lectures that I own on the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The lecturer reminded me that Bach wrote the letters "SDG" at the beginning and end of all of his church compositions and some of his secular ones. (Handel apparently did this as well from time to time.) Those letters signify the Latin phrase "Soli Deo Gloria"--the glory to God alone.
Now, I had heard this story on a number of previous occasions, but it took on a different meaning in the context of a close study of Bach's life. After all, Bach is one of those monumental figures who seem distant and alien to the vagaries of everyday existence. But, of course, Bach was human--indeed, very human--and so struggled with all the same things we do: how to pay the bills; how to care for his family; how to deal with the illness and death of loved ones; how to find a way through the world.
And this repeated, insistent dedication of his music to the glory of God alone was not some sort of quaint compositional tic. To the contrary, this was an act of profound personal significance. This was an offering--to God--of the part of his life that defined him, that he embraced above all others, that was the focus of his greatest passion and energy.
In this spirit, the introspective season of Lent might be a good time for all of us to ask ourselves a few questions:
What is that part of us?
What would it mean to offer that part of us to the glory of God alone?
How would it change things--how might it change everything--if we were willing to do so for more than forty days?
SDG
Some of us give things up. Some of us take things on. Some of us pray every morning. Some of us read the Bible every evening. Some of us seize upon this time as an opportunity to eat or drink less, as if Lent existed to offer a second chance to fulfill our New Year's resolutions.
All joking aside, I appreciate that these sorts of practices are spiritually meaningful for many people. Indeed, for as long as I can remember I have adopted them myself during Lent. They have their place in our life of faith--even a potentially important place.
But I was reminded of something the other day that prompted me to wonder whether Lent might be an appropriate occasion for another, different kind of project as well.
I was listening to a collection of wonderful, recorded lectures that I own on the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The lecturer reminded me that Bach wrote the letters "SDG" at the beginning and end of all of his church compositions and some of his secular ones. (Handel apparently did this as well from time to time.) Those letters signify the Latin phrase "Soli Deo Gloria"--the glory to God alone.
Now, I had heard this story on a number of previous occasions, but it took on a different meaning in the context of a close study of Bach's life. After all, Bach is one of those monumental figures who seem distant and alien to the vagaries of everyday existence. But, of course, Bach was human--indeed, very human--and so struggled with all the same things we do: how to pay the bills; how to care for his family; how to deal with the illness and death of loved ones; how to find a way through the world.
And this repeated, insistent dedication of his music to the glory of God alone was not some sort of quaint compositional tic. To the contrary, this was an act of profound personal significance. This was an offering--to God--of the part of his life that defined him, that he embraced above all others, that was the focus of his greatest passion and energy.
In this spirit, the introspective season of Lent might be a good time for all of us to ask ourselves a few questions:
What is that part of us?
What would it mean to offer that part of us to the glory of God alone?
How would it change things--how might it change everything--if we were willing to do so for more than forty days?
SDG
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ashen Crosses
I rushed into church with the burdens of the day heavily upon me. Our Ash Wednesday service was already underway, and I had to hunt around in the hushed and dimly lit sanctuary to find my family. As I dropped myself into a pew, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, as if it were counting off all the worries that had chased me around for the past twenty-four hours.
So much for the calm and meditative presence I had hoped to bring to this service, one of my favorite days in the Christian calendar. But I tried to shrug it off with good-humored resignation. I don't really do calm and meditative all that much, anyway.
After a while, the music and the words and the time-honored rituals settled in upon me. They softened the edges of my anxieties. They opened up enough space to let the experience in. Then came that familiar, but always unsettling, moment in the service when you look around and see everyone marked, everyone bearing a sign of their transcience and fragility, everyone displaying a symbol of mortality that seems almost as old as mortality itself.
Everyone. That elderly couple. That middle-aged woman. That strapping teenage boy. That beaming little girl. I thought of Shakespeare's maudlin pun: golden lads and girls all must,as chimney sweepers,come to dust. Unsettling, indeed.
But what I love about this ritual is the sacred paradox that it parades in front of us. Because there they are, those ashen crosses, talking with each other and walking around the room and singing and praying and embracing and making plans for Friday and heading off to warm the car up so grandpa doesn't get cold. There they are, those ashen crosses, lighting the candles and serving the bread and wine and going about the work of the Lord even, perhaps especially, in the sobering presence of a crazy smudge on the forehead that symbolizes our common origin and our common destination.
So has it always been: death, even in the midst of life.
And so, praise God, shall it always be: life, even in the midst of death.
Amen.
So much for the calm and meditative presence I had hoped to bring to this service, one of my favorite days in the Christian calendar. But I tried to shrug it off with good-humored resignation. I don't really do calm and meditative all that much, anyway.
After a while, the music and the words and the time-honored rituals settled in upon me. They softened the edges of my anxieties. They opened up enough space to let the experience in. Then came that familiar, but always unsettling, moment in the service when you look around and see everyone marked, everyone bearing a sign of their transcience and fragility, everyone displaying a symbol of mortality that seems almost as old as mortality itself.
Everyone. That elderly couple. That middle-aged woman. That strapping teenage boy. That beaming little girl. I thought of Shakespeare's maudlin pun: golden lads and girls all must,as chimney sweepers,come to dust. Unsettling, indeed.
But what I love about this ritual is the sacred paradox that it parades in front of us. Because there they are, those ashen crosses, talking with each other and walking around the room and singing and praying and embracing and making plans for Friday and heading off to warm the car up so grandpa doesn't get cold. There they are, those ashen crosses, lighting the candles and serving the bread and wine and going about the work of the Lord even, perhaps especially, in the sobering presence of a crazy smudge on the forehead that symbolizes our common origin and our common destination.
So has it always been: death, even in the midst of life.
And so, praise God, shall it always be: life, even in the midst of death.
Amen.
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